TENNESSEE HEARTBEAT BILL
The Tennessee House and Senate on June 19 passed a sweeping pro-life bill which bans abortion from the moment a heartbeat can be detected via ultrasound.
The bill (HB 2263) bans abortion if the unborn child’s heartbeat is detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy. If ultimately upheld by the courts, HB 2263 has the potential to save thousands of lives in the state of Tennessee. The vast majority of abortions in the state take place after six weeks gestation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 79 per cent of all abortions in the state in 2016 occurred at seven weeks or later.
HB 2263 makes it mandatory for an abortionist or physician to determine the gestational age of an unborn child before attempting an abortion. If the gestational age of the unborn child is estimated to be six weeks or later, the bill would require the abortionist to test for a fetal heartbeat using “generally accepted standards of medical practice” and “current medical technology and methodology applicable to the gestational age of the unborn child”.
Because HB 2263 intentionally challenges the U.S. Supreme Court’s viability standard set forth in Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, the heartbeat law, once adopted, is expected to undergo a lengthy court battle, which pro-life advocates are hopeful will ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.
Extract from Jonathan Abbamonte on the Population Research Institute website on June 29, 2020.
UK ACCUSES CHINA OF ‘GROSS’ HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST UYGHURS
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has accused China of “gross and egregious” human rights abuses against its Uyghur population and said sanctions against those responsible cannot be ruled out.
Reports of forced sterilisation and wider persecution of the Muslim group were “reminiscent of something not seen for a long time”, he told the BBC. The UK would work with its allies to take appropriate action, he insisted.
China’s UK ambassador said talk of concentration camps was “fake”. Liu Xiaoming told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that the Uyghurs received the same treatment under the law as other ethnic groups in his country.
Shown drone footage that appears to show Uyghurs being blindfolded and led to trains, and which has been authenticated by Australian security services, he said he “did not know” what the video was showing and “sometimes you have a transfer of prisoners, in any country”.
It is believed that up to a million Uyghur people have been detained over the past few years in what the Chinese state defines as “re-education camps”.
China previously denied the existence of the camps, before defending them as a necessary measure against terrorism, following separatist violence in the Xinjiang region.
The authorities have recently been accused of forcing women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices in an apparent attempt to limit the population.
According to recent research by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the rate of population growth in the two largest Uyghur prefectures in Xinjiang fell by more than 80 per cent between 2013 and 2018.
There are growing calls for the UK to impose sanctions, such as asset freezes and travel bans, on Chinese officials responsible for the persecution of the Uyghurs.
Extract from the BBC News website on July 19, 2020.
U.S. NAVY SHOULD BUILD A MULTINATIONAL AMPHIBIOUS TASK FORCE
Over the last 10 months, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has launched two Type 075 amphibious assault ships and a third is reportedly due shortly. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy recently commissioned one amphibious assault ship, USS Tripoli, while another, USS Bonhomme Richard, recently burned up pier-side in San Diego.
So, the U.S. Navy is now stretched thin while the Chinese Navy outbuilds and, in some cases, outguns it.
But even if the U.S. Navy builds only as many amphibious ships as it is forced to build, America’s friends have a lot of amphibious ships. Bring these into the mix. A back-of-the-envelope calculation of allied or friendly militaries in Asia, from South Korea to India, counts at least 50 amphibious ships of different types.
The Royal Australian Navy has three amphibious ships, of which two are newer ones, the HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Canberra.
So, the Bonhomme Richard conflagration might spur action on an idea that’s been floating around for a while. Why not establish a multinational amphibious task force, akin to the USN Navy/Marine Corps amphibious ready group?
A multinational amphibious task force will have beneficial knock-on effects, operational and political. As one obvious advantage, amphibious operations that combine air, sea and ground capabilities are the military equivalent of CrossFit training.
First steps? For starters, make the initial unit a US-Australian affair. American and Australian forces already work well together.
Base the unit at Darwin. Excel-lent port facilities already exist and can be improved. Australia’s top end is also a good location with direct access to the heart of Southeast Asia.
Other nations might want in. India, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philip-pines, New Zealand all have amphibious ships or forces that could incorporate into a “free nations’” amphibious force. This could conceivably lead to two amphibious groups in the future.
Extract from Grant Newsham in the Asia Times, July 27, 2020.
