Tag Archive for: states

NY Abortionists Kill Girls as Young as 13, but Democratic Gov Cracks Down on Pro-Life Centers

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As the state’s leaders crack down on pro-life pregnancy resource centers, New York Democrats fund abortionists who have killed dozens of women. At least 38 women and girls, as young as 13, have lost their lives during “safe and legal” abortions carried out by the state’s private abortionists, according to a private research report furnished to The Washington Stand.

Yet that greatly undercounts the number of total abortion deaths in the state, because these numbers do not include the harms caused by the nation’s largest abortion franchise, Planned Parenthood. Then-New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph noted in a June 1987 memo, “During the period between 1981 and 1984, there were 30 legal abortion-related deaths in New York City.”

“Abortion is the original quackery. Abortion is a mercenary industry preying on women in crisis for profit and power,” Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, a New York-based coalition of pregnancy resource centers, told The Washington Stand. “I have said for years that the abortion industry represents serial medical malpractice.”

Despite these gruesome results, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and other Democrats have supported abortion businesses while trying to bring the full force of the law to bear against pregnancy resource centers. Last May, Hochul gave abortionists $35 million in taxpayer funding in the name of advancing “human rights.” Abortion activists firebombed Harden’s pro-life medical network last June 7; six days later, Hochul signed a bill authorizing the state health commissioner to investigate so-called “limited service pregnancy centers,” which do not take part in abortions.

At the national level, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has introduced the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation” (SAD) Act to essentially fine pro-life women’s centers out of existence, asserting pro-life centers “wish [pregnant women] harm.” And abortion advocates have called efforts to hold abortionists accountable for killing mothers a “modern-day lynching.”

“Far from just turning a blind eye, pro-abortion politicians like New York Governor Hochul insist upon promoting, paying for, and protecting abortionists from criminal liability through taxpayer funds and legislation,” Harden told TWS. “Meanwhile, they generate a propaganda smokescreen for their pet industry by vilifying their only competition: peaceful, pro-life pregnancy centers.”

Killing Mothers with their Babies

New York state became an abortion pioneer three years before Roe v. Wade, when Governor Nelson Rockefeller — a three-time Republican presidential hopeful who likely died while committing adultery — signed the most lax abortion law in the nation on April 11, 1970. The state’s history of killing women began a year later, when 25-year-old Margaret Louise Smith, who traveled to the state from Michigan, bled to death on June 16, 1971. Abortionist Jesse Ketchum was convicted of negligent homicide two years later. Thus began the abortion industry’s long history of mingling the blood of mothers with their children.

At least 38 women, as young as 13 and as old as 40, have died at the hands of abortionists, according to the research report, and hundreds of documents attesting its veracity, reviewed by this author. Women died when abortionists left aborted babies’ body parts inside the woman, perforated the mother’s uterus, failed to monitor vital signs, overdosed the patient on anesthesia, or oversaw a deficient abortion procedure that sent a woman into a death-inducing coma. One 31-year-old woman died from the side effects of the early abortion pill, prostaglandin, in 1984.

The mothers killed by New York abortionists hailed from Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras, Ghana, and multiple states.

Teenagers, including those well below the state’s age of consent, have died during abortions. Dawn Ravenall, the 13-year-old daughter of two black Pentecostal preachers and an honors student, died in February 1985 when abortionist Allen Kline left her unattended in New York City’s Eastern Women’s Center after the child suffered a massive heart attack.

Sometimes, deaths come amid a series of other abuses. State health officials took no action against abortionist Abu Hayat after he perforated the uterus of 17-year-old Sophie McCoy of Brooklyn during an abortion on September 18, 1990. One year later, a baby named Ana Rodriguez was born alive, but with one arm, following a botched, third-trimester abortion at Hayat’s hands. “After Hayat’s arrest, 15 women contacted the New York County district attorney in Manhattan, and another 19 contacted the New York Police Department to register complaints that Hayat sexually abused them, botched their abortions, or mistreated them in some other way,” the report states. Hayat lost his license in 1992 — two years too late for McCoy or Rodriguez.

At other times, it is the abortionist’s indifference to life and lack of familiarity with life-saving medicine that snuffed out women’s lives too early. An abortionist named Elyas Bonrouhi, who changed his name to David Benjamin, killed a 33-year-old immigrant from Honduras and mother of four, Guadalupe Negrón, during an abortion at the Metro Women’s Center in Queens on July 9, 1993. Bonrouhi left her to bleed after he lacerated her uterus and cervix during a procedure The New York Times described as a “complicated late-term abortion” at 19 weeks. One of the paramedics said the abortionist or personnel at the facility — which one juror described as “disgusting” and “very unsanitary” — stuffed a breathing tube down the deceased mother’s esophagus instead of her trachea, causing her oxygen mask to fill up with the contents of her stomach, which she then inhaled.

