World Family Policy Center Newsletter
*News relative to
protecting the family worldwide*
Volume 7 Issue 142 - February
28, 2007
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Quote of the
Day:
“We must be the change we wish to see
in the world.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
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Today’s Contents:
A. Featured Scholar: Kevin Marjoribanks, The University of Adelaide
B. Featured News Articles
1. Cyprus offers moms bonuses for more babies
2. Britain to use donor eggs for stem cell research
3. Drugmaker stops lobbying efforts for STD shots
Related
Article: CDC doctor opposes law for vaccine
4. Option Ultrasound Saving Lives
5. Another push in Congress for parental notification
on abortion
6. Gay Student 'Weddings' Anger California Parents
Related
Article: Maine school teaches kids 'transgendering'
C. Coming Events
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FEATURED SCHOLAR
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Kevin
Marjoribanks, The University of
Adelaide, Emeritus Professor served as Vice-Chancellor from 1988 to 1994,
retired as Dean of the School of Education in 2005, died April 29, 2006
Abstract: A Little Extra
Happiness
Find a young man or young
woman happy with life and you've likely found someone who grew up in an intact
two-parent family. The relationship between young adults' happiness and the
type of family that reared them receives attention in a study recently published
in Psychological Reports by psychologist Kevin Marjoribanks.
Examining data collected from
an Australian national probability sample in 2000 (3,580 men and 3,991 women
with an average age of 20.2 years), Marjoribanks finds that on a 14-item
survey, young men and women reared in two-parent families are significantly
more likely to express greater happiness than peers reared in one-parent
families. Because the differences in the reported levels of happiness are not
very large, Marjoribanks highlights as "meaningful" only the largest
two differences for women (happiness in contemplating their future and
happiness with their standard of living) and the three largest differences for
men (happiness with where they live, happiness with their standard of living,
and happiness with the way the country is being run).
Still, Marjoribanks
acknowledges that ten other differences in happiness scores for women and eight
other differences in happiness scores for men-all "statistically
significant," though relatively small-favor those reared in two-parent
families over peers reared in single-parent homes. And even if it is not large,
one of the psychological advantages enjoyed by young men and young women who
have grown up in two-parent families encompasses a great deal. Compared to
peers reared in single-parent families, young men and young women from
two-parent homes are significantly more likely to say they are happy with
"life as a whole."
(Source:: Kevin Marjoribanks,
"Relations Between One- and Two-Parent Families and Young Adults'
Happiness Scores," Psychological Reports 96 [2005]: 849-851. Special
thanks to The Howard Center for this source)
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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES
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1. Cyprus
offers moms bonuses for more babies
By Andrew Borowiec
The Washington Times
February 21, 2007
NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Cyprus has
become the latest nation to propose paying women to have more babies in an
attempt to reverse declining birthrates.
Faced with the lowest
birthrate in the European Union, the Greek-Cypriot government wants to offer
bonuses of $45,000 for a third child in a family and the same amount for
subsequent children.
The amount of the suggested
"baby premium" has stunned the divided island, where the
Greek-speaking population of 700,000 faces some 256,000 Turks and Turkish
Cypriots in the north of the island.
Industrial countries have
adopted similar programs to boost birthrates, including Australia, Canada and
Poland. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in his state-of-the-nation
speech last year a plan that would provide nearly $10,000 to families with a
second child.
In France, bonuses and tax
breaks since 1993 have helped push up fertility rates to 1.9 babies per woman
during their lifetime, second only to Ireland in the European Union.
To read entire article:
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070221-121048-1514r.htm
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2. Britain to
use donor eggs for stem cell research
Women will be compensated up
to $500 for costs related to donation
MSNBC.com
Feb 21, 2007
LONDON - The British
government on Wednesday approved plans to allow women to donate eggs for stem
cell and cloning research, and said they will also be entitled to compensation
for costs incurred.
Women undergoing fertility
treatment will receive a discount if they donate eggs, authorities said, while
others will receive up to 250 pounds (about $500 U.S.) for each fertilization
cycle to cover costs such as travel or lost work time.
The eggs would be used to
create cloned embryos, with the hope of extracting stem cells. Because stem
cells have the potential to become any cell in the body, scientists believe
studying them could lead to cures for numerous diseases, including Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's or motor neurone diseases.
Story continues below ?
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Some British stem cell
experts are concerned that the change in policy — which brings the country in
line with several other European nations — will encourage women to donate eggs
solely for financial motives.
"It's exploitative
because there will be women attracted even by the thought of getting 250 pounds
from this," said Dr. Stephen Minger, director of the Stem Cell Laboratory
at King's College. London. "I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of
selling tissue and body parts."
To read entire article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17262457/
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3. Drugmaker
stops lobbying efforts for STD shots
Merck criticized by parents
and doctors for pushing cervical cancer vaccine
MSNBC
Feb 20, 2007
TRENTON, N.J. - Merck &
Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately
suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that
adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a
requirement for school attendance.
The drug maker, which
announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the
campaign, via a third party, to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the
three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.
Some had objected because the
vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted disease, human papillomavirus
(HPV), which causes cervical cancer. Vaccines mandated for school attendance
usually are for diseases easily spread through casual contact, such as measles
and mumps.
Story continues below ?
advertisement
“Our goal is about cervical
cancer prevention and we want to reach as many females as possible with
Gardasil,” Dr. Richard M. Haupt, Merck’s medical director for vaccines, told
The Associated Press.
“We’re concerned that our
role in supporting school requirements is a distraction from that goal, and as
such have suspended our lobbying efforts,” Haupt said, adding the company will
continue providing information about the vaccine if requested by government
officials.
Merck launched Gardasil, the
first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, in June. It protects against the two
virus strains that cause 70 percent of cervical cancer and two strains that
cause most genital warts.
To read entire article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17246920/
Related
Article: CDC doctor opposes law for vaccine
By Gregory Lopes
The Washington Times
February 27, 2007
The chairman of the federal
panel that recommended the new cervical-cancer vaccine for pre-teen girls says
lawmakers should not make the inoculation mandatory, as the District and more
than 20 states, including Virginia, are considering.
Dr. Jon Abramson, chairman of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on
immunization practices (ACIP), also said he and panel members told Merck &
Co., the drug Gardasil's maker, not to lobby state lawmakers to require the
vaccine for school attendance.
"I told Merck my
personal opinion that it shouldn't be mandated," Dr. Abramson told The
Washington Times. "And they heard it from other committee members."
Dr. Abramson said he opposes
mandating Gardasil, which prevents the cervical-cancer-causing human
papillomavirus (HPV), because the sexually transmitted HPV is not a contagious
disease like measles and he is not sure states can afford to inoculate all
students.
"The vaccines out there
now are for very communicable diseases. A child in school is not at an
increased risk for HPV like he is measles," Dr. Abramson said.
To read entire article:
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20070226-115014-2031r.htm
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4. Option
Ultrasound Saving Lives
by Wendy Cloyd
CitizenLink
February 20, 2007
Program lets pregnant women
see an image of their preborn child.
Focus on the Family's Option
Ultrasound Program (OUP) is encouraging thousands of pregnant women to choose
life.
Since its inception in
January 2004, OUP has placed 287 ultrasound services in medical
pregnancy-resource centers in 46 states. Approximately 34,000 babies have
potentially been saved.
Sue Parker, executive
director of Life Choices in Memphis, Tenn., said OUP helped her center begin
offering ultrasound just over a month ago.
"Women want to seek an
answer to their problems -- and they see their pregnancy as a problem,"
she said. "A center that is making the ultrasound tool available gives
women the opportunity to explore their options from a legitimate medical
perspective."
Her county reports more than
7,000 abortions annually, so the need for a pro-life alternative is great.
"In our first month,
even without the benefit of advertising, we saw about 35 ultrasounds,"
Parker said. "We took everything the Option Ultrasound Program had built
into us and made it come alive for these girls."
Kim Conroy, director of Focus
on the Family's Sanctity of Human Life outreach, said 88 percent of
abortion-minded women who seek counseling and ultrasound services leave a
pregnancy-resource center with the intention of carrying their babies to term.
"Women need the truth
when faced with the challenging circumstances that lead them to consider abortion,"
she said. "Ultrasound examinations provide medical confirmation of their
pregnancy and are a crucial tool to help women make positive decisions for
themselves and their babies."
To read entire article:
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000003942.cfm
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5. Another
push in Congress for parental notification on abortion
Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
February 27, 2007
A Florida congresswoman is
urging passage of a bill (HR 1063) that would make it a federal crime for
adults to circumvent state parental notification laws to aid minors in
obtaining an abortion. Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and 105
co-sponsors have reintroduced the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act,
or CIANA.
If passed, CIANA would
prevent adults from transporting minor girls across state lines to have
abortions to skirt the parental notification laws in their home states. The
bill has passed the House the last two years; however, the Senate has failed to
act on it.
Ros-Lehtinen calls CIANA a
pro-family, pro-commonsense bill that should be non-controversial. "I have
two daughters," she says. "They could not go to 'Lou's Tattoo' down
the street and get a tattoo or get their ears pierced unless they had the
parental consent or notification if they were under 18," she notes.
"However," the
congresswoman points out, "here in the United States it is legal for a
minor to have an abortion without parental notification." Thankfully, she
observes, more than 30 states currently have laws on the books requiring
parental notification before an abortion, but she says opponents of the Florida
legislation have put up numerous roadblocks.
Some lawmakers have suggested
that CIANA include an exemption for clergy, Ros-Lehtinen notes. "Well,
anybody in many states can call themselves Reverend whatever, and they would be
excluded," she comments.
Meanwhile, others legislators
wanted to insist on "a grandmother exclusion" or a "friendly
aunt exclusion," the Florida representative adds. "You know, they
have all of these exclusions that would make this bill not have any sense
whatsoever," she contends.
To read entire article:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/02/another_push_in_congress_for_p.php
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6. Gay
Student 'Weddings' Anger California Parents
CitizenLink
February 27, 2007
High school event offer
counterfeit marriage certificates.
Some self-identified gay
students at Glendale High School in California recently gathered in the
cafeteria for fake wedding ceremonies -- a school-sponsored event.
A petition asking the
government to end discrimination against same-sex marriage was also in the mix.
The "Freedom to
Marry" event provided the couples with mock marriage certificates and
included a petition drive calling on the government to allow same-sex marriage.
George Taylorson, a Glendale
resident, said he's appalled the school would allow the event.
"To encourage this type
of lifestyle with kids that are 13, 14, on up, it just totally angers me and
just disturbs me," he told Family News in Focus. "The schools have a
big-enough problem as it is just educating the kids without getting involved in
such a highly sensitive area."
The Pacific Justice Institute
sent a warning letter to Principal Kathy Fundukian, urging her to act in the
best interest of all students. The goal of the ceremonies, backed by an openly
gay teacher and the school's Gay-Straight Alliance student club, was to
"mock marriage."
To read entire article:
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000004013.cfm
Related
Article: Maine school teaches kids 'transgendering'
Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
February 5, 2007
The Christian Civic League of
Maine is denouncing a high school's celebration of transgender that included a
student currently undergoing sex-change therapy. The observance, says the
group's spokesman, is part of the state government's taxpayer-subsidized
promotion of the homosexual agenda.
The head of a pro-family
group in Maine is expressing outrage over his former high school's affirmation
of transgenderism.
Cony High School in Augusta
adjourned at 8:30 in the morning recently for a "Diversity Day,"
which included a workshop for freshman students called
"Transgendering." Mike Heath, executive director of the Christian
Civic League of Maine, says the workshop hosted by his alma mater included a
presentation by a former student who is now undergoing male hormone treatments
and says she is a boy.
Heath says such events are
becoming more common in the state's schools. The government of Maine invests
almost a quarter-million dollars a year "in promoting homosexuality and
so-called 'sexual orientation' through the attorney general's office," he
explains.
In addition, he says, the
government pushes that agenda in the public high schools by forming "Civil
Rights Teams" -- a project administered through the Office of the Attorney
General. "And they're also beginning to go down to the middle schools and
the elementary schools" with those clubs, Heath adds.
Heath says attacks on
traditional morality are not relenting in Maine's public schools. He suggests
concerned citizens be on the look out for terms such as "diversity,"
"tolerance," "diversity days," and "civil
rights." "Whenever you see these buzz words," says the family
activist, "you should start asking questions about sexual orientation and
morality, and [about] what's going to be presented to your kids about these
topics."
To read entire article:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/02/maine_school_teaches_kids_tran.php
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COMING EVENTS
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U.N. COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN (fifty-first
session)
26 February to 9 March 2007
New York
The Commission on the Status of Women is a functional commission of the
United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to
gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global
policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at
United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender
equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete
policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.
For more information:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/
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WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES IV
Warsaw, Poland - May 11-13, 2007
Meeting in Rockford, Illinois (October 23-25, 2005), a planning
committee of the World Congress of Families chose Warsaw, Poland as the site of
the 4th World Congress. The Warsaw Congress will be held May 11-13, 2007 in the
Palace of Culture and Science.
The Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, an organization with over
130 affiliates throughout the nation, will serve as the local host for WCF IV.
The Congress theme will be “The Natural Family: Springtime for Europe
and the World.” Sub-themes will
include:
1. We Will Renew Cultures
of Marriage
2. We Will Celebrate More
Babies and Larger Families
3. We Will Nurture Free,
Vital, and Productive Homes.
For more information: Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
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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
If you have any articles, editorials, or papers you would like
circulated through the WFPC News network, you may submit them to
lundberg@lawgate.byu.edu
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