The world’s richest man has it right. Last Friday Elon Musk tweeted, “[a]ny parent or doctor who sterilizes a child before they are a consenting adult should go to prison for life.”

Twenty years ago this would not have been a controversial statement. The general response would have been, “of course.” But today it is a position at the very edge of a massive chasm that exists between the left and the right. How did this happen, and why?

It is not as if Elon Musk is a distant observer, who emerges from his executive suite from time to time to issue statements just to weigh in on current controversies. For him it is also a personal matter. A month ago, Musk’s 18-year-old son by a previous marriage filed a a petition for a name change in the Santa Monica Superior Court. He also petitioned for a new birth certificate, changing his sex to female. The wide rift that exists in our culture, apparently is equally as wide within the billionaire’s own family.

So called “trans-affirming care” — puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery — have been restricted, banned or are under consideration in 15 states: Indiana, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Dakota, Utah, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Kansas.

In the remaining states the care remains legal and several have passed or are attempting to pass laws that will make the states trans sanctuaries.

A bill is under consideration to do just that in Illinois, but it has remained in the Assignment Committee since February, with no other action taken so far. California, by law, already is a trans sanctuary and in Minnesota legislation has passed in the House to become a sanctuary state. By Executive Order, Governor Tim Walz already has required protection for “gender-affirming” care since March 8th.

In Colorado, Governor Jared Polis signed a bill on April 14^th making that state the third official sanctuary state. On April 12^th, the Washington State House passed an amended version of a Senate Bill that protects runaway trans children and allows them to get hormone therapy and surgery without parental consent, although the Department of Children, Youth and Families has to be involved.  That bill apparently needs Senate approval before being sent to the Governor. Many other states are taking up this issue as well.

The Biden Administration is fully behind “trans-affirming” care and has declared it “settled science.” Biden, himself, just released a statement opposing H.R. 734, a bill that would require children to play on teams that align with their biological sex. The President says if it reaches his desk, he will veto it.

It is simply incredible and nonsensical that this deep divide exists. Even Saturday Night Live, which was once a comedy show, took up the issue over this past weekend. In an unfunny skit with Molly Kearney, the show took shots at several red states for banning what she called “health care for trans kids.” The left refuses even to look at the possibility that chemicals that sterilize, and surgery that mutilates and sterilizes children could be viewed as destructive, not helpful.

Anyone who speaks out against medical intervention for children risks condemnation and even physical assaults. Those who favor medical intervention become completely unhinged by any challenge to their views, making it impossible to have a civil debate. There is no debate, according to the left, pointing to the endorsement of “gender-affirming” care by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Association, and others as confirmation for their position.

We cannot get a coherent answer to the question of why these organizations support such care, when in Europe, where trans hormone therapy and trans surgery started, the medical clinics are being shut down. The preferred therapy there is now talk therapy.

Why the difference?

Popular bloggers, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, recently hosted Jamie Reed on their podcast, Triggernometry. Reed is the whistleblower who exposed the destructive transgender care practices at Washington University Transgender Clinic in St. Louis, MO. The clinic currently is under criminal investigation by the Missouri Attorney General.

Reed is a gay woman who is married to a transgender man and worked in the clinic managing the care for the clinic’s patients for the last several years. Initially it was expected the clinic would care for 50 or so patients a year, but 50 turned into hundreds, then thousands.

Kisin asked Reed how she explained this explosion of trans-identifying children. While Reed’s observations cannot be generalized to other populations, she has come to a few conclusions based on the thousands she saw. Her view was interesting.

She observed that white children in the U.S. are indoctrinated to believe they are privileged, and because of that they are seen as “oppressors.” Many are desperate to escape that label. Because they are white, it is difficult for them to claim a different race or ethnic identity. They can’t claim poverty when their family is affluent, and they find it too difficult to identify as gay or lesbian. It is easier for them to claim to be non-binary or trans. Trans seems to be the path of least resistance to become a member of an oppressed group, freeing them from condemnation as an oppressor.

She didn’t explain what accounts for other racial or ethnic groups who identify as trans, other than to say that most of the upsurge, she believes, is fueled by social media. These children are encouraged to join the oppressed class. She said if you took most of these kids to a farm in Montana and took away their phones, it would be better for them than the treatment they receive in gender clinics. The idea they were trans would most likely vanish.

Doctors, too, are affected by social and professional pressures. More important, she said, is that each medical professional is merely a “cog in a spinning machine.” The machine involves multiple professionals, each one carrying out his or her specific task. If any one of them stops or does something different the entire machine breaks down. Each professional performs his assigned task to the best of his ability, without the necessity to evaluate the entire spinning machine. That is someone else’s responsibility. They don’t think about it.

It reminds me of an examination of the people who were involved in Hitler’s death camps. Both Hannah Arendt and Christopher Browning looked at the phenomena of seemingly normal people committing mass murders in places like Auschwitz and multiple other concentration camps.

Both authors pointed to the Nazis using a division of labor as a way that allowed each worker an out. They were just one cog in a very large wheel, disconnected from ultimate responsibility for the mass exterminations. Someone else was responsible for designing the machine and keeping it going, not them.

The church, too, has taken sides on transgender divide, many of them coming down on the side of genital mutilation in the name of love, as the church from Revelation’s Thyatira might have taken. Most won’t adopt a position, being too cowardly to pick a side, much like the church at Laodicea would have done.

Very few follow the model of the church at Philadelphia, which faithfully followed God’s will.

Today the church is not driving the culture. It is being driven by it, transformed by it. Nothing is going to change in Chicago, or Springfield, or Washington D.C. until the church stands up and becomes an instrument of both truth and grace. That looks like that’s a long way off, but it could happen overnight if enough Christians answer the call.

Can you hear it?

Read more:

Analysis: Illinois One of 29 States Allowing Boys to Play Girls’ High School Sports (Prairie State Wire)

The Trans Quagmire – How We Got Here (Thomas Hampson)

[VIDEO] Transgenderism is The Most Dangerous Extremist Movement in The U.S. (Tucker Carlson)

[VIDEO] Riley Gaines Speaks Out Against Trans-Insanity in Women’s Sports

[VIDEO] Transgender Agenda Run Amuck (Fox News Channel)

New CA Bill Requires Foster Parents to Swear Allegiance to LGBT Ideology (California Family Council)

Opposing Transgenderism Is Not Genocide (Oliver Perry)

30 Transgender Regretters Come Out Of The Closet (The Federalist)

[PODCAST] Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle (Christian Post)

Here’s a statistic that may surprise many: It is estimated that less than 17% of U.S. doctors belong to the powerful leftist lobbying group, the American Medical Association (AMA). Remember that figure as you read on about the AMA’s role in promoting critical race theory and sexual anarchy.

In May 2021, the AMA issued a press release announcing its 86-page critical race theory-infused “ambitious strategic plan to dismantle structural racism” which acknowledges “that equity work requires recognition of past harms and critical examination of institutional roles upholding these structures.”

In the press release, the AMA makes clear its leftist leanings:

[T]he plan … is driven by the immense need for equity-centered solutions to confront harms produced by systemic racism and other forms of oppression for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and other people of color, as well as people who identify as LGBTQ+. 

The AMA’s ambitious plan seeks to eradicate “malignant narratives” like “a narrow focus on individuals,” the “myth of meritocracy,” and the “myth of American exceptionalism.” The AMA is committed to “rooting out racism and white supremacy in our workplace. … We must ‘get our house in order’ and direct significant focus on embedding equity within the management team.”

The 86-page plan makes even clearer that the AMA has abandoned commitments to equality in favor of collectivist notions of equity based on group membership. The plan is littered with quotes from far-left poets and activists like Ta-Nehesi Coates as well far-left jargon like this:

• “We must … ensure that we use the theories (intersectionality, critical race theory*, etc.).”

• “Equity solutions include … [e]liminating all forms of discrimination, exclusion and oppression in medical and physician education, training, hiring, [and] matriculation … by [m]andatory anti-racism … equity-explicit training … for all … staff [and] Publicly reported equity assessments for medical schools and hospitals … ensuring just representation of Black, Indigenous and Latinx people in medical school admissions as well as medical school and hospital leadership ranks.”

• “We operate in a carefully designed and maintained system that normalizes and legitimizes an array of dynamics … that routinely advantage white (also wealthy, hetero-, able-bodied, male, Christian, U.S.- born) people at the expense of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and people of color (also low wealth, women, people with disabilities, non-Christians, and those foreign-born).”

• “Where equality is a blunt instrument of ‘sameness,’ equity is a precise scalpel that requires a deep understanding of complex dynamics and systems with skill and practice in application. … Equity can be understood as both a process and an outcome. It involves sharing power with people … and redistributing resources to the greatest need.”

The AMA’s document includes this quote from “Sylvia” Rivera,” a deeply troubled drag queen who was homeless and working as a prostitute by age 11:

We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are. We have to show the world that we’re numerous.

The idea that no one should be ashamed of cross-dressing behaviors is a moral claim that falls far outside the purview of the American Medical Association, but grandiose moral and social engineering schemes is now apparently the business of the AMA.

At the end of June 2021, the AMA released a “resolution” created by a committee of homosexual activists and their collaborators calling for “Removing Sex Designation from the Public Portion of the Birth Certificate.” In a tortured effort to rationalize the AMA’s involvement in redesigning birth certificates to serve the desires of cross-sex impersonators, the activists wrote,

Gender is a social construct that describes the way persons self-identify or express themselves. A person’s gender identity may not always be exclusively male or female and may not always correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

To be clear, these medical doctors are just pretending that sex is “assigned” at birth. They know full well that obstetricians do not assign sexes—of which there are two—to newborns. Physicians identify the sex of newborns—an objective, immutable trait that never changes. There are a small percentage of babies born with disorders of sexual development whose genitalia at birth may be ambiguous, but those babies are not “transgender.”

While some persons may choose not to “identify” with their sex, they do have one and it never changes. The spanking new term “gender identity” was invented to disguise disordered feelings as something more substantive—something with a bit more ontological heft. While a “trans” identity—and every fanciful idea associated with it—is a social construct, biological sex is a material reality that cannot be erased by redesigning birth certificates, grammar, or bodies.

And while “trans”-cultists and their collaborators may believe that subjective feelings about maleness or femaleness (i.e., “gender identity”) are more important than objective biological sex, neither compassion, respect, nor justice obligates others to act as if such feelings are.

The committee cites a prior politically driven AMA policy that says,

“the AMA supports every individual’s right to determine their … sex designation on government documents and other forms of government identification.” The AMA supports policies that allow for a sex designation or change of designation on all government IDs to reflect an individual’s gender identity.

In other words, the AMA supports the bizarre notion that government documents should be falsified in order to conform to the socially constructed, science-denying belief that humans can be what they’re not.

Moreover, after the “trans”-cult has spent years establishing sex and “gender identity” as wholly severable and separate phenomena, they are now attempting to empty “sex designation” filling it with the socially constructed amorphous “gender identity.” George Orwell predicted this:

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. … This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever. … [T]he special function of certain Newspeak words … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.

The committee, a political interest group composed of self-identifying health providers, offers this pseudo-medical justification for their political effort:

For these individuals, having a gender identity that does not match the sex designation on their birth certificate can result in confusion, possible discrimination, harassment and violence whenever their birth certificate is requested.

Who may be confused? It seems unlikely that cross-sex impersonators would be confused, so how would the confusion of someone else be a health concern for cross-sex impersonators? What form of “possible discrimination”? Is harassment an issue that the AMA should address or the police?

And what about “trans”-agists, that is, people who identify as younger than their assigned birth date would suggest? If a 47-year-old man identifies as a 17-year-old, should he be able to change his birth date designation to reflect his age identity in order to avoid confusion, possible discrimination, harassment, or violence?

Come to think of it, if insurance companies are forced to pay for chemical and surgical procedures to make men look like women, shouldn’t they be forced to pay for chemical and surgical procedures to make old men look like the young men they identify as?

For some perspective on whose interest this resolution represents, a cursory look at the resolution process is in order. Resolutions are created by AMA Medical Student Sections (MSS), in this case the AMA MSS “Committee on LGBTQ+ Affairs,” which, to be clear, is an interest group.

The current Advisory Committee on LGBTQ+ Affairs has seven members, five of whom are homosexual. The remaining two are “LGBTQ+” collaborators. A committee’s resolution is voted on by the House of Delegates, which is the legislative and policy-making body of the AMA. The House of Delegates is composed of about 600 of the 240,000 AMA members. A two-thirds vote of the delegates present is required for adoption. So, the birth certificate redesign policy was conceivably created and passed by 400 of the 240,000 members of the AMA, and the AMA constitutes only 17% of all physicians in the U.S.

No further evidence is needed to prove that “progressivism” is an ideology of deceit than the spread of “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices throughout a society that purports to revere science and rationality. No sane person really believes men can be or become women. No sane person believes men can “chestfeed” or menstruate, become pregnant, or give birth. No sane person really believes that some women have penises and impregnate women—or men. Those who pretend they do are liars or cowards or both.

No further evidence is needed to prove that the ultimate goal of “progressives” is totalitarian political and social control than their tyrannical efforts to coerce Orwellian Newspeak. And no further evidence is needed to prove that America has become the land of cowards than the silence of many physicians on the chemical and surgical abuse of children by the medical community.

There are things that Americans can do to resist Big Brother and his apparatchiks and cowardly minions. Ask your pediatrician, obstetrician, gynecologist, and primary care physician if they support pseudo-scientific “trans”-cultic practices for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors. If they do, find new doctors. And if you’re a doctor who belongs to the AMA, cancel your membership and tell the AMA why.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/amaIsWoke_Audio.mp3

Last month, 74 US medical and public health groups released a “U.S. Call to Action,” declaring climate change a “true public health emergency” that can be solved by “urgent action.” The statement calls for a transition away from hydrocarbon energy and a move to a low-carbon economy. But actual weather and health trends don’t support either the alarm or the demanded actions.

The statement was endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Physicians. These and other organizations pronounced climate change the “greatest public health challenge of the 21^st century.”

The statement proclaims that “extreme heat, powerful storms and floods, year-round wildfires, droughts, and other climate-related events” are caused by “fossil fuel combustion,” which is said to be the “primary driver of climate-change.” They go on to say that we can solve these problems by transitioning away from hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, and toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Last month, the majority of the continental U.S. was caught in a heat wave. About 85 percent of the population experienced daily high temperatures of over 90 degrees Fahrenheit and more than half saw temperatures of over 95^oF. But these temperatures were far below state record high temperatures of past decades.

History shows that the warmest U.S. decade on record was the 1930s, long before industry emitted significant amounts of carbon dioxide. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 23 of the 50 state record high temperatures were recorded during the 1930s. Thirty-six of the 50 state record highs occurred prior to 1960.

Last month, temperatures in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania peaked at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But these temperatures were far below the state record highs, which were Iowa (118^oF in 1934), Illinois (117^oF in 1954), Indiana (116^oF in 1936), Ohio (113^oF in 1934), and Pennsylvania (111^oF in 1936).

This year has also been a year of floods in the Mississippi River valley. Unfortunately, our medical professionals now parrot the idea that floods and droughts are more extreme than in past years. But NOAA has very good records over the last century for the portion of the continental US that is either very wet or very dry, using a metric called the Palmer Drought Index. The index shows no significant trend of increasing drought or flood over recent decades.

“Powerful storms” are listed by the health statement as one of the results of human-caused global warming. Hurricane Barry dropped up to 15 inches of rain on parts of Louisiana earlier this month. The storm was said to be stronger from human emissions.

But there is no evidence that storms are getting either stronger or more frequent. Nine of the 13 strongest hurricanes to make U.S. landfall in the historical record came ashore prior to 1965. Both the number of hurricanes and the number of strong hurricanes making U.S. landfall has been flat to declining since 1900.  NOAA data also shows that the number of strong tornadoes has been declining since the 1970s.

Last year’s forest fire disasters in California were blamed on human-caused global warming. Health professionals now appear to believe that wildfires are “year-round” and caused by emissions from our industry and vehicles.

But recent Congressional testimony by Dr. Judith Curry disputes this conclusion. Dr. Curry provided evidence that the U.S. area burned by fires prior 1930 was at least as large as today. She also cited a study that showed that the percent of U.S. sites reporting fires was much larger prior to 1900, before fire-suppression techniques were used.

In fact, rather than being a health crisis, much evidence shows that moderately warmer temperatures are good for people. The U.S. influenza season is approximately November through March every year, during the cold months. The influenza season in the Southern Hemisphere is during the southern winter months. More people get sick during periods of cold temperature than during hot temperatures.

Many peer-reviewed studies show that more people die during winter months than summer months. The late Dr. William Keating studied temperature-related deaths for people aged 65 to 74 in six European countries. He found that deaths related to cold temperatures were nine times greater than those related to hot temperatures. Evidence shows that if Earth warms, temperature-related deaths will likely decrease overall.

The climate alarm from health professionals defies common sense. According to data from NOAA, NASA, and the Climate Research Unit in East Anglia University in the UK, average global surface temperatures have warmed only one degree Celsius in 135 years, since 1880.

Average temperatures in Norfolk, Virginia are 5.8^oC warmer than in Chicago, Illinois. Average temperatures in Miami, Florida are more than 15^oC warmer than Chicago.  Is everyone dying from the heat in Norfolk and Miami?

And why do most U.S. senior citizens retire to Florida, Texas, and Arizona, rather than North Dakota, Maine, and Alaska? Don’t they know our medical professionals say that warm climates are dangerous?

The belief that changing light bulbs, driving electric cars, and erecting wind turbines can improve human health is as medieval as the belief that bloodletting can cure disease.

