Rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial term used to describe a sudden and intense desire to transition gender during adolescence or young adulthood, without any prior history of gender dysphoria or other indicators of a gender identity issue. In the survey, the results show that many of the children had pre-existing mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Parents felt pressurised by therapists and medical professionals to affirm their child’s gender dysphoria. The article highlights the controversy surrounding the concept of ROGD. The medical community should approach the treatment of gender dysphoria with caution and not rush to affirm a child’s gender identity without fully understanding the underlying cause of their dysphoria. The mental health of the child and the concerns of their parents need to be taken into account in further research.
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The Netherlands is backtracking on its prostitution legalisation (Press Release)
Sex work in the Netherlands got out of control. After more than 20 years of experiencing legal prostitution, it is now obvious that the rules and regulations, and even restrictions, do not work. Despite the legislation in place which is attempting to create a safe environment for sex work, there is a great lack of safety, protection and regulation in the Red-Light District, admitted by Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam.
Crime is escalating, clients are becoming increasingly disrespectful towards prostitutes and residents are complaining about the swelling nuisance caused by drug addicts. It is proven that prostitutes are one of the most vulnerable populations in the Netherlands. 71% has been physically assaulted and 63% has been raped while working as prostitutes. Most struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). The Netherlands has been listed as one of the top destinations for human trafficking victims.
Since the start of the Red-Light District, gradual restrictions have been put in place. The previous mayor, Job Cohen, planned to close half of the city’s 400 prostitution windows because of the criminal activity going on there.
As a proposed solution, Amsterdam now wants to move prostitutes from the Red-Light District, creating an erotic centre at another place in Amsterdam. However, the suggested locations are in neighbourhoods with families, schools and parks. Parents are concerned about their children’s safety would a sex centre be launched in their vicinity. The European Medical Agency’s head office is located in Amsterdam, due to the proposed safety of the city. They are concerned that putting up an erotic centre will endanger their employees, as they have to work late night shifts and have accommodations in hotels in the area. The Dutch government has guaranteed that the neighbourhood will be kept safe, and no unrest will occur. However, being incapable to control the Red-Light District as it is, they will not be able to control an erotic centre.
The city’s mayor confesses, “Unacceptable situations have arisen, and the council is ready to consider far-reaching solutions.” She has already put even stricter regulations in place concerning the district, including earlier closing times and a cannabis smoking ban. Moving prostitutes to a sex work centre will not remove the crime related to prostitution, it will just relocate the crime scene causing nuisance to a different neighbourhood. It will also cause many prostitutes to go underground, because they do not want to register.
Doctors For Life believes that the solution to the various problems related to prostitution is not to move the prostitution to an erotic centre, but to criminalise prostitution completely. Prostitution is a basis for criminal exploitation and a state should not participate in it, but rather warn and protect its society against it. The continuous restrictions put in place in the Netherlands are proof of the failure of decriminalising prostitution and should serve as a warning to the South African government as it seeks to legalise prostitution and the use of cannabis
The Medical Opinion on Gender Dysphoria on Minors (Press Release)
Gender dysphoria refers to persistent, significant distress that an individual experiences due to a perceived difference between their gender identity and their biological sex.
Normalising gender fluidity causes psychological trauma to those suffering from Gender Dysphoria and even more so to those who are not confused about their gender identity. In various countries in America and Europe, this ideology is already promoted at schools and kindergarten.
The claim that a child with gender dysphoria is born with a brain that is of the opposite sex is simplistic, biologically impossible and therefore scientifically incorrect. Every cell in an individual contains identical sex chromosomes, either XX for female or XY for male. There is little supportive evidence for the different opinions about prenatal hormone exposure and structural brain differences that cause gender dysphoria. Infants’ brains are already exposed to their own sex hormones within a few weeks of conception.
The concept of transgender identity is based purely on subjective experience, and the so-called “gender affirmative” approach to gender dysphoria (i.e., supporting social, medical, and surgical transition to a transgender identity) is based on very low certainty evidence – therefore many experts do not agree that it is appropriate.
