The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted as an international treaty in 1989, enjoys ratification by most nations on earth; the United States is the one notable exception. As the UNICEF website explains, this Convention “spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere . . . have: the right to […]
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Ms. Trude Strand Lobben was struggling with a difficult pregnancy when, in May 2008, she approached the Norwegian social services authorities for assistance. They suggested that during the first months of the child’s life she stay at a family centre for evaluation, where she could be offered additional support. Her son was less than a […]
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When Family Rights Are Undermined by Child Protective Services It was a case that should have been on the front page of every major newspaper, or the opening story on every newsfeed—a case that seemed to have more akin to a bad horror flick than to reality. In the spring of 2019, police arrested 18 […]
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The New Bio-Politics of Fertility It has been more than a century and a half since Charles Darwin first taught the world that all species—including human beings—are locked in an unrelenting, competitive struggle for reproductive success. Often translated into the grim phrase “the survival of the fittest,” the outcome of this evolutionary contest depends finally […]
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As a children’s rights advocate, I defend children’s universally-recognized right to life and right to their mother and father.[1] That means while I can (and do) sympathize with adults’ very natural desire to have children, when it comes to technological interventions and policies that require children to forfeit their rights, I side with the kids. I’m […]
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As expressed at the Cairo conference in 1994, reproductive rights are at the heart of population and development policies. Officially, these are not new rights, but rather clarifications concerning existing human rights: those guaranteeing to everyone full freedom to enjoy their bodies and their reproductive capacities. Over the years, and with dramatic upheavals in society […]
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Broken Bonds Jennifer Lahl, Melinda Tankard Reist, and Renate Klein (eds.) Spinifex, 2019; 140 pages, $24.95 Charlie Sheen gained fame as an actor, but notoriety as a john. When a judge asked him why a man of his status would have any need for commercial coitus, Sheen is reported to have explained that he wasn’t […]
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Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics Mary Eberstadt Templeton Press, 2019; 192 pages, $24.95 It is commonplace, though surely justified, to lament the extreme polarization of public life. With the launching of impeachment proceedings during an election year, those divisions seem unlikely to dissipate soon. Related and in some cases underlying this […]
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Commentators have noticed for some time now the seeming dearth of “marriageable” men, i.e. the ones with education, employment, and income comparable to women’s. Many factors have been blamed for this trend—lack of economic opportunity, higher rates of female education, a crunched labor market. Now, researchers from Cornell, Brigham Young, and South Utah Universities have joined together for a systematic study of this phenomenon in America.
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Researchers have long understood that parental divorce tends to lead to lower educational attainment for children. Now, a group of scholars seek to understand exactly how this trend occurs.
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