LIFEAlerts

Pornography Facts and Statistics (USA)

With the advent of the internet, pornography and pornography addiction has become more and more widely available.

Porn addiction can interfere with a healthy lifestyle and relationships.

Porn addiction affects about 5-8% of adults and they spend at least 11 to 12 hours per week viewing porn.

Around 35% of all internet downloads are pornographic.

About 84% of people between the ages of 18 and 49 had watched pornographic films.

Up to 65% of young adult men and 18% of young women report watching porn at least once a week.

The average age of first exposure to pornography is now only 14 years old. As many as 93.2% of boys and 62.1% of girls first see porn before they turn 18.

40 million US adults regularly visit internet pornography websites

10% of US adults admit to having an addiction to internet pornography

17% of all women struggle with porn addiction

20% of men and 13% of women admit to accessing porn while at work

70% of women admit to keep their cyber activities secret

Of porn users, 86% felt that porn hurt their relationships and 90% had seen an increase in relationship troubles due to porn use.

About 56% of divorce proceedings cite an “obsessive interest” in pornographic websites.

Conditions that frequently co-occur with pornography addiction include:

  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Social anxiety
  • Mood disorders
  • Sex addiction
  • Substance use disorders

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Man applies for euthanasia because of ‘eco-anxiety’ (Canada)

Howard Breen, 68, who lives in Vancouver, is not terminally ill but is experiencing extreme mental suffering because of his concerns about climate change. In 2017, Breen’s doctor diagnosed him with clinical eco-anxiety and biosphere-related depression. Breen had his initial request for euthanasia turned down in February 2021 because one doctor in his euthanasia assessment did not consider eco-anxiety to be an “acceptable, permissible malady”. Eco-anxiety is not currently recognized as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, whose diagnostic manual Canada uses. Breen however believes that his eco-anxiety is severe enough that he should be eligible for euthanasia now. In March 2023, euthanasia on the grounds of mental illness alone will be permitted.

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Technology Helps Traffickers (South Africa)

Although we agree that technology helps traffickers find victims, we do believe that many recruitments in Africa are still being done in person. Africa does not have the same access to technology as the rest of the world and as such traffickers often do not reach rural areas via technology. They find their victims by either visiting the areas, using people in the area to recruit or find victims, or family members selling/using/renting/exploiting their own kin.

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Pornography Addiction: 4 Treatments That Could Help (USA)

While pornography addiction is not currently a recognized medical condition, those who are excessively consuming pornography might experience powerful cravings, neglect their responsibilities, and engage in self-defeating behaviours in order to continue their porn use.

Ways to overcome porn addiction:

  1. Behaviour Modification/ Motivational Interviewing (MI): MI guides them to think about the pros and cons of their addiction and nudges them in the direction of change that is going to improve their lives
  2. Group Therapy: connecting with others and experiencing emotional intimacy is a powerful tool in helping a person with this type of addiction.
  3. Finding Alternatives: this means replacing poor habits with more adaptive ones.
  4. Medication: medication could help with some cases of excessive pornography use. “Pharmacologic interventions have focused on treating co-existing psychiatric disorders and targeting hypersexual or compulsive sexual behaviours with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibiters, normally prescribed for depression, increase the body’s serotonin, the neurotransmitter that sends emotion-regulating signals between brain cells.

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Veterans Affairs Canada worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD (Canada)

This is one of many stories proving that euthanasia (MAiD) has grown out of control in Canada. A Canadian Forces veteran who had sustained a traumatic brain injury from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and suffers from PTSD was seeking treatment when he was unexpectedly and casually offered medical assistance in dying by a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) employee. This unprompted offer of MAID disrupted his progress for recovering and has been harmful to the veteran’s progress and his family’s wellbeing. Scott Maxwell, executive director of Wounded Warriors Canada, says that advocating for MAiD among veterans living with PTSD is “flat out wrong.” Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay told Global News that this will never happen again.

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Unborn Children Can Have Dreams, Says Popular YouTuber Dr John Campbell (UK)

John Campbell PhD, a retired nurse educator and YouTuber with 2.4 million subscribers has made an illuminating video on human development highlighting new evidence that children dream in the womb. Dr Campbell said, “when I was a zygote, all the genetics that is in me now, all the potential that is in me now was already there. So we start off as a single cell, quite amazing, but scientifically undeniable.” He showed a series of photos of an unborn child, noting milestones such as cardiac contraction beginning at 3 weeks, stress hormone responses at 18 weeks, and a clear sleep-wake cycle by 30 weeks, with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, alternating with deeper non-REM sleep. “The evidence now” said Dr Campbell Is “indicating quite strongly that from 28-29-30 weeks the child is dreaming. What they dream about of course I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

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New Peer Reviewed Study Debunks Myth Of Abortion As Normative For Mother (USA)

A study involving close to 8 million pregnancies debunked the notion that abortion is a normal experience for mother, finding that it is rare for a woman to have both births and abortions. Out of 5 million women with at least 1 pregnancy, less than 6% have both births and abortions. Women in the study population almost never used abortion as a means to space their children. CLI president, Charles Donovan, said, “The abortion industry wants America to believe that abortion is a normal experience for mothers. They want to make it acceptable to target vulnerable women and children citing estimates and surveys conducted at abortion centres, to support the narrative that everyone is doing it”. According to the study, these narratives simply aren’t true. By comparison, the frequently cited “turnaround study” in the abortion industry is based on interviews with just 813 women. “Most mothers are not undergoing abortions. We know that instinctively. We know that based on logic. Now we know it based on data.” Key findings from this study are that abortion is not a normative experience, women with both births and abortions have more abortions than births, and abortion is rarely used in healthy families to space out children.

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New assisted suicide guidelines may lead to fewer suicide tourists (Switzerland)

The Swiss Medical Association agreed to a new set of guidelines for assisted suicide that state:

  • The physician must conduct at least two detailed discussions with the patient separated by an interval of at least two weeks.
  • The symptoms of the illness and/or functional impairment must be unbearable, the severity of which is to be substantiated by a legitimate diagnosis and prognosis.
  • Assisted suicide for healthy persons is not medically or ethically justifiable.

Previous guidelines did not require a two week interval and they permitted assisted suicide for otherwise healthy people. Lifecircle already offers the first meeting online. Swiss assisted suicide groups, as Dignitas, EXIT or The Swiss Medical Association are concerned that “stricter” rules will discourage suicide tourism.

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When access to medical treatment is more difficult then access to MAID (Canada)

Canadians are seeking death by euthanasia (MAiD) because they are not able to access medical treatment, or they are living with a disability, or a mental illness and/or poverty. Canada’s medical system makes it difficult for Gwen to receive treatment but easy for her to receive MAiD (euthanasia). The Canadian government is currently debating further expansions to the euthanasia law. Canada needs to recognize how its euthanasia law threatens the lives of people with disabilities and other chronic conditions and reverse its killing direction.

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Canadian Virtual Hospice promotes euthanasia book for children (Canada)

The Canadian Virtual Hospice is a “platform [that] could address some of the national gaps in palliative care,” The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Activity Book is available. The branding between the “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Activity book” and the “Me and My Illness” activity books is similar. If the message being sent with this colourful and engaging activity book is that euthanasia is a normal, innocuous act that “doesn’t hurt” and is appropriate for anyone who is in pain, how can a sick and/or suffering child escape the conclusion that it may be an appropriate solution for them – especially once MAiD is extended to mature minors?

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