B SECTION READERS FOR SUNDAY, 7/13/25

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(SRN NEWS)  Despite a falling birth rate in the U.S., a new AP-NORC poll finds most people do not want the government to focus on the problem.  Instead, respondents want the government to focus on reducing child care costs and improving maternal health. The survey reveals only 12 percent think encouraging more births should be a high priority, while 62 percent do not.  However, the poll also reveals that about four-in-10 Americans consider the cost of fertility treatments to be a major problem in the country and want insurance companies to cover those costs. 

(  )  The Center for Trans-youth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will be closing this month.  It is the country’s biggest public provider of sex-change operations and hormone replacement therapies for children.  In response to the Trump administration’s threat to cut federal funds to places that perform such interventions on kids under the age of 18, the center will be closing its doors on July 22nd. The closure comes weeks after the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that forbids doctors or hospitals from performing irreversible surgeries on children in order to help them live as the opposite sex. 

(  )  Syrian Christian leaders are warning that the country’s small community of believers may decide to flee after last month’s devastating church attack.  Greek Orthodox leaders say the bombing of the Mar Elias church outside Damascus was the worst crime against Christians since 1860, when thousands were massacred within days by Muslim attackers.  Weeks after the bombing, it is still not clear who was behind it.  The government blamed ISIS, which has not claimed responsibility as it usually does.  About one third of the Christian population of Syria fled during the recent civil war and many are watching the new rebel government carefully. 

(  )  Democrats’ unpopular support for transgenderism is becoming an issue in various state campaigns.  Bill Berrien, a Milwaukee businessman who has just entered Wisconsin’s race for governor as a Republican is highlighting the issue.  Berrien faults Democratic Governor Tony Evers for vetoing a bill that would have barred males from playing on girls and women sports teams in Wisconsin.  He is also taking the governor to task for seeking to remove the words “woman” and “mother” in state law related to the legal rights of children of same-sex couples who are born through in vitro fertilization.  The election takes place next year.