Protecting Girls Sports, Youth Mental Health – American Family Association of Indiana
Big Legislative Battle Revisited Next Week
The Indiana General Assembly is returning on Tuesday the 24th for a scheduled technical corrections day. Sometime during the addressing of those mundane, but important fixes, the Speaker of the House will have the clerk read the Governor’s veto message of House Bill 1041 – The Fairness in Girls’ Sports Act.
This bill simply says only biological females can participate in girls’ K12 competitive school sports. Polling in Indiana has found strong majority support for HB 1041. Governor Holcomb vetoed HB 1041 on March 21st.
The House will then vote on whether to override or let his veto stand (and the bill die). If the House overrides the veto, the Senate will take it up. A simple majority vote (51 in the House, 26 in the Senate) will override the Governor’s attempt to block this important bill.
The bill passed the House 66-30. You can see how your representative voted here.
The bill passed the Senate 32-18. You can see how your senator voted here.
You can find out who your legislator is, and contact them about this important vote here.
This is Not the AFA-IN Approach
There is a group of activists who are asking political leaders to fully criminalize abortion if the Supreme Court does in fact overturn Roe v. Wade and leave the matter more in the hands of state legislatures. AFA of Indiana can certainly agree that abortion should be a criminal act against the abortionist taking the life of a child. It is also undeniable that many women choose abortion knowing it ends the life of a baby. However, punishing the woman is a problematic matter. Many women who have an abortion are victims too, even if they do not recognize it right away. As the old protest sign says: Abortion: One Dead, One Wounded.
If Indiana moves to restrict or eliminate elective abortions, a well-written law with real enforcement teeth against those performing and assisting in an illegal surgical or chemical abortion would serve the pro-life purpose without the optics of criminally punishing women. In fact, even though I am a small-government person, if a special session is called, and a bill considered, I’d support increased funding for prenatal care and financial help for women in a crisis pregnancy. With a strong bill, treating abortion-vulnerable women as potential criminals is not necessary.
AFA Reaches a Milestone
Our national office is celebrating a milestone with its 45th anniversary.
Shortly after the Indiana legislature ended, I visited our office in Tupelo, MS. I was able to tour their new building and observe a couple of their radio shows while attending a worldview conference.
The Family Research Council recently had a very nice, short article about AFA national that you may want to read here.
Giving Hoosier Conservatives a Forum
I want to let you know about a group that I have helped as an advisor called the First Principles Forum. The intent of this organization is to bring in high-level, sought-after speakers and leaders to address some of the key issues of our time from a conservative perspective not often heard in the mainstream news.
First Principles Forum, in its first two years, has brought in author and internet sensation, Candice Owens, radio host and author Dennis Prager and Dr. Scott Atlas who was part of President Trump’s Covid advisory team.
Their latest speaker is Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA who speaks on college campuses all over the nation. Kirk will be speaking for the Forum at the beautiful Lucas Oil Estate for a dinner. The Master of Ceremonies of this event will be Fox 59’s Emmy Award-winning anchor, Franchon Stinger. The event will be held Thursday, May 26th. Proceeds from the event will be used for future speakers. To learn more, or to purchase tickets, click here.
Teen Depression and Suicide
There is a lot of concern about the mental health of young people today. Many people have concluded that Covid led to a spike in mental health problems for youth, but that is only somewhat true. Many mental health indicators did not change during Covid. The bigger picture is that mental health problems began to climb significantly several years ago.
One researcher, looking at these trends has drawn this conclusion.
“[T]hese trends show that something began to go wrong in the lives of teens about 10 years ago. Although the pandemic led to much-needed attention to the issue of teen mental health, the increases in mental health issues among teens predate the pandemic by years—and in fact, some mental health indicators didn’t change at all between 2019 and 2020. That means we need to look elsewhere for the original cause.
I noticed the early increases in teen depression when I was writing my book about the generation born after 1995, titled iGen. At first, I had no idea why teen depression was increasing so much in such a short period of time. But then I noticed some big trends in teens’ social lives: They were spending less time with their friends in person, and more time online. That tends not to be a good formula for mental health, especially for girls, and especially when that online time is spent on social media.
Thus, the high levels of teen depression are not going to go away even as the pandemic fades. Rates might decline a bit as things get back to normal, but as long as teens are scrolling through Instagram more, and hanging out in person with their friends less, depression is likely to remain at historically high levels.
If social media is responsible for even some of these increases in teen mental health problems, we need to ask what we can do.”
You can read more here.
In Their Own Words:
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” – G.K. Chesterton