“The cause of death, determined by the medical examiner, was the same as that commonly associated with back-alley butchers in the days of illegal abortion: a perforated cervix,” noted Amy Pagnozzi in the New York Daily News. State officials said the abortionist showed “depraved indifference to human life,” of the mother. Jurors agreed after just two hours’ deliberation.

The death-dealing procedure would never have taken place without the leniency of New York state officials. “New York State Department of Health officials had revoked Benjamin’s/Bonrouhi’s license in June 1993 for ‘gross incompetence and negligence’ for perforating five other women’s uteruses,” states the report. Yet officials allowed the abortionist, who had a history of shoddy work dating back to 1980, to continue working while he contested the ruling. It was their second act of grace. In 1986, “State Department of Health officials ordered an emergency revocation of his license, but Board of Regents officials overruled them and instead merely suspended his license for three months,” the report notes.

Abandoning patients becomes a recurring theme in the report. A 26-year-old immigrant from Ghana died after being foresaken by an abortionist who first practiced in the former Soviet city of Leningrad. Eurice Agbagaa passed away in January 1989, eight days after abortionist Abram Zelikman perforated her uterus, told an unlicensed employee to administer anesthesia, then left.

Similarly, Jamie Lee Morales bled to death on July 9, 2016 — 23 years to the day Negrón died — hours after abortionist Robert Rho carried out an abortion. During the late-term procedure — Morales was 24-26 weeks pregnant, possibly past the 24 weeks then allowed under state law — Rho lacerated one of her uterine arteries. When her sister arrived at his Liberty Women’s Health Care, in Flushing, Queens, Rho merely released Morales to her sister, who later took her to a hospital. Rho would plead guilty to negligent homicide two years later.

The abortionist’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, called the case a “modern-day lynching.”

Harden says lynching better describes the treatment New York state is inflicting on life-saving pro-life women’s centers. “Never once has a pregnancy center sent a woman to the morgue,” Harden told TWS. “Compare that to the abortion industry in New York.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

With New Wave of Legislation, States Aim to Reintroduce Biblical Values to Schools

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As concerns over rising crime and the mental health of minors continue to climb, a new wave of legislation aimed at reintroducing America’s youth to biblical values in school is surging.

In Texas, bills have been introduced that would require that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms and for schools to be free to hire or accept volunteer chaplains to perform services including mental health support, suicide prevention, and other services.

In Kentucky, a measure was advanced in the state House that would protect the “private religious expression” of teachers. Specific actions protected for school employees under the bill include engaging in religious discussion, sharing religious material with other employees, forming prayer groups with other employees, sponsoring a student religious club, wearing religious clothing or jewelry, and decorating their desks and personal spaces with religious items.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law a bill that allows schools to say a prayer over the public address system before athletic events.

In Louisiana, a bill that would offer public school students in grades 9-12 a voluntary course on the Bible is currently before the state legislature. The bill’s sponsor, State Representative Valarie Hodges (R), joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Monday to discuss the legislation and the increasing openness of her fellow lawmakers to share their faith.

“[T]here were very few people who would openly profess their faith [in years past],” she noted. “Now I would say the majority of people in this legislature are not ashamed to say they’re Christians. They’re not ashamed to stand up for their faith. And it’s past time. It’s way past time that we do that. When prayer was removed out of schools and the Bible was removed, I think people are seeing the end result of that, that it’s not good.”

Hodges went on to emphasize why a course on the Bible is important for today’s public school students.

“The Bible is the most published book in the world, and it contains 6,000 years of history,” she explained. “My bill … authorizes teaching the Bible as literature and history. And what better book could we get our history from? It’s got the most history [of any book] in the world. … [O]ur laws that we have in the United States, our culture, art, so much is encapsulated in the Bible. … My bill [is a] first step [so] we can get the Bible into the hands of students to actually understand what [it] is about.”

Hodges further highlighted how a large swath of America’s youth have little knowledge of the Bible’s historical importance in America’s founding.

“Even our Declaration of Independence [in] the preamble is talking about a creator and acknowledges the creator. … I heard a statistic [that] 90% of teenagers have never read the Bible in this new generation that we have. And so they don’t have a reference point of, ‘What creator are we talking about?’ Our Founding Fathers were referencing the Bible.”

The Louisiana lawmaker additionally contended that a removal of biblical principles from public schools has led to an increase in societal lawlessness.

“When you look at the statistics on crime before the 1960s, it was nothing like it is now,” Hodges argued. “I think there’s a plausible explanation that can be found. … Where do we get our morality from? We get our morality from the Bible. … I was talking to a group last night. We were talking about the murder rates, the crime rates, homelessness, and all this that we’re seeing. Well, we used to teach that stealing is a sin. And we’re not right now. … [If you say] that things are ‘immoral’ — you get laughed at if you use that word anymore. But I think it’s becoming apparent that there is a crisis of morality in our nation. And we’ve got to restore that.”

