John Stonestreet – Page 5

Guest Column: The Abortion Pill Harms Women

May 8, 2025John StonestreetAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

Last week, Amna Nawaz of PBS News asked Dr. Marty Makary, new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, if he planned to impose restrictions on the distribution and use of mifepristone and misoprostol in chemical abortions. The FDA approved mifepristone for chemical abortions in 2000, after a selective, limited study determined that it was “safe and effective.” Since 2016, citing that conclusion, the FDA eroded all safeguards on chemical abortions. Today, chemical abortions can be prescribed in every state, without an in-person visit, by someone who is not a physician, and distributed through the mail. Women self-administer the abortion drugs at home without a required follow-up visit. Clinics or administrating entities are not required to report adverse effects.

Even so, Dr. Makary said that he “ha(d) no plans to take action on mifepristone,” but then added:

I believe as a scientist, you got to evolve as the data comes in.

And, as you may know, there is an ongoing set of data that is coming into FDA on mifepristone. So, if the data suggests something or tells us that there’s a real signal, then I — we can’t promise we’re not going to act on that data that we have not yet seen.

Almost on cue, a new report was released on Monday by the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Whereas the FDA originally relied on data from 10 clinical trials with nearly 31,000 participants, the new data is based on the “largest-known study of the abortion pill” and “is based on analysis of data from an all-payer insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023.” In other words, this data is the most recent available and is far more representative of the chemical abortions typically obtained today. The women in this dataset are,

[B]roadly representative of the women who obtain mifepristone abortions in the U.S.; they are not a prescreened group of generally healthy women recruited into various clinical trials conducted at different times around the world.

Also, the medical care these women received is common to chemical abortions and not “the carefully controlled regimen of care that ordinarily prevails in clinical trials.”

The results, according to this analysis, is that the abortion pill harms women. Some of the disturbing findings found that 10.93% of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion. The real-world rate of serious adverse events following mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times as high as the summary figure of “less than 0.5%” in clinical trials reported on the drug label.

Of course, even if the new study suggested that mifepristone is “safe and effective” for women, it would still be a dangerous lie to claim, as proponents have, that it is “like Tylenol.” As Ob-Gyn physician Dr. Christine Francis argued in a What Would You Say video, having an abortion is nothing like treating a headache. When Tylenol works, pain is eliminated. When mifepristone works, a developing human life in the womb is ended. “If the medication is successful,” Francis observed, “someone always dies. That is the furthest thing from safe.”

Even more, women are not sufficiently warned that they are, to put it gently, likely to see the result of their chemical abortion. What the EPPC study does not quantify is the emotional and psychological trauma that women have experienced.

Also, like the data used by the FDA to justify its systemic reduction of all restrictions on mifepristone, the comparison with Tylenol is misleading and false. The claim is based on the total number of hospitalizations of each, but that comparison is “terribly misleading” since so many more people take Tylenol than mifepristone. When compared on a per capita basis, there is no comparison.

In the interview with PBS News, Dr. Makary called himself “a data guy.” I believe that he is. At the very least, these data findings require a reexamination of the FDA’s current regulations and protocol on chemical abortions. The Ethics and Public Policy Center further recommends:

The FDA should reinstate the original patient safety protocols that were required when mifepristone was first approved. Doing so will likely reduce the harms to women and permit better monitoring to determine whether this drug should remain on the market.

Certainly, it should not remain on the market. But this study is incredibly important to reverse some of the damage the FDA has caused. The stakes could not be higher. Today, the vast majority of chemical abortions “are performed using a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol,” and “chemical abortions now account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States.” Fifteen years ago, the world learned that the mass-murdering abortionist Kermit Gosnell had been enabled by a severe lack of oversight and regulation. This new report from the EPPC suggests that chemical abortion is its own “house of horrors.”

Guest Column: The Manufactured Consensus Around Trans ‘Medicine’

May 1, 2025John StonestreetTransgenderLGBT, Transgender

A question that ought to haunt the Western world is how, over the last decade, an obviously unscientific claim—that men can become women and vice versa—birthed an anti-scientific movement that still, somehow, won the endorsement of virtually the entire scientific and medical community in the developed world? Within a few short years, nearly every association involved in healthcare affirmed not only that a person can be “transgender,” but also a litany of ghoulish, harmful procedures that were called healthcare.

At least part of the answer to this gnawing question is that the endorsements were the result of close ties between medical groups and radical gender activists. As The Daily Wire recently reported, according to findings by the watchdog group, the American Accountability Foundation, one woman was listed as “managing” or “executive” director on tax documents for 26 major medical organizations around the United States. Sue O’Sullivan holds these numerous roles through her position as co-founder of Veritas Association Management, an Illinois-based professional services company. However, she is also managing director for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH.

Aside from showing up on social media and at WPATH events, O’Sullivan is listed on multiple documents by that organization promoting transgender “medical procedures,” including “putting children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.” Her organization has led in promoting the most extreme forms of “affirming medicine,” including “removal of breasts for girls who identify as boys,” and has “opposed laws to protect kids from such procedures.” WPATH also condemned President Trump’s recent executive order cutting funding for these practices.

Tax documents also show that O’Sullivan spent around eight times as many hours working with WPATH on trans issues as she did with any of her other management roles. Those roles included titles at The American Pediatric Surgical Association, The American Society of Andrology, The Society for Cardiovascular and Magnetic Resonance, The Society of Academic Bone Radiologists, The Society for Vascular Medicine, and the Society of Ob/Gyn Hospitalists, to name a few.

Beyond the organizations that listed O’Sullivan in key roles, this watchdog group identified another 25 names with “ties to Veritas.” Many of these individuals have issued statements in recent years “in support of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children or backing transgender ideology.” In a remarkable understatement, American Accountability concluded that “the ties between O’Sullivan and WPATH could jeopardize the medical integrity of other organizations managed by Veritas Association Management,” specifically by causing “the radical transgender procedures advocated for by WPATH to be normalized in the medical mainstream.”

This would be laughable and ethically horrible if it had not resulted in the mutilation and sterilization of many children in this country. However, organizations like these lead the American medical establishment and command expected public trust. This trust has been irreparably broken by issuing statements and taking positions as if they were the conclusions of careful investigations by experienced physicians. Instead, it turns out their public statements were the equivalent of marching orders, handed down from headquarters run not by doctors, but by ideologues, who presumably kept doctors in line through fear.

None of these revelations can undo the damage already done to lives irreversibly changed. Still, it is important to understand how the whole medical establishment was sucked in to this incredible evil. The vast failure of experts to resist what amounted to a pseudoscientific coup must be investigated thoroughly. The last decade has exposed an unbelievable amount of cowardice and incompetence among the medical establishment, especially in protecting children from powerful adults entrusted with their care. To be frank, a lot of people need to lose their jobs. Some should be prosecuted.

This is also a warning for the future. Every field, even medicine, is susceptible to values and worldview. Basic beliefs about the human person and the sanctity of life have consequences. Physicians and other providers with integrity must have the courage to stand up to ideological emperors, especially the ones with no clothes. And as frustrating as it is to be called “anti-science,” Christians must be prepared to defend created reality, and protect the most vulnerable from the next manufactured “consensus.”

Betting on the Final Four: The Scourge of Sports Gambling

Apr 9, 2025John StonestreetGamblingGambling, Sports Betting

This past weekend, Houston, Auburn, Florida, and Duke battled it out in the Final Four in what is considered the event of the year for hoops enthusiasts and a second Super Bowl for sports gamblers. In fact, this year’s tournament featured commercials in which the NCAA discouraged gamblers from harassing players in person and online, as well as several games in which players were loudly criticized for either scoring or not scoring late in the game. This had nothing to do with principles of good sportsmanship but for what the last-minute behaviors meant for the over/under.

An estimated $3.1 billion was expected to be legally wagered on this year’s tournament, a 12% increase over last year. During First Round games in Denver, I personally witnessed fans (all young men, to be specific) loudly cheering and booing the score of a game already decided, not because their favorite team had won or to honor an outstanding performance by a player. They were rooting for the spread.

America is only a few years into widespread legalized sports gambling, but the results are in. This industry is devastating for individuals and families, and is corrupting sports. In an article for The Atlantic, Charles Fain Lehman stated the truth bluntly: “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake.” More and more data supports his claim.

Today, in 38 states plus Washington, D.C., there are no meaningful regulations for sports gambling. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that paved the way for states to regulate their own industries. Since then, sportsbooks have raked in over $300 billion.

Obviously, this money did not come from a preponderance of winners. In fact, Lehman argued, the return of sports gambling “has caused a wave of financial and familial misery” that “disproportionately falls on the most economically precarious households.” In other words, those who have the least money to lose do the vast majority of losing.

The damage is enormous. For every dollar spent on betting, household investing fell by an average of two dollars. Since 2018, there have been large increases in over-drafted bank accounts and maxed-out credit cards. Legalized sports gambling has increased “the risk that a household goes bankrupt by 25 to 30 percent,” and it has caused debt delinquency to surge.

This financial strain, in turn, worsens social pathologies. According to research cited by Lehman, an upset loss for an NFL home team correlates to a 10% spike in male domestic abuse. Overall, states with legalized sports gambling have seen an estimated 9% increase in “intimate-partner violence.”

Given this data comes from the same states just a few years apart, it is highly unlikely these correlations are mere coincidences. Sports gambling is causing financial ruin and domestic violence in homes. As Lehman put it, measuring this industry is more than counting dollars and cents. It is counting the cost to human lives, especially to women and children dragged into a destructive and addictive pastime.

In the age of smartphones, betting has become easier than ever. Wagers can be placed on virtually all aspects of a game, from individual pitches to how long the national anthem lasts. People can make bets from home without traveling to the seedy part of town. Notifications in eye-catching apps and a deluge of catchy ads with false promises open the industry to people who might never have otherwise gambled.

And legalized sports gambling corrupts sports. Tennis players, Olympians, and NBA referees have all been caught fixing games and matches. Last year, the NFL suspended five players for gambling-related violations, and a Sportradar analysis found a 250% year-over-year increase in suspicious matches in basketball alone. Since the beginning of the year, college basketball players from Fresno State and the University of New Orleans were suspended for gambling violations, as was an umpire from Major League Baseball. My experience is that it has also corrupted the fan experience. My time in Denver was negatively impacted by a young man who yelled for two straight games, not for or against either team that was playing, but at the referees who, he believed, were fixing games so he would lose his bets.

According to Lottery USA, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in over 302.6 million. Powerball is roughly one in 292.2 million. For comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about one in a million. The odds are only slightly better in sports betting because, as the adage goes, “The house always wins.” Sportsbooks don’t make $300 billion in six years by minting millionaires out of their customers.

The national experiment with sports gambling has failed miserably. Laws are often necessary to protect freedom and the common good. Though “consenting adults doing what they want with their money” sounds like freedom, it is as misleading as the idea of “consenting adults doing what they want with their bodies.” In both cases, poorly defined freedom enslaves, addicts, and harms others. In both cases, so-called “consent” is anything but consensual for the innocent parties dragged along, and whose lives are ruined as a result.

This scourge of an industry is based on a distorted view of freedom that leaves people in bondage. That should be more than enough reason for the American people to call off all bets and reverse on sports gambling, again.