Fair Start Movement

Category: Campaigns & Accountability

  • 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.

     

     

  • Congress Overlooking the Obvious Solution to Opioid Births

    Congress Overlooking the Obvious Solution to Opioid Births

    Last week, the House and Senate passed a compromise to send the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 to the White House for signing. This coincides with recent headlines that have renewed attention to the skyrocketing number of babies born addicted to opioids.

    Meanwhile, a staggering 90% of pregnancies among opioid-maintained women are unintended. So where are the safeguards to help these moms prevent unplanned pregnancies in the first place?

    TAKE ACTION: Add your name here.

    It should be noted that prosecution and incarceration have no proven benefits to maternal or infant health. We need a public health response. However, efforts have been centered on treatment and recovery. And of that, only 10 percent of Americans with a drug use disorder get specialty treatment.

    A Failure By Health and Human Services

    The Department of Health and Human Services is already working with selected states through the Substance-Exposed Infant Initiative. However, there is no mention of family planning or contraception in its report. While treatment is important, all of these efforts are focused on addressing the problem after the fact. We need to a proactive solution.

    LARC4CO is serving as a model for success for long-acting reversible contraceptive public programs in Colorado. As a member of the coalition, Having Kids is working to replicate that success in more states. But we must ask, why is this model not the federal standard?

    Only about 6% of women with an opioid use disorder report using Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARC), such as an IUD or implant. Because of this massive hole in family planning, children undergo physical trauma at birth and the lifelong emotional and health consequences that result. And the crisis is not limited to affecting children in infancy.

    Opioid Crisis Effects On Children
    • Babies born addicted to opioids endure withdrawal symptoms, which can last for months.
    • The instability that comes with a parent battling addiction also has harmful effects on children.
    • According to one study, “Children of opioid- and (alcohol-dependent parents) have significantly higher rates of psychopathology, as well as more difficulties in academic, social, and family functioning compared to the children of parents without a substance abuse disorder.”
    • Children’s born to mothers who use opioid during pregnancy may face learning disabilities.
    • Abuse and neglect are causing an increase in the number of children entering the foster care system.

    According to the Gooden Center:

    “Mainly because of the opioid crisis… [there were] 30,000 more children in foster care in 2015 than there were in 2012 which represents an 8 percent increase. In 14 states, the number of foster kids rose by 25 percent between 2011 and 2015. The problem became so severe in states like Texas, Florida and Oregon that kids had to sleep in state buildings because there were no more foster homes available.”

    Why are we waiting for babies to become drug dependent before action is taken? Is this legislation’s blindness to the source of problem intentional because of potential difficulty in getting conservatives to support a package which includes family planning measures? I truly hope not. The well-being of newborns should supersede political agendas.


    Helping Women With Opioid Dependency Through Family Planning

    We can help women and children by removing the hurdles to accessing long-acting and effective birth control. By doing so, we can improve lives and better help those struggling with addiction to overcome their dependency without the added burden of parenting before they are ready. The obvious solution to preventing infants from becoming additional victims in this crisis is through a conscious public effort for family planning.

    And what about cost concerns? While an IUD can cost about $1090, the cost of caring for an infant with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) can be upwards of $60,000. Therefore, it makes fiscal sense for the public to support family planning.

    The failure by HHS and Congress to address this problem is forcing more infants to go through the agony of withdrawal every day. More children are being irreversibly affected. Swift, significant action is needed at the federal level to help communities afford women the ability to better prevent unplanned pregnancies.

    This crisis demands that we put children first with family planning that accounts for their needs. Anything less than immediate attention is an acceptance of more suffering of infants and additional trauma on families.

    Let’s invest in our communities by helping parents wait until they are ready and able to provide kids a fair start at life.

    The bill is on its way to the White House for signing. Please ask President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar to use the bill signing as an opportunity to prioritize family planning to stop newborns from suffering. 

    TAKE ACTION: Add your name here.

  • Brett Kavanaugh: Let’s Take A Deeper Dive

    Brett Kavanaugh: Let’s Take A Deeper Dive

    For a lot of people, the connection between Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the Supreme Court and family planning is fairly simple: He is a threat to Roe v. Wade, and women’s right to terminate their pregnancies. Others will go further and consider that – given how tainted he is – anything the Court does with abortion will only embolden and further the women’s movement. Both of these arguments are missing something about the Kavanaugh debacle that matters more, for everyone.

    Our transfixing on this story is an example of how power over many is centralized in just a few people, and how they can influence our lives in many ways, both obvious and subtle. 

    Yes, Kavanaugh’s confirmation is an immediate threat to women. It is also a larger reminder of the way the patriarchy dominates all of us – a reminder worth hearing. Just look at Paul Ryan, who pushes women to have more kids in order to fuel the economy. Trump’s championing Kavanaugh is an obvious example of raw power over those who are vulnerable. But so are his family tax reforms, which are designed to encourage a patriarchal family planning model grounded on the values of economic growth and Handmaid’s Tale style national strength at a cost to child welfare, equality, and nature. What’s the difference? Progressives are outraged by Kavanaugh. Yet, they barely noticed Trump’s more subtle family planning moves, ones that will echo his values long into the future.

    While the world was transfixed on the spectacle of a few people in Washington D.C., the world around us continued to change because of the actions and inactions of those in power. The environment became increasingly polluted, and the planet’s average temperature continued to rise. Each minute of the day roughly 250 babies were born into the world (not enough for many special economic interests that wanted more consumers, future laborers, and taxpayers), many in conditions that would lead to their early and unpleasant deaths, or if they survive, to the further destabilization of their communities and regions. Children were born around the world to both the rich and the poor, and that process alone furthered the gap between the two – significantly. Families bore children in whom they would instill the hierarchical sexism we see in Washington D.C. – ensuring its continuity long into the future. 

    Why is it so hard to even think in these terms? The average human alive today is hardwired to think and problem solve in terms of simple and immediate stories, rather than more abstractly. That’s not a good thing. Family planning is the greatest determinant of the quality of life on earth, and the quantity and social quality (through our early childhood development and its knock-on effects) of the people that will inhabit it. While we stared at the sensation of the testimony (much the way Al Gore noted we distractedly gape at the puppetry of Trump), the world was busily and quickly unfolding around us – and not all in ways that are good.

    What’s the solution? We can break the temporal myopia and other cognitive dissonances by thinking of family planning policies in different ways than we do today. There are more matriarchal models that are based on an ethic of care, cooperation, and the restoration of nature. Rather than focus simply on what economic interests want, we can instead begin to focus on what future children need. First things should come first. That change will help us empower future generations, and begin to build real and decentralized democracies comprised of capable and thoughtful people engaged in true self-rule, new communities that are free from the handful of overly-influential people in Washington, D.C. and their centralization of power and control.

    The public figures in Washington D.C., or Hollywood, or in boardrooms or on sports teams across the country, are like the shadows on the wall in the Allegory of the Cave. Learning to ignore and disempower them, to take back their resources and influence in order to empower future generations as the self-rulers of the future, and be mindful of the true world around us and our potential role in it, is our way out of that cave. The Brett Kavanaugh debacle goes well beyond Roe. It is a reminder of how dangerously limited our species is, and how we need to refocus our attention on changing the way we plan families if we want a better future.

  • Tough Questions for HHS. Demand Answers.

    Tough Questions for HHS. Demand Answers.

    As children return to school, many will be participating in the federal National School Lunch Program. The NSLP provides free or reduced price meals and serves 20 million lunches and 11.6 million breakfasts daily. The start of a new school year is good news for the 30 million kids who will have a guaranteed meal – sometimes their only meal. Those statistics are jarring. What can we do to prevent kids from facing hunger in the first place?

    The stated mission of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is to “enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans”. It got us thinking. And we have a few questions for HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

    1. How does the HHS current family planning modeling actually assure at least a minimum level of well-being for each child born in the United States?

    2. How does that level of well-being reflect every child’s right to a fair start in life, with equal opportunities in life for wealthy kids and poor kids?

    3. How does the HHS current family planning modeling account for the impacts of growth on the natural environment and communities, including exacerbation of climate change and urban gridlock?

    4. How does the HHS current family planning modeling account for the demands that growth places on social service systems like education, nutrition, and healthcare?

    5. How does the HHS current family planning model account for the impact of growth on the democratic processes of the United States, and the ability for all citizens to have a meaningful and equal voice in those processes?

    Want answers as much we do? Add your name here. 

  • Earth Overshoot Day – Take Action Now

    Earth Overshoot Day – Take Action Now

    August 1, 2018 is Earth Overshoot Day.

    Worried that the federal government is actually making things worse, and hurting your kids’ future? You would be right. But you can take action by urging your local government, your town, city or county, to do the most effective thing possible to mitigate climate change and protect the environment.

    Between now and the end of the year, consider using the template below to urge your local government to take a position on the need for better family planning. Send them the draft, and then lobby them hard to do their jobs and protect you, your family, and your future.

    ————–

    Resolution acknowledging that Earth Overshoot Day 2018 is August 1, 2018 and Affirming [add your local government reference here] Commitment to Move Back the Date of Earth Overshoot Day And Provide Affordable and Accessible Family Planning Services

    WHEREAS, Earth Overshoot Day is the date each year when it is determined that we (all of humanity) have used more of the Earth’s natural resources than our planet can renew in that entire year; and

    WHEREAS, In 1970, Earth Overshoot Day was December 29; and

    WHEREAS, This year, Earth Overshoot Day is August 1, 2018; and

    WHEREAS, We now use the resources equivalent to that of 1.7 Earths; and

    WHEREAS, One way to live within the means of our planet is to ensure affordable and accessible family planning services, including birth control and women’s health services; and

    WHEREAS, Better family planning is a proven effective way to improve child welfare, reduce economic inequality, and protect and restore our environment; and

    WHEREAS, Smaller, child-centered families would result in 50% more biocapacity per person in 2100, and more biocapacity makes it easier to have thriving lives for all within the means of the planet; and

    WHEREAS, Investing in smaller, child-centered families through the empowerment of women is also consistent with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG Number 5 General Equality calls for ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere, including giving women equal rights to economic resources and promoting gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels; and

    WHEREAS, Gender equality can also help ensure that we live within the means of our planet because when women are respected as equal partners in the household, at work, and in the community, better social outcomes for their families, including health and educational achievements invariably ensue; and

    WHEREAS, In 2011, nearly half (45% or 2.8 million) of the 6.1 million pregnancies in the United States each year were unintended; and[1]

    WHEREAS, Studies show that family planning programs and preventing teen pregnancy lead to more stable families and allow girls to stay in school longer; and

    WHEREAS, Studies also show that the more education young girls and women receive, the longer they wait to have children; and[2]

    WHEREAS, Some communities have instituted affordable and accessible family planning programs, which have resulted in an average 48% decrease in teen pregnancy; and

    WHEREAS, Family planning programs enable more women to use the birth control method of their choice and empower more individuals to plan if and when to become pregnant; and

    WHEREAS, The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released proposed changes to prohibit the use of federal Title X Family Planning Program funding for agencies that provide abortions or abortion-related services; and

    RESOLVED [ add your local government reference here] is committed to providing affordable and accessible family planning services, which is under attack by the Trump Administration, to protect our planet and its resources for future generations.

    [1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states

    [2] https://www.wired.com/story/to-stop-climate-change-educate-girls-and-give-them-birth-control/

  • TAKE ACTION AGAINST TRUMP’S ATTACK ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN

    TAKE ACTION AGAINST TRUMP’S ATTACK ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN

    The Trump administration is trