*News relative to protecting the family worldwide*
Volume 8 Issue 200 – October 24, 2008
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Quote of the Day: "Let your eyes
light up when your children are around. Laugh more. Tell them how empty and
quiet it is when they’re not there. Enjoy the things they bring to your life.
Attend their activities, not as if they were compulsory for parents, but throw
yourself into their lives."
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Professor
Richard G. Wilkins, Managing Director of the World Family Policy Center, would
like to announce the recent decision by the Brigham Young University to close
the Center. Professor Wilkins and Acting
Managing Director Dr. A. Scott Loveless express their profound thanks to
everyone who offered service to the World Family Policy Center. Brief statements from Professor Wilkins and
Dr. Loveless will be included in the final edition of the Center's newsletter,
which will be sent in late November or early December of this year.
Today’s Contents:
A. Featured Study: Peers, Not Professors,
Influence Student Views
B. Featured News Articles
1. Kindergarten
Sex Ed Becoming Mandatory in England
2. British House of Commons OKs Cloning Bill,
No Abortion in Northern Ireland
3. Researcher: Abortions Cost Economy $35
Trillion since 1970 in Lost Productivity
4. Down
Syndrome Support Groups Rise to Counter Physicians’ Poor Diagnostic Practices
5. Testicles Could Be New Source of Stem Cells
6. How to Sell Out Your Country with Just One
Word
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FEATURED STUDY
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Peers, Not Professors, Influence Student Views
MSNBC
October
13, 2008
On issues such as
abortion, gay marriage and religion, college students shift noticeably to the
left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new
research shows.
The reason, according to
UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, isn't indoctrination by
left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students.
And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than
conservative ones.
After college, students —
particularly women — move somewhat back to the right politically.
The research is the latest of
several efforts by academics to lend analytical rigor to an emotional debate.
Overall, college faculty lean left politically, but there's sharp disagreement
on whether they impose their views on students. The UCLA researchers are among
several social scientists who have tried to undermine the argument that
students respond strongly to their teachers' opinions…
Overall, students were nearly
as likely after three years of college to call themselves "conservative"
or "far-right," according to findings, and only somewhat more likely
to call themselves "liberal" or "far left."
On specific policy questions,
they moved to more liberal positions.
Sixty percent of the college
juniors said they support legalized abortion, up from 52 percent who said so as
freshmen. The percentage supporting "legal marital status" for gay
couples rose from 54 to 66. The percentage supporting increased defense
spending fell from 34 to 25.
"People are moving out of
the center to the left during college," said one of the researchers,
Alexander Astin.
Studies dating back decades
have noted the trend of college students moving to the left during their
college careers. But finding a representative snapshot of overall college
opinion is difficult, because colleges have such varying student bodies.
The new figures from UCLA —
which has been tracking attitudes of freshmen for more than 40 years — give a
fresher and, the authors contend, more valid portrait. Based on a sample of
nearly 15,000 students who entered 136 colleges in 2004, the results are carefully
weighted to represent the full college population. Unlike some other such
surveys, UCLA was able to pose its questions to the same students when they
started college and after junior year.
The responses came over a time
of deepening unpopularity for the Bush administration and Republicans
generally. But Astin said the data show a clear effect from being in college,
not just a national trend. In particular, in a separate, not-yet published
paper using similar data, he and colleague Nida Denson claim to isolate the
changes to students' exposure to left-leaning peer groups.
Right-leaning students tend to
concentrate at a smaller number of colleges. So at most colleges, there are
more left-leaning peer groups, and students on balance move leftward.
"If you find yourself in
a peer group where on balance the attitudes lean left, you'll tend to move in
that direction," Astin said.
For more details about the
study, visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27167500/
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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
1. Kindergarten Sex
Ed Becoming Mandatory in England
USAToday
October 23, 2008
LONDON (AP) — It's a controversial idea in a land
known for prudishness about sex — teaching kids as young as 5 about the birds
and bees.
But with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates
in Europe, the British government is bringing sex education to all schools in
England — including kindergarten-age children.
While countries like France, Holland and China
already require sex education, few places demand that it be introduced at such
a young age.
"It's vital that this information doesn't
come from playground rumor or the mixed messages from the media about
sex," Schools Minister Jim Knight said Thursday, announcing that sex ed
would be added to the national curriculum.
English schools now are required to teach basic
lessons on reproduction as part of the science curriculum. Northern Ireland,
Scotland and Wales have separate education departments and standards. Only
Scotland makes sex education voluntary.
The government hasn't detailed what the new
curriculum will look like, but schools will be asked to provide lessons on
relationships and contraception, topics not previously required. Lessons will
become more sophisticated as kids get older.
To view the entire article, visit http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-10-23-england_N.htm
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2. British House of Commons OKs Cloning Bill, No Abortion in
Northern Ireland
LifeNews.com
October 22, 2008
London, England -- The Britain House of Commons
approved the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that pro-life groups have
been opposing because it is pro-cloning. However, because of the limited debate
on the measure, there is some reason to celebrate.
John Smeaton, the national director of SPUC, says
he's disappointed the HFE bill, which would allow scientists engage in grisly
human cloning projects involving the combination of human and animal parts,
received approval form the chamber.
"Today is a tragic date in British history,
as Parliament has passed a law extending the lethal abuse of the most
vulnerable members of our society. Future generations will look back on this
macabre bill and wonder how a supposedly civilized nation could have so
devalued human life," he said and vowed to raise the issues at the next
general election.
MPs voted by 355 to 129 in favor of the HFE bill
at third reading (final main vote). The bill enshrines and extends the creation
and abuse of human embryos outside the womb.
To view the entire article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/int966.html
Related Article
UN Ethics Panel to Reconsider Human Cloning Ban
Bioethics International
October 16, 2008
The permissibility of therapeutic cloning will be
the focus of a United Nations ethics panel later this month when it considers
whether a non-binding General Assembly declaration calling on Member States to
ban all forms of human cloning should be reassessed in light of scientific,
ethical, social, political and legal advances.
In 2005 the Assembly declared all cloning
incompatible with human dignity and protection of life, voting 84 in favour, 34
against, 37 abstaining and 36 absent, after a decade of work on reproductive
cloning by the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of the UN Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Now the IBC will debate the
issue anew at a two-day meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris beginning 28
October, noting that some people, mainly scientists, are urging a different
approach to therapeutic cloning.
“Recent technological developments and new
prospects for the use of stem cells in the therapy of human diseases have once
again raised the issue of adequacy of international regulations governing this
research,” an IBC working group set up at the request of UNESCO
Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a report in September.
The report noted that the main point of contention
in the 2005 Declaration was the question of linking the issues of reproductive
and non-reproductive cloning, which was not agreeable to many States who
abstained or voted against.
The Group calls for human reproductive cloning to
be banned at the international level by a legally binding convention, while
guidelines for regulating human embryo and stem cell research in countries
where it is legal should be developed at the international level.
To view the entire article, visit http://www.bioethicsinternational.org/?p=641
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3. Researcher:
Abortions Cost Economy $35 Trillion since 1970 in Lost Productivity
LifeNews.com
October 13, 2008
Washington, DC -- A
researcher who has spent over a decade examining the economic impact of
abortion finds that the approximately 50,5 million abortions in the U.S. since
1970 have cost the American economy $35 trillion. That comes in the form of
lost productivity by having fewer workers contributing to society.
Those contributions
also come in the form of taxpayers contributing to state, federal and local
governments that would have had more funds to pay teachers, offer health care
benefits or put more police on the streets.
The cost to the
economy also includes the lost support for the social security system, which
experts say still presents a host of challenges for the future and questions
about whether younger Americans will receive anything from it.
Dennis Howard, the
president of the pro-life group Movement for a Better America, has researched
the economic impact of abortion since 1995.
“We found that the
50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the U.S. an astonishing
$35 trillion dollars," in lost Gross Domestic Product, he told
LifeNews.com on Monday. “However, if you include all the babies lost to IUDs,
RU-486, sterilization, and abortifacients, the number climbs to $70
trillion."
“Aggressive
population control has exacted a huge price in future economic growth that can
never be recovered,” he told LifeNews.com.
To view the entire
article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/nat4440.html
Related Article
More People, Not Fewer from Abortions, Would Ease the
Economic Crisis
LifeNews.com
October 13, 2008
Writing in the Wall
Street Journal's opinion section, Lee E. Ohanian urges the U.S. to respond to
the turmoil in the financial markets by opening the door to more immigrants.
"We should
encourage the immigration of prime-age individuals," he writes. "Increasing
immigration would increase the demand for housing and raise home prices. And
note that the benefit would be immediate. Home prices -- and the value of
subprime obligations -- would rise in anticipation of a higher population base.
. . . these workers not only would purchase homes, but would generate higher
living standards for all Americans."
Ohanian's view of the
economic benefit of new immigrants is overly rosy. Many of the immigrants who
arrive on our shores possess neither marketable skills nor good educations.
Essentially penniless, they are not going to be homebuyers for many, many
years.
Rather they are going
to be looking for the kind of low-end jobs that are already in short supply in
the current economic climate, while their children, who must be taught English,
are taxing an educational system already facing straitened budgets.
Consider what is
happening in New Zealand, where the country's immigration office has already
hastily enacted policies to allow more immigrants into the country, ostensibly
in order to help offset the current economic decline. The new policy has,
predictably, come under heavy fire, according to an October piece in the New
Zealand Herald.
To view the entire
article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/int956.html
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4. Down Syndrome
Support Groups Rise to Counter Physicians’ Poor Diagnostic Practices
CNSNews
October 16, 2008
Women diagnosed as
carrying a Down syndrome baby often receive poor, misleading, and
discouraging counsel from their doctors – the most frequent comments being an
apology offered with the option of aborting their baby.
That inadequate and incomplete counsel has prompted Down syndrome support
groups to spring to life across the nation.
“It’s so misleading,” Mia Willson, whose daughter Mylie, 7 months, has Down
syndrome, told CNSNews.com. “The truth is, some Down syndrome children are born
with medical conditions, but with the advances in technology, most can be
easily treated.”
Children with Down syndrome, caused by an extra chromosome, have varying
degrees of mental retardation and often have heart problems. Since the advent
of pre-natal testing in the mid-1970s, the number of babies diagnosed with Down
syndrome and then aborted is nine out of ten. Prior to that time, nearly
all such babies were born.
Dr. Brian Skotko, a
pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, conducted a survey of more than
1,000 women who had a Down syndrome child in 2005, 12.5 percent of which were
mothers who had received a pre-natal diagnosis.
Those 141 women reported “incomplete, inaccurate or offensive” information
about Down syndrome at the time of diagnosis. They also said they weren’t
connected to resources that could help them understand their child’s condition.
To view the entire
article, visit
http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=37599
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5. Testicles Could
Be New Source of Stem Cells
Medical News Today
October 9, 2008
Scientists from Germany and the UK have found a
new source of stem cells that could be as good as embryonic stem cells for
researching and developing treatments for a range of serious diseases, but
without the ethical problems of embryonic stem cells; the source is routine
biopsies of men's testicles.
The discovery was the work of researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and
Cologne in Germany, and King's College, London, and was published on 8th
October in the online issue of Nature. The lead author was Professor Thomas
Skutella, who leads an experimental embryology group at Tübingen University.
Stem cells from embryos have the potential to become any cell in the body,
after all, a whole person grows from a single fertilized egg. But getting stem
cells from embryos is fraught with ethical problems since it involves the
destruction of embryos.
For some time now scientists have been working to find alternative ways to make
stem cells with the same ability to become any cell in the body as the
embryonic stem cell. One such method that has been showing great promise
recently is the induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPS cell. By taking a normal
cell, such as a skin cell and inserting certain genes into its DNA, scientists
have been able to reprogram the cell to regress to an earlier form when it
still had the potential to become virtually any other cell of the body.
However, Skutella and colleagues had a hunch that there was another source of
stem cells, ones that did not need to have genes inserted into their DNA to
make them into cells that produce other cells, because they do that already:
the sperm producing cells inside adult male testicles.
They succeeded in harvesting stable stem cells from spermatogonial (sperm
producing) cells taken from routine tissue biopsies of the testes of 22 adult
male humans. They showed that the cells could be coaxed into regressing to
become cells from all three germ layers that form in the very early stages of a
new human embryo. This was done by culturing them in the same way used to make
embryonic stem cells differentiate.
To view the entire article, visit http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/124974.php
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6. How to Sell Out
Your Country with Just One Word
Population Research Institute Newsletter
October 20, 2008
The second chapter of article 417 of the recently
approved Constitution of Ecuador reads:
"The international treaties ratified by
Ecuador will be subject to the established tenets of the Constitution. In the
case of treaties and other international human rights instruments, these
principles will be understood to be pro-human, non-restricting of rights, of
direct applicability and of open clause in the Constitution."
Notice how "international treaties" and
"international human rights instruments" are now considered
equivalent, when in reality, the difference is enormous. This change, which
would go unnoticed by all but the most perceptive citizen, essentially allows
for Ecuadorian laws to be generated by people other than Ecuadorians. In this
way, the sovereignty of Ecuador has been sold abroad by its own constitution.
There have been less than a dozen international
human rights treaties signed by Ecuador. These treaties have been fruit of a
global diplomatic consensus in which Ecuador was represented by its foreign
ministry. All of these treaties were carefully worded so as not to transgress
Ecuador's legal framework, but rather to elaborate it and, in some cases, to
reinforce it. As a result, these treaties are binding to the point of
effectively being law in Ecuador.
The act of changing the word "treaties"
(which has always been the term used in previous Constitutions) to
"international instruments" lowers the standard that resolutions need
to meet in order to be legally binding on the people of Ecuador. Now, Ecuador
is not only required to recognize documents drafted by diplomatic bodies, but
also to recognize resolutions passed by less rigorous processes. Under this new
constitution, even interest groups assembled by ministries may produce a
document that is considered binding, if one or two activists from a country
attend an international conference. This is absolutely unprecedented. Such
documents have never been considered binding on any country, including Ecuador,
and with good reason. More often than not, such interest groups pursue
objectives that are directly at odds with existing national legislation.
To equate "treaties" and "human
rights instruments" is to open the door to interest groups from around the
world to impose binding laws on Ecuadorians. "Reproductive rights"
organizations in New York City, for example, will plan and execute such laws.
For example:
1. Certain international conferences--conferences
with far-left ideological agendas with no diplomatic consensus--could be
organized by the UN and NGOs and pass resolutions. Under the new rules,
conferences like the 1994 Cairo population conference or Beijing conference on
women could generate documents that would be legally binding in Ecuador.
2. Resolutions produced by committees like CEDAW
(Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women),
whose members are pro-abortion activists, would be legally binding. Although
CEDAW has produced a binding human rights treaty, the recommendations of its
New York-based committee are not binding. Its recommendations in favor of the
legalization of abortion are even less so, since the word "abortion"
is not mentioned a single time in the treaty. Yet these CEDAW recommendations
in favor of abortion have been accepted in many international "human
rights instruments." The inclusion of the word "instruments"
into the constitution of Ecuador means that such recommendations will now be
considered Ecuadorian law.
Before, Ecuador's laws were approved by her
Congress in Quito, the capital. Now, with the new Constitution, these laws can
also be written by abortion-and feminist-minded interest groups from other
countries.
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Note: The Featured Articles
excerpts are highlights of current events and
do not necessarily represent
the views of the
or
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Newsletter created and
distributed by:
J.
Acting Managing Director: A.
Scott Loveless
Newsletter Editor: Elena Starovoitova
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