Welcome to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Pro-abortion advocates speak often about women’s health and “rights.” At the darkest moment of my life, however, they offered me nothing more than a pill and the lie that my impending abortion would be “just like having a period.” Years later, after grieving my lost child and overcoming the trauma of abortion, I am appalled that activists market abortion drugs as “<a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/the-abortion-pill/how-safe-is-the-abortion-pill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">safe</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.reproductiveaccess.org/2022/03/safe-effective-empowering-self-managed-abortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">empowering</a>.” I am also shocked that these drugs are available via mail order, which leaves women to suffer alone or to experience forced abortions at the hands of abusers.
My experience with abortion drugs opened my eyes to the fact that they endanger women’s health, safety, and happiness. Truly empowering women means ensuring that they are fully informed before they decide about something that could negatively change their lives.
In 2018, I discovered I was unexpectedly pregnant. I already had a son and was not yet married to my then-boyfriend, Lane. Lane thought abortion was our only option. Fearing I could lose the first good relationship I’d been in, I decided to pursue abortion to appease him. Lane and I ventured to Planned Parenthood, where we rejected the offer to see our baby on the ultrasound screen.
The nurse seemed to realize my discomfort and suggested that I take a few weeks to think through the decision since I was still so early in my pregnancy. Secretly hoping Lane would change his mind, I agreed to take the time. Yet after two weeks passed, Lane was still sure abortion was our only choice.
Leading up to the abortion, I was terrified. I shook uncontrollably and had an awful feeling about what it entailed. When we arrived at Planned Parenthood, staff told me that I could take the chemical abortion pill, that it would just be like a heavy period, and that everything would be fine. They did not warn me about any long-term physical or emotional effects.
I should have listened to my gut — especially after hearing the grief of the couple in the hospital room next to Lane and me, where another young woman sobbed while her partner told her it was the only choice they had. My heart breaks for her to this day.
When the doctor arrived to check in on Lane and me, I asked him again if he was sure this was what we wanted to do. Rather than seeing that I was feeling pressured into this major decision, the doctor expressed annoyance while telling me to take it or leave it.
I took it.
Afterward, I went to the pharmacy to pick up the next set of pills. I’ll never forget the pharmacist’s face — his unmistakably sad expression and our mutual knowledge that he could not interfere with what I was about to do.
When I got home, I became drowsy and kept waking up to intense and extremely painful cramps. Because I’d had a baby before, I realized with shock that my body was not just having a “normal period,” but that the pills I’d naively swallowed were preparing my body for labor. After intense pain and bleeding, I ran to the bathroom. I felt something pass. There, in the toilet, was my baby.
I was in a state of shock. Nobody had prepared me for any of this. I didn’t know what to do, so I simply cleaned myself up and got back in bed. The next week, shock turned to extreme grief. The next month, I felt guilt. Then followed years of mingled guilt, grief, and suffering. At times, I felt like I had genuinely lost my mind — an emotional reaction I have since learned was due to my abortion. In all that time, Planned Parenthood never once reached out to check on me and Lane.
Lane and I slowly picked up the pieces of our relationship and lives and tried to heal. We both struggled to forgive ourselves. Through God’s grace and forgiveness, however, we were more vulnerable with each other and began rediscovering our faith. Through prayer and communication, Lane and I slowly learned that what we thought would be forever was just a temporary suffering that opened our eyes to the horrors of abortion drugs.
Today, we hope to turn the tragedy of our story into hope for others who might be struggling. To those who may find themselves in our shoes, I encourage you to trust your gut and to make sure you are fully informed before agreeing to a permanent decision that could leave you with painful scars while robbing you of your unborn child. I urge any woman to look at the ultrasound before making a permanent decision. We wish with our whole hearts that we would have.
I hope you also know that you don’t have to grieve or undergo this suffering alone. Across the country, a network of nearly 3,000 pregnancy resource centers strives daily to meet the material, financial, emotional, and even professional or educational needs of women and children in need. These organizations provide <a id="m_-1227438176112384738m_1183941747262835175OWA096ace12-89ba-23df-8f05-764a436af953" href="https://lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/A-Legacy-of-Life-Love-2025-Rising-to-the-Occasion-with-Unwavering-Care.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/A-Legacy-of-Life-Love-2025-Rising-to-the-Occasion-with-Unwavering-Care.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1771510971851000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0dQPvCJRrwHiKq9PG7Nkjk">hundreds of millions of dollars&#8217;</a> worth of lifesaving support that offers women alternatives to abortions they do not need and <a id="m_-1227438176112384738m_1183941747262835175OWAc08e866a-5733-03dd-3f32-95cc4af1a55a" href="https://lozierinstitute.org/hidden-epidemic-nearly-70-of-abortions-are-coerced-unwanted-or-inconsistent-with-womens-preferences/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lozierinstitute.org/hidden-epidemic-nearly-70-of-abortions-are-coerced-unwanted-or-inconsistent-with-womens-preferences/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1771510971851000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3SA5iv4OiArGttgO1_7gdq">often do not want</a>.
Not only that, but they exist to offer hope and healing to women who have experienced abortion, like me. And unlike those pushing abortion drugs without informed consent, these wonderful people will do everything they can to make you feel known, supported, and loved.
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McKenzie Kaupa-Thiesse is a wife, mother, and fighter for the unborn.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Ultrasound of a pregnant woman and pills medication

They Said Abortion Was The Only Option — Here’s What They Left Out

Abortion

Abortion Drug

Pregnancy

Upstream

Women

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Perhaps the most common feature of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/maha-birth-control-politics-of-the-pill">flurry</a> <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/population-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-birth-control">of</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/27/nx-s1-5535839/population-shift-birth-rate-misinformation">articles</a> <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/misleading-narratives-and-social-media-shape-contraception-perceptions/">about</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623004380">young</a> <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/17/young-women-teen-girls-gen-z-birth-control-beliefs-democrat-republican-tiktok-misinformation-contraception/">women</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/17/birth-control-why-are-influencers-turning-away-from-the-pill-and-towards-natural-contraceptive-methods">rejecting</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/10/09/health/ob-gyn-reveals-troubling-trend-shes-seeing-with-gen-z-women/">hormonal</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/style/birth-control-skepticism-wellness-tiktok.html">birth</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/21/stopping-birth-control-misinformation/">control</a> is the claim that their concerns are fueled by “misinformation” or based on “unfounded theories.” I’m a younger millennial. I’ve never used hormonal birth control, and I don’t plan to. But what these writers and doctors fail to grasp is how fed up women are of being told their pain is normal and prescribed a pill at 13, only to be told they have “unexplained infertility” and need IVF at 30.
It doesn’t take a medical degree to hypothesize that women’s healthcare has gone terribly wrong. It is almost entirely structured around either suppressing or bypassing the female reproductive system altogether. When journalists and doctors claim women like me are misinformed, they reject an opportunity to help make women healthier. 
For 60 years now, the standard of care for women in the United States has been a protocol that seeks not to understand and work with the female body, but to inhibit and short-circuit it. It’s no surprise that the women who watched their mothers and grandmothers unquestioningly swallow the pill and continue to suffer are now demanding a better way.
The increased rejection of hormonal birth control also comes amid a tectonic shift in medical treatment for minors.  Several major medical associations recently issued <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pediatricians-group-says-research-doesnt-support-gender-affirming-treatments">statements</a> against pediatric gender transition in the wake of the Fox Varin lawsuit, which held medical providers responsible for performing a double mastectomy on a minor. Sex-rejection treatments and surgeries involve medicating children with puberty blockers and hormone therapies, among other things. And yet many adolescent girls, some as young as 11, are prescribed hormone therapy in the form of the hormonal birth control pill or an IUD, despite their long-term effects being largely unknown.
Of sexually active 15 to 19-year-olds, almost half are prescribed some form of hormonal birth control. This, despite the fact that there are no large randomized controlled trials on the effects of synthetic hormones during girls’ pubescent years. Some research on this cohort has shown <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/120/5/1135/71113/Contraception-and-Adolescents?utm">reductions</a> in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010782408002801?utm_source">bone mass</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40097087/">density</a>, which is itself concerning. But little exists on long-term effects to adolescent brain or cardiovascular health, both of which actively require sex hormones for development. Animal studies <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40188588/">show</a> that exposure to hormonal contraceptives during adolescence has persistent effects on the female brain and behavior, though it’s unclear how this translates to humans.
Your response to women rejecting hormonal birth control will almost certainly depend upon your answer to one question: What is medicine? The same ideology that undergirds the transgender movement forms the foundation of women’s health, too: “My body, my choice.” But making your body in your own self-image is not medicine. It’s choice theory applied to the human body. And the philosophy of choice will always be insufficient because it inherently rejects the bounds of reality.
What if women’s health was actually about making women healthy instead of maximizing choice? The solution to America’s health problem is the same as the solution to transgender ideology: Respect reality, recognize that our bodies bound us and we can’t make ourselves into whatever we choose to be, and accept that women’s bodies are different from men’s. That’s not only okay but also good. Women’s bodies were made to bear children; blaming the patriarchy or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-pursuit-of-equality-is-ruining-your-marriage">raging about the system</a> will not change that fact. Let medicine be about restoring the body’s natural function, not trying to change it. When we become unfocused on what the practice of medicine is in principle, people get hurt, even when medical professionals have the best intentions.
As a woman who has been on the receiving end of so-called “women’s healthcare,” it seems as though there is little will to understand the potentially negative effects of hormonal birth control, or the positive effects of working with rather than against the female body’s natural function. After all, birth control is convenient and perhaps even something of a sacrament to the feminized, sexually evolved West.
“Women have been taking the pill for decades,” I was told by a pushy doctor at an Ivy League research hospital, who wouldn’t let me leave his exam room without a prescription for the minipill for the extreme cramps I was having in my early 20s. When I asked for a hormone panel to help diagnose a potentially underlying health condition, fearful I’d be unable to conceive later in life, he said, perhaps revealing more about himself than intended, that a hormone panel wouldn’t tell him anything.
But not all women’s health practitioners are so unimaginative. Dr. Naomi Whittaker is a board-certified OBGYN and surgeon focused on women&#8217;s restorative reproductive medicine. She’s also the founder of <a href="https://www.rrmacademy.org/">RRM Academy</a>, which employs both conventional medicine and the latest in restorative reproductive techniques. “Working with the female body rather than against it is the cornerstone of what I do,” she said. “I see hormones not as a nuisance to suppress, but as a language the body uses to communicate.” She calls restoring the body’s natural function “the spirit of restorative reproductive medicine.”
Even still, the establishment offers these doctors no help. Medical associations and education do not teach the kind of medicine Dr. Whittaker practices, and they are deeply skeptical of it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have <a href="https://www.asrm.org/globalassets/_asrm/advocacy-and-policy/advocacy-activities/2025/2025-08-13-joint_letter_opposing_rrm_081425.pdf">issued statements</a> and <a href="https://www.asrm.org/news-and-events/asrm-news/press-releasesbulletins/asrm-hosts-capitol-hill-briefing-for-policymakers--congressional-staff-to-hear-from-providers--patients-about-importance-of-ivf-access-realities-and-limitations-of-restorative-reproductive-medicine/">held congressional briefings</a> against restorative reproductive medicine. After all, it is a competitor to the medical status quo at a time when the government has expressed more interest in women’s health and fertility. It seems as though the medical establishment is vying for a cut of a much-hoped-for government check.
Regardless, women continue rejecting the status quo. And this rejection comes amid an explosion of so-called “fem-tech” companies marketing devices (usually wearables, such as rings or watches) to assist women in either avoiding or achieving pregnancy naturally.
These devices use sensors to track temperature, sleep, and heart rate, among other things, to pinpoint ovulation or even underlying health conditions. Natural Cycles, which uses an AI algorithm adjusted to each individual user, became the first app to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration as birth control in 2018. And Oura, whose sensor-laden rings have become something of a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/09/oura-ring-lobbying-rfk-maha-washington-00770320?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=b076877d-0054-4fa6-8bd9-93aa06bde864">status symbol</a> in Washington, is aiming higher than transforming women’s healthcare: It is purporting to change the face of American healthcare altogether.
Wearables such as the Oura ring are not only designed for tracking menstrual cycles, though they can do that. They are also designed to help wearers know more about their bodies (sleep quality and blood oxygen, activity, or stress levels, for example) and to help alert them to potential illness. Only a few months ago, an older-style wearable — the Fitbit — alerted me that my heart was in arrhythmia and told me to go to the emergency room. At 31, I am not the usual candidate for atrial fibrillation, and the ER doctor assumed the device had been faulty. After performing an EKG, he was amazed to find the watch had been right. Untreated heart arrhythmias are the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in the world.
American medicine has long suffered from being reactive rather than proactive. We treat symptoms and diseases rather than teaching people how to avoid them. After all, symptom and disease management is where all the money is, and healthcare, like all businesses, needs money to survive. But wearables may be a sign that’s changing. After all, Oura’s market valuation of $11 billion dollars is more than four times greater than it was just three years ago. 
As women continue rejecting the pill, those beholden to the medical status quo will probably continue blaming women for falling prey to misinformation. That’s a lazy response. They’d do well to look a little closer: Women may be the early adopters of a new age of American medicine, rejecting pills and their unintended side effects in favor of preventative and restorative approaches, with wearables at the helm. American women seem to be ahead of the curve in heralding a return to true medicine. The only question is: Will the medical establishment get on board?
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Katelyn Walls Shelton (<a href="https://x.com/AnnaKateShelt">@AnnaKateShelt</a>) is a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Bioethics, Technology, and Human Flourishing Program and a 2025 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. Her Substack is <a href="https://katelynshelton.substack.com/">Technically Human</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Birth Control Pills, Female Contraception Estrogen Hormones, Prescription Medicine for PMS

The Pill Revolt — Why Millennial Women Like Me Are Rethinking Hormonal Birth Control

Birth Control

Health

Media Bias

Technology

For many people, Saint Valentine’s Day is a time for beautiful flowers, fancy dinners, and sentimental cards. But its origin tells a tougher story. St. Valentine is remembered not for romance alone, but for risking his life to solemnize marriages at a time when commitment was discouraged. Valentine’s Day was never meant to be only about feelings. It was meant to be about choosing responsibility.
That message is especially relevant for men today – single, married, childless, or empty nesters.
If you are a single man and not dating anyone, the advice is simple and uncomfortable: be brave and ask a woman out in real life (“IRL”), not through an app. Courage is not optional. It is a skill and character trait, and like any other skill or habit, it improves with practice. Real men do hard things not because success is guaranteed, but because avoidance slowly erodes confidence.
Despite the dominance of dating apps, most marriages began face-to-face. Data show that most couples meet through friends, work, school, religious communities, or social settings. Apps promise efficiency, but they often deliver paralysis. The illusion of infinite choice makes commitment feel premature and rejection feel catastrophic.
Asking someone out in person clarifies things quickly. You get a real answer. You gain real confidence. Even a “no” strengthens you. Bravery practiced in dating carries over into every other domain of life such as work, leadership, and family. Men who avoid small risks rarely rise to meet large ones.
If you have been dating for a while, Valentine’s Day is a moment for honesty. Indefinite dating is not neutral, nor is it kind. It is a decision that disproportionately affects women, and stringing someone along in the name of flexibility is neither kind nor mature.
Many American couples date for a few years before engagement and marry within a year or so after that. While there will always be exceptions, the norm points in one direction: clarity. If you see a future, say so. If you do not, say that too. Ambiguity disguised as thoughtfulness is still avoidance.
Marriage, done seriously, is not a trap. It is an accelerator. St. Valentine knew that the first command in scripture is for men to be “fruitful and multiply.” That must have inspired his work to one degree or another. We shouldn’t be surprised it’s good for us to follow God’s commands.
And if you don’t believe the Bible or St. Valentine, at least consider the data.
For married men, the <a href="https://aibm.org/commentary/why-marriage-is-good-for-men/#:~:text=Married%20men%20are%20richer%20men&amp;text=That%20sounds%20like%20exactly%20the,similarly%20credentialed%20but%20unmarried%20peers.">evidence</a> is striking. Married men earn more over their lifetimes than their unmarried peers, even after controlling for education and background. They also live longer and report better health outcomes. Marriage tends to push men toward steadier work, better habits, and longer time horizons. In short, it civilizes us.
Happiness data tell the same story. Across decades of survey research, married men with children are significantly more likely to describe themselves as “very happy” than single men (35% vs. 14%, according to <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/who-is-happiest-married-mothers-and-fathers-per-the-latest-general-social-survey">research</a> by the Institute for Family Studies). This advantage persists across income levels, racial groups, and age cohorts. Marriage is one of the strongest predictors of long-term well-being available in the data.
That does not mean marriage is easy. It means it is formative.
In a modern working world, it is increasingly difficult to see the lasting results of your labor. Projects end. Companies change. Metrics reset. Even success feels temporary.
Family is different. In raising children, effort produces visible, enduring outcomes. You can watch values take root. You can see growth unfold year by year.
Men with children often discover that legacy is not an abstract idea. It sits across the dinner table. Passing on what you believe — discipline, faith, responsibility, restraint — requires proximity and patience. It also requires sacrifice. That is not a bug of family life; it is the feature that shapes men into something sturdier.
So, married men with kids, are you passing this wisdom on to your children? Not many are. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/01/24/parenting-in-america-today/">Pew Research Center</a> poll, nearly 90% say it’s extremely or very important for their kids to have financial independence and jobs they enjoy, while only 20% say it’s extremely or very important to get married and have kids. Use this holiday to teach, even if your kids have left the nest.
This brings us back to St. Valentine.
According to early Christian tradition, Valentine secretly officiated marriages in defiance of imperial orders because he believed commitment strengthened society and formed men. His resistance was not sentimental. It was purposeful. He treated marriage as a moral institution that oriented men toward duty, continuity, and love grounded in action.
Valentine’s Day was never meant to celebrate perpetual adolescence or provide an excuse for a nice date.
So this year, men, take inventory. If you are single, work toward being marriageable: able to earn income, willing to put others ahead of yourself, and ready to lead through sacrifice. If you are marriageable, go on a date — one you initiate, in real life. If you are dating, get serious about marriage. Make a decision. If you are married, move toward children and invest deliberately in the next generation.
Valentine’s Day does not ask for grand gestures. It asks for forward movement.
Love that lasts is not accidental. It is chosen. Repeatedly. Bravely.
That was St. Valentine’s wager. It remains a good one.
* * *
Derrick Morgan is executive vice president of The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Medium shot man kissing girlfriend on cheek in taxi filled with flowers

The Part Of Valentine’s Day No One Talks About

Heritage Foundation

Relationships

Valentine's Day

When the Food and Drug Administration announced that the agency would be removing the black-box warning from hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, women everywhere threw their hands up in celebration.
And rightly so. America’s health agencies are finally acknowledging that women are not simply “little men,” and that research and clinical care must account for a woman’s unique biology and hormonal fluctuations across every stage of life.
But amid the cheering, some important nuance is being overlooked. The FDA’s decision to remove the black-box warning from HRT is just one example of how recommendations offered without adequate context or distinction may do more harm than good.
The idea that estrogen supplementation is a cure-all for the symptoms women commonly experience during perimenopause and menopause — hot flashes, disrupted sleep, fatigue, muscle aches, inflammation, weight gain, bloating, and mood swings — is a myth.
Often, women are not suffering from a lack of estrogen, but from what <a href="https://www.healthygutgirl.com/">Kitty Martone</a>, a holistic health educator who works with women to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1426024567689906">navigate perimenopause and menopause</a>, refers to as <a href="https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/what-is-estrogen-dominance/">estrogen dominance</a> — a state in which estrogen outweighs progesterone, producing symptoms that look identical to low estrogen.
Estrogen does not act in isolation, but the details are rarely explained to women. To be tolerated well, estrogen must be balanced by adequate progesterone and supported by a healthy metabolic rate. For many women, progesterone is the first hormone to decline — often years before estrogen meaningfully drops — due to chronic stress, under-eating, thyroid suppression, and blood sugar instability.
This creates a common paradox: estrogen may appear “normal,” or even low, on a lab test, yet functionally feel excessive in the body because there is not enough progesterone to counterbalance its effects. Women are then told they are estrogen-deficient and prescribed more estrogen, while symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, migraines, heavy or irregular bleeding, bloating, and inflammation intensify rather than improve.
In these cases, simply prescribing more estrogen does not resolve symptoms. In fact, it can make them worse.
These mechanisms were not understood properly during the Women’s Health Initiative study, which was abruptly halted in the early 2000s upon a suggested correlation between HRT and breast cancer as well as heart disease. In an effort to recover from the fallout of the highly <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10758198/">flawed study</a>, which caused millions of women to abandon hormone therapy altogether, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.
Cue the pharmaceutical ads: dancing women in sunflower meadows, singing about how wonderful life is with the latest HRT option. The fine print instructs women to “ask your doctor if it’s right for you,” but many doctors may not be properly equipped to offer nuanced guidance.
Over the past few decades, medical visits have been reduced to 15–20 minute symptom reviews that are translated into billing codes entered into a computer. While this system serves insurance and data collection, it fails to treat women as whole individuals. It leaves little room to explore how diet, stress, thyroid function, gut health, or metabolic status influence hormonal symptoms — particularly in perimenopausal women.
Martone argues that this system has created an environment where estrogen is prescribed casually, without sufficient context. “Doctors now essentially have carte blanche to prescribe estrogen for any hormone complaint — without evaluating detox pathways, metabolism, liver function, or estrogen clearance.”
Some clinicians have been cautioning against this oversimplification for decades. <a href="https://raypeat.com/">Dr. Ray Peat</a>, who studied hormones, metabolism, and stress physiology extensively, <a href="https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aging-estrogen-progesterone.shtml">wrote about</a> how estrogen tends to accumulate under conditions of chronic stress and low thyroid function, while progesterone plays a stabilizing, protective role for both the nervous system and bodily tissues.
In plain terms, how a woman feels on hormones can have less to do with hormone levels and more to do with improper functioning of the liver, metabolism, and stress load at the time therapy is introduced. Two women can take the same prescription and have completely different outcomes — not because one is “doing it wrong,” but because their internal terrain is different.
This helps explain why so many women feel dismissed when HRT is presented as a simple solution. When symptoms worsen, they are often told to increase the dose or switch brands, rather than step back and ask whether the body is prepared to handle additional estrogen.
Martone emphasizes that women often need to experiment with hormones to discover individualized therapies that are right for them. Even low doses may require careful adjustment, alternative delivery methods, and significant trial and error — an experience that can be costly, frustrating, and far from straightforward.
Meanwhile, big pharmaceutical companies are circling middle-aged women like sharks around blood. With the FDA’s decision, they’ve gained an expanded customer base — one encouraged to start hormone therapy earlier and remain on it for decades.
The truth is no one — not even a doctor — can predict exactly how a woman will respond to HRT. Hormones are powerful biological signals, not cosmetic fixes. Their effects depend heavily on the body’s metabolic health, stress physiology, and ability to process and clear them.
The renewed interest in hormone therapy reflects a real and valid desire for relief for women. But before removing warning labels and declaring HRT a universal solution, it’s worth asking why those cautions existed in the first place.
Hormone replacement therapy is not a magic bullet. Women deserve care that honors complexity, not just convenience.
* * *
Jennifer Galardi is a Senior Policy Analyst for Restoring American Wellness in Heritage’s DeVos Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Nurse talks with female patient about prescription medication

What The FDA Doesn’t Tell Women About Hormone Replacement Therapy

Big Pharma

Doctors

Health Care

Pharmaceuticals

Conservatives are used to being called names: racist, sexist, transphobic, and the list goes on. Typically, these charges are rooted in policy differences: If you oppose DEI and racial quotas, the Left will call you racist. If you oppose men competing in women’s sports, you’re a transphobe. These labels are weapons used to advance political narratives, and typically deserve the same attention as an unhinged, all-caps comment in your X feed. They should be ignored.
Yet when it comes to sexism, conservatives should consider how their messaging makes the sexist charge stick with women who otherwise might join our movement. Conservative leaders aren’t misogynists, but particularly when speaking to and about women, they are sometimes tone deaf.
Take the issue of marriage and family life. For good reason, conservatives frequently trumpet evidence showing the benefits of marriage and family formation. Children raised by married parents enjoy a long list of benefits. Married women and men are less likely to live in poverty, have better health outcomes, and report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction than their single counterparts. This is important information for the public to have.
Yet efforts to raise awareness about the benefits of marriage and family formation frequently come across as denigrating childless or unmarried women. Conservatives may think they are countering nihilistic TikTok influencers and gender studies professors who seem driven to convince impressionable young women that marriage and children are the enemies of good mental health, while an OnlyFans career offers true fulfillment. Yet the persuadable women most likely to hear conservatives’ counter messages are women who already recognize the benefits of marriage and children, but who find themselves outside those institutions nonetheless.
Today, nearly 20% of women over age 45 are childless. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-experiences-of-u-s-adults-who-dont-have-children/">Pew survey</a> of childless adults, nearly 40% admit that they once wanted children. That’s almost certainly an understatement since many childless adults likely don’t want to admit, even to themselves, that they regret missing this irreplaceable part of the human experience.
Additionally, about one-quarter of children are being raised by a single parent. Those single parents don’t need to be told how much easier it would be to have another adult helping to give their kids all the love and support they need. They live it every day.
Touting the benefits of a happy family life can seem not so much instructive as rubbing it in. Done wrong, this messaging risks not only alienating childless and unmarried women, but all of those who love them. When women hear that messaging, they don’t solely think about how it impacts them, but also the people they love and worry about the most: their dear best friend who hasn’t found a husband; their beloved, recently divorced sister juggling kids’ schedules and costs. Married women with children will reject those who they see as dunking on their loved ones.
Conservative leaders should also keep this in mind when addressing work-life issues. Of course, parents should know how vulnerable children are in those first months and years of life, and why investing time in them is so beneficial. Yet, when done wrong, those messages can sound like attacks on working women — many of whom would love to downshift their careers but feel like they can’t afford to do so.
It is certainly true that facts don&#8217;t care about your feelings. Political leaders must make policy decisions grounded in clear-eyed reality. Yet it is also true that feelings are often unmoved by facts. That is why, when communicating about sensitive and deeply personal issues, policy leaders must be careful in how they communicate those realities, because poorly chosen words can do far more damage than good.
Republicans do not want to be seen as a party that only values married mothers or only women as mothers. The party also welcomes single women, widows, lesbians, and divorcees — any woman — so long as she shares the core conservative beliefs that personal responsibility, limited government, and free markets are the foundation of a flourishing country.
Republicans should be succeeding in winning women over. Democrats have spent recent years denigrating the very concept of womanhood — as if being a woman is a costume that you can put on and take off. Conservatives took the lead in defending women as a distinct group worthy of equal opportunity and protection under the law. Women saw this and recognized conservatives as the champions of common sense and core women’s rights.
Conservative policies are fundamentally pro-woman: Women thrive in a safe, secure society with a robust economy offering plentiful opportunities for people to pursue their own visions of happiness. This policy vision needs to be communicated carefully, in a manner that shows that women — all women, not just married mothers — are valued and can find a home in our movement.
* * *
Carrie Lukas is the president of the non-profit Independent Women&#8217;s Forum. Follow her on X at @carrielukas.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-POLITICS-EARLY VOTING

When It Comes To Reaching Women, Republicans Aren’t Misogynistic. Just Tone Deaf.

When It Comes To Reaching Women, Republicans Aren't Misogynistic. Just Tone Deaf.

Conservatives

divorce

Family Values

Marriage

Republican Women

Republicans

In 2026, Britain will hit three grim milestones.
First, it will see the number of deaths <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/resolution-foundation-deaths-births-economy-b2894591.html">exceed</a> the number of births for the first time in modern history.
Second, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/15/abortions-at-record-high-in-over-35s-because-babies-are-too/">a third</a> of the babies conceived will be aborted.
Third, the number of migrants in its population (10.9 million) will roughly equate to the total number of children aborted (10.7 million) since the procedure became legalized in 1968.
In other words, by ending unborn lives on an industrial scale, the native British population has created a demographic vacuum it now plugs with immigration, and in doing so, has brought itself to the brink of quiet obliteration.
For Brits, the question of abortion is no longer only an ethical one. A nation that does not reproduce itself must import its future. That is not a moral judgment on immigrants, but a mathematical reality. A critical shortage of young people means a critical shortage of recruits for the armed forces, workers in critical industries, and taxpayers to fund defense, healthcare, pensions, and other social services.
If it cannot “grow our own” workforce, it must import one from elsewhere.
Of course, relying on mass immigration to plug a demographic hole of our own making is not a neutral solution. It carries serious national security implications. As has been clear in recent years, weak, strained border controls, over-used and under pressure, give way to criminal gangs, swept in undetected alongside the key workers we need.
Yet while Right-wing politicians fall over themselves to condemn mass migration, hardly anyone in Westminster will risk breathing a word about the abortion crisis that has brought our nation to the point of requiring large-scale human importation. Meanwhile, Members of Parliament <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/world/europe/uk-abortion-law.html">recently voted</a> to exacerbate abortion culture by decriminalizing the procedure up to birth.
Britain is a prime example of why the abortion debate, though emotive and divisive, is worth having. Though some Americans may roll their eyes at the March for Life or the pro-life rhetoric being championed by Republicans, they’d do well to look overseas at a nation which has let abortion destroy them. 
The consequences of abortion, of course, are not only macro-economic. The loss of life alone is devastating, in the case of every child. Broadly, our collective failure to focus on family has left Brits lonelier and more depressed than ever. And as for those women who have undergone an abortion, physical complications, mental health struggles, and silent grief ripple through our healthcare system and society. &#8220;Pro-choice&#8221; psychology professor David Fergusson <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23553240/">published evidence</a> that women who have abortions are significantly more likely to suffer from anxiety, suicidal ideation, and drug and alcohol abuse. Pretending this is a “cost-free” procedure helps no-one.
What makes Britain’s situation especially tragic is that it was avoidable. Marriage &#8211; one of the greatest proximate predictors for adults to have children &#8211; is punished by the UK tax system, discouraging family formation and making it harder to depend on one salary. In the workplace, motherhood is treated as a liability. Poor maternity leave provision and the constant push of government-sponsored “free childcare” pushes women who do have kids back into taxable desk jobs, rather than encouraging them to invest in time at home with their children. All the while, the culture champions the idea that babies are inconvenient competitors to the luxuries of modern life. Abortion is the far cheaper, easier policy option in many ways. But in the long-term, it leads to a nation collapsing from within.
This is why abortion is no longer just a moral issue, but one of national survival. A society cannot abort a third of its future generation and expect to remain intact. Britain is not simply declining, but aborting itself out of existence. America should take note, and continue to fight for a culture supportive of bringing babies into the world. Once a culture decides children are optional, the future becomes optional too.
* * *
Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) is a writer and commentator from Great Britain.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

British flag burning

Britain Is Aborting Itself To Death

Children

England

Great Britain

mass migration

Pro-Life Movement

In an era of spiraling political absurdity, America finds itself squandering precious time and resources on what should be one of the most straightforward, apolitical facts of human existence: only women can get pregnant.
Even Democrat strategist James Carville recently <a href="https://x.com/GrabienMedia/status/2012559321582772621">mocked the absurdity</a> of today’s gender politics on Fox News, saying, “I’m not worried about getting pregnant. I have no idea why this is the number one issue in America.”
It’s time to stop pretending this point of view is controversial. As a mom, I’m calling for this political charade to end in 2026.
After many decades of modern scientific consensus, which follows centuries and even millennia of common sense on the subject, we’ve somehow devolved into laughably ridiculous disagreements over gender. This isn’t just science; it is the order of creation itself, designed by God with intention and clarity. But it is politically unserious to convene hearings where elected politicians and sitting Supreme Court Justices go through the motions of grilling so-called experts on a matter that, in terms of objective reality, isn’t even up for debate.
Imagine a congressional hearing on whether gravity affects everyone equally, or if some people can ‘identify’ as not being subject to such a narrow-minded and restrictive force. Or, imagine someone bringing a case before the Supreme Court to decide whether humans require oxygen to live, or if some could ‘identify’ as anaerobic and live on carbon dioxide alone. We, the serious masses, wouldn’t even entertain the conversation. We would turn our attention to real political issues like immigration, national security, or the economy, and not waste our time.
Speaking of which, I don’t have much time to waste these days. I just welcomed our third child in three years into this world. It was beautiful, painful, exhausting, and awe-inspiring; the kind of experience that reminds you just how extraordinary the female body truly is. God entrusted me to carry a child and give birth, something only a woman can do. A man is simply incapable of doing what I did. That isn’t opinion, it’s biological reality.
And as a mother who just gave birth, I’m exhausted that this ever became a political issue. Women shouldn’t have to fight to own something as fundamental as pregnancy.
Which is why I was so disgusted when I watched the congressional hearing where Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned the so-called “expert,” and (somehow) certified OB/GYN, Dr. Nisha Verma.
Dr. Verma testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on abortion pill safety. She represented Physicians for Reproductive Health, and Sen. Hawley asked her a simple question that has an objective, biological, common-sense answer: “Can men get pregnant?”
Dr. Verma, who definitely knows the answer, repeatedly dodged the question — insisting instead that it was a “political tool” that “polarized” the discussion and failed to capture the “complex experiences” of her patients. I wonder if Dr. Verma would also dodge questions about whether people could choose to live without oxygen or decide that gravity doesn’t apply to them. Would she claim such farcical questions are political tools that polarize?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
SPOILER ALERT: Men cannot get pregnant <a href="https://t.co/08JwHUlxIj">pic.twitter.com/08JwHUlxIj</a>
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/2011480384467349892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @HawleyMO/X.com
That is really the crux of the issue here; none of this should be treated as a political issue. A serious nation would not waste another moment nor another taxpayer dollar entertaining such an unserious conversation. The entire premise should be dismissed outright as unworthy of the time it would take to even ask such a ludicrous question. Stop indulging delusion and start governing in reality.
Incredibly, this Senate hearing came just days after the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding men in women’s sports. Ironically, this is the same thing that happened to one of the sitting Justices during her confirmation hearing, when she was unable to answer a similar question — “What is a woman?” More incredible still, she and every other person still hung up on this issue suddenly know what a woman is when it comes to breaking the glass ceiling and placing the first black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Suddenly, they all know what a woman is? Suddenly, that distinction matters? No, not suddenly. They always knew because it’s an objective, reality-based fact that isn’t up for debate, unless we pretend along with those who want to bend reality.
Even James Carville wasn’t just stating a fact; he was calling out how absurd the debate itself has become. His joke on Fox News wasn’t about biology; it was about how fake and manufactured this entire controversy is. But Democrats keep entertaining fiction to pander to rabid extremists and then expect the rest of the country to play along.
The bottom line is simple: there is no debate, so entertaining one is foolish. Polling consistently shows that most Americans are willing to publicly admit that they understand the biological reality of sex. Voters aren’t confused, but Washington is pretending to be. Americans are tired of political grandstanding on issues that don’t matter. And 2026 should be the year this nonsense ends.
It’s time to stop coddling absurdity as though we owe irrationality an esteemed seat at every table. One might say that when you wrestle with a pig in lipstick, it’s still a pig, and you both get dirty. It’s not respect, and it’s not compassion. It’s suicidal empathy. If we let lunacy hijack constructive conversation, we all crash together.
###
Jillian Anderson King is a former Washington Redskins Cheerleader Ambassador and ABC’s The Bachelor and The Bachelor in Paradise contestant. She’s a Mombassador for Moms for America, an ambassador for Turning Point and Turning Point Faith, and a proud Christian Conservative mother and wife. Jillian is also the founder of The Kings Firm, a strategic communications firm.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival – Portraits

Men Can’t Get Pregnant. Even James Carville Knows That.

Gender

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Opinion

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Women are more likely than men to believe political assassination can be justified as “assassination culture” rises, according to polling exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire.
Women on both the Left and the Right were 14% to 20% more likely than men to believe the political assassination of high-profile figures could be justified, the <a href="https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/Assassination-Culture_-How-Shifting-Gender-Patterns-Signal-a-New-National-Instabilitypdf.pdf">Network Contagion Research Institute</a> (NCRI) found. The poll comes amid a spike in political violence marked by the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as well as the attempt on President Donald Trump&#8217;s life.
What is most surprising about the findings, according to NCRI&#8217;s co-founder Joel Finkelstein, is that those who justified political assassinations were not part of traditional high-risk groups, but people of all persuasions and demographics.
“We dug into the data because this felt like it was describing a deeper moral crisis,” Finkelstein told The Daily Wire. “We assumed young men would be driving this, given unemployment, disengagement, and declining graduation rates. That’s why we explicitly examined gender. What surprised us, honestly shocked us, was that women were more likely to show tolerance for political violence.”
To conduct the poll, NCRI used CloudResearch Prime Panels, from a nationally representative sample of American adults concerning political attitudes, public figures, and views on the future of the United States. Respondents were asked to rate, on a seven-point scale, “How unjustified or justified would someone be if they killed Zohran Mamdani?” and “How unjustified or justified would someone be if they killed Donald Trump?”
Although women commit far fewer murders in the United States — accounting for roughly 13% of all killings over the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2024-reported-crimes-in-the-nation-statistics#:~:text=The%20FBI%20released%20detailed%20data,by%20participating%20law%20enforcement%20agencies.">past five years </a>— the poll found they were more likely than men to say a political assassination could be justified. Specifically, 54.7% of women compared with 45.2% of men expressed some justification for Mamdani, while 57.1% of women expressed some justification for Trump, compared to 50.1% of men.
<div id="attachment_1029717" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1029717" class="size-large wp-image-1029717" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-10.54.17-AM-1024x571.png" alt="" width="1024" height="571" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-10.54.17-AM-1024x571.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-10.54.17-AM-300x167.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-10.54.17-AM-768x428.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-10.54.17-AM.png 1396w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />(NCRI)</div>
Looking at the results for women alongside broader social trends, Finkelstein offered a hypothesis for the pattern.
“Over the past decade, women, especially younger women have become more politically polarized, more emotionally moralized, and more immersed in online political identity formation,” he said. “That shift predates our study. What we’re seeing now may be the downstream effect of those longer-term changes.”
NCRI ran a similar poll in April 2025 that specifically tracked “assassination culture” among left-leaning respondents. The survey found that 56% of participants left of center said the assassination of Trump to be justified, while 50.2% said the assassination of Elon Musk would be justified. 
The results made waves in the media and were publicly <a href="https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1909391943802703899">shared by</a> Charlie Kirk just five months before he himself became the target of a politically motivated assassination.
In the most recent poll, assassination culture was measured by asking respondents if they believed the political murder of two high-profile figures — Trump and Mamdani — could be justified. 
Among left-of-center respondents, belief that politically motivated assassination is justified rose to 67 %, while 58.1 % of centrists and 42.5 % of right-of-center respondents indicated at least some level of justification for killing Trump. Support for the assassination of Mamdani was also high, with 54 % of right-of-center respondents and 53.9 % of centrists expressing similar views along with 40.4% of left of center.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1029723 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Untitled-design-1024x363.png" alt="" width="1024" height="363" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Untitled-design-1024x363.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Untitled-design-300x106.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Untitled-design-768x272.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/Untitled-design.png 1195w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
NCRI said the timing of the poll captured heightened exposure to real-world violence, which they say may help explain shifts in attitudes toward its acceptability. 
While respondents differed in political ideology, the poll found a common thread among those who justified political assassination: a strong belief that America is in decline. Among respondents who said assassinating Trump could be justified, 70.3 % also believed the country is in decline, while 59.8 % of those who justified the assassination of Mamdani reported the same.
Social media use was linked to support for political assassination. Left-of-center respondents who used social media the most scored 50% higher on a measure of justification for murdering Trump than those who used it the least. On the right, the most active social media users scored 59 % higher on justification for murdering Mamdani compared with the least active users.
Experts suggest that online platforms may amplify extreme rhetoric and normalize aggressive behavior. 
“Today’s social media platforms reward outrage, absolutism, and symbolic aggression while flattening moral complexity,” Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and contributor to NCRI told the Daily Wire. “In these spaces, punishment is not just normalized but aestheticized. Violence is reframed as meaningful, expressive, or even admirable, which lowers the psychological barriers that usually keep it in check.”
Age differences were also notable among respondents who justified political assassination. On the left, support was highest among younger adults, with 82 % of 18- to 29-year-olds indicating some level of justification. On the right, the highest support appeared among those aged 30 to 44, with 73% expressing justification.

Anonymous female hand holding pistol on red backdrop

Women Are More Likely To Support Political Assassinations, Poll Shows

Political Violence

Pictures of bikini-clad women have been known to cause strain in marriages. But could skimpy swimsuits trigger a threat to the United States&#8217; and Great Britain&#8217;s “special relationship?&#8221;
In recent weeks, young women have been targeted on X by individuals using Grok’s AI technology to manipulate their image without their consent. I, myself, was a victim in this scandal: an anonymous user replied to a perfectly normal post I had written about puberty blockers and instructed X’s AI to generate a sexualized deepfake of me: “put her in a micro-bikini, on her knees, knees out, tongue out.”
I have never taken, shared, or consented to anything remotely like that. The ability of a stranger to weaponize my face and turn it into public pornography is a profound violation. It strips you of your dignity, your identity, and your sense of personal control in a way few things can.
So, I reported it. And X acted: fast. The comment was removed, the image was deleted, and the account responsible was, as far as I can tell, permanently suspended. Soon after, X restricted Grok’s image-generation features for non-subscribers, effectively shutting down the anonymous abuse that had driven most of this trend. Within days, the phenomenon had largely disappeared.
It was a negative experience, but it was handled. The platform corrected course. We moved on.
Or at least, most of us did. The British government did not.
Instead, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration has chosen to escalate the incident into something far bigger: floating the possibility of <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/uk-x-ban-grok-ai-elon-musk/">banning X entirely</a> in the United Kingdom. This has triggered an extraordinary diplomatic row with the United States, whose State Department has now openly warned Britain that such a move could provoke retaliation.
State Department spokesmen have <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/us-state-department-threaten-uk-probe-elon-musk-x-grok/">made clear</a> that Washington would view such a ban as an unjustified attack on freedom of speech, behavior more typical of an authoritarian state than a Western democracy. Some American officials have even hinted at travel restrictions or legal pressure against British officials involved in enforcement.
That kind of terse language is almost unheard of between Britain and America. But it didn’t come out of nowhere. Tensions have been building over the last few years as the United Kingdom persistently flouts respect for free expression. Mothers are <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o">jailed</a> for months on end for long-since deleted tweets. Christians are <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/02/14/adam-smith-connor-abortion-campaigner-jd-vance/">convicted</a> for praying silently near abortion facilities. The examples are racking up at an extraordinary pace.
The recent government targeting of X is ostensibly meant to prevent women and children from porn-related crime. But if ministers were genuinely driven by concern for female dignity and child safety, X would be nowhere near the top of their list.
Pornhub, one of the largest pornography platforms in the world, has a documented history of hosting child sexual abuse material, rape videos, and non-consensual content. In 2025, American regulators <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/09/ftc-takes-action-against-operators-pornhub-other-pornographic-sites-deceiving-users-about-efforts">concluded</a> that Pornhub&#8217;s parent company had misled the public about safeguards and failed to prevent the re-uploading of illegal material.
And yet Pornhub remains accessible in Britain. No threats or bans from the government. Just quiet assurances about age verification and “compliance.”
The same is true of other AI platforms. Gemini, ChatGPT, and countless image-generation tools have all faced cases where non-consensual deepfakes were produced. None have been threatened with national expulsion. None have been treated as existential threats to public safety.
So, why X?
X is not primarily a sexual platform. It is a political one. It hosts journalists, dissidents, activists, and cultural critics. It is messy, chaotic, and often offensive — but it is also one of the last major spaces where unfiltered political disagreement still happens at scale.
That is why this fight has become transatlantic. The United States understands something the British government seems either unable or unwilling to admit: a wholesale ban on X would be a gross attempt to control and shut down public conversation, including views the government simply dislike.
If Starmer truly believes in protecting the vulnerable, his government should be relentlessly targeting the platforms that profit from sexual abuse and exploitation. Until that happens, the sudden ferocity directed at X will remain impossible to read as anything other than ideological.
And now, thanks to America’s spotlight, the world is watching.
* * *
Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) is a writer and commentator from Great Britain.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Deep fake hoax and manipulation news titles on screen in hand 3d illustration

Someone Made AI Porn Of Me. Could That Kill America’s Relationship With Britain?

I Was Targeted By An AI Deepfake. Now My Country Wants To Ban X.

Artificial Intelligence

Deepfake

Keir Starmer

Pornhub

Pornography

Social Media

Twitter

President Donald J. Trump, in his January 6, 2026, address marking National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, reaffirmed the administration’s unwavering commitment to ending modern-day slavery, holding traffickers accountable, and empowering survivors to rebuild their lives. That is why the bipartisan Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously, is so important.
Human trafficking is not only one of the most vicious crimes in the world, but also one of the most profitable. Modern-day slavery has become a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise where the supply and demand are the same thing: human beings. People are bought and sold again and again, not because trafficking is hidden, but because it is high-reward and low-risk. Traffickers too often evade justice. Too frequently, victims cannot find justice.
For eight years, Hollie lived that reality.
“My traffickers stripped me of my freedom, my income, my career, my safety, my family, my reputation, my body, and nearly my life.”
When Hollie finally escaped exploitation, she did not step into freedom. She stepped into a system that failed to recognize her as a victim. Instead of protection, she faced punishment. Instead of justice, she faced criminalization for acts she was forced to commit to survive.
That experience is not unique. It is tragically common.
Traffickers routinely coerce victims into committing crimes, selling sex, transporting drugs, using false identification, or engaging in financial fraud, solely for the trafficker’s benefit. This is known as forced criminality, and it is a well-documented reality of human trafficking. Yet when government systems fail to properly identify victims, survivors are arrested, prosecuted, and left with criminal records that follow them long after they escape.
Those records become invisible shackles.
They block access to jobs, housing, education, and financial stability. They keep survivors trapped in cycles of poverty and vulnerability. And they send a devastating message: that the law holds victims responsible for crimes committed against them.
As Hollie has said, “I did not emerge from exploitation into freedom. I emerged into a system that did not know how to see me, protect me, or distinguish me from the crimes committed against me.”
That is not justice.
Conservatives believe in accountability. However, accountability must be placed where it belongs: on the criminals, not the victims. Traffickers should face the full force of the law. Survivors should not be punished for surviving.
This legislation is not symbolic. It is corrective. Many states have already enacted this type of legislation; however, the federal government has been behind the curve.
The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act creates a clear federal pathway for survivors of human trafficking to vacate and expunge convictions for non-violent crimes that resulted directly from their exploitation. It also establishes an affirmative defense to prevent wrongful convictions before they happen. In doing so, it restores integrity to the justice system by ensuring prosecutors recognize and pursue the true perpetrators of crime.
As the bill’s lead sponsor, Congressman Russell Fry of South Carolina, rightly noted, “It makes sense to give prosecutors tools in their toolbox to go after the true perpetrators of these crimes and not the victims themselves. This is common sense.”
He is right. Survivors should never have carried the legal consequences of their traffickers’ crimes in the first place.
This bill is survivor-informed, shaped by those who understand firsthand how systems fail and how they can be fixed. Survivors know that justice cannot end at initial recovery or prosecution — it must extend into long-term restoration, independence, and self-sufficiency.
Hollie has spent years working with law enforcement to improve victim identification, advising prosecutors and judges on survivor-centered justice, partnering with service providers to ensure help does not end at crisis, and collaborating with financial institutions and policymakers to empower survivors to rebuild their lives.
The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act represents American leadership with moral clarity.
The United States can now become the only country with federal legislation that explicitly recognizes forced criminality and provides survivors a clear legal path to relief from convictions tied to their exploitation. That matters. A just nation protects the innocent, punishes the guilty, and restores those who have been wronged.
This law gives survivors a real second chance — the chance to work, to secure housing, to pursue education, and to fully participate in American life without being haunted by crimes they were forced to commit.
It replaces punishment with accountability.
Justice should heal. Justice should be restored. And justice should never ask survivors to carry the crimes of their traffickers.
With the passage of the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, America takes an important step toward making that principle the law of the land.
* * *
Mercedes “Mercy” Schlapp is a CPAC Senior Fellow and former senior White House advisor to President Donald Trump, as well as Director of Specialty Media for President George W. Bush. She is a Republican strategist, media commentator, and co-host of CPAC 365 and America Uncanceled.
Hollie Nadel is a survivor of human trafficking and a graduate of Ithaca College. In recent years, Nadel has prioritized raising awareness of the reality of human trafficking, serving as a consultant for anti-trafficking organizations. She received her certification from the ACAMS/ Liechtenstein Initiative for Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking, provided survivor support for the Survivor Inclusion Initiative, and is currently working to pass additional anti-trafficking legislation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

President Trump Speaks At The House GOP Member Retreat

The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act Puts Justice Back Where It Belongs

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Human Trafficking

Trump Administration

Amanda Nguyen, one of the women aboard the so-called first female space flight, says she experienced depression due to the “tsunami of harassment” following the highly publicized Blue Origin ride.
Besides Nguyen, pop singer Katy Perry, CBS anchor Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez were among the six women who flew to the edge of space on the Amazon founder’s Blue Origin spacecraft in April. Their flight was touted as historic and important by many major outlets, but critics mocked the circus surrounding the 11-minute space tourism flight.
Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist, said backlash to the flight affected both her career and mental health. The 34-year-old posted about it on her Instagram on Tuesday, describing it as “another dream turned into a nightmare.”
She said the news coverage and social media reactions were “unprecedented,” and argued that even a “small fraction of negativity becomes staggering.” Nguyen also noted that her accomplishment of becoming the first Vietnamese woman in space was “buried under an avalanche of misogyny.”
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“It amounted to billions of hostile impressions,” she wrote, “an onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure.”
“I did not leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed. A month later, when a senior staff at Blue [Origin] called me, I had to hang up on him because I could not speak through my tears,” Nguyen went on.
“In my moments of deep grief this year, I reached back out to a familiar place, to her – my survivor self – who found the strength to fight. How horrible that I needed to deploy that skill once again,” she said.
The space flight participant said only recently that the “fog of grief has started to lift.” “Vietnam saved me … You all saved me,” she went on. 
Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The all-female space flight was criticized by social media users and celebrities for being over-promoted for what it turned out to be.
Actress Olivia Munn said as much on an episode of “Today with Jenna and Friends,” as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blue-origin-all-female-crew-including-katy-perry-launches-into-space">reported</a>.
“What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” Munn said. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?”

Amanda Nguyen

Blue Origin ‘Astronaut’ Says Mockery Left Her ‘Depressed’ And ‘Unable To Get Out Of Bed’

Blue Origin 'Astronaut' Says Mockery Left Her 'Depressed' And 'Unable To Get Out Of Bed'

Blue Origin

Celebrities

Jeff Bezos

Outer Space

Space

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer shared a statement declaring his intention to protect women and girls from &#8220;misogyny&#8221; — and was immediately met with a virtual thrashing from women and girls who say he&#8217;s already failed them with policies that protect grooming and rape gangs and give trans-identifying men access to their spaces.
Starmer addressed the issue in an X post, in which he suggested that the greatest threat facing women and girls was the misogyny being cultivated in young men by social media influencers.
&#8220;I want my daughter to grow up in a Britain where she feels safe in school, online, and in relationships. Every young girl deserves that, and every young boy should be protected from harmful misogynistic influences,&#8221; he posted. &#8220;My government is making that happen, by backing teachers, calling out misogyny, and intervening early. We can stop harm before it starts and save a generation of young men from the influence of online misogynists.&#8221;
A number quickly pointed out that Starmer&#8217;s failure to tighten immigration laws was putting more girls in immediate danger than any toxic internet culture.
&#8220;How about deporting Pakistani grooming gang members?&#8221; Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) <a href="https://x.com/RepFine/status/2001778910770458695">suggested</a>.
&#8220;Your government bends the knee to terrorists in the name of equity. You don&#8217;t care about girls or women; if you did, you&#8217;d do something about the terrorists in your country,&#8221; Twitchy&#8217;s Sam Janney <a href="https://x.com/PolitiBunny/status/2001656302703964316">added</a>.
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&#8220;Stop lecturing schoolboys while refusing to secure the border or enforce the law,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/TheBritishIntel/status/2001613317144527171">another said</a>. &#8220;British lads aren’t the problem — importing violence and then blaming our sons is cowardice, not leadership.&#8221;
One victim of an alleged grooming gang called Starmer out directly, saying, &#8220;I wanted to grow up in a Britain where CSE detectives didn’t ask me if I &#8216;consented to sexual activity&#8217; after I was abused from the age of 5. I wanted to grow up in a Britain where the police didn’t show up at my door to threaten me after I exposed their failings on TV.&#8221;
&#8220;I wanted to grow up in a Britain that didn’t prioritise &#8216;community cohesion&#8217; and &#8216;race relations&#8217; over protecting little girls from being raped and killed. I wanted to grow up in a Britain where Labour politicians like you didn’t turn a blind eye to the systemic abuse of little girls,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;I wanted to grow up in a Britain that didn’t refuse to prosecute 98.6% of rape cases. I wanted to grow up in a Britain that didn’t trade little girls for votes.&#8221;
&#8220;How dare you try and lecture us on the importance of protecting women and girls after you and your party spent decades betraying us? You are a hypocrite and a liar, Keir Starmer,&#8221; she declared.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I wanted to grow up in a Britain where CSE detectives didn’t ask me if I “consented to sexual activity” after I was abused from the age of 5.
I wanted to grow up in a Britain where the police didn’t show up at my door to threaten me after I exposed their failings on TV.
I… <a href="https://t.co/jUwvMJEo4U">https://t.co/jUwvMJEo4U</a> <a href="https://t.co/LkXp1I1qBW">pic.twitter.com/LkXp1I1qBW</a>
— Samantha Smith (@SamanthaTaghoy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/2002096846613746146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Britain will turn itself into a dystopian police state before it admits that its problems stem from mass Muslim immigration,&#8221; The Federalist&#8217;s John Daniel Davidson <a href="https://x.com/johnddavidson/status/2001689563388125326">concluded</a>.
Author J.K. Rowling took the argument in another direction, <a href="https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/2002090766223462862">registering her disgust</a> with Starmer&#8217;s position on trans issues: &#8220;I want my daughters to live in a country where their right to single-sex spaces isn’t under attack from their own government.&#8221;
&#8220;Despite being married to a woman and the father to a daughter, you still required the Supreme Court to tell you what a woman is. That makes you one of two things; stupid, or a coward. In either circumstance, to think you can be trusted with the safety of women and girls in this country is laughable,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/FFS_WhatNow/status/2001718390919254290">another said</a>.
Carla Lockhart, MP, <a href="https://x.com/carlalockhart/status/2001996714069139801">added</a>, &#8220;Perhaps you can begin by ensuring that your daughter can have female only toilets, changing rooms and spaces. The Supreme Court was clear. Because of Labour a court had to rule on something so plain and obvious to us all. Now act on the Supreme Court ruling and stop your Ministers stalling.&#8221;
Even Santa Claus weighed in with just one week to go before Christmas, declaring Starmer to be &#8220;on the naughty list.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Keir Starmer is on the naughty list. <a href="https://t.co/rinxugGAGN">pic.twitter.com/rinxugGAGN</a>
— Santa Decides (@SantaDecides) <a href="https://twitter.com/SantaDecides/status/2001738922288910344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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NATO Leaders Attend 2025 Summit In The Hague

Keir Starmer Claims He Protects Women, Gets Absolutely Thrashed By Women Who Say He’s Failed Them

Keir Starmer Claims He Protects Women, Gets Absolutely Thrashed By Women Who Say He's Failed Them

Britain

Politics

United Kingdom

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