Justifying one’s existence

Choosing to live out one’s natural life will soon be as unpopular as refusing an abortion.

Have you noticed that the subject of euthanasia/ assisted suicide is picking up momentum -- that it is, so to speak, taking on a life of its own? I mean in particular that we seem to be approaching one of those interesting tipping points in public debate where the tone of those supporting a once-shocking idea is shifting from defensive to offensive.

Take for a representative example one of the "letters of the day" in the Post's July 22 edition, from Alexander McKay of Calgary. Mr. McKay argues for assisted suicide with the conviction of one endorsing, rather than flouting, received wisdom. The notion that the individual not only has the right to control his time of departure from this Earth, but has the right to society's complicity in a death deliberately chosen, is embedded in the calm and confident air with which Mr. McKay projects his reasons for wishing, when his "wonderful life" dwindles down to a putative final season of debility and suffering, to "consider my options."

Mr. McKay does not wish to see his life "cruelly extended" (assumption: suffering and pain are unnatural add-ons to life, not as much a part of life as youth and vigour). He says, "life is for the living" (assumption: the terminally ill no longer hold the moral status of "living"). And, of course, "Canada's medical system is for those who need it" (assumption: medical "need" is an entirely fungible notion).

His trump card -- or so he believes -- is his final flourish: "What possible exercise in logic or morality (my emphasis) would deny me my dignity and force me to suffer against my will?" (assumption plus corollary: dignity is a quality that only attaches to health and personal autonomy; those who willingly suffer pain and suffering with a view to a naturally prescribed death have no dignity).

All right-thinking people, religious and secular, already believe that in cases where there is no hope of recovery and a life is seeking its own natural end, life should not be unnecessarily prolonged through artificial or heroic measures. As to the deliberate, state-sanctioned and/or state-activated termination of a life because it is no longer pleasurable, or because it involves chronic caretaking and/or is burdensome to loved ones, or for any other reason we squeeze under the benign umbrella of "quality of life," that's a whole other subject: Mr. McKay's in fact.

Well, here is where my sense of "logic or morality" leads me. The idea behind legalized suicide is that it will free the elderly, the infirm and the pain-wracked from their misery. In fact, those who will effectively be freed will be the young and the healthy. By removing the sanctity of life from the equation and replacing it with logic, we will be shifting responsibility for the care of the old and the vulnerable from their loved ones and society to themselves alone.

We have up until recently assumed that we cannot control life's end. When that was the case -- just as when we used to think we could not control life's beginning -- caretaking for those at the heart of the drama was accepted as everyone's responsibility. But now we would view late-life sufferers, as we used to consider unwed mothers, as having gotten themselves "in trouble" and in need of a termination to that trouble. Of course, as with abortion, the pregnant woman, or the sufferer pregnant, so to speak, with pain, can choose not to terminate. But then, if that's your choice, the result of the choice (the baby, the suffering) is also your problem, isn't it? Because in the case of the sufferer, if you haven't made a deliberate decision to die, then continuing to live is not a given, something you needn't concern yourself with; rather, continuing to live then also becomes a deliberate decision, one for which you, not your family and society, are responsible.

For a glimpse into a future in which euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, read a short essay by Richard Stith, Her Choice, Her Problem: How Abortion Empowers Men in the August/September issue of First Things magazine. Stith, who teaches at Valparaiso School of Law in Indiana, makes the persuasive case that when having children became an elective rather than a natural consequence of sex, responsibility for children shifted wholly to women. Men instinctively understood that if conception could be undone, then so could their responsibility for being involved with the children women chose not to terminate.

Instead of empowering women, abortion has placed many women in a cleft stick. As Stith notes: "One investigator, Vincent M. Rue, reported in the Medical Science Monitor, that 64% of American women who abort feel pressed to do so by others. Another, Frederica Mathewes-Green in her book Real Choices, discovered that American women almost always abort to satisfy the desires of people who do not want to care for their children." If you substitute the words "euthanize" for "abort" and "elderly" or "chronically ill" for "children," the analogy with end-of-life termination could not be more clear.

As with abortion, if euthanasia and assisted suicide become legal, the voices of those who cling to the "sanctity of life" rubric will be pushed to the margins of public life. They will become pariahs, just as pro-life voices on campuses must fight tooth and nail to be heard.

Ironically, if euthanasia and/or assisted suicide are legalized (philosophically it comes to the same thing), by the time Mr. McKay's "wonderful life" has become less wonderful to the point of chronic pain and suffering, he may find, to his surprise, that against all logic he wishes to "cruelly extend" his life. But he may also find -- nothing could be more logical -- that others around him reproach him, saying no, "life is for the living," and therefore it is unconscionable for him to have such expectations.

And thus, as is so often the case with those who privilege "logic" over human nature and the natural law, Mr. McKay, and others who are so smugly sure they know in advance what their late-life wishes will be, may be chagrined to discover that the words "deny me my dignity" and "against my will" have taken on a whole new -- and rather macabre --meaning.

Article by: Barbara Kay is a columnist with Canada's National Post, in which the above article was published July 27. She writes and lives in Montreal.

Manipulating pain

The euthanasia lobby insists on confusing pain relief with euthanasia. There is a clear distinction.

Yet again, euthanasia is making headlines in Canada since the Quebec College of Physicians was reported as “tentatively proposing” legalized euthanasia. The college says that it could be seen “as part of appropriate care in certain particular circumstances.”

An Ottawa Citizen editorial (“Debating life’s end,” July 20) interprets this to say: “Terminally ill patients sometimes require increased dosages of painkillers to alleviate their pain although that can prove fatal. It certainly happens across the country that terminally ill patients are sometimes quietly given more painkillers despite the risk that they could die as a result. Many people would conclude that is the most humane course of action.”

We can all endorse the last sentence: People in pain have a right to fully adequate pain relief treatment. But that does not entail endorsing euthanasia, as pro-euthanasia advocates propose.

The pro-euthanasia lobby has deliberately confused pain relief treatment and euthanasia in order to promote their cause. Their argument is that necessary pain relief treatment that could shorten life is euthanasia; we are already giving such treatment and the vast majority of Canadians agree we should do so; therefore, we are practising euthanasia with the approval of Canadians so we should come out of the medical closet and legalize euthanasia. Indeed, they argue, doing so is just a small incremental step along a path we have already taken.

It’s true and to be welcomed that the vast majority of Canadians agree we should give fully adequate pain relief, but the pro-euthanasia lobby is wrong on all its other claims.

We need to distinguish treatment that is necessary to relieve pain, even if it could shorten life (which is a very rare occurrence if pain relief is competently prescribed), from the use of pain relief treatment as covert euthanasia. The former is not euthanasia, the latter is.

The distinction hinges on the physician’s primary intention in giving the treatment. Pain relief treatment given with a primary intention to relieve pain and reasonably necessary to achieve that outcome is not euthanasia, even if it does shorten the patient’s life. Any intervention, including the use of pain relief drugs, carried out with a primary intention of causing the patient’s death and resulting in that outcome, is euthanasia.

Acting with a primary intention to kill is a world apart from acting with a primary intention to relieve pain. And this is not a novel or exceptional approach. The law recognizes such distinctions daily. If we accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian with our car, it is not murder. If we deliberately run him down with our car intending to kill him, it is.

It is a tragedy for patients, especially those who are terminally ill and in pain, and a major disservice to physicians, nurses and humane and good medical care to confuse these situations as the college seems to do. Physicians and patients become frightened of giving and accepting adequate pain relief.

Physicians should not fear that giving adequate pain relief treatment is unethical or illegal; in fact, they should fear the ethical and legal consequences of not doing so. It is now generally accepted in the palliative care literature and practice that it is a breach of human rights to unreasonably leave a person in pain; doing so is medical negligence (malpractice); and, I believe, in extreme cases, it should be treated as criminal negligence — wanton or reckless disregard for human life or safety. It is torture by willful omission.

The proper goal of medicine and physicians is to kill the pain. It is explicitly not their role to kill the patient with the pain — to become society’s executioners — which is what euthanasia entails, no matter how merciful or compassionate our reasons.

Even most people who support legalizing euthanasia believe its use needs to be justified, usually as being necessary to relieve pain and suffering. Surveys of the general public that ask the question “Do you believe people in terrible pain should have access to euthanasia?” reflect that belief. But again this approach causes confusion between pain relief and euthanasia. It makes euthanasia the treatment for pain, and it makes it impossible for people to agree that all necessary pain relief must be provided, without also endorsing euthanasia. Respondents have either to agree to both pain relief and euthanasia or to reject both. Of course, to have the public endorse euthanasia might be the goal of some of these surveys.

Rights to pain relief treatment will, however, be nothing more than empty words unless that treatment is accessible. If, as I do, we believe legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide would be a terrible mistake for society, we have serious obligations to ensure fully adequate pain relief treatment is readily available to all Canadians who need it.

As to why legalizing euthanasia would be a terrible mistake, ask yourself the questions, “How would I not like my great-great-grandchildren to die?” and “What values do I want to pass on to the world of the future?” For answers, have a look at the 30-year history of legalized euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Article by: Margaret Somerville is director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, and author of Death Talk: The case against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. This article first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, July 24.

Abortion unbound

If passed as written, health care ‘reform’ in America would expand abortion more radically than anything since Roe.

Abortion activists first introduced the misnamed ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ (FOCA) with the help of Senate sympathizers in 1989 to create a fundamental right to abortion for all women, spread its access, and limit any government regulation, including any that even Roe v. Wade allowed. Twenty years and countless successes since then, the abortion movement put a sympathizer in the White House who had promised them he would sign that sweeping and radical legislation into law if elected.

Most Americans had not heard of this until sometime around election day 2008, others are still unaware that FOCA would change life in America dramatically, and eliminate vast numbers of them. The US Bishops mounted a formidable campaign to inform and engage citizens to defend against the assault on life and laws and fundamental rights of conscience. And they energetically implored President Barack Obama to resist the pressure to sign what they and the pro-life movement identified as “the most radical abortion legislation in US history,” without the slightest risk of exaggeration.

'Congress has to explicitly exclude abortion, or it will be mandated'

FOCA would enshrine abortion as an absolute right and require unfettered access to it; invalidate all state and federal laws regulating abortion through term pregnancy, including informed consent, parental notification, physician licensing, clinic safety, and the rights of health care workers to exercise conscientious objection participating in abortion. And, it required U.S. taxpayers to fund it all.

Obama did not sign FOCA into law when he took office. But pro-life leaders weren’t exactly celebrating. They warned it would turn up in a stealthier form.

It has.

Abortion as health care

The plan was laid out clearly and early for the Obama administration when a coalition of 50 abortion-advocacy groups delivered a 55-page report to the president-elect during the transition phase detailing their wish-list for sweeping provisions. It was actually a breakdown of what was already contained in FOCA, mapped out with a navigation system that would direct it through various government departments and committees to overturn existing laws and mandate new ones. It would especially require abortion coverage in any national health-care plan produced by the Obama administration. That turned out to be the key.

When the Senate and House versions of health care reform proposals came to light last week, it was clear they were the vehicle to drive FOCA into law, though under radar. The word “abortion” is nowhere to be found in over 1,000 pages of dense bureaucratic legislation. But the health care bills being finalized in Congress have an abortion mandate, with taxpayer funding. If passed as written, health care “reform” in America would expand abortion more radically than anything since Roe. And the president and congressional leaders are doing all they can to rush it through as written, before the actual text of the bills can be vetted in congressional hearings or debated in members’ home districts.

This prompted an immediate and unprecedented mobilization of the pro-life movement to stop passage of this overhaul until it can be reviewed and revised with the input of American citizens. In 96 hours, leaders of nearly two dozen organizations rallied and staged the largest pro-life web event in history, a nighttime webcast that drew 36,187 into a brainstorming session and a call to action. Nineteen speakers covered the facts of the stealth politics behind the abortion mandate in the health care bills, and prompted response to them.

After the last election, the media wanted to write an obituary about the pro-life movement,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, “but on Capitol Hill they’re getting a lot of questions about FOCA, and this event is being taken very seriously. This battle over health care may seem new in some ways, but it’s the latest fight over FOCA, dressed up differently.”

The center of gravity in this whirlwind is a clause pro-life leaders say any bill must contain to resist the congressional enactment of the new stealth-FOCA. “Congress has to explicitly exclude abortion, or it will be mandated,” said National Right to Life Committee’s Douglas Johnson. Speaking for the Democrats for Life, Kristen Day reinforced that linchpin wording. “Democrats for Life have mounted a herculean effort to keep the abortion mandate out of this bill,” said Day. “Twenty House Democrats sent Speaker Pelosi a letter saying they wouldn’t vote for a bill that doesn’t exclude funding for abortion. There are at least 39 Democrats we know of who say the same.” She named two Democratic senators opposing abortion funding in their version of the bill.

