A roundup of news and commentary from around the interwebs.
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European academics continue to bemoan the effects of that most successful of North American imports, wokeness. According to The Telegraph: “‘Politically correct’ gender-neutral symbols ‘endangering’ the Italian language: Italian academics are appalled at the appearance of a new suffix, known as a ‘schwa’, which looks like an upside down ‘e’.” I’ve said it before, I’ll keep saying it: The current revolution is about reconstructing everything—language is just a start.
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In the Netherlands, over two-thirds of parliamentarians have voted to do away with the life-saving “period of reflection” between scheduling and receiving an abortion. From The European Conservative:
For the first time since its approval in 1984, the Dutch Abortion Act could soon be amended. On Thursday, members of parliament voted, 101 to 38, in favor of abolishing a mandatory five-day reflection period. It’s expected that the Senate will follow suit, De Telegraaf reports.
The European Conservative also has an important piece on “Abortion: The Battle of the European Lobbies.” An excerpt:
Although not directly beholden to the purview of the European Union, the issue of abortion is currently at the heart of many discussions held at European level. Emmanuel Macron recently announced, in his speech to parliamentarians on the occasion of the French Presidency of the European Union on January 19th, his intention to add the right to abortion to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union.
No mere symbolic statement, Emmanuel Macron’s desire to promote a “right to abortion” in Europe is consistent with policies that have been pursued for several years within European institutions. The coordinator of the Renew Europe parliamentary group within the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, Samira Rafaela, does not hesitate to speak of a “bitter conservative wind [that] is blowing across Europe” and testifying to attacks on the practice of abortion in several EU member states.
The EU has developed a political tool to counteract conservative winds while propagating progressive agendas. Since the last European elections, the European Parliament has established a special committee to investigate foreign interference in European electoral processes. Issues of disinformation, in the broadest sense, are part of the remit of this committee, which in March 2021 targeted European pro-life organisations, for example. “Disinformation” is used as a pretext to silence those organisations deemed guilty of voicing an alternative discourse on the right to life. The EU also uses development aid outside its borders to promote a discourse on “sexual and reproductive rights” that includes the promotion of abortion. Countries with restrictive abortion laws are regularly lobbied at the European level to amend them in a way that is deemed more in line with European values.
Over at his blog, Rod Dreher has a truly chilling story about a female “pastor” who is impregnated by her live-in boyfriend—and decides to have the baby killed. An excerpt:
McEvoy was already a reproductive rights advocate, and to her the experience wasn’t in conflict with her faith. When the pastor and her then-boyfriend learned in 2016 that she was pregnant, the first place they went was to a cathedral, to pray — and to call doctors’ offices in search of one to do the abortion. Other visitors to the cathedral happened to try to enter the small chapel where McEvoy was on the phone, but her boyfriend turned them away, she remembers, saying “something holy is happening here.”
This is, as Dreher points out, demonic. Many mainline churches aren’t just post-Christian—they are anti-Christian. Read the whole thing, if you think you can stomach it.
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Finally, Andrew Sullivan—who, as a longtime gay rights activist, is no conservative—has a really interesting piece on Joe Rogan, masculinity, and how the Left has demonized every aspect of manhood to the point where backlash is inevitable. I don’t agree with everything he says here, and I don’t listen to Rogan except when he has a conservative on—but Sullivan is onto something here regarding Rogan’s astronomical popularity.
