World Family Policy Center Newsletter

Larry P. Arnn is the twelfth president of Hilldale College. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. He also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University. He is on the boards of directors of the Heritage Foundation, the Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College, Americans Against Discrimination and Preferences, the Center for Individual Rights, and the Claremont Institute. He is the author of Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education (Hillsdale College Press, 2004).

Following is an excerpt from the article A Return to the Constitution by Dr. Arnn from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

As for the organization of education, [Ronald] Reagan understood it from the constitutional perspective of self-government. His First Inaugural, a worthy successor to the greatest inaugural speeches of the greatest presidents, is built around the theme of self-government and the association of every American with the great heroes of America, including Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, in the practice and defense of self-government. In another speech he said:

“Our leaders must remember that education doesn’t begin with some isolated bureaucrat in Washington. It doesn’t even begin with State or local officials. Education begins in the home, where it’s a parental right and responsibility. Both our public and our private schools exist to aid our families in the instruction of our children, and it’s time some people back in Washington stopped acting as if family wishes were only getting in the way.”

A government that forgets this sentiment is not competent to give instructions for higher education. Forgetting the purpose of education, such a government is likely to forget its own purpose, too. That is dangerous both to liberty and to justice.

The question what is to be done is simple to answer: it is not enough anymore to rehearse by rote the Constitution or to celebrate it in vacuous observances. Both our statesmen and our citizens must return first to its study, with depth and intensity, and then to its sustenance, with eloquence and resolve. Nothing else will do.

To read the entire article:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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1. Swedish Parliament Votes to Allow Abortion Tourism

Church leaders have vowed to work for government defeat over issue

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com
November 20, 2007

STOCKHOLM- Foreign women will be allowed to have abortions in Sweden up to 18 weeks gestation starting in January 2008 under changes to legislation passed by the Swedish parliament last Thursday according to a report in AFP (Agence France-Press).

The changes to the existing abortion law were passed by a very small majority: 134 in favour, 124 against, 91 abstentions.

Until now abortion in Sweden has been reserved for Swedish citizens and residents, but since most EU countries already allow foreign women access to abortion, the Swedish government has decided to follow suit. Non-resident women now have the same access to abortion as they have to other health services in the country. The only condition is that they pay for the procedure themselves.

Christian Democrat leader and Social Affairs Minister Göran Hägglund, who introduced the bill, brushed off criticism from his own party, which traditionally favours a restrictive approach to abortion. Several Christian Democrat members of parliament have warned that the new law could lead to 'abortion tourism'.

Catholic Bishop Anders Arborelius, and evangelical leader Sten-Gunnar Hedin with the Philadephia Church in Stockholm strongly opposed the law change. In a joint statement issued earlier this year they stated, “We are sad that this proposal is backed by a Christian Democrat social affairs minister, Göran Hägglund. It is incomprehensible that he is supporting this proposal while claiming that it was required by the EU, something that this country’s leading EU law expert, Professor Ulf Bernitz, insists is not the case.”

Bishop Arborelius and Mr. Hedin stated that if forced they would work together with a majority of Christian leaders in Sweden, “to work actively to reduce the chances of the Alliance being re-elected,” at the next general election in 2010.

To read entire article:

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/nov/07112005.html

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2. Want to help the environment? Don't divorce

Study: Single households consume lots more per capita than married ones

MSNBC, AP, December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - "Save water, shower together," young people proclaimed a few years ago. Turns out, they were right.

Americans spend an extra $3.6 billion annually on water as a result of the extra households created when people divorce, Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University, estimated.

In countries around the world divorce rates have been rising, and each time a family dissolves the result usually is two households, explained Liu, whose analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Liu.

Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing, he added.

A household uses the same amount of heat or air conditioning whether there are two or four people living there. One person or several use the same refrigerator. Two people living apart run two dishwashers instead of just one.

Liu, who researches the relationship of ecology with social sciences, said people seem surprised by his findings at first, and then consider it simple.

"A lot of things become simple after the research is done," he said.

Some extra energy or water use may not sound like a big deal, but it adds up.

The United States, for example, had 16.5 million households headed by a divorced person in 2005 and just over 60 million households headed by a married person.

To read entire article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22086806/

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3. Virginia Is for Teen Lovers?

Abstaining from good sense.

By Ryan T. Anderson

National Review Online, December 3, 2007

Virginia governor Timothy M. Kaine (D.) announced this November that he was rejecting a $275,000 grant from the federal government for abstinence education as he eliminated the state’s abstinence education program altogether. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to make his announcement.

His decision came as the Centers for Disease Control released a report indicating that sexually transmitted diseases are up, and the Institute for Research and Evaluation released a report showing that an abstinence program in Kaine’s own state is achieving remarkable results in fostering teen chastity.

The CDC reported that the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia infected more people in one year (2006) than any disease in the history of disease reporting. As if the one million new reported cases of chlamydia weren’t bad enough (and the CDC notes that the disease is vastly underreported, estimating that there were probably around 2.8 million new cases), the CDC also reports that syphilis and gonorrhea infections are on the rise. All in all, there were approximately 19 million new cases of STDs in 2006.

Of course, diseases are far from the only reasons to be concerned about teen sex. Teen pregnancy — though greatly reduced in recent years — is still a major concern both for the pregnant woman who will be forced to choose between abortion and teen motherhood, and for the unborn child who will either be killed or brought into the world at great disadvantage. (The sad reality is that few women avail themselves of the adoption option.)

But beyond these tangibles lies the hidden emotional and psychological turmoil from which sexually active teens are more likely to suffer. UCLA psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, M.D., chronicles these effects in her book Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. And the effects are long term: According to University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann and his colleagues, sexually active teens are less likely “to be sexually exclusive over the remainder of their life, with the result that divorce is a more likely outcome for them.”

To read entire article:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWYyOGI4ZWI0NTZlYjg2MjY3YmJkY2NmMjZhNDMyMmE#more

Related Article: Parents Play Key Role in Teen Choices

CitizenLink, November 26, 2007

Even if they won't talk, they are still listening.

When it comes to dating and sex, teens care more about what their parents have to say than their closest friends.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 65 percent of teens said it's “easy” to have conversations with their parents. Nearly one-third of teens called their relationship with their parents healthy and worth emulating.

Bill Albert, communications director for the campaign, said the goal of the study was to improve parent-child relationships and prevent unplanned pregnancies.

“The thing that we are most concerned about is people that begin dating and romantic relationships at very early ages," he told Family News in Focus. "They are much more likely to report that the sex was unwanted or forced; they are far less likely to use contraception.”

Linda Klepacki, sexual health analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said even if your kids won’t have a conversation with you, they’re still learning.

“They hear you; they know what you believe; they know what’s important," she said. "So even if you don’t talk directly to them, they’re picking up; they’re being influenced by you.”

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000005986.cfm

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4. Ireland: Genetic Engineering and Producing Human Beings to Order

Family and Life, 3rd Dec 07

Producing Human Beings to Order is "morally objectionable and potentially evil since it denies the child’s value as a person"

According to Fr Seamus Murphy SJ, Professor of Moral Theology in Milltown Institute, Dublin, "medical technology is developing new capacities in genetic engineering, and creating living human embryos outside the mother’s body, deep-freezing them, and experimenting on them. Such developments raise moral issues.

Yet while the technology is new, the key moral values are not. They are human dignity, respect for the person as having transcendent value, respect for the integrity and sanctity of the living human body, and the equality between living human beings.
As Pope John Paul II stated in his 1995 letter, Evangelium Vitae - ‘The Gospel of Life’ - there are numerous threats to those values. New technology is not bad in itself. Genetic engineering as genetic therapy, correction for genes carrying hereditary disease, is good. However, genetic engineering for genetic enhancement, i.e. producing human beings to order (e.g. male, blue-eyed, high IQ, tall, etc.), is morally objectionable and potentially evil since it denies the child’s value as a person, of their value as an end in his/herself.

Genetic enhancement identifies the child’s value as a product, made to somebody else’s specifications. It identifies the child as defective if it doesn’t meet these specifications, and defines his or her value merely as a means for others. It is analogous to slavery, human beings who exist for others’ purposes, human flesh that can be bought and sold.

The problem is not with the technology but with the defective values of parents, customers or consumers, medical personnel, and legislators, who determine how the technology is going to be used.

To read entire article:

http://www.familyandlife.org/Abortion-and-Embryo/434/8/18.html

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5. Sperm Donor must Pay Support 18 Yrs. Later

By Lucy Carne, New York Post, December 2, 2007

A sperm donor who sent gifts signed "Dad" to his biological son has been slapped with a child-support order, 18 years after helping his friend get pregnant.

The Nassau County man donated his sperm to a work colleague, and included his name on the child's birth certificate, saying it would give the boy an identity, courts documents revealed.

He then blurred the lines between donor and full-time father by sending money, presents and cards signed "Dad" and "Daddy," and having phone chats with the now college-bound teen.

But the man's goodwill backfired: A court ruling says he is now liable for financial support of the 18-year-old, who lives with his mother in Oregon. "It really is no good deed goes unpunished," said the man's lawyer, Deborah Kelly of Potrush and Daab in Garden City.

"When people do things they think are being done with good intentions and there is an agreement and one of the party reneges on the agreement, it is certainly disconcerting."

She said the time lapse was "unusual." "He was assured that he would have no responsibility on his part and of course 18 years has elapsed where there hasn't been responsibility," she said.

"He did not anticipate this would happen now, when the child is almost an adult, that the mother would come forward for child support." She said her client had requested a DNA test, "because we have no concrete evidence he is the father."

Nassau County Family Court judge Ellen Greenberg ruled Nov. 16 against a paternity test, saying it would have a traumatic effect on the child. The child signed an affidavit stating that he has "never known anyone other than [the man] to be his father," according to court documents.

If payments were to go ahead, the child support would be determined based on the mother's earning capacity; the reported income of her partner, who is also a doctor; and the father's income. Because of privacy concerns, all parties remain unnamed.

The mother is identified in court papers as P.D., the alleged father as S.K., and their son as K.K. The donor was a married doctor at a Nassau County hospital when he donated his sperm to a hospital resident and her female partner in the late 1980s.

At the time of the boy's birth in 1989, the man orally agreed he would not have any rights or benefits in the child's upbringing. The father said he had contact with the child from his birth until 1993, when the lesbian couple and his son moved to Oregon, according to court documents. From then the contact dropped to seven phone calls in the past 15 years and one meeting for a few hours three years ago.

Calls by The Post to the mother's attorney, Jeffrey Herbst, were not returned.

About 1 million American children are the product of sperm donors - the majority of them being anonymous fathers - with 30,000 more born each year.

Court rulings over parental rights from artificial insemination remain murky. Similar cases across the country have varied.

The Washington State Court of Appeals ruled in 2004 that a donor isn't bound to pay child support, unless he and the mother have a signed contract.

To read the entire article:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022007/news/regionalnews/perm_wail_by_donor_901096.htm

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6. U.S. military more open to gays serving openly

By Brad Knickerbocker

The Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2007

Is the US ready to join Britain, Israel, most NATO nations, and other countries in allowing gay men and lesbians to openly serve in the armed forces?

Most likely not any time soon. But the US military's longstanding aversion to having such service members among the ranks seems to be shifting, reflecting public opinion.

A group of 28 retired generals and admirals issued a letter calling on Congress to repeal the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" act. The controversial law was passed early in the Clinton administration, prohibiting anyone who "demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from military service because it "would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."

Retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he's changed his mind on the subject and now favors opening up the military based on sexual orientation.

"Conversations [with the troops] showed me just how much the military has changed.... I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces," General Shalikashvili wrote in a column in The New York Times earlier this year.

Current Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told Military Times last week, "If the American people want to change this policy and change this law, bringing it up through [Congress] and changing that policy and changing the law is the right answer."

Seventy-nine percent of the public approves repealing "don't ask, don't tell," according to a May 2007 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, including a plurality of Republicans.

A Zogby survey of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan found that 73 percent reported being "personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians," and only 37 percent want to keep the current policy.

A bill to replace "don't ask, don't tell" with a policy of "nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation" has 136 cosponsors in the House, mostly Democrats. Among the presidential candidates, Republicans say they want to keep "don't ask, don't tell" while Democrats support repealing it.

To read entire article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1204/p03s01-usmi.html

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COMING EVENTS

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NINTH WORLD FAMILY POLICY FORUM

July 7 - 9, 2008

Provo, Utah

Sponsored by the World Family Policy Center, Brigham Young University. Participation and attendance at the Forum is by invitation only. For further information, contact Sarah Stewart 801-422-5192

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Note: The Featured Articles excerpts are highlights of current events and

do not necessarily represent the views of the World Family Policy Center

or Brigham Young University.

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Newsletter created and distributed by:

World Family Policy Center (www.worldfamilypolicy.org)

J. Reuben Clark Law School

Brigham Young University

Acting Managing Director: A. Scott Loveless

Newsletter Editors: Joy S. Lundberg and Gary B. Lundberg

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