Voluntary enlistment in the military provides an honorable career to many individuals, both male and female. With the establishment of the Selective Service Act, obtaining replacement personnel in catastrophic warfare is possible. Traditionally the draft only included young men ages 18-25. The idea of including women in the draft is recurring, first suggested during World War II for conscripting nurses, Congress rejected the plan in 1945. President Jimmy Carter revised the idea in 1980, which again was denied by Congress. In 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that allowing women in the draft was illegal since women could not serve in combat. 

However, women started serving in combat roles in 2015, meaning the U.S. Supreme Court ruling no longer applies. Because this ruling is no longer relevant, some argue that the government can now include women in the Selective Service Act. On July 21st, the U.S. Armed Services Committee passed the U.S. Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which requires women between 18-25 to register with the Selective Service. If the NDAA bill passes and becomes law, and the draft is one day reinstated, young women would be eligible for the draft.

Women have served voluntarily for decades in non-combat roles. These women deserve respect and honor for the sacrifices made. Mandatory conscription of women, however, is neither honorable nor advisable. The idea of including women in a draft is, at best, an untried and risky experiment. 

Women who would be drafted would be forced into an environment fraught with sexual violence. According to the Department of Defense (DoD) in the 2018 Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, a 50 percent increase in women reporting sexual assault between 2016-2018 occurred. The report’s authors also state that only one-third of assaults are disclosed, meaning the rate of assault may be significantly higher. The odds of a woman in the military being sexually assaulted compared to her civilian counterpart are astonishing. The odds of sexual assault for a civilian woman is 1 in 17. Yet, it increases to a 1 in 11 chance for women in the military. 

Perhaps most concerning is the possibility of injury. By 2018 over 1,000 female US soldiers were injured in combat. Physical injury, however, is not the only concern. Another concern is mental health. Among all the female soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, 40 percent developed mental health conditions. Of those women diagnosed with a mental health illness, 20 percent were explicitly diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Since mandatory conscription is solely for personnel replacement, the assignment of women draftees to combat is likely. Therefore, the probability of women draftees suffering physical or psychological harm is considerable. 

The next question is, where would draftees be sent? The enemy in a future conflict is unknown, but the U.S. has several adversaries that are likely candidates, including Muslim extremists who already oppress their own women. Women combatants are at significant risk of horrific treatment if captured by terrorists. Are we willing to send female draftees into a setting where torture occurs at the hands of radicals? 

What would a draft mean for women who prefer more traditional roles? Although some women thrive in the environment created by the rigors of the military, many women do not desire service in non-traditional roles. There are still many women who prefer the marriage and motherhood. Some women prefer a career that does not include the physical demands of war. Would women be forced to leave their children? How would expectant mothers be treated? Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy issued its first maternity flight suit. 

Women volunteered in the past on their own accord, and they deserve respect for the roles they have filled. A strong military will indeed include women, but their service should remain voluntary. We should avoid any steps that may lead to the social experiment of compulsory service. 

If the mandatory registration of young women with the Selective Service concerns you, please contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and ask them to vote no on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth and your local U.S. Representative to urge them to reject this foolish version of the NDAA which would require women to register for the Selective Service. In this age of “social justice,” the radical left would have us ignore the biological, physiological and emotional differences between men and women. We cannot remain silent as federal lawmakers consider a legislative mandate that will likely lead to wives, daughters and sisters one day being drafted.

“I’ll go ahead and make an argument that I think is based in scripture, based in general revelation and based
in a review of human history. One of the achievements of civilization is that, under normal circumstances,
wives and daughters are not sent into war as are husbands and sons.”
~Dr. Al Mohler (8/11/2021 Briefing)

Between now and Labor Day, you can double the impact of your tax deductible donations to IFI!

A group of donors are working with us to offer a $40,000 dollar-for-dollar matching challenge
to help us raise $80,000 for “Rescuing the Children” initiative here in Illinois!

On July 29th, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced new COVID-19 restrictions on youth sports statewide for the upcoming school year. Starting August 15, only “low-risk” sports like tennis, baseball, cross country, swimming and golf will be allowed, but “medium” and “high” risk sports, including football, wrestling, soccer and competitive cheering will not be allowed. The governor’s office released a list of sports ranked in terms of their risk for COVID-19 transmittal.

During his coronavirus update last Wednesday, Gov. Pritzker explained,

This isn’t news that anyone wants to hear. But this virus remains dangerous to kids and parents and grandparents, teachers and coaches and for right now. This is the best thing that we can do for the health and safety of our families under the current circumstances, based upon their inherent risk level and based upon minimal contact between athletes and their proximity during play.

This announcement comes two weeks after the CDC’s Dr. Robert Redfield pointed out an alarming trend: suicides and drug overdoses have surpassed the death rate for COVID-19 among high school students. Regarding the never ending COVID-19 lock-down, he said,

[T]here has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose … than we are seeing the deaths from COVID. So … for the overall social being of individuals … let’s all work together and find out how we can find common ground to get these schools open in a way that people are comfortable and they’re safe.

Dr. Redfield is right to be concerned about the overall social well-being of students, many of whom need a healthy outlet for both their physical and mental health. Shutting down certain youth recreational sports is an overreaction, especially when all the experts say that young people are less likely to contract the virus, are less likely to spread it to others, and are less likely to have severe symptoms if they do contract COVID-19.

These restrictions include school-based sports, private leagues and clubs, recreational leagues, and park district sports programs. Interestingly, this guidance does not pertain to professional sports leagues or collegiate sports, even though the data indicates that individuals over 20 years of age are twice as likely to be susceptible to a COVID-19 infection. Once again, Gov. Pritzker’s excessive restrictions are inconsistently applied.

In June, the BBC reported that a large group of child psychologists and specialists in the United Kingdom published an open letter to their education secretary urging him to reconsider the situation “and to release children and young people from lockdown.” Their appeal continued:

Allow them to play together and continue their education by returning to preschool, school, college and university, and enjoy extra-curricular activities including sport and music as normally, and as soon, as possible.

Evidently, they understand that the political “cure” may prove to be worse than the COVID-19 curse–disproportionally affecting our state’s youth.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Pritzker to encourage him to consider the mental health aspects of his COVID-19 restrictions. Urge him to let youth sports go forward and to let parents/coaches decide what protective measures they should take.

Please consider supporting the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.

As always, your gift to IFI is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Here are just two of the countless unbearable stories of sorrow and regret that the mainstream press doesn’t want to tell. Here are just two of the many nightmarish stories that “gender therapists,” cosmetic surgeons, urologists, endocrinologists, pharmaceutical companies, and vocal coaches who profit from the confusion of children don’t want you to hear. Here are the accounts of bone-deep anguish from young people who feel betrayed by adults who facilitated the chemical and surgical ravaging of their once whole and healthy bodies:

I’m 16 and my body is ruined. I destroyed every piece of me that made me a female, or at least, the parts that made me look and feel like one. I was on testosterone for a year and a half so my voice is fucked, my boobs are gone, I’m very hairy. … Just don’t really see the point in living if it’s gonna be like this. I can’t believe that everyone in my life failed me so hard. How are we letting insecure 14 year old girls make the decision to mutilate and ruin their bodies. I’m angry. I’m angry at this sick agenda. I’m angry at the sick people who think you have any other choice but to accept what you were given at birth. I’m angry that these sick people are pushing their sick agendas on sick, insecure, damaged, naive, gullible, children. Children don’t know what they want. Neither do the rest of these “trans” people. I’m sorry but you can’t change who you are. All it will do is send you into madness. Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn that lesson the hard way. I don’t “feel” like a girl or a boy. I just am. I’m just me. I wish someone could’ve told me that I was beautiful just the way I was. I was so beautiful. Now I am ruined. I was a singer. I had a delicate, soft voice. Now it’s harsh, like a teenage boy’s. All of these regrets, all of these memories, the pictures on my phone that I can’t stop staring at, staying up all night crying, listening to recordings of my old voice, realizing how if someone had just paid attention to me, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation. I’m furious, and there’s nothing I can do except warn other young girls not to make the same mistake that I did. But I wouldn’t have listened either. I wanted that escape. I wanted to be a man so bad. Being a girl brought me nothing but tragedy. I was beaten and molested as a child. I felt weak. I wanted to be strong. I didn’t want to be another object for men to use. I wanted to be seen as a person. Well, now I’m a freak.

---

Two years ago, I was a healthy, beautiful girl heading toward high school graduation. But after taking testosterone for a year, I turned into an overweight, pre-diabetic nightmare of a transgender man. …

I’m one of many young women that have been failed by the medical system. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a mental-health condition. I was treated with mega-doses of powerful testosterone that ravaged my body, caused me to gain 50 pounds, and put me at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and teenage menopause.

I’m not putting all the blame on the mental health people or the doctors. These are regretful choices I made as a teenager. But I trusted the doctor’s advice. They were the experts, who was I not to listen to them?

But telling an 18-year-old girl that mega-doses of testosterone would fix her mental health problems? They didn’t even talk to me about other treatment options! No doctor or therapist suggested I give myself time to grow up, or wait and see what happens with counseling sessions – no doctor or therapist told most young people outgrow their feelings of wanting to be the opposite sex.

The only advice I got was to take mega-doses of testosterone.

I did this to myself for almost a year. Meanwhile, my mom was crying daily about why I was doing this to myself, all the while blaming herself.

Finally, one day, my grandfather sat me down to talk about it. With tears in his eyes, he asked me to stop.

That was a saving grace. I would have let this treatment kill me before admitting I’d screwed up. His intervention saved my life.

Today, I continue to deal with the permanent side effects of messing up my body.

I’m not a political person. I’m just a young person that needed help from doctors, and unfortunately got caught up in this medical scandal.

More and more young people are being deceived every day, being told that the solution to their insecurity and identity problems is to get a sex change. The problem is, a person’s sex can’t really be changed. You can take hormones and have cosmetic surgeries, but that doesn’t really change your sex, or solve your problems. I wish I knew that when I was younger.

These young people who have stopped identifying as the sex they are not are called “detransitioners,” and there are many of them. With broken families, abuse, trauma, absence of faith, and inculcation with perverse ideologies on sexuality and “identity,” the world is creating deep wounds in children, providing distorted lenses through which these wounded children misinterpret their experiences, and offering wicked solutions for which wounded children in desperation grasp.

As the number of “trans”-identifying children and teens explodes—particularly among adolescent girls, we will hear more and more of these stories. Already there are thousands of young adults detransitioning and telling their stories. How many more do you need to hear before you speak up? Are you going to be one of those countless adults who stand silently by as children’s bodies are mutilated because you’re too cowardly to stand against the forces of ignorance and evil? Are you going to just go about your daily business, risking nothing even as 13-year-old girls have their healthy breasts amputated? Does your silence bring glory to God? Do you not love these children as yourself?

Will you protest drag queen story events for preschoolers when your local library hosts one?

Will you tell your children’s teachers that under no circumstance are your children to be exposed to any classroom discussions, activities, presentations, or resources that address cross-sex identification (or homosexuality)?

Will you tell your government school administration that your children may not share locker rooms or restrooms with opposite-sex students?

Will you ask your pediatrician for his or her view of chemical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors and change doctors if he or she affirms such destructive nonsense?

If you live in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, or Texas where bills have been proposed or will soon be proposed banning chemical and surgical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, will you vigorously and publicly support those critical bills? Will you ask your lawmakers to sign on as co-sponsors of those bills?

If you live in Illinois, where the first such bill in the nation was introduced almost a year ago by one of Illinois’ finest lawmakers, State Representative Tom Morrison, will you vigorously and publicly support both his bill and him? Will you contact your state representative and ask him or her to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill?

If your really care about children, you will do all of the above.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/trans-nightmares_mixdown.mp3

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

[Last] month Governor Butch Otter signed a law making Idaho the fifth state to mandate that women getting a medical (drug-induced) abortion be told that the abortion may possibly be stopped after the first dose if the woman changes her mind about having the abortion. This abortion reversal process  involves taking the hormone progesterone to counteract the first abortion drug mifepristone and before taking the second drug misoprostol 36-72 hours later that causes expulsion of the unborn baby. There is now a website at www.abortionpillreversal.com for information on abortion reversal that includes a hotline phone number at 1-877-558-0333.

The first abortion reversal  was performed by Dr. Matthew Harrison in 2007 and by 2015, he claimed that more than 213 babies had been saved. Although not always successful, abortion reversal has resulted in hundreds more babies alive today. Last December, the California Board of Registered Nursing finally notified Heartbeat International that it can now grant continuing education units (CEUs) to nurses who study the life-saving process known as Abortion Pill Reversal.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups are not pleased.

As I wrote in my February 16, 2017 blog “Are Mail Order Abortions Coming?” , medical abortions rates now rival surgical abortion rates while abortion clinics are closing at a record pace because of factors like “economic difficulties”, “a generally hostile atmosphere and declining demand”. Thus, the medical abortion procedure has become more appealing to groups like Planned Parenthood and now there are even efforts to provide more medical abortions by telemedicine even though a 2014 study found more complications with medical abortions than surgical ones.

THE PROMOTION AND CHANGING CRITERIA FOR MEDICAL ABORTION

In a disturbing March 27, 2018 Medscape article “Medical Abortion in Very Early Pregnancy” (password protected),  Peter Kovacs, MD, PhD touts a study that allegedly shows medical abortion is now safe even “as soon as early pregnancy is diagnosed” and even before an ultrasound can show if the unborn baby is developing outside the womb. This abnormality is called an ectopic pregnancy and, if not detected early, can result in life-threatening complications and surgery.  Ectopic pregnancy occurs in 1-2% of  all pregnancies.

But as even Dr. Kovacs admits:

“Under well-controlled conditions using sedation and appropriate pain control, surgical termination of pregnancy is associated with minimal bleeding or pain. However, it can be associated with surgical complications (trauma, heavier bleeding, infection), which can lead to further interventions.

Medical abortion can be more painful because the products of conception have to be expelled from the uterus, and it is accompanied by prolonged bleeding. Still, medical abortion obviates surgical complications and is significantly cheaper.” (Emphasis added)

He recommends  “(A)propriate patient selection (no increased risk for or symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, appropriate follow-up to confirm successful abortion, patient compliance)” as obviously important. (Emphasis added)

CONCLUSION

Planned Parenthood tells women that having a medical abortion (at home, of course) is just “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period” with large clots and that “(a)ny chills, fevers, or nausea you have should go away pretty quickly”.

And that:

“People can have a range of emotions after having an abortion. Most people feel relief, but sometimes people feel sad or regretful. This is totally normal. If your mood keeps you from doing the things you usually do each day, call your doctor or nurse for help” along with numbers to call for “free, confidential, and non-judgmental emotional support after an abortion.” (Emphasis added)

But two things Planned Parenthood does not tell women about is medical abortion reversal and the availability of real assistance with a problematic pregnancy including crisis pregnancy centers that now outnumber abortion clinics in the US.

Women need-and have a right-to know about both these alternatives.  It’s up to all of us to make sure as many women as possible know this.

Read more:

Study finds reversal of mifepristone safe, effective

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com