Tag: pregnancy

Pregnancy Center Lawfare: Will the Supremes End This?

Tuesday, Dec. 2, will determine whether America’s crisis pregnancy centers can operate freely or whether politicians in pro-abortion states can continue to harass them with lawfare. Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin. 

At stake is “the future of pregnancy centers in America” said David Bereit, executive director of Life Leadership Conference. 

How the case started

In November 2023, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin sent subpoenas to the First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, demanding 10 years’ worth of records. The material requested included all solicitations and ads, statements on abortion pill reversal, information given to women, information about outside organizations First Choice worked with, and, most worrisome, staff information and identities of their donors.

There were “no allegations of wrongdoing…. It was a fishing expedition,” said Aimee Huber, executive director of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. “The idea of compiling this… was daunting,” she said during an emergency webcast briefing scheduled by the Life Leadership Conference. 

Thousands of people nationwide and 40 different pro-life organizations attended the briefing Monday night, said David Bereit, executive director of the Life Leadership Conference. He called it “a pivotal case…weaponizing government power to intimidate, investigate and shut down centers.”

First Choice has served over 36,000 women over the last 40 years through its five locations. “New Jersey has the fifth highest abortion rate,” Huber said. “Since do not refer for abortions, we are a target.”

Critics of pregnancy centers such as First Choice smear them as ‘fake clinics” just for that reason.

Erin Hawley, senior counsel and vice president of the Center for Life, Alliance Defending Freedom, will be arguing for First Choice Tuesday in front of the Supreme Court.  ADF filed a suit in federal court asking the district court to enjoin the subpoena. 

Hawley explained that the district court dismissed the subpoena, saying that federal courts were not a remedy because First Choice first had to go to state court. “Once the state court rules, then there are a couple of legal doctrines that basically say, once one court has decided it, another court can’t,” she said. This is even through Congress expressly provided legislative relief allowing this. 

Numerous organizations not ideologically aligned with First Choice filed amicus briefs supporting First Choice. “They all agree the right to present first amendment claims in federal court when you have been harassed by a hostile official is something that is guaranteed,” said Hawley.

Since the Dobbs decision reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, pregnancy centers have been busier than ever supporting women and children. Last week the Charlotte Lozier Institute released their 2025 report stating that pregnancy centers had helped over one million women in 2024, and that material support (everything from diapers to car seats) skyrocketed 48%. 

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42% of Births in Canada to Foreign Born Mothers

Don’t call it the “great replacement,” because that would be horrifically racist and show you to be a white supremacist Nazi who should, of course, be shot in the street by a transgender furry pro-Hamas “diversity is our strength” and “be kind” warrior. 

But, since I am a hermit who spends all his time in front of a keyboard, and too old to care about being called names, I will risk the furry’s wrath and point out the obvious. The whole point of the mass migration being forced on us is to replace the current citizenry and especially the culture that is our inheritance with one built by the new colonizers of the Western world. 

How can one say such an awful thing? Isn’t it the case that only a tin-foil-hat-wearing Alex Jones-watching Nick Fuentes admirer could believe such an absurdity?

Let’s ask these immigration activists what they think. Well, if they spoke English, we could ask them…

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Tech billionaires back startup probing gene-edited ‘designer babies’ despite US ban: report

A Silicon Valley startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong is pursuing research that some fear could lead to the birth of a genetically engineered baby — a step that’s illegal under US law and banned in most countries, a report said.

The company, Preventive, says its goal is to end hereditary disease by editing human embryos before birth, a claim that has ignited fierce debate over safety, ethics and the specter of designer children, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Preventive, founded earlier this year by gene-editing scientist Lucas Harrington, has raised $30 million and set up headquarters in San Francisco, where it is conducting research on modifying embryos to prevent hereditary disease.

The company says its mission is to prove the technology can be made safe and transparent before any attempt to create a baby is made.

Altman and Armstrong are among the firm’s early investors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Altman’s husband, Oliver Mulherin, said he led their investment, calling it an effort to help families avoid genetic illness.

Armstrong, who has publicly promoted embryo editing, posted that he was “excited” to back Preventive and argued it is far easier to correct a genetic defect in an embryo than to treat disease later in life.

But federal law prohibits the Food and Drug Administration from considering applications for human trials involving genetically edited embryos used to start pregnancies.

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BBC Finds Star Anchor Showed Bias by Correctly Pointing Out ‘Pregnant People’ are ‘Women’ During Report

On the surface, the transgender issue seems like nothing more than an opportunity for woke liberals to virtue signal.

When powerful people try to censor obvious truth on that issue, however, one begins to suspect that the invalidation of truth itself represents their ultimate goal.

According to The Times of London, the BBC has punished anchor Martine Croxall for a singular act of on-air bravery when, in June, she changed the woke BBC teleprompter script from “pregnant people” to “women.”

