World Family Policy Center Newsletter

—James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the U.S.

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Today’s Contents:

A. Featured Scholar: Elizabeth Marquardt

B. Featured News Articles

1. Abortion Foes to Renew Efforts

Related Article: Georgia bill defines personhood as

beginning at conception

2. Polygamist Appeals to Supreme Court

3. Cheat on your spouse in Michigan and spend life in prison?

C. Coming Events

1. U.N. Commission on the Status of Women

2. World Congress of Families IV

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FEATURED SCHOLAR

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Elizabeth Marquardt, an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values in New York City, Principal Investigator of the report The Revolution in Parenthood. She also co-authored a ground-breaking study on college women's attitudes about sex and dating on campus, titled "Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Dating and Mating Today." The study was featured in national publications including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and by columnists including William Raspberry and Maureen Dowd. Currently, Ms. Marquardt is researching and writing a book on the moral and spiritual lives of children of divorce, a topic she began studying while in graduate school at the University of Chicago.

The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adults’ Rights and Children’s Rights

Executive Summary

Around the world, the two-person, mother-father model of parenthood is being fundamentally challenged.

In Canada, with virtually no debate, the controversial law that brought about same-sex marriage quietly included the provision to erase the term “natural parent” across the board in federal law, replacing it with the term “legal parent.” With that law, the locus of power is defining who a child’s parents are shifts precipitously from civil society to state, with the consequences as yet unknown.

In Spain, after the recent legalization of same-sex marriage the legislature changed the birth certificates for all children in that nation to read “Progenitor A” and “Progenitor B” instead of “mother” and “father.” With that change, the words “mother” and “father” were struck from the first document issued to every newborn by the state. Similar proposals have been made in other jurisdictions that have legalized same-sex marriage.

To read remainder of Summary and the entire report at no cost:

http://www.americanvalues.org/pdfs/parenthood.pdf

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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1. Abortion Foes to Renew Efforts

By Michael Alison Chandler and Michelle Boorstein

Washington Post

January 23, 2007

Tens of thousands of abortion opponents marched through melting snow on the Mall yesterday and vowed to work harder -- since Democrats have taken control of the Capitol -- to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

Demonstrators' hopes were buoyed a year ago at the annual March for Life by two new appointments to the Supreme Court. Now, with Democrats in power in both houses of Congress, abortion foes find themselves without allies in some key positions for the first time in more than a decade.

Tens of thousands of abortion opponents marched through melting snow in downtown Washington for the annual anti-abortion march and rally marking the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. A counter

demonstration also took place, hosted by the National Organization for Women.

"Pro-lifers aren't going to pack up and go home because of the 2006 elections," said Karen Cross, political director of the National Right to Life Committee, at a news conference before the march. "Indeed, we will redouble our efforts and continue working until every unborn child is protected."

Democratic leaders have said they prefer what they consider a less combative approach in preparing legislation on the abortion issue. Several bills are circulating that would change the focus of the abortion debate to pregnancy prevention, through such measures as improved access to contraception.

Democrats say their goal is to find a political compromise, an approach echoed yesterday by some abortion rights advocates.

"We wish those people who are coming in town for a great adventure one day a year would join with us to put forth a prevention-first agenda that would significantly reduce the need for abortion," said Jatrice Martel Gaiter, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.

Some abortion opponents said a compromise might not be realistic.

"The pro-abortionists say you legally can kill an unborn child for any reason. We say the child should live. Where is the middle ground?" said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee.

Teenagers made up the majority of demonstrators yesterday who poured out of buses from across the country, wearing matching colored scarves or carrying posters with statements such as "Face It Abortion Kills."

To read entire article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012200559.html

Related Article: Georgia bill defines personhood as beginning at conception

By Rusty Pugh

OneNewsNow.com (Formerly AgapePress)

January 11, 2007

Nationally prominent pro-life leaders are lending their support to a proposed bill in the Georgia Legislature that would define personhood as beginning at conception. They see the measure as a major step toward the landmark Roe v. Wade decision being overturned.

Hear This Report

If passed, House Bill 1 (HB1) would make history, say pro-lifers, because it would answer the question that has been at the crux of the abortion debate for more than 30 years. The measure would establish that every human life begins at the moment of conception, eliminating any gray area that currently exists surrounding the definition of "personhood." Read twice before a committee in the Georgia State House earlier this week, the bill now awaits consideration.

Judie Brown, president of American Life League (ALL), explains the significance of HB1 as it pertains to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion on demand in America. "When Justice Blackmun wrote [for the majority in] the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, he said that if personhood is ever established, the Supreme Court's decision would fall," she notes. "And a bill like the Georgia bill would make it possible for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in such a way that every single abortion in the United States would end immediately."

In other words, she says, if the bill passes and ultimately makes it to Supreme Court on appeal, it will force the high court to "answer the question they've never answered -- and that is, whether or not the innocent child in the womb is a human being, a person, just like you and me."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/01/georgia_bill_defines_personhoo_1.php

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2. Polygamist Appeals to Supreme Court

CitizenLink

January 17, 2007

He's arguing a court victory for homosexuals should also protect his multiple marriages.

Convicted polygamist, Rodney Holm, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the law that put him behind bars for marrying three women and he's citing Lawrence v. Texas -- the decision that struck all the remaining state anti-sodomy laws.

The high struck down Texas' sodomy law in 2003 saying the government can't interfere with consensual partners.

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, explained how the court's earlier decision led to this argument.

"(Holm) considered them to be religious marriages," he said. "Because he didn't seek government recognition (for his second and third marriages), he feels that that should be protected within the zone of privacy that was declared by the Lawrence v. Texas case."

But Sprigg added that traditional marriage is a public institution, and the Supreme Court should leave this case alone.

"The reason why marriage is a public institution in the first place is because there are public benefits that flow from marriage, and there are public costs that flow from the costs that flow from the breakdown of marriage," he told Family News in Focus.

Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute, said polygamy is the logical next step in the national assault on traditional marriage.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000003651.cfm

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3. Cheat on your spouse in Michigan and spend life in prison?

YahooNews

Jan 18, 2007

DETROIT, (AFP) - Philanderers beware: spouses caught cheating in Michigan could end up spending the rest of their life in prison. And not the emotional kind.

The state's appeals court recently ruled that extramarital flings can be prosecuted as first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in jail.

"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."

"Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in the state's criminal code.

Michigan still lists adultery as a felony, although no one has been convicted of the offense since 1971.

Nobody really expects prosecutors to go after cheating spouses. But the ruling has the local legal community twittering about its genuine intended target.

One theory floating around the courthouse is that the judges were taking a jab at the state Supreme Court, which has decreed that judges must interpret statutory language adopted by the Legislature literally, whatever the consequences.

Many other states allow judges to reject a literal interpretation if they believe it would lead to an absurd result.

Judge Murphy wrote that he encouraged "the Legislature to take a second look at the statutory language if they are troubled by our ruling."

To read entire article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070118/lf_afp/usjusticesexoffbeat_070118055859

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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

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