Why are pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family policies essential to conservatism?

That question was answered in the panel “Beyond Dobbs,” which featured several experts including Mary Margaret Olohan, senior reporter for The Daily Signal and author of Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult; Tom McClusky, Director of Government Affairs at Catholic Vote; Emma Waters, Senior Research Associate in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation; and Katy Talento, former top health advisor at the White House Domestic Policy Council.

The panel was moderated by Chad Pecknold, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Catholic University of America.

Family

Much has been written about the current “birth dearth” affecting practically all Western countries, many Asian countries and much of the world. In the United States, for example, our current birth rate is 1.62 children per woman — a record low.

But 2.1 children per woman are needed for each generation to simply replace itself with minimal growth; this is called the “replacement rate.”

The Wall Street Journal just published a comprehensive piece analyzing China’s very low — and still falling — birth rate, currently at just 1.16 births per woman. As a result, China’s population is expected to collapse this century.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule on the merits of a case involving a pro-life law in Idaho, the federal government sent a letter to hospitals across the country telling them they have a “duty to offer necessary stabilizing medical treatment,” including abortions.

The letter, which gave the effect of spiking the football, reiterated that the federal government will continue to defend its interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in court and will enforce punishments on hospitals that do not provide abortions as required by federal law — even if it conflicts with state law.

EMTALA is a federal law that requires hospital emergency rooms to provide treatment to a patient regardless of whether they have insurance or can pay for the service. The federal government is suing Idaho because they say that state law must allow for abortions beyond the life of the mother exception.

In a footnote, the letter admits that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “will continue to comply with all applicable federal conscience protections.”

This admission was a concession the federal government did not want to make and, indeed, did not make early on in this case. As the case moved to the Supreme Court for review, the federal government was forced to admit that doctors or hospitals that have conscience objections to performing abortions would not be compelled to do so.

Less than a year ago, Hamas perpetrated the single biggest mass-murder of Jewish people since the Holocaust.

In a military operation the terrorists dubbed “Al-Aqsa Flood,” Hamas fighters killed and mutilated 1,200 people and kidnapped some 250 more. Nine months later, 130 of these hostages remain in Hamas’ custody. Israeli Defense Forces believe only 100 are alive.

For a society hyper-focused on human rights, many Americans seemed sympathetic, not to Israel, but to Hamas.

Summit Ministry’s Dr. Jeff Myers blames this bizarre phenomenon on a combination of ignorance, toxic ideology and Hamas propaganda. He hopes to illuminate truth in his new book, Should Christians Support Israel?

Myers decodes Hamas propaganda, identifying lies it wants you to believe — and why you shouldn’t.

Here’s six of Myers’ best myth-busting moments.

Myth: Israel unfairly formed on land belonging to Palestine.
Fact: Modern-day Israel and its four closest neighbors all formed between 1943 and 1948.

Palestine has never been a country. Between the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900’s and the end of World War II in 1945, Palestine was a British-ruled colony.

When the colonial age ended after World War II, the colonial Middle East divided into countries: Lebanon in 1943, Syria in 1944, Jordan in 1946, Egypt in 1947 and Israel in 1948.

Fatherlessness has a profound negative impact on children throughout the course of their lives. This fact has been well documented in the social sciences for decades.

But what is not widely known and understood is that fatherlessness also impacts important microscopic intricacies in the human body. Consider telomere health.

“What are telomeres?” you ask. Well, they are fundamentally essential to your ongoing health. Telomeres are the tiny but essential protective endcaps of your chromosomes, which keep them from becoming frayed or tangled. They are required for healthy cell division and thus human growth. When telomere health is compromised, the aging process increases.

What boosts telomeres is good. And what diminishes them is bad.

In fact, an article published in 2012 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) explains how telomere length in early life predicts lifespan in both humans and animals. Their findings “emphasize the importance of understanding factors that determine early life telomere length.”

So yes, telomeres are fundamentally important to healthy growth and life. But what is most striking is numerous academic studies have shown that paternal genetics are intimately linked to telomere length.

Additional research published in 2007 in PNAS explains that while “telomere length is emerging as a biomarker for aging and survival” they also find that telomere length is paternally inherited.