“Some members of Congress are cobbling together a phony compromise with bogus legislative language,” warned Congressman Chris Smith, one of the most prominent pro-life activists in Congress. “Without abortion explicitly excluded from any government mandated or government funded benefits package, abortion will be included. This is the big one. Not since Roe v. Wade have women and children been so at risk.”

No freedom, no choice

The threat lies in the terminology, like the unqualified “essential benefits package” the health care bill promotes. Legal experts say that such a broad term can and will include abortion. Because public and private plans will be required to meet the minimum benefit mandate, the bill will eventually require Americans to pay into a plan that covers abortion, and help fund a vast expansion of abortion facilities to make it available.

The wording of the bill may be dense, but the intent is clear, says Johnson. It will nullify state abortion regulations on everything from informed consent to parental notification and waiting periods. The principle is “that once the feds have said this is a service you have a right to, no state could stand in the way of it.”

'The abortion industry is using this as a last-ditch effort to save a dying business'

Not even physicians and health care workers who morally object. “Choice cuts both ways,” said Fr. Frank Pavone, Director of Priests for Life. “But if abortion is an essential health benefit, funded as never before, it will take away the health providers’ choice. The state may prefer childbirth over abortion and choose not to pay for it, a right which has been upheld by the courts. Medical providers may choose not to provide abortion. All this would be taken away by this legislation. The abortion industry is using this as a last-ditch effort to save a dying business, since more and more abortion mills have closed down and fewer medical professionals are providing them. There is no disease that abortion cures, no proven medical benefit to the procedure, and they know that.”

And yet, during his campaign, Obama described “reproductive care” including abortion as the “heart” of his health plan at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund event. He also signaled that he expected all insurers be forced to cover abortion. One of the very few pro-life representatives to meet with Obama staffers, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, spoke on the pro-life summit webcast. “Someone on the White House staff said it’s not their goal to reduce the number of abortions,” she stated.

And yet that’s what Obama reportedly told Pope Benedict is his goal in their private meeting at the Vatican. “Obama saying he wants to reduce abortion is just not credible,” said Congressman Smith. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, host of Hardball and known Obama admirer, said something similar: “By the way, the night he tells the Pope, he goes over to see the Pope and says they're going to reduce the number of abortions, and then that same week he pushes to subsidize abortion? You can't do that!”

Right now, his administration is on track to do just that, reversing federal law prohibiting taxpayer funded abortion. Obama started on that track in January by reversing the Mexico City Policy, freeing up funds for overseas abortions. But since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has prevented Medicaid or Medicare funding for abortions in most cases, and Obama’s health reform plan will repeal that law, “opening up the spigots” for abortion coverage, in one pro-life participant’s words. If that happened, abortions would likely increase by 20-35 percent by most estimates. Congressman Smith cites that figure from Planned Parenthood’s own research wing, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which reported that public funding restrictions lowered abortion rates by that much, especially in poor areas.

Tremors in the House

The night of the critical pro-life summit webcast, leaders were enthusiastic that Congressman Mike Pence’s amendment to strip Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer funding had passed the House Rules committee that day (they called it “an act of God”, under the circumstances and climate in Congress right now). The Health and Human Services “family planning” (Title X) fund is a major source of funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider. Pence wanted Title X funding to exclude services that perform abortions, and passage by the Rules committee was unexpected. The following day, it was rejected in a larger House vote, 183-247.

“Representative Mike Pence offered an amendment to respect the will of the majority of pro-life Americans, the citizens who do not want their hard-earned tax dollars supporting abortion providers,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List. The latest Gallup Poll revealed that 51 percent of Americans identify themselves as pro-life. And 71 percent don’t want their tax dollars to pay for abortion. Pro-life leaders launched the ‘Stop the Mandate’ campaign to do just that, eliminate mandated taxpayer-funded abortion from health care reform.

They know they’re in a rush, to keep up with the push in Congress. The morning after this historic webcast, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel promised a House vote on the bill before the August recess. And pro-life leaders promised to “use every available tool to educate pro-life Americans across the country” about the House vote on Pence’s amendment, name by name, so they’ll “know whether or not their representative voted on the side of the pro-life taxpayer.” But Douglas Johnson assured webcast participants it’s not a done deal. “Many members of Congress are undecided on this,” he said. “They need to hear from the electorate, to take the pulse of the people.”

It’s either racing right now, or it will be.

By: Sheila Gribben Liaugminas is an Emmy Award winning journalist who reported for Time magazine for more than 20 years. She blogs at InforumBlog.com and on MercatorNet 

Children engulfed by armed conflict

A distressing report from UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, says that more then one billion children live in countries or territories affected by armed conflict. Just think of it: that’s about one-sixth of the world’s total population. More than 300 million of these children are under the age of five, and 18 million children are refugees or displaced persons, reports the Population Reference Bureau.

Children are not only directly affected during wars and armed conflict, but suffer from effects that can last for years or entire lifetimes. The proliferation of small arms, armed groups, and terrorism and counter-terrorism measures all impact the long-term development and well-being of children.

The trend of armed groups targeting civilians, including children, continues. Violence is fragmented -- there are fewer inter-state conflicts but rebellions and secessionist movements multiply, leading to the victimisation of civilians, deterioration of basic services, social divisions and the decline of local economies.

Children are forced into labour and to act as soldiers by these paramilitary groups. They have been targeted by terrorist groups and also used to perpetrate terrorist acts. Counter-terrorist measures then result in hundreds of children being detained in various conflict areas.The report notes:

According to the Control Arms Campaign, an average of $22 billion a year is spent on arms by countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The campaign points out that this sum would otherwise enable those same countries to be on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal primary education (estimated at $10 billion a year) as well as targets for reducing infant and maternal mortality (estimated at $12 billion a year).

The blighting of the lives of so many of the world’s children is a tragedy (and a crime) that should drive negotiators to much greater efforts to reconcile warring groups.

Machel Study 10-Year Strategic Review: Children and conflict in a changing world .

By: Carolyn Moynihan

Why are young men still living at home more violent?

We are used to the idea that young men are responsible for much of the violence in society, but who would have thought that living under the parental roof was the strongest risk factor for such behaviour? And yet, that is what researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, found when they asked over 8000 men and women about violent behaviour over the past five years and mental health problems.

Men still living at home in their early twenties make up only four per cent of Britain’s male population but this study shows they are responsible for 16 per cent of all violent injuries in the last five years. Few responsibilities and more disposable income is a toxic mix.

Says Professor Jeremy Coid, one of the study authors:

"Young adult men living at home in Britain are no longer influenced by parents to conform to standards of behaviour expected of previous generations.

"Violence outside of the home, mainly involving strangers, is the most common scenario and just one of a series of hedonistic and negative social behaviours such as hazardous drinking, drug misuse, sexual risk taking, and non-violent antisocial behaviour.

The problem is delayed adulthood:

"And these are more common among young men who do not have responsibilities of providing their own accommodation, supporting dependent children, or experiencing beneficial effects on their behaviour from living with a female partner.

Pity he didn’t mention marriage there.

"Young men who live at home are also more likely to receive financial support from their parents than in the past when the pattern was reversed. However, in this study their earnings or benefits were the same as those who had left home and taken on greater social responsibility. They therefore had more disposable income which may have partly explained why they had more problems with alcohol."

Actually, the problem is not living at home in your early twenties, since lots of young people do that in this era of extended education and expensive housing. The problem is surely living with parents who have tolerated self-centred behaviour from an early age.

Article by: Carolyn Moynihan

Lessons from career woman’s no-baby shock

I have just caught up with a classic “confessions of a career woman” story by a British woman who has reached the age of 45 bitterly disappointed that she will never have her own child. The Daily Mail headline says it all: “Seduced by stories of stars giving birth later and IVF myths, career-obsessed Lucy believed children and love could wait.” 

As a young woman Lucy wanted nothing more than to have a great job and plenty of fun.

By 24, I was a strategist at a leading ad agency. I drove a Golf convertible, wore red wool suits with gilt buttons, and thought I was Paula Hamilton from the iconic TV advert. I remained very single, but I told myself - and my concerned mum - that the mews house and engagement ring would come later.

My life didn't revolve around marriage and children. My friends and I were taking our time. We were big kids in shoulder pads, and life was about working, shopping, drinking and having fun.

In her 30s things changed; her “relationships were tinged with desperation” but she refused to “prioritise the man-hunt”. At 36 her step-mother helpfully suggested having her eggs frozen with a view to IVF when Mr Right came along. She didn’t, regrets it and now recommends it to younger women.

At 41 she met and fell in love with David. They set up house together in an idyllic country town. She gave up full-time work and started freelancing, changing her lifestyle and diet to increase her chances of pregnancy. A year went by and the couple turned to IVF, only to run into a dead end.

The odds of success were so slim that it was, they claimed, unethical to take my money. 'Have a think about it and if you're interested in egg donation, we can do that up to the age of 50.' I didn't understand. What about all those fabulous, famous fortysomethings whose 'baby joy' stories were so often in magazines.

The actress Jane Seymour and model Iman both had children at 44, actress Mimi Rogers was 45, Susan Sarandon 46, Holly Hunter 47. Each headline seemed to confirm that, yes, it was possible to put having a family at the bottom of your priority list until you were good and ready.

But here's the rub - a very high proportion of babies born to women in their 40s are conceived using donated eggs from younger women. It's a secret that many will never let you in on.

David didn’t want a donor egg baby. So that was it. Lucy got over being angry with everyone and everything -- including “the government for never having had a public health campaign on the subject of increasing age and decreasing fertility”; she and David got married, to express how much they appreciate each other (better late than never), and she settled down to write a book about it.

My chance to experience the profound joy of motherhood has come and gone. But to the generation of career girls who are a decade or two behind me, I would say this: don't wait for a bigger house, a better job or a more expensive car, because if you do, you're a lot more likely to miss out on the most precious prize of all - a child.

This seems a pretty honest story. The most surprising thing about it is the ignorance of this woman about her fertility, especially since professional warnings about the dangers of delay have been multiplying over the past decade. Lucy is smart enough to hold down a well-paid job in the city -- which she didn’t learn from the women’s magazines -- but when it comes to her own body and the question of motherhood she is happy to take celebrity “baby-joy” stories in Woman’s Day as a guide.

More serious is Lucy’s idea that a child is some kind of “prize” to crown her life and give her the experience of being a mother -- a finishing touch that she believed a technician could achieve for her if necessary. This mindset seems all of a piece with the idea of marriage itself as a prize -- falling into the arms of a soul-mate after establishing a successful career and being free of commitments during early adulthood. Really, delaying adulthood -- “We were big kids in shoulder pads, and life was about working, shopping, drinking and having fun.”

If ideas about marriage were sorted out, the fertility issues would look after themselves.

By: Carolyn Moynihan

The Good News guy faces tough questions now

President Obama has chosen an evangelical Christian as the new head of the National Institutes of Health. He is coming under fire from both sides of the culture wars.

For many years, new National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins has been a good news guy for Christians concerned about the "new atheists'" strident insistence that evidence from science is evidence for their views. His folksy manner is a hit, as he leads sing-alongs sporting a double helix-branded guitar. He recently co-founded the BioLogos Foundation, (with Karl Giberson and Darryl Falk), whose mission statement, "We believe that faith and science both lead to truth about God and creation," is intended to comfort Christians.

Collins is best known to science as the genome mapper who sat with President Clinton and others on the White House lawn, celebrating success in 2000. But his strong identity as an evangelical Christian may have made him better known for his recent book, The Language of God, part personal testimony and part explanation of how to reconcile faith and science.

Of course, his advocacy of faith as a public scientist has received mixed reviews, to the point of attracting histrionics about looming "theocracy."

But now that Collins faces confirmation hearings before the Senate, the focus will shift from his persona to his view on issues relevant to his new job. He seems much more relaxed about abortion and human embryonic stem cell research than the average evangelical leader, so it will be interesting to see if he attracts any flak on that account.

And there's the curious passage in The Language of God where he writes,

I would argue that the immediate product of a skin cell and an enucleated egg cell fall short of the moral status of the union of sperm and egg. The former is not part of God's plan to create a human individual. The latter is very much God's plan, carried out through the millennia by our own species and many others. (page 256)

Most traditional Christians would not relate to a view of God's providence where humans can simply exempt other humans from it by their own wilful actions. Although some have argued that Collins is simply confused, his confusion always veers in one direction - against the exceptional status of human life.

Now, given that his key goal has been to reconcile Christianity and Darwinian evolution, this is precisely where they come into conflict, and even his supporters admit it. Either we are the 98% chimpanzee or we are made in the image of God. The 98% chimpanzee movement seeks quite seriously to blur the boundaries between humans and other primates, with predictable results for such issues as abortion and experimentation on human embryos.

Collins's public statements on these subjects have been less than forthcoming. In a discussion of these evasions, Justin Barnard notes,

Collins needs to come clean. Either he upholds the dignity of human life or he doesn't. If he does, and he accepts the nomination to head the NIH, then it seems that he is deeply compromised as a professing evangelical Christian. If he does not, then the evangelical community needs to know.

No doubt the upcoming confirmation hearings will provide him with an opportunity to explain more clearly, both to those who disparage his faith and to those who doubt it.

Evangelicals face a critical decision here: Do the American evangelical leadership want a place at the table, even if the placeholder may not be all that they would want? Or do they prefer to be represented only by someone who is onside on key issues such as the sanctity of human life? The future of the evangelical movement will - in a small way - be shaped by the answer to this and similar questions on the road ahead.

By: Denyse O'Leary is co-author of The Spiritual Brain.

Messing with Mother Nature

The human species is changing but we're stuck on polar bears

The single 69-year old Spanish woman who gave birth to twins at the age of 66 died last Saturday. Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who thought she had every prospect of living to see her now two-year old boys Christian and Pau into adulthood because her own mother died at 101, claimed not to regret her late-motherhood decision, even though her doctors told her that "the powerful drugs used during her fertility treatment could have helped her disease [believed to be breast cancer] to spread."

Although at the time of the birth Ms Bousada de Lara's case attracted a few stalwart supporters of the "right" of a woman to control her own fertility destiny, the general reaction was one of dismay and recoil. The most commonly adduced argument was that her children's odds of growing up motherless were sharply escalated by her selfishness. And so it came to pass, which will doubtless serve to dampen the enthusiasm of other older women contemplating the idea of post-menopausal pregnancy.

But that was the wrong argument. For what if in fact she had lived to be 101 like her mother? Would that have made the adventure any the less grotesque in a moral sense? That children may be deprived of a mother is sad, but children are deprived by bad luck of young mothers all the time, and these newly orphaned twin boys may be no worse off in the end than if their mother had died of ovarian cancer at 33.

The peculiarly neat moral symmetry in this cautionary tale applies to the woman. She sold her soul to the devil of technology and she paid a terrible price. Case closed in most people's minds. But this rather sensational story does not bring closure to the moral questions that arise in general when science, female fertility and human emotion collide. Because scientists mess with human nature all the time, and yet there seems little indication of general public concern in this area. Recently scientists announced the possibility of autonomous conception through stem cell-manufactured sperm: that is, the end of any real need for men, not to put too fine a point on it and potentially, the end of the human species as we know it. I've seen jokey allusions to the idea, but no serious discussion on the monumental implications of such a possibility coming to fruition.

Much more advanced mechanically, and already in unofficial progress is the technology-aided conception of donor siblings. The movie My Sister's Keeper should have initiated intense discussion amongst cultural observers. The plot revolves around an 11-year old girl's attempt to free herself from bodily servitude to her leukemia-stricken older sister. The younger girl was conceived for the purpose of providing life-saving nutrients to her sister. In fact her umbilical cord and later, marrow transplants, do keep the older sister going for many years. The crisis occurs when the older sister, obviously dying, needs a kidney which, it is made clear, will not save her life. The desperate mother assumes the younger sister will happily contribute a kidney. What happens next, though marred by Boston-legal style courtroom histrionics and some pretty unrealistic family dynamics, should have been the basis for a flurry of in-depth commentaries by cultural observers. Unlike the 66-year old mother's case, in which one person's selfishness is the core of the story, issues like cloning, autonomous conception and donor siblings present a variety of emotional and moral claims that cannot be so easily sorted out and judged.

When we look back at our era and its consequences, I think we may be rather astonished at the amount of media coverage given to every form of nature under the sun except human nature.  Environmentalists think it is immoral that we have not taken adequate steps to meet the challenge of the earth getting warmer. A thin polar bear rates front page coverage. The attention paid to Miranda Del Carmen Bousada de Lara only serves to remind us how little attention is paid to the bigger story in which she has played a very minor role. Surely the prospect of human nature as we know it changing before our eyes should capture our imaginations and consciences with at least equal, but hopefully more urgency than we give to plants and animals.

Barbara Kay is a columnist with Canada's National Post. She writes and lives in Montreal.

A voice of conscience in the Kenyan media

Leading journalist Chaacha Mwita discusses the challenge of achieving citizen power in Kenya. 

"Daddy, you have dinner with us these days!" piped six-year old Monika, eldest daughter of Chaacha Mwita, a leading Kenyan journalist and name familiar to regular newspaper readers. While Gabriel, one of the five-year-old twin brothers, remonstrated with his dad: "If you ever go back to the US again for so long a period, you’re not my father!"

"Kids are observant," Chaacha chuckled, quite obviously having made a discovery.

Chaacha was telling me how different life is now that he has left the corporate rat-race and set up his own media-strengthening, publishing and research organization, Global Africa. Typically he had dropped the kids at school on his way to meet me that morning, something unheard of when he was senior editor at the Nation Group, the largest media house in the region, and, later, Group Managing Editor at the Standard, running close behind the Nation. Those days he would get back home physically and morally tired and brave a smile, and, almost always, find the kids already tucked in bed, asleep.

Then he took a gamble and decided, for the sake of family -- his first passion -- to go it alone and, with his wife Eunice, he set up their own media consulting firm. The day before we met he had been invited to scenic Great Rift Valley Lodge, overlooking Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley to speak to 132 Kenyan members of Parliament on media and parliamentary relations, and had got home in good time to be with the family and supervise the children’s homework.

He checks their writing and Maths. Eunice, who plans to write books for children, reads to them. Story-telling, which played a big role in traditional African society, still does in the Mwita household. As a media professional and knowing the influence of television on children, the set is kept under safe control, and the children have been taught how to manage it. Monika and the twins switch off when a bad scene appears, or change channels. "Bad manners!" mutters Gabriel, referring to certain types of on-screen behaviour.

Chaacha Mwita was born 36 years ago in a very remote corner of Kenya, just beyond the world-renowned Masai Mara game reserve. But no tourist will travel those extra miles to Kuria-land, his home, where large tobacco plantations have ruined the soil and brought starvation and high food prices to the local people.

He was a university student during turbulent times in Kenya, just after the collapse of Soviet communism and the international pressure for multi-party rule in Africa. Long-serving rulers, formerly propped up by the Western powers, were being given the push, including Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi. Chaacha was in the thick of student politics, and, later, pro-democracy mass action. A founder member of the Nairobi University students’ union, SONU 92, which the Moi administration banned, and of the National Convention Executive Committee, which spearheaded constitutional change, a job that is not yet completed; as well as various civil society organizations that have tried to promote civic education.

Chaacha has always been a fighter, a crusader, and has seen the inside of Kenya’s police cells more than once. His mother’s death "defined" him, he says, when, as eldest son, many responsibilities fell on him, including the education of three siblings, his father’s fortune having dwindled by then. He was at the time in his final year at university. His father, Samson Mwita Marwa, who had been a preacher, teacher, civic leader and member of parliament, aroused his interest in civic affairs. One of eight children from his mother –- his father was a polygamist -- Chaacha had not traveled farther than the closest trading centre before going to university in Nairobi.

But his interest in the world outside was sparked by his parents –- for whom education was the key to happiness -- by his elder sister’s description of a trip she made to see the not-so-far-away Lake Victoria, and his primary teacher, Mr Miseda, whose mastery of the English language and love for Literature stuck with Chaacha, who recalled how Miseda would insist they repeat the word ‘stealthily" in a sentence several times until they got it right.

His career as a journalist, publisher and activist has led him to cross paths with many of today’s celebrities: Nelson Mandela, one of his personal icons, whom he admires for suffering nobly for his people; Barack Obama (twice, and Chaacha was amazed he remembered him at the second meeting); John Glenn; Kofi Annan, with whom he shared a platform just after the former UN Secretary General had brokered a peace deal in Kenya; Mo Ibrahim, initiator of the US$5 million democracy award for honourably retired African heads of state who have made a positive contribution to democracy; Tom Peters and Larry Ellison. "Completely normal human beings," was his comment.

Two particularly sad moments in his life were when they lost their little son seven days after birth, and his venture into the political arena, during the controversial and historical December 2007 elections. It was here that he lost his political innocence when the party he was supporting, Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement, cheated him out of his nomination. Yet he continued to support the party until after the results were out and violence escalated.

He has collected all his ideas and experiences on media, politics and his knowledge of Africa -- his second passion, after his family -- into a book he has just launched: Citizen Power. It is a powerful indictment of, among other things, the political and economic control of the media in Africa, and how the Kenyan media aligned itself with the powers that ‘stole" the election.

It also comes down heavily on the developed countries and their ready acceptance of "free and fair" elections in Africa, as if in Africa seriously flawed elections can pass for "democracy". Because his third passion is justice, he is prepared to fight for it. He loves his country and wants to bring it out of the mess it’s in.

There are three other people he particularly admires besides Mandela: Pope John Paul II, whom he regrets never having met on his three trips to Kenya, and whom he admired before joining the Catholic Church; Mahatma Gandhi, for his belief in progress through non-violence and non-retaliation; and St Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, for his "revolutionary" idea that holiness is meant for everybody through their ordinary work regardless of social level.

Chaacha’s book will ruffle a few feathers, but it is only through people like him, ready to stick out their necks, who will provide a voice of conscience in a society where many political leaders, at all levels, have become compromised or overwhelmed by wrangling and bureaucracy, and much of the general public has given in to sterile criticism and apathy. Chaacha Mwita reminds us that not only is Africa not a basket-case but a continent of huge potential and hope; and that it is possible to combine family, faith and values and be a top professional too.

By: Martyn Drakard who writes from Kampala, in Uganda.

US teen sex statistics show ‘disheartening’ trend

Birth rates among teenagers are on the rise again in the United States after large declines between 1991 and 2005, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Other sexual health indictors also have flattened or worsened in what the CDC calls a “disheartening” reversal. Predictably, there are calls for “better sex education” -- meaning more stuff about condoms and pills, evidently.

After decreasing annually since 1998, gonorrhea infection rates among adolescents aged 15–19 years of both sexes increased during 2004–2006. Rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15–24 years increased during 1997–2006.

The earlier positive trend in teenage sexual data coincided with the growth of the abstinence education movement and federal backing for it from the late 1990s until now, when President Obama has dropped this funding from his 2010 budget. A campaign against “abstinence only” has been gathering momentum, especially since 2007 when several studies were published purporting to show that it “doesn’t work”.

News reports on the CDC’s review of data have highlighted statistics on sex education. This from Reuters:

* Among 18 and 19-year-olds, 49.8 percent of girls and just 35 percent of boys had talked with a parent about methods of birth control.

* More than 80 percent of boys and girls said they had received formal instruction before age 18 on how to say no to sex.

* Nearly 70 percent of teen girls and 66 percent of boys had received instruction on methods of birth control.

The implication is that being instructed on how to say no isn’t much use -- and it probably isn’t without a whole lot of supporting circumstances. But instruction on birth control doesn’t seem very effective either -- unless all the pregnancies came from the one third of young people who had not been taught about condoms and pills.

It appears that parents are not super keen to talk to their teenagers about birth control. I wonder why. Perhaps they think it’s wrong to give their children the impression that they expect them to be sexually active.

By: Carolyn Moynihan

Gender equity at close quarters

By mixing women and men on board, isn’t the navy asking for trouble?

It was a shock-horror story for a slow Sunday night, but the news of a sexual scandal on board an Australian Navy ship has drawn comment from the country’s Prime Minister and his deputy, serving to highlight problems surrounding women’s role in the military.

HMAS Success has a mixed crew, in line with a gender equity policy that has counterparts in the defence establishment of many countries. This mixing of men and women is supposed to be a great thing for them and for the military. Women who hanker after risk and adventure can fulfil their desires while putting their special talents at the service of their country.

But some of the men on board Success have grown ho-hum about the privilege of having women around and the opportunities for sex that it presents, so four of them devised a betting game in which they competed to see who could have sex with the most women crewmates. They kept a written record and there were extra points for taking advantage of female officers and lesbians.

Since an Australian television channel broke the story on Sunday, the Defence Department has confirmed that four men were sent home in May from Singapore, where the ship was stationed, and that a formal inquiry is under way. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called the allegations “disturbing” and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has indicated she wants a full investigation.

Ms Gillard said that both the government and the nation had been saying for a long time that women should be able to join the army, the navy or air force. "We don't want to see anything that precludes women from having a good career in our armed forces if that is what they choose to do with their lives.”

According to Defence, the allegations came to light during “an equity and diversity health check” when women “raised a number of concerns”. If the details of the “game” are true, it showed utter contempt for the women being targeted, if not the whole female complement of the ship. Dismissal would be too good for these men; a spell in the stocks would be an appropriately shaming punishment.

But, what then? Is it a question of replacing a few bad eggs, drilling the others on the sexual harassment policy, upping the penalties -- that sort of thing? Or is there something fundamentally wrong with the military’s experiment with sexual integration?

Sexual harassment and assault have become a huge issue in the United States forces. According to an AP report last year, 15 per cent of women…(more)

By: Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

Headlines don’t do Caritas in Veritate justice.

Caritas in Veritate, an encyclical about love, is sparking argument in the media over what it really means.

The headline from The New York Times sent me back in time; “Pope Urges Forming New World Economic Order to Work for the ‘Common Good.’” The headline invokes memories of President George H.W. Bush calling for a “new world order” as he rallied the world to fight Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait in 1990.

Those words, spoken by the president, sent some into delirious dreams of a one-world government and black helicopters hanging overhead. Today, the words of Pope Benedict XVI initially sent some, hoping to use his words for political gain, into fits of joy or anger. Dan Gilgoff at U.S. News and World Report calls the encyclical “…a boost for progressive Catholics” adding “There is much in Benedict's third encyclical, in other words, for American conservatives to scorn.” Journalist David Gibson writes at Politics Daily, “The Pope Is a Liberal. Who Knew?”

Now prior to the publication of Caritas in Veritate, several writers I had read, including Damian Thompson the religion writer for the Daily Telegraph in London and editor-in-chief of Britian’s Catholic Herald, had been warning that both liberals and conservatives would be disappointed, that the encyclical would not endorse either side as the pope sought to address the economic crisis.(more)

By: Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations 1010 CFRB in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. He is also Associate Editor of Mercatornet.

Money from love

In an encyclical released this week, an intellectually adventurous Pope asserts that love is ultimately the solution to the world economic crisis.

Today, by "economy" or "economical", what first comes to mind is low-cost, parsimonious, sparing, small, fuel-efficient, and, often, cheap. But now, with his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate ("Charity in Truth") Benedict subverts and reverses the common understanding of "economy" as a parsimonious reduction in costs or a miserly (re)distribution of resources.

For this counter-cultural Pope, "economy" is principally a question of charity, of love. In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love"), the Pope argued that love is inherently expansive, ecstatic, and effusive. For Benedict, the social doctrine of the Church, that includes a now rapidly developing theology of political economy, is not just about the distribution of wealth. Benedict is at least as interested in fostering wealth creation motivated by love, while exercising responsible stewardship over the environment.

The Catholic Church claims that God challenges all human beings to collaborate with the Creator by, not just conserving his creation, but improving and expanding upon all of creation. Therefore, we enjoy the right and duty to continue God's creative work. A good Christian, in particular, must strive to create wealth and to foster development, especially seeking to promote the integral development of the poorest. The first book of the Bible says that Adam and Eve were created to be fruitful and to multiply, to extend and to propagate the gifts received from God. Man and woman were created in God's image, and so, they are to continue his work. Demographic growth and human fruitfulness, giving birth to offspring and extending human life through the generations, are components of the broader fruitfulness of expanding upon the vast wealth of the marvelous array of nature found on our planet, and beyond.

With his penetrating analysis of economic affairs, within the framework of human freedom and his recommendation that our activity be done out of love, often for free, and always in accord with the truth, Benedict surpasses the stale commonplaces of much current political debate between left and right, progressives and conservatives, communism and capitalism. Like the Gospels themselves, Benedict's message is revolutionary. He applauds neither of the two sides of the debate, typically contested by partisan politics. Within the Church, Benedict challenges both social justice and pro-life activists to seek even more ambitious and more well-rounded goals. In sum, the Pope challenges the world to overcome the current economic crisis by transforming all human transactions in accord with love in truth.

In the 144 pages of Caritas in Veritate, the Pope addresses a wide-range of topics. For instance, he proposes more robust supranational governance for the world economy:(more…)

An article by: Rev. Robert A. Gahl, Jr., is Associate Professor of Ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome.

Where teen pregnancies come from - the Brits still don’t get it

A programme launched by the British government in 2004 to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has had the opposite effect, a study published in the British Medical Journal shows. Young girls who followed the programme were nearly three times as likely to become pregnant, about 1.75 times more likely to have sex and also more likely to expect to be a teenage parent. The only good news is that the government is going to ditch the programme.

A senior government member, Harriet Harman, stressed that the programme was only a pilot scheme and there was no “dishonour” in experimenting with different solutions to the “complex” problem of teenage sex and pregnancy -- even if it did cost £5.9 million to the end of 2007. Everyone wanted to see a fall in the number of teenage pregnancies (Britain has the highest rate in Europe), said Mrs Harman, adding:

"This is to do with good sex education, this is to do with contraception, this is to do with girls having aspirations for something beyond an early pregnancy...it also involves responsibility on boys as well. This was a pilot scheme and the point is it was an experiment that was tried out. That is the whole point of a pilot scheme -- to find out if something works.”

The one thing it never occurs to the British authorities to “try out”, apparently, is to educate young people not to have sex at all. The failed programme (Carrera) was borrowed from the United States where it is said to have been a success in reducing pregnancies and alcohol and cannabis abuse among at risk teens. Why not borrow that other good American idea -- abstinence education? In spite of the fact that the “safer sex” brigade in the US didn’t like it, teenage sexual activity and pregnancies declined dramatically during the years that “abstinence only” education was being pushed by the federal government.

Perhaps the key statistic from the British pilot scheme is the percentage of girls (they were between 13 and 15 years of age) who expected to become teenage parents: 34 per cent in the programme group and 24 per cent in the control group. This is what the government is up against in trying to “reduce” teenage pregnancies (without reducing sex itself): many girls, especially from culturally deprived backgrounds, actually want to have a baby. It seems to be a lifestyle choice.

Why? Perhaps their own mothers did it and managed to get by with a council house and welfare payments. Perhaps the career path looks too much like hard work. Perhaps they fondly think their lives will suddenly be transformed into a version of their favourite celebrity’s lifestyle --the one that’s just added a baby to her accomplishments.

And really, one doesn’t have to go further than the popular media to find encouragement for teenage sex. The Daily Mail has an article on fiction aimed at teenagers that makes you wonder why the authors are not behind bars. It’s an eye-opener, but be warned, it will make you sick and angry -- in that order.