Doctors for Life is convinced that teaching the prepubertal child about gender dysphoria and then affirming its belief that their gender differs from their biological sex and playing along with a child’s imprinted confusion, leads them to psychological and social dysfunction.
Children who “feel like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex; they remain biological boys or girls. Gender ideology has little basis in science and causes more harm than good, especially in minors. Unquestioningly affirming gender dysphoric students’ social transition, harms them by impairing their chances of aligning their gender identity with physical reality; it may propel them down the dismal path of medical transition, firstly puberty blockers are prescribed to prepubertal children with gender dysphoria. The so-called aim of puberty blockers is to arrest the process of puberty. This is supposed to allow the child enough time to explore their gender without the “distress” of onsetting secondary sex characteristics. It is supposed to help the child to decide, whether it should grow into an adult according to their biological sex or according to the imaginary gender, for which they will need cross-sex hormones. However, as their peers grow into normal young men and young women, firstly these children stay stagnant and secondly start feeling more psychosocially isolated and left out.
This approach is not supported by solid scientific research results. Medical professors state that confused children get chemically castrated through the treatment of puberty blockers and will be sterile for life having to consume cross-sex hormones permanently. Taking it to the extreme, sex reassignment surgeries (SRS) are performed on children as young as 13 years. This means that these adolescents can have their healthy breasts cut off or their penises transformed into look-alike vaginas. Clearly, such surgeries cause permanent sterility and transform the child to a patient for the rest of its life.
Neuroscience shows that the development of the brain is not completed until the mid-twenties. This should immediately bring up the question why children under the age of 18 years are allowed to decide on life-changing procedures that are harmful and dangerous.
It is proven, that the general population’s health is better than that of transitioned people’s health. Moreover, it shows that the suicide rate amongst post-operative transgender adults is 20 times greater compared to the general population.
The vast majority of pre-pubertal youth with gender dysphoria will accept their biological sex by late adolescence, even without medical intervention. It is unlawful and unconstitutional to push an ideology onto children through the school system. If this is not child abuse, then what is? Our children need to be protected and given the opportunity for a prosperous future.
(Sources available on request)
World Medical Association Supports Conscientious Objection to Abortion and Assisted Suicide (UK)
The World Medical Association, an international confederation of medical associations representing physicians, has voiced its support for conscientious objection including in cases of abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. The General Assembly of the Association has unanimously approved an addendum to its respected International Code of Medical Ethics. Its code now recognises the right to conscientious objection so long as the patient’s health is not endangered.
United States marijuana legalisation and opioid mortality epidemic during 2010–2020 and pandemic implications
According to the Journal of the National Medical Association opioid mortality trends in the United States, a world leader in both opioid mortality and cannabis use disorder, do not support the hypothesis that marijuana availability reduces opioid mortality. During the past decade, the country’s opioid mortality trends in marijuana legalising and non-legalising jurisdictions suggest the opposite. The United States opioid mortality rate was compared in states and District of Columbia that had implemented marijuana legalisation with states that had not. Instead of supporting the marijuana protection hypothesis, ecologic associations at the national level suggest that marijuana legalisation has contributed to the U.S.’s opioid epidemic.
Medicaid Data: Decision To Abort First Pregnancy Carries Lifetime Risks Of Adverse Events (USA)
Researchers analysing 17 years of comprehensive Medicaid claims data, in a first of its kind research from Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) found that women whose first pregnancy ended in abortion had on average :
- 53% more miscarriages than women whose pregnancy ended in live birth.
- 35% more pregnancies over their reproductive lifetime
- More than 4 times as many abortions
- Only half the number of live births
Separate peer reviewed research finds that women exposed to multiple induced abortions are at an increased risk of:
- Extremely preterm (premature) birth in future pregnancies based on an analysis of more than 400 000 pregnancies in Finland.
