A roundup of news and commentary from around the interwebs.
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If you want an idea of just how predatory and poisonous the porn industry is, consider the fact that hits for “Ukrainian girls” have been spiking on Pornhub. This is what the porn industry does—they exploit pain and suffering, and they provide people the opportunity to turn it into sexual entertainment. They do this with racial stereotypes; with sexual violence and rape—and they’re doing it with war.
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This response from Kyle Lamb to those melting down over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ law to protect children from sexual indoctrination is perfect:
I simply said you're either for or against the sexualization of children in a classroom under 10 years old and that most people think it's wrong. I was hit with an outpouring of hate being called a homophobe, bigot, pedophile, and an array of colorful insults. https://t.co/a3Q8tBWp74
On that subject, Carl Trueman has a powerful piece in First Things titled “When Evil is Called Good”:
Last week, three news stories threw into sharp relief the ambitions of the sexual revolutionaries who govern the United States. First, there was the predictable outrage from the usual elites concerning Florida’s Parental Right in Education Bill, which would significantly restrict the teaching of LGBTQ+ ideology to schoolchildren. Second, it emerged that Washington State has a policy preventing teachers from revealing a child’s gender transition to parents. And third, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki condemned a directive from Texas governor Greg Abbott that calls on state agencies to protect Texas minors by investigating cases of children receiving “abusive gender-transitioning procedures.”
Each story reveals a particular aspect of the current sexual revolution. The criticism of Florida shows just how deeply the progressive elites have imbibed the notion of expressive individualism. Actress Kerry Washington condemned the Florida law, declaring that “Children deserve to be who they want to be. To be their true selves.” That such a statement makes sense to her and presumably to many of her 5.5 million Twitter followers testifies to how the notion of authenticity, tied to a sexualized notion of childhood, is now unquestioned orthodoxy in our culture.
Washington State’s policy is a reminder of how deeply government agencies have bought into trans ideology, and how they are using it to drive a wedge between parents and children. By the state’s own philosophy, the child is the gender he or she claims to be. So the state holds that the child defines who he truly is, but that the child’s parents have no right to know. That is disturbing in the extreme.
Read the whole thing. Trueman is one of the most clear-eyed cultural commentators writing today.
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Meanwhile, Utah’s Republican governor Spencer Cox says that he will veto Utah’s bill to protect girls’ sports from participation by biological males. Eleven states have enacted such bans. Cox has decided to side with the trans activists.
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Last month, I wrote a column on the attacks on Dr. Dermot Kearney and other physicians willing to offer abortion pill reversal. There is good news. From The Daily Mail:
For any NHS doctor, bringing new life into the world is an extraordinary privilege. And for Dr Dermot Kearney, smiling fondly at the trio of babies gurgling happily by his side, the knowledge that he played a small but crucial role in their arrival is particularly poignant. But these three infants may never have been born were it not for his courageous intervention. The battles their families – and Dr Kearney – have fought have been deeply personal as well as medical.
In each case their mothers had, for their own reasons, chosen to start an abortion using NHS pills to terminate pregnancy. Almost instantly, each of them became consumed with regret and desperate to reverse the process after taking the first of two tablets that sets it in motion. Scouring the internet for an answer, they came across the details of Dr Kearney who, they discovered, was prescribing a hormone naturally found in the body which supports pregnancy. He became a saviour to them and their babies.
In just 12 months, the medic says, the unlicensed treatment – not available on the NHS – has preserved the lives of up to 32 babies in the UK, and saved their mothers from a lifetime of potential turmoil at their decision. Indeed, the babies’ doting parents will forever be indebted to this softly spoken Irishman, who they describe as a lifesaver.
However, for this compassionate service – which he provided for no fee and which is deeply rooted in his Christian faith – Dr Kearney found himself subject to an investigation by the doctors’ regulator, the General Medical Council, which could have seen him struck off. Last May he was banned from providing the treatment after complaints were made by abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly known as Marie Stopes.
But now the GMC has dropped all sanctions against the doctor – and will no longer pursue its investigation – after concluding that there was no evidence of wrongdoing. It speaks volumes about Dr Kearney’s approach that the GMC could find no women prepared to act as witnesses to complain about their treatment. On the contrary, the watchdog was inundated with statements from those who praised his ‘kind and caring’ attitude at what was undoubtedly one of the worst moments of their lives.
