Newsweek: 'Traditionalists better get used to' polyamory

Colleen Raezler - Guest Columnist -

Editor's Note: This commentary contains descriptions that some readers may find offensive.

According to Newsweek, polyamory is here to stay and "the traditionalists had better get used to it." Polyamory, reporter Jessica Bennett explained in her July 29 article, is the act of "engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person – based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

While Bennett acknowledged that keeping track of multiple partners' (and their partners') needs and wants isn't for everybody, she concluded, "perhaps the practice is more natural than we think: a response to the challenges of monogamous relationships, whose shortcomings – in a culture where divorce has become a commonplace – are clear."
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=625368

China’s abortion surge blamed on young, single women

Carolyn Moynihan

A report in the official Chinese newspaper China Daily reveals some shocking figures on abortion in that country: 13 million surgical abortions a year performed in hospitals, 10 million abortion pills sold every year, and unknown number of abortions done in unregistered rural hospitals. “Family planning” statistics are usually considered state secrets, so why this sudden revelation?

Apparently, nobody knows, but the original report -- picked up by media around the world -- highlighted the information that nearly two thirds of the hospital abortions were done on single women aged between 20 and 29. A government official quoted in the report said nearly half of those having abortions reported using no contraception when they conceived. A sex therapist blamed it all on a lack of sex education (and doesn’t that sound familiar?).

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/chinas_abortion_surge_blamed_on_young_single_women/

Info on homosexual health risks squelched

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

A pro-family activist group is calling for a federal study of the health risks of homosexual conduct.

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera tells OneNewsNow it only makes sense because the government will investigate the dangers of such habits as smoking and work to curb it. He cites information released by the Food and Drug Administration.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=621982

Home Depot building a 'le-gay-cy' for children

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

Home Depot is helping to introduce children to the homosexual lifestyle.

The Nashville Gay Pride website notes that Home Depot contributed more than $5,000 to help finance the 2009 festival. The retailer also participated by conducting children's craft workshops at a special booth set up for them. The company has sponsored similar children's venues at pro-homosexual events in Atlanta, Kansas City, Durham, Portland, and San Diego.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=621908

Same-sex marriage has consequences beyond the couple getting married

A Saskatchewan marriage commissioner who refused to marry a same-sex couple has lost his appeal of a human rights ruling.
Orville Nichols was approached by a gay man who wanted to get married in 2005 . At first, Nichols congratulated the man, identified in court documents only as "M.J."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2009/07/23/marriage-ruling.html

The Grail Searchers

Despite endless efforts to prove the contrary, science shows that an embryo is a human being.

By Maureen Condic, Patrick Lee, and Robert P. George

“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” — Langman’s Medical Embryology, 7th edition, 1995
For people who advocate the killing of embryonic human beings in the cause of biomedical research, the Holy Grail is an argument that would definitively establish that the human embryo, at least early in its development, is not a living human organism and therefore not a human being at all. The problem for these advocates is that all the scientific evidence points in precisely the opposite direction. Modern human embryology and developmental biology have shown that fertilization produces a new and distinct organism: a living individual of the human species in the embryonic stage of his or her development.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDFkM2ZiOGEwOWVkY2Y2ZTlhNDk2MjdkMWQ3NzZhNmY

Liberal academic Edward Green: the Pope is right about Aids and condom

According to Harvard professor Edward Green, Benedict XVI tells the truth about fighting the plague of the millennium in Africa: fidelity and abstinence promotion are better weapons than preservatives.

During his latest visit to Africa pope Benedict XVI told the journalists: “Condom distribution is not the solution to Aids, on the contrary they worsen it”. An editorial comment of The Lancet retorted that the Pope's comment was “outrageous and wildly inaccurate”. Based on your experience about the issue, is the Pope right or wrong?

http://www.tempi.it/007320-liberal-academic-edward-green-pope-right-about-aids-and-condom?page=0

The duty to die

Sheila Liaugminas

It has already been a growing threat under the influence of the ‘right to die’ movement and spreading ‘futility care laws’.
Now it’s looming larger in the 1,018 page health care proposal as written, and more Americans are starting to become aware that it practically mandates rationing that will discriminate against the most vulnerable.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/the_duty_to_die/

Abortion unbound

Sheila Liaugminas
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.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/abortion_unbound/

Teachers flocking to Christian alternative to NEA

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow -
The Christian Educators Association International says it has seen an increase in enrollment due to some developments in the National Education Association.

About one month ago, the National Education Association (NEA) voted to throw its full support behind homosexual "marriage," and members voted down a resolution calling for the NEA to take a "no-position" stance on abortion. Furthermore, NEA top lawyer Bob Chanin recently berated those within the NEA who hold to traditional conservative values, accusing them of trying to take down the union.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=616046

Babies have a right to a heritage

NOTABLE QUOTE: "...equity in the preservation of personal identity has not received as much attention as the rights of adults to fertility treatment."

Brenda Almond
Fertility clinics are creating a new class of dispossessed human beings, says a British philosopher.
Baby manufacture is already big business. Recent ads targeting women college students in America have offered them free holidays in India in exchange for parting with their eggs during their visit, with Indian women teamed to become paid surrogates and return the product – the student’s child – to those who commissioned it. Do other jurisdictions want to follow this precedent and should Americans be more concerned about what is done in their name? The selling of slaves was considered offensive – should selling babies be OK?

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/babies_have_a_right_to_a_heritage/

Romania stiff-arms same-sex 'marriage'

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

Romania's Parliament has moved to protect traditional marriage.

Roger Kiska, a member of Alliance Defense Fund's legal counsel, is stationed in Europe. He tells OneNewsNow that Romania adopted a strong civil code enshrining traditional marriage in law. "It's defined throughout the code -- spouse as between a man and a woman," he explains. "It forbids these backdoor, so-called same-sex 'marriages' where Romanian citizens or foreigners come into the country and ask that their marriage be recognized by the country. It also does the same with civil unions."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=612576

Survey: Third of Mass. transgendered weigh suicide

By Associated Press
BOSTON — Nearly a third of transgender residents in Massachusetts have considered suicide according to a new survey by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
The study compares the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents to heterosexual and non-transgender residents.
It found that about 31 percent of transgender respondents said they have considered attempting suicide in the past year, compared to just 2 percent for heterosexual residents, 4 percent for gay and lesbian residents and 7 percent for bisexual residents.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090727survey_third_of_mass_transgendered_weigh_suicide/srvc=home&position=recent

Grandparents are funding their children’s IVF, finds Red magazine

Note: The success rate for IVF has risen in recent years but still only a minority become pregnant. For women aged under 35, the success rate is 28.2 per cent. It drops to 23.6 per cent for women aged 35 to 37, 18.3 per cent for women aged 38 to 39 and 10.6 per cent for women aged 40 to 42.

JRM's comment: where are they getting these success rates? Are these women who actually have a fertility problem? Or, are some of these women perfectly healthy women who have no male partner? It matters for understanding the success rates. I got these stories from mercator: http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/ I like their comemnt too: how mature are these people who are spending all their income until their 40’s?

Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent

Grandparents have been subsidising school fees and providing a free baby-sitting service for years. Now research shows that they are also footing the bill for the conception of their grandchildren.
A quarter of women over the age of 40, and 13 per cent of all couples undergoing IVF and other fertility treatments, are having them paid for by their own parents, anxious to have grandchildren. The average amount spent by grandparents is £5,413, slightly more than the cost of one cycle of IVF.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6737901.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

The end of IVF?

Note from JRM: She is also keen to remind women that IVF still has a relatively poor success rate. “At one of the most renowned New York clinics, figures indicate that among women under 35, the success rate is still only 47%.”

Anita Chaudhuri
If you' re having difficulty conceiving, then help is at hand. it comes not in the form of expensive drugs, but in a new book that takes a simpler approach to the treatment of infertility.

It’s a sad fact of life that one in six couples will have difficulty conceiving. Those praying for a miracle will often try anything, from the estimated 75% who experiment with alternative therapies, to the 1 in 80 women who will eventually give birth to an IVF baby in the UK each year. Now, two leading fertility specialists have decided to bridge the gap between conventional and complementary medicine, and offer an alternative to rushing into IVF. “I estimate that 50% of women on IVF don’t need it,” says Dr Sami David, a doctor involved with the first-ever successful IVF procedure in New York 30 years ago. “They could get pregnant naturally.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6721741.ece

Divorce has lasting effects on health

Carolyn Moynihan
More evidence has come to light of the damage divorce does to family members. A study of 8652 people aged 51 to 61 shows that those who have been divorced, as well as those widowed, have worse health than those who have been continuously married or who have never married. Their health improves somewhat with remarriage but still suffers long term effects.
The research, by University of Chicago Sociologist Linda Waite and Johns Hopkins public health professor Mary Elizabeth Hughes, is the first to examine both marital transitions and marital status on a wide range of health dimensions, including chronic disease (heart, diabetes, cancer), depression and mobility.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/divorce_has_lasting_effects_on_health/

Why are young men still living at home more violent?

Carolyn Moynihan

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.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/why_are_young_men_still_living_at_home_more_violent/

The notion of a right to a 'good death' undermines society

If my life has no objective value, then why should anyone else care for it, asks Vincent Nichols.
By Vincent Nichols
We have seen a significant defeat in Parliament for proposals to legalise assisted suicides, and learnt of the joint suicides at the Dignitas apartment in Switzerland of the eminent conductor Sir Edward Downes, and his wife, Lady Downes. While there are many ethical, medical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide, at its heart lies the notion that we have an absolute moral entitlement to have whatever kind of death we choose. This is surely the triumph of the philosophy that proclaims individual rights above all other considerations and the relativist insistence that what is good is a matter of personal judgment.

The consequences of this attitude lie at the root of the weakening of social structures, including the decline of the family as the core unit, the rise of anti-social behaviour, the pursuit of profit at all cost and the increasing intolerance of non-materialist, philosophical or ethical views. It can be summarised as the age of convenience; the pursuit of what we want despite its cost and impact on others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5845658/The-notion-of-a-right-to-a-good-death-undermines-society.html

Hear about the legal breakthrough in abortion law?

Sheila Liaugminas


Overhwhelming odds are that you didn’t, even if you live in the state of Illinois, where the landmark decision came down last week.
The story, a small piece, was buried on page 11 of the Chicago Tribune the next day.
A federal appeals court in Chicago on Tuesday breathed new life into a long-dormant Illinois law that requires physicians to notify the parents of teenage girls before performing abortions.
Attorneys on both sides of the issue said the law — which was passed in 1984 and updated in 1995 — would take effect within weeks unless its critics ask for a stay and the three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agrees to put its order on hold pending a rehearing.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/hear_about_the_legal_breakthrough_in_abortion_law/

Abortion industry bailout

Sheila Liaugminas
Besides the surprise revelation about restrictions on private health insurance (below), what else is in that 1,018 page health care bill that’s just coming to light?
Mandated taxpayer funding of abortion. FOCA has returned, under the cover of this bill.
Pro-life groups and lawmakers are continuing to raise the alarm over the healthcare reform package President Obama is aggressively pushing through both the House and the Senate. The groups are urging Americans to oppose the healthcare overhaul, as pro-abortion lawmakers are insisting that abortion must be included in the basic healthcare package that all public and private insurers will eventually be required to cover.
But they’re using stealth language.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/abortion_industry_bailout/