Category: Global

Easing surrogacy is the mother of all mistakes | The Times

At a trade fair called the Modern Family Show in a luxury London hotel I paid £32 to hear a PowerPoint presentation on how to buy a baby abroad. If you have $150,000 for a full “concierge service”, I was told, you send your embryos to be incubated by a stranger in America. But for a better “price point”, the hot new surrogacy destination, where UK agencies now have shiny clinics, is Mexico.

Mexico has replaced India, which banned foreign surrogacy after village women were corralled into “baby farms”, and Thailand, which followed suit after the infamous case of baby Gammy, a boy with Down’s syndrome rejected by an Australian couple when their Buddhist surrogate refused to abort him. (They took his “normal” twin sister home.) Ukraine was the go-to European surrogacy hub until war made collecting babies tricky, generating reports of despairing western couples but fewer about the women who’d had to leave their own children in danger to give birth in city clinics. Now Georgia is filling Ukraine’s gap.

Britain forbids commercial surrogacy, allowing only “altruistic” arrangements whereby a mother receives expenses (although these have no upper limit). Undoubtedly there are women who love having babies and feel profound satisfaction in bringing joy to childless couples. But underlying our law is an important principle: paying women to gestate another’s child is inherently exploitative. France, Finland, Germany, Iceland and, last year, Italy have banned even altruistic surrogacy for this reason. So why do we still permit babies born of commercial deals between rich couples (plus, increasingly, single men) and impoverished Mexican women to be brought into Britain?

Commercial surrogacy is a dirty business. When I planned to visit Mexico to report on surrogate recruitment, many on the ground warned me of its links to violent human traffickers.

All pregnancies imperil the mother and, according to research by Queen’s University, Canada, gestational surrogacy involving heavy hormone treatment and embryo transfer trebles the risk of complications such as sepsis and pre-eclampsia. Surrogates are also offered bonuses to have riskier caesareans, even if medically unnecessary, for the convenience of western couples booking flights for the birth. Then there is the trauma of surrendering, while brimming with birth hormones, the baby you have carried, often within minutes.

Strange that the same liberals who worry about veal calves or if their coffee is ethically sourced see commercial surrogacy as the next progressive frontier. Gay men, who filled the Modern Family event, increasingly demand the “right” to have genetic children but, inconveniently, this still requires a woman who also has rights.

The global market in commercial surrogacy grows every year: from $14 billion in 2022 to $17.9 billion in 2023, to a projected $129 billion by 2032. At its centre lie two competing notions of rights. The liberal argument for surrogacy — as with assisted dying or prostitution — is that a woman can do with her body what she wishes. But surrogacy is freighted with power and privilege: did any wealthy woman ever birth a child for a poorer family?

Source: Easing surrogacy is the mother of all mistakes

“Discrimination against Women in Family Court” Lawsuit: Update & Campaign | Women’s Coalition | USA

The good news is we already have a draft lawsuit ready to go, so attorneys in every state will have something to work with. And after the first suit is filed, it will be much easier for others.

Since there have been no attorneys who’ve offered to take the lawsuit pro bono yet, we are now raising funds for it. We’ve just started a Gofundme for that purpose.

Plaintiffs make the claim that women’s state and federal rights to equal protection, procedural due process, and substantive due process are being routinely and systemically violated in family courts. Defendants are judges of the state’s trial court, collectively.

Declaratory relief is requested confirming that women have a right to equal protection and due process in custody cases and that those rights are being systemically violated in Family Court because they are women.

Other relief requested is for injunctions that judges must allow women who claim in the lawsuit they have been discriminated against to have custody and visitation reinstated and/or a right to a de novo (brand new) proceeding.

The complaint includes a list of discriminatory conduct by judges. Each plaintiff will list which ones apply in her case (made easy to check off in the join form linked below).

Source: (1) “Discrimination against Women in Family Court” Lawsuit: Update & Campaign

‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’ | BBC

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Source: ‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’

Judge Rejects Biden’s Title IX Rules, Scrapping Protections for Trans Students – The New York Times

A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday struck down President Biden’s effort to expand protections for transgender students and make other changes to the rules governing sex discrimination in schools, ruling that the Education Department had overstepped and violated teachers’ rights by requiring them to use students’ preferred pronouns.
The ruling, which extends nationwide, came as a major blow to the Biden administration in its effort to provide new safeguards for L.G.B.T.Q. and pregnant students, among others, through the law known as Title IX. It arrived just days before those protections were likely to face more scrutiny under a Trump administration that is expected to be hostile to the new rules and could refuse to defend them in court.
In a 15-page opinion, Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky wrote that the Education Department could not lawfully expand the definition of Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, as it had proposed last year.
“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex,” he wrote. “Throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless.”
Citing the Supreme Court’s sweeping decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo last year, which limited the regulatory power of federal agencies, Judge Reeves wrote that the Biden administration had overstepped when it sought to enforce its new interpretation of Title IX through federal rule-making.
But more significantly, the judge also rejected the revised rule on free-speech grounds, writing that it “offends the First Amendment” by potentially requiring educators to use names and pronouns associated with a student’s chosen gender identity.
Lastly, he firmly rejected the Education Department’s position that the protections for gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination established in a landmark 2020 Supreme Court case should also apply in schools.
“This is a colossal win for women and girls across the country,” said Kristen Waggoner, the chief executive of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that joined the states suing the Education Department. “The Biden administration’s radical attempt to redefine sex not only tossed fairness, safety and privacy for female students out the window; it also threatened free speech and parental rights.”

