Author: Carter Dillard

World Population Day: Two Activists Speak Out for Fair Family Reforms

Jessica Campos and Prof. Delcianna Winders are champions for animals, working hard to protect them from abuse, and exploitation, in a variety of ways.

But they know we lose that battle if we do not go upstream, and deal with the way unsustainable and inequitable family systems are driving animal suffering and death, and leaving open the door for continued attacks on women by men that would force them to have children.

Per Jessica:

“The decision of not having kids, for me, was set in my early 20s because of overpopulation. I thought – why bring more kids? There are too many already needing homes. I also agree with the Taking Animal Rights Seriously article. It’s not fair that animals have to be killed mercilessly just for consumption. Low population is good for the environment and also for traffic congestion. There’s a lot of benefits that I see as a whole in not having kids.”

And Delcianna said this:

“It’s time we tackle the taboo topic of procreative ethics. Given the deeply troubling history of eugenics, the subject is fraught and may seem best avoided. But evading it denies millions of women access to basic family planning, exacerbating the climate crisis, global inequality, and more. For the sake of humans, animals, and the environment, we must grapple with procreative ethics and work toward just, rights-centered, and sustainable family planning policies.”

TAKE ACTION:

There are dozens of ways to change family policies and bend the arc of who we are becoming towards justice. Act now.

Be effective.

July 11, 2022
Whatever You Care About, Maximize Impact Through Family Reforms

Care about children? Improve the conditions in which they are born. That has the biggest impact on their lives.

Care about animals? Leave room for them to rebuild and enjoy their own communities. That is how you honor their rights.

Care about the environment? Restore biodiverse nonhuman nature. That creates the best ecologies for humans and nonhuman alike.

Care about freedom? Make sure the people with whom you share the world are people born and raised to participate in liberating democracies, rather than top-down systems of coercion/incentive. There is no way to be really free without this.

Care about good parenting and happy families? Make sure families are planned and ready. That move pays off.

Care about equality? Give kids a fair start in life. That is how to have the biggest impact.

July 8, 2022
World Population Day Letter to Warren Buffett: Please Give to Kids for This Reason.

Please Fund Children’s Bonds Because Children Deserve Them

Dear Warren,

Fair Start Movement’s mission is to replace parent-centric subjective family planning systems with a child-centric model that ensures children are born and raised in conditions consistent – minimally – with the Children’s Rights Convention. Thank you for being a leader in the efforts to assure family planning needs are being met worldwide.

Given recent discussions of your possibly funding a world children’s savings bank, if these reports are true, we urge one simple guideline for such a plan. We urge that the gift recognize that the wealth of many was built on a system of unsustainable growth, per one Nobel Laurate, that included billions of persons having and raising children in conditions that did not satisfy the standards children and their parents deserve, the standards eventually codified in the Children’s Rights Convention. That explosive and unsustainable growth – at increasing cost to children as the climate worsens – enabled the wealth. Because that wealth was produced under a system that externalized its costs, disadvantaged children have moral and legal claim to part of the wealth as a form of restorative justice.

If your plans are to give as reported, please say it is because the children are entitled to it, and as part of a fair system of ecosocial family planning, one which actually complies with the requirements of the international human rights regime.

A secondary guideline would structure the investment in the most effective way possible, setting aside part as Fair Start family planning incentives/entitlements/reparations, but the first guideline we urge is the most important.

Without this change, we risk a future where the system by which we made our wealth does more harm to future generations than our philanthropy can do to help them.

Thanks for considering, and for your work to date.

The Team at Fair Start Movement

July 7, 2022
The Fair Start Board Member Marches for Reproductive Rights

Fair Start board member Seeta Begui recently marched for reproductive rights in Florida. Go Seeta!

Check out the photos below:

Many have chosen to remain childfree because of the impact that creating more people puts on animals raised for food, wildlife, the environment, and concern for the world that will be left to the next generation. The ability to choose has now been significantly limited, and for many, eliminated entirely. But we can push back.

Let’s take a clear position on the right to plan families as being instrumental to animal and environmental advocacy, and to mutual liberation. Planning is a human right. Help us improve and protect it.

TAKE ACTION: There are dozens of ways to make reproductive rights the centerpiece of freedom and democracy, including elevating every child’s right to a Fair Start in life.

Learn more here!

July 6, 2022
The Intersection of Liberty for Humans and Non-Human Animals

We’re reflecting on this July 4th. I’m finding it difficult to celebrate this year as a fundamental liberty has been stripped from half of Americans – autonomy over our bodies. This move has created space for new attacks on women’s autonomy. In more ways than one, the Roe/Dobbs decision narrows the distance in the fights for human rights and animal rights.

The parallels start with the matter of consent over our own physical being, and how that consent aligns with ecocentrism and true nonhuman autonomy.

The decision also has massive repercussions for the non-human world. Many have chosen to remain childfree because of the impact that creating more people puts on animals raised for food, wildlife, the environment, and concern for the world that will be left to the next generation. The ability to choose has now been significantly limited, and for many, eliminated entirely. But we can push back. Our policy advisor, Carter Dillard was again published (with a great assist from GreenFire Law) in The Hill this week on this topic: State abortion bans create new governmental obligations for children.

My fellow animal advocates, I know that you, more than anyone else, grasp the urgency of large scale change in our food systems and beyond. We can’t remain safely in our silos while these intersecting crises hurdle towards an ever-increasingly harmful reality for the most vulnerable, across species.

I urge you, as the courageous game changers that you are, to take a clear position on the right to plan families as being instrumental to animal and environmental advocacy, and to mutual liberation. Planning is a human right.

Help us improve and protect it.

We will be presenting on these issues at the Canadian Animal Law Conference 2022 – Animal Rights Toronto. Hope you can join us.

July 5, 2022
First Human Right – A Fair Start

Human rights override the authority of governments, and the first human right is the right to an ecosocial Fair Start in life. Today the Supreme Court made clear the United States government will not protect our right to be free from the climate crisis, or our children’s right to nature. Regardless those rights give us an overriding right to directly target the people who fundamentally violated them – people like the Raymond family.

The American Revolution was born on the idea of defeating tyranny. This is the same thing. This is a matter of defending ourselves and others.

Are we going to let men like Lee Raymond hurt our children while the government does nothing? Brave people will not.

Take action: Urge Lee Raymond to pay what he and his family owe in the form of family planning reparations that will most effectively offset the harms he and others have caused future generations.

June 30, 2022

The End of Roe: Pursuing Comprehensive Justice

Line graph comparing average family wealth by race/ethnicity from 1963–2016. White families’ wealth rises steeply, far surpassing Black and Hispanic families, showing large racial wealth gaps widening over time.

In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v Wade on June 24, 2022. This is a pivot point and a wake-up call that it is past time to address the injustice set in place by this ruling. It allows children to be born poor, and others rich. Some begin life in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, while others begin with guaranteed health and safety,

We can oppose the forces that killed Roe for what it does to women, but also because of what it does to children, equality, our environment, and participatory democracy.

It’s a pivot point because no government is legitimate, and we are under no obligation to follow its rules, if that government pursues policies that do not ensure the equal empowerment of its citizens, ensuring they comprise town halls instead of filling shopping malls. Texas fails this test.

As the Fair Start Movement will argue in court next month, the forces of justice must restore and create equal and just societies. Huge swaths of people have been stripped of fundamental rights with this ruling. As unwanted children are forced onto this earth by indifferent government officials, their parents will demand, and if necessary, take their dues from the concentrations of wealth and power responsible for this travesty.

A decent proportion of the next generation will be born through force, not consent. The child has no say in the matter, and his mother has none at all. Healthy communities and families grow when every individual has a say in what’s good for the whole. Consent is the key. This generation could grow up without proper education, and in many instances, without proper care and nurturing from a family that wasn’t prepared to have them. They will see governance as somebody else’s problem – from the shopping mall, not the town hall.

We will level the playing field for all kids ecosocially because justice demands a Fair Start in life. This decision has swept away any hope for our ideals in the near term. That’s why this fight is more important than ever.

Here’s what Brooke Morales, one emerging leader in the fight against oppression had to say:

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade harms women, children, and society. It allows a woman’s right to choose to be revoked, it does not guarantee children a fair start in life, and it exacerbates societal crises we face today. To ensure that children are born into equitable conditions, action must be taken. We cannot allow children to be forcibly subjected to the poverty cycle or environmental injustices. The decision to have children must be more carefully addressed, with every involved party taken into account.”

– Brooke Morales, Fair Start Movement

Why Does Family Planning Reform Enable Redistribution of Wealth? It’s About Baselines.

If you believe in freedom, it’s impossible for a group of people to just define what the world should look like for others. The baseline, or what the world should look like, is instead itself a group of relatively self-determining – or free – people. And that requires limiting the power each one of us has over one another by ensuring a restored, natural and biodiverse environment.

It requires all children to be empowered through things like a fair start in life that ensures true equality of opportunities in life (not the world today where the rich control the lives of the poor), as well as more functional democracies where each voice can actually be heard. Read more.

June 26, 2022

Roundup: Fact-Checking the Atlantic, Ending Child Torture, Roe, and Taking Climate Reparations
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- The Atlantic and other influential media often run articles and opinions that portray themselves as concerned about environmental degradation. But if you look at their coverage of family planning norms, the influential brand has done nothing to promote restorative or equitable family planning that actually protects nature and – upstream – is instead pushing growth. That sort of reporting fundamentally exacerbated the climate crisis.
- Almost five children die each day in the United States because of child abuse, and Florida is one of the worst offenders when it comes to failing children. This is a recent case of parents starving their children there. Why does this happen, at base? We have a family planning system that pushes people to have kids to grow the economy, which disproportionately benefits the wealthy. We can reverse that. Urge Florida Senator Lauren Book to take up Fair Start orders that prevent child abuse before it happens, and to become a model for the nation.
Be effective.
- The Supreme Court is on the verge of forcing women to have children they don’t want. Let’s push back hard and rally here when the decision comes down. Fair Start will also be filing litigation to defend women’s rights.
- Rich nations are refusing to pay for the harm they caused poor nations through systems that created the climate crisis. But nations and the rich families they are protecting have a baseline problem. They cannot assign and defend property rights while simultaneously violating the right of all to be free. We have the right to take back the wealth and use it to offset the harms, through things like equitable family planning, by all means effective. Help us target the Raymond family, one of the worst violators, to pay what they owe. Contact Ashley@FairStartMovement.org.
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June 17, 2022
The Trump Coup: How to Actually Protect Democracy

As evidence mounts that the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol was an orchestrated attempt to subvert democracy, one obvious question is how to reverse whatever process made Trump’s attempt possible. At base, what made it possible was an extreme concentration of wealth and power, combined with a large group of supporters who were susceptible to his influence.

No solution is sufficient if it does not address that problem, by fundamentally limiting and decentralizing power into future generations through Fair Start wealth transfers/empowerment. Other fixes just move the problem around. The real fix is to take down pyramidic power schemes, the kind that created Trump.

TAKE ACTION: Real democracy is about empowering people, bottom up. The long run fix for the degrading of our democracies is a universal family planning system that builds town halls, not Trump-owned shopping malls. Urge the United Nations to act, then lawfully engage a wealthy family with Fair Start demands and let us tell your story.

June 16, 2022