President’s Message

Dear Friends:

As part of IOF’s worldwide program to unite and empower leaders to promote the natural family, and in preparation for our upcoming work at the United Nations, we have provided the following statement to over 193 ambassadors and their missions in New York:

IOF’s World Congress of Families (WCF) is sponsoring a major pro-life, pro-family conference in Ghana, Africa on October 31^st and November 1^st, 2019. The WCF African Regional Conference promises to be the one of the largest pro-life, pro-family conferences ever held on the continent. The Regional Conference will be held in Accra, the capital of Ghana and the largest city in the country.

This World Congress of Families African Regional Conference aims to bring together all pro-life and family advocates and believers. Our core purpose is to deepen the awareness of the importance of families to national and global development. With this conference, we want to establish an active collaboration with government officials, the media, academia, religious & traditional bodies, civil societies, NGOs and interest groups to deliberate intensely on the state of the family and its place in African states’ development.

Attendees will have an opportunity to learn about current trends and gain an in-depth knowledge about the forces opposed to the natural family, and the dire consequences of what opposition to traditional families will have on peace, progress and development. They will receive critical information on pro-life laws and policies that can be pursued. They will be able to network with and learn from some of the top pro-family experts in the world. And they will have the opportunity to forge lasting relationships with other pro-life, pro-family leaders which can pay dividends for years to come.

Learn more and register for the conference…

Family First New Zealand, an IOF partner, has issued an important new report documenting New Zealand’s declining fertility rate, which has now reached an all-time low. New Zealand’s total fertility rate has dropped to an average of 1.71 children per woman in New Zealand, well below population replacement level.

“Families: Ever Fewer or No Children, How Worried Should We Be?“ looks at the reasons behind falling fertility, and discusses what might influence future trends.

Report author Lindsay Mitchell says, “In the past, government policy could positively affect the size of families. The Universal Family Benefit strongly influenced peak fertility in 1961 when women had an average of 4.3 children. But as females have become better educated and increased their work force participation, more have chosen to have fewer or no children. Economic pressures like student debt and insecure employment play a role. And now they face additional pressure from environmentalists. Meanwhile, policy interventions appear less and less effective.”

While calling the decision to have children a highly personal matter, the report raises key concerns that falling fertility means for the nation. “Without population replacement or growth, economies decline. A nation’s strength lies in its young: their energy, innovation, risk-taking and entrepreneurship. The new blood drives the exchange of ideas and experimentation. If these attributes aren’t home-grown, they have to be imported. At an individual level, single person households are the fastest growing household type in New Zealand. Increasingly people face old-age with few or no family supports. These are just some of the big picture considerations New Zealanders need to be thinking and talking about.”

Read more…

Three critical cases are pending before the US Supreme Court in which LGBT activists are seeking to redefine the term “sex” under federal law to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”  Title VII precludes discrimination on the basis of sex and several other categories. For decades, the LGBT community has sought to broaden federal law by urging Congress to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as a basis for pursuing legal claims alleging discrimination based on sex. Such claims can arise in many different contexts including employment. But Congress has consistently declined to include sexual orientation and gender identity in Title VII’s definition of sex discrimination.

Having failed to enact their agenda through the proper legislative process – by a vote of elected representatives in Congress – LGBT activists have turned to illegitimate avenues to impose their will, including the courts and administrative agencies and departments during the Obama era.

At the center of their effort to redefine anti-discrimination law is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which ruled that Title VII already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, despite Congress’ refusal to do so directly. Some courts have relied on this EEOC ruling to find that federal law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity while other courts have not found this. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the cases on October 8^th.

A number of IOF allies have filed legal briefs in these cases, including our partner organization, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). NOM’s legal brief is straight-forward and compelling, cutting to the heart of the matter:  “The basic policy determination to expand such laws to new contexts and new classifications is a power our Constitution assigns to the Congress, not to unelected and largely unaccountable bureaucrats and not even to the courts… Congress has declined to expand Title VII to include classifications based on sexual orientation or gender identity, despite numerous efforts over decades to amend the law in just the manner plaintiffs in these cases have sought to accomplish by judicial ruling. That should be the end of the matter.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom represents one of the defendants, a family funeral home, that is accused of discrimination for refusing the demand of a male employee to present himself to grieving families dressed as a woman. The man claims he has assumed a female “gender identity.”

Read more here… and here…

A pro-life doctor in South Africa is facing charges for telling a patient that a fetus is a human being. The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) are hearing a case against a doctor, Jacques de Vos, who is facing charges of unprofessional conduct and has been prohibited from practicing medicine due to his views on abortion, according to Sowetan Live.

In December 2016, the physician discussed the nature of pregnancy and abortion with a patient and during the consultation reportedly told her that a fetus was a human being. Catherine Robinson, a spokesperson for Right To Life UK said: “This case is nothing short of incredible. That a foetus is human is a well established scientific fact and to claim otherwise demonstrates a complete failure to grasp basic human biology.”

Read more…

Two separate experts in the UK have issued warnings to the public that children are being misled and harmed by those seeking to normalize transgenderism.

Dr Susan Matthews, an honorary senior researcher at Roehampton University, analyzed a series of books that are circulated in British schools and found that much of the information given about medical transition is “inaccurate”, adding that “potential harms are ignored, glossed over or falsified”.

Separately, a leading psychiatrist has warned that transgender children who undergo medical or surgical treatments risk “serious and irreversible damage.” Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, said that critical discussion about the phenomenon of transgenderism and gender dysphoria has been “shut down” by activists and accuses lobby groups of “silencing debate”.

Read more here… and here…