Source: Judge Rejects Biden’s Title IX Rules, Scrapping Protections for Trans Students – The New York Times

Sam Altman’s younger sister files lawsuit claiming he sexually abused her | SMH

San Francisco: Ann Altman, the younger sister of OpenAI’s CEO and founder, Sam Altman, filed a lawsuit in a Missouri federal court on Monday accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was a minor.

The suit, filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, said that the abuse occurred in the Altmans’ family home outside St Louis from 1997 to 2006, and started when Ann Altman was three years old.

The lawsuit said Altman had sustained bodily injury and had “experienced PTSD, severe emotional distress, mental anguish and depression, which is expected to continue into the future”, as a result of the abuse.

Altman has long made similar sexual assault claims against her brother on social media platforms such as X. She is represented by an Illinois-based law firm that specialises in sexual assault and harassment cases.

Since OpenAI released the online chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022, Sam Altman has gained widespread fame as the face of the global artificial intelligence boom set off by the chatbot, which can answer questions, write poetry and even generate computer programs. In October, OpenAI completed a new funding deal that valued the company at $US157 billion ($253 billion).

Mahoney said the suit was filed on Monday because of a Missouri statute that allowed survivors of childhood sexual abuse to bring a lawsuit up to 10 years after their 21st birthday. Ann Altman turned 31 on Wednesday.

Source: 12ft

I wrote the first ever piece about the grooming gang scandal in northern English towns in 2006 – but the media didn’t want to know | Julie Bindel | The Independent (from 2017)

Many years before the award-winning journalist Andrew Norfolk wrote his first piece about the grooming gangs in northern towns in England, I was investigating this phenomenon. But despite the quality of material I had amassed, it took me until 2007 to get my first piece published because some editors feared an accusation of racism. In this particular geographical area, many of the members of grooming gangs were of Pakistani origin. As a feminist who has always gone after the men who abuse women and girls, whichever social class or ethnic group they belong to, I was concerned that the story would only be told by racists. The British National Party (BNP) had been already been claiming that nasty Muslim “paedophiles” were preying on innocent white girls.

Knowing as I did how prolific child sexual abuse was, I began to investigate the pimping of children in northern towns by speaking to the other members of CROP and feminists in child protection agencies. I discovered that the police and social services did not want to know, despite the fact that the parents had gathered some really important intelligence including telephone numbers of pimps and punters found on their daughters’ phones, and the number plates of the fancy cars driven by the pimps and their accomplices.

What I also discovered was that the police and social services appeared to be scared of intervening in these particular grooming gangs, because a large number of the men involved were of Pakistani Muslim origin. The professionals who were turning a blind eye did not want to be labelled as racist, and did not understand that all they had to do was make it clear that the majority of child sexual abusers and pimps in the UK are white men, and that they were abusing children because they were child abusers, not because they were from a particular ethnicity or religion.

Source: I wrote the first ever piece about the grooming gang scandal in northern English towns in 2006 – but the media didn’t want to know | The Independent | The Independent

Scots nurse who was suspended after complaining about trans doctor wins fight to have case heard in public | The Scottish Sun

A SCOTTISH nurse who was suspended after she complained about a transgender doctor using a women’s changing room has won a fight to have a hearing held in public.

Sandie Peggie objected to Dr Beth Upton using the changing facility at the A&E at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

Ms Peggie objected when the doctor started undressing in the women‘s-only space, claiming she felt intimidated and embarrassed, reports The Times.

Dr Upton complained to NHS Fife after the 2023 incident, and Ms Peggie was placed on “special leave” without any investigation.

Sandie Peggie is now taking NHS Fife and Dr Upton to an employment tribunal over the matter, claiming she was harassed.

It is also understood she was told she could get changed in a cupboard if she didn’t want to share a changing room with a transgender worker.

Both the health board and the doctor applied to have the meeting held in private, which would have prevented the names of those involved and the hospital department from being named.

Judge Antoine Tinnio ordered the tribunal will be held in public.

In his ruling, he accepted Dr Upton had concerns over her status as transgender being made public but said the need for open justice outweighed this.

His ruling read: “There is already considerable — and the tribunal finds wholly legitimate — public interest in this case, with the BBC, The Times, other media and other campaigning groups wishing to attend the final hearing and be permitted to report it to their audiences.

He added: “Dr Upton’s status as a trans woman, although not public knowledge, is not a secret — her family and close friends already know, as does her employer, and likely several of her colleagues who work with her and patients she has treated.”

