RELIGION HEADLINES TUE 10-28

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(SRN NEWS)-

(  )  Pro-life pregnancy centers have been adding more medical services and could be poised to do more.  The expansion — ranging from testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to providing primary medical care — has been unfolding for years.  It gained steam after the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade.  The push could get more momentum with Planned Parenthood closing some clinics and considering shuttering others following changes to Medicaid.  Moira Gaul, a scholar at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, says the clinics “are prepared to serve their communities for the long-term.”

(  )  Russia is one of many major industrialized countries that is grappling with a shrinking and aging population, with President Vladimir Putin viewing it as a threat to national security.  Experts say it’s a legacy of the Soviet era when abortion was treated like contraception and many women terminated multiple pregnancies.  Putin is advancing pro-life laws in an effort to raise the Russian birthrate.  He has said that he wants to see a return to a time when women had “seven, eight, and even more children.”  However, economic uncertainty and the war in Ukraine cast doubt on how successful his efforts might be.

(  )  Transgenderism could be a big factor in deciding Virginia’s looming gubernatorial election and legislative control in Richmond.  Republican Winsome Earle-Sears wants to keep transgenderism out of the public schools while Democrat Abigail Spanberger has largely avoided the subject.  The winner of the governor’s race will likely have a lot to say about regulations covering trans youth in schools.  In October, term-limited Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order urging the Virginia Board of Health to draft guidance to “protect women’s and girls’ health and safety,” and he has also supported similar legislation in the Democratic-led legislature.

(  )  Thousands of pilgrims turned out Sunday in Romania’s capital for the dedication of religious paintings inside the world’s largest Orthodox Christian church that was being opened after 15 years of construction.  Worshippers and officials arrived in droves at the People’s Salvation Cathedral, known as the National Cathedral, which at its highest point stands more than 410 feet and has an inner capacity for 5,000 worshippers in the deeply Orthodox country. The cathedral’s opulent interior is covered with frescoes and mosaics.  Proposals for a national cathedral in the country of about 19 million people had been put forward for more than a century.