Family Research Council

Can’t afford an abortion? Lie to a friend or family member to get their money or take on credit card debt.

by Anna Dorminey

May 17, 2013

If you don’t work in policy or the pro-life movement, or if you’re not particularly passionate about the issue of abortion, you may never have heard of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions (with the usual exceptions of cases of rape or incest or where a mother’s life is at risk).

Regardless of whether or not you’re familiar with the ins and outs of this federal policy, you probably appreciate the logic behind it. Many of us consider abortion nothing less than taking the life of an innocent person. Not using federal tax dollars to fund it is a no-brainer.

And then there is the National Network of Abortion Funds.

Apart from repealing Hyde, the folks over at NNAF have lots of suggestions for women who cannot afford to procure an abortion. Here are a choice few:

• Do I have a credit card? Does a friend or family member have one? (If I have time, can I apply for a new card? Could I request a limit increase, which can often take effect on the next business day? I can put just a portion of the cost on a credit card if my limit isn’t high enough.)
• Can I get a line of credit at my bank?
• Is there an emergency fund at my church?
• Can I use my cable bill money toward my abortion and then ask someone else for help with my cable bill?
• Are there people who might not help me cover the cost of an abortion, but would help me cover other costs? Am I comfortable lying to a friend or family member, telling them that I had an unexpectedly high electric bill or gas bill due to heating or A/C costs?
• Are there bills that I can pay late or skip this month? Can I talk to the electric company about changing the due date for my bill? (Note that it’s illegal for utilities to shut off the heat source for non-payment during the coldest winter months.)

So: there you have it. Taking on credit card debt, not paying your bills in the knowledge that your utility company may still have to supply you with their service, dipping into the emergency fund at your church (which may or may not strongly oppose abortion), or lying to a friend or family member are all acceptable solutions if you are struggling to pay for an abortion.

P.S. If you have a moment, consider contacting the NNAF’s board members and the organizations that these individuals represent to see if they’re actually comfortable encouraging women to use all these strategies. See the list below:

Sarah Audelo, Senior Manager, Domestic Policy, Advocates for Youth; Washington, D.C.

Veronica Bayetti Flores, Assistant Director, Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, Hampshire College; Member, New Leadership Networking Initiative; Amherst, MA

Margaret Chapman Pomponio, Executive Director, WV FREE; Charleston, WV

Carol Cohan, Consultant, Women’s Emergency Network; Miami, FL

Marlene Gerber Fried, Senior Advisor to the President and Faculty Director of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, Hampshire College; Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts; Amherst, MA

D. Lynn Jackson (President), Assistant Professor/Field Coordinator, University of North Texas; Network National Case Manager; Texas Equal Access Fund; Dallas, TX

Karen Law, Executive Director, Pro-Choice Resources; Minneapolis, MN

Shanelle Matthews, Communications Manager, Forward Together; Oakland, CA

Eesha Pandit, Executive Director, Men Stopping Violence; Member, New Leadership Networking Initiative; Atlanta, GA

Sue Steketee (Secretary/Treasurer), Director of Surgical Services and Operations, Planned Parenthood of New Mexico; Abortion Assistance Fund of Planned Parenthood New Mexico; Albuquerque, NM

The 112-Lb. “Newborn”

by Anna Dorminey

February 18, 2013

In case you missed it, the TODAY show recently reported a heartwarming story about a baby photo shoot that went viral. If you’re wondering why infant photos are national news—many people get irked just seeing them fill up their Facebook news feed—it’s because the “baby,” Latrell Higgins, is the 12-year-old adopted son of Kelli Higgins and her husband.

Kelli and her husband already had six children, but chose to adopt Latrell and his sister Chanya after deciding to adopt older children. When Latrell expressed feelings of loss at not having any baby pictures, one of his adopted sisters jokingly suggested that they do an infant photo shoot. Kelli, a professional photographer, took the photos herself. The result is precious and utterly hilarious and speaks of a family that deeply understands love and belonging.

TODAY also reported that, in 2011, over a hundred thousand children were in foster care and awaiting adoption and that the median age of children awaiting adoption is seven. The Marriage and Religion Research Institute, in its Research Synthesis paper Adoption Works Well: a Synthesis of the Literature, has shown adoption to be “life-alteringly beneficial for children.” Though adoption in the first year of life tends to produce the best results for children, “all children will benefit, regardless of their age at placement. Adopted children outperform their non-adopted peers and non-adopted siblings.”

For more on the importance of strong families and belonging, see MARRI’s Mapping America series.

“The Boys at the Back”: Could stable marriage be what’s lacking?

by Anna Dorminey

February 14, 2013

Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute published an opinion piece in the New York Times earlier this week entitled “The Boys at the Back.” In her interesting and well-written article, the author addresses the classroom gap boys are witnessing today. The problem isn’t one of intelligence—boys’ test scores are on par with girls’. The problem boys face at school is behavioral: teachers factor behavior into grades, and the classroom structural deck is stacked against boys. Hoff Sommers cites “boy-averse trends like the decline of recess, zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, the tendency to criminalize minor juvenile misconduct and the turn away from single-sex schooling” as culprits.

Ms. Hoff Sommers addresses three policy reasons to care about boys’ performance: the long-term effects of grades (not merely education, but grades) on children’s future well-being and happiness, the need to keep up in the global economic race, and the fact that male educational performance is lagging particularly in black, Latino, and low-income communities. The author makes several valid suggestions for how to engage boys, but as at least a partial explanation (and remedy) for her third reason for concern about boys’ poor performance, I would point to weak family structure.

As the Marriage and Religion Research Institute’s (MARRI) Second Annual Index of Family Belonging and Rejection shows, family intactness (growing up with both biological parents married to one another) is dishearteningly low among blacks and Latinos in the U.S.: only about 17 percent of black children and 41 percent of Hispanic children reach age 17 in an intact household. This matters for children’s educational performance: children in intact married families are significantly more likely to earn mostly A’s in school. Perhaps this is because parents in always-intact married families are more likely to help their children do their homework than are parents in stepfamilies or single-parent families, but more likely it is because children from married households have higher cognitive scores and more self-control. (For these and more educational benefits of marriage, see MARRI’s 162 Reasons to Marry.)

Certainly the fact that boys are falling behind can be traced to many issues. Hoff Sommers notes that “[a]s our schools have become more feelings-centered, risk-averse, collaboration-oriented and sedentary, they have moved further and further from boys’ characteristic sensibilities.” But doesn’t it stand to reason that stable homes produce more disciplined children? And as the author notes, “If boys are restless and unfocused, why not look for ways to help them do better? As a nation, can we afford not to?”

Planned Parenthood: Raking in Government Money, Driving Up Abortion Numbers

by Anna Dorminey

January 9, 2013

Following the release of Planned Parenthood’s annual report yesterday, the Susan B. Anthony List  issued a press release reporting the following facts:

• During fiscal year 2011-2012, Planned Parenthood reported receiving a record $542 million in taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements. Taxpayer funding consists of 45% of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue.
• In 2011, Planned Parenthood performed a record high 333,964 abortions.
• Over the past three reported years (2009-2011), Planned Parenthood has performed nearly one million abortions (995,687).
• Cancer screening & prevention services and contraceptive services provided by Planned Parenthood continue to drop. Contraceptive services have dropped by 12% since 2009, and cancer screening & prevention services have dropped by 29%.
• Planned Parenthood reported a total of three million clients in 2011, meaning that 11% of all Planned Parenthood clients received an abortion.

Though the Hyde Amendment prohibits the federal government from funding elective abortions, the simple fact is that money is fungible. As the FRC pamphlet America’s Abortion Provider: What Everyone Should Know about Planned Parenthood states, “By funding non-abortion services, the federal government essentially allows Planned Parenthood to cover overhead and other expenses, as it pursues a more lucrative and lethal business—abortions.”

In the Chart 1 from America’s Abortion Provider, we first show the correspondence between Planned Parenthood’s government funding and the number of abortions it performs.

However, in Chart 3, we show the almost perfect co-variance between annual increases or decreases in federal funding for Planned Parenthood and the following year’s increase or decrease in the number of abortions they perform.

The only exception to the very close correlation between present-year funding and next-year abortions is 2007-2008. At this point, we see a shift to correlation between present-year funding and present-year abortions.

As America’s Abortion Provider notes, “[i]n the end, the operating model of Planned Parenthood is such that its abortion activities require the overhead and general funding support of the federal government.”

Marriage May Promote Safer, Healthier Pregnancies

by Anna Dorminey

January 7, 2013

U.S. News and World Report reports via HealthDay that “[c]ompared with unmarried women, married women are less likely to experience domestic abuse, substance abuse or postpartum depression around the time of pregnancy,” according to a study published last month in the American Journal of Public Health by Dr. Marcelo L. Urquia, Patricia J. O’Campo, and Joel G. Ray.

The study, entitled Marital Status, Duration of Cohabitation, and Psychosocial Well-Being Among Childbearing Women: A Canadian Nationwide Survey, was conducted with data on over 6,400 women from the 2006-2007 Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey. According to HealthDay’s report, the study found that 67 percent of separated or divorced women and 35 percent of always-single women dealt with domestic abuse, substance abuse, or postpartum depression. Twenty percent of cohabiting women and 10 percent of married women did so, though these problems diminished with duration of cohabitation.

Urquia stated, according to HealthDay, that “30 percent of children in Canada are born to unmarried couples, up from 9 percent in 1971,” and that the distinctions between married and cohabiting families were important, given out-of-wedlock birth’s rise.

The study’s abstract also noted that “[r]esearch on maternal and child health would benefit from distinguishing between married and unmarried cohabiting women, and their duration of cohabitation.” In fact, many studies do not distinguish between cohabiting households and married households and merely label these “two-parent families.”

For more on the benefits of marriage relative to other family structures, see the Marriage and Religion Research Institute’s 162 Reasons to Marry.

Mormon Church Retools Discussion of Same-Sex Attraction

by Anna Dorminey

December 10, 2012

The Mormon Church (“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”) has launched a new site to equip its members to have “kind and reasoned” conversation about homosexuality.

The site defines the Mormon Church’s official stance on same-sex attraction:

The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

CNN’s report notes that “Mormons believe that family relationships survive after death, as long as individuals live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ. The practice – called sealing – ‘refers to the joining together of a man and a woman and their children for eternity,’ according to the church.” Thus, the concept of family carries eternal significance for Mormons. Their site states that “[f]rom a public relations perspective it would be easier for the Church to simply accept homosexual behavior. That we cannot do, for God’s law is not ours to change.”

The site segment entitled “An Eternal Perspective” states, “Though some people, including those resisting same-sex attraction, may not have the opportunity to marry a person of the opposite sex in this life, a just God will provide them with ample opportunity to do so in the next. We can all live life in the full context of who we are, which is much broader than sexual attraction” (emphasis mine). Though as Christians, we disagree with the doctrine of the former statement, we can wholeheartedly agree with the truth of the latter.

For more, the Washington Post carries the AP’s report here.

A Royal Baby or a Royal Fetus?

by Anna Dorminey

December 6, 2012

I got up at 4 AM to watch the royal wedding last spring. I own a replica of Princess Diana’s, and now Duchess Catherine’s, engagement ring. Two weeks ago, I happily watched a documentary on Will and Kate that I’m pretty sure repeated no more than five cuts of footage for something like two hours. When I found out the Royal Couple was expecting a baby this week, I was so excited that you’d have thought Duchess Catherine was my best friend and had called to tell me personally.

I immediately turned to Twitter, where there were about five trending topics on the matter. I gleefully joined the throng tweeting things like “ROYAL BABYYYYYY!!!! I hope ABC covers the first sonogram!!”

The irony of the world’s (appropriate) joy didn’t strike me until later.

“Archbishop Cranmer” addresses the tension between the humanness of Duchess Catherine’s unborn child we acknowledge by our happiness (and use of the word “baby”) and our reproductive health elite’s insistence that, especially at such an early stage, the child is not a person or a baby:

His Grace would like to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the announcement that they are expecting their first baby. Girl or boy, he or she is destined to ascend the Throne and reign over the United Kingdom (should it remain united) and the Dominions overseas.

But His Grace is puzzled.

Everywhere he turns he reads about a Royal baby. Even The Guardian talks of the couple ‘expecting their first child’, despite the Duchess being in the ‘very early stages’ of pregnancy. We are told that the couple ‘are to be parents’, and that this ‘will be the Queen’s third great-grandchild’, and ‘a first grandchild for Prince Charles’.

And the child’s birthright is acknowledged: yes, he or she is ‘destined to wear the crown one day’; he or she ‘will become third in line to the throne’, which the Prime Minister described it as ‘absolutely wonderful news’. Even Ed Miliband tweeted: ‘Fantastic news for Kate, William and the country. A royal baby is something the whole nation will celebrate.’

[… ]Baby? Destiny? Parents? Great-grandchild? School? Even the Twitter hashtag is #RoyalBaby.

Surely such ‘pro-choice’ newspapers and journals (and people) should be talking about a bunch of pluripotent stem cells, an embryo or a foetus? For reports suggest that the Duchess is still in her first trimester, so this is not yet a baby; and certainly nothing with any kind of destiny. At this stage, surely, it is a non-person, just like the other 201,931 non-persons who last year were evacuated from wombs in England, Scotland and Wales.

Or are royal foetuses endowed with full humanity from the point of conception?

Downgrading American Fertility

by Anna Dorminey

December 5, 2012

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The annual number of births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 dropped 8% in theU.S.from 2007 to 2010 to 64 births per 1,000, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew center. TheU.S.birthrate peaked during the baby boom, at 122.7 in 1957.

Immigrant women, both legal and illegal, still have a higher birthrate than the U.S.population as a whole. Yet the rate for foreign-born women dropped 14% between 2007 and 2010, to 87.8 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, compared with a 6% decline for U.S.-born women, to 58.9 births. The birthrate plunged 19% for immigrants of Hispanic origin during that period; among Mexicans, the largest group among Hispanics, the rate plunged 23% (emphasis added).

The article goes on to note that the United States has seen a slowdown in Mexican immigration, and that, though immigrants comprise only 13 percent of the total population, they comprise a relatively large share of total number of children born, because immigrant women are more likely to be of childbearing age.

The authors also note that dips in the American economy are accompanied by dips in the birthrate, and as the economy begins to recover, so does the birthrate. However, if our economy is to sustain itself and grow, and “if a society is to continue, stable fertile marriage is necessary,” as Henry Potrykus and Patrick Fagan note in the Marriage and Religion Research Institute publication Marriage, Contraception and The Future of Western Peoples.

Ross Douthat writes of the drop in the birth rate:

The retreat from child rearing is, at some level, a symptom of late-modern exhaustion — a decadence that first arose in the West but now haunts rich societies around the globe. It’s a spirit that privileges the present over the future, chooses stagnation over innovation, prefers what already exists over what might be. It embraces the comforts and pleasures of modernity, while shrugging off the basic sacrifices that built our civilization in the first place.

Such decadence need not be permanent, but neither can it be undone by political willpower alone. It can only be reversed by the slow accumulation of individual choices, which is how all social and cultural recoveries are ultimately made.

Chinese study shows abortion increases breast cancer risk

by Anna Dorminey

November 27, 2012

Life News reports:

C. Yanhua of the First Peoples Hospital of Kunming in Yunnan province and his colleagues found the abortion-breast cancer association after comparing data from 263 cases of breast cancer and 457 controls without the disease. Their analysis covers the years 2009-2011 … In conclusion, in this study the estrogen related risk factors of breast cancer included woman who had longer menstrual cycle, older age of first live birth, never breastfeeding, nulliparity, and number of abortions more than one. Therefore, it is recommended to women with these risk factors perform breast cancer screening tests earlier and regularly, they said.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that U.S. abortions fell 5 percent during the recession and its aftermath in the biggest one-year decrease in at least a decade, perhaps because women are more careful to use birth control when times are tough, researchers say.

Does Contraception Reduce Abortion?

by Anna Dorminey

November 13, 2012

Libby Anne, of Love, Joy, Feminism, recently blogged about “How [She] Lost Faith in the ‘Pro-Life’ Movement.” Marc Barnes addresses Libby Anne’s statements in a three-part blog post series. I won’t speak to his first two posts, but the third, entitled “Does Contraception Reduce the Abortion Rate? (Rebuttal Part 3),” addresses the oft-repeated argument that if pro-lifers are unhappy about the number of abortions taking place in the United States, we should make sure condoms show up as an item on adolescents’ school supply lists and not complain about the HHS mandate that insurance plans cover contraception without copay.

Mr. Barnes covers a variety of arguments, including the apples-to-oranges nature of comparisons of Eastern and Western Europe’s contraception use/abortion rates, but here’s one reason he argues contraception may not actually reduce abortion:

As Guttmacher researcher Stanley Henshaw noted in his review Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, contraceptive users appear to have been more motivated to prevent births than were nonusers. The CDC has consistently reported that the majority of abortions are performed on women who were using contraception at the time of their last menstrual cycle, that is, at the time they conceived. If contraceptive users are more motivated to have abortions than non-contraceptive users, then it is not ridiculous to posit that the increased use of contraception in the USA was a major factor in the simultaneous increase in abortions…The use of contraception is the attempt to have sex while avoiding having children. To conceive a child despite using contraception means that that attempt has failed. If the attempt fails, then that newly created human life naturally represents a failure. The contraceptive mentality a mentality I believe can exist whether or not one uses specifically uses contraceptive devices while having sex carries over into pregnancy. If I want to avoid a child while having sex, chances are I will want to avoid a child when my partner becomes pregnant.

The author goes on to state that, of course, not all couples who use any form of contraception will go on to abort their child, should they conceive. I would argue this is particularly true among Evangelical Christians, many of whom have not been advised by their clergy to eschew contraception but most of whom oppose abortion. Regardless, Mr. Barness point stands: It may be that members of a society lulled into a false sense of security about its ability to have sex without consequences are more likely to abort than those not using contraception at all.