...We could have predicted these results. The US family system, which once differed little by class or region, has become a marker of race, culture, and religion. A new “blue” family paradigm has handsomely rewarded those who invest in women’s as well as men’s education and defer childbearing until the couple is better established. These families, concentrated in urban areas and the coasts, have seen their divorce rates fall back to the level of the 1960s, incomes rise, and nonmarital births remain rare. With later marriage has also come greater stability and less divorce. ...

These factors reflect class and cultural differences, but all of our research suggests that the great recession is likely to make things worse. The hallmark of what we have termed the blue family paradigm is training for autonomy.

With a more extended transition to adulthood, better educated youth also need greater flexibility – to navigate their developing sexuality; to switch jobs, cities, and specialties; and to renegotiate family and career responsibilities. In hard times, dual careers provide a cushion, and flexibility about gender and work roles makes it easier to trade off child care and employment.

Hard times, however, also increase calls for a return to more fixed and traditional values. The fact that traditional families are flailing often persuades them that a return to traditional values is that much more critical. In today’s world, however, almost all of the traditional nostrums have proved counterproductive.

Missing from this debate is recognition of the bankruptcy of traditionalist family values as policy for the postindustrial era. We are entirely sympathetic with those inclined to lock up their daughters from puberty until marriage, but we do recognize that the societies abroad most insistent on policing women’s virtue are locked into cycles of poverty. ...

The solution? As we outline in great detail in our book “Red Families v. Blue Families,” there are three critical steps we can take: (1) promote access to contraception – within marriage as well as outside it; (2) develop a greater ability to combine not only work and family, but family and education; and (3) make sure the next generation stays in school, learns the skills to be employed, and cultivates values that can adapt to the future.

Labels: abortion, abstinence, conservatism, contraception, culture, divorce, economics, liberalism, Marriage, poverty

posted by Eve at 2:30 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Are Catholic colleges undermining the faith? Or are they an effective if leaky levee against the growing tide of secularism? The study, "Catholicism on Campus," was released on Jan. 31 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), at Georgetown University, which compiled the data from national surveys of more than 14,000 students at nearly 150 U.S. colleges and universities. Students were surveyed as freshmen in 2004 and then in 2007 as juniors.

The upshot is that while college-age students at all schools tend to move away from Catholic practices and beliefs, Catholic students at Catholic colleges are less likely to drift than Catholics at non-Catholic schools. ...

Yet nearly a third of Catholic students at Catholic schools were less likely to attend Mass--the baseline of Catholic practice—than they had been before arriving on campus, and just 7% said they were more likely. And the church teachings to which these students at Catholic colleges adhere most strongly are those that, in a sociopolitical context, would be called "liberal." For example, 21% of Catholic students at Catholic schools moved away from the church's teaching against capital punishment, while 31% moved closer to the church's position--a significantly higher shift in that direction than from Catholic students at non-Catholic schools, where it's almost a wash. ...

By contrast, on issues of personal sexual morality generally considered "conservative," students show the furthest drift from Catholic teachings over their college years.

For example, a significant number of all college-age Catholics tended to shift toward a more permissive view of abortion, with 31% of those at Catholic schools saying they were more supportive of legal abortion after their time on a Catholic campus and only 16% saying they had moved closer to the church's teaching. Catholic students' shift away from church teaching on legal abortion was slightly greater at non-Catholic schools. Overall, 56% of Catholic juniors at Catholic colleges say they disagree "strongly" or "somewhat" that "abortion should be legal." On the question of same-sex marriage, 39% of Catholic students at Catholic colleges distanced themselves from the church's opposition and only 16% moved toward that stance—a net change nearly as high as at other universities. By their junior year, only one in three Catholics at Catholic schools disagree "somewhat" or "strongly" that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.

Labels: abortion, Catholic Church, culture, gay marriage, religion, universities

posted by Eve at 5:46 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Gays are our utopian heroes. Many things changed in the twentieth century. No change was more momentous and utopian than that men could choose men for love objects, and women choose women, to remake the sexual household. If the household organization of three thousand years of recorded history could be altered simply in the interest of what people wanted, in the interest of desire, then anything could be changed.

Traditional society choked this down—some more progressive parts of it did, anyway—by attributing same-sex love to brain chemistry, or a gay gene, and an eternal sexual identity that must be rigid and ineluctable. It hypothesized three millennia of men and women who must have been closeted, before they had such wonderfully enlightened friends and neighbors as we are. Only in this restricted way could society understand homosexuality without gayness threatening to reveal more new choices.

The utopians among us held our peace. It seemed impossible to stay in view of the rest of traditional society, the reactionary and hostile parts, and make our argument to fellow progressives that gay reorganization might be better than the old heterosexuality, and not just a neutral object for tolerance—that liberation from the heterosexual family was something we all could wish for, and that it needn't stop where it has. Then, because such a large part of the gay community publicly seemed to prefer the necessitarian, "eternal" framework, finding it the best way to make sense of individuals' own experiences, and to justify them to family and friends, we utopian straights—bystanders, well-wishers, but dilettantes—had another good reason to keep quiet. ...

Social utopianism has long focused on the reorganization of households, but has rarely accomplished much. Straight utopians argued for free love, free divorce, unorthodox childrearing and communal parenthood, and got divorce, followed by more imprisoning marriages, followed by more divorce. Because the home has seemed to be at the origin of economics (the word comes from the Greek oikos, household, and household management, oikonomia), a revision of the home, say one based on non-reproductivity and made by equals of the same sex, could ground a wider egalitarianism. Because the family, as the crucible of personality for children, seems to be the origin of violence, hierarchy, and tyranny—in the old descending triad of dominance: man-woman-child—a revision of the family, such that children could look forward to forming their own future households on different models, could gain new principles of power for society.

Labels: abortion, beyond marriage, culture, fam, feminism, gay marriage, gay/straight differences

posted by Eve at 10:35 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: abortion, culture, France

posted by Eve at 8:26 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

More than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, state media reported on Monday, citing a study that blamed sex-specific abortions as a major factor.

The study, by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, named the gender imbalance among newborns as the most serious demographic problem for the country's population of 1.3 billion, the Global Times said. ...

Researcher Wang Guangzhou said the skewed birth ratio could lead to difficulties for men with lower incomes in finding spouses, as well as a widening age gap between partners, according to the Global Times.

Another researcher quoted by the newspaper, Wang Yuesheng, said men in poorer parts of China would be forced to accept marriages late in life or remain single for life, which could "cause a break in family lines."

"The chance of getting married will be rare if a man is more than 40 years old in the countryside. They will be more dependent on social security as they age and have fewer household resources to rely on," Wang said. ...

The Global Times said abductions and trafficking of women were "rampant" in areas with excess numbers of men, citing the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Labels: abortion, China, demographics, one-child policy

posted by Eve at 5:46 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Conservative Christian leaders unveiled a declaration Friday calling on Christians not to comply with rules and laws forcing them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideals that go against their religious doctrines.

The declaration urges Christians to practice civil disobedience to defend their convictions, even though some signers of the document backed away from the strong language. ...

"We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them," the declaration says. It lists the "fundamental truths" as the "sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty."

The declaration is signed by more than 125 Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical leaders. Other leaders at the news conference at the National Press Club included Cardinal Justin Rigali, outgoing chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities; Pentecostal leader Harry Jackson, pastor of a Beltsville church; and evangelical activist Tony Perkins. Other signers include evangelical leader and Watergate-era figure Chuck Colson and academics Timothy George and Robert George.

The leaders are urging the public to sign the online document.

Labels: abortion, Christianity, gay marriage, Marriage, religion, religious liberty

posted by Eve at 3:58 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

There was spontaneous applause when Allan Carlson announced the winner of the 'family cup': a man who put nine children on the world, all within the same marriage.

That makes one a successful man in the eyes of the fifth World Congress of Families, which is being held in Amsterdam's RAI congress centre this week. The floor was then given to the winner's wife, who spoke of her husband's love and dedication to their family and God -- until he died of cancer last year.

Allan Carlson is the secretary of the World Congress of Families and the president of the US-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society. He is the author of The Natural Family: A Manifesto, in which he argues that "we welcome more babies and larger families while others wage war against human fertility".

In his opening statement in Amsterdam on Monday he said families that deviate from the 'natural family' (man, wife, children) are at considerable risk of developing 'problems'. "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state," Carlson said. ...

One of the speakers –- albeit via video link –- was the Dutch minister for youth and family André Rouvoet, a member of the orthodox Christian party ChristenUnie. Rouvoet wished the participants "every success".

Rouvoet's participation in the World Congress was controversial from the start. His critics said it legitimised what they said was a right-wing religious gathering. Intellectuals, members of parliament for the Green party and the liberal parties VVD and D66, as well as a handful of demonstrators demanded that Rouvoet either stay away from the gathering or come out in favour of gay marriage, abortion and divorce.

The minister didn't go quite that far, although he did call on the participants to "build bridges" and to "think about how we can live together in a multicultural society with differing attitudes to the family".

Labels: abortion, divorce, Europe, family size, gay marriage, Marriage, Netherlands

posted by Eve at 3:23 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Yet these strategies — though invaluable — underestimate the complexity of the situation in certain countries. To be sure, China and India are poor. But in both nations, girls are actually more likely to be missing in richer areas than in poorer ones, and in cities than in rural areas. Having more money, a better education and (in India) belonging to a higher caste all raise the probability that a family will discriminate against its daughters. The bias against girls applies in some of the wealthiest and best-educated nations in the world, including, in recent years, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. It also holds among Indian immigrants in Britain and among Chinese, Indian and South Korean immigrants in the United States. In the last few years, the percentage of missing girls has been among the highest in the middle-income, high-education nations of the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Nor does a rise in a woman’s autonomy or power in the family necessarily counteract prejudice against girls. Researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute have found that while increasing women’s decision-making power would reduce discrimination against girls in some parts of South Asia, it would make things worse in the north and west of India. “When women’s power is increased,” wrote Lisa C. Smith and Elizabeth M. Byron, “they use it to favor boys.” ...

What Das Gupta discovered is that wealthier and more educated women face this same imperative to have boys as uneducated poor women — but they have smaller families, thus increasing the felt urgency of each birth. In a family that expects to have seven children, the birth of a girl is a disappointment; in a family that anticipates only two or three children, it is a tragedy.

Thus development can worsen, not improve, traditional discrimination.

Labels: abortion, Africa, Asia, demographics, poverty, women

posted by Eve at 4:26 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: abortion, contraception, culture, heterosexual couples, sex

posted by Eve at 8:07 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

There’s no doubt that Yalies are interested in sex. From conspicuously empty plastic baggies hanging in freshman entryways to Porn in the ‘Morn’s overflowing enrollment, signs abound that Yalies want to learn about it, watch it and even do it. Still, while drunken hook-ups and steamy relationships may be fodder for salacious Sunday brunch conversations, pregnancy, typically, is not.

But despite its lack of visibility, pregnancy is far from a non-issue on campus.

In fact, according to a News poll sent to 2,000 Yale undergraduates last week, one in three of the 281 female respondents reported having used Plan B at least once to prevent a possible pregnancy during their time at Yale. In addition, 20 percent of female respondents reported having believed they were pregnant at some point, while five students indicated that they had actually been pregnant. (Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that reduces the chance of pregnancy by 89 percent if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure. Unlike the abortion pill, RU-486, it does not affect an existing pregnancy.)

Concerns about pregnancy are perhaps unsurprising, considering that, of the 55 percent of respondents who indicated they had previously had or were currently having heterosexual sex, nearly 20 percent said they either used ‘the pull-out method’ or no form of contraception at all.

Meanwhile, the most widely used form of contraception among the poll’s respondents was condoms, at 45 percent. Last year, Yale University Health Services provided 10,000 of them to undergraduates, said James Perlotto, chief of student medicine at YUHS.

Still, in actual use, condoms fail 11 percent of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is potentially 11 pregnant Yalies for every 100 who only use condoms to protect against pregnancy.

So what’s a girl to do if contraception fails, if she has unprotected sex — or if she winds up pregnant? ...

But even if Plan B is used, it is not 100 percent effective. Of the poll’s 281 female respondents, five reported they had gotten pregnant while at Yale — three of whom reported that they had terminated the pregnancy.

Labels: abortion, contraception, culture, pregnancy, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 4:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

If you're angry about the AIG scandal or Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, check out what's happening to the infertile couples and surrogate mothers involved in a California womb brokerage. It's a familiar tale of vanishing funds and defaulted obligations. But this time, the potential loss is bigger than property. It's pregnancy.

Whose pregnancies are at stake? That's a tricky question. Through in vitro fertilization, a fetus can have two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Last week, for example, we looked at a Japanese case in which a doctor mistakenly put one woman's embryo in another woman's uterus. Weeks later, the second woman was told of the error and aborted the pregnancy. The first woman wasn't told about anything for two and a half months.

That's what can happen when you separate pregnancy into two stages. One woman can abort another's offspring.

And that's not the only way it can happen. Thousands of women have hired themselves out as gestational surrogates. If you're the child's genetic mother, you can put a clause in the contract stipulating under what circumstances the surrogate can abort the pregnancy. But no court will enforce that clause, because you aren't the one who's pregnant. The surrogate is. She can choose abortion unilaterally. All you can do is stop paying her for carrying the child.

But what if it's the other way around? What if you stop paying her first? If you had hired her to sew booties for your kid, she could respond to your nonpayment by halting work on the booties. But her job wasn't to deliver booties. It was to deliver the kid. If she responds by halting work on the thing you've stopped paying for, that thing is your child.

Presumably, if you care enough about the baby to have hired a surrogate, you'll pay what you promised. But what if you don't control the payments? What if you delivered the money to a broker, and the broker lost, stole, or squandered it? You did your part, but the surrogate is no longer being paid. And she has every legal right to end the pregnancy.

That's the scenario unfolding in California.

Labels: abortion, donor conception, poverty, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 1:29 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any year in the nation's history, topping the peak during the baby boom 50 years earlier, federal researchers reported Wednesday.

There is both good and bad news from the more than 4.3 million births:

_The U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend.

_However, the teen birth rate was up for the second year in a row.

The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend begun years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older. ...

But it's not clear the boomlet will last long. Some experts think birth rates are already declining because of the economic recession that began in late 2007.

"I expect they'll go back down. The lowest birth rates recorded in the United States occurred during the Great Depression—and that was before modern contraception," said Dr. Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health.

The 2007 statistical snapshot reflected a relatively good economy coupled with cultural trends that promoted childbirth, she and others noted.

Meanwhile, U.S. abortions have been dropping to their lowest levels in decades, according to other reports. Some have attributed the abortion decline to better use of contraceptives, but other experts have wondered if the rise in births might indicate a failure in proper use of contraceptives. Some earlier studies have shown declining availability of abortions. ...

CDC officials noted that despite the record number of births, this is nothing like what occurred in the 1950s, when a much smaller population of women were having nearly four children each, on average. That baby boom quickly transformed society, affecting everything from school construction to consumer culture.

Labels: abortion, demographics, out-of-wedlock births

posted by Eve at 2:58 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT