Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in November, Amanda Prestigiacomo exposes the horrifying new frontier of Canada&#8217;s assisted suicide program.
Advocates for assisted suicide in Canada, where it’s been legal for just under a decade, are pushing to expand the practice to children.
Canada’s euthanasia program, known as MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying), started back in 2016 for people whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable” and wanted to end their lives. It’s already been expanded — both expanding the pool of adults who are eligible and how it can be administered, leading to an explosion of suicides in recent years.
Now, groups are calling for minors as young as 12 years old to be included in the government-funded suicide program. One advocacy group, called “Dying With Dignity Canada,” recommends minors as young as 12 be included in the program, and goes as far as to suggest 16 and 17-year-olds shouldn’t even need parental consent to be killed by a doctor if they fit broad criteria.
The group calls for assessing age eligibility based on “maturity” rather than “chronological age.”
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Dying With Dignity Canada
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Experts say the advocacy shows there was merit to the “slippery slope” argument made against the law from the outset.
“There is a kind of gruesome, relentless logic at work here, and this is why the logical ‘slippery slope’ argument is a valid argument,” Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and director at Ethics and Public Policy Center, told The Daily Wire. “Once you cross the line of allowing doctors to kill patients, once you cross the line of accepting the basic premise of the euthanasia movement — which is that some lives are not worth living and therefore these people should be killed by the medical profession, then it’s very hard to argue that there should be any limitations.”
The MAiD program started back in 2016, with only people whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable” eligible. In 99% of cases, a medical professional administers a substance that causes a person’s death, which is technically euthanasia. In the other cases, a person will be provided a substance to self-administer to cause their own death, which is defined as assisted suicide.
There’s only been an expansion of these procedures since the creation of MAiD, with massive growth in 2021, when chronic illness and disability were included as sole reasons for someone to be euthanized.
With an increasing number of people being euthanized every year, 2023 data shows more than 15,000 people were killed via MAiD. That accounts for 4.7% of all deaths in Canada. Put another way, about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j1z14p57po" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 in 20</a> Canadians who die every year are being euthanized.
Advocates for including so-called “mature” minors in the MAiD program argue that children need more autonomy over their health care, and note that minors can already consent or refuse certain medical treatments, so including them, they argue, would be consistent. They say it’s about compassion.
The “slippery slope” argument, Kheriaty said, is playing out in real time in Canada. “Your basic premise, your basic argument is people should be able to do this on the basis of one of two things: autonomy and choice on the one hand, or pain and suffering on the other hand. And people can always invoke pain and suffering,” he said. “Who’s to say that they’re not suffering more than someone who qualified under the law, right?”
Kheriaty said that just a few years ago, he may have viewed the movement to euthanize minors as fringe. He doesn’t view it that way anymore.
“A few years ago, I would’ve said, ‘No, I don’t think the Canadian regime is going to go that far to have so-called ‘mature minors,’ adolescents avail themselves of euthanasia,&#8217;” he said. “But now, I’m sad to say I wouldn’t put it past them.”
In addition to the movement to include minors in the MAiD program, there’s a strong push to include people who suffer solely from mental health issues, like depression. That’s set to take effect in 2027. But Kheriaty says it’s already happening in Canada.
“There have been at least a few cases described and reported widely in the last couple of years in Canada,” he said. “I remember one case of, I believe it was a 27-year-old female, a woman in her twenties <a href="https://calgary.citynews.ca/2024/06/04/calgary-maid-appeal-case-advocacy-groups-intervene/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whose sole diagnosis was autism and ADHD</a>, neither of which are terminal conditions.”
“So even if it’s not officially legalized in Canada yet, that psychiatric conditions can be used as the sole criteria for euthanasia,” he said. “There have been reported cases in the literature where clearly that’s been happening already.”
Kheriaty believes opposition must come from the medical community.
“Most people who avail themselves of this have a deep-seated fear that they’re going to be a burden on others,” he explained. “They’re gonna be a burden on society. They’re gonna be a burden on the medical community that’s not gonna want to care for them.”
“And we have to respond, rather than abandoning the patient by saying, ‘Yes, here’s the poison pill,’ or, ‘I’ll administer the poison injection to you.’ We have to respond by saying, ‘No, it’s a privilege to care for you.’ It’s a privilege to walk with you through what might be the final stage of your life — in the cases where someone has been diagnosed with the terminal illness. Or, it’s a privilege to care for you if you’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness and maybe it’s been difficult to treat. Let’s continue to work to find ways to treat this.”
A failure to do so would hurt society’s most vulnerable.
“Assisted suicide is both dangerous and inhumane, and I would say all the more so true of euthanasia, because it abandons vulnerable patients who need help, treatment efforts at healing, or when healing or cure is not possible, they need support and care.”

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Best Of 2025: Movement Barrels Forward To Euthanize 12 Year Old Children In Canada