Originally published in NewsBlaze.

With the American Medical Association considering changing its’ long-standing opposition to physician-assisted suicide despite the recommendations of its’ ethics committee and the California assisted suicide law declared unconstitutional now reinstated pending appeal, assisted suicide/euthanasia groups like Compassion and Choices (the well-funded former Hemlock Society) are ramping up efforts nationwide to legalize assisted suicide.

Along with major media outlets overwhelmingly supporting their efforts and a recent Gallup poll showing  that the “Majority of Americans (73%) Remain Supportive of Euthanasia”, how do we fight against this and educate the public?

One excellent answer can be found in the recently released 80 minute film “Fatal Flaws”.

“Fatal Flaws” features filmmaker Kevin Dunn who spent three years traveling throughout Europe and North American asking the question “should we be giving doctors the right in law to end the life of others by euthanasia or assisted suicide?”

In the film, Mr. Dunn respectfully interviews people and experts on both sides of the issues and the candid testimonies are powerful and moving. I have viewed the film myself and I believe that showings of this film to senior citizen groups, pro-life groups, churches and clergy, medical professionals, etc. would go a long way in educating the public, many of whom are supportive  or unsure of where they stand.

The film was produced in association with The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. For information on purchasing the  “Fatal Flaws” film and/or the accompanying pamphlets, please go the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition “Fatal Flaws” site.

There will be a preview viewing of the film at the National Right to Life Convention June 29, 2018. Watch the trailer here:

On a personal note: I am speaking at the NRL convention myself on the Alfie Evans’ case June 30, 2018 and I would love to meet those of you attending the convention.

This article was originally published at NancyBalko.com

Written by Richard Wiley

In the waning quixotic campaign to compromise principle for the sake of convenience, the American Medical Association (AMA) has reaffirmed a 2005 study challenging the capacity of babies to feel pain at twenty weeks. Of particular significance is the fact that a former lawyer for NARAL, a former medical director for a Hospital in San Francisco that provides abortions, and a former consultant for Planned Parenthood contributed as three of the five authors to the study.

In a recent letter in answer to an inquiry filed by James Agresti, the president of Just Facts, the AMA Journal’s Editor-in-chief Howard Bauchner diplomatically explained that the study would not be retracted because, according to him, the study’s authors complied with the AMA’s conflict of interest requirements and had accumulated all of the data without falsification or fabrication.

Although the study suggests that twenty-week-old babies cannot consciously perceive pain due to a still developing cerebral cortex, several studies have demonstrated that the lack of a cerebral cortex does not ensure the lack of pain receptors.  A study in 2012 proposes that while the dispute over conscious and emotional perception of pain in twenty-week infants remains in the air, there is no shortage of evidence demonstrating that babies have a nervous system sufficiently developed to drive responses to tissue injury as early as sixteen weeks into gestation.

According to a 2013 expert testimony before the U.S. Congress by Dr. Maureen Condic, Director of Human Embryology instruction for the School of Medicine at the University of Utah, “Multiple studies show that ‘the human fetus from 18-20 weeks elaborates pituitary-adrenal, sympatho-adrenal, and circulatory stress responses to physical insults.’” In order words, the baby responds to pain in several of the ways that humans normally do.

Because recent studies demonstrate at least motor faculties at that stage in development, it is unrealistic to propose that the matter is certain. The Kennedy Institute for Ethics Journal in 2012 states, “when a doubt of fact bears on settling whether an alternative under consideration should be excluded, one should presume one will cause the harm until the fact has been settled.”

Christian Communicators of the South East, a debate league that hosts rhetoric tournaments in the Virginia/North Carolina area, trains young homeschooled high school students to research and argue with professional poise. Novice debaters are taught from the beginning to avoid noncommittal modifiers like “could,” “might,” and “may” when researching for a topic. Lines such as: “[b]ecause pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester, discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should be noncompulsory […]”(emphasis added), would be enough to declaw the study.

And yet publications by New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Live Science  refer to the study as an authoritative source proving beyond a reasonable doubt that babies cannot experience pain at 20 weeks. Such blind adherence to outdated claims only proves one thing: the pro-abortion argument is starving for support. Those in favor of abortion, a group that likely includes members of the AMA, are at their wits end in the fight against the quickly growing Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. But there’s still work to be done. Fourteen states have passed the legislation, although the legality of the law in some states has been challenged.

Richard Wiley is the 2016 Policy Intern for The Family Foundation, and law student at Liberty University School of Law.

This article was originally posted at The Family Foundation blog.