Hodges expressed hope that her legislation will serve as a model in order to help clear up misconceptions about the idea of the separation of church and state.

“I really hope to see schools adopting this and teachers teaching this because there’s been a lot of confusion in the schools that I’ve [visited when] talking to teachers. … So that was one of the impetuses for me — filing the bill is to clear up any confusion. The Supreme Court ruled that schools can teach the Bible in public schools and private schools. I’m hoping this bill … will clear up any confusion and encourage schools to adopt this course and teachers to teach it.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Democrat Asks Biden to Send Illegal Immigrants to Every Town in America

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Republicans and one of the nation’s most prominent Democrats agree on one issue: America’s open border with Mexico has created a humanitarian crisis that has stretched multiple cities’ resources to the breaking point. Yet while Republicans focus on increased border security, at least one Democrat wants the Biden administration to adopt a comprehensive plan to settle illegal immigrants in every city, town, and village in the United States.

Historically unprecedented levels of illegal immigration since Joe Biden took office have created a humanitarian crisis for the most vulnerable people. Administration officials admitted last month that they had lost track of 85,000 children, roughly one of every three children who entered the U.S. illegally. “It horrifies me to think of the conditions that they possibly have been thrust into, sold into and have been distributed” into sex slavery, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), a member of the House Border Security Caucus, told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Monday.

“That is not humane. That is not compassionate.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has said the uncontrolled border has drained the Big Apple’s finances to the core. Adams anticipates the sanctuary city will spend $1.4 billion on illegal immigrants this fiscal year. When asked, Adams expressed no gratitude for $30 million in federal funding provided by the Biden administration. “When you look at the price tag, $30 million comes nowhere near what the city is paying for a national problem,” Adams told “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

The city’s shelters and hotels became so overfilled that Adams began placing illegal immigrants in seven NYC public school gyms — while students were in the classrooms.

It is “unfair to the city of New York and [other] cities to carry the burden of a national problem,” Adams said — leaving critics to charge him with hypocrisy.

“For the past two years, Texas has been Ground Zero for the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration unleashed by the Biden administration that has strained resources in border communities to the breaking point,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “Even with the efforts of Gov. Greg Abbott to move migrants away from the border, Texas is getting slammed to the tune of $13.4 billion for costs associated with illegal immigration.” Florida, led by Governor Ron DeSantis (R), pays more than $8 billion annually on programs for illegal immigrants or their children, according to a recent FAIR report that calculated the cost imposed on states.

Americans nationwide bear an ever-mounting cost for the uncontrolled border. “It’s costing [U.S.] taxpayers $150 billion a year,” said Rosendale. “Now, the cities that are starting to have this same economic impact pushed upon them are starting to recognize, yes, there is a problem.”

Adams has called on Biden to make the problem the nation’s problem by evenly distributing illegal immigrants nationwide.

“We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns. If everyone takes a small portion of that, and if it’s coordinated at the border to ensure that those who are coming here to this country in a lawful manner is actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city,” said Adams.

The mayor has tried to implement the process by sending illegal immigrants who arrive in his city to other locations statewide, and even to Canada. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has been “a real partner” in helping Adams “find space throughout the state,” he said. “We believe the entire state should participate in a decompression strategy.”

Others were less pleased. Canadian MP Christine Fréchette learned of Adams’ “surprising” decision to bus illegal immigrants to the Canadian border in February. A month later, President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hammered out an agreement for Canada to allow 15,000 asylum-seekers to enter from the United States.

Aside from the economist cost, “the people of my city, are watching this city being transformed … the same people I protected for 22 years as a police officer,” Adams said. Illegal immigration has transformed North America, with Canada admitting three migrants for every birth and the U.S. adding three migrants for every four native American births in 2022.

All parties agree the size and scope of illegal border crossings is without parallel in U.S. history. There have been 5,429,144 illegal border encounters since February 2021, the first full month of the Biden-Harris administration, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). That number does not include nearly one million (989,155) gotaways, who successfully eluded Border Patrol, according to an inspector general report on how “Intensifying Conditions at the Southwest Border Are Negatively Impacting CBP and ICE Employees’ Health and Morale.” The number of total encounters at the southern border has increased 245% and gotaways increased 303% since the fiscal year 2019, the IG report found.

Altogether, border encounters and gotaways under the Biden-Harris administration totaled 6,418,299 — more than the population of the state of Missouri. Adams may have a population deficit to make up; nearly half-a-million people (468,200) moved out of New York City between April 2020 and last July — 5.3% of the city’s total population, according to U.S. Census data released last Thursday.

