World Family Policy Center Newsletter

I am struck that in the writings of Blessed Teresa, she always connects world peace or war with little acts of love within families. She believes that the well-being of spouses and the acceptance and loving of children within families is the only way to world peace and a better world on a large scale.

Peter Singer of Princeton University, the most well-known representative of contemporary utilitarian ethics, once criticized Mother Teresa because she described her love for others as “love for each of the succession of individuals” rather than as “love for mankind merely as such.” “If we were more rational,” he says, “we would use our resources to save as many lives as possible, irrespective of whether we do it by reducing the road toll or by saving specific, identifiable lives.” His idea seems to be that since Mother Teresa did not, for example, spend her energy calculating auto accident rates against various speed limit options, she is irrational, because in so doing, he thinks, she would help more people.

[To obtain a copy of The Family in the New Millennium, Vol. 3 contact Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06991]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1. The End of the Stem-Cell Wars

by Ryan T. Anderson

The Weekly Standard, 12/03/2007, Volume 013, Issue 12

The stem cell wars are over. Leading scientists are telling us that they can pursue the most promising stem cell research without using--much less killing--human embryos. This breakthrough enables researchers to create human embryonic stem cells directly from adult cells. In fact, the new method may actually prove superior to embryo-destructive alternatives. This is the biggest stem cell advance since James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate embryonic stem cells, less than a decade ago.

It is a new study by Thomson himself that has caused the present stir, but this time Thomson is not alone. Accounts of independent research by two separate teams of scientists were published on November 20--one in the journal Cell and one in the journal Science--documenting the production of pluri-potent human stem cells without using embryos or eggs or cloning or any morally questionable method at all.

The new technique is so promising that on November 16, Ian Wilmut announced that he would no longer seek to clone humans. Wilmut, you may remember, is the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep. He recently sought and received a license from the British government to attempt to clone human embryos for research purposes. Now, citing the new technique, he has abandoned his plans.

It was only in 1998 that Thomson succeeded in isolating human embryonic stem cells. Though other types of human stem cells were known at the time (some were even in clinical trials), embryonic stem cells were thought to be the holy grail because they were believed to

be more flexible. They were "pluripotent"--capable, in theory, of developing into any type of body tissue--whereas so-called adult stem cells were thought to be useful for forming a narrower range of tissue types. The problem with producing embryonic stem cells was that human embryos--nascent human beings--had to be destroyed in the process.

Even now, nine years later, embryonic stem cells are thought by many scientists to have greater potential than other types. This reputation persists even though adult stem cells are already used in therapies to treat several diseases and are being tested in hundreds of clinical trials, while not a single embryonic stem cell therapy exists, even in trials.

To read entire article:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/387asfnv.asp

...............................

2. In child pornography, fight harder

It's more barbaric than you think. We need to keep cracking down.

By Ernie Allen,

Christian Science Monitor, November 26, 2007

Alexandria, Va. - Millions of children around the world are being sexually abused and molested. Billions of dollars are changing hands as part of a growing crime wave of child pornography. This is anything but a victimless crime. Children – some as young as infants – are being barbarically assaulted for the sexual gratification of their abusers and those who view their photos.

While inroads have been made in the fight against child pornography, the problem remains severe. We have much more to do.

The Internet has become a child pornography superhighway, turning children into a commodity for sale or trade. Analysts at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) have reviewed 9.6 million images and videos of child pornography on the Internet just since 2002. There are millions more such images in cyberspace that we have yet to find.

Law enforcement agencies are cracking down on this crime wave. In November, the chief operating officer of the National Children's Museum in Washington was arrested and charged with distributing child pornography over the Internet. Also this month, police across Europe announced they had arrested nearly 100 people linked to a network that allegedly produced and sold child pornography videos to 2,500 customers worldwide.

To read entire article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p09s01-coop.html

.........................

3. Gay rights group raises red flag on Wal-Mart policies

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY, November 20, 2007

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, is giving Wal-Mart (WMT) a red "do not buy" rating in its new consumer guide, bestowing a lump of coal on the retail giant just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Citing Wal-Mart's refusal to offer domestic partner benefits to its gay and lesbian workers, the HRC said Tuesday that the USA's biggest private employer has "more work to do in furthering equality." It advised gays and their supporters to shop elsewhere.

