Friday, April 23, 2004
So what's all the fuss about?
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given in and will put Britain's memembership of the European Union to a binding referendum.
This is a victory for those opposed to Britain being in the EU. But what are the issues at stake? The Guardian has a good summary of the position held by the two sides.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given in and will put Britain's memembership of the European Union to a binding referendum.
This is a victory for those opposed to Britain being in the EU. But what are the issues at stake? The Guardian has a good summary of the position held by the two sides.
If the Warriors say you can’t have the benefits without the commitment...
The Warriors Rugby League team sacked star player Ali Lauitiiti this week because he was not prepared to commit himself 100 percent to the team’s vision. They were not prepared to extend the benefits which come from being a Warrior player to someone who was not prepared to make a full commitment. The All Black selectors have done exactly the same in times past. No-one thinks there is anything strange in that.
The same thing happens in the business world. When you apply for a job, the employer wants to know that you are going to give 100 percent to the job. In return, you get lots of benefits. No commitment, no benefits. The same goes for a business firm trying to land a government contract. The government wants full commitment from its supply firms before it hands out the benefits.
So why do we think that the same principle should not apply to marriage?
The New Zealand government is changing the rules so that anyone in any kind of relationship can have all the benefits of marriage, but without any commitment. Under the new Omnibus Bill (which is being introduced together with Civil Unions), anyone in any kind of relationship – including de facto – will have full access to all the privileges and benefits previously attached to marriage.
There is no other sphere of life where we (or the government) would countenance giving benefits to people who won’t make a commitment. Why here?
The Warriors Rugby League team sacked star player Ali Lauitiiti this week because he was not prepared to commit himself 100 percent to the team’s vision. They were not prepared to extend the benefits which come from being a Warrior player to someone who was not prepared to make a full commitment. The All Black selectors have done exactly the same in times past. No-one thinks there is anything strange in that.
The same thing happens in the business world. When you apply for a job, the employer wants to know that you are going to give 100 percent to the job. In return, you get lots of benefits. No commitment, no benefits. The same goes for a business firm trying to land a government contract. The government wants full commitment from its supply firms before it hands out the benefits.
So why do we think that the same principle should not apply to marriage?
The New Zealand government is changing the rules so that anyone in any kind of relationship can have all the benefits of marriage, but without any commitment. Under the new Omnibus Bill (which is being introduced together with Civil Unions), anyone in any kind of relationship – including de facto – will have full access to all the privileges and benefits previously attached to marriage.
There is no other sphere of life where we (or the government) would countenance giving benefits to people who won’t make a commitment. Why here?
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Bloody reality of abortion brought to our living rooms
“Britain's first televised abortion lasted slightly less than three minutes. As part of Julia Black's confrontational documentary, My Foetus, Channel 4 showed a doctor's gloved hand manipulating a suction pump and forceps between the stiffly parted legs of an anonymous woman.�
My first reaction when I read the above was one of horror, that television had descended to this level: the equivalent of a live “snuff� movie.
However, it appears Julia Black made the movie as a part of a quest to excise the demon of her own abortion. Black, 34, was driven to film an abortion after her own pregnancy caused her to question her previously pro-choice stance. The 30-minute film began with the heavily pregnant director telling us that when she was five years old her father had set up the charity that has grown into Marie Stopes International - one of the world's largest abortion providers outside the NHS.
Black had a termination at 21. "Like one third of women in Britain," she told us, "I turned to abortion as my way out." But as a second - wanted - baby took shape inside her, she began to wonder if the 180,000 British women who opted for abortion each year were fully informed when they make their choice.
I can understand Black's motives -- I think. But I still have huge reservations about showing a deliberate act of killing on prime television. It reeks of the voyeuristic, and reduces the sacredness of death to entertainment.
Meanwhile, a New Zealand survey released today showed that at least six out of 10 Kiwis believe the law should protect the rights of an unborn child. The survey, carried out by independent market researcher AC Neilsen, was commissioned by pro-life lobby group Right to Life.
About 25% of those polled in the survey believed rights for the child should kick in from conception, 9% from the time of embryo implantation in the womb, and 31% at some point between implantation and birth.
In 2002, 17,400 babies were aborted in New Zealand, and more than 100,000 in Australia.
