November 4, 2022

Welcome back. We're excited to share the latest from The Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family. 

Latest on the Fight Against Transgenderism 

 Jay Richards: The battle over parents’ rights in education is just getting started

Parents have been vociferously fighting for their rights when it comes to public education. They’re fighting because their children are being taught divisive ideas about race and radical gender ideology. Universal school choice would make schools less of an arena for the culture war that is otherwise roiling our culture.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. It started with the lockdowns in 2020. For the first time, many parents suddenly saw, courtesy of online conferencing apps like Zoom, what their kids were being taught, and they didn’t like it.
2. Critical race theory is far less shocking than the radical gender ideology that seems to have overtaken our nation’s schools. It teaches children that “some people are boys, some people are girls, some people are both, neither, or somewhere in between.”
3. When parents come to school board meetings to complain, far too many are met with silence or risible accusations that they are politicizing education.

U.K. Newspaper Takes Pro-Abortion Deception to Next Level

A popular U.K. newspaper rejects scientific fact and spreads lies about abortion. The paper claims that nine week old children are merely white tissue material. Contrary to what the article said, we are able to see that an embryo is the size of a quarter and has all the features of a small baby at 9 weeks old. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The Guardian published an article suggesting that until 10 weeks of pregnancy, the unborn baby is only white tissue material.

2. The white tissue shown throughout The Guardian’s article is just the pre-placenta that surrounds the developing, implanted embryo. It’s not the embryo itself.
3. The Guardian is doing its best to be a faithful stenographer for the pro-abortion lobby. But it can’t hide the truth.

House-Passed ‘Right to Contraception’ Bill Creates Problems, Doesn’t Solve Them

Congress attempts to pass a radical bill that would guarantee the right to contraception and would require health care providers to provide contraception regardless of moral or religious objections. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. One obvious intent of HR 8373 is to nullify state and federal conscience protections for health care workers and employers.

2. Its sweeping language would preempt the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate contraceptive drugs and devices.

3. As such, this bill more accurately should be titled “The Unsafe and Counterfeit Contraceptives Availability Act.”

Michigan’s Proposition 3 Is Bad News for Women. Here’s Why

Paired with its support for cross-sex hormones and sterilization surgeries, Proposition 3 could turn surrogacy into an absolute right. This would secure the right for any “individual” (adult or minor) to “reproductive freedom” including “infertility care.” If Michigan’s Proposition 3 is passed, men would have a constitutional right to exploit another woman’s body to create and bear children.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Proposition 3’s does not just expand abortion on-demand for all nine months of pregnancy. It also obliterates age requirements and parental rights.
2. It may confer a legal right to infertility care, including IVF or surrogacy.
3. Michigan’s Proposition 3, if passed, could provide men with a constitutional right to exploit another woman’s body to create and bear children.

Squires: Black 'male feminists' are the white liberals of black people

Black liberals argue that black men benefit from male privilege and use it to center their concerns regarding racial injustice, while dismissing the concerns of black women (e.g., sexism, domestic violence) in the same way white people downplay and disregard racism and white supremacy.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Black male feminists see themselves as beneficiaries of male privilege in a systemically sexist culture and want to show black women that they are committed to black female liberation.
2. There is absolutely no risk in being a black liberal who accuses President Trump of racism on MSNBC. It takes actual courage to sit in between BLM’s co-founders and ask, “Why is an organization that claims to care about black people committed to destroying the nuclear family?” 

3. Black male feminists', who happen to be popular musical artists do not have the courage to take the stage at the BET Awards and say, “I appreciate this award, but I will not return to this awards show until this network stops platforming artists who degrade black women and sell murder music to our children.”

In BLM's utopia, black men are donors, not husbands and dads

In BLM’s utopia, black men are donors, not husbands and dads. Men are valued for their sperm and nothing else. The leaders of the BLM movement think black men are valuable for three things: votes that help the left obtain political power, corpses that generate economic benefits for black women, and their seed to create life.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. A recent article from the Washington Post took readers into the lives of several black women hoping to become mothers. This story was about the shortage of black male sperm donors across the country and the intense competition among black women for their limited supply.

2. In a world where human desire can quickly morph into idolatry, children become ornaments whose primary purpose is the comfort, security, affirmation, and self-actualization of adults.

3. Women who say, “I don’t need a man,” whether due to sexual preference or career aspirations, are realizing that the denial of biology has a built-in shelf life and the laws of nature are not social constructs.

    

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs returned the issues of abortion back to our elected representatives. This means Congress has the authority to act, and responsibility to pass a federal abortion ban. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The Court explicitly wrote that it is time to return the abortion issue to “the people’s elected representatives,” which includes Senator Lindsey Graham and the U.S. Congress.
2.  A 15-week abortion ban would in no way “overrule” a Supreme Court decision; it would simply declare that since the Constitution was silent, the legislature was creating a statutory—not constitutional—abortion ban after 15 weeks.
3.  The Fourteenth Amendment was enacted to protect the lives, liberties, and property of freed African-American slaves because states were oppressing this unprotected class of citizens. Unborn children in the womb are also an unprotected class of citizens being oppressed by state abortion laws.

Transgender activists are preying on young children and are offering them opportunities to run away from their parents in order to pursue adult validation and irreversible body damaging surgeries. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Transgender activists are working to push chemical castration and genital mutilation on minors at all costs. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that blocks officials from enforcing states’ laws that hinder access to transgender medical procedures for minors.

2. In Virginia, the Pride Liberation Project (PLP) is organizing resources to help confused minors run away from parents that are not supportive of their gender identity experimentation and the opportunity to stay with “queer-friendly” adults.

3. Transgender ideology pushers are not simply accepting, they are aggressive in encouraging medical experimentation among children and are intentionally keeping parents in the dark.

The law is a teacher, and the “Respect for Marriage Act” is a bad one. Enshrining legal lies about the truth of marriage harms all of society, most especially children. From facile heterosexual marriage dissolutions to novel family arrangements, children are harmed when their rights to their own mother and father are disregarded for the sake of adult desires.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Whether through adoption or artificial reproductive technology (ART), same-sex parenting and other modern arrangements divide and sometimes even eradicate the maternal and/or paternal bonds children need to thrive.

2. How could I glibly think of creating my children to be “fatherless”? By considering only my desire for children, and not their needs or future well-being.

3. Had I followed my younger self’s plans, I not only would have intentionally deprived my children of their (and any) father, but I also would have given them a much higher likelihood of household instability.

Dr. Richards discusses the pathway of gender affirming care and how it starts with social transitioning (the use of preferred pronouns), quickly moves to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and concludes with gender transition surgeries. He concludes with the concerns of these drug treatments and risky medical procedures.  

In this episode of Heritage Reacts, Dr. Richards discusses "family-friendly drag shows" and how parents must step up in order to protect their children from being exposed to graphic adult behavior. 

Grace Melton discusses the Biden Administration's commitment to spread progressive social values around the world, and the Biden Administration refusal to acknowledge that many of these countries find these values offensive. 

Emma Waters discusses Michigan's Proposition 3 constitutional amendment that is up for vote through a ballot measure on Nov. 8th! Michigan is one of the few states that bans commercial surrogacy laws. If Prop. 3 passes, it will destroy all of their pro-life, pro-woman protections.