If the government thinks it can control the consequences of all this with condoms, it is dreaming.

By: Carolyn Moynihan 

Pope’s letter calls for openness to human life

Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical  letter, “On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth”, discusses a wide spectrum of social realities, among them the need for openness to new human life, which, he says, “is at the centre of true development”, and protection of the family founded on “marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society”. Here are some excerpts from Chapter II:

28. One of the most striking aspects of development in the present day is the important question of respect for life, which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples. It is an aspect which has acquired increasing prominence in recent times, obliging us to broaden our concept of poverty and underdevelopment to include questions connected with the acceptance of life, especially in cases where it is impeded in a variety of ways.

Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. In economically developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to other States as if it were a form of cultural progress.

Some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical recognition.

Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away[67]. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help. By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual.

In Chapter IV the pope says it is a mistake to see population growth as the primary cause of under-development and he calls for attention to responsible procreation, respect for human values in the use of sex. He also calls on states “to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society”:

44. The notion of rights and duties in development must also take account of the problems associated with population growth. This is a very important aspect of authentic development, since it concerns the inalienable values of life and the family. To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view. Suffice it to consider, on the one hand, the significant reduction in infant mortality and the rise in average life expectancy found in economically developed countries, and on the other hand, the signs of crisis observable in societies that are registering an alarming decline in their birth rate. Due attention must obviously be given to responsible procreation, which among other things has a positive contribution to make to integral human development. The Church, in her concern for man's authentic development, urges him to have full respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. It cannot be reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment, nor can sex education be reduced to technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from possible disease or the “risk” of procreation. This would be to impoverish and disregard the deeper meaning of sexuality, a meaning which needs to be acknowledged and responsibly appropriated not only by individuals but also by the community. It is irresponsible to view sexuality merely as a source of pleasure, and likewise to regulate it through strategies of mandatory birth control. In either case materialistic ideas and policies are at work, and individuals are ultimately subjected to various forms of violence. Against such policies, there is a need to defend the primary competence of the family in the area of sexuality, as opposed to the State and its restrictive policies, and to ensure that parents are suitably prepared to undertake their responsibilities.

Morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic resource. Populous nations have been able to emerge from poverty thanks not least to the size of their population and the talents of their people. On the other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing through a phase of uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their falling birth rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies. The decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called “replacement level”, also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the availability of qualified labourers, and narrows the “brain pool” upon which nations can draw for their needs. Furthermore, smaller and at times miniscule families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure effective forms of solidarity. These situations are symptomatic of scant confidence in the future and moral weariness. It is thus becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.

By: Carolyn Moynihan

A family-friendly White House?

American first couple Barack and Michelle Obama are trying to keep some balance between their hugely demanding jobs and family life. They have also promised a family-friendly workplace for their staff. How well are they doing? 

Quite well with their own family, according to the New York Times. He gets to dine with them at night, attends schools presentations and joins impromptu plunges in the White House pool with his girls. But not so well with their employees, it seems. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has found the White House “brutal on family life”, despite the good intentions of his boss.

To support working parents, the Obamas distributed laptops to aides with families — before those without children — so they could work from home. They invited the children of some advisers to a White House screening of the film “Madagascar” and a Take Your Kids to Work Day hosted by the first lady. They have created some flexible work schedules and encourage their aides to take their children to work when child care arrangements fall through, as well as to swim in the White House pool or play outside.

“Part of the reason that we built the swing set out there was to say, you know, on weekends or after school, bring the kids here, set them loose, because, you know, we want to make sure that you’re staying in contact with your family,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on “NBC Nightly News.” “That, ultimately, I think, makes people work better.”

Emanuel, who has three children, took up the swimming pool offer recently -- with a 5am dip with his two daughters, aged 9 and 11. It was the only time he could squeeze it in. White House advisers have very prestigious jobs, but they often work 60 to 70 hours a week for the privilege. Some manage school trips and soccer matches, but others bear the scars of missed birthdays and bedtimes, cancelled dinners and playdates. Two aides with young children have already left the White House for administration jobs with better hours.

Obama’s chief economist managed her first visit to her son’s school at 10pm on a Friday, when he pointed out his classroom in the dark. The budget chief, a divorced father of two, relies on his parents to care for them while he works weekends. Jill Biden’s communications director (the vice-president’s wife actually needs one?) “kisses her 11-month-old son outside the White House gates when her baby sitter strolls by on sunny afternoons.”

Mr. Emanuel said he knew the Obama-mania was waning in his household when he told his son recently that they would again be savoring father-son bonding time at the White House on a Saturday.

The 12-year-old did not jump for joy. He set conditions.

“I’ll go,” his son said, “but I don’t want to sit through another Iranian meeting.”

By: Carolyn Moynihan

Drink! Drink! Drink! Students keep bingeing during general decline

Good news and bad news about young people and binge drinking: in the United States, anyway, reckless drinking is down over all, but not among college students. Among 18- to 20-year-old men who did not attend college, binge drinking declined more than 30 per cent between 1979 and 2006. But among male students it remained at a steady and significant level, while among female students -- and this is the really bad news -- it went up. 

Researchers writing in The Journal of the American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry linked the positive trend to the increase in the drinking age since the 1980s. In 1984 the federal government decided to withhold highway money from any state that did not have a minimum drinking age of 21, and over time all states fell into line.

The new research findings, based on information from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in which binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in a session, give the lie to the position taken by a number of college officials who say the higher drinking age has forced drinking underground and encouraged alcohol abuse.

In an editorial The New York Times ticks the college presidents off, saying the study shows they should be reviewing their own policies and finding out just why students drink so much. Says the Times:

Just why the college crowd continues to drink so heavily is not clear. Students are less likely to live with parents or spouses who can ride herd on their drinking. Most have older friends who can legally buy alcohol. Fraternities and sororities may also foster irresponsible drinking. Whatever the causes, the solutions almost certainly lie mostly within the colleges — perhaps with better counseling or stronger bans on under-age drinking — not by lowering the legal drinking age.

The study found that almost half the college men surveyed and almost 40 per cent of the women had reported engaging in binge drinking. We agree with the Times that the college administrators need to stir themselves and actively discourage alcohol abuse. They may have the brightest kids in their colleges but those young people are still growing up -- as the brain researchers keep telling us -- until their mid-20s.

PS Did it all start with The Student Prince?

By: Carolyn Moynihan