Assisted Suicide

Canada

Children

Euthanasia

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in April, Matt Walsh dismantles the ADHD scam.
***
At the risk of angering all the people who will scream from the rooftops that “correlation doesn’t equal causation,” like it’s some kind of Scriptural edict, here’s some data that’s worth considering. From 1980 to 2020, the share of male teachers, in both elementary and middle schools, declined from 40% to less than 20%. Men have mostly stopped teaching young children in school. And during this same period, as men have abandoned elementary schools, there’s coincidentally been another major change in childhood education: Everyone’s being diagnosed with ADHD.
More than 21% of 14-year-old boys in this country now supposedly suffer from this condition. The number goes up to 23% for 17-year-old boys. As a result, prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin and Adderall have skyrocketed. From 2012 to 2022, the total number of prescriptions for stimulants to treat ADHD increased dramatically by nearly 60%. Boys between the ages of 10 to 14 were the demographic that saw the highest increase in these prescriptions.
For decades, you’ve been instructed to believe there’s no significance to this correlation whatsoever. As women increasingly enter the workforce and replace men in teaching jobs, we’re not supposed to draw any conclusions about how the behavior of male children is now being addressed. The truth, we’ve been told, is not that a feminized education system has increasingly punished normal male behavior it doesn’t understand. It’s not that schools have lost their capacity to educate male students. It’s not that smartphone use and electronics in general have become distractions teachers have been unable to control.
Instead, we’ve been led to believe that, in truth, boys have suddenly become afflicted with a severe psychological disorder. There’s no objective, biologically-based test for this disorder, nor can anyone point to a specific gene or pathogen that might cause it. But the scientific consensus, for many years now, has nevertheless been clear: ADHD, they’ve said again and again, is real. And the way to treat it is to give children “speed,” in the form of drugs like Ritalin.
As I’ve said repeatedly, for over a decade, the science behind the theory of ADHD isn’t simply underbaked or inadequate. It’s comically useless, to the point that it’s obviously fraudulent. To give just one of many examples, a few years ago, researchers at the University of Central Florida conducted a grand experiment where they put a child in front of a computer. Here’s what it looked like:
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The researchers showed a child two separate videos. One of the videos was about mathematics, and it involved a teacher talking about basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The other video was the pod-racing scene from “Star Wars.” And, as you can see from the videos, the child became bored during the math lecture. He starts spinning in his chair and fidgeting. On the other hand, when the child is shown something more engaging, he suddenly stops fidgeting. He’s actually paying attention to “Star Wars.”
Unless you’re an alien who’s never interacted with a child, and was never a child yourself, there is nothing remotely interesting or surprising about this footage. It’s exactly what you’d expect a normal, healthy child to do. But in the academic world, which exists to sell pharmaceuticals to children, this was a groundbreaking experiment. The footage was the basis for a peer-reviewed article in the“Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.”
The University of Central Florida bragged about their findings with this headline: “ADHD Kids Can Be Still – If They’re Not Straining Their Brains.” Their conclusion was that ADHD is a nefarious disorder that’s only triggered by “cognitively demanding tasks,” and that we need to be vigilant of ADHD whenever children have to use their brains in specific ways.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1576-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
In reality, of course, the University of Central Florida had simply discovered the concept of “boredom.” That’s all they accomplished. It’d be like discovering that children prefer ice cream to broccoli, and then announcing you’ve identified a major new psychiatric disorder. It’s exactly like doing a study to discover that children are more excited about opening presents on Christmas than they are about doing their chores, and then concluding that there must be some previously undetected mental illness infecting every child on Earth.
Multiply this garbage study by about ten million, and you get the sum and substance of “ADHD research” over the past few decades. None of it is legitimate. As a result, we’ve all been waiting for the moment when, at long last, the medical establishment and mainstream media will finally acknowledge that none of this science is legitimate — because when that happens, millions of children will be spared these damaging and grossly unnecessary ADHD drugs.
This week that moment has belatedly arrived.
The New York Times Magazine has just published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lengthy article</a> entitled: “Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?”
It’s important to note, at the outset, that this article is not the result of some new discovery in the field of ADHD. There hasn’t been any new, groundbreaking research. Instead, the piece is a collection of existing studies about ADHD — some of them dating back more than a decade — along with testimony from researchers who, in the past, were some of the leading voices promoting ADHD medications. Now these researchers would like you to know that they’ve changed their minds because, after thinking about things for a while, they realize they were completely wrong.
The article opens by discussing a researcher named James Swanson, who conducted a famous experiment in the 1990s that tracked three groups of students over a long period of time. One group of students received drugs for their alleged ADHD. Another group received “behavioral training.” And a third group didn’t receive any kind of treatment. After a little over a year, the study supposedly showed that the kids who received Ritalin were doing a lot better than any other group. This study immediately became a major national news story. It was sold as proof that Ritalin works and that ADHD is real. And researchers like Swanson became highly-paid consultants for the pharmaceutical industry, shilling ADHD drugs. So everyone was happy. This is in spite of the fact that, even if the drugs really did improve a child’s behavior or academic performance, that in and of itself doesn’t prove that he has a disorder. Steroids improve athletic performance, but that doesn’t mean that a child who lacks athletic skill is disordered. Just because a drug enhances performance doesn’t make it a legitimate medication. But, it turns out, these drugs don’t even do that much.
As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now admits</a>, the researchers understood very quickly that their narrative was false:
<blockquote>As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms. Swanson is now 80 and close to the end of his career, and when he talks about his life’s work, he sounds troubled — not just about the M.T.A. results but about the state of the A.D.H.D. field in general. ‘There are things about the way we do this work,” he told me, ‘that just are definitely wrong.’</blockquote>
In other words, now that he’s 80, this researcher — who played a vital role in the mass-prescribing of ADHD drugs — has no problem going on the record and explaining that the so-called “science” on ADHD is essentially meaningless.
In the end, we’re not correcting any kind of disorder in the brain. We’re not providing a long-term solution to a medical problem. We’re just giving children amphetamines, which have the predictable effect of artificially stimulating their brains so that they seem less bored — while introducing a whole host of catastrophic side effects that we’ll discuss in a moment. And like all drug highs, eventually it stops working, and reality sets in.
The “top scientists” are all admitting this now. It’s not just James Swanson who’s recanting his old research on ADHD. For example, in 2017, a Dutch neuroscientist named Martine Hoogman announced that she had discovered evidence confirming that ADHD is a real, observable disorder that’s reflected in human biology.
She stated at the time:
<blockquote>We confirm, with high-powered analysis, that patients with A.D.H.D. have altered brains; therefore A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain.</blockquote>
That’s what this researcher found with her “high-powered analysis” less than a decade ago. That was her statement. But now, this same neuroscientist is admitting that her data showed something completely different. This is again from the reporter who wrote this week’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Times article</a>:
<blockquote>When I interviewed Hoogman by email recently, I was surprised to learn that she now wishes she could have revised that statement. ‘Back then, we emphasized the differences that we found (although small), but you can also conclude that the sub-cortical and cortical volumes of people with A.D.H.D. and those without A.D.H.D. are almost identical,’ she wrote. In retrospect, she added, it wasn’t fitting to conclude from her findings that A.D.H.D. is a brain disorder. ‘The A.D.H.D. neurobiology is so much more complex than that.’</blockquote>
So here we have a leading “expert” who claimed, in 2017, that her research proved that ADHD alters the brains. And now, via email with a New York Times reporter, she casually admits that her research showed that the brains of people who are diagnosed with ADHD are “almost identical” to everyone else. To call this a walkback would be a massive understatement. These people are completely abandoning everything they’ve been saying with absolute certainty. And yet their research is still used by believers in ADHD to support their theory — even though the actual researchers themselves no longer stand by it.
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To be clear, it wasn’t just this one scientist. Dozens of leading “experts” pushed the idea that ADHD is a symptom of observable, physical issues in the brain. They even published a consensus statement claiming that a single gene caused ADHD, and that ADHD patients had less brain matter and less electrical activity in their brain. None of this was actually true. When they ran experiments to prove this was true, they got the opposite result — but they pretended otherwise at the time. That’s what this Dutch scientist is now admitting to.
It’s impossible to measure the full extent of the damage that’s been done to millions of young children as a result of this fraud.
Here’s just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one metric</a>, citing the MTA Study:
<blockquote>Children who took Ritalin for an extended period grew less quickly than the non-medicated children did. By the end of those 36 months, subjects who had consistently taken stimulant medication were, on average, more than an inch shorter than the ones who had never received medication. Many of the scientists in the M.T.A. group assumed that this height suppression in childhood would be temporary — that the shorter children would catch up during adolescence — but when data was collected again nine years after the initial experiment, the height gap remained. … Amphetamines can be powerfully addictive, and last year, a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that even a medium-strength daily dose of Adderall more than tripled a patient’s likelihood of developing psychosis or mania.</blockquote>
Yes, we have drastically increased the risk of permanently destroying children’s brains and bodies based entirely on junk science. And that’s just what The New York Times is willing to admit now. Give them another 20 years, and they’ll tell you all about the effects that amphetamines have on the heart, as well. All of this data already exists, of course. They’re just refusing to tell you about it.
To be fair, there is one study that the Times cites that’s actually recent. Here’s the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">groundbreaking insight</a> that the new “MTA” study has uncovered:
<blockquote>Last October, the M.T.A. group published a new study that explored how A.D.H.D. symptoms in M.T.A. participants changed over the course of their childhood and young adulthood. In contrast to the categorical model of A.D.H.D. — you either have it or you don’t — the researchers showed that for most subjects, their symptoms and level of impairment in fact fluctuated over the years, often quite substantially. Only about 11 percent of the children who entered the study with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis experienced the symptoms consistently year after year.</blockquote>
This is something you don’t need an “MTA group” or a controlled, high-budget study to realize. Any parent could have told you this. Anyone with common sense could have told you this.
Everyone — whether they have children or not — intuitively understands that children go through phases. We don’t need to administer psychoactive drugs every time they go through a phase we don’t like. And we all know that it didn’t really take decades for leading scientific experts to come to this conclusion. They knew it all along. But they had a financial incentive to say otherwise. Only now that the situation has devolved into total absurdity — now that we’re supposed to pretend that 25% of teenagers suffer from this diagnosis — are some of these experts finally telling the truth.
They’re also finally admitting that, in reality, the cure for ADHD is simply doing things that are interesting. That’s it. It turns out that, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Times</a>, ADHD patients suddenly lost their symptoms when they started doing things that actually interested them:
<blockquote>A hairstylist told the researchers that her inability to concentrate in school vanished when she began studying hair.. … A young man who was training to be an auto technician said that in his new career, his A.D.H.D. was no longer an issue. … Patients’ symptoms tended to improve, rather than worsen, during times of higher ‘environmental demands’ — periods of more responsibility and busier schedules. … Jobs or college courses that were demanding and interesting helped alleviate their symptoms. And as their symptoms lifted, they changed the way they thought about themselves.</blockquote>
Imagine that. It turns out that people become bored when you talk to them about something they’re not interested in. And they become more engaged when you talk about things they find interesting. This is the cutting edge of the science on ADHD medication. They’re figuring out things that anyone with ten brain cells could have told you a long time ago. I have gone through this myself. I was a terrible student in school. I could have easily been diagnosed with ADHD if my parents wanted to go that route, which, thankfully, they didn’t. But even though I couldn’t complete a school assignment to save my life, now, as an adult, I write the word count equivalent of two or three chapters of a book every single week while preparing for my show. I also read all the time and enjoy learning new things. What accounts for the change? Did my “ADHD” wear off? No, for one thing, I grew older and became more mature and more disciplined. For another thing, I enjoy what I do now and I’m interested in it. It’s not that complicated. But the medical field has treated it that way for decades.
This whole thing has obviously become something of a pattern in the field of modern medicine. In the last few years we’ve learned — or at least, the people who hadn’t been paying close attention learned — that the chemical imbalance theory of depression was a lie, gender affirming care was a lie, the claim about how lockdowns wouldn’t hurt children was a lie, and now ADHD is a lie. At this point, you have to ask: Why would anyone trust the psychiatric industry ever again? These are not lies of little consequence. Millions of people, especially children, have been hurt.
The only winner in this process, as always, has been the pharmaceutical industry, which has convinced millions of parents to buy their drugs and medicalize a completely normal part of the human condition. These are all points that some of us have been making for years, even decades. We were shouted down as science deniers. Now we get the inevitable missive in some corporate media outlet unceremoniously announcing that the people they defamed and insulted were actually right all along.
That’s what this New York Times article amounts to. I get no pleasure out of reporting on it. I find it infuriating. All you can do, going forward, is to treat the self-described experts in the field of psychiatry with maximum contempt and skepticism, especially when they’re trying to convince you to drug yourself or your child. Just be prepared for the inevitable backlash that will follow when you don’t go along with the next wonder drug they’re pushing for you or your child. First, they’ll call you a science denier. Then, they’ll try to censor you on social media. And then, many years later, without giving away a dime of the money they’ve made from their fraud or suffering any consequences whatsoever, they’ll tell The New York Times that you were right all along.

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Best Of 2025: The ‘Experts’ Are Finally Admitting That ADHD Is A Scam

Matt Walsh

Mental Illness

Actor Kirk Cameron has spent the last several years bravely engaging in the culture war. 
Despite a history in Hollywood, however, the “Growing Pains” alum has been doing battle in public libraries. In an interview with The Daily Wire&#8217;s “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251224-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Morning Wire</a>” released on Wednesday, Cameron discussed why he believes the fight begins with young people.
Cameron said it was becoming a father and that really got him thinking about these issues. “Once you become a dad, and now I’m a grandfather, I’m beginning to think legacy,” he told Morning Wire. “I’m beginning to think of how can I help my children succeed and win.”
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For Cameron, that meant investing in “the moral spiritual health of my children and my grandchildren” by creating content that does not “bend with the political winds.” He pointed to beloved figures like Mr. Rogers and asked, “Who’s our guy today who’s gonna do that?&#8230; If not me, then who?”
This inspired Cameron to launch Brave Books and the children’s television series “Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk.” He described reception as divided along the Right and Left political spectrum. 
“Well, it depends on who you ask,” Cameron said of the reception. “The drag queens don’t like the books much. And the libraries that support progressive agendas don’t like me entering much.”
Cameron recounted being denied access to roughly 50 public libraries, including those that host drag queen story hours, because, he was told their “values don’t align.” 
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“I thought the rules were… diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he said. “Why do you exclude me? Why not diversity of thought instead of this monoculture that the kids are getting?”
When libraries ultimately reversed course after being threatened with legal action, Cameron said the response from families was overwhelming. “Thousands of parents and grandparents showed up and said, ‘Thank you. We don’t want this other stuff, but we’re being marginalized and silenced.’”
Critics often frame Christian values as inherently discriminatory. Cameron rejected that premise outright. “Every view is inherently discriminatory,” he said, “particularly the progressive inclusive view, as I experienced.”
The TV star quipped that he’s been “run over by the tolerance bus several times.”
“If someone’s coming at you with a sign that says ‘love everybody,’ be careful,” Cameron added. “They might whack you over the head with it.”
Cameron told Morning Wire that the root of the problem is conflicting worldviews. “There are ideas that lead to liberty and blessing, and then there’s ideas that don’t,” he said. The TV star said his own values are “the value set of Moses that’s been around for thousands of years and produced the world’s greatest civilizations.”
Cameron said he’s been encouraged by recent changes in the culture. “Three years ago we were being locked out of public libraries,” he said. “This last year we were invited by the Library of Congress… so that we could read these same books.”
“Whoever rocks the cradle rules the future,” Cameron said of inspiring the youngest generation. “Whoever gets to tell the kids the bedtime stories… you’re shaping the next generation’s hearts and minds.”