News of Croxall’s punishment came one day after the U.K.’s Telegraph reported “effective censorship” of transgenderism-related stories at the BBC. Indeed, a leaked internal memo written by a former independent BBC advisor cited a “constant drip-feed of one-sided stories.”

BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit has censured Croxall for violating its rules pertaining to “impartiality,” per The Times of London.

Croxall, in fact, did more than correct the woke teleprompter. She briefly rolled her eyes in a clear show of exasperation with the phrase “pregnant people.”

Meanwhile, on the social media platform X, “Harry Potter” author and women’s advocate J.K. Rowling described Croxall as her “new favourite BBC presenter.”

But the ECU would not tolerate Croxall’s truth-telling.

“The ECU considered the facial expression… laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity, and the congratulatory messages Croxall later received on social media, together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC, tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue,” the ECU said in a statement, per The Times of London.

“As giving the strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter, even if inadvertently, falls short of the BBC’s expectations of its presenters and journalists in relation to impartiality, the ECU upheld the complaints,” the statement added.

X users reacted by likening the BBC’s punishment related to her “facial expression” to history’s most famous dystopian novel.

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Mom opens up about taking psychedelics while pregnant, breastfeeding to ‘address’ issues

A microdosing mom who took psychedelic mushrooms while pregnant and breastfeeding says it has given her “more patience” as a parent.

Mikaela de la Myco, 31, began ingesting psylocibin mushrooms – a type of hallucinogenic mushroom – four months into her pregnancy with her son, aged five.

Following battles with alcohol addiction, ingesting mushrooms was a way for Mikaela “to address” her issues before her son was born.

Microdosing is the practice of taking small doses of psychedelic substances with the aim of improving mental well-being and cognitive function.

Mikaela continues to microdose, ingesting mushrooms in a “variety of forms” including capsules, chocolate, whole dried form and in tea.

She believes there is a “stigma” placed on moms who ingest mushrooms but they can be a “catalyst” for changes in behavior.

Mikaela, an educator and folk herbalist, from San Diego, California, said: “Like many mothers I had a relationship with psylocibin mushrooms before I became pregnant and it was tremendously supportive in many areas of my life.

“I sought to consult with others on the topic and was able to receive information from an elder who expressed to me that in her tradition they ingest while pregnant and that the relationship that mothers have with mushrooms doesn’t break just because of pregnancy.

“I had some concerns in pregnancy – specifically my relationship and addiction to alcohol that I wanted to address with microdosing because I didn’t want to carry on my alcoholism experience in my own family to my child.

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Maternity hospital massacre leaves 460 dead: Fresh horror in Sudan as patients and staff are butchered, after 2,000 civilians were executed in two days

A maternity hospital massacre in Sudan has left 460 people dead just days after a 48-hour killing spree saw more than 2,000 civilians executed by paramilitary rebels.

The World Health Organisation said the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, the city’s last remaining hospital, was on Sunday ‘attacked for the fourth time in a month, killing one nurse and injuring three other health workers’.

Two days later, ‘six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted’ and ‘more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital,’ by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, the organisation said.

Footage purportedly capturing the aftermath of the hospital massacre showed bodies scattered across the floor among debris and broken equipment.

‘I was performing surgery in the hospital when heavy shelling occurred. A mortar hit the hospital. I was so worried because the woman’s wounds were open, and everyone was running around me,’ Dr Suhiba, a gynaecologist, told UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. 

The northeast African nation was plunged into a deadly conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions about the future of the country between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the head of the paramilitary rebel group erupted. 

Following the most recent incident, allies of the army, the Joint Forces, said on Tuesday that the RSF ‘committed heinous crimes against innocent civilians, where more than 2,000 unarmed citizens were executed and killed on October 26 and 27, most of them women, children and the elderly’. 

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Forced adoption redress scheme to offer compensation for impacted Tasmanians

Tasmanian mothers who were subjected to historical forced adoption practices will be able to seek compensation under a redress scheme, the state government has announced.

As many as 250,000 forced adoptions have taken place across Australia since the 1950s, with several state and federal inquiries having highlighted the trauma suffered under the practice.

In 1969, Tasmanian mother Robyn Cohen gave birth at the age of 18.

She said she was denied a chance to cradle or kiss her baby before they were put up for adoption without her consent, a move that laid the ground for years of major trauma and depression.

Ms Cohen said while the scheme “will go one step in my journey towards healing”, she was concerned extensive consultation would delay it.

“I’m 75, many [of the] other women are older than I am,” she said.

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FDA Stayed Silent As Internal Reports About Potential Tylenol Risks Piled Up

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defied the advice of its own drug safety experts to warn pregnant women about Tylenol for nearly a decade, internal reports and presentations obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation reveal.

FDA rank-and-file scientists repeatedly recommended the agency release information about Tylenol in pregnancy across three scientific reviews conducted in 2016, 2019, 2022 and two memos, one from the FDA’s maternal health division in 2016 and one from the FDA’s urological health division in 2017.

The scientific literature posits many plausible drivers of autism, the most well-established of which are genetic, and the FDA drug safety experts acknowledged that the research linking the condition to Tylenol is far from ironclad.

Still, as alarm bells rang within FDA headquarters and the boardrooms of Tylenol’s manufacturers, pregnant women heard nothing from either the government or the manufacturers about the potential risks until the September announcement by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

FDA leadership declined to update its webpage about over-the-counter painkillers in pregnancy, repeatedly falling back on language first issued in January 2015. But that statement simply acknowledged that “FDA is aware of concerns” about Tylenol and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), citing just one scientific paper.

At the urging of Trump and Kennedy, FDA finally released a nuanced statement in September cautioning pregnant women about Tylenol while acknowledging that aspirin, ibuprofen and high fevers all pose their own risks. That move was first recommended by an FDA drug safety expert nine years earlier.

The DCNF obtained the FDA documents from the law firm Keller Postman LLC, which brought a class action lawsuit against Tylenol maker Kenvue, a legally independent spinoff of Johnson & Johnson. The personal injury law firm, which often brings class action lawsuits, obtained the documents from FDA via the Freedom of Information Act.

Tylenol, a brand name for acetaminophen, first received FDA approval in 1955 before modern drug laws tightened clinical trial requirements in 1962.

Some experts argue that neurological damage occurs due to a toxic byproduct of acetaminophen called NAPQI. Babies and children with autism may struggle to metabolize the drug, resulting in higher levels of NAPQI, which kills cells.

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Judge Orders HHS to Rescind Changes to Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) must rescind changes it imposed to teen pregnancy prevention programs, a federal judge ruled on Oct. 7.

Updated conditions for organizations carrying out the programs, which cited executive orders from President Donald Trump, were so vague that the organizations could not know how to comply, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 65-page decision.

“The Policy Notice mandates compliance now, without providing plaintiffs with any meaningful standard for achieving that compliance,” Howell said.

She ordered HHS to vacate the notice laying out the updated conditions for grant recipients.

An HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the department would not comment on litigation. The spokesperson pointed to the news release for the policy, which states in part that the update “safeguards the rights of parents to protect their children from content that undermines their religious beliefs.”

Under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, created by Congress in 2009, HHS provides money to organizations to carry out “medically accurate and age appropriate programs that reduce teen pregnancy.” Most of the funds go to programs that “have been proven effective through rigorous evaluation to reduce teenage pregnancy, behavioral risk factors underlying teenage pregnancy, or other associated risk factors.”

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Mount Sinai: Prenatal Acetaminophen Exposure Increases Risks of Autism and ADHD in Children, According to Analysis of 46 Global Studies

Amid growing concern over neurodevelopmental disorders, a recent study from Mount Sinai Hospital has reignited the debate surrounding acetaminophen, commonly known as paracetamol or Tylenol.

This analgesic, used by over 50% of pregnant women worldwide to relieve pain and fever, maybe linked to an increased risk of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in their children.

The report, published in August 2025 in the journal Environmental Health, analyzed 46 previous studies from international groups.

It applied the Navigation Guide methodology, a rigorous framework for evaluating environmental evidence. The findings show a consistent association: prenatal acetaminophen exposure increases the risk of autism by 19% (odds ratio 1.19) and ADHD by 26% (odds ratio 1.26).

Diddier Prada, MD, PhD, lead researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, emphasized: “Our findings indicate that higher-quality studies are more likely to show a link between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and elevated risks of autism and ADHD.”

The analysis included 20 studies on ADHD, eight on autism, and 18 on other neurodevelopmental disorders. This is not an isolated finding. A 2019 Johns Hopkins study, based on umbilical cord blood samples from 996 children, found that high acetaminophen levels tripled the risk of autism (up to 3.62 times) and doubled the risk of ADHD (up to 2.86 times).

Researchers measured metabolites in blood at birth and followed the children for an average of 8.9 years. Another study, funded by the NIH in 2025, confirmed similar patterns: the middle third of exposure increased the risk of ADHD by 2.26 times and autism by 2.14 times.

These data come from cohorts such as the Boston Birth Cohort and the Nurses’ Health Study II. The underlying biology points to concerning mechanisms. Acetaminophen crosses the placental barrier and can induce oxidative stress, disrupt hormones, and cause epigenetic changes that interfere with fetal brain development. The risk appears heightened in the third trimester, when the brain develops rapidly.

In September 2025, the U.S. FDA responded with a letter to clinicians, initiating changes to product labels like Tylenol’s. It cited “accumulated evidence” of an association with autism and ADHD, recommending minimal doses and short-term use.

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