Free Republic

Research offers possibility that declining birth rate contributes to liberalization. PAY WALL

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Monday eased its regulations on abortion access in what the country’s health minister said was a response to last week's “sad” U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. The new rules, approved by a parliamentary committee, grant women access to abortion pills through the country’s universal health system and remove a longstanding requirement that women appear physically before a special committee before they are permitted to terminate a pregnancy. The decision came after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion, a fundamental and deeply personal change for Americans’...

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine leads to lower levels of semen, according to a new study.Researchers analyzed 220 samples of semen from three sperm banks in Israel, drawn from men who received two doses of the vaccine. The semen collection was scheduled seven days after receipt of the second dose.The researchers, led by Dr. Itai Gat with the Sperm Bank and Andrology Unit at the Shamir Medical Center and Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical School, found that there was a decrease in sperm concentration between 75 and 120 days post-vaccination.The decrease led to a reduction in the motile count, or the number...

The likely overturning of Roe v. Wade has panicked many reproductive technology advocates, specifically the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. When abortion policy is decided by individual states, personhood laws such as Louisiana’s Human Life Protection Act and Texas’s Heartbeat Act could immediately criminalize many aspects of Big Fertility’s business model. That’s because destroying human life is part and parcel of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The violation of lab-created children’s right to life begins in the petri dish. First, IVF often involves the preimplantation screening of 6 or 7 day old blastocysts (early embryos), to not only determine the likelihood...

We’ve been sold a bill of goods about contraception and abortion, things we’re told ‘liberate’ us that actually suppress what makes us women.In all of the furor surrounding the (likely) imminent demise of Roe v. Wade, it has become clear to me that women have been made to fear and resent their biology for far too long. Too many women have bought the lie that they have no options but to rely on hormonal contraceptives and, if that fails, abortion. But the broad dependence on these methods — making women responsible to manage their own and men’s fertility — is...

Stories about parental regret might get clicks, but BuzzFeed acting as a PR machine against motherhood might also influence people’s decision to become a parent.As BuzzFeed contemplates its future, the website should reconsider its approach to motherhood. The media outlet is rethinking its news division because it loses money, offering voluntary buyouts. BuzzFeed would likely gain some mom consumers if it changed its tune on motherhood. In April, BuzzFeed ran an article headlined, “Mothers Are Revealing How They Realized They Regret Having Children And How They’re Coping Now, And They’re Such Nuanced And Valid Feelings.” The first mom the article...

Researchers at the Department of Microbiology of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) have found that the COVID19 virus can cause acute testicular damage, chronic asymmetric testicular atrophy, and hormonal changes in hamsters despite a light pneumonia. “In managing convalescent COVID-19 males, it is important to be aware of possible hypogonadism (low sex drive) and subfertility,” said Chair of Infectious Diseases Professor Kwok-yung Yuen, who led the research effort. “ COVID-19 vaccination can prevent this complication.” The HKU study of testicular damage of the virus, SARS-CoV-2, has been accepted for publication in the leading journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. COVID 19...

Vaccine dangers to Pregnant women, known in 2012 study.

It was back in 1991 when Jeanine and Mike Harvey went to Dr. Nicholas Spirtos, then the chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Summa Akron City hospital, now Summa Health System, for help conceiving a child. But that DNA test Harvey Galloway took would reveal a shocking mix-up. Mrs. Harvey’s egg was fertilized not by her husband’s sperm, but by another man, also a patient of Dr. Spirtos, as stated in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Court of Common Pleas in Summit County. Harvey Galloway recently discovered her biological father is not Italian, but part...

Golly gosh, you learn something new every day about the IVF industry. And you thought it was just about gurgling, picture-perfect infants. IVF porn is one of those sordid things that everyone knows about but no one has the stomach to talk about. Last year’s “Private Life”, a highly-praised Netflix film about a middle-aged couple going through IVF, is typical. Equipped with a cup, the exasperated husband enters a cubicle where a wall-mounted screen is playing hard-core porn. It’s part of the fertility furniture. Back in 2010, a British health think tank, 2020Health published a brief report, Who Said Pornography...

I'm hearing stories of weird things happening in IVF clinics starting in March of this year. They can't figure out the cause.Steve KirschDec 17 394310 I just got off the phone with a woman who works at a large IVF clinic. She has to remain nameless to avoid being fired for speaking out. Nobody is supposed to know about the serious problems happening in the IVF clinics.Let me tell you what is really going on and the scientific study that explains it.Rest assured that the so-called “fact checkers” will call the IVF clinics who will deny there are any problems...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants people to have more babies. “There are not enough people,” Musk told a Wall Street Journal event Monday. “I can’t emphasize this enough, there are not enough people,” he said. The tech billionaire said low and rapidly declining birth rates are “one of the biggest risks to civilization.” His comments come as a growing number of people are deciding not to have children, citing concerns such as climate change and inequality. Musk added that too many “good, smart people” think there are too many people in the world and that the population is...

Direct from the Comirnaty package insert... https://www.fda.gov/media/151707/download 5.2 Myocarditis and Pericarditis Postmarketing data demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within 7 days following the second dose. The observed risk is higher among males under 40 years of age than among females and older males. The observed risk is highest in males 12 through 17 years of age. Although some cases required intensive care support, available data from short-term follow-up suggest that most individuals have had resolution of symptoms with conservative management. Information is not yet available about potential longterm sequelae. The CDC has published considerations related to myocarditis...

1. A common method of sperm retrieval (masturbation with the assistance of pornography) involves a violation of the sixth commandment (Matthew 5:28; Colossians 3:5; Exodus 20:14). 2. Many ethical and practical issues are the same here as with surrogate parenting. A review of surrogate parenting material would be appropriate. 3. Sperm banks raise valid social and legal concerns re: paternal rights, the rights of children to know their parents, transmission of diseases, and a checkered past of mismanagement resulting in mistaken insemination of sperm. I reject the argument that sperm banks presume for humans the authority of God. The role...

Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. Waiving fields of maize may one day save the world from overpopulation. The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm. By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives. 'We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies,' said Epicyte president Mitch Hein.

Allison Williams, a veteran college football sideline reporter for ESPN, announced on Thursday that she will be opting out of the season because she will not take the COVID-19 vaccine. “While my work is incredibly important to me, the most important role I have is as a mother,” she wrote in a statement on Twitter. “Throughout our family planning with our doctor, as well as a fertility specialist, I have decided not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at this time while my husband and I try for a second child. “This was a deeply difficult decision to make and it’s...

American revival rests on strong marriages, strong families, and a fertility rate that is on the upswing, rooted in a sincere, national renewal of faith.In 1986, Sen. Patrick Moynihan of New York said, “The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding, and social peace.” Moynihan was aware of the foundational need for Americans to have strong families, and the social...

Like just about every other Western Christian body, as well as the United States, the SBC is left to squabble over shrinking slices of a dwindling pie.The New York Times put out a lengthy preview of the Southern Baptist Convention’s top controversies heading into their annual meeting this week in Nashville, Tenn. Members of the nation’s largest evangelical denomination are weighing the future of their religious body amid numerous theological controversies.The way the SBC goes will significantly influence Christianity in the United States, which has since the nation’s inception been Protestant-dominated. As the Times notes, “About a third of the...

Here in Pennsylvania the indoor mask order still in force for the unvaccinated but Democrat Governor Tom Wolf did choose today to lift all other coronavirus restrictions on restaurants. But restaurant owners say other issues on the table including rising food prices and supply shortages along with the shortage of labor place obstacles in their way... Russia's Tass news agency reporting that British Intelligence (MI 6) is working to rebrand Al Qaeda terrorists operating in Syria (An Nusra) as friends of the West... Denmark's military intelligence service helped the US National Security Agency to spy on top leaders of four...

After my article on COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy, I hear those of you trying to conceive saying, “What about me? Where’s my data?” We have some data supporting the safety of COVID-19 for fertility, but it is not as copious as data on pregnancy. Fertility data is hard to gather because so many variables affect a couple’s ability to conceive. A well-designed study to assess a vaccine’s effects specifically on conception rates would require a large number of participants and time (and thus funding). However, we have two strong reasons for believing the COVID-19 vaccines will not affect fertility: (1)...