World Family Policy Center Newsletter

*News relative to protecting the family worldwide*

Volume 8 Issue 195 – August 12, 2008

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Quote of the Day: "If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders."

~ Abigail Van Buren

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Today’s Contents:

A. Featured Scholar: Dr. Willy Pedersen

B. Featured News Articles

1. Babies a Drag on the Economy, Report Says

2. African Media Outlets Black Out Kenya Leader's Comments against Abortion

3. Boy's Cord Blood Saves Sister with Leukemia

4. AIDS Infection Rate in U.S. Higher Than Previously Estimated

5. As Marriage Declines, Church Attendance Falls

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FEATURED SCHOLAR

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Dr. Willy Pedersen

Department of Sociology and Human Geography

University of Oslo, Norway

Abortion and depression: A population-based longitudinal study of young women

Aim: Induced abortion is an experience shared by a large number of women in Norway, but we know little about the likely social or mental health-related implications of undergoing induced abortion. International studies suggest an increased risk of adverse outcomes such as depression, but many studies are weakened by poor design. One particular problem is the lack of control for confounding factors likely to increase the risk of both abortion and depression. The aim of the study was to investigate whether induced abortion was a risk factor for subsequent depression.

Methods: A representative sample of women from the normal population (n=768) was monitored between the ages of 15 and 27 years. Questions covered depression, induced abortion and childbirth, as well as sociodemographic variables, family relationships and a number of individual characteristics, such as schooling and occupational history and conduct problems.

Results: Young women who reported having had an abortion in their twenties were more likely to score above the cut-off point for depression (odds ratio (OR) 3.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.0—6.1). Controlling for third variables reduced the association, but it remained significant (OR 2.9; 95% CI 1.7—5.6). There was no association between teenage abortion and subsequent depression.

Conclusions: Young adult women who undergo induced abortion may be at increased risk for subsequent depression.

To read the entire study, visit http://sjp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/36/4/424

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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Editor’s Note: The following excerpts are taken from the week’s news around the world all relating to family and family policy. By clicking on the following links, you may read the entire article from its source. Our intent is to help our readers remain current on the state of the family in the world today. The positions taken and choice of wording and advocacy belong to the authors of the articles; inclusion here does not imply endorsement by the World Family Policy Center.

1. Babies a Drag on the Economy, Report Says

News.com (Australia)

August 6, 2008

Forget those plans to have a third child for the country because further increases in the birth rate could harm the economy, the nation's productivity watchdog has warned.

A major analysis of the nation's increasing fertility rate said it was at its highest level for 25 years - but the Productivity Commission yesterday warned further increases may aggravate rather than solve the problem of the ageing of the population.

This is because it will shift women out of the workforce while they care for babies, depressing labour supply and reducing the taxation base as our population ages, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The small number of extra babies born would make little difference to the rate of population ageing, the commission said.

And the women having the babies would be exacerbating the financial impacts on the government of the ageing of the population because the tax breaks offered to parents to have children occur up front, while the cost savings of a bigger working population and bigger tax base from extra children are deferred until they are of working age.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24134255-5017313,00.html

Australian Report Says Babies Harm the Economy

CitizenLink

August 11, 2008

Australia's fertility rate is at its highest in 25 years, but the nation's Productivity Commission warned last week that more babies may harm the economy.

Nearly 300,000 babies were born last year, and the commission said new mothers leaving the workforce will weaken the economy, aggravate the aging-population problem and deplete the taxation base.

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, called the report a gross exaggeration. In fact, he said, people typically contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars more to the economy than they consume in a lifetime.

"Babies are blessings, not burdens," he said. "People come into this world not just as stomachs, not just as consumers - they come with brains and hands, and they make contributions."

Mosher said the only way to counter an aging population is to have lots of children.

"Since children become workers, any reduction in the tax base would be short-lived, soon to be offset by the increased numbers of young workers," he said.

Jenny Tyree, associate marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said marriage and parenting play a vital role in the success of the economy.

"Married mother-and-father families tend to use economies of scale and the division of labor in highly efficient ways," she said. "Children contribute positively to the economy - and society as a whole."

To view the entire article, visit http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007964.cfm

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2. African Media Outlets Black Out Kenya Leader's Comments against Abortion

LifeNews.com

August 11, 2008

Nairobi, Kenya -- The president of the African nation Kenya spoke out last week against proposals to legalize abortion there, but people getting their news from the mainstream media there would never know. President Mwai Kibaki ruled out the possibility of legalizing abortion but the media never picked up on the news.

Kibaki made the comments during the installation of a new Catholic bishop in eastern Nigeria.

Dr. Stephen Karanja, a retired consultant obstetrician and gynecologist and former secretary of the Kenya Medical Association, shared the statement with John Smeaton, the head of the British pro-life group SPUC.

Karanja said, during the event, Cardinal John Njue talked about the position of the Catholic Church on the draft Reproductive Health and Rights Bill that was introduced last month but hasn't yet been officially presented to the Kenyan Parliament.

“The Cardinal said that the Bill was unacceptable. It was an affront to humanity of everybody and, especially, to the integrity of the human being," Karanja said.

“Cardinal Njue said that a country [is going mad] if it starts killing its youth – because in children the country has the seed for its future," Karanja added.

"He said that if any government, including President Kibaki’s government, were to enact such a law, they would be acting against the people of Kenya."

President Kibaki responded to the speech and, according to Karanja, said "he saw no reason, now, or in the future, why anyone would want to legalize abortion in Kenya.”

To view the entire article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/int874.html

Poll of Women Voters Shows Many Don't Know What Roe v. Wade Did on Abortion

LifeNews.com

August 6, 2008

Washington, DC -- A new poll of women voters shows what previous polls of Americans in general has confirmed: most people don't know what Roe v. Wade mandated when it comes to abortion. The poll shows women appear uninformed that Roe allowed virtually unlimited abortions.

From July 17 to 24, 2008, the Democratic Peter hart Research Associates polling firm conducted a survey for the pro-abortion National Women’s Law Center with over 1,000 women.

The poll asked men and women whether they felt the Roe decision by the Supreme Court should stay in place or be overturned.

The survey question included biased wording calling abortion a "woman's constitutional right" and saying the decision limited "the circumstances under which government could restrict this right."

Some 62 percent of women said Roe should be upheld while 30 percent said it should be overturned.

At the same time, the survey asked women a follow-up question about when abortions should be legal.

Only 50 percent of women wanted abortions legal in general and most of them favored some abortion limits.

Meanwhile, another 15% think abortion should be legal only in extreme cases such as rape, incest and life of the mother but still want to see Roe upheld in the courts; 15 percent believe abortion should be legal in only the most extreme cases and want to see Roe overturned; and 12% think it should be illegal in all instances.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/nat4107.html

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3. Boy's Cord Blood Saves Sister with Leukemia

CitizenLink

August 11, 2008

A toddler with cancer is improving after receiving umbilical-cord stem cells from her baby brother.

Three-year-old Bethanie Thomson from Scotland was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 6 months old. She relapsed when she was 2 â€” just weeks before her brother, Joshua, was born.

Joshua's cord-blood stem cells were a perfect match for Bethanie. Now, weeks later, she is making vast improvements.

"Scientists have found that umbilical cord blood, once thought to be medical waste, is a rich source of stem cells," said Dawn Vargo, bioethics analyst for Focus on the Family Action. "These ethical stem cells are treating a variety of diseases, including leukemia."

To view the entire article, visit http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007960.cfm

Rescue Me: The Moral and Ethical Problems of Creating Savior Siblings

LifeNews.com

August 8, 2008

Another story is in the news again brings us the issue of "savior siblings". Creating a savior sibling raises some serious ethical issues.

Consider a situation in which a sick child needs a genetically matched bone marrow (i.e. cord blood stem cell) transplant: is it right to produce embryo siblings, find the genetic match, and implant that embryo into the mother's womb, in order to provide the sick sibling with a donor?

Best-selling novels, like Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, tell of the strain this real-life drama takes on a family.

Strain between the mother and father (and the husband and wife) as they struggle daily with the real needs of a chronically-ill child who lives daily in the shadow of death.

And then there's the strain that exists between the siblings, as they come to realize their unique and very unusual relationship. One child lives only because another one needed him to be born. The child feels like a means to someone else's end, because they are in fact, a means to an end.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/bio2540.html

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4. AIDS Infection Rate in U.S. Higher Than Previously Estimated

Washington Post

August 2, 2008

Updated federal estimates of the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States, released today, reveal that while the AIDS epidemic here is worse than previously thought, prevention efforts appear to be having some effect.

Even though the number of Americans living with HIV has risen by more than a quarter million people since 1998 -- largely the result of life-extending antiretroviral drugs -- the number of new cases each year has declined slightly over that period. That suggests that a person's likelihood of transmitting the virus to someone else is substantially lower now than it was a decade ago.

The new, if indirect, evidence that prevention programs are paying off was one of the few encouraging findings in an update on the American AIDS epidemic released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the eve of the 17th International AIDS Conference, in Mexico City.

"Over 95 percent of people living with HIV are not transmitting to someone else in a given year," said David R. Holtgrave, an expert on AIDS prevention at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "What that says is the transmission rate has been kept very low by prevention efforts."

Those include targeting public health messages to high-risk groups, promoting widespread AIDS testing, and getting quick medical care for newly diagnosed cases, which in most cases lowers the person's infectiousness.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/02/AR2008080200568.html?tid=informbox

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5. As Marriage Declines, Church Attendance Falls

CitizenLink

August 5, 2008

A dramatic decline in marriage, particularly among young adults, has led to a decline in church attendance over the last three decades, according to a study by Robert Wuthnow, a sociology professor at Princeton University.

Men are 57 percent less likely to regularly attend church if they are not married. Single women are 41 percent less likely to attend church than their married counterparts.

"It exaggerates only a little to say that Americans in their 20s and early 30s divide into two groups of about equal size: those who are married, the majority of whom participate in religion; and those who are not married, the majority of whom do not participate," Wuthnow said at a conference at The Heritage Foundation.

Brad Wilcox, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, said the biggest factor driving the decline in church attendance is delayed marriage.

"Marriage is a gateway into family life, and family life, in turn, is often a gateway into church attendance," he said. "The longer people postpone marriage, the less likely they are to attend church at a given age, and also the less likely they are to attend church down the road."

Wuthnow estimates in his book, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion, that American churches would have 6.3 million more young adults today if young people started families at the same rate they did 30 years ago.

Wilcox said the Church needs to be more intentional about promoting marriage at an earlier age.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000007940.cfm