“Britain's first televised abortion lasted slightly less than three minutes. As part of Julia Black's confrontational documentary, My Foetus, Channel 4 showed a doctor's gloved hand manipulating a suction pump and forceps between the stiffly parted legs of an anonymous woman.�
My first reaction when I read the above was one of horror, that television had descended to this level: the equivalent of a live “snuff� movie.
However, it appears Julia Black made the movie as a part of a quest to excise the demon of her own abortion. Black, 34, was driven to film an abortion after her own pregnancy caused her to question her previously pro-choice stance. The 30-minute film began with the heavily pregnant director telling us that when she was five years old her father had set up the charity that has grown into Marie Stopes International - one of the world's largest abortion providers outside the NHS.
Black had a termination at 21. "Like one third of women in Britain," she told us, "I turned to abortion as my way out." But as a second - wanted - baby took shape inside her, she began to wonder if the 180,000 British women who opted for abortion each year were fully informed when they make their choice.
I can understand Black's motives -- I think. But I still have huge reservations about showing a deliberate act of killing on prime television. It reeks of the voyeuristic, and reduces the sacredness of death to entertainment.
Meanwhile, a New Zealand survey released today showed that at least six out of 10 Kiwis believe the law should protect the rights of an unborn child. The survey, carried out by independent market researcher AC Neilsen, was commissioned by pro-life lobby group Right to Life.
About 25% of those polled in the survey believed rights for the child should kick in from conception, 9% from the time of embryo implantation in the womb, and 31% at some point between implantation and birth.
In 2002, 17,400 babies were aborted in New Zealand, and more than 100,000 in Australia.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Birth-rate linked to marriage, study shows
To some degree, governments are stumped by the severe drop in birth rates almost everywhere in the western world. They have even fewer ideas about how to reverse the trend, which unless corrected will shortly send the populations of many heading into decline.
A new study from Monash University in Australia (reported by the Family & Society newsletter) suggests that the falling fertility is directly linked to a sharp decline in married partnering among people in their late twenties and thirties. In Australia, in 1986 nearly three-quarters of women aged 30-34 were married, compared with just over half in 2001.
Women are often delaying marriage until 35 or later, and then commonly have only one child.
While growing numbers of women are having a child on their own or in a de facto relationship, most women will not choose to have a child until they are in a secure relationship.
To some degree, governments are stumped by the severe drop in birth rates almost everywhere in the western world. They have even fewer ideas about how to reverse the trend, which unless corrected will shortly send the populations of many heading into decline.
A new study from Monash University in Australia (reported by the Family & Society newsletter) suggests that the falling fertility is directly linked to a sharp decline in married partnering among people in their late twenties and thirties. In Australia, in 1986 nearly three-quarters of women aged 30-34 were married, compared with just over half in 2001.
Women are often delaying marriage until 35 or later, and then commonly have only one child.
While growing numbers of women are having a child on their own or in a de facto relationship, most women will not choose to have a child until they are in a secure relationship.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
US pediatricians endorse marriage
US pediatricians are worried about how late-20th century changes in family life are affecting children. In a newly published supplement to Pediatrics journal, a task force on the family created by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 1997, reports the findings of more than five years of studying the effects of contemporary family life on American children.
No trend worries the AAP task force more than the one putting "more than one quarter (26%) of all children . . . with a single parent, usually their mother." The AAP scholars acknowledge that "many children who are raised by single or separated parents do well and many in 2-parent families do poorly." Nonetheless, they stress that "children who are reared in single-parent households are at greater risk of a variety of problems." To begin with, "single-parent households differ from 2-parent households in terms of economic and parental resources. Single-parent households have 3 to 5 times higher rates of poverty than do 2-parent households." For physicians, such patterns matter because "family income is strongly related to children's health." Moreover, "paternal absence" predicts "multiple and sometimes lifelong disadvantages" that go far beyond "health problems" to include "problems with school attendance, achievement and completion; emotional and behavioral problems; adolescent parenthood; substance abuse; and other risk behaviors." Children reared in fatherless homes are also especially likely to "be out of work as young men and women."
Given such dismal patterns in single-parent homes, the AAP task force predictably enough underscores the advantage of keeping children in two-parent households: "Unequivocally," they write, "children do best when they are living with [two] mutually committed and loving parents who respect and love one another."
Living with two parents may not confer many benefits on children, however, when those parents are not married or are in a second or third marriage. "Cohabitation," remark the AAP physicians, "is more unstable for children than either married 2-parent or single-mother families and tends to produce worse outcomes for children." One of the worst outcomes is that of abuse, which the AAP scholars note has been linked to living "with a mother and a cohabiting boyfriend." Though less problematic for children than living with cohabiting parents, living with stepparents also poses problems for children. "When a parent remarries," observes the AAP task force, "the child's life is made more complicated and is again disrupted." Consequently, even though remarriage improves household income, "it does not necessarily improve the experience for the child.... [I]n general, children who are raised in a stepfamily do about as well as do children of single mothers."
Having diagnosed the illness, the AAP doctors are ready with a prescription: successful and enduring wedlock. "Marriage," the AAP task force explains, "is beneficial in many ways," in large part because "people behave differently when they are married. They have healthier lifestyles, eat better, and mother each other's health. Being part of a couple and a family also increases the number of people and social institutions with which an individual has contact; this...increases the likelihood that the family will be a successful one."
So, just in case any policymakers are paying attention, the AAP task force is ready to take a position: "The task force favors efforts to encourage and support marriage." Good medicine, that.
(Source: American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on the Family, "Family Pediatrics," Pediatrics 111 Supplement [2003]: 1541-1553.) (Article quoted by Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society)
US pediatricians are worried about how late-20th century changes in family life are affecting children. In a newly published supplement to Pediatrics journal, a task force on the family created by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 1997, reports the findings of more than five years of studying the effects of contemporary family life on American children.
No trend worries the AAP task force more than the one putting "more than one quarter (26%) of all children . . . with a single parent, usually their mother." The AAP scholars acknowledge that "many children who are raised by single or separated parents do well and many in 2-parent families do poorly." Nonetheless, they stress that "children who are reared in single-parent households are at greater risk of a variety of problems." To begin with, "single-parent households differ from 2-parent households in terms of economic and parental resources. Single-parent households have 3 to 5 times higher rates of poverty than do 2-parent households." For physicians, such patterns matter because "family income is strongly related to children's health." Moreover, "paternal absence" predicts "multiple and sometimes lifelong disadvantages" that go far beyond "health problems" to include "problems with school attendance, achievement and completion; emotional and behavioral problems; adolescent parenthood; substance abuse; and other risk behaviors." Children reared in fatherless homes are also especially likely to "be out of work as young men and women."
Given such dismal patterns in single-parent homes, the AAP task force predictably enough underscores the advantage of keeping children in two-parent households: "Unequivocally," they write, "children do best when they are living with [two] mutually committed and loving parents who respect and love one another."
Living with two parents may not confer many benefits on children, however, when those parents are not married or are in a second or third marriage. "Cohabitation," remark the AAP physicians, "is more unstable for children than either married 2-parent or single-mother families and tends to produce worse outcomes for children." One of the worst outcomes is that of abuse, which the AAP scholars note has been linked to living "with a mother and a cohabiting boyfriend." Though less problematic for children than living with cohabiting parents, living with stepparents also poses problems for children. "When a parent remarries," observes the AAP task force, "the child's life is made more complicated and is again disrupted." Consequently, even though remarriage improves household income, "it does not necessarily improve the experience for the child.... [I]n general, children who are raised in a stepfamily do about as well as do children of single mothers."
Having diagnosed the illness, the AAP doctors are ready with a prescription: successful and enduring wedlock. "Marriage," the AAP task force explains, "is beneficial in many ways," in large part because "people behave differently when they are married. They have healthier lifestyles, eat better, and mother each other's health. Being part of a couple and a family also increases the number of people and social institutions with which an individual has contact; this...increases the likelihood that the family will be a successful one."
So, just in case any policymakers are paying attention, the AAP task force is ready to take a position: "The task force favors efforts to encourage and support marriage." Good medicine, that.
(Source: American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on the Family, "Family Pediatrics," Pediatrics 111 Supplement [2003]: 1541-1553.) (Article quoted by Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society)