Wal-Mart rated a red 40 on a scale of 100, down from a yellow 65 in 2006. It was among 54 companies that scored 45 or lower in HRC's 2008 Corporate Equality index, which assigns ratings to 519 large companies. Also in the red: Toys R Us, RadioShack (RSH) and AutoZone (AZO).

Wal-Mart rival Target (TGT) rated a "green" 80, meaning that "consumers should make every effort to support these businesses."

Wal-Mart has bucked a corporate trend of expanding benefits for gay employees, says Daryl Herrschaft, director of HRC's workplace project. He says two Fortune 500 companies offered domestic partner benefits, comparable to spouse benefits, in 1990. Today, 269 do.

"We're proud of our diversity initiatives and we think we are taking the right steps," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar says.

HRC's low rating comes as Wal-Mart has been enjoying positive publicity about its move this fall to offer better health coverage to more of its 1.4 million U.S. workers.

The company had been pummeled by unions and some state legislators who said it was offering unaffordable health insurance plans.

Herrschaft says Wal-Mart had been moving toward more gay-friendly practices. In 2003, the company added sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy.

In December 2005, HRC executives were invited to the first of two meetings at the company's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. On the agenda: the intricacies of implementing domestic partner benefits.

Conservative groups angered by Wal-Mart contributions to gay organizations threatened a boycott, and in June, the company announced a policy to avoid "highly controversial issues." Talks on gay benefits ended, Herrschaft says.

To read entire article:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2007-11-20-wal-mart-gays_N.htm

........................

4. New Jersey Legislature Seeks to Redefine Marriage for the Nation

by Devon Williams, CitizenLink, November 21, 2007

Two bills aim to legalize "same-sex marriage."

Last December, the New Jersey Legislature created civil unions that offer same-sex couples all the protections and benefits of marriage.

The Legislature is using its lame-duck session to introduce multiple bills that would grant civil unions full "marriage" status.

Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, said there's a strong push for lawmakers to take on this controversial issue before the 2008 session, because the newly elected Legislature may be more inclined to defend the institution.

"A number of those that were elected, including Declan O'Scanlon in the 12th District, are people that will vote to protect marriage," he said. "So, we need to do everything we can to make sure that it doesn't come up now and that there is not a vote."

Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said it's vital that people get involved in this fight.

"There is a likelihood that the bill will pass, especially if there's no outcry from those people that do support marriage as being the union of one man and one woman only," he said. "As long as the voice of the people is heard by the legislators, I think that will help in hopefully stopping this legislation from moving forward."

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000005977.cfm

Related Article: Changing Family Structure Puts Children at Risk

by Devon Williams, CitizenLink, Nov. 20, 2007

Research stresses importance of children being raised by their married biological parents.

A growing number of children are living in homes that are not conducive to their overall health and welfare, according to Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family.

“We find more and more kids being raised in homes that are unfortunately not suited to the well-being of children, but addressing and fitting the whims of adults, like cohabiting homes and single-parent homes,” he told Family News in Focus.

Stanton draws his conclusions from research compiled in a new report, Family Formation Trends and Analysis, that shows while most children are still being raised by their married biological parents, the trend is moving the opposite direction.

Stanton reports that 40 percent of cohabiting-couple homes include children – and the number is steadily increasing. At the same time, family form has replaced parental employment as the primary driver in child poverty.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000005966.cfm

....................................

5. Atheist renews challenge to 'under God'

Rejected by Supreme Court on technical grounds but finds new plaintiffs

WorldNetDaily.com, November 21, 2007

California atheist activist Michael Newdow is renewing his fight to remove reference to God from the Pledge of Allegiance, this time with a suit filed on behalf of an anonymous New Hampshire couple against a school district.

The couple, an agnostic and atheist with three children, say in their complaint that they "generally, deny that God exists" and contend their constitutional rights are violated when school authorities require their children to "participate in making the purely religious, monotheistic claim that the United States is 'one nation under God.'"

Newdow previously sued over the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge, but his claims were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 on technical grounds. The self-described atheist said he did not want his third-grade daughter to have to listen to the phrase "under God" in a public school.

Five justices, however, found Newdow did not have the legal standing to bring the case. He never married the child's mother, who has expressed support for having "under God" in the pledge.

"To give the parent of such a child a sort of 'heckler's veto' over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase 'under God,' is an unwarranted extension of the establishment clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance," then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in rejecting Newdow's appeal.

To read entire article:

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58800

......................

6. Texas Court: Fetus Death Can Be Murder

NEWSMAX.com

November 22, 2007

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas laws allow the killing of a fetus to be prosecuted as murder, regardless of the fetus' stage of development, but they do not apply to abortions, the state's highest criminal court has ruled.

Wednesday's ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal by Terence Lawrence, who said his right to due process was violated because he was prosecuted for two murders for killing a woman and her 4- to 6-week-old fetus.

The court ruled unanimously that state laws declaring a fetus an individual with protections do not conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that protects a woman's right to an abortion.

"The Supreme Court has emphasized that states may protect human life not only once the fetus has reached viability but 'from the outset of the pregnancy,'" the court said. "The Legislature is free to protect the lives of those whom it considers to be human beings."

Lawrence was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life for the 2004 shooting death of his girlfriend, Antwonyia Smith, and the couple's unborn child. Lawrence shot Smith after learning she was pregnant with his child, according to court documents.

Lawrence's appeal argued that he should not have been prosecuted for the death of the fetus because it was not viable. Supreme Court precedent in abortion cases has established that states have no compelling interest to interfere before a fetus would be old enough to live outside the mother's womb, he said.

However, the court said abortion precedent is based on the premise that a woman wants to have the procedure.

To read entire article:

http://newsmax.com/us/unborn_child_murder/2007/11/22/51487.html

Related Article: Reported abortions continue to decrease

By Cheryl Wetzstein

Washington Times, November 22, 2007

The number of state-reported abortions fell about 1 percent in 2004, continuing a downward trend that started 14 years earlier, a new federal report says.

A total of 839,226 abortions were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2004. This is 1.1 percent lower than the 848,136 abortions reported in 2003, the agency said yesterday in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The national abortion rate of 16 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 was unchanged. The abortion ratio, or abortions per 1,000 live births, dropped from 241 to 238.

The CDC said women who got abortions were most likely to be unmarried (80 percent), white (53 percent), or 25 or older (50 percent).

The vast majority of abortions for which gestational age of the unborn baby was known were performed early in the pregnancy: Sixty-one percent were performed at eight weeks or less gestation, and 88 percent were performed before the unborn baby was 13 weeks old.

A small portion of abortions — 1.4 percent or 8,365 abortions — were performed when the unborn baby was 21 weeks old or older, the CDC abortion-surveillance report said.

To read entire article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071122/NATION/111220046/1002

..................

7. Parents must watch kids online, Toronto police say

By Naomi Kim, Reuters

Nov 22, 2007

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - Filters, round-the-clock monitoring and even fingerprint log-in won't stop determined adults from accessing children's Internet sites, and it's up to parents to monitor what their kids do online, according to Toronto police's world-famous sex crimes unit.

"They're steps in the right direction, but I think a great system can still be beat," said Detective Sgt. Kimberly Scanlan, who heads the child exploitation section of the unit.

"I like safety features but I just know the minds of sexual predators and they're so well-versed. They spend so much time on the computer and they'll study the new technology and they'll always just find a way around it. It's not foolproof."

Social networking sites billing themselves as secure for kids as young as six, include virtual worlds such as Club Penguin (http://www.clubpenguin.com/), which promises kid-friendly chat in a "moderated environment".

Club Penguin, which has reached Facebook status among the preteen set, has conversation filters that include a block on inappropriate language as well as the "ultimate safe chat" setting where only predefined phrases can be used.

Anne's Diary (http://annesdiary.com/), inspired by the main character from the L.M. Montgomery "Anne of Green Gables" books, uses a fingerprint authentication reader and says it sets "new standards in online safety".

But Scanlan said technology alone is not enough.

"Parents still have to remain vigilant and they have to give (children) the tools and remain in communication with them... You have to always be talking with them. It's not a one-time conversation about Internet safety," she said

To read entire article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2225405120071122

....................

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

COMING EVENTS

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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

If you do not wish to receive a copy of WFPC News you may unsubscribe

by sending an email to listserv@listserv.byu.edu. The subject should be

left blank and the body should read, "unsubscribe wfpc-news".