Merlot Fogarty

As always I only support military action anywhere, in any context, if it directly serves the interests of American citizens. It’s troubling that the arguments we’re hearing for this war in Iran, including from Trump himself, seem to revolve primarily around “bringing freedom to the Iranian people.” As Americans, the freedom of Iranians is not our responsibility. If a single American life is lost in the service of that goal, it will be a travesty. What nobody has even come close to sufficiently explaining is how this war will first and foremost directly benefit American citizens. That is a case that needed to have been made clearly and convincingly before this move, and it wasn’t. We’re also told how this will benefit Israel, and I’m sure it will. But Israel is not America. What does it do for America? How does it help us? That needs to be explained to us. And it isn’t “panicking” or demonstrating “disloyalty” to demand those very basic answers about how American tax money, and potentially American lives, are being spent. We hear about the danger of a nuclear Iran, but that’s odd because we were told that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had already been set back decades. We hear that this war will be over quickly and easily because Iran is powerless, which I hope and pray is the case, and maybe it will be. But that’s odd, too, because if Iran is such a paper tiger then how were they a danger to us in the first place? It seems hard to argue both that Iran is an existential threat to the United States and that we can topple them in 20 minutes with no casualties or negative downstream effects. Also the political calculation really matters here. A huge majority of American oppose this. That’s just a fact. If it costs Republicans in 26 and 28, then, no matter how things work out in Iran, it will not have been worth it. A free Iran at the cost of Democrat rule here at home is a bad deal. A free Iran for an unfree America would be just about the worst trade of the century. I’m praying for our great country today.

“That’s the reality of reproductive dysfunction and women’s healthcare in America—healing care takes a backseat to quick fixes and “Band-aid” solutions. It took countless happy accidents and hours of personal research for me to finally receive treatment. But most women aren’t that lucky.” @PublicDiscourse @Merlot_Fogarty thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/02/100292/

In any other field of medicine, if the standard of care was pain management and symptom suppression rather than diagnosis and treatment, patients would be up in arms. But most women don’t even know there’s another option. thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/02/100292/

A Look Inside the Endometriosis Epidemic thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/02/100292/

If we’re serious about addressing America’s fertility crisis, restoring family life, and combating the harms of the Sexual Revolution, we must lead the charge for body literacy education. We can’t wait until couples struggle to conceive. We must meet infertility upstream.

Body Literacy Is the New “Sex Ed” thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/01/99941/

.@PillarCatholic is pledging to “to pay 75% of all employee family adoption costs and of the costs for all fertility treatment undertaken in accord with the doctrine of the Church.” And is asking dioceses/Catholic businesses to do the same for their employees.

Today @canonlawyered and I made a commitment. And, seriously, you should too: pillarcatholic.com/p/the-gospel-o…

If we’re going to make America healthy again we have to make America fertile again. IVF doesn’t get to the root cause. NaPro technology does.

BREAKING: President Trump set to encourage employers to offer IVF coverage—like dental or vision IVF kills more babies than abortion—millions of embryos are frozen, discarded, or destroyed Only 7% of embryos created survive to birth Not a solution to fertility struggles

Big announcement from the WH today about creating an option for employers to offer fertility insurance, which would cover, at the employer's option, IVF and/or treatments for root causes of infertility (often called "restorative reproductive medicine" or RRM). I appreciate that Pres Trump hears and is responding to so many Americans who dream of becoming parents.  The desire for parenthood is natural & good.  Children are a blessing.  Life is a gift.  The announcement today is rooted in these core truths. We all want more babies! Here’s another core truth: every human life is precious – no matter the circumstances.  MFL continues to call on any federal government policymaking re IVF to prioritize protecting human life in its earliest stages and to fully align with basic standards of medical ethics. I welcome the Admin’s commitment to making groundbreaking advancements in treating root causes of infertility more accessible & available.  RRM aims to resolve rather than ignore underlying medical issues, to increase health & wellness while also restoring fertility, and to respond to the beautiful desire for children while avoiding any collateral loss of human life. It's totally MAHA, and it has a great track record. More babies + healthier mamas = wins all around! I hope this new approach to insurance coverage for fertility treatments results in more women finding healing and having babies through RRM.

Having earlier this month approved abortion pills (which are responsible for most abortions), the administration now actively promotes IVF (which destroys more embryos than abortion). Pro-lifers were warned this would happen. Many kept silent anyway. Will they continue to do so?

Going around major health issues with IVF is NOT the answer to our fertility crisis. It’s marketed by a multi billion dollar industry with tons of lobbyists. Life threatening maternal and fetal complications rise drastically with IVF, so dramatically increasing these pregnancies would have a devastating impact on high risk pregnancy wards, NICUs, ERs, pediatric units. If we want a healthy country, we have to start with preconception health and addressing as causes of infertility (a SYMPTOM of health issues).

I respect President Trump but mandating IVF like vision coverage is misguided: cumulative live birth rates after several IVF cycles hover around 42%. NaProTECHNOLOGY, in contrast, reports success up to 50–80% success rate depending on diagnosis! It treats root causes rather than discarding embryos. It’s cheaper, more ethical, and deserves SERIOUS funding instead of blanket IVF subsidies. Let’s get to the root cause of infertility once and for all!

How will we respond when it feels like evil is winning? When the world has told us every truth deserves a voice except ours? To the pressures to conform to the majority behavior? To the voices telling us to quiet our convictions so as not to judge or offend?

As JPII noted, countless crimes against humanity were committed in the name of truth, even into this century. But how is it that we’ve come to the point where the crimes committed now cease to be crimes simply when they are “legitimated by popular consensus?”

Thirty years ago, JPII warned of a “culture of death.” Today, we’re living it: violence expected, truth silenced, & evil tolerated, even by the most reverent of Christians. Read my Substack here: open.substack.com/pub/merlotmary…

As Americans, we are witnesses in just the past few weeks to a vicious pattern of political and social disorder. At Annunciation Catholic Parish in Minneapolis, the killings of Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel, two innocent children. In Charlotte, the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska. And now the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, known for his commitment to civil and rational discourse. We entrust each of these victims to God, our Heavenly Father and author of every human life, and his son Jesus Christ, the reason for our supernatural hope. What we see unfolding in our nation is a vicious pattern of hatreds rooted in the rejection of God, of the dignity of the human person, and the sanctity of the family. We can eradicate these ills only through a firm reliance on God, through a deeper devotion to Christ and the Gospel, through a sincere love for persons reflected in law, and through a renewed commitment to justice and public order. We are living through a perilous moment. Our challenge is not only one of partisan disagreement, law, and policy, but in a deeper way our challenge is to uphold the central goods of American political life: of faith, of families, and of a national commitment to live together in harmony as brothers and sisters.

You forced our children into gender confusion. You called whites inherently evil. You hired quotas over merit. You fired us for refusing your vaccine. And through it all did we shoot your leaders?