Free Republic

We’ve been sold a bill of goods about contraception and abortion, things we’re told ‘liberate’ us that actually suppress what makes us women.In all of the furor surrounding the (likely) imminent demise of Roe v. Wade, it has become clear to me that women have been made to fear and resent their biology for far too long. Too many women have bought the lie that they have no options but to rely on hormonal contraceptives and, if that fails, abortion. But the broad dependence on these methods — making women responsible to manage their own and men’s fertility — is...

Our daughters deserve to be treated authentically; they should not become fodder for political spats.As the 1987 film “The Princess Bride” nears its satisfying conclusion, a distraught Princess Buttercup, thinking her Westley is lost to her, picks up a dagger and presses it to her chest. As she contemplates life without her Westley, Westley, reclining nearby, admonishes her with, “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” Lately, headlines have been hyper-focused on female anatomy. Due to the leak of Justice Alito’s draft addressing Dobbs, a challenge to Roe, and the...

A male contraceptive pill could be tested in humans in just two months, scientists say — after it showed promise in trials on mice. Researchers at the University of Minnesota, who invented the drug, say it could enter clinical trials as early as this July. The non-hormonal pill, medically named YCT529, blocked 99 per cent of pregnancies in mice during tests — putting it on a par with the female birth control medication. It also did not trigger any visible side-effects, such as weight gain, and male mice were able to father pups four to six weeks after administration was...

“…but Hannah had no children.” - 1 Samuel 1:2 Is IVF, AID, or AIH (forms of Artificial Insemination) ethical from a Christian position? There are two views by which I would like to investigate this. First by way of Joseph Fletcher who opposes the Bible, and second by way of the Biblical picture. ...Fletcher believes that AI is an answer for a problematic dilemma which carries couple to a wonderful end. (He is a avid adherent to Consequentialism – that the means does not matter so long as the ends are acceptable.) Though AI and IVF may involve masturbation, this...

Is it any wonder school officials view themselves as the leading authorities on children?Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial win in Virginia sent a clear message to government bureaucrats: treat parents with more respect. Parents are paramount to their kids’ welfare and education, and they have a right to be angry when treated otherwise. Yet parents should also reflect on how we got here and consider how they share at least some of the blame. For decades, public schools have encroached on some basic parental responsibilities — from feeding kids to health care to helping with homework. Is it any wonder school officials...

A Chinese attorney who escaped house arrest in his home country for his efforts to protect women from forced abortion for violating the government’s one-child policy said on Thursday that in the 35 years since the practice hundreds of millions of babies have been killed. “Over the past 35 years, China has killed a total of 360 to 400 million young lives as a result of its inhumane and violent birth control policies,” Chen Guangcheng, now senior fellow at Catholic University of America said at a hearing of the Congressional Executive Commission on China. “During a six-month period of 2005,...

Rep. Chris Rabb, a Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, has introduced a bill that “will require all inseminators to undergo vasectomies within 6 weeks from having their third child or 40th birthday, whichever comes first.“ He announced his intention to introduce the bill on Twitter, ironically including the hashtag #ReproductiveRights with it.

Many women are realizing the synthetic hormones in most methods of contraception come with side effects and risks that are annoying and sometimes dangerous.If you’ve watched TV in the last week, you’ve likely seen a commercial for a novel form of birth control called Phexxi. You could hardly miss it, starting as it does with “Welcome to my vagina,” and starring actress Annie Murphy from the wildly popular Emmy award-winning Canadian sitcom “Schitt’s Creek.” As the bubbly Murphy struts about in a cavernous pink bedroom, she promises that Phexxi is something that women have always wanted: an effective, “in the...

DALLAS, TX—As new restrictions on abortion go into effect in Texas, more and more concerned residents are speaking out about their loss of abortion access. We caught up with Dallas resident Debbie Woods to discuss the impact of the new law on her life. “I probably get four or five abortions a year, so this will definitely impact me directly,” Woods said. "I just can't have a kid right now. I’m sleeping over at a different guy’s house like five nights a week. Nobody’s going to want to hook up with me if I’ve got a baby in tow!” Woods...