- Low birth weight in future pregnancies based on a review of 37 studies.
- Poor mental health, based on an analysis of data from the “National Longitudinal Study Of Adolescent To Adult Health”, finding that each abortion increased the risk of mental health problems by 23%.
- Premature death, based on an analysis of the pregnancy and mortality records of more than one million women, finding that the risk of death increased with each successive abortion.
Tessa Longbons, CLI’s senior research associate and co-author of the new peer reviewed study, said:
- A woman’s first pregnancy shapes the course of her life. That’s my key takeaway from 17 years of data.
Euthanasia deaths increased (Canada)
In the first 10 months of 2022 the number of reported assisted deaths exceeded all of last year, from 3102 to 3213 according to the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario. 13,011 assisted deaths in Ontario have been reported since euthanasia was legalised. According to the Third Annual report, from legalisation until December 31, 2021, the number of assisted deaths increased by 32.4% representing 3.3% of all deaths in Canada. Canada’s Federal Government established a committee to discuss further expansions of euthanasia for incompetent people, for children and for people with mental illness alone. Bill C-7 already approved euthanasia for mental illness. A recent presentation by the Quebec College of Physicians urged the Federal Government to permit infant euthanasia.
Incredible numbers and figures of the transgender generation (USA)
Dr Lisa Littmann mentions Gender Dysphoria (GD) “has become a catch-all explanation” for any psychological problem and the promoted treatment is transitioning.
The fact is, however, that years of professional research confirms that 85% of children, suffering from GD, over time become comfortable with their birth-given bodies. In a study conducted in Finland in 2015, results show up to 75% of individuals who claim to have GD are also receiving other psychiatric treatment. In a study done in 2018, 62% of the parents of the affected children, suffer from psychiatric or neuro-developmental disorders prior to GD. In the same year, a study searched 8.8 million electronic medical records and found that there were high rates of psychiatric disorders and suicidal ideation and behaviour in youth six months prior to any sign of gender incongruence.
In a study conducted in Sweden in 2011, after a 30 year follow up, 324 gender reassigned patients showed a suicide rate 1900% higher than the constant population. Nonetheless, both parents and physicians are increasingly bullied and pushed into accepting the transition affirming therapy as they are being confronted with shaming questions like: “Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?”
“Consider the ethics of permanently medicalising a minor for a thought process with an over 85 percent rate of desistance by adulthood and doing so based on a self-diagnosis”. Children being given the right to make life changing decisions at an age where they cannot be expected to grasp the consequences thereof, is not scientifically based and opposes the fundamental base of medical practice.
Is surrogacy safe? (USA)
Surrogacy pregnancies have an increased risk for adverse obstetric outcomes. In a study done among American woman, compared to non-surrogate pregnancies, surrogate mothers reported more complications during their surrogacy pregnancies such as hypertension, preeclampsia/eclampsia, and haemorrhaging. After the pregnancy they reported complications such as a degenerated disc, embolism, and postpartum depression. The chance of having a caesarean-section was 300% higher with a surrogate pregnancy. The percentage of caesarean-sections in non-surrogate mothers was 12.2%, compared to 35.5% in surrogate pregnancies. Most surrogate mothers felt they bonded with the babies they carried and many women stay in contact with the baby and their intended parents.
Potential public health consequences of liberalising cannabis legislation (South Africa)
Laws that increase access to cannabis will have public health consequences including respiratory health, traffic-related injuries, and the mental health of vulnerable populations.Evidence highlights safety concerns that cannabis causes damage to the developing brain. Cannabis use can damage the brain to such an extent, that even after years of abstinence the damage is still present and it is not yet clear whether these effects are reversible. In particular, cannabis use during pregnancy increases the risk of adverse outcomes for women and their neonates.
Scientific research may not have kept pace with the speed at which cannabis laws are being liberalised. Consideration needs to be given to these public health concerns as South Africa moves towards ratifying the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill.