Lisa Carr: Eva Edl, Eva Zastrow, James Zastrow, and Paul Place had charges brought against them for being part of a peaceful protest on March 5, 2021. They gathered on the second floor of an office building in the hallway outside the Carafem Health Center Clinic. The group prayed, sang hymns, and urged women showing up to … Continue reading Civics: The First Amendment, Lawfare and abortion protests→
Harm Venhuizen “I continue to believe that having ‘we the people’ decide the profound moral issue of abortion is the only way to find a reasonable consensus that most people will accept,” Johnson said in a statement Wednesday. “One of the benefits of a one-time, single-issue referendum would be the education and discussion that would … Continue reading Abortion, life and politics→
Jim Nelles: Interestingly, Ginsburg had spoken about the case she wished had been heard by the Supreme Court, Struck v. Secretary of Defense. Ginsburg represented Captain Susan Struck, who became pregnant while serving in the Air Force in Viet Nam. The Air Force told her to either terminate the pregnancy or leave the Air Force. Struck … Continue reading Notes on abortion and human rights→
Emily Fowler: With the anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade just around the corner, Campus Reform reached out to student leaders of pro-life organizations across the country to see what the campus climate has been like since the landmark Dobbs decision was handed down. Three out of five students Campus Reform interviewed stated that they have experienced more vandalism and backlash since Roe was overturned … Continue reading Pro life vs Pro Abortion Speech→
Ross Douthat “You can’t insist that the immediate economic benefits of ending a pregnancy should be counted in Roe v. Wade’s favor, but any of the larger negative shifts in mating and marriage…””… and child rearing associated with abortion can’t be considered as part of the debate…. [Consider a] world clearly shadowed by the effects … Continue reading Considering all abortion costs→
Olivia McCormack Ryan Bomberger comes from a family of 15. He was adopted out of the foster-care system — along with 9 of his 12 siblings. Bomberger is staunchly antiabortion, in part because of the circumstances around his own conception, he said. “I am 100 percent antiabortion, 100 percent pro-life,” said Bomberger, a 51-year-old living … Continue reading Being adopted has shaped their views on abortion — in different ways→
Eugene Volokh: The student government president’s executive orderprovides, among other things, That it shall be prohibited for the Undergraduate Student Government Executive Branch to contract or expend funds to any individual, business, or organization which actively advocates to further limit by law access to reproductive healthcare, including, though not limited to, contraception and induced abortions. This … Continue reading UNC Chapel Hill Student Gov’t Cuts Off Funding & Contracting to Anyone Who “Advocates” for Limits on Abortion→
Janice Goldwater: In a 2016 analysis as part of the five-year Turnaway Study… UCSF researchers… found that one week after being denied an abortion due to a late-term pregnancy just 14 percent of 171 study participants reported plans to place the baby for adoption or considered it as an option. Only nine percent of those … Continue reading Abortion, Adoption and Parenthood→
Ann Althouse A key I use to understanding puzzles like this is: People do what they want to do. What have they done? Begin with the hypothesis that what they did is what they wanted to do. If they postured that they wanted to do something else, regard that as a con. Work from there. … Continue reading Civics: Andrew Yang abortion commentary on political rhetoric vs actions→
Collin Anderson: Roughly a decade before his death in 1996, tech titan David Packard issued a controversial directive to his children. Skyrocketing birth rates, the Hewlett-Packard cofounder wrote, could one day cause “utter chaos for humanity.” As a result, Packard asserted, his multibillion-dollar foundation must hold one priority above all others: population control. Packard—a Republican who … Continue reading The Packard Foundation, declining live births and the abortion pill→
Amrit Dhillon: An estimated 6.8 million fewer female births will be recorded across India by 2030 because of the persistent use of selective abortions, researchers estimate. Academics from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia projected the sex ratio at birth in 29 Indian states and union territories, covering almost the entire population, taking … Continue reading Selective abortion in India could lead to 6.8m fewer girls being born by 2030→
Patrick Hauf: The NEA is the largest teachers’ union in the U.S. with more than 3 million members. It collected nearly $400 million from American educators in 2018, according to federal labor filings. The union is also one of the most politically active in the country, spending $70 million on politics and lobbying in 2017 … Continue reading NEA passes resolution defending the ‘fundamental right to abortion’→
Harriett Sherwood: On Friday, the court of protection in London decided an abortion was in the best interests of the woman, who is in her 20s, and is 22 weeks pregnant. She has the mental capacity of a six- to nine-year-old child. Justice Nathalie Lieven, who made the original ruling, described it as “heartbreaking”, saying: … Continue reading Appeal court overturns forced abortion ruling→
Ross Douthat: The Thomas argument, common inside the pro-life movement but startling to many, is that the present “reproductive rights” regime may effectively extend older eugenic efforts to reduce populations deemed unfit. His dissent cited the eugenic inclinations of progressive icons like Margaret Sanger, while pointing out that today’s abortion rates are highest among populations … Continue reading Civics: Does anything link the eugenics of the past to abortion today?→
Carly Cassella : While no country has a perfectly even sex ratio, normally researchers would expect roughly 105 male births to every 100 female births. Compiling data from over 200 nations – including 10,835 observations, and 16,602 years of information – the authors noticed a shocking number of countries have strayed from this mark. “The … Continue reading There Are 23 Million ‘Missing’ Girls in The World Due to Sex-Selective Abortions→
Lemor Abrams: This week, Rocklin High School students are using social media to organize a pro-life walkout using the hashtag #life. “To honor all the lives of aborted babies pretty much. All the millions of aborted babies every year,” said organizer Brandon Gillespie. He says his history teacher inspired the idea. As thousands of students … Continue reading Student Planning Abortion Protest After School Shooting Walkout→
Snopes: The report does not suggest that, however. It suggests that nearly 100 percent of the 80 to 85 percent of people who take the test choose to abort their pregnancy. There are similar termination rates after fetal diagnoses of Down syndrome in other European countries. In Denmark, for example, the rate is about 98 … Continue reading Has Iceland Eliminated Down Syndrome Through Abortion?→
Chinese doctors have performed more than 330m abortions since the government implemented a controversial family planning policy 40 years ago, according to official data from the health ministry.
China’s one-child policy has been the subject of a heated debate about its economic consequences as the population ages. Forced abortions and sterilisations have also been criticised by human rights campaigners such as Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who sought refuge at the US embassy in Beijing last year.
China first introduced measures to limit the size of the population in 1971, encouraging couples to have fewer children. The one-child rule, with exceptions for ethnic minorities and some rural families, was implemented at the end of the decade.
Since 1971, doctors have performed 336m abortions and 196m sterilisations, the data reveal. They have also inserted 403m intrauterine devices, a normal birth control procedure in the west but one that local officials often force on women in China.
Veterinary and medical professionals in Wisconsin said Friday that they have been warned about a potentially alarming practice among the state’s rural youth: teenage girls ingesting livestock drugs to cheaply and discreetly end their unwanted pregnancies.
So far, the professionals in animal and human health and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction are treating the reports of girls inducing their own abortions with prostaglandins – drugs commonly used by cow breeders to regulate animals’ heat cycles – as rumors, because no cases have been officially confirmed by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
But Anna Anderson, the executive director of Care Net Pregnancy Center of Green County in Monroe, maintains that she has identified at least 10 girls ages 14 to 18 in a three-county area who admitted to taking some form of cow abortifacient in the past year.
Anderson said the girls told her they took it because they found it to be a cheap and easy way to end their pregnancies without their parents finding out.
At the American Veterinary Medical Association, Assistant Director Kimberly May said Friday that her organization first heard the rumor about the teenagers in mid-February from the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association. Since then, the American Animal Hospital Association has also posted an advisory about the issue on its Web site.
Injected properly in livestock, prostaglandins shorten a heat cycle so a female animal can be bred again, May said.
Russell Berman: The tragedy hardened Longo’s views on crime and abortion. “I could not vote for President Biden,” he said. Khanna sat quietly as Longo spoke. “One of the challenges we have as a country is we have a wrong stereotypical view of the Trump voter,” Khanna said to us after the conversation had moved … Continue reading K-12 Tax & $pending Climate: 2028 and local politics→
Jill Underly: “Wisconsin, everything is on the line. Our democracy and our civil rights. Our children’s future. Our character as a nation.” ——- Media commentary. ——- The Wisconsin DPI and our long term, disastrous reading results. Much more on Jill Underly.
Tarek Massed: Professors hear a great deal these days about how hard it is to get our students to listen to, much less to engage with, opinions they dislike. The problem, we are told, is that students are either “snowflakes” with fragile psyches or “authoritarians” who care more about their pet causes than about democratic … Continue reading Students Aren’t the Obstacle to Open Debate at Harvard→
Natalie Stechyson It’s something her own children won’t experience. Lancastle’s older brother and sister don’t have children and her husband is an only child. So Nicholas, 9, and Charlie, 7, don’t have any cousins at all — a growing trend as the decreasing fertility rate causes extended families to narrow over time, sociologists and demographers say. Worldwide, families … Continue reading Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?→
James Pethokoukis But there’s another kind of Peak Human, a moment whose occurrence and timing are far more foreseeable. If you’re a Millennial or a younger Gen Xer, you’ll probably see the start of a long-term decline in human population due to the global collapse in fertility. That’s something that’s never happened before with Homo … Continue reading Fewer and faster: Global fertility isn’t just declining, it’s collapsing→
Julia Love: On Friday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and its Pennsylvania chapter argued in a court filing that the investigative technique used in the case, known as a keyword search warrant, is dangerously broad and threatens to infringe on the privacy rights of innocent people. “Keyword search warrants … Continue reading Civics: Keyword Search Warrants→
Japan Times: The number of those that have reached Japan’s legal adult age fell by 60,000 from 2023 and accounted for 0.86% of Japan’s total population, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said Sunday. The year 2005, when the new adults were born, had seen the country’s total fertility rate — the average number … Continue reading Japan’s 18-year-olds at record-low 1.06 million on falling births→
Bishop Robert Barron: Last week, the presidents of three Ivy League universities—Harvard, MIT, and Penn—appeared before Congress to address the issue of anti-Semitism on their campuses, in the wake of the conflict between Hamas and the state of Israel. In their formal statements as well as in the conversation with the congressional committee members, they acknowledged the … Continue reading Ivy League Presidents and the Collapse of Moral Reasoning→
This article cites a claim that that opponents of abortion did not make historical arguments until the '80s. From Justice Rehnquist's 1973 dissent in Roe: "The fact that a majority of the States reflecting, after all the majority sentiment in those States, have had restrictions… — Rick Esenberg (@RickEsenberg) December 3, 2023
Mark Judge: In a couple of weeks, publisher Twelve Books will release A Hitch in Time: Reflections Ready for Reconsideration, a collection of essays by the late journalist Christopher Hitchens . I secured an early copy of the book. Hitchens’s writing is still sparkling and insightful, even though he died in 2011. Hitchens is still so bracing because, … Continue reading Christopher Hitchens and the collapse of journalism and critical thinking→
Michael Walsh: Social Security’s problems aren’t just its unrealistic economics, which posited starting from a hole and an ever-increasing work force paying taxes in order to support the generation ahead of it; the “trust fund” was always a polite fiction, which as you see is now being stealthily abandoned. But keeping Social Security solvent isn’t … Continue reading K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: declining parenthood and the tax base→
Robin Hanson: Re fertility decline, yes, as the main change in the last half century is the number of women who become moms, not the number of kids per mom, all we need is a larger fraction of women having kids. Yes, as that used to happen, it must still be feasible. Yes, a big … Continue reading Fertility→
Colleen Farabaugh: A conservative Harvard University professor described his fight against cancellation by his peers after he publicly came out against the Supreme Court’s redefining of marriage. Harvard School of Public Health Professor Tyler VanderWeele detailed the saga in a nine-page article titled “Moral Controversies and academic public health; notes on navigating and surviving academic freedom challenges.” … Continue reading Academic Freedom and the Harvard Hedge Fund→
Zvi Mowshowitz The world is slowly waking up to the fertility crisis. There is more acknowledgement of the problem, and there is more talk of potential practical solutions. I do not believe the topic is a realistic target for Balsa Policy Institute, but I will continue to keep an eye on the ball and issue … Continue reading The Fertility Crisis→
Diana Fleischman, Ives Parr, Jonathan Anomaly, and Laurent Tellier: This is where a new technology comes in: preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic disorders (PGT-P) or polygenic screening, which may inform which embryo parents choose and who is born. Because embryo choice is so consequential, polygenic screening—like other, new reproductive technologies before it—attracts more than its … Continue reading Embryo Selection→
Robin Hanson: World population is widely projected to peak around 2050-90 at roughly 9-11B, with ~40% living in Africa. World population would then decline. But how long, and how far? The median respondent in my Twitter polls expects a population revival ~2150, and only 15% see population falling below 2B. So most expect this to be a mild and temporary problem. But … Continue reading 16 Fertility Scenarios→
Jessica Grose: The number of school-age children in America is declining. At least one reason is the fallingbirthrate after the Great Recession. And declining university enrollment based on a lower school-age population — which has been described as a “demographic cliff” — is something that some colleges are already grappling with. K-12 public school systems … Continue reading Notes on Declining Student Population→
Robert George: After the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization early last summer, Princeton University’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies issued a statementfiercely condemning the ruling. The director stated that the program stood “in solidarity” with the people whose rights had been allegedly stripped away by … Continue reading Ideology and higher education→
David Blaska: The UW-Madison branch of Workers Strike Back met here late last month and plastered the campus with their signage. Their pitch is a “demand” for a yearly salary of $50,000. These are graduate degree students who help their professors grade papers, lead classes, and work at the lab. UW-Madison’s 5,400 graduate research and … Continue reading UW-Madison Grad student and union efforts→
Jonathan Turley It is obvious that the display is not just triggering for Rodríguez’s students given the professor’s unhinged response. It is all part of an anti-free speech movement that seeks to treat speech as harmful. Once this foundation is laid, any speech can then be curtailed or denied for the protection of others. This … Continue reading Campus free speech censorship: Hunter College edition→
Stephen Council; A group of contracted YouTube workers based in Austin, Texas, voted to ratify a bargaining unit Wednesday afternoon, in an election historic for creating a union to bargain with a tech company and its contractor together as joint employers. The unionization vote passed 41-0. The National Labor Relations Board representative counting the ballots … Continue reading Google contractors vote to unionize in historic landslide election→
Hyerim Bianca Nam: This faith is shared, it seems, by both ends of the ideological spectrum. One of the angriest moments I’ve had at Yale was last year’s Bulldog Days, when I saw a table on cross campus that was manned by members of a pro-life club. Grouped around the table, which was spread with … Continue reading Advocating censorship at Yale→
Amy Kazmin and Chris Giles: “It’s a demographic crisis — we are going to lose a lot of people in the future,” Testa said, adding that the forecast assumed a recovery in fertility rates to 1.5 children per woman. “It’s a pretty rapid change.” If the fertility rate failed to rebound and instead stayed at … Continue reading Italian births drop to lowest level since country’s unification→
Dhruv Mehrotra The outlier cases include custom summonses that sought records from a youth soccer league in Texas; surveillance video from a major abortion provider in Illinois; student records from an elementary school in Georgia; health records from a major state university’s student health services; data from three boards of elections or election departments; and … Continue reading Taxpayer Supported ICE data mining→
Tax Prof summary Stanford Law School’s chapter of the Federalist Society earlier this month invited Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan to speak on campus. Student groups that vehemently opposed Judge Duncan’s prior advocacy and judicial decisions regarding same-sex marriage, immigration, trans people, abortion and other issues showed up to protest. Some protesters … Continue reading DIE, Free Speech and the Stanford Law School→
Paul Joseph Watson: Google’s Bard AI program mimics ChatGPT in that it is riddled with political bias, refusing to comment on Donald Trump or the evils of abortion, while effusively praising Joe Biden and the benefits of abortion. The company released its Bard chatbot to users in both the UK and US yesterday as part … Continue reading Political Bias and Google’s bots→
Guillaume Blanc : According to Alfred Sauvy, the French demographer who coined the term ‘third world’, in 1962, the decline in fertility is ‘the most important fact of the history of France’. France was eclipsed as Europe’s only real superpower by the relative growth of its rivals, most importantly England and Germany, in the nineteenth … Continue reading France’s baby bust→
Kayla Huyhn: A majority of University of Wisconsin System students don’t feel free to share their opinions about controversial topics or are unwilling to consider views they disagree with, according to results released Wednesday from a survey that has stirred controversy across the 13 campuses. Initial pushback led the System to postpone the first iteration of the survey last … Continue reading Self Censorship on University of Wisconsin Campuses→
Wall Street Journal: The parental revolt even spread to Minnesota despite opposition from teachers union. Denise Specht, the president of the teacher’s union Education Minnesota, claimed in September that its “political program has been successful between 80 and 90 percent of the time when our locals make endorsements in school board races and carry out an … Continue reading Challenges to union control of local school governance were often successful.→
Robin Keller: After the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, global law firm Hogan Lovells organized an online conference call for female employees. As a retired equity partner still actively serving clients, I was invited to participate in what was billed as a “safe space” for women at the … Continue reading The global law firm fired me for defending the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.→
Joanne Jacobs: Naomi Schaefer Riley hears an “anti-adoption drumbeat” from the media. “In the wake of the Dobbs decision, the Left wants to make sure that no one thinks adoption is preferable to abortion,” she writes. In fiscal 2021, 114,000 children in foster care were waiting for adoptive parents, according to federal data. Only 54,200 … Continue reading “Anti-adoption drumbeat” leaves kids in foster care→
Kevin DeYoung True, human beings are reproducing—but in most countries, not fast enough to replace themselves. Measuring total fertility rate (TFR) is not an exact science, so the numbers vary from source to source, but the trends are undeniable. Outside of Africa, which is home to forty-one of the fifty most fertile nations, the planet … Continue reading “The meek will inherit the earth, especially those humble enough to raise children”→
Based on current fertility rates and age structures, here are the largest declines in population expected by the UN from 2022 to 2100: 🇰🇷 South Korea –53% 🇺🇦 Ukraine –49% 🇨🇳 China –46% 🇨🇺 Cuba –42% 🇵🇱 Poland –42% 🇯🇵 Japan –41% 🇬🇷 Greece –39% 🇮🇹 Italy –38% 🇹🇭 Thailand –38% — Edouard Mathieu (@redouad) … Continue reading K-12 tax & spending climate: declining live birth rates→
Mark Joseph Stern: Khiara Bridges remembers the exact moment she lost faith in the Supreme Court. At first, at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, Bridges—a professor who now teaches at UC–Berkeley School of Law—held out hope that the court might be “this great protector of individual civil liberties right when we desperately needed it … Continue reading The Supreme Court Is Blowing Up Law School, Too→
Edward Luce: Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article … Continue reading America’s indifference to its death crisis→
John McGinnis: What differentiates a simple democracy from a republic is the complex system of checks and balances that the latter employs to promote both liberty and stability. In the federal American Republic, authorities are divided vertically between the states and the national government. Powers are also separated among the President, Congress. and federal Judiciary. The … Continue reading Civics: A discussion of Checks & Balances→
Andrew Lautz: Public reporting indicates President Biden may soon announce executive action canceling federal student loan debt for a large set of borrowers. Though parameters of the student debt cancellation have yet to be announced, the Biden administration may cancel $10,000 of debt per borrower for borrowers making $125,000 in income per year or less. Based … Continue reading Cost of Student Debt Cancelation Could Average $2,000 Per Taxpayer→
Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox: We are entering an unanticipated reality—an era of slow population growth and, increasingly, demographic decline that will shape our future in profound and unpredictable ways. Globally, last year’s total population growth was the smallest in a half-century, and by 2050, some 61 countries are expected to see population declines while the world’s … Continue reading We need to consider ways to reverse or at least slow rapid depopulation→
Raquel Maria Dillon: Concerns over the role of technology in such prosecutions have ratcheted up in recent days, especially after it was revealed that Facebook had handed over private messages between a young woman and her mother in Nebraska to local law enforcement agencies that were investigating the death of a fetus. In-q-tel: the CIA … Continue reading Google workers publicize concerns over search activity history (!)→
Madeline Kearns: It is no coincidence that states with the greatest respect for parental rights have the least interventionist approaches to sex education. Florida, for instance, has no requirement for sex education but does require its health education in grades six through twelve to emphasize “awareness of the benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected … Continue reading Parental rights demand parental responsibilities→
Ann Althouse: Harris is obviously relying on that statement Ginsburg once made that we’d have been better off if the abortion question had been dealt with through the political process.* So why would she be laughing at him? The views are basically the same. Of course, when she got on the Court, she upheld the … Continue reading Civics: Laughing in the grave→
Christopher Rufo: According to the district, the gender binary has created an unjust society that distributes “heterosexual and cisgender privilege,” the sexual analog to the concept of “white privilege.” In the presentation, administrators explain that “a heterosexual/cisgender person automatically receives” this privilege, which “benefits members of dominant groups at the expense of members of target … Continue reading The Dismantlers→
NBC News: A major set of red flags in the poll for Democrats and teacher unions was a series of questions that look like they were ripped from DeSantis’s Friday speech on “critical race theory” and teaching kids about sexuality and gender identity. While the survey didn’t mention DeSantis by name, it tested education messages … Continue reading DeSantis’ education message is winning in battleground states, teacher union poll finds→
Whatever one thinks of the legal rationale on which Dobbs was based, the entire point, and result, was the Supreme Court effectively stripped itself of jurisdiction over abortion, shifting it to the states. This letter is bizarre. This is what conservatives long demanded: https://t.co/1KCl6MFCVU — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 15, 2022
Ann Althouse notes: As the podcast goes on, Kramer uses the term “popular constitutionalism,” which has to do with judging “by what resonates with us, what makes sense, what kind of society do we want to have” and “not just blindly following popular desires.” What does that mean? What’s the difference between “popular desires” and … Continue reading Civics: You can’t beat something with nothing.→
Mike Antonucci: I provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of every National Education Association Representative Assembly from 1998 — the year of the failed merger attempt with AFT — through 2016. NEA denied me a press credential thereafter due to my partnership with The 74, which they said “does not meet journalistic standards as a credible news outlet.” … Continue reading Notes on the 2022 NEA convention; “enemies list”→
Eugene Volokh: So the rule seems clear: Content-neutral bans on residential picketing are constitutionally permissible. And that would apply whether the residence is that of an abortion provider or that of a Justice who ruled that the Constitution doesn’t secure abortion rights. Perhaps Justices Brennan and Marshall (and possibly Stevens, though his position in Frisby was more … Continue reading Civics: picketing rights→
Pamela Paul: But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes. As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word “women” has become verboten. Previously a commonly … Continue reading The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count→
David Lat: The nation’s capital is also the latest front in the law-school culture wars. Two law schools in D.C., American University Washington College of Law and the George Washington University Law School, have experienced free speech and cancel culture controversies in the past week. Here’s what’s going at American University (“AU”), per Karen Sloan … Continue reading Free Speech And Cancel Culture at the DC area law schools→
Brendan O’Neill: We shouldn’t be surprised. When it comes to political violence, there’s always an extraordinary double standard. So when then Democratic congresswoman Gabby Giffords was targeted in a mass shooting in Tucson in 2011, armies of commentators pinned the blame on Sarah Palin and other right-wingers who engage in heated political rhetoric. Yet when … Continue reading Civics: Legacy Media, the political class and “the narrative”→
Rachel K. Jones, Jesse Philbin, Marielle Kirstein, Elizabeth Nash, Kimberley Lufkin: According to new findings from Guttmacher’s latest Abortion Provider Census—the most comprehensive data collection effort on abortion provision in the United States—there were 8% more abortions in 2020 than in 2017. Pam Belluck: The uptick began in 2017, and as of 2020, one in … Continue reading Speaking of declining Madison K-12 enrollment & Eugenics→
David Blaska: If you doubt that the Woke Wobblies have taken over Madison’s public schools, we submit the following: School board president Ali Muldrow and immediate past member Ananda Mirilli are accusing Ismael Ozanne, a black man, of racism most foul. They want him to resign (!!!) because police arrested Freedom Inc. spokesperson Jessica Williams … Continue reading Race and the Taxpayer Funded Madison School District→
Andrew Sullivan: The premise here is that all women support abortion rights. But there is no serious gender gap on this question. In fact, a majority of “pro-lifers” are women, not men. So Harris is effectively saying: how dare women be allowed a voice in this debate? Join the Dish mailing list Within minutes of the SCOTUS leak, … Continue reading Notes on bullying vs civic engagement→
Niki Griswold: Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that Texas would consider challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to offer free public education to all children, including those of undocumented immigrants. “Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program, in a case called Plyler versus Doe,” … Continue reading Litigation on spending to educate undocumented immigrants→