...Wednesday ...Spears detailed in court testimony the “abusive” nature of the conservatorship that her father... obtained... ...(allegations) including that individuals involved with her conservatorship have forced her to take birth control, preventing her from having another child, put her on lithium after she disagreed with dance choreography, and forced her into concert tours. ...(on) Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, McGowan called Spears’ testimony a “cultural reset” and said she believes the pop star is “ready to blow the lid” on who has wronged her in Hollywood and what has been done to her over the last 13 years. “...And I know...

All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.... ...Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first...

China’s population is aging and the number of births has plummeted. The Central Bank of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has published a paper calling for full liberalization and encouragement of childbearing. Some experts say that for economic reasons and overall war preparedness, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping may fully lift the birth restrictions. On April 14, the CCP Central Bank published a working paper titled “Understanding and Countermeasures on Population Transition” on its official WeChat account. The paper pointed out that compared with developed countries, China is facing a more rapidly growing aging population and a more serious declining birth...

Human beings bear the image and likeness of God. They are to be reverenced as sacred. Never are they to be used as a means to an end, not even to satisfy the deepest wishes of an infertile couple. Husbands and wives "make love," they do not "make babies." They give expression to their love for one another, and a child may or may not be engendered by that act of love. The marital act is not a manufacturing process, and children are not products. Like the Son of God himself, we are the kind of beings who are "begotten,...

Many Catholics today already possess the intuition that there is a crucial link, so to speak, between Humanae Vitae and homosexuality. They can see how the severing of the unitive and procreative meanings of marital relations—and the reduction of marital relations to mere “sex”—paved the way for the ideologies of “orientation” and “gender” that generate so-called “sexual minorities” and “sexual identities.” Yet, the genie was let out of the bottle so long ago that most of us can no longer see just how glaringly obvious this connection really is. To get a glimpse, one needs to go back to the...

For many women on birth control, it’s pretty obvious that it has effects beyond simply preventing pregnancy. After all, birth control side effects are common, and some are more obvious than others. On the less obvious front is the possible effect of birth control on mutual attraction. That’s right: hormonal birth control can actually change who you’re attracted to—and who’s attracted to you. Now, before we unpack that mind-blowing assertion, I’m going to tell you a joke. What did the boy monkey say to his three favorite girl monkeys? Nothing; because his three favorite girl monkeys were injected with Depo-Provera....

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly said the platform is trying to work with Joe Biden on a joint Facebook-Biden administration push for Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. During a livestream interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Facebook founder mentioned a “push around authoritative information on vaccines,” though he did not elaborate on what that would entail. “You and the rest of the government have an important job ahead,” Zuckerberg told Fauci during the interview. “I know our team at Facebook has already reached out to the incoming administration to help with the COVID response in any way that we...

UK’s abortion chain Marie Stopes International (MSI) has announced a name change in an effort to distance itself from the eugenicist for whom it was named. According to a press release, Marie Stopes International will now do business under the moniker “MSI Reproductive Choices.” While the organization claimed the name change had been under review for some time, it pointed to “the events of the past year and the critical global conversations about race and diversity” which it said “reinforced to us that changing our name now is the right decision.” The move comes shortly after Planned Parenthood, the largest...

In constructing his evangelical family ethic, [Martin] Luther placed emphasis on Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply.” This living-together of husband and wife—that they occupy the same home, that they take care of the household, that together they produce and bring up children—is a kind of faint image and a remnant, as it were, of that blessed living together [in Eden]. Luther knew that the contraceptive mentality was alive and well in his own time. He noted that this “inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous,” was found chiefly among the well born, “the nobility and princes.” Elsewhere, he linked...

Unlike oral contraceptives, fertility awareness leads to true female empowerment by helping women understand their own bodies and make choices accordingly. Several years ago, I heard the diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) for the first time, and it was mine. My symptoms such as irregular menstrual cycles, the inability to lose weight, frequent acne outbreaks, and constant fatigue were too strong to ignore.A recent survey found that nearly 47 percent of women have experienced symptoms of hormonal imbalance. Just like me, many of those women were prescribed a hormonal contraceptive to correct these issues. After 16 years of being...

In a major win for religious liberty, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Wednesday that employers with moral or religious objections would be exempt from the federal mandate that requires company health insurance to cover birth control. The case was a consolidation of The Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania, both of which sought to alter the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). While the bill itself had no requirements for contraceptive access being guaranteed, this became mandatory through interim final rules (IFRs). While Churches have always been exempt...