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron: Why Helping Children ‘Succeed And Win’ Matters More Than Ever

Kirk Cameron Discusses Faith, Children’s Media, And Winning Back The Culture

Culture

Faith

Library

Social Issues

For years, the pediatric cancer community fought to pass a single bill designed to help children with cancer access better drug treatments.
The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act empowered the FDA to push drug companies to study combination therapies that could save young lives. After countless setbacks, the bill finally appeared headed for success — unanimous passage in the Senate, a signature from the president, and long-overdue relief for families who had already waited too long.
Then one senator <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/p/pediatric-cancer-bill-bernie-sanders-mikaela-naylon">stopped it:</a> Bernie Sanders.
On the night the bill reached the Senate floor, advocates, reporters, grieving siblings, and a cancer survivor filled the gallery expecting a rare moment of bipartisan decency. Instead, Sanders objected to unanimous consent, killing the bill’s momentum in a dramatic floor exchange that most Americans never saw coming. His objection was not to the bill’s purpose — he supports it, in theory — but to unrelated provisions attached to it and to his insistence that other health-care priorities be passed at the same time.
“He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who forcefully supported the Give Kids a Chance Act, said. “It is ridiculous.”
“A unanimous vote in the chamber would have allowed the bill to bypass several steps, which typically involve the committee process and rules for debate, to move it straight along,” the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/12/21/us-news/bernie-sanders-blasted-for-tanking-bill-to-help-pediatric-cancer-patients-for-leverage/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">noted</a>. “Given that the bill had already unanimously cleared the House, it only needed to get through the Senate before going straight to President Trump’s desk for his signature.”
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The context makes Sanders’ move look even worse. The bill gained renewed momentum only because of Mikaela Naylon, a 16-year-old dying of osteosarcoma who had suffered below-knee amputation, multiple lung surgeries, radiation, and radioactive treatments. She spent her final weeks — after her doctors told her she had only weeks to live — lobbying Congress instead of resting. Even after she returned home to Colorado, she was meeting with legislators over Zoom. She became so weak that her parents ultimately had to speak for her while she listened. She spoke to Sen. John Hickenlooper on October 29, dying three hours later.
After Mikaela’s death, the House passed the renamed bill unanimously. Every senator but one was ready to do the same.
Sanders justified his blockade by arguing that savings in the bill should fund community health centers and that other bipartisan health provisions killed months earlier should be revived alongside it. By demanding everything or nothing, Sanders ensured that vulnerable children got nothing.
In the end, the Senate left town for the holidays, and the bill died with the clock. Sanders may claim he was fighting for bigger goals, but history will record that when given the chance to deliver immediate help to sick children, he chose procedural purity and political leverage instead. Incremental progress was available. He alone decided it wasn’t good enough — and kids paid the price.

Bernie Sanders 12/9/25

Bernie Sanders Singlehandedly Kills Pediatric Cancer Bill

When Politics Trump Compassion: Bernie Sanders Singlehandedly Kills Pediatric Cancer Bill

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It’s a sure sign of Christmas when we hear Nat King Cole crooning about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. While few of us have experienced eating such warm roasted chestnuts, we can surely relate to seeing “tiny tots with their eyes all aglow.”
When children experience the bright lights of the Christmas Season, they can hardly open their eyes wide enough to take in all the beauty. From living room Christmas trees to sparkling downtown squares, bright, colorful decorations are everywhere. And, as the lyrics remind us, the bright lights are most exquisite when they are reflected in the eyes and on the faces of children, especially young children. 
What do we really see on these precious little faces? What best describes the look of wonder reflected in the wide eyes of children taking in the lights?
It’s joy.
The innocent expressions of wonder on the face of a child can bring joy to all of us, even when things aren’t stellar for us adults. A child’s perception of this light-filled season can even melt the hearts of all the Scrooges in our midst.
That’s because children don’t just reflect the season; they are represented by the central character in the Christmas story. After all, the Christ Child is the focus of the attention of all the participants in the nativity. The lowly animals, the shepherds, the wise men, and, of course, Mary and Joseph. Our front-yard nativity sets may have all of those frozen figurines at once, even though the story itself plays out over a longer period. Just as the Star of Bethlehem lit that special night more than two millennia ago, the bright lights we see today can brighten even our darkest nights.
Yet the message of joy that still flows from that manger came with its own set of challenges, many of which we still face today. The pregnancy was unexpected. Housing insecurity was real. A government edict forced an ill-timed travel issue. The soon-to-be husband was not the father of the baby. Such challenges have the potential to steal joy, not bring it. And yet, after 2,000 years, we memorialize it on our lawns, over the mantel, or in dioramas that dominate our home décor. No matter the conditions of their conception, babies have a way of bringing joy and smiles.
Carl Sandburg once said, “A baby is God&#8217;s opinion that life should go on.” That is true with every new life, as much as it was with the Christ Child. The next generation is the hope for the future of our families, our communities, and of the world.
The story of Mary and the manger reminds us that every woman should be loved and supported in her pregnancy, despite her immediate circumstances. The spark of life within every child in the womb should be welcomed and nurtured, cherished and treasured. Temporary obstacles should be overcome so that every tiny tot has a chance to be filled with wonder and joy at Christmas. Each of us should do our part to help someone near us, or close by us, or maybe even someone we’ll never get the chance to meet, be able to greet their little one with joy and gratitude.
That is what motivates the life-affirming work of pregnancy help in communities all over the country every day of the year. Whether around the kitchen table in a maternity home or through an ultrasound at a pregnancy medical clinic, or in the placement of a child into an adoptive family, pregnancy help provides real help for real needs to those dealing with temporary challenges.
All pregnancies are temporary, even the unexpected ones. And every life should have a chance to make a positive mark on the world and future generations.
That holy night reminds us of more than the value of just that one child. That “silent night” stands as a powerful proclamation for each of us to welcome the work of God when it comes as a baby. We should make way, or “prepare him room,” for “love’s pure light” to shine into, and through, our hearts at this special time of year and all year long. That’s what empowers each of us to light up with joy and sing, “Joy to the World!”
* * *
Jor-El Godsey is president of Heartbeat International.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Florida has scored a significant victory in its effort to protect children from exposure to sexually explicit content, as the state can now enforce its 2023 law aimed at preventing minors from attending sexually explicit drag shows.
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On Monday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court injunction that had blocked enforcement of the law for nearly two years, allowing Florida to move forward while the broader legal battle continues. The ruling applies statewide, with the lone exception of Hamburger Mary’s, the venue that initially challenged the law.
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The appeals court’s decision follows a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited the use of universal injunctions — court orders that block laws for everyone, even those not involved in the lawsuit. As a result, Florida officials regained the authority to enforce a law passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to uphold basic standards of decency where children are concerned.
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised the ruling, emphasizing that the law was designed to keep minors away from adult-themed performances depicting nudity, sexual conduct, or lewd behavior. “For two years, our law preventing children from attending sexually explicit drag shows was held up in court,” he wrote on X. “Starting today, the law is in effect thanks to a win on appeal by our office.  If you&#8217;re exposing children to lewd conduct, you&#8217;re on notice. We’re watching, Pensacola.”
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For two years, our law preventing children from attending sexually explicit drag shows was held up in court. Starting today, the law is in effect thanks to a win on appeal by our office. 
If you&#39;re exposing children to lewd conduct, you&#39;re on notice. We’re watching, Pensacola.
&mdash; Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2000671416199389202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Conservatives argue that this is a common-sense safeguard, not an attack on free speech. As Rep. Doug Bankson <a href="https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2023-04-20/florida-house-passes-bills-children-drag-shows-transgender-bathroom-use">put it</a> during legislative debate in 2023, the goal is simple: “Let kids be kids” and protect their innocence.
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The law reflects broader concerns among Florida lawmakers about the rapid normalization of sexualized content and radical gender ideology aimed at children. While critics claim the statute is vague, supporters counter that its definitions mirror long-standing standards used to regulate adult entertainment and protect minors from harm. The law also prevents local governments from issuing permits for inappropriate events and allows the state to discipline venues that violate the rules.
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The ruling may have immediate implications for events such as “A Drag Queen Christmas” scheduled at a city-owned theater in Pensacola. Uthmeier has warned that government entities hosting performances that mock Christianity or promote obscene material could face legal consequences, noting that the First Amendment does not require public institutions to endorse offensive content.
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Ultimately, conservatives view this development as a reaffirmation of parental rights, public morality, and the state’s duty to shield children — the most vulnerable members of society — from sexualized performances masquerading as family entertainment.
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Drag queen with hand on hip, close-up

Florida Wins Court Battle To Enforce Law Protecting Children From Sexually Explicit Drag Shows

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Democrats are looking at 2028 and see Republican vulnerability.
What they see is a 2024 election that — while it was fairly solid as a win for Republicans in the Electoral College — was a pretty narrow win in the popular vote. They think that perhaps they can reverse the tide, perhaps take the White House in 2028 with someone like Gavin Newsom.
Thus, Democrats have shifted away from their 2024 failing strategy, taking the least popular parts of their agenda and moving those to the back burner.
We heard all about equity in the run-up to the 2020 election. It was the centerpiece of the Joe Biden campaign. In 2024, it was again the centerpiece of the late-breaking Kamala Harris campaign in 2024.
You no longer hear Democrats talking about equity each and every day the way that they were before. Instead, they are talking about “affordability.” The same thing is true about radical trans issues. The politics of transgenderism are awful for Democrats.
The vast majority of Americans believe that boys are boys and girls are girls, and boys cannot become girls, and attempts to brainwash children into the idea that they are, in fact, members of the opposite sex, or even could be members of the opposite sex, is perverse. Telling a young kid that you might have a girl’s brain in a boy&#8217;s body is not only gnostic and scientifically nonsensical, it is also terribly wrong to do that to children.
That was the general perception among Americans, and it drove huge numbers for President Trump. The single most effective ad of the 2024 campaign was on this issue from the Trump campaign, and suggested that Kamala was for transgenders while President Trump was for you.
If you talk to people in minority communities who swiveled from Democrat to Republican, this was a major issue because the trans issue — which affected a fairly small percentage of the population, went to fundamental truths about our society.
Could you trust people who told such a basic lie: that boys could be girls?
The answer was no.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
So Democrats have decided that they are going to put that on the back burner. One of those Democrats was Gavin Newsom.
A few months ago, Gavin Newsom was doing a podcast with the late Charlie Kirk in which Charlie pressed Gavin Newsom on trans politics. Newsom admitted that boys should not be playing in girls’ sports, admitting that it was unfair.
But — the other day, Newsom — having been asked questions by members of the Democratic base and believing that he is the front runner for the 2028 Democratic nomination — did a podcast with Ezra Klein of The New York Times in which he was asked about his take on trans politics.
Now that Newsom believes that he has to win primaries in the Democratic Party as he prepares for that 2028 run, he swiveled back into a losing strategy for Democrats. 
“I want to see trans kids,” he proclaimed, continuing: “I have a trans godson. There’s no governor that’s done more pro-trans legislation than I have. No one has been a stronger advocate for the LGBTQ community.” 
The normie position is that there is no such thing as a trans kid. There are kids who may have gender dysphoria. That is a different thing. There is no such thing as a kid who is a boy in a girl&#8217;s body, or upon whom we should be performing hormonal therapies and surgeries that are utterly unscientific and permanently damaging to them.
So when Gavin Newsom says, “I want to see trans kids, there&#8217;s no governor that&#8217;s done more pro trans legislation than I have,” that creates a real awkwardness for the Democratic Party. 
This broke into the open because it precipitated a confrontation with Elon Musk.
America, a PAC founded by Musk, posted the video of Newsom, and it went viral. Gavin Newsom&#8217;s press office replied, referring to one of Musk’s sons who identifies as a woman, “We&#8217;re sorry your daughter hates you, Elon.”
It&#8217;s insane to get personal on these sorts of issues.
When I discuss these issues, I try not to get personal. The reason I try not to get personal is because once you&#8217;re into the emotional valence of somebody&#8217;s family, you have a problem.
A few years ago, I spoke at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and it was about this issue. A person got up who identified as a woman. He started personalizing the question, saying, “My family treats me as though I&#8217;m a girl.”
I replied, “You know, I would really appreciate it if we could keep this on the level of the philosophical and issue-based, because once we get into critiquing interpersonal relations, this is going to get very personal very quickly.”
This person kept insisting, ”No, I know that I&#8217;m a woman because my family treats me as a woman.” And I kept saying, “Please, I don&#8217;t want to talk about how your family treats you because that&#8217;s about your family. It&#8217;s about the broader issue, which is the question of public policy and how we ought to deal with these issues as a general society”.
But the person wouldn&#8217;t stop. Finally I said, “The reason that your family is saying to you that you are a woman and confirming you in your delusion is because they are afraid that you will do something bad to yourself, not because they actually believe that you are a woman. They do not believe that you are a girl. They know that you are not. They are trying to humor you because they&#8217;re afraid of what will happen if they do not.”
This person got extremely emotional and rushed out of the room. It was a perfect YouTube clip, but the reason you&#8217;ve never seen that on YouTube is because I went to the organizers of the event and asked them to remove that from the tape of the event, because I knew that this person was going to be damaged by that tape. It would have hurt him.
Not only that, I then found friends of the person and asked this person to come to breakfast the next morning with me to make sure this person was okay.
That’s because when you merge the personal and the political in this way, it gets really ugly, really quickly.
Gavin Newsom&#8217;s press office targeting Musk over his child was truly ugly stuff.
Musk then tweeted back, “I assume you’re referring to my son, Xavier, who has a tragic mental illness caused by the evil woke mind virus you push on vulnerable children. I love Xavier very much and hope he recovers. My daughters are Azure, Exa (she goes by Y) and Arcadia, and they do indeed love me very much.”
The fact that Newsom&#8217;s office went that low is really disgusting, and shows how the Democrats are going to run headlong into their own radicalism on this issue.
Newsom seems like he&#8217;s trying to avoid the issue altogether. But if he is dragged back into discussing this issue, and if Democrats keep making the same moral litmus test as to whether boys can be girls, especially minors, then they&#8217;re going to be in for a world of hurt.

Business And Government Leaders Speak At New York Times’ DealBook Summit

Gavin Newsom Wants To Trans The Kids

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It’s not in your imagination: children’s television has been overrun with LGBT themes, and Netflix is leading the charge, waving the rainbow flag right into your living room.
A <a href="https://concernedwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/CWA-Netflix-Report.pdf">new report</a> from Concerned Women for America (CWA) confirms what many parents have long suspected about LGBT propaganda in kids’ entertainment. According to the study, one-third of all Netflix shows rated for children contain LGBTQ characters, themes, or messaging, and the percentage jumps to 41% in both TV-G and TV-Y7 categories.
In other words, the shows most aggressively marketed to the youngest viewers now routinely include sexual-identity content that would have been unthinkable in children’s entertainment just a decade ago.
Parents got a glimpse of this last October when a clip from the series “Dead End: Paranormal Park” went viral due to the main character “coming out” as transgender, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-says-he-will-cancel-netflix-subscription-over-trans-propaganda-aimed-at-children">reported</a>. 
Elon Musk amplified the video and urged users to “cancel Netflix.” Within hours, the platform lost an estimated $15 billion in value. But while many dismissed the situation as an isolated incident, the CWA report demonstrates that it was only the tip of the iceberg.
The research team examined 326 Netflix series rated TV-G, TV-Y, or TV-Y7 — categories traditionally meant to be free of sexual topics altogether. They then catalogued LGBT themes as explicit (openly identified characters), implied (queer-coded characters or storylines), meta (LGBT families on reality shows), or none.
Even among TV-Y shows, which are geared toward preschoolers, 21% of the programs introduce LGBT identity concepts. Shows such as “The Magic School Bus Rides Again” and “Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City” feature transgender, nonbinary, or “trans-coded” characters.
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CWA President and CEO Penny Nance, who leads the nation’s largest public policy organization for women, told The Daily Wire she was stunned by what the researchers uncovered. “I think I was most surprised that they had even targeted preschool children,” she said. “Over 20% of the programming aimed at the smallest viewers had LGBTQ themes included.”
For Nance, the numbers aren’t just data points, but a wake-up call for parents who thought age ratings provided a safeguard against adult content.
“Back in the day when my children were young, sometimes you need a reprieve from your day,” she explained. “You just need a few minutes, and you feel safe. You’ve done the work as a mom. … And yet, over all that content, at least 30% of it was LGBTQ themes.”
“The bottom line is the rating systems do not work,” she said. “You have the networks and the companies rating themselves … We have to go in a different direction because it’s absolutely insidious what they’re doing.”
Netflix and other major media companies often frame LGBT content as “representation.” But Nance rejects that narrative outright.
“I think their own content creators have been very clear on what their intent is,” she said. “It’s not as if they think that they’re not moving the needle in culture. They’ve been very forthright in what they’re planning to do.”
She points out the obvious discrepancy between the Netflix representation and actual population demographics. “You’ve got a very small percentage of the population, and yet the overall content that is being developed for little children is much larger than those numbers. … It’s overrepresenting.”
In May of this year, Netflix published a <a href="https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-2025-netflix-full-report.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com">report</a> highlighting Netflix’s efforts to add diversity to its original films and series. The report bragged that “2023 was a standout year &#8230; over half (52.4%) of all [episodic] programs released in the year featured LGBTQ+ characters as 10% or more of series regulars.”
In 2023, roughly 60% of new children’s shows on Netflix included LGBTQ content. That’s six times the rate one would expect if the goal were simply mirroring population data.
Even more concerning, the spike in youth identification with LGBTQ labels aligns with the rise in this type of media. Among Gen Z, LGBTQ self-identification has jumped from 11% in 2017 to more than 20% in 2023, as the report notes.
The report also reveals a major inflection point around 2021, when LGBTQ representation suddenly spiked across kids’ shows.
“Remember, this is during COVID,” Nance said by way of explanation. “Children are out of school, at home … I think there was absolute intent on the part of the culture warriors and content creators to try to target children.”
That spike coincided with a rise in minors identifying as transgender, which is something Nance believes is not a coincidence. “It wasn’t just on the darkest corners of the internet,” she told The Daily Wire. “It was apparently in their parents’ living room.”
When parents raise concerns, they’re often brushed off as overreacting or hopelessly bigoted. But Nance insists their instincts are correct.
“Parents are being gaslit,” she said. “Anyone who’s ever paid for an ad knows that children and adults both are impressionable … Just basic common sense tells you that people are impressionable, and children are even more impressionable.”
She says Netflix and the broader entertainment industry have betrayed families: “Parents … are right to be on their guard. Unfortunately, Netflix has let them down, as has much of the industry.”
One of the findings in the report is how classic franchises, including “The Magic School Bus,” “She-Ra,” “Power Rangers,” and “The Baby-Sitters Club,” were rebooted to incorporate LGBTQ characters or themes for the first time.
“It is so sad that these incredible franchises … have been rewritten to have a bias toward left-wing ideology and gender ideology,” Nance said. 
When asked what parents should do in response to this report, Nance recommends vigilance and taking a firm stance on streaming services that have zero regard for conservative values. 
“I would recommend parents not allow their children to watch Netflix or other … streaming services that also offer adult content, she said, adding that the days of turning on any kids&#8217; show and walking away are long behind us. 
“[Parents] should not trust the rating system … The days of just checking the rating and feeling okay about it are over.”
Instead, she urges families to pivot toward platforms aligned with their values. “They should be really serious about seeking out alternative media, like all the children&#8217;s programming that you all offer at Daily Wire, Angel Studios. … We have got to … support the people who are doing the work in order to create content that we can support.”

Netflix

Preschool Propaganda: Study Finds 41% of Netflix Kids Shows Include LGBT Themes

Entertainment

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Television

Australia will soon become the first nation to ban children under 16 from creating accounts on many social media platforms, but the law is already facing criticism as some platforms will be excluded.
Beginning on Wednesday, December 10, Australia will require social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, to take &#8220;reasonable steps&#8221; to block children under 16 years old from creating accounts. Any platform that fails to restrict children under 16 from gaining access could face civil penalties of up to $49.5 million, according to the government&#8217;s <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/platforms-on-notice-to-comply-with-social-media-minimum-age">eSafety Commissioner</a>.
&#8220;We haven&#8217;t really seen a plan like this be put into action,&#8221; said Jessica Melugin, the director of the Center for Technology &amp; Innovation at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. &#8220;So I think the world is certainly watching.&#8221;
Along with Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, the Australian government also lists Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, and X as &#8220;age-restricted&#8221; social media platforms. Numerous social media platforms, however, will not be affected by the law, including messaging platforms and gaming apps such as Discord, Roblox, and Steam. Australia&#8217;s decision to keep those platforms off its age-restricted list has raised more questions about whether the law will keep children away from online harm.
&#8220;It is a little bit of a red flag. I don&#8217;t agree with doing it this way at all, but it does make it harder for the government to make its case when you have gaming apps and AI chatbots exempted,&#8221; said Melugin. &#8220;It seems like a strange line to draw.&#8221;
The Australian government says the new law is popular with parents and would reduce the number of risks that children are exposed to online, the BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo">reported</a>.
&#8220;Delaying children’s access to social media accounts gives them valuable time to learn and grow, free of the powerful, unseen forces of harmful and deceptive design features such as opaque algorithms and endless scroll,&#8221; said Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman. &#8220;This important normative change will be invaluable to parents and young people alike – creating friction or a check in the online ecosystem that previously did not exist.&#8221;
To support its move, the Australian government cited a <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/research/the-online-experiences-of-children-in-australia/snapshot-content-associated-with-harm">study</a> that it commissioned earlier this year, which found that more than 70% of children between 10-15 who use social media are exposed to harmful content. The government says that harmful online content includes &#8220;sexist, misogynistic or hateful content, content depicting dangerous online challenges or fight videos, or content that encourages unhealthy eating or exercise habits.&#8221;
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The first-of-its-kind law is already receiving some strong pushback.
Melugin told The Daily Wire that she has some major concerns about the new law.
&#8220;We live in a digital world. That&#8217;s how you are going to maybe find your partner one day. It&#8217;s probably how you&#8217;re going to find a job one day, maybe how you promote yourself or your business, maybe how you keep in touch with friends and pursue your interests,&#8221; Melugin said.
She added that the law could create a &#8220;false sense of security&#8221; for parents, who she argues would take a step back from monitoring their children&#8217;s social media. &#8220;They think, &#8216;Well, the government has now stepped in with its magic wand and silver bullet and now everything is safe,&#8217; which certainly won&#8217;t be the case,&#8221; Melugin added.
Melugin argued that the best way to keep children safe online is for parents to keep having conversations with their kids on &#8220;how to keep yourself safe online, how to avoid making mistakes online.&#8221;
Australia&#8217;s exclusions for Roblox, Discord, Steam, and other platforms have also come under scrutiny. Roblox, an online gaming platform marketed toward children, has been criticized for <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-problem/">allowing</a> adults to use the platform alongside children, and even the Australian government has acknowledged that Roblox has given pedophiles an open door to &#8220;groom children.&#8221;
Roblox was also sued by Texas last month, with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton calling the children&#8217;s gaming platform “a habitual destination for child predators.”
An Australian government official told The Daily Wire that &#8220;gaming and messaging services were excluded under the legislative rules.&#8221; The official also directed The Daily Wire to a press release from September, showing that Roblox <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/roblox-commits-to-lift-game-to-protect-kids-from-online-grooming-under-australias-world-leading-online-safety-codes-and-standards">committed</a> to introduce new safety measures for its site in response to concerns raised by the Australian government.
“We know that when it comes to platforms that are popular with children, they also become popular with adult predators seeking to prey on them. Roblox is no exception and has become a popular target for pedophiles seeking to groom children,&#8221; Inman said at the time. “We’ve been engaging with Roblox on this issue for several months to make it clear to the platform that under Australian law they are required to take meaningful action to prioritize the protection of children.&#8221;
Discord has also faced scrutiny for allowing child sex predators, extremists, and terrorists who <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/discord-messages-server-dhs-terror-extremist-charlie-kirk-fbi-patel-rcna232377">target</a> children.
Some of the social media giants affected by Australia&#8217;s new law have blasted the government&#8217;s strategy. Meta argues that families, not the government, should &#8220;decide which apps teens can access.&#8221;
“To comply with Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Law, teens under 16 will begin losing access to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads next month. While we’re committed to meeting our legal obligations, we’ve consistently raised concerns about this law,&#8221; a Meta spokesman told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Experts, youth groups, and many parents agree that blanket bans are not the solution—they isolate teens from online communities and information, while providing inconsistent protection across the many apps they use. There’s a better way: legislation that empowers parents to approve app downloads and verify age allows families—not the government—to decide which apps teens can access.&#8221;
Meta believes its &#8220;teen accounts,&#8221; which were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-introduces-teen-accounts-with-built-in-privacy-settings-to-better-support-parents">introduced</a> last year, are effective at keeping children safe online by putting parents in control and limiting who can contact children on social media.
Australia&#8217;s new law is already facing a legal challenge brought on behalf of two 15-year-old Australians who argue that the law robs them of their right to free speech, according to the BBC.
&#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t be silenced. It&#8217;s like Orwell&#8217;s book 1984, and that scares me,&#8221; said 15-year-old Macy Neyland.
Noah Jones, the other 15-year-old pushing back against the law, added, &#8220;We are the true digital natives and we want to remain educated, robust, and savvy in our digital world. &#8230; They should protect kids with safeguards, not silence.&#8221;
The Daily Wire reached out to the prime minister&#8217;s office for comment.
Following Australia&#8217;s move to ban some social media for kids, Malaysia introduced a similar ban. In the United States, Utah passed a law last year requiring social media platforms to verify a user&#8217;s age and obtain parental consent. Parts of the Utah law, however, have been temporarily <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/utah-law-restricting-youth-social-media-use-blocked-by-judge-2024-09-11/">blocked</a> by a federal judge.

Social Media

Australia’s Novel Social Media Ban For Kids Sparks Debate As Some Platforms Get A Free Pass

Australia

Instagram

World

YouTube

A newly published <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/doi/10.1542/peds.2025-072941/205716/Smartphone-Ownership-Age-of-Smartphone-Acquisition?autologincheck=redirected">study</a> by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that children who were given smartphones before the age of 12 were at a greater risk of developing future issues, including depression, obesity, poor sleep, and more.
Researchers noted that the earlier the study participants were given the devices, the more likely they were to develop the adverse effects.
Lead study author Dr. Ran Barzilay <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/kids-smartphones-age-12-higher-risk-depression-obesity/story?id=127998537&amp;cid=social_twitter_abcn&amp;utm_social_post_id=612027417&amp;utm_social_handle_id=28785486">told</a> ABC News that his motivations for conducting the study were both personal and professional. “I have a nine-year-old who wants a phone, and I think [whether to get them a smartphone] is a question that is relevant for every parent of a kid going into adolescence, even before adolescence,” he told the outlet.
“We didn’t even look at what the kids did on the phone,” the child psychiatrist said, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/children-smartphones-increased-risk-of-health-problems-study/">per</a> CBS News. “We basically asked one simple question: does the mere factor of having one’s own smartphone at this age range have anything to do with health outcomes?”
The study included data collected from 10,500 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) between 2018 and 2020. It was noted that 63.6% of the ABCD study participants owned a smartphone, and the median age at which they received the phone was 11 years old.
Researchers focused on children aged 9 to 16, seeking to identify health outcomes associated with when they were given a smartphone. The team found that 12-year-olds who had a cell phone had a 1.3 times higher risk of depression, a 1.4 times higher risk of obesity, and a 1.6 times higher risk of insufficient sleep as compared to their peers who did not have phones. 
The risk of developing these problems increased by 10% for each year earlier the children were given phones, with some kids being given smartphones as young as 4.
Dr. Barzilay said it was “quite surprising” to find that children who had no smartphone at 12 and then got one at 13 also had worse mental health and poorer-quality sleep that year, even after the study controlled for those factors.
The study’s conclusion stated, “Smartphone ownership was associated with depression, obesity, and insufficient sleep in early adolescence. Findings provide critical and timely insights that should inform caregivers regarding adolescent smartphone use and, ideally, the development of public policy that protects youth.”
The researcher also concluded that his 9-year-old, who wants a phone, is “not getting a phone anytime soon. Clear decision.”

child cell phone

Children Given Smartphones By Age 12 Have Greater Risk Of Depression And Obesity, Study Finds

American Academy of Pediatrics

cell phones

Parenting

Smartphones

study

Technology

Around 25 million American children who would be too old to receive $1,000 for President Donald Trump&#8217;s proposed investment accounts could still be gifted up to $250 thanks to a massive donation from the founder of Dell Technologies.
Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged to donate $6.25 billion to fund &#8220;Trump Accounts,&#8221; targeting children ages 10 and under who live in zip codes with a median income of $150,000 or less, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/02/michael-susan-dell-trump-accounts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The investment accounts funded by the Dells would supplement the Trump administration&#8217;s $1,000 deposit into investment accounts for American babies born between the beginning of 2025 through 2028.
Invest America, the nonprofit organization that partnered with the Dells on the donation, said that it would be the largest donation ever to American children.
“We want to help the children that weren’t part of the government program,” Michael Dell told CNBC.
“It’s designed to help families feel supported from the start and encourage them to keep saving as their children grow,” he added. “We know that when children have accounts like this, they’re much more likely to graduate from high school, from college, buy a home, start a business and less likely to be incarcerated.”
Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115650314096956008">praised</a> the Dells following their pledge, writing, &#8220;TWO GREAT PEOPLE. I LOVE DELL!!!&#8221;
Michael Dell founded his technology company, which was initially called &#8220;PC&#8217;s Unlimited,&#8221; in 1984. Dell computers soon became a household name, and he is now the 10th richest person in the world, with a net worth of around $150 billion, according to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/">Forbes</a>.
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The proposed federal government program to hand out $1,000 to American babies is set to begin next summer. Dell was behind the initial push to fund investment accounts for American children back in 2021 after he was convinced of the idea by venture capitalist and hedge fund manager Brad Gerstner, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/business/dell-children-trump-accounts.html">according</a> to The New York Times. Gerstner, founder of the Invest America Charitable Foundation, reportedly discussed the idea with the Biden administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but it did not take off until Dell spoke with President Trump earlier this year.
<div id="attachment_1008355" style="width: 865px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1008355" class="wp-image-1008355 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2219358326-855x576.jpg" alt="" width="855" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2219358326-855x576.jpg 855w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2219358326-300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2219358326-768x518.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-2219358326.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px" />WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; JUNE 09: U.S. President Donald Trump greets Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell (L) as they arrive for the Invest America Roundtable, where they discussed the Trump Accounts on June 9, 2025. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)</div>
“We’ve always made our focus to getting the support as close to families as possible, and Invest America continues that work,” Susan Dell told the Times. “This is a slightly different way of doing this, but the opportunity now is to do something really major and really touch 25 million children that will really benefit from this in a huge way.”
Legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year to create Invest America accounts for children was eventually renamed Trump Accounts and passed under the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill.&#8221; The accounts allow parents to invest in low-cost diversified funds so that their children can benefit from the growth of the U.S. stock market and save for major life events, such as starting college.
After an initial $1,000 deposit from the federal government, parents can contribute up to an additional $5,000 per year into Trump Accounts for their children, while employers would also be able to contribute up to $2,500 into the investment accounts without affecting an employee&#8217;s taxable income, according to the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/research/2025/08/trump-accounts-give-the-next-generation-a-jump-start-on-saving/">White House</a>. Under Trump&#8217;s plan, parents will be able to open and contribute to their children&#8217;s Trump Accounts beginning on July 4, 2026.

Michael Dell

Dell Founder Pledges More Than $6 Billion To Fund ‘Trump Accounts’ For 25 Million Kids

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Donald Trump

General

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As a lawyer who represents detransitioners like Chloe Cole in medical malpractice cases and parents fighting for the right to notice and consent before public schools may socially transition their children, I am all too familiar with how bad science gets laundered in pediatric gender medicine. For the record, a detransitioner is an individual who medically transitioned but now identifies and presents as their natal sex.
Activists take over medical associations (most notably, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH) and use the imprimatur of those organizations to justify providing children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even irreversible surgeries. The unreliability of much of the medical literature on pediatric gender medicine makes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ recent report, <a href="https://opa.hhs.gov/gender-dysphoria-report">Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices</a>, a necessary development in the field. 
Here are ten key takeaways from the review.
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Children who receive puberty blockers to keep them in a pre-pubescent state longer have marked deterioration of bone health. One-third of patients’ bone density scores exhibit osteoporosis of the hip, while one-fourth have osteoporosis of the spine. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A scientific review shows that the effect of puberty blockers on neurocognitive development is unknown, but there is “some evidence” that puberty blockers suppress children’s IQ scores. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Females who receive testosterone experience vaginal atrophy and other concerning medical symptoms, including one study showing “100% of vaginectomy specimens contained abnormal prostatic tissue growth.”</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">There is moderate and high certainty evidence of some incidence of “cardiovascular events” in women under twenty-six who received testosterone.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">If a male starts puberty blockers at Tanner Stage 2 (the initial stage of puberty) and goes on to take estrogen, he will almost always have the genitalia of a pre-pubescent or early puberty male.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A Swedish study from 2011 found that adults who had medically and surgically transitioned had 19 times the rate of suicide deaths and nearly three times the rate of all-cause mortality and inpatient psychiatric care compared to peers of the same sex and age group.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">While the precise detransition rate is not known, a British study revealed that one-fifth of patients stopped hormone treatment within five years and that half experienced detransition or regret.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">American, British, Dutch, and Swedish researchers each examined the mortality rates among trans-identified individuals relative to the general population, and while the rates varied, each study found significant increases in mortality among trans-identifying people, with the Swedish study showing that a transgender individual faced a 2.8 times higher risk of death than their age- and sex-matched peers.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The report concludes that it would be unethical to conduct a study on the effect of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on fertility because the “mechanism [of how this treatment interferes with fertility] is well-understood” and does not have to be established in a clinical trial.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A 2025 JAMA Pediatrics study showed that between 2018 and 2022, one in one thousand (0.1%) of American seventeen-year-olds received cross-sex hormones. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is, in absolute terms, a large number of children.</li>
</ol>
The review’s key points put the risks children face when undergoing transgender medical interventions in sharp focus. Do doctors explain to their minor patients that they may experience significant negative health outcomes years or even decades in the future? When children are warned, are they mature enough to appreciate the risk of long-term consequences? Are children asked to consider the possibility that they may not identify as transgender in the future? Are children led to examine how they might feel about the interventions they received if they do indeed detransition? (My work as a lawyer in detransition cases tells me the answer to all these questions is often “no.”)
Debates about pediatric transgender interventions have largely been framed in terms of politics (what are the major parties’ stances?), law (does the Constitution permit states to prohibit transgender interventions for children?), and even philosophy (what is a woman?). But the central question we all should be asking is whether these interventions work. HHS’s exhaustive review of the medical literature makes a compelling case that the medical risk to minors posed by puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries significantly outweighs any benefits these interventions might confer.
* * *
Jesse Franklin-Murdock is the Miles Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Liberty and a counsel at Dhillon Law Group Inc., where his practice areas include political law and civil rights.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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