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Pressure is growing on federal agencies to regulate the abortion drug mifepristone, following publication of a series of alarming reports. The latest report, published last week by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), analyzed Medicare and Medicaid data and discovered that the vast majority (over 80%) of women who visited an emergency room with complications from the abortion drug had their abortions miscoded as miscarriages.

The study examined nearly 30,000 emergency room visits and found that between 2016 and 2021, a period of five years, miscodes of emergency room visits following surgical abortions increased in prevalence from a rate of 26.8% to 73.9%, while miscodes of ER visits following mifepristone abortions increased in prevalence from a rate of 45.5% to 83.5%. Additionally, acuity — that is, the measure of the severity and complexity of a patient’s condition — was significantly higher (at a rate of 50%) among miscoded cases than correctly-coded cases.

“When abortion-related emergencies are disguised as miscarriages, it impairs a doctor’s ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions. That isn’t just a documentation error — it’s a public health crisis,” said Dr. James Studnicki, vice president and director of data analytics at CLI and one of the authors of the study, in a statement obtained by The Washington Stand. He added, “The abortion industry’s push for concealment is unethical and dangerous. Women deserve honest guidance and proper medical care, not advice that jeopardizes their health.”

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Another of the study’s authors, CLI Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Ingrid Skop, told TWS, “As a board-certified OB-GYN practicing in Texas, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating effects abortion drugs have on women, as I have been called to care for them in the ER regularly.” She explained, “This study exposes the abortion industry’s reckless advice for women to hide their abortion drug use from doctors, delaying proper care and risking their health.”

Skop continued, “Doctors are disadvantaged when they are unaware of a patient’s abortion history. They may need to intervene more quickly to remove retained pregnancy tissue and/or the dead baby to prevent serious infection when abortion drugs fail.” The veteran medical practitioner added, “No other area of medicine tolerates such dangerous misinformation — it’s a direct threat to women’s safety.”

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told TWS, “The miscoding of a mifepristone abortion as a miscarriage can lead to a delay in care for a mom whose life may be in danger as the result of the use of the abortion drug mifepristone.” She clarified, “Miscarriage and abortion are not the same thing — and they do not have the same impact on a woman’s body. Planned Parenthood even records miscarriage and abortion as separate occurrences; but, at the same time, Planned Parenthood advises women it’s ‘up to them’ whether they tell their doctor about their use of mifepristone.”

Szoch concluded, “Unfortunately, they leave out that a decision not to tell their doctor they took mifepristone might result in severe bodily harm. Mifepristone is an incredibly dangerous drug. It kills unborn children and maims moms physically and emotionally as it does so.”

Another recent study, this one from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, found that serious complications related to the use of mifepristone are 22 times more common than claimed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), prompting widespread calls for the health agency to reexamine mifepristone and restore stringent regulations surrounding its prescription and use.

A subsequent CLI report debunked the “baseless claim that ‘abortion drugs are safer than Tylenol’ because it lacks scientific credibility and evidence.” The report found that the claim must be based on “a controlled, scientifically appropriate study comparing abortion drugs to Tylenol,” which does not exist and “would be impossible to do [conduct] because these drugs are used for entirely different purposes.”

When the FDA first approved mifepristone for use in 2000, three in-person physician visits were required before the drug could be prescribed, the drug could only be prescribed by a physician, it had to be dispensed and consumed in the physician’s office, and a follow-up visit was required, as was reporting of any complications.

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama eliminated many of those provisions, including the requirement that the abortion drug be prescribed by a physician and consumed in-office, as well as the mandatory follow-up visit and reporting of complications. The Obama FDA also lowered the number of required in-person physician visits prior to prescription from three to only one and increased the “maximum gestational age” for prescribing the drug from seven weeks to 10.

In 2023, the Biden administration further weakened the remaining safeguards, requiring no in-person physician visits, no physician to prescribe the drug, no dispensing or consuming the drug in-office, no follow-up visit, and no reporting of complications.

Earlier this week, newly-minted FDA Commissioner Marty Makary pledged to conduct “a review of mifepristone and work … with the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data.” As TWS documented, his new promise to reassess the abortion drug is a shift from his previous positions on the subject, refusing to commit to reviewing mifepristone.

LifeNews Note: S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

The post Abortion Pill Coverup: Injuries to Women are Falsely Classified as Miscarriages appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The Trump administration sharply criticized the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) during a recent Executive Board meeting, accusing the agency of complicity in China’s coercive population control policies.

The critic comes after recently announcing the complete withdrawal of U.S. funding, totaling $335 million, under the Kemp-Kasten Amendment.

In remarks delivered on June 3 at the UNFPA segment of the 2025 Annual Session of the UNDP/UNOPS/UNFPA Executive Board, Acting U.S. Representative to ECOSOC Jonathan Shrier condemned UNFPA’s long-standing partnership with Chinese government agencies responsible for implementing forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

“Millions of families suffered under China’s abhorrent population control,” Shrier said, highlighting the “barbaric” legacy of these policies and questioning UNFPA’s silence on the ongoing suffering of affected women.

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“Where is their justice?” he asked.

The administration’s decision to defund UNFPA, first reported by LifeNews on May 9, 2025, marks a continuation of President Donald Trump’s pro-life policies from his previous term. In 2017, Trump similarly cut funding to UNFPA, citing its role in supporting China’s population control regime, which has been linked to human rights abuses, including forced abortions and sterilizations.

The recent move terminates over 40 existing projects, redirecting $335 million in taxpayer funds away from the pro-abortion UN agency.

Critics of UNFPA, including pro-life advocates, argue that the agency’s collaboration with China’s government undermines its stated mission to promote reproductive health and rights.

The Trump administration’s stance aligns with the reinstatement and expansion of the Mexico City Policy, renamed the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy, which prohibits U.S. funding to foreign organizations that perform or promote abortions. The policy, initially introduced by President Ronald Reagan, has been a cornerstone of pro-life foreign policy under Republican administrations.

UNFPA expressed regret over the funding cut, stating on May 8, 2025, that it “notes with deep regret” the U.S. decision to invoke the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. The agency denied claims of supporting coercive practices, asserting that its work promotes voluntary family planning and human rights. “Over the past four years alone, with the U.S. Government’s life-saving investments, we prevented more than 17,000 maternal deaths,” UNFPA said, urging the U.S. to reconsider its position.

Shrier’s remarks also called on the UNFPA Executive Board to scrutinize the agency’s financial ties to China, questioning why UNFPA continues to subsidize technical assistance for a country with the world’s second-largest economy.

“UNFPA should not be complicit in China’s population control,” he said, reinforcing the administration’s commitment to prioritizing human rights in U.S. foreign aid.

The post Trump Admin Slams UNFPA for Supporting Population Control in China appeared first on LifeNews.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oADHdNwrpc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRsHuvqBJAc

The following is a rough transcript of a video by Academic Agent (AKA, Neema Parvini) with a few minor editorial additions and editing for clarity.

Recently, James Lindsay made a video on elite theory. As the author of the bestselling book The Populist Illusion, which is a primer on elite theory, and since I am a modern purveyor of elite theory, when somebody critiques it like James Lindsay, I take that seriously.

Lindsay’s 20-minute video on the topic was, unfortunately, quite disappointing. It was obvious to me that Lindsay had not engaged with any of the material. He had not read The Populist Delusion.  It was obvious to me that he had not really read Mosca or Pareto or Robert Michels. This is understandable in the case of Pareto. The Mind and Society is a big thick book. It is quite complicated. However, The Ruling Class by Mosca is not particularly long. And neither is Political Parties by Michels. The Populist Delusion is an even shorter book, so it is not really that difficult, I think, to get some of the core propositions of elite theory correct.

One of the things that you are meant to do as an intellectual is to show your interlocutors some intellectual charity. Ideally, what you should be able to do is to summarize their positions as strongly if not stronger than they are able to do and unfortunately Lindsay just did not do that. He did not give an accurate summary of what elite theory is, so in this video I’m going to give a couple of quick pointers as to what elite theory is, and what it isn’t, and why Lindsay’s entire video fell flat as a result of getting these things wrong.

The first thing to mention is that elite theory simply says that the disorganized mass is always ruled over by an organized minority. It says that in politics the organized minority tends to win over the disorganized mass.

The organized minority is called the ruling class; the rulers, and the disorganized majority is the ruled.

In his video, James Lindsay did not really come up with this formulation. He said something like “In every society, elites rule.” And then he said that that is a tautology; that it is true by definition. Or, it is just saying in every society there is an elite class.

At some level, that is right, but elite theory makes a much stronger claim. It says that regardless of what you call the system; whether you call it monarchy, or whether you call it a communist state, whether you call it social democratic or liberal democratic, a merchant republic, whatever you want to call your system of government, an aristocracy, feudalism, you name it, they all basically have the same structure and the same principles apply to power no matter what you call the system; namely that the organized minority rule over the disorganized mass.

The truth of this is hard to dispute and most people when confronted with it will concur. To get anywhere in this world you need to get together with some friends and plan and work together, in order to bring about some outcome. The problem is that the people who are in power right now, have an absolute advantage over everybody else who is trying to organize. They have a knowledge advantage. They have a communications advantage. They have technical expertise and skills managerialism that coalesce to make their rule quite difficult to overcome.

Overthrowing a government is something that only a handful of people have managed in history and the set of conditions that keep the ruling class in place and make them extremely difficult to dislodge is known as “the iron law of oligarchy,” and that is what Michel’s Political Parties is about. So, what James Lindsay did in his video is that he said, well there is a difference between elite theory as a descriptive set of tools and a prescriptive elite theory.

First of all, none of the elite theorists have any prescriptions. Elite theory is a value-free. It pretends to be a scientific way of trying to approach power and politics. Elite theory resembles economics. Economics is what they call a wertfrei science. It is value free. It does not try to smuggle in any other value. It just describes what is and elite theory is the same. Pareto, who was one of the elite theorists, was of course more famous as an economist, so it is using some of those tools that you would use in economics and applying a similar framework to politics and power.  If you want a political science, that is what it was trying to do. That is what all of them said that they were doing, in the tradition of somebody like Nicolo Machiavelli who was also trying to give an ABCs of power; a set of laws of power that are true pretty much regardless of who is in the system. It is not really concerned with this system or that system; democracy or monarchy or whatever, it is concerned with the actual mechanics of power, regardless of what you call it.  

Now one of the things that Lindsay did is he said, well the thing is that the descriptive part is fine but the danger comes when it becomes proscriptive; when people take elite theory and they say this the way things ought to be. He says it goes over the is/ought gap that David Hume talked about. This is an issue because, as far as I know, none of the elite theorists did that. That is not the point of their work. In my book the Populist Delusion which is a work of elite theory, I also do not advocate for any particular system of government.

James Lindsay went on to make a more moral, normative argument where he says that the problem occurs once you start saying that rule by an organized minority is the way things should be. Lindsay takes Curtis Yarvin’s advocation of monarchy as though that were an example of prescriptive elite theory, with monarchy being a particularly clear example of elite rule. However, when Curtis Yarvin advocates for monarchy, that is monarchism, not elite theory. That is, he is just making pro-monarchy arguments. That has nothing to do with elite theory. That is just him favoring that system over the other available systems. Elite theory does not do that. If anything, the elite theorists, to the extent that they advocate for anything at all, talk about an aristocracy of the talents. In other words, a meritocracy; a system which allows the most talented people into the ruling class. They argue that that system would be superior to systems that artificially lock out people of talent from the ruling class. And in fact, if you read Mosca, he says that if you look at the old Chinese system, they had a way of accepting talented people into the ruling class, even though there was an emperor. Elite theorists also argue that it is a weakness in hereditary systems that they do not do this. In a hereditary system, you can have an idiot king and things like that, and this is a problem.

So to the extent that elite theorists advocate for anything, they just say that if you look historically, these systems tend to have a problem of having a too restricted ruling class. So, the ruling class needs to be adaptive enough to absorb talent from the pool of the ruled.

[The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia from 1459 until the early 19th century would take promising young Christian men from all conquered regions back to Constantinople to serve in the administration or the Ottoman military. This practice was called the Devshirme. It involved forced conversion to Islam.

Daniel, from Daniel and the Lion’s Den fame, was a talented Jew recruited by the Achaemenid Persian regime under King Darius. Jealousy about this foreigner and non-coreligionist being given an important role in the administration was the reason King Darius was tricked into having to put Daniel in the lion’s den overnight. When Daniel survived this ordeal by divine intervention, Darius then took his revenge on those who had wanted to get rid of Daniel by throwing them and their families to the lions who immediately ate them.]

Lindsay, having falsely attributed a prescriptive element to elite theory, then goes on to claim that those who talk about elite theory are really trying to promote themselves as the new elite:

that the whole purpose of elite theory is to say that we need to be the new elite. That is just not the case at all. Elite theory is a descriptive, quasi-scientific empirical method of looking at the mechanics of power; the logic of power, and then using that as a way of looking at politics and power today. Elite theory can also be used to look at politics and power historically as well, and it does provide all sorts of illuminating insights, but it is a descriptive and analytical tool. It is not prescriptive or proscriptive (what should be done and what should not be done).

Machiavelli’s number one maxim was, “I write as things are, not as they ought to be.” Then we get to the crux of where Lindsay’s video falls flat for me which was when he was talking about America and the American Constitution and the founding fathers and saying, “Well elite theory is anti-American.” To talk about elite theory; that the organized minority rule over the disorganized mass, goes against the ideology of the American experiment as he calls it. Now this gets to the crux of the matter, because if you understand elite theory properly they are making a much stronger claim. They say essentially that democracy is impossible. Those who claim to rule in the name of the people are lying. This a delusion. That is the populist delusion. The idea that the people are actually ruling rather than the ruling class is a lie, and what Mosca, Pareto and Michels do in their books is they show you all of the ways in which the iron law of oligarchy tends to prevail. They show you the ways in which dissident energies are contained by the system. They show you the ways in which capital P power generally is able to outmaneuver the rival castles as I call them, as do the later works, like James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution and Machiavelli’s The Prince and Bertrand de Jouvenel is another person I talk about. Burnham and Jouvenel are not typically thought of as the classical elite theorists, but they built on those ideas later on. There is Sam Francis as well. What they are showing is that any system that claims that it is ruling in the name of the people tends to be lying about that fact.

At the start of The Populist Delusion, I cite a statistic from a Chicago quantitative study across 1779 different laws passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, which showed zero correlation whatsoever with the wishes of the people. Voters seldom, if ever, get truly what they voted for. What Mosca says is that it is not really accurate to say that the people voted a certain person into power. It is more accurate to say that that person has themselves put into power by their friends and when it comes to big mass democracies, power is concentrated in the media, in newspapers, in the people who are able to fund campaigns, in moneymen, in lobby groups and so on.

So, when people talk about the ruling class in America, we need to look at things like banking groups. Lindsay refers to the Clintons and the Bushes, and people like Klaus Schwab and Davos. But, there is a whole cluster of people constituting a ruling class. There are these individuals in Davos, but there are those also in investment banks and elsewhere; the funders of the Democratic party and the Republican party. They are not “the people.” They are the organized minority. They are the ruling class, and they are the ones who have a habit of getting their own way; groups like the defense contractors and the military-industrial complex. The American people did not want any of these things and yet they got them.

A lot of the things that have happened in American history were not voted for. They were either passed by judicial activism by various different judges, or Supreme Court rulings, or Congress passing these massive pork stuffed bills; a lot of other things, like Woke. All of these things come from organized minorities. It is not always the same organized minority. There can be different ones at different times and places who are getting their way over the disorganized mass. So, what the elite theorists are saying is that the fundamental dream of the American Constitution is just a line. Saying “the will of the people” is no different from a medieval king saying, “I rule in the name of divine right.” It is just what Mosca calls a political formula. “BS BS BS therefore I rule.” This is fundamentally what all those lines are and what democracy is. Democracy is particularly good at hiding this fact. It is particularly good at allowing enough quote unquote “normal” people into the ruling class to renew the ruling class and to give a semblance of upwards mobility.