Robert Zimmerman: The new dark age of silencing: David Anderson, the president of St. Olaf College in Minnesota, has removed the director of the school’s Institute for Freedom & Community, Edmund Santurri, because Santurri apparently encouraged too much free speech by inviting a wide range of speakers to lecture at the institute. The lecture that appeared to … Continue reading Civics: Free Speech and St Olaf→
Michael C. Bender: Democrat Jennifer Loughran spent the pandemic’s early days sewing face masks for neighbors. Last month, as a newly elected school-board member, she voted to lift the district’s mask mandate. That came four months after she voted for the state’s Republican candidate for governor. After a monthslong political identity crisis, Ms. Loughran decided … Continue reading School Reopening Mess Drives Frustrated Parents Toward GOP→
Michael Bender: Democrat Jennifer Loughran spent the pandemic’s early days sewing face masks for neighbors. Last month, as a newly elected school-board member, she voted to lift the district’s mask mandate. That came four months after she voted for the state’s Republican candidate for governor. After a monthslong political identity crisis, Ms. Loughran decided her opposition … Continue reading ‘So disillusioned”: Mandates, Parents, Students and K-12 Governance→
Tanya Lewis: Arnstein Aassve, a professor of social and political sciences at Bocconi University in Italy, and his colleagues looked at birth rates in 22 high-income countries, including the U.S., from 2016 through the beginning of 2021. They found that seven of these countries had statistically significant declines in birth rates in the final months … Continue reading The Pandemic Caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom→
Ariel Dorfman: According to Eric Berkowitz’s Dangerous Ideas, the first public book burning in recorded history likely occurred in 430 BCE. Because the Sophist philosopher Protagoras questioned the existence of the gods, who had inflicted defeats in war and a devastating pestilence on Athens, his fellow citizens wanted to appease them by incinerating his sacrilegious writings. Two … Continue reading The Futility of Censorship→
Zeina Amhaz: In the US, one in eight couples, or 6.7 million peoplestruggle to conceive. A quick Twitter search of “IVF” will return scores of women sharing heartbreaking stories of failed IVF rounds and crushing miscarriages, like Breanna. Each year, the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) increases 5-10%. Considering that our only real job, biologically, is … Continue reading Infertility: A Lifestyle Disease? A deep dive on causes and treatment of infertility→
Reuters: China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit to try to avoid the economic risks from a rapidly aging population, but the high cost of urban living has deterred couples from having more children. The 2021 rate of 7.52 births per 1,000 people was the lowest since 1949, … Continue reading China’s birth rate drops to record low in 2021→
Liyun Qi: When China put in place its one-child policy four decades ago, policy makers said they would simply switch gears if births dropped too much. That has turned out to be not so easy. “In 30 years, the current problem of especially dreadful population growth may be alleviated and then [we can] adopt different … Continue reading China Is Haunted by Its One-Child Policy as It Tries to Encourage Couples to Conceive→
Rhythma Kaul and Anonna Dutt: India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR), or the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime, has declined from 2.2 to 2 while the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased from 54% to 67%, according data from the National Family Health Survey-5. The union health ministry released data for … Continue reading India’s fertility rate drops below 2.1, contraceptive prevalence up: NFHS→
Tunku Varadarajan: What’s the most important amendment to the U.S. Constitution? The First, which guarantees the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly? If you favor gun rights, perhaps the Second? Criminal-defense lawyers might be inclined to invoke the Fifth. Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick make a case for an amendment that isn’t even in the … Continue reading The Amendment That Remade America→
Nicole Ault: The American Civil Liberties Union has apologized for excluding the word “woman” from a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotation in a tweet posted Sept. 18: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity,” as the organization rendered the statement. ACLU executive director … Continue reading The ACLU Decides ‘Woman’ Is a Bad Word→
Joel Kotkin: For millennia the family has stood as the central institution of society—often changing, but always essential. But across the world, from China to North America, and particularly in Europe, family ties are weakening, with the potential to undermine one of the last few precious bits of privacy and intimacy. Margaret Mead once said, “no … Continue reading K-12 Tax & Spending climate: “the fading family”→