Source: Scots nurse who was suspended after complaining about trans doctor wins fight to have case heard in public | The Scottish Sun

Pope Francis names Sister Simona Brambilla, first woman, to head a major Vatican office for all religious orders |SMH

Rome: Pope Francis has named the first woman to head a major Vatican office, appointing an Italian nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, to become prefect of the department responsible for all the Catholic Church’s religious orders.

The appointment on Monday marks a major step in Francis’ aim to give women more leadership roles in governing the church. While women have been named to No. 2 spots in some Vatican offices, never before has a woman been named prefect of a dicastery or congregation of the Holy See Curia, the central governing organ of the Catholic Church.

The appointment means that a woman is now responsible for the women who do much of the church’s work – the world’s 600,000 Catholic nuns – as well as the 129,000 Catholic priests who belong to religious orders.

[N]othing theologically would now prevent Francis from naming Brambilla a cardinal, since cardinals don’t technically have to be ordained priests.

But in an indication of the novelty of the appointment and that perhaps Francis was not ready to go that far, the pope simultaneously named as a co-leader, or “pro-prefect”, a cardinal: Angel Fernandez Artime, a Salesian.

The appointment, announced in the Vatican daily bulletin, lists Brambilla first as “prefect” and Fernandez second as her co-leader. Theologically, it appears Francis believed the second appointment was necessary since the head of the office must be able to celebrate Mass and perform other sacramental functions that currently can only be done by men.

Catholic women have long complained of second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.

Francis has upheld the ban on female priests and tamped down hopes that women could be ordained as deacons.

[Ed: Far too little, too late. The Catholic Church should be stripped of its assets to compensate the many harmed by the pedophile priests nurtured and protected by this global crime syndicate.]

Source: Pope Francis names Sister Simona Brambilla, first woman, to head a major Vatican office for all religious orders

Teacher Vivian Geraghty wins $450k payout after refusing to use trans students’ preferred pronouns | US | The Telegraph

A teacher who claimed she was told to resign after she refused to address two transgender students by their preferred pronouns has won a $450,000 (£362,000) payout from the local school district.
Vivian Geraghty sued the Jackson Local School District in 2022 over claims her First Amendment rights were violated when she was punished for declining to use the students’ preferred names or pronouns.

Source: Teacher Vivian Geraghty wins $450k payout after refusing to use trans students’ preferred pronouns

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF ENGLAND AND WALES (CIVIL DIVISION) ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE: ReQ.

It is useful at the outset to distinguish between three possible issues with which the courts have to deal. First, there is the issue of whether a child under 16 is competent to consent to or to refuse medical treatment (see Gillick v. West Norfolk and Wisbech AHA [1986] AC 122 (Gillick), and more recently, R (Bell) v. Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust [2021] EWCA Civ 1363, [2022] 1 All ER 416 (Bell v. Tavistock)).

Secondly, there is the issue of whether a child (but also an adult) has mental capacity to consent to or to refuse medical treatment (see sections 1-6 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005).

Thirdly, there is the issue of what is in a child’s best interests. This issue
arises once the presumption as to the competence of a child over 16 to consent or refuse medical treatment is engaged (see section 8 of the Family Law Reform Act 1969 (FLRA 1969), which provides that a child over 16 can give consent in the same way as an adult, and no further consent is required from parents or guardians). Despite section 8, the court still retains the right to override consent given or withheld by a child over 16 on welfare or best interests grounds in very limited and well-defined circumstances (see Re W (A Minor) (Medical Treatment: Court’s Jurisdiction) [1993] Fam 64 (Re W)).

This case now concerns mainly, if not only, the third issue that I have described above, namely whether now or in the future the court could or should override any consent given by the young person for cross-sex hormone treatment.

I have decided, although not without hesitation, that the judge was wrong to refuse to adjourn the mother’s application. In normal circumstances, as explained in Bell v. Tavistock, questions of Gillick competence are for doctors. Moreover, questions of policy relating to treatments for gender dysphoria are for the NHS, the medical profession and the regulators. Where, as here, there is no question of the young person’s competence or capacity, the judge had good reason for thinking that the young person’s best interests were served by allowing the treatment process to take its course, without the oversight of the court. On careful reflection, however, I think that two factors combined here to make it clearly appropriate for the court to keep the proceedings alive
at least until the young person’s assessment by Gender Plus has been completed and can be considered, if necessary, by the court in circumstances where there continues to be genuine disagreement between the parties. First, Gender Plus, as a private provider, could not satisfy all the recommendations made in the Cass Review, including, in particular, the recommendation that every case proposed for medical treatment should
be considered by a national multi-disciplinary team. Secondly, the Cass Review had only just been published when the judge heard the application, and it was already clear then (and has been demonstrated since) that  Government would be taking various (perhaps then unknown) steps to implement it in ways that the court could not predict, but which might (in the future) affect an appropriately objective view of where the young person’s best interests lay.

Source: ReQ.APPROVED JUDGMENTS.pdf – ReQ.APPROVED-JUDGMENTS.pdf