You could say this is an advantage of democracy. Another advantage of democracy is the fact that so many people believe that when they cast a vote there is a genuine link between that vote and an actual outcome. But, we have seen so many times politicians just openly lie in this country [the UK]. The people voted for Boris Johnson. They voted to take back control of the borders with Brexit. However, Boris Johnson promptly flooded the country with more immigrants than in the entire history of England from 1066 to now. Boris Johnson let in more than six million people in five years, or something ridiculous. [The UK has 68 million people]. Nobody voted for that and yet this is what the ruling class did.

So, Lindsay’s point misses the mark because he has not grasped what elite theory is saying. Elite theory is not saying it is bad to have the desire of the interests of the ruled registered by the ruling class. It is not saying that the dream of democracy is bad per se. Just that it is impossible, due to the mechanics of power, for true mass rule to prevail. Even if people rise up as an inchoate mob, sooner or later a leader must emerge for any progress to be made. Consider the analogy of an army: a rabble of a thousand people against one hundred well-trained men led by a captain. Who wins? The hundred trained men win ten times out of ten. Elite theorists argue that, with the best will in the world, power always consolidates around an organized minority. Robert Michels, who was part of the German Social Democrats—a democratic party opposed to World War I—witnessed this firsthand. As soon as his party gained power, they betrayed their base and supported the war, demonstrating the “iron law of oligarchy” once again.

James Lindsay gave a superficial summary of elite theory and ended with a warning: anyone discussing elite theory should be treated with caution. In his video, he spent most of his time talking about Marxism, Lenin, and Vanguardism. While Marxists recognized the need for an organized minority to rule over the disorganized mass, it is inaccurate to equate Marxist vanguardism with elite theory. In fact, Marxists explicitly rejected elite theory for several reasons.

First, classic Marxism is centered on class struggle, identifying the capitalists as the ruling class because they own the means of production. Marxists critiqued elite theory for being too universal; elite theorists sought a single theory for all systems, while Marxists offered a specific critique of capitalism and the capitalist class. They argued that elite theorists failed to focus on ownership of the means of production, which is central to Marxism. Elite theorists, on the other hand, argued that all systems gravitate towards rule by an organized minority, regardless of ownership.

James Burnham’s “Managerial Revolution” introduced the idea that power could be severed from ownership. In modern capitalism, asset managers or the expert class like BlackRock control vast resources without owning them. Larry Fink does not personally own BlackRock’s trillions in assets; he manages them. The same elite theory principles apply: passive shareholders are ruled by the organized minority of asset managers. Decisions about those assets—such as funding ESG initiatives and the Woke agenda—are made on behalf of shareholders, just as politicians make decisions on behalf of voters. Thus, democracy in practice functions like any other system: a top-down triangle with elites at the top.

Previously, tycoons like Henry Ford or J.P. Morgan held concentrated power as sole owners. Now, when companies go public and many people own shares, power shifts to the managers—the CEO and the managerial class. This is applied elite theory, updated for the twentieth century. James Lindsay overlooks this crucial point.

The second Marxist objection to elite theory is that it draws attention to the power of Marxists themselves when they are in charge. Marxists claim that capitalist rule is bad, but their own rule is good. Elite theory, however, highlights that Marxist regimes are also governed by an organized minority. Communist states often styled themselves as “people’s republics” or “democracies,” claiming to rule in the name of the people. In reality, decisions were made by a small group, just as in any other system. Elite theorists argue that this is not unique to the USSR; it is equally true of liberal democracies like the USA, Britain, or France. They are as totalitarian, top-down, and undemocratic as the USSR. James Lindsay might not be happy with this claim, given his support for liberal democracy, but he knows that much of what we have witnessed concerning wokery and global governance is against the quote unquote “will” of the people from his own work. So, I do not know why he would be against the idea.

Despite ideals set by the US Constitution, it is difficult to argue that the American experiment delivered true democracy for the people, given how often unpopular decisions are made by organized minorities. We have seen this in our own lifetimes. So many things that were retconned after the fact and things that were unpopular at the time, were brought about by an organized minority. Things that were later written up as if they have the support of everybody. (I believe AA has in mind things like school busing and the forced desegregation of schools).

The third Marxist critique, articulated by Antonio Gramsci in his “Prison Notebooks,” is that elite theory does not sufficiently account for ideology. Gramsci and later theorists like Paul Gottfried, Sam Francis, Louis Althusser, and Noam Chomsky explored how consent is manufactured in mass democracies through media manipulation and propaganda. (See Edward Bernay’s book “Propaganda.”) While Mosca, Pareto, and Michels mentioned newspapers, they wrote before the rise of mass media, television, and radio. Updating elite theory for the twentieth century requires considering the role of ideology and consent manufacturing.

In summary, it is inaccurate to claim that Marxists accepted elite theory. They explicitly rejected it for the reasons outlined above and never recognized Mosca, Pareto, or Michels as their own. After World War II, the liberal establishment also sought to reject elite theory in the name of liberal democracy, though many critiques failed to address its core arguments. Interestingly, some elements of the “deep state,” such as the Rand Corporation, Hoover Institute, and neoconservatives, adopted aspects of elite theory, as well as Carl Schmidt, as did some leftists at various times. So, it is not as though there was a blanket rejection of elite theory after World War II. People were writing on elite theory in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and even into the ‘90s and basically accepting its basic tenants. This is because elite theory is almost impossible to deny; its principles are as fundamental as the law of supply and demand in economics. The theory is morally neutral and descriptive, not prescriptive. Most elite theorists have not advocated for specific systems based on elite theory. James Lindsay conflates different ideas, such as Curtis Yarvin’s pro-monarchy arguments, which are not rooted in classic elite theory. And neither is Hans-Hermann Hoppe – the German-American economist associated with the Austrian school of economics, anarcho-capitalism, right-wing libertarianism and opposition to democracy.

When people discuss elite theory, they are not necessarily advocating for themselves to become the new elite. While some, like Vivek Ramaswamy, have claimed to represent a new elite, following James Burnham’s concept of new elites being cycled in, almost nobody has come to power as a self-identified elite theorist. Tony Blair is one example of a member of the elite who understood elite theory. Possibly Mussolini did. He read the elite theorists. But, this is somewhat incidental because whether they knew elite theory or did not know elite theory, they are still going to be engaging in those ABCs of power. Understanding elite theory is not required to participate in power dynamics, just as one does not need to understand economics to buy a sandwich. Elite theorists simply describe the mechanics of power, which often go unrecognized by those involved.

The concept of the organized minority is not controversial; it is simply how politics works. Mancur Olson, an excellent American economist and political scientist, wrote “The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups,” (1965) detailing how organized minorities can prevail in democracies because they are focused on a single issue, while the masses are dispersed and less organized. Throughout history, single-issue groups have often succeeded because the general public is too fragmented to oppose them effectively. This explains why organized minorities tend to get their way in democracies.

In this country, you could say there is currently a Pakistani organized minority who have managed to get their way on all sorts of issues because they are focused on that one thing and everybody else has got hundred different things that they care about. And none of them are organized enough to do anything about it. Another example would be Nigel Farage who really cared about leaving the EU and actually managed to get his way in the long run. And he did it by being part of an organized minority who cared about that one thing. The public is seldom, if ever, all united on one thing, so that is why the organized minority tends to get its own way, especially in a democracy.

For more on this topic, the author recommends his book, “The Populist Delusion.”

——————————————————————————————————–

From another video, Parvini states that Socrates represents the end of the Athenian hegemony. Asking questions that challenge the most fundamental Athenian beliefs; demanding justifications for basic ideas, spells the end of the regime. Homer marks the beginning and Socrates and Plato represent what Vico calls the Barbarism of Reflection.

Religion starts out as tribal. For instance, Jews, and no one else, are the Chosen People and God has a special interest in them alone. Barbarian tribes have “asabiya” – a strong group identity and self-belief – a fanaticism and a local religion. The Muslims defeated the Byzantine empire and the Persians through frightening conviction. They were violent and determined. But, once the barbarians have won, if they are too successful, they now have an empire to run. They need an administration. Lions who rule by force and fear are supplanted by foxes who use cunning. Since the empire covers multiple cultures and religions, a new universalist religion arises with a moralizing god who is watching you at all times. Universal religion does not generate the conquering culture. The conquering culture gives rise to the universalist religion. All civilizations become a victim of their successes. They become soft and used to luxury. They become liberal and humanitarian. Towards the end, you get the reign of quantity in the shape of egalitarianism, democracy (maybe), and utilitarianism. Each stage of the cycle generates its own types of people. If you are born in the Winter of civilization, then you cannot have the characteristics of the Spring. Nobody goes from playing their Xbox to becoming Genghis Khan.

Conservatives always lose because either an empire is expanding, or it and its associated civilization is in the process of collapse. The existence of “conservatives” at all, indicate that the end is nigh. Genghis Khan’s barbarians have no intellectuals and they have no conservatives. Neither do they have liberals. Conservatism arises in response to liberalism and liberalism is the inevitable product of soft living, money and luxury. We can be sentimental and soft-hearted. Women and children are especially protected, but we also lose our taste for violence.

Conservatives want to preserve the universalist religion and think this will save us, but they are mistaken. The universalist religion is not what got the civilization started in the first place. It was a necessary feature of a certain stage of civilization and it marks the beginning of the end. The civilization has become so large and complex that it needs fox-like bureaucrats running the show. At a certain point, intellectuals start questioning everything and we slide into decadence with the best people lacking all conviction. We lose our self-belief. Women stop having children as a result of their “emancipation” and access to jobs and education and in an acceleration of decline, softness, femininity, looking out for the lost lamb supplants manly virtues of strength, courage, and ambition.

A medical emergency was reported on April 4, 2025, at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center, located at 500 North Kings Highway in New Jersey. The incident involved a 37-year-old woman undergoing an abortion procedure.

The Emergency

According to public records, a staffer from the abortion facility placed a 911 call around 11:00 A.M. While the official 911 audio was heavily redacted, it features an unusual and notable moment where the abortionist suddenly asks the caller for the phone in order to speak directly with the dispatcher. Abortionists rarely take care of 911 calls themselves. This may be an indicator that the situation was very serious. The abortionist also requested that emergency medical personnel enter the facility through the back entrance.

Though details of the emergency were redacted in the 911 audio, Operation Rescue obtained radio dispatch recordings that confirm hemorrhaging was at least one complication that required emergency transport. Hemorrhaging is a very common and dangerous abortion complication that can quickly become life-threatening. The patient’s current condition is unknown.