Adams blamed the crisis on the GOP, alleging that “Republicans have blocked comprehensive immigration reform,” by which he meant partial or full amnesty granting U.S. citizenship. Yet previous spikes in illegal immigration in 1986 and 2000 coincided with fulfilled or anticipated amnesty plans.

New York City has long touted its status as a sanctuary city. Mayor Ed Koch (D), whom The New York Times revealed as a “closeted gay man,” established New York City as a sanctuary city through Executive Order 124 on August 7, 1989. Subsequent mayors Michael Bloomberg (a Republican-turned-independent) and Bill DeBlasio (D) liberalized the categories of illegal immigrants whom the city would not turn over to the federal government for deportation.

Adams personally greeted a busload of illegal immigrants sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) last August. Adams proposed sending illegal immigrants to community college at taxpayer expense — in Sullivan County, more than 100 miles north — and he supported a city council measure allowing illegal immigrants to vote in citywide elections. The voting law was struck down by the New York Supreme Court of Richmond County last June.

Citizens in other parts of New York state have indicated they want nothing to do with Adams’ plan to relocate his illegal population. Suffolk County hired a lawyer to prevent Adams from sending illegal immigrants to their area.

Adams also reversed himself on gyms after parents expressed concerns about their children roaming the halls with unvetted adults.

But parents and communities will not receive relief until the president gets serious about border security, said Rosendale.

“We know what to do,” he said. Washington must start “completing the border wall security system — the sensing devices, the cameras, the lighting, the road that would parallel the wall. That would be a huge, huge help.”

D.C. must also reform the oft-abused asylum process, he said. “We know that by implementing the stricter standards on asylum and making sure that people really do have a threat to their lives,” rather than merely coming as economic migrants. “That’s why they’re fleeing, and they’re only coming across one border in order to gain that asylum status.”

They must also reinstate President Donald Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policies. “While they had to wait in Mexico,” 75% of alleged asylum-seekers “went back to their country of origin,” casting serious doubt on their stories that they feared for their lives.

These policies can again “slow down the flow of people that are fleeing, trying to get into our country dramatically.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: ANYWHERE BUT HERE: Adams Says No More Migrants in NYC, Says Spread Them All Over Country

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Florida Law Defunds DEI in Higher Ed

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed three bills to excise woke ideology from state higher education institutions and promote productive education goals.

SB 266 will “prohibit institutions from spending federal or state dollars on discriminatory initiatives, such as so called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)’ programs,” the governor’s office summarized in a press release. HB 931 will “prohibit Florida’s public institutions from requiring students, faculty, or staff to take political loyalty tests,” and SB 240 will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”

The first of these laws doubles down on Florida Republicans’ efforts last year to crack down on woke ideology in institutions of higher education. SB 266 forbids “a Florida College System institution” to “expend any state or federal funds” on “any programs or campus activities that: (a) Violate s. 1000.05; or (b) Advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI], or promote or engage in political or social activism.”

The first prohibited category (violations of s. 1000.05) refers to a section of Florida law dealing with discrimination in K-20 public education, which the Individual Freedom Act (a.k.a. Stop Woke Act) modified last year. The Stop Woke Act added paragraphs stating that “it shall constitute discrimination … to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe any of the following concepts.” The list that followed included foundational tenets of critical race theory (CRT) and other leftist ideologies, such as “A person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.”

In October, a federal judge in the Northern District of Florida temporarily blocked Florida officials from enforcing this section of the law, on the grounds that it ran afoul of First Amendment Freedom of Speech.

Following this legal setback, Florida Republicans devised a different approach to achieve their original objective — eliminating woke programming on academic campuses. It began with Governor DeSantis ordering all state universities and colleges “to provide a comprehensive list of all staff, programs, and campus activities” related to DEI or CRT. Within days, the same parties who had challenged the Stop Woke Act complained that Florida was violating the judge’s preliminary injunction against portions of the Stop Woke Act. However, the judge denied the motion on the grounds that the injunction had not been violated.

Perhaps in an effort to avoid another free speech challenge, SB 266 does provide an exception from its DEI funding ban for “student fees to support student-led organizations” and “use of institution facilities by student-led organizations.”

SB 266 also enacted other DeSantis objectives for higher education. It directed the Board of Governors to review the mission and curriculum of each university, gave university presidents (as opposed to less accountable academic departments) final authority over hiring full-time faculty, and prohibited left-wing loyalty pledges as a condition of employment. These changes are among those DeSantis set forth in his January 31 education agenda “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.”

In addition to SB 266, DeSantis also signed HB 931, which states that “a public institution of higher education may not … Require or solicit a person to complete a political loyalty test as a condition of employment or admission into, or promotion within, such institution.” It also bars universities and colleges from giving “preferential consideration” for employment, admission, or promotion based on “an opinion or actions in support of: a. A partisan, a political, or an ideological set of beliefs; or b. Another person or group of persons based on the person’s or group’s race or ethnicity or support of an ideology or movement … that promotes the differential treatment of a person or a group of persons based on race or ethnicity.” This prohibition encompasses university diversity statements (not academic diversity but identity diversity), which require university staff to affirm a DEI agenda as a condition of employment.

While DeSantis’ educational initiatives make headlines for countering woke ideology, they reflect a fundamentally positive vision, not one that is negative or contrarian. Rather, the goal is to remove politics from education, thus “empowering students, parents, and educators to focus on creating opportunities for our younger generations,” said DeSantis. This mission, to prepare young people to be productive members of society, is reflected in the third bill DeSantis signed, SB 240, which will “expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.”

Unsurprisingly, left-wing activists like the ACLU of Florida dislike Florida’s higher education reforms, which demolish the barriers protecting left-wing academic hegemony. But every significant reform will face opposition. Ray Rodrigues, Chancellor of the State University System of Florida, said the legislature and DeSantis were “re-orienting our distinguished universities to missions that treat people as individuals, that reward merit and achievement, and center on recruiting excellent faculty while creating the talent pipeline necessary to fuel Florida’s future.” Making the right enemies is worth it, for the right reasons.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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How equality law grooms children for harm

RELATED VIDEO: Dr. Taylor Marshall: The LGBT Crowd is Not Oppressed- They’ve Conquered Nearly All of Society

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

St. Louis Transgender Clinic Under Investigation for Using Experimental Drugs on Kids, Medicaid Fraud

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A pediatric gender clinic is under criminal investigation after a whistleblower charged the center with potentially defrauding Medicaid and private insurance to prescribe transgender hormones to children as young as 11. The sworn affidavit states the St. Louis facility administered cross-sex hormones to mentally ill children, sometimes against their parents’ wishes, and ignored children’s worsening physical and mental health conditions — including at least one suicidal teenager.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) announced Thursday night that his office and two other agencies had opened an investigation into The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “We have received disturbing allegations that individuals at the Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital have been harming hundreds of children each year, including by using experimental drugs on them,” said Bailey, citing an affidavit from a former employee, who switched to another area of the hospital after becoming convinced the center is permanently hurting the people it swears to help.

The whistleblower, Jamie Reed, describes herself as “a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders.” She says she is married to a woman who identifies as a male and affirms, “I support trans rights.” Reed details in her affidavit and in an article at Bari Weiss’ website, The Free Press, that she began working as an idealistic case manager at the center in 2018. By the time she left last November, she left convinced the center’s actions are “morally and medically appalling” — and is likely a systemic problem in the nation’s 100 pediatric gender clinics. “By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm,’” she wrote.

“I was struck by the lack of formal protocols for treatment,” said Reed. Yet she kept her concerns private for months, because “anyone who raised doubts ran the risk of being called a transphobe.”

Reed states the center provides outside psychiatrists with a “template” form letter attesting that a child identifies as transgender. If the analyst will not sign it, the center uses in-house psychiatrists, Dr. Dr. Alex Maixner and Dr. Sarah Girresch-Ward, to confirm a child’s “gender dysphoria” after a one-to-two-hour consultation, rather than a full 10-12 hour assessment. They then begin children on a pipeline that results in lifelong hormones and potentially permanently disfiguring surgery before the age of 18.

She exposed potential perjury, as surgeons at the center testified before the Missouri legislature that transgender surgeries for minors are not “on the table” at their center. “This was a lie,” said Reed in the affidavit. She said the center claimed it provided minors with referrals to surgeons who are willing to remove teenagers’ healthy breasts and genitals “for educational purposes,” but they “were in fact referrals.” And Dr. Allison Snyder-Warwick performed at least one gender transition surgery in the hospital, apparently contradicting the doctors’ testimony.

Doctors at the center prescribed teenagers the prostate cancer medication Bicalutamide, which she says caused liver toxicity in a 15-year-old boy. (His mother agreed not to sue the center but warned her son’s condition “could be a huge PR problem.”) She related horrifying tales of physical and mental harm, including a graphic description of intense vaginal bleeding caused by the side effects of “gender-affirming care.”

Reed paints the picture of a center ignoring the real needs of its patients, and the real harms inflicted by the transgender regimen, in order to maximize its profits.

“[N]early all children who came to the Center here presented with very serious mental health problems,” including autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma histories, OCD, and serious eating disorders, she said. Some erroneously identified as suffering from other psychosomatic maladies, such as Tourette Syndrome or blindness. “Privately,” the doctors recognized their other psychosomatic illnesses reflected “social contagion” … but not their gender dysphoria, even when groups came from the same high school. Others used pronouns identifying as a “mushroom” or a “rock”; one patient told employees she identified as a “communist, attack helicopter, human, female, maybe non-binary.” Despite these serious issues, the center “would not treat these mental health issues. Instead, children were automatically given puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.”

The center also ignored indications of parental coercion of physical abuse, Reed said. In one case, a parent was “forcing” a boy to dress as a female, but the center administered cross-sex hormones, as well. In another, a 17-year-old boy brought to the center by an unrelated male and given hormones upon turning 18. His mental health deteriorated, yet staffers continued administering hormones — even after it turned out the man who brought him to the facility “had been sexually and physically abusing” him.

The experimental nature of many of these drugs set children up for a lifetime of infertility, early menopause, bone thinning, and — contrary to their advertisements — worsened mental health. “I witnessed the Center cause permanent harm to many of the patients,” said Reed. “I doubt that any parent who’s ever consented to give their kid testosterone (a lifelong treatment) knows that they’re also possibly signing their kid up for blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and perhaps sleep apnea and diabetes.” She added “clinics like the one where I worked are creating a whole cohort of kids with atypical genitals.”

When parents or doctors would describe worsening mental health outcomes, the center ignored them and continued the hormones, she said. One mother, in a letter revoking consent for her son to receive hormone blockers, said her child “is a shell of his former self riddled with anxiety.”

The center even ignored pleas that their actions might contribute to a potential suicide. In one case, “a psychiatrist called the Center’s endocrinologist and explained that a child, who had already tried to commit suicide by threatening to jump off a roof, should not be given cross-sex hormones because the child was struggling with serious mental health issues,” Reed attested. “I witnessed the endocrinologist yell at the psychiatrist on the phone and speak down to this provider.”

“The Center never discontinues cross-sex hormones, no matter the outcome,” she said.

The center’s actions often lead to lifelong regret, Reed noted. A black teenager from a troubled family began receiving hormones at the facility at age 16 and had a double mastectomy at age 18. Three months later, she told the surgeon she would return to her birth gender, adding, “I want my breasts back” and asked a surgeon to have them “put back on.” Reed wrote, “The last I heard, she was pregnant. Of course, she’ll never be able to breastfeed her child.”

These are the same concerns that motivated Chloe Cole, the teenage detransitioner who now embraces her biological identity, as nearly nine out of 10 children with dysphoria eventually do. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully carry a child,” she told Florida legislators last July. “And because I do not have my breasts … I am not able to breastfeed whatever future children I have. That realization actually was one of the biggest things that lead to me realizing that this was not the path that I should have taken.” She’s now suing the Permanente Medical Group and the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan for breaching appropriate standards of care.

Even removing parental consent was not enough to stop the ideologically motivated doctors at the center according to Reed, who testified, “On several occasions, the doctors have continued prescribing medical transition even when a parent stated that they were revoking consent.”

The center also fudged the billing codes for many of these prescriptions, Reed said, sending erroneous invoices to private insurance and sometimes state or federal programs. Employees falsely claimed that one child who received puberty blockers was experiencing precocious puberty, Reed wrote.

The whistleblower’s comments have triggered a statewide investigation from the Missouri attorney general, the Missouri Department of Social Services, and the Division of Professional Registration. Sheila Solon, the director of the Division of Professional Registration, promised her agency will “take any necessary action against the licenses” of Missouri doctors involved in the center’s work that violates the “health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Missouri.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Zombie Studies’: DeSantis Declares All-Out War on University DEI, CRT in Education Manifesto

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) last Tuesday rolled out a new education agenda designed to comprehensively recapture the state’s higher education system from woke ideologues. Instead, he set forth a conservative vision for a higher education system: “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.” The proposals affect curriculum, faculty, funding, and more.

Proposed Reforms

DeSantis proposed reforms to Florida curriculum so that “everybody who goes through a Florida university has to take certain core course requirements that’s really focused on giving them the foundation so that they can think for themselves.” There is that phrase again — “think for themselves.” This is the essence of DeSantis’ proposals, and leftists work hard to smear it because they understand how popular that objective is.

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DeSantis offered specifics. “The core curriculum must be grounded in the actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization. Our institutions are going to be graduating students with degrees that are going to be meaningful. We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie Studies.” Florida is already practicing this at the high school level. Earlier this year, Florida rejected a proposed high school curriculum for AP African-American studies because it was riddled with CRT-related concepts. Days later, The College Board (which produces the curriculum) released “a serious rewrite,” in the words of The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

DeSantis also proposed reforms to hiring and firing of higher education faculty. He identified two problems with the hiring process: a political process and a lack of control by those supposedly in charge. A lot of hiring decisions are “done by faculty committees,” he explained. “And if they have a certain worldview that they want to promote, those are the kinds of candidates they’re going to bring in. And, if you don’t toe that line, you’re not going to get hired.”

That’s not just a “blue state” problem. A WSJ op-ed from this week began, “At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between ‘equality’ and ‘equity.’ Another was flagged for his repeated use of the pronoun ‘he’ when referring to professors.”

Under DeSantis’ proposed changes, university presidents may “go out and recruit directly. Boards of Trustees will be able to do a lot of this approving directly. And that’s going to make a huge difference in terms of making sure, not only do we have high quality faculty, but we’re not applying some type of ideological litmus test to be able to be hired in the first place.”

Another problem DeSantis identified is the irresponsible behavior encouraged by life tenure. He said “the most deadweight cost” to universities comes from “unproductive tenured faculty.” Under his new proposals, tenured faculty must undergo a performance review every five years, and they would be liable to an impromptu performance review at any time.

DeSantis also announced his intention to defund all DEI and CRT programs at Florida universities, particularly DEI bureaucracies. “We are also going to eliminate all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in the state of Florida. No funding, and that will wither on the vine,” he said.

In a December 28 memo, the governor’s office required public universities to itemize all woke programs and expenditures and report them by January 13.

“They reported that, and it’s a lot of money. And it’s not the best use of your money,” said DeSantis. “Those bureaucracies are not representative of what the people of this state and the taxpayers of this state want.” DEI “bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom,” he continued. “And really, they constitute a drain on resources and end up — certainly around the country — contributing to higher costs as these bureaucracies metastasize.”

DeSantis justified scrubbing DEI bureaucracies for two closely intertwined reasons, one ideological and one pragmatic. First, their purpose runs counter to the academic freedom most Americans expect from public universities; they are, essentially, wrong. Second, they’re just too expensive. They capture resources that can be better spent elsewhere — and more so as they continue to grow. Pairing these reasons is both accurate and politically astute. Together, they outflank any counterargument (such as suggesting DEI bureaucracies might possibly provide a marginal benefit) except the most radically left endorsement of critical theory — which voters rightly see as crazy.

By purifying the hiring process and distilling out DEI bureaucracies, DeSantis hopes to transform public higher education into a potable experience. Under Florida’s proposed system, FRC senior fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon told The Washington Stand, “Professors and students will be able to learn in an environment freed from politically correct groupthink.”

DeSantis rounded out his policy proposals with targeted initiatives aimed at certain professions and institutions. He proposed that Florida research universities increase their research grants for STEM programs up to $50 million annually (thus draining resources that might be used for less serious, woke “research”). He endorsed his administration’s efforts to expand the training of Floridians to serve in critical, under-staffed occupations, such as nurses, truck drivers, and mechanics. He promoted the establishment of two constitution-focused centers at Florida State University in Tallahassee and Florida International University in Miami.

DeSantis also expressed concern over the plight of New College of Florida, an autonomous public institution since 2001. “In Florida statute, it’s supposed to be our premier liberal arts college,” he lamented. “Its mission has been more into the DEI, CRT ideology, rather than what a liberal arts education should be.” DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier said last month, “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

In early January, DeSantis appointed six new members to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees, creating a conservative majority. Some of the appointees are widely known, such as Manhattan Institute fellow and CRT-exposer extraordinaire Christopher Rufo, Hillsdale College Professor Dr. Matthew Spalding, and former 1776 Commission member Charles Kesler.

It turns out that appointing conservatives to higher education boards — thus puncturing academia’s typical, boring, progressive sameness — excites potential applicants. “When we announced the trustees,” DeSantis said, “you had people asking, ‘How do I apply?’ You had professors asking, ‘How do I join?’” The national media may scoff, but introducing real diversity — intellectual diversity — to university systems generates widespread enthusiasm.

Political Context

DeSantis’s new round of education policy proposals builds on his popular but unfairly criticized efforts undertaken during his first term as governor. For instance, the national media widely lampooned the Parental Rights in Education Act as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill for prohibiting teachers from discussing inappropriate sexual content in K-3 classrooms.

But what the national media sees as a problem, the average Floridian — and average American, for that matter — views as popular. Governor DeSantis and other Florida Republicans cruised to huge victories throughout the former swing state in November, even as Republicans generally underperformed expectations in most of the country. After winning reelection by 20 points, Governor DeSantis announced, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Conservative Education Manifesto

DeSantis’ proposals for higher education reform were no haphazard assortment of disjointed, incoherent positions working at cross-purposes. Rather, each is a well-thought-out piece of a comprehensive vision for a higher education system free of woke nonsense. And DeSantis accompanied his proposals with a 20-minute speech which is probably best described as a conservative education manifesto.

“There’s really a debate going on about, what is the purpose of higher education, particularly publicly-funded higher education systems?” said DeSantis, “The dominant view is, the use of higher education under this view is to impose ideological conformity, to try to provoke political activism, and that’s what a university should be. That’s not what we believe is appropriate in the state of Florida.” Instead, he proposed “centering higher education on the academics, excellence, pursuit of truth, teaching kids to think for themselves, [and] not try[ing] to impose an orthodoxy.”

Not only will slicing up the woke monster restore academic freedom, but it will also free up resources to promote real education. “And so, you’re not spending the money on DEI bureaucracies,” said DeSantis. “You’re spending the money on bringing really good people in. … That makes much more sense from a financial perspective, and it’s much more mission-oriented.”

DeSantis suggested his vision for higher education is actually quite popular. The more we implement this vision, he said, the more “you are going to see people flooding into these institutions because there’s a desire for it.” He underlined the basic motivation for this desire, “people want to be in a situation where they can send their kids to a university or college and not have to worry about, ‘what is going on?’”

He used New College of Florida as a prime example. Its DEI bureaucracy “really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” he said. “New College has really embraced that, and I think that’s part of the reason it hasn’t been successful and the enrollment’s down so much. Because I think people want to see true academics, and they want to get rid of some of the political window dressing that seems to accompany all this.”

Higher education reform benefits not only college-bound students and their parents, but every taxpaying Floridian as well, added DeSantis. “It’s important that your tax dollars are funding institutions that you can be proud of, with a mission you can be confident in.”

More Than Just Slogans

With slogans like “education not indoctrination” and “bring more accountability to the higher education system,” the new round of changes to higher education in Florida may seem like all talk and no action — a politician specialty. After all, things that sound too good to be true usually are. But when you pierce the surface, Florida’s new education plan brings the substance, too.

“This move by Governor DeSantis to really direct and guide higher education officials in his state is a great development,” said Kilgannon. “For too long, conservative leaders have not prioritized reforming higher education in ways that impact the moral and cultural life of students and faculty.” But the DeSantis plan emphasizes what others have neglected.

Nor are DeSantis proposals pie-in-the-sky fairy tales. “By reining in diversity, equity, and inclusion infrastructures that often act as Marxist politburos on college campuses, Governor DeSantis is offering not just an ideological critique but an actionable path toward reform,” said Kilgannon.

This path to reform already has the buy-in of every Florida college president. All 28 of them signed a letter pledging to “ensure that all initiatives, instruction, and activities do not promote any ideology that suppresses intellectual and academic freedom, freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and the pursuit of truth in teaching and learning. As such, our institutions will not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

Here is a conservative education solution that doesn’t content itself with condemning leftist dominance in higher education; it actually proposes a workable alternative. DeSantis’ team has clearly thought long and hard, at every level, about what is required to take back the wheel of a public education system and redirect it to serve all the citizens and taxpayers of Florida.

Two qualities are rare among politicians: a brain and a spine. With these comprehensive education proposals, DeSantis demonstrates both.

Florida’s education plan is making news because it hasn’t been attempted before. No other conservative state has set forth a plan this comprehensive or this pragmatic to recapture higher education. “I don’t think there’s any state in the country that’s been leading on the issue like Florida,” said DeSantis. “We’ll be the first state that’s actually leading by example.”

“This is a great example for others on how to tackle the problem of taxpayer funded Marxist education at the higher-ed level,” said Kilgannon. “And since this is where teachers are formed for service in K-12, it’s a reform that will benefit younger children too.”

“We have more work to do,” said DeSantis. But he added, “I think you’re going to see some positive results really quickly.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Don’t Do This to Kids’: State Hearings on Gender Transitions for Minors Draw Large Crowds

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Kuwaiti Urges Muslim States immediately Recognize Israel, stop calling it ‘the Zionist Entity’

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United with Israel reports:

Yousuf-Abd-Al-Karim-Al-Zinkawi

Yousuf ‘Abd Al-Karim Al-Zinkawi, Kuwaiti media personality.

In a true sign of change in the Arab world, Kuwaiti media personality Yousuf ‘Abd Al-Karim Al-Zinkawi called on all Arab and Muslim states to recognize Israel, openly and without delay, and stop calling it “the Zionist Entity” or “the Israeli occupation,” terms which undermine Israel’s legitimacy.

In an article published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa on Saturday, he argued that by sitting alongside Israel at the United Nations, these states have already effectively recognized the Jewish State and they should learn from countries like Qatar and Oman that take a pragmatic approach to Israel and maintain ties with it openly.

Al-Zinkawi writes that the vast majority of the world effectively supports Israel’s existence, and the Arab states have begun to move in that direction and should complete the process.

“The very presence of the Arab and Islamic states in the UN General Assembly, under the same roof as the Israeli delegation, means… that they recognize Israel. Otherwise, what is the meaning of their presence [there], alongside Israel, which they do not recognize? All those Arab and Islamic states that do not recognize Israel, if they have courage, let them stand before the members of the UN General Assembly, or in a session of the [UN] Security Council, and declare that they do not recognize Israel,” Al-Zinkawi challenges them in the Al-Siyassa, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

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