Religion, Gender Based Violence, and Human Trafficking: A Dangerous Intersection

 

This guest post is from Jade Q. Heider, Juris Doctorate Candidate 2027, and current Bioethics student:

This summer I interned at a religious freedom nonprofit in Fairfax, Virginia, and attended multiple congressional briefings that exemplified an intersection of religion, gender based violence, and human trafficking. Through the briefings, I learned that in the most extreme cases religion can be forced upon women, or withheld from women, to violate their rights. And this can destroy families.

The first congressional briefing was titled, “Gendered Persecution: Targets of Forced Conversion.” According to the accounts of panelists, girls in Egypt and Pakistan are similarly abused through cycles of child marriage and forced faith conversions. Panelists for this event explained the process of young girls being abducted, raped, and then forced to convert and marry their abusers. This is a clear pattern, and oftentimes, officials and judges do nothing about this because they approve of the spread of their religion through forced conversion. This is a tragic fate for young girls, and even if rescued, survivors face stigma from their communities who value sexual purity. One speaker emphasized that in Egypt the authorities deny justice for the families of the stolen girls and keep a front internationally to cover the sexual crimes. A Coptic woman testified how she was assaulted by her coach and forced to convert to Islam. Even after escaping from her abuser, she was persistently harassed and her abuser claimed she was “his wife.” Another panelist spoke on the condition of women in Pakistan. Like in Egypt, Christian girls, have been forcefully abducted, converted, and married off to men far older than themselves. The panelist emphasized how religious principles were used to create laws allowing underage girls to be married off after their first menstrual cycle. This briefing made the argument that gender based persecution should be recognized as a form of genocide, and that religion used to legally do wrong should be given specific attention. In addition to the trauma inflicted through abduction and forced conversion, child marriage has correlated deleterious effects on girls. Girls who are forced into child marriage miss educational, economic, and social growth opportunities and are often subject to physical and sexual abuse. Additionally, if they fall pregnant, they face higher health complications and risk of death associated with adolescent pregnancy.

Another congressional briefing I attended was called, “North Korea’s Future Hope.” The speakers from this event were all North Korean defectors, and a surprising issue discussed was how women defectors are trafficked in China. This form of gender based violence, occurs when women escape from North Korea through China. Though the women flee in hopes of freedom, many are forced into marriages or tricked into sex work when they flee to China. Since the One Child Policy left the Chinese population unbalanced, there is a large market of desperate men searching for wives. Trafficked women have no rights as undocumented immigrants, and cannot report any abuse to the police. A survivor testified that after defecting she was sex trafficked in China and became pregnant. She explained that her story was not unique, and thousands of children are in China with no birth certificates because their mothers are undocumented themselves. Without birth certificates, these children are unable to receive an education and are legally unprotected. Defectors shared how the North Korean government exerts extreme control and deals harsh punishment over religious expression. However, speakers emphasized how sneaking in the Bible to encourage religious thought, or even other materials such as K-dramas and music from the west, inspired them to defect, and could influence others. In North Korea, religion is restricted as a means of controlling the way citizens think, and severe government control is what drives citizens to defect. Religion being taken away as a means of control, is radically different from Egypt and Pakistan where religion is used as a form of control. Gender-based violence and human trafficking are often interconnected and intersect with religion as a tool that may be utilized or taken away from women to further perpetuate harmful cycles.

Religious freedom, both the freedom to profess a religion as well as the freedom from a religion are fundamental human rights – and they work together to help restore families.

 

Abortion v. Adoption: The Adoption Paradox

 

A new article in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy entitled, "Informing Choice: The Role of Adoption in Women's Pregnancy Decision-Making," describes the "adoption paradox," i.e., the reality that adoption is a widely admired but rarely chosen institution. By a ratio of 50:1, women choose to terminate a pregnancy over placing a child for adoption. Accordingly, many scholars (and the dissenting justices in Dobbs) question adoption's relevance in abortion policy specifically and in family policy more generally.

 

To investigate this tension, the authors examine never before-published survey data and analysis from the largest study on birth mothers’ decision-making and coercion experiences and aggregate and analyze existing social science studies of pregnancy decision-making regarding adoption. They found a prevalent stigma against the choice of adoption in women's pregnancy decision-making explained by many factors, such as feared emotional distress, social pressures to parent, and concern for the child’s safety. Adoption’s disfavor is amplified when legalized abortion is readily available, and decision-making often takes place in a situation of insufficient information or misunderstanding, for example, prevalent confusion between private domestic adoption and the foster care system. They also found that women who experience the highest satisfaction with adoption placement are those who were able to make a voluntary, fully informed decision.

Based on this data, the researchers recommend law and policy reforms to promote informed decision-making and education about adoption. The article includes the most comprehensive fifty-state survey of abortion-specific informed consent laws and, in light of these findings about the factors that most influence women’s decision-making, the researchers argue that major reform is needed.

This practical article can be useful to any individual in their decision-making process, or any state legislator seeking to promote adoption, or to anyone seeking to strengthen or defend state informed consent laws. Adoption is truly a better choice than abortion.

 

Must a Counselor Affirm Unwanted Therapy Because the State Says So?

 

    Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in the case of Chiles v. Salazar, challenging Colorado’s counseling censorship law as a violation of the rights of patients and counselors to choose the type of therapy and treatment they wish to receive.

    Licensed counselor Kaley Chiles’ freedom of speech and that of her clients are prohibited by censoring and prohibiting certain private client-counselor conversations regarding sexual orientation and gender identity that the government disfavors while allowing—even encouraging—conversations the government favors. 

    Read the full summary at Chiles v. Salazar. A counselor should not have to affirm unwanted therapy for any patient. A government that requires such protocol is not a state of free people. That government is also not working to restore individuals and families, but to remake and reform them according to the state's totalitarian values. 

    This excellent summary of the case reminds us why this issue is so important to individuals who want counseling, their families, the counselors, and the integrity of any public health system. 

                            https://x.com/ADFLegal/status/1975598928255930461

Michigan's Adoption Conundrum

 This guest post is from Cassia Barker, Regent Law 2L:

          In Michigan, approximately 10,000 children rely on the state’s foster care system for immediate care and for the opportunity of future familial safety. Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services cares for these children by funding agencies that recruit and vet foster homes. MCL 722.124e states that agencies contracted with the State cannot be required to provide services that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

          In 2017, plaintiffs brought a suit against the State, asserting that the State’s contract with agencies that used religious criteria to screen hopeful foster parents violated the plaintiff’s rights under the Establishment Clause and Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs, two same-sex couples who had been denied service by a Catholic agency, acknowledged the agency’s right to practice its religious views but asserted that the State had caused them a stigmatic injury by allowing the agency to perform a discriminatory practice that it, itself, could not legally perform. The court denied the defendant’s request to dismiss the case, and the two parties reached a settlement in which the State agreed to ensure that agencies it contracted with would not perform discriminatory practices. (Dumont v. Lyons, 2017)

          The Catholic agency, St. Vincent Catholic Charities, would bring its own suit against the State in 2019, arguing that the settlement agreement reached in Dumont v. Lyons violated their right to practice their religious beliefs. Due to the Supreme Court’s ruling on a similar issue in Pennsylvania in 2021 (Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 2021) which held that refusing state contracts to agencies that would not certify same-sex couples was unconstitutional, the State also settled with St. Vincent, agreeing to not enforce their previous settlement against them. (Buck v. Gordon, 2019) In 2022, the State entered into a consent judgment that allows faith-based discrimination in adoption agencies’ screening processes within certain parameters.

          This legal back-and-forth highlights the tension placed on the State as a fundamentally secular entity that cannot discriminate against sincerely held religious beliefs or against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. What does the State do when a religious group’s beliefs require discrimination against a group of people, and yet the government cannot endorse that discrimination? Since adoption—for some, the only way to form a family, either as child or parent—is not recognized as a legal right, is some level of discrimination in the adoption process just a reality that hopeful parents and children must accept? Unfortunately, the present circumstance is Michigan replies, “it depends.”

          Adoption is a biblical concept used by God Himself to place family-less children safely in forever families, from Moses (Exodus 2), to Esther (Esther 1), to every single one of us in our eternal family (Ephesians 1), restoring a family to a child who needs one. Michigan and every state could benefit from that great picture of family restoration.    

Chemical Abortion Accountability Act

This post is reprinted with permission from Americans United for Life (AUL), Policy Counsel Emily Hoegler, Regent Law 2024:

Today, nearly two of every three abortions in the U.S. occur through the “abortion pill”—a two-drug regimen beginning with mifepristone, which starves the developing embryo by blocking access to essential nutrients, followed by misoprostol, which causes the pregnant woman’s body to expel the deceased embryo. As a result of actions by the Obama and Biden administrations, the abortion pill (also known as RU-486 or by its principal brand name, Mifeprex) is being used to circumvent state laws designed to protect women and girls from dangerous abortions. Individuals in pro-abortion states and countries overseas are making pills available through social media and other sources then shipping them through the mail. The ease and anonymity of mail-order abortions overrides commonsense regulations including in-person medical oversight, raising serious safety concerns.    The abortion pill carries heightened medical risks for women. The largest-known study of the abortion pill found that 10.9% of women who undergo chemical abortions experience severe complications—including hemorrhaging, infection, or sepsis—within 45 days. Abortions performed through the pill have a four times higher complication rate than surgical abortions, one in five women who take the abortion pill will experience significant enough bleeding to require medical attention, and as many as eight percent of women will require surgical completion of their abortion. Alarmingly, the risk of serious complications from the abortion pill is 22 times higher than the FDA warning label on the abortion pill bottle suggests, meaning that women who take the abortion pill are not properly informed of its risks.   Yet, women often have little to no recourse when they are injured by chemical abortion. Though some states allow for civil remedies following an unlawful abortion, they often fail to explicitly address harm caused by the abortion pill. It is necessary to include this provision in the law to ensure that all women who are harmed by the abortion pill have access to, at minimum, a civil remedy.   The Chemical Abortion Accountability Act closes this gap by explicitly establishing standing for a civil cause of action against any person who prescribes, dispenses, distributes, sells, or otherwise facilitates the provision of abortion-inducing drugs that cause harm to a woman. Those eligible to file a claim include the woman who underwent the chemical abortion, her close family members, the unborn child’s father (except in cases involving rape or other criminal acts), and others harmed—excluding anyone who facilitated the abortion. Available remedies under the bill include injunctive relief, monetary damages for physical or emotional harm, and legal costs and attorney's fees.   A woman can never truly be made whole from the harms of chemical abortion, but states should enact the Chemical Abortion Accountability Act to ensure women and families harmed by abortion pills have a clear legal avenue to pursue justice and restitution. For Life, Emily Hoegler, J.D. Policy Counsel Americans United for Life P.S. Take action today to protect women from the dangers of the abortion pill. Join our Stop Harming Women Campaign and make your voice heard. With just a few clicks, you can send a powerful message to Congress, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, M.D., urging them to protect women from the abortion pill.

Aim for Heaven

 

This guest post is reprinted by permission from the C. S. Lewis Institute President, Joel Woodruff:

Fear Not, Acknowledge Jesus and Aim for Heaven by Dr. Joel Woodruff, President   On FaceTime, I saw tears stream down the young Christian college student’s face as she realized that an assassin’s bullet had struck down the life of the husband, father of two small children and fellow follower of Jesus Christ, Charlie Kirk. In response to the hate, violence and horror of this pre-meditated murder broadcast for the world to see, she had turned to Psalm 46, which begins, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” (NIV)his was also the passage which Charlie’s wife, Erika, had posted on her social media page hours before this tragedy occurred.   By meditating on God’s Word, this young student found some peace, but there were still some deep lingering questions as she and I wondered aloud, “As a Christian, how can we make any sense at all, out of this evil act?” As we reflected and prayed about this, I was reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 10: 28-32,   “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell… Fear not… So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (ESV)   Prior to Charlie’s death, I had heard a variety of opinions about his political views. So, rather than listening to the bias and hyperbole of the pundits, I decided to watch for myself some of his interactions with college students on YouTube. To the many whom Charlie inspired and even some of his critics, he was viewed as a man who tried to treat people with respect regardless of their ideological differences and valued freedom of speech and religion in society. A welcome approach in a vitriolic political climate.   But more importantly, he was fearless and winsome in sharing his faith in Jesus Christ and freely used the Bible to bear upon the issues he was addressing. Was he perfect, or did I agree with everything he said? No. But we’re all in the same boat as Paul the apostle so clearly stated, “All have fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). Yet, it was clear that Charlie had put his trust in the saving work of Jesus on the cross for his salvation. His passion for Christ and the Scriptures had become preeminent, over and above politics or any other issue on this earth.   C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic, Mere Christianity, the following, which reflects Jesus’ words in Matthew,              “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in:’ aim at earth and you will get neither.”   As the college student, my daughter, and I wrapped up our conversation, we concluded that in the midst of a fallen, chaotic and confusing world, Psalm 46 and Jesus’ admonition in Matthew 10 provide the comfort, strength and hope we must depend upon and return to regularly. We wrapped up by praying for Charlie’s wife, Erika, his two children; asked for help in forgiving the killer and praying that he would turn to God’s mercy as did the thief on the cross; and praying that God would take what was meant for harm and redeem it in the ways that only God can do. We also prayed that we might fear not, acknowledge Jesus and aim for heaven.  Our Mission In the legacy of C.S. Lewis, we develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life.

C.S. Lewis Institute | 8001 Braddock Road, Suite 301 | Springfield, VA 22151 US

A Turning Point: Charlie Kirk

 

 

Millions of lives have been forever changed by Charlie’s bold faith and willingness to speak with anyone on any topic.                                           By Jared Vallorani      (reprinted from the Center for Christian Thought & Action)

 

On September 10, 2025, we lost one of the greatest Christian evangelists of the last century. No, I’m not talking about John MacArthur or James Dobson, who both passed away recently and were also giants of the faith. I’m talking about Charlie Kirk. Tragically and horrifically, Charlie Kirk was assassinated Wednesday morning at Utah Valley University’s campus during the American Comeback kickoff tour. Charlie leaves behind his wife Erika and two children, ages 1 and 3. Charlie was only 31 years old. Most people think of Charlie and his work with the MAGA movement and his efforts to help get Donald Trump elected, but more than anything, Charlie loved Jesus and loved telling people about the truth of God’s Word. Much of the revival we’re seeing among young people is a direct result of the work Charlie Kirk accomplished over the past four years, particularly through his efforts on college campuses, his social media content, his podcast, as well as the Student Action Summit and America Fest held each year. Millions of lives have been touched and forever changed by Charlie’s bold faith and willingness to speak with and debate anyone on any topic. Many of those discussions centered around the Christian faith and doctrine. Read more here.

Thank you for praying for the family of Charlie Kirk.