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The Abortionist

During the 911 call, the abortionist identifies herself as Lisa Perriera, a late-term abortionist who apparently has already killed one patient: 22-year-old Lakisha Wilson in 2014. At that time, Perriera was an abortionist at the notorious Cleveland abortion mill, Preterm.. Lakisha Wilson also developed a hemorrhage during an abortion. In 2015, after obtaining Wilson’s autopsy, Operation Rescue reported:

According to official documents, including abortion records, EMT notes, hospital charts, an autopsy report, and 911 records all in Operation Rescue’s possession, Wilson began to hemorrhage during her abortion on March 21 and her blood pressure began to drop. Instead of stopping the abortion and tending to her patient, Perierra continued the abortion until Wilson went into hemorrhagic shock, suffered cardiac arrest, and stopped breathing. . . . CPR was started and she was shocked once, but those efforts were not successful at restarting her heart or respiration. Nine minutes later, a 911 call for help was placed.

Though no criminal charges were filed against Perriera, Operation Rescue and other pro-life groups called for a criminal investigation and disciplinary action, providing solid evidence.

Instead of justice, a year later the abortion cartel presented Perreira with the honorary “George Tiller” award which “recognizes a physician early in their career who provides abortions while demonstrating leadership and courage, even in the face of adversity.”

“It’s not courageous to let your patient’s heart stop and then wait nine more minutes before calling 911,” says Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “And it’s not leadership to still be sending women with uncontrollable bleeding to the emergency room ten years later. All Perriera should have ever been awarded was a revocation of her medical license.”

The Aftermath

There is no way of knowing just how many women Perreira has sent to the emergency room or, even worse, the morgue. Operation Rescue has launched a full investigation into this new case and will be following up with the appropriate authorities.

“We are deeply concerned about what happened at Cherry Hill Women’s Center,” adds Sarah Neely, Chief Operating Officer of Operation Rescue. “When a patient is rushed to the hospital due to a hemorrhage, it raises serious questions about the facility’s emergency preparedness and overall safety protocols. Women deserve better than secrecy and redacted recordings. Women deserve full transparency and accountability — especially when the abortionist in question has already killed one patient through complete incompetence and carelessness. How many other injuries or deaths have gone unreported? How many women remain silent out of fear?”

At this time, local emergency services and Cherry Hill Women’s Center have not commented on the specifics of the April 4th incident. Additional details may emerge pending further review and possible state oversight.

LifeNews Note: This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Ricardo Pinedo, writes for Operation Rescue.

The post Abortionist Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion Sends Another Woman to ER appeared first on LifeNews.com.

About 250 Hollywood stars joined with Planned Parenthood last week in a full-page New York Times ad that called for continued taxpayer funding of the abortion industry giant.

“I’m for Planned Parenthood,” proclaims the ad. The celebrities, among them singers Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, and Cyndi Lauper, and actor George Lopez, cite three reasons for their support, including because they’re for “freedom” and for “health care.”

Their third reason echoes Planned Parenthood’s common deceitful claim that they support getting “the government” out of decisions about abortion. In reality, Planned Parenthood and its allies are, in this very ad, pushing for all Americans to be forced, by the government, into paying for abortions.

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Former Planned Parenthood facility director-turned national pro-life activist Abby Johnson told CatholicVote the abortion lobby’s ploy of using leftwing Hollywood celebrities to influence Americans – who overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in the last election – is futile.

“This publicity stunt shows that the abortion industry has not learned its lesson from the past election,” said Johnson, the foundress of And Then There Were None and Pro-Love Ministries. “No one cares about celebrity endorsements of a multi-billion-dollar industry whose sole purpose is to destroy innocent life. It would be laughable if it didn’t deal with life and death. This isn’t what true empowerment of women looks like.”

In an op-ed Monday at Fox News, Emily Davis, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, agreed.

“The era of celebrity politics is over,” Davis asserted. “Enter the latest tone-deaf Leftist experiment.”

The ad appeared in the wake of the House passing Trump’s “One Big Beautiful” bill and sending it along to the Senate. The bill cuts hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid and grants. The abortion business’ latest annual report shows it took in $792.2 million in the form of these government health services reimbursements that Americans are forced to support through their taxes.

“What are we really looking at here?” Davis asked. “A flailing political machine desperate to rake in taxpayer dollars with glitter and hashtags, hoping we will be too dazzled to notice the rot underneath.”

Ironically, the ad appeared in the same New York Times that, in February, published a shocking report exposing numerous examples of Planned Parenthood’s alleged malpractice in performing abortions and other procedures.

The report revealed allegations, uncovered by the Times through a review of clinic documents and legal filings, that include complaints claiming Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are operating with “aging equipment” and “poorly trained staff.” The malpractice complaints allege practices that endanger the lives of women.

The Times report also revealed that, since the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood “has enjoyed a fund-raising boom, with $498 million in donations” in that year alone.

“But little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at clinics,” the Times reported. “Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.”

Additionally, Planned Parenthood has used taxpayer-funded grants to promote gender ideology in its “education” programs in government schools.

A report published Friday at the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that, in the Philadelphia School District, nearly $40,000 in taxpayer funding was granted to Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide up to 79 training sessions that present biological sex as a “myth.”

According to uncovered documents, the sessions, held during the 2023-2024 academic year, taught from the perspective that children should be able to receive medical intervention to live as the opposite sex, and that men who believe they are women should be allowed to compete with real women in sports.

Planned Parenthood’s investment in gender ideology-based “education” is interesting, at best, in light of the fact that it’s now also one of the nation’s largest providers of cross-sex hormones.

Lila Rose, foundress of Live Action, recently exposed Planned Parenthood’s alleged prescriptions of cross-sex hormones for minors via virtual appointments.

Johnson argued that, by supporting the abortion industry in the New York Times ad, the Hollywood stars are once again missing a real opportunity to help women and their families.

“When these celebrities wake up and start giving money and time to help women in desperate situations to get their lives back on track without taking the lives of their children, then let’s have a conversation,” the pro-life leader said. “Until then, I imagine Americans are using the NYT to start their summer campfires with families so at least the paper is being put to good use.”

LifeNews Note: Susan Berry writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

The post Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, and Cyndi Lauper Want to Force Americans to Fund Planned Parenthood appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Illinois Right to Life is celebrating the close of the 2025 legislative session with a significant victory: the defeat of a dangerous Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) bill that would have legalized physician assisted suicide in our state.

The Illinois Legislature attempted multiple strategies to push this bill through, including a legislative sleight of hand: after identical PAS bills stalled in both the House and Senate, proponents amended a food sanitation bill, stripping its original content and replacing it with PAS language. The maneuver allowed the bill to reach the House floor, where it passed. However, the Senate did not vote to concur with the amended language—effectively killing the bill for now.

“This is a critical win for Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens,” said Mary Kate Zander, President of Illinois Right to Life. “Our lawmakers heard from thousands of Illinoisans who refused to allow death to become a state-sanctioned ‘treatment.’ We are grateful to our coalition partners, and most of all, to the countless constituents who made their voices heard. We give glory to God.”

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Despite this victory, Illinois Right to Life is disappointed by the passage of two deeply troubling chemical abortion bills, both of which are now headed to the Governor’s desk.

HB3709: Forced Promotion and Dispensing of Abortion Drugs on College Campuses

This bill amends the Public Higher Education Act, forcing public universities to:

• Provide access to abortionists authorized to prescribe chemical abortion drugs
• Dispense these drugs through campus pharmacies
• Promote chemical abortion on their official websites

“These drugs starve preborn children to death and pose serious risks to women’s health,” said Mary Kate Zander. “No woman should be committing her own abortion alone in a dorm room. This bill not only endangers lives—it targets young women at one of their most vulnerable moments.”

Unprecedented Defiance of Federal Drug Safety Standards

In an unprecedented act of political overreach, Illinois lawmakers have decided they know better than the FDA. Apparently, when it comes to women’s health, politics trumps science.

The Illinois Legislature passed a bill that will allow Illinois to ignore FDA safety decisions on chemical abortion pills—as long as the World Health Organization (WHO) supports their use.

Illinois Right to Life remains committed to protecting women, children, and the medically vulnerable. We will continue to educate, advocate, and build a culture that respects every human life.

The post Dangerous Illinois Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide Has Been Defeated appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The ACLJ is taking decisive action to defend the constitutional rights of pro-life advocates who faced discriminatory enforcement and wrongful arrest for peacefully exercising their First Amendment freedoms. We’ve told you about our defense of the Knotts family, who faced criminal charges for simply advocating for the lives of unborn babies outside an abortion clinic. As the trial began, with a packed courtroom watching, the prosecution folded. It dismissed the wrongful criminal charges entirely.

Now we’ve gone on the offensive to defend pro-life advocacy. We’ve filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Zack and Lindsay Knotts, challenging their unconstitutional arrest and an unconstitutional city ordinance that silences disfavored speakers while protecting those with opposing viewpoints.

The Story So Far

What happened to the Knotts family in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, represents a textbook case of viewpoint discrimination – an egregious violation of the First Amendment. The shocking details of their treatment reveal a deliberate pattern of government censorship based solely on the content of their pro-life message.

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On December 28, 2024, the Knotts traveled to the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center, an abortion clinic, to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights, engaging in sidewalk evangelism and pro-life advocacy. What happened next exposed a troubling pattern of government officials weaponizing local ordinances to silence religious and pro-life speech.

Zack used a battery-powered megaphone – quieter than ambient traffic noise – to share his life-affirming message from a public sidewalk. Meanwhile, abortion clinic escorts actively worked to drown out his speech using their own sound devices, including whistles and kazoos, while making threats against the couple.

One escort even told Zack to “suck-start a shotgun.” During a previous encounter, Zack had told escorts how his mother-in-law had considered an abortion while pregnant with his now wife, and if she had gone through with it, his wife “should be dead.” An escort interrupted, stating, “We can fix that.”

Despite this harassment and the escorts’ use of the same types of sound devices prohibited by the city’s noise ordinance, only Zack was arrested and cited.

The Discriminatory Arrest

The circumstances of Zack’s arrest reveal the true motivation behind the police action:

1. A Biased Complaint: A nearby resident supposedly called the police complaining specifically about Zack’s pro-life message – notably, she did not complain about the escorts’ kazoos and whistles, only the pro-life speech.
2. No Firsthand Witness: The arresting officers, Sergeant Dobney and Officer Paratore, never personally witnessed Zack using the megaphone. By the time they arrived, the megaphone’s batteries had already died. So they could not possibly have known if his megaphone was loud enough to violate the ordinance – which it wasn’t.
3. A Biased Investigation: The police only took a statement from Officer Oldham, who was working off-duty as private security for the abortion clinic – creating an obvious conflict of interest. No other witnesses were questioned.
4. Selective Enforcement: Despite knowledge of the escorts’ threats, noise-making, and harassment, only Zack was arrested, cited, and prosecuted.
5. Chilling Threats: When Lindsay tried to report the threats against her husband, she was told they were “not a crime.” Sergeant Dobney then threatened that Zack would be arrested again if he caused “annoyance” in the future – even without amplified sound.

The impact of this unconstitutional enforcement extends far beyond one arrest. The Knotts now fear exercising their constitutional rights, knowing they face arrest while their opponents remain free to engage in identical or worse conduct. This chilling effect on protected speech is precisely what the First Amendment was designed to prevent. When citizens must self-censor their constitutionally protected speech due to fear of government retaliation, the Constitution has been violated.

An Ordinance Designed To Discriminate

Cuyahoga Falls’ Ordinance § 509.03(a)(6) prohibits amplified sound that might cause “inconvenience or annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities” – vague language that invites arbitrary enforcement. But the biggest constitutional problem lies in the ordinance’s exemptions, which favor certain organizations while discriminating against individual citizens. The law specifically exempts amplified sound from educational organizations and charitable organizations, for example.

This creates an impermissible hierarchy of speakers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government cannot grant preferred status to certain speakers while silencing others, especially in traditional public forums like sidewalks.

Three Constitutional Violations, One Clear Pattern of Discrimination

Our lawsuit challenges this discriminatory ordinance on several constitutional grounds. In our motion for preliminary injunction, we reveal three distinct ways Cuyahoga Falls’ ordinance violates the Constitution:

1.   Facial Invalidity Under the First Amendment: The ordinance’s speaker-based exemptions transform what should be a content-neutral noise regulation into an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech. Such regulations are presumptively unconstitutional and subject to strict scrutiny – a test this ordinance clearly fails. This creates a two-tiered system where politically favored institutions can use amplification freely, but individual citizens exercising their constitutional rights cannot.
2.    Unconstitutional Vagueness: The ordinance prohibits causing “inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm” through “unreasonable noise” – but fails to define any of these subjective terms. What constitutes “unreasonable noise”? What level of “annoyance” triggers enforcement? The law provides no guidance, leaving enforcement entirely to the personal discretion of police officers.This vagueness creates exactly the kind of arbitrary enforcement we witnessed: Zack’s amplified pro-life message was deemed “unreasonable,” while equally loud pro-abortion counter-protesters using musical instruments specifically mentioned in the ordinance faced no consequences.
3.   Viewpoint Discrimination: The selective enforcement against pro-life speakers while tolerating identical or worse conduct from pro-abortion advocates constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination. Most troubling of all is the selective enforcement pattern. The Knotts and abortion escorts were engaged in directly comparable conduct – using sound devices to amplify their messages on the same public sidewalk. Yet only the pro-life speakers faced arrest and prosecution.When Lindsay informed officers about the threats made against them, she was told these statements were “not a crime” – while her husband sat in the back of a police cruiser for using a megaphone.

One of the central cases we rely on to defend pro-life advocates is our very own victory against an abortion buffer zone law in Louisville, Kentucky. That court decision requiring an injunction against a speech-suppressing buffer zone is crucial to holding the government accountable for vague laws that infringe on speech. The First Amendment demands that pro-life advocates have their rights protected.

Why This Case Matters

This lawsuit represents more than just one family’s fight for justice – it’s about preserving fundamental constitutional principles that protect all Americans.

The government prosecuted Zack for months before ultimately dismissing the case on the day of trial – but only after the constitutional damage was done. The arrest, prosecution, and ongoing threat of future enforcement have already achieved the government’s apparent goal: silencing disfavored speech.

This case exemplifies why the ACLJ exists: to defend the constitutional rights of Americans against government overreach and discrimination. We refuse to allow local officials to use vague ordinances as weapons against unpopular speech, and we will not stand by while religious and pro-life voices are silenced through selective enforcement.

The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee freedom from annoyance or inconvenience – it guarantees freedom of speech, especially for unpopular viewpoints that challenge the status quo. When government officials start deciding which messages deserve protection based on their own preferences, we’re all at risk.

Our lawsuit seeks:

• A declaration that the ordinance is unconstitutional
• An injunction preventing future discriminatory enforcement
• Compensation for constitutional violations
• Return of Zack’s seized megaphone
• Attorney’s fees under federal civil rights law

The Broader Battle for Religious Freedom

This case is part of a larger assault on religious freedom and pro-life speech across America. From college campuses to city sidewalks, government officials are increasingly willing to silence religious viewpoints while protecting secular ones.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly affirmed that the First Amendment does not permit the government to make such distinctions. In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the Court emphasized that content-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional. In Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, the Supreme Court held that viewpoint discrimination is an “egregious form of content discrimination.”

These precedents are clear: The government cannot silence speakers based on the religious or political content of their message.

The Knotts family courageously chose to stand up for their constitutional rights rather than submit to government censorship. Their willingness to challenge this discrimination in federal court will help protect the rights of all Americans to engage in peaceful religious and political expression.

Your support enables the ACLJ to take on these critical cases without charging our clients, ensuring that constitutional rights aren’t limited to those who can afford expensive litigation. Together, we can continue fighting for the fundamental freedoms that make America exceptional.

LifeNews Note: Nathan Moelker is Senior Associate Counsel at the ACLJ’s Washington, D.C. office. Liam R. Harrell is Associate Counsel at the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) Washington, D.C., office.

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