Fair Start Movement

Category: Corporate & Political Accountability

  • For Thoughtful Conservatives: Question Tucker Carlson on Family Planning

    For Thoughtful Conservatives: Question Tucker Carlson on Family Planning

    Tucker Carlson has been on a rampage, calling Alexandra Ocasio Cortez a “moron” for raising the issue of family planning as a response to climate change. That tirade raises serious questions about Tucker’s values, questions he should answer:

    1. Is he really denying that family planning, which has been shown to have the greatest impact in mitigating the threat of climate change, is off topic? Should we ignore effective solutions, even when the most credible sources view climate change as threat to national security?
    2. Is he suggesting that we shouldn’t consider the wellbeing of future generations when coming up with family planning policies, and hold people to certain standards and responsibilities when becoming parents? Should others have to pay for irresponsible family planning and parenting?
    3. How do we ensure functional democracies without ensuring better family planning, and the sort of responsible parenting that creates responsible citizens? Or does how we are raised, and who we become, not matter?

    Urge Tucker @TuckerCarlson to leave the insults aside and defend American values. Urge him to answer these simple questions.

  • Sen. Mike Lee is a Threat to National Security: Take Action

    Sen. Mike Lee is a Threat to National Security: Take Action

    Senator Mike Lee is getting attention for his solution to climate change: to just have more kids.

    Senator Lee is suggesting that Americans arbitrarily have larger families. He is actually promoting exacerbating climate change, and all the risks of a larger human population in a less hospitable future environment. Having a larger family is the most effective way to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Given that climate change is a threat to the security of the United States, we are wondering who – exactly – Sen. Lee represents? 

    Does he tell his three children that he’s for worsening the climate change that will reduce the quality of their lives? What is he doing to ensure proper care for the thousands of children wallowing in failing foster care systems around the country, including in Sen. Lee’s home state of Utah? Should we simply ignore them and just have more kids?

    Why should we follow the laws made by someone who is a threat to our future? 

    Take action: Call Sen. Lee and ask him to retract his comments and promote Fair Start family planning.

  • Ask Florida Senator Lauren Book to Prevent Child Abuse With SB90

    Ask Florida Senator Lauren Book to Prevent Child Abuse With SB90

    This week marks the beginning of Florida’s 2019 Legislative Session. Legislators have until May 3 – just 60 days – to consider thousands of bills and decide on what issues are most important to Floridians. Having Kids applauds Florida Senator Lauren Book for her commitment to protecting Florida’s children from abuse and rehabilitating those who have suffered through legislative efforts and her work with Lauren’s Kids.

    Most recently, Senator Book introduced Senate Bill (“SB”) 90. This bill would establish “early childhood court programs” to “serve the needs of infants and toddlers in dependency court.” Dependency courts hear cases about children who are abused or neglected, and, in Florida, this number is staggering. In 2016 alone, nearly 42,000 children were abused or neglected in the
    State of Florida (and these are just reported cases). (We also recently asked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to develop policies, and encourage legislation, that enables judges to issue Fair Start Orders. Read our letter to him here.)

    SB 90 would serve a tremendously important need – to have the justice system work to “restructure the way the community responds to the needs of maltreated children” through having court systems that employ a multidisciplinary approach to help heal maltreated children (both mentally and physically) and implements steps to ensure the rebuilding of the child-parent relationship.

    Having Kids commends Senator Book for introducing legislation that puts the needs of children and their well-being as a top priority. However, we encourage Senator Book to take her important bill one step farther and include Fair Start Order language as an additional part of this bill. Such legislation would allow judges, in cases of truly egregious child abuse, to issue non-coercive orders preventing abusive and neglectful parents from having additional children for limited time periods like during the period of probation. These orders, in the context of early childhood court programs, would allow parents and their healing children to focus on necessary rehabilitative steps to repair the child-parent relationship and protect future children. Shouldn’t we work to prevent abuse rather than simply react to it? Fair Start orders do just that.

    If you live in Florida, please call or send a brief message to Senator Book thanking her for her tireless work on behalf of children and asking her to consider adding Fair Start Order language to SB 90. Reach her at book.lauren@flsenate.gov
    or (850) 487-5032.

  • Tell Ivanka to Stop Throwing Women Under the Bus

    Tell Ivanka to Stop Throwing Women Under the Bus

    Ivanka Trump and her three kids were all born wealthy, with privileges in life they did not earn, and a massive head start over people who will never be able to catch up. She and her kids enjoy such advantage in part, because of the tax, family planning and economic policies that enable the rich to become richer while the middle class shrinks.

    Meanwhile, Ivanka and her husband personally lobbied to reducing access to abortion. More importantly, as the President’s Senior Advisor, she had a hand in the sweeping and harmful Title X changes. The changes implemented in February shifted federal funding from organizations that provide birth control, STD screenings and preventative health exams to faith-based and pregnancy crisis centers and abstinence only education.

    family planning
    Results of access to long-acting reversible contraceptive in Colorado. Photo: LARC4CO

    The ability to control the timing and number of children is one of the most critical factors in determining a woman’s empowerment, independence and success. Research indicates that women who delay motherhood and have smaller families are significantly better off economically than their peers who started families at the average age. Smaller families tend to result in a more equal distribution of parental responsibility. Women who have fewer children also tend to have greater decision making power in the household, and are less likely to be drowned out by a spouse or relatives.

    Ivanka is instead advancing policies that ensure a steady stream of poor future laborers, consumers, and taxpayers. Need proof? While she purports to be a champion of women, she recently expressed opposition to a minimum wage increase, stating:

    “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get, so I think this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want.”

    That increase would raise their standard of living and ability for mothers to give kids a fair start. People like her – who live on investments rather than hard work, rely on a future underclass of workers to support her and her family. They feed off the growth that poor family planning creates.

    Infographic with two women: one 15–19 years old, one 20–24. Between 2009–2017, birth and abortion rates dropped 59%/60% for teens, and 35%/41% for young women; 51,427 women benefitted since 2008.
    Photo: LARC4CO

    But there are efforts to counter these regressive policies. Having Kids is part of a coalition of groups in Colorado, LARC4CO, that are pushing for affordable access to effective contraception and other reproductive health services for all women. We just re-upped. Read two key fact sheets about the coalition’s work here and here.

    TAKE ACTION: Tell Ivanka to act like the champion for women she claimed to be and advocate for universal access to family planning services to empower women and give every child a fair start in life. Tweet her at @IvankaTrump.

  • Elizabeth Warren Proposes Free Child Care. But Will It Increase Births?

    Elizabeth Warren Proposes Free Child Care. But Will It Increase Births?

    Presidential Candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren recently unveiled a plan for Universal Child Care and Early Learning. The proposal would shift resources from the mega-wealthy to fund the effort. But some have asked if it would encourage people to have more kids.

    Warren is one of the leading economic experts in our country. Surely, she is aware of the depth and effects of inequality as it relates to families and kids. Unsustainable and poor family planning is worst way to exacerbate climate change and inequality.

    The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Proposal would benefit millions of kids and help give them a fair start in life. But we can avoid the potential for free child care to incentivize poor family planning. With this in mind, we wrote to her with a suggestion for improving her Universal Child Care and Early Learning Proposal.

    Read our letter to Sen. Warren.

    We suggest an addition that ties universal child care and early learning to new parent education about the benefits of smaller families.

    overpopulation sustainability
    Click to enlarge

    In a 2.0 version of Sen. Warren’s plan, new-parent education could be required in order to enroll for free child care. This would create a long-term planning approach for family planning in the U.S. Encouraging smaller, well planned families addresses, rather than exacerbates, the greatest threats facing the country – the degradation of our social and natural environment through things like inequality and climate change.

    We can break down the barrier between family planning and child welfare, aligning need with resource, as outlined by the Fair Start Model. Sen. Warren’s proposal would shift resources to give kids a fair start in life. Why not take it a step further by planning for our future?  

    Better child care should be meant to help kids, not simply enable parents to afford larger families. To help kids effectively, we have to aim to protect future kids, because we get the best results when we all plan well ahead.

  • Help HK Call Out Those Criticizing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Family Planning Comments

    Help HK Call Out Those Criticizing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Family Planning Comments

    Last week many news outlets, like Fox News, attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for breaking the long-standing taboo and asking whether we need better, and sustainable, family planning in the United States. Read our letter to AOC here.  Erika Mathews, Executive Director of the national child-protection organization Having Kids, is urging supporters to find and politely engage directly with AOC’s critics, by simply asking them a few questions either by email, social media, or in-person interviews. Her critics are easily identifiable online – just google “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” and “children,” and if you need help finding a particular person, just email us at info@fairstartmovement.org

    HK WILL PUBLISH AND PUBLICIZE A SUMMARY OF THE BEST ENGAGEMENT.

    Erika urges supporters to engage with AOCs critics using a few simple questions. She had this to say. “It’s time to have an open and honest conversation about the future, which will mostly be determined by the family planning decisions people make today. Smaller families are the best way to mitigate climate change and other environmental crises – are AOC’s critics saying we should not do what works best? Rich kids become rich adults and poor kids become poor adults. Better family planning can level the playing field. Are AOC’s critics against a level playing field? Nearly 700,000 kids are abused each year in the U.S. Are AOC’s critics suggesting we should arbitrarily push random people to have kids, people that might not be ready to be good parents? Is that the future we want?”

    It’s your future. It’s your kids future. Do we really want it filled with billions more people who did not get what they needed growing up?

    Here are the facts: The most effective way to address many of the impacts on our environment and other species, like climate change, is by choosing smaller families. Yes, it’s up to 20 times more effective than changing diet or forms of transportation. By 2100 world population could vary by billions of people, depending on whether the average woman in the world today has one child more or one child fewer in her lifetime. The science of early childhood development shows the disproportionate impact the beginning of our lives has on the rest of our lives. This holds true, among other things, for economic inequality. Better family planning is the best way to reduce inequality. Other interventions are simply too late.

    According to Erika, “We can change the direction the world is headed. We just have to start a serious conversation. AOC is right to break the taboo.”

    Having Kids is a 501(c)3 nonprofit nonprofit organization dedicated to reforming family planning by replacing parent-centered family planning models with the human rights-based and child-first Fair Start model.

  • AOC Addresses the Big Question of Kids and Climate Change

    AOC Addresses the Big Question of Kids and Climate Change

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    In a recent Instagram Live video, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised a question many Millenials are asking in the age of climate change: is it ok to still have kids?

    “It is basically a scientific consensus that the lives of our children are going to be very difficult, and it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK to still have children?” – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez


    She is     not the first to ask this question. It’s an existential worry many are asking as they consider whether to have kids, or have another.

    Given what we know about how climate change will affect the next generation, especially those most vulnerable, isn’t it a fair question? Or is it a fight too taboo to discuss?

    Sadly, some call such a question extreme. What’s extreme is the suggestion by some like Meghan McCain that action on climate change means supporting infanticide.

    Thankfully, AOC is more reasonable. While she did not give a definitive answer to the big question, she did explain:

    “…even if you don’t have kids, there are still children here in the world and we have a moral obligation to them to leave a better world to them.”

    But how do we get there?

    We could not agree more with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. But the Green New Deal she’s advocating forgot to include the most important factor in creating a better world: better family planning. People drive emissions and use resources. While transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy is important, it’s not enough to protect natural spaces and species that are disappearing due to urban sprawl. 

    Family planning investments and policies not only improve lives and reduce inequality. Research indicates that they result in smaller families which demand less on our communities and more sustainable. Improving family planning in our country and across the world would allow us to fulfill the moral obligation we have to our kids.

    Reducing Rates

    TAKE ACTION:
    Tweet Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, @AOC and ask her to include family planning in the Green New Deal to give kids a #fairstart and #actonclimate.

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  • Exxon Knew It Was Destroying Our Kids’ Future. Tell Them To Make It Right.

    Exxon Knew It Was Destroying Our Kids’ Future. Tell Them To Make It Right.

    ExxonMobil, and many companies like it, are largely responsible for the climate change that is already wreaking havoc across the globe. The evidence has been mounting for years. Recent reports make clear that climate change will cause death and suffering on an unprecedented scale, that the situation is quickly worsening, and that our governments and the United Nations are utterly failing to protect us. Even former Exxon execs are calling for accountability.

    According to The Guardian, “ExxonMobil actively misled the public about climate science and its implications”.

    “In 2015, Inside Climate News and The Los Angeles Times reported that Exxon was well aware of the risks of climate change and used that research in its long-term planning for activities like drilling in the Arctic, even as it funded groups from the 1990s to the mid-2000s that denied serious climate risks,” explains the New York Times. Many have said that #ExxonKnew and even looked forward to profiting from melting ice caps in order to access new oil reserves. “…They chose to accept those risks on our behalf, at our expense, and without our knowledge,” per The Guardian. Former CEO Lee R. Raymond was a large part of that process.

    No system of government, nor system of corporate property and assets, override your kids’ right to a safe, healthy, equitable and democratic future. That right is supreme and superior to anything that interferes with it. You are morally entitled to defend that right. Just like those that defended human rights in the founding of the United States, or against aggressors in World War II, you can act against those threatening our freedom.

    We can’t rely on government anymore. We have to defend our right, ourselves. Exxon has an overriding moral obligation to answer for the consequences of its activities. It’s pretty simple: Those most responsible for, and capable of solving our greatest problems, must support the most comprehensively effective, and just, solutions.

    Exxon has proposed funding to support things like a carbon tax. We have a better idea. Rather than relying on piecemeal settlements and downstream solutions through government like failing carbon taxes, we need something more fundamental, and capable of accounting for the complex interplay of values like nature, equality, and democracy. We need to employ the most just and effective solution to climate change and other violations of human rights: We need Fair Start family planning, and by companies like Exxon owe it to us to fund it.

    The best solution is to start the source of the problem and finally initiate a true system of human rights, through a substantial transfer of resources from those most at fault to incentivize parents to choose smaller families, to help them give their kids a fair start in life, and to build the resilience our kids will need to thrive in a world degraded by climate change. Our human rights require this transfer of resources, and parents should act on their best instincts and act to protect future generations by demanding what is theirs.

    Take action:

    Politely ask ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive and Board Chair Darren W. Woods, as well as former executive Lee R. Raymond, to propose a comprehensive Fair Start solution that includes significant funding and the resources future generations will need. Contact the company at (972) 940-6000, and Lee Raymond at leeraymond@hotmail.com, or Tweet @ExxonMobil to urge them to support this proposal.

  • Rubio Putting Profits Before Planet

    Rubio Putting Profits Before Planet

    Yesterday, Marco Rubio explained that when it comes to climate change, his priority is the economy over the wellbeing of the planet. As a Republican with Presidential ambitions, he walks a fine line between climate skeptic and Senator of a state already seeing the firsthand effects of climate change, including sea level rise and stronger hurricanes. It has not even been one week since Hurricane Michael wiped out some towns in Florida. Climate change is not his priority? Michael will undoubtedly be the twelfth billion dollar storm this year, with an expected cost of $30 billion.

    As a father, he is harming his and other children’s future to benefit a small percentage of uber-wealthy people. Rubio has explicitly pushed for larger families and unsustainable families and the cheap labor and hungry consumers they create: That is THE WORST way to exacerbate climate change and other crises in the long term, the timeframe that really matters.

    He and his colleagues push for the deregulation of corporate activities while playing semantics with stances on whether climate change is man-made. But it’s those regulations that protect our planet for all of us, for all of us, not to mention the future that Rubio’s own children with inherit. There will be no way to have a successful economy with the outrageous costs that climate destruction is causing if we continue on this path. We must put greed and consumerism aside to enable a habitable, stable future for the next generation. 

    Last week’s alarming climate change report made it clear that drastic changes in human behavior will need to occur if we are to mitigate the climate ecocide that is already underway. Are we willing to do that? If current trends continue, we are on course for endless drought, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, weather-related disasters, and food and water scarcity. Coastal towns where vast portions of the population reside, including Rubio’s own South Florida which is already flooding, will be swallowed by the seas.  

    Is it fair to subject our kids to that chaotic, unsafe future? By our own nature, we are reluctant to accept uncomfortable facts and problems that are not immediate. But it’s time to face them because our kids have a right to a fair start.

    rubio climate change

    It’s not an either-or proposition. We can have a thriving economy and a sustainable planet. Yes, we need leaders to enforce environmental measures, participate in the Paris Climate Agreement, and call for corporate responsibility. But we all have a responsibility at the individual level as well to reduce our impact.

    The best way we can do that is by choosing to have smaller families – at usually that means one or two kids. Having one less child saves more harmful emissions than changes in transportation, energy, or diet.

    human impact on climate

    Why not set up our kids to thrive in safe, healthy, and sustainable communities where everyone has a fair start in life? Isn’t that the future we want?

    Senator Rubio is morally obligated to take the most effective response to climate change, which has been recognized as a national security threat. That response is better family planning.

    We are calling on him to reverse his stance and to join us in asking the U.N. to recommend smaller families across the globe.

    TAKE ACTION:

    1. Tweet Marco Rubio with a ready-made tweet.
    2. Add your name to our message to the U.N.