PRO-LIFE GROUPS ASK JUDGE TO LIFT INJUNCTION ON IOWA'S 'HEARTBEAT LAW'
from: LiveAction News

(2 Nov.) In August 2022, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a brief with the Polk County District Court on behalf of Governor Reynolds and the state of Iowa, arguing that due to the Iowa Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision reversing its 2018 opinion that found a "constitutional right to an abortion" in Iowa, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the District Court should remove the injunction against Iowa’s Fetal Heartbeat Law and allow the legislation to take effect. On October 28, ADF formally asked Polk County District Court Judge Celene Gogerty to lift the 2019 injunction on the law.

ADF is representing Governor Reynolds and the state because Iowa's long-time Attorney General Tom Miller has refused to defend the law because of his pro-abortion views. He failed to defend the law in 2018 and again in 2022, and has faced no repercussions – not even a pay decrease – for his refusal to defend the law. In 2018, the Thomas More Society represented Governor Reynolds and the state; both the Thomas More Society and Alliance Defending Freedom have provided their services pro bono.

ADF Attorney Christopher Schandevel told Judge Gogerty, "Because now that there is no fundamental right to an abortion in the state of Iowa's Constitution or the U.S. Constitution, now it is clear that strict scrutiny is no longer the test, and now that it's clear that the viability line is no more, faithfully applying Iowa binding law requires the court to reach a different result."

During the trial proceedings, Judge Gogerty asked the attorneys if she had the power to reverse the injunction. "How can a district court tell the Supreme Court? I don't have the authority to do that, do I?" She wondered aloud whether or not a District Court Judge has the "jurisdiction to reverse the injunction" or can determine a "new legal standard" in Iowa to protect abortion. In closing, she announced she would release her decision by the end of two months.

Iowa's law, signed by pro-life Governor Kim Reynolds in 2018, protects preborn children after a heartbeat can be detected, at approximately six weeks into a pregnancy. The law allows for several exceptions. The ACLU, Iowa's Planned Parenthood, and Emma Goldman Abortion Clinic in Iowa City promptly sued. On June 1, 2018, a few weeks after the bill's signing, Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert issued an injunction, blocking enforcement of the lifesaving legislation. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: So much of this struggle between pro-life and pro-abortion viewpoints is taking place in the courts instead of by our elected officials. If there were a nationwide vote on this one issue defined as outlawing abortion except in cases where the mother's life is threatened, an overwhelming majority would vote for it. But the issue goes much deeper: behind it is the erosion of responsible sexual activity reserved for marriage. And the results are high rates of divorce and a sense of rootlessness, not belonging to a family in which people have real, lifelong care for each other.

ARE MOTHERS REALLY THE MAJORITY OF AMERICAN WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS?
from: BioEdge.org

(1 Nov.) "59% Of Women Seeking Abortions Are Mothers Facing High Poverty Risk" is a typical headline, especially after Dobbs. The idea that mothers, especially low-income mothers from minority groups, rely upon abortion is widespread.

A journalist writing for Slate, for instance, has claimed that that "women who are already mothers have more abortions than anyone else" and that "the typical abortion patient is a mother." In Cosmopolitan last year Jill Filipovic wrote that "There are not 'women who have abortions' on one side and 'women who are mothers' on another; those groups are often the same."

As usual, bold and stirring claims like this need to be tested. Several researchers from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life think tank, ran a ruler over the "mother majority" thesis in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, and found that it doesn't hold water.

These researchers say that abortion among women with children has been estimated indirectly from surveys, not from an empirically derived, population-based data. They used Medicaid figures between 1999 and 2014 for 4,884,101 women with 7,799,784 pregnancy outcomes.

What they found confounds the conventional wisdom.

  *  "Women who had live births but no abortions or undetermined pregnancy losses represented 74.2% of the study population and accounted for 87.6% of total births."

  *  "Women who have only abortions but no births constitute 6.6% of the study population, but they are 53.5% of women with abortions and have 51.5% of all abortions."

  *  "Women with both births and abortions represent 5.7% of the study population and have 7.2% of total births."

  *  "Women without abortions have 92.8% of the total births compared to only 7.2% represented by women who have also had abortions."

  *  "Abortion among low-income women with children is exceedingly uncommon, if not rare."

  *  "The period prevalence of mothers [proportion over time] without abortion is 13 times that of mothers with abortion."

In short, encouraging abortion as a means of family planning is "largely unsupported by empirical evidence." [read more...]

COMMENTARY: The above oft-repeated "news" items are attempts to control the narrative about abortion, but they certainly have no statistical foundation. The fact is that poor women have fewer abortions than other women do. As we have reported earlier, most abortions are on unmarried (promiscuous) women in their twenties and thirties, not on poor women or on married women.

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: RELIGIOUS LEADERS SEIZED, TORTURED; CHURCHES CLOSED
from: Forum 18 News Service

(20 Oct.) Following Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian and Russian-backed officials and soldiers in newly-occupied areas have seized and tortured religious leaders, searched and sealed places of worship to prevent their use for worship, confiscated equipment and literature, demanded documents, and in at least one case forcibly expelled church members from their building.

The war that followed Russia's renewed 2022 invasion of Ukraine has seen many places of worship destroyed or damaged. Russian forces have also seized many religious leaders of a variety of religious communities. In most of these cases, however, it remains unclear if places of worship or religious leaders were targeted to specifically punish the exercise of the freedom of religion or belief.

Mariupol was occupied by Russian troops and forces of the Russian-controlled Donetsk People's Republic in May 2022. In June, Russian officials or soldiers visited two churches in Donetsk Region, Central Baptist Church and the Church of Christ the Saviour in Mariupol, and forcibly expelled Protestants from their church and rehabilitation centre in the nearby village of Manhush.

On 18 October, two officers from the DPR State Security Ministry in Donetsk and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, came to the Mariupol home of Sergey Pantyukhov. He is a leader of one of the Council of Baptist congregations in the city. The two officers interrogated him about the ownership of the congregation's church building, local Baptists stated. Church members asked for prayers that the church building will not be confiscated.

On 23 June, the Russian military brought a delegation of Moscow Patriarchate priests to Mariupol. There they toured churches, including the Church of Petro Mohyla of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was granted autocephaly (independence) by the Ecumenical Patriarch in 2019. "After the visit of the Moscow FSB agents in cassocks, it became known that the whole large library, collected by volunteers and benefactors, was seized and burned in the yard," stated Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the (Ukrainian) Mayor of Mariupol who had to flee the city. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: For more, read the full article – it's much longer: this is only a short excerpt. The attacks on religious believers and on their places of worship in occupied Ukraine needs to be brought to the attention of the general public in the West, not just to fellow believers. So please share this link: https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2022-11-05.htm#article_3 – thanks!

DOCTORS OPEN UP ABOUT TURNING AWAY PATIENTS WITH DISABILITIES
from: Disability Scoop

(24 Oct.) Physicians are using excuses to intentionally dissuade people with disabilities from their practices, researchers say in a new study exposing just how pervasive discrimination against this population is in health care.

In focus groups, doctors described making strategic choices to turn away individuals with disabilities. They reported telling patients with disabilities that they would require specialized care and that "I am not the doctor for you." In other cases, physicians said they simply indicate that "I am not taking new patients" or "I do not take your insurance."

The findings come from a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs. It is based on focus groups conducted in late 2018 by researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School with 22 primary care and specialist doctors who were selected from a national database.

Many of the participants described accommodating people with disabilities as burdensome and some used outdated language like "mentally retarded." Doctors frequently indicated that individuals with disabilities account for a small number of patients, making it hard to justify having accessible equipment. They also had little knowledge of their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with one suggesting that the law works "against physicians."

The latest study builds on findings published earlier this year from a survey of 714 doctors that was done by some of the same researchers. Just 56% of physicians who participated in the survey said they welcome people with disabilities at their practices and only 41% indicated that they could provide such patients with a similar quality of care to others. Meanwhile, more than a third of doctors queried said they had little or no knowledge of their legal obligations under the ADA.

"Taken together, the focus groups and survey responses provide a substantive and deeply concerning picture of physicians' attitudes and behaviors relating to care for people with disabilities," the study authors note. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Doctors are only human, like the rest of us, and often are subject to the same kind of unconscious biases and prejudices as the general population. But such biases are actually a violation of their oath to uphold medical ethics.

IN THE LVIV REGION, THREE MORE CHURCHES WERE DIGITIZED ON THE OFF CHANCE OF DESTRUCTION FROM SHELLING
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(1 Nov.) This week it became known that three churches of Zhokva now also have their own 3D models. These are the Church of the Most Holy Heart of Christ, the Church of the Holy hieromartyr Josaphat and the Church of St. Lawrence. The shrines were scanned with the financial support of the Polonika Institute and the Swiss Aliph Foundation as part of the #SaveUkrainianHeritage project.

"Working with cultural heritage sites is always interesting because you never know what you might encounter and what interesting things you will find. For example, in the Church of the Heart of Christ, we were surprised to see frescoes on religious and national themes. Fascinated, we returned to examine them several times. And in the Church of St. Lawrence, to scan the attic, we had to go up a very narrow passage – it's a little scary and unusual, but interesting," said Andriy Hryvnyak, co-founder of Skeiron.

Specialists devoted two days of work to each of the three scanned shrines: they installed one and a half to three hundred scanning stations, took from two to four thousand photos, depending on the specifics and detail of the temples. Currently, the Skeiron team in Zhovkva is not planning to digitize any more sites.

"The most important monuments already have their own 3D copies-previously digitized: Zhovkva synagogue, Zhovkva Castle and the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. Now this list has increased by three more churches: the Church of St. Lawrence, the churches of the Most Holy Heart of Christ and the Holy Hieromartyr Josaphat. But the list includes many valuable monuments of other localities in the Lviv region and even other regions of Ukraine," said Yuri Prepodobny, co-founder of Skeiron.

Here you can see what 3D models of recently digitized shrines look like:

Church of the Most Holy Heart of Christ

St. Lawrence Church

Church of the holy hieromartyr Josaphat

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Skeiron has digitized 35 architectural sites of the Lviv region. Now experts are working on creating 3D models for 10 more sites. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: When you click on the above links for these three churches, you can rotate them completely around, up, down, left, and right! While it is commendable that 3-D digital images of these religious shrines have been made to preserve them as cultural treasures, it is much more commendable that these buildings not be hit by enemy fire, but remain intact and in use for worship.

UK'S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE FINDS MOST YOUTHS 'IDENTIFYING' AS TRANS ARE GOING THROUGH 'TRANSIENT PHASE'
from: Daily Signal

(24 Oct.) England's National Health Service is reportedly warning doctors not to encourage children to change their name and pronouns after finding that most kids who think that they are transgender are merely going through a "phase."

The National Health Service plans to restrict the treatment of young people under the age of 18 who are questioning their gender, The Telegraph reported. Those plans include a ban on prescribing young people puberty blockers outside of strictly-conducted clinical trials, the publication reported, and the plans emphasize that there is "scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making."

Medical doctors, as opposed to therapists, will lead whatever transgender services that are conducted, considering the impact of autism and mental health issues, according to The Telegraph.

Proposed clinical approaches for young kids should "reflect evidence that, in most cases, gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence," The Telegraph reported, noting that doctors should be aware that children identifying as transgender might be going through a "transient phase." Doctors should take a "watchful approach" to young kids who say they "identify" as transgender, the plans say, according to The Telegraph.

And when prepubescent children have already been socially transitioned (pronouns, name, and clothing, for example) "the clinical approach has to be mindful of the risks of an inappropriate gender transition and the difficulties that the child may experience in returning to the original gender role upon entering puberty if the gender incongruence does not persist," the plans said, The Telegraph reported. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This article is cause for rejoicing in the fact that England's public health officials have publicly stated that the large majority of gender dysphoria cases are short-term as a teen seeks to establish his or her self image as a becoming-adult person, which includes one's maturing sexuality. So it is vitally important to treat these teens with understanding and compassion as they go through this phase of growing up.

In the mid-1980s I bought this book, which described the KGB's long-range policy of "strategic disinformation" that had planned the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, etc. far in advance. And when we moved to Russia in the early 1990s, I was a bit skeptical of all the predictions the author made about the future course of the USSR. I was hoping that the newly-formed Russian state would really become democratic.

But when we had lived in Russia during the 1990 and 2000 decades, I began seeing all the pieces fitting together: when a student of mine while we were teaching at a university in the provinces said (in Russian) during class – "Robert Geraldovich, we are still communists!" – that was a turning point in my understanding of Russia's true direction. During the 1990s a follow-up book by the same author has appeared: The Perestroika Deception which details the 94% accuracy of his previous book – the remaining 6% simply haven't been proven or disproven. I highly recommend both books.

A dear friend who has also spent years in Russia recently sent me the following points "to give you further perspective on the current conflict in Ukraine." I have slightly edited personal details so that he remains anonymous –

· Ukraine’s official flag – light blue over yellow – perfectly symbolizes its significance in the world. It represents blue skies over ripened grain fields. Whenever you see it, think of ripe wheat or sunflowers and an agricultural infrastructure that feeds many other countries.

· The Eurasian landmass is huge, and Russia has its footprint on eleven time zones – that’s one time zone short of halfway around the world. Within this area, Russia proper has a declining population of less than 150 million people. (Russia has stopped allowing the adoption of Russian children by people from western countries and, in an attempt to increase its population, has been paying families to have more than one child.) By contrast, the US within its four continental time zones has a population of over 300 million. So, it's not like Russia needs the extra space that Ukraine would provide. Rather, Russia simply cannot bear the thought of "the big fish that got away."

· Russia sometimes has a strange way of rewarding its heroes. Most of you are familiar with St. Basil's "Cathedral" on Red Square. It is not really a big open cathedral, but rather a colorful collection of smaller chapels. At the time of its dedication the current Czar, Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), asked the architect if he could ever build something else so beautiful as this. Thinking that the Czar might have another job in mind for him, the architect replied, "Da!" Ivan then ordered that the architect's eyes be put out so that he could never do so.

· Here is another example of that phenomenon. Just before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin had sacked his best generals because he feared them as rivals. This left the Red Army poorly led, just when Russia needed it the most. Stalin tried various replacements until he stumbled onto Georgy Zhukov. Zhukov stopped the German army at the outskirts of Moscow. He then encircled Paulus' 6th Army at Stalingrad, and he led the counter offensive all the way back to Berlin. At the first "Victory Day" celebration on Red Square, Zhukov charged back and forth on a white horse while the multitudes chanted, "Zhukov, Zhukov, Zhukov!" Stalin, standing atop Lenin's tomb, was green with envy. So, he assigned Zhukov to an insignificant military position out of the public eye. After Stalin's death, Zhukov was then elevated to be head of the Soviet military, a position he rightfully deserved.

· In the 1930's Stalin attempted to collectivize the farms in Ukraine. The Ukrainian farmers would have none of it, so they slaughtered their animals rather than turn them over to the government. Stalin's response was to create an artificial famine in the east of Ukraine in which many [millions of] Ukrainians died. [This genocide was conducted by Nikita Khrushchev!] He then imported Russians to repopulate this eastern area of Ukraine. So, when people there today say they want to be part of Russia it is because they actually are Russians. They do not want to accept Kiev as their capital, and they do not want to have to learn the Ukrainian language. Reports that Russia has been depopulating these eastern areas by shipping Ukrainians to Russia may have a twofold purpose – to make it easier for Russia to control the population in these areas, and to increase the declining population of Russia.

· Many Russians despise Ukrainians as "peasants with an accent." On one of our ... trips, we held a conference first in southwestern Russia and then a second conference in southeastern Ukraine. We traveled from the first to the second by train. There were some issues with the train, so our faithful interpreter ... relayed these to the conductor. His response tells you everything you need to know. "What do you expect," he replied, "it's a Ukrainian train." [My wife's] Scandinavian relatives trade some playful jabs about Norwegians and Swedes, but it is all in good fun. With Russians and Ukrainians, it runs much deeper.

· During Nikita Khrushchev's time as leader of the Soviet Union, the discussion arose as to what region of the Soviet Union the territory of Crimea should be assigned. (Until Sochi was developed for the Olympics, Crimea, with its warm climate, palm trees, and salt-water access had always served as Russia's "Florida.") Khrushchev's answer was, "Give it to Ukraine." A simple look at a map would support that decision, geographically. But in time, this meant that when Ukraine got away then Crimea got away as well. That possibility was not on anyone's radar when this fateful decision was made. Our Russian neighbors in St. Petersburg seemed to mourn the loss of Crimea much more than the loss of the farmlands. And here is another little twist to Khrushchev's decision – he himself was Ukrainian!

· We in the States are accustomed to the expanse of America as running from "sea to shining sea." This was also true of the Soviet Union, but only for a relatively short time period. Stalin grabbed the Baltic Republics at the beginning of the Second World War. This gave landlocked Russia access to that entire coastline. But the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian weren't consulted. So, when the Soviet Union collapsed, they eagerly reclaimed their independence. As Mr. Putin seeks to reverse the losses of the Soviet Empire, you must understand that he is also thinking of regaining these territories as well. Imagine how we would feel if Washington, Oregon, and California were separate countries denying us access to the Pacific Ocean. This is all the more reason why Ukraine must win this bitter contest.

· You may be appalled, as I am, by the tactics the Russian military has adopted recently. It's sort of like, "If we can't have it, then there won't be anything left worth having." We in North America are used to the idea of substations that deliver electricity and drinking water. But in former Soviet territories there is also a third centralized component – hot water for heating. Few buildings have their own heat system. Rather, preheated water is sent through large, insulated pipes to the various neighborhoods. This may have some advantages during peacetime, but this "troika" of utility services leaves a country very vulnerable when the drones and missiles target this soft civilian infrastructure. It is a measure of Mr. Putin's true character, and his present desperation, that he would even consider such a move. And I guarantee you, the Ukrainians will never forget it. They have still not forgotten that famine!

· Finally, Ukraine predates Russia by two and a half centuries. Kievan Rus officially adopted Christianity as its state religion in 988. Moscow was an insignificant village alongside a modest river until the 1240s. Much of what is now northern European Russia was then part of greater Finland. It could be argued that, historically, Kiev is the rightful capital of the eastern Slavic peoples; and that it was the Russians who separated from the Ukrainians.

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