2. BISHOP OF ARLINGTON'S LETTER ON IVF: 'DESPITE GIVING RISE TO NEW LIFE, IT ALSO DESTROYS MANY OTHERS'
from: LiveAction

SYNOPSIS: Many lawmakers have already attempted to create a "right" to IVF. The Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, issued a pastoral letter on Wednesday entitled, "The Christian Family, In Vitro Fertilization, and Heroic Witness to True Love." The most "obvious moral difficulty of IVF," he wrote, is that "despite giving rise to new life it also destroys many others.…" Bishop Burbidge, who was previously the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, went on to suggest roles that he believes the government should and should not take on when it comes to IVF.

Any law mandating IVF, he said, "would insert the state into the very heart of the home and gradually bring about the false sense that the state and those holding power, now effectively the sponsors of human persons even prior to conception, can and should direct the lives of those their power has brought about. Elected officials should consider concrete ways to encourage earlier marriage and family formation and establish programs to address direct pregnancy and childbirth-related expenses." The bishop also provided resources for fertility care at the conclusion of his letter.

Pray that the state will not play God, inserting itself into the creation and destruction of human lives via IVF, thus gaining implicit control over the life and death of those people it has created.

3. THE MADNESS OF "GENDER-AFFIRMATIVE" MEDICINE
from: Mercator

SYNOPSIS: The author, Australian psychologist Dianna Kenny is a leading critic of the transgender movement. She writes that "social contagion" is a key factor in the rise of gender dysphoria cases among adolescents. Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) is simply one manifestation of social contagion at work in the current context of gender identity and gender medicine. Are there specific psychological or social factors that make this population particularly vulnerable?

There are three main mechanisms involved in the social contagion of gender dysphoria and the development of ROGD. These are peer contagion, deviancy training, and co-rumination. Peer contagion is a form of social contagion, defined as a process of reciprocal influence to engage in behaviours occurring in a peer Another form of peer contagion in adolescence is co-rumination, a process of repetitive discussion, rehearsal, and speculation about a problematic issue within the peer dyad or peer group that underlies peer influence on the development of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide. Read the whole article!

Ask the Lord to end the madness of "gender-affirmative" pseudo-medicine that ruins the lives of many of those who subject themselves to this distortion of reality.

4. WHY AN ABORTION-MINDED AMERICA CANNOT BE GREAT AGAIN
from: American Life League

SYNOPSIS: When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015, he told a joint session of Congress: "All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity." As true and reassuring as this statement is to those of us who know the Lord and love His commands, it is not so for the people taken in by deception, derision, and detestation when the subject is the right to life.

There is only one stark difference in such an argument: While the second amendment provides for a means to defend oneself and others from an unjust aggressor, a "right" to kill a baby condones that aggression to the point of directly killing an innocent person. Oxymoronic to be sure, but this is the result of an abortion-minded populace. Thus, at a time when the stockpiling of the corpses of dead babies - killed by reproductive technologies, chemicals, and surgical instruments - is causing heinous crimes against the innocent, we are left to conclude: An abortion-minded America cannot be great again.

Just in: PROMISE KEPT: Pardons for 23 Imprisoned Peaceful Pro-Life Protestors!

Intercede for those deceived by the abortion lobby who deny the fundamental right to life of unborn babies.

5. ED DEPARTMENT REPORT REVEALS SHARP INEQUITIES FOR STUDENTS WITH IEPS, 504 PLANS
from: Disability Scoop

SYNOPSIS: New data from thousands of school districts across the nation highlight stark differences in the experiences of students with disabilities compared to their typically developing peers. Children with disabilities are far more likely to be subject to restraint or seclusion, suspended, expelled, referred to law enforcement or arrested at school, according to the U.S. DOE's most recent civil rights data collection.

Nonetheless, 29% of students who received one or more out-of-school suspensions and 24% of those who were expelled had disabilities, according to the report. The trend extended to even the youngest learners with DOE finding that 41% of preschool students who were suspended and 74% of young children who were expelled were served under IDEA. The newly released data show that we cannot be complacent - that inequities in access to educational opportunities based on race, sex and disability persist in school opportunities ranging from the number of STEM courses offered to students' experiences of suspensions in school.

Pray to God for the children with disabilities who are being ignored, restrained, isolated, and/or expelled from school.

6. MASSIVE BIOMOLECULAR SHIFTS OCCUR IN OUR 40S AND 60S, STANFORD RESEARCHERS FIND
from: Stanford Medicine

SYNOPSIS: If it's ever felt like everything in your body is breaking down at once, that might not be your imagination. "We're not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes," said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor of genetics and the study's senior author. Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar, was the first author of the study.

Abrupt changes in number Snyder, the Stanford W. Ascherman, MD, FACS Professor in Genetics, and his colleagues were inspired to look at the rate of molecular and microbial shifts by the observation that the risk of developing many age-linked diseases does not rise incrementally along with years. But when they broke out the study group by sex, they found the shift was happening in men in their mid-40s, too. Changes may influence health and disease risk In people in their 40s, significant changes were seen in the number of molecules related to alcohol, caffeine and lipid metabolism; cardiovascular disease; and skin and muscle.

Ask the Lord for people to become more compassionate and understanding toward those going through the ageing process.

7. DISABILITY OFTEN NEGLECTED IN MEDICAL SCHOOL CURRICULA
from: Disabled World

SYNOPSIS: Northwestern University published a call for reform in medical education to address ableism, improve disability training, and ensure equitable, compassionate care for all patients. Medical school curricula often view disability as a problem, leading medical trainees to make negative assumptions about people with disabilities' health and quality of life, the study found.

A faculty participant said; "The fact that disability training is not required, and it's not seen as a core part of the medical school curriculum reinforces the idea that these aren't really your patients or they're not important enough for you to learn about." Dr. Leslie Rydberg, associate professor of physician medicine and rehabilitation and of medical education, has been charged with transforming how medical trainees learn about disability. This study serves as a wake-up call for medical educators, policymakers, and healthcare institutions to address the critical gaps in disability-related education.

Pray that future doctors will become trained to relate positively toward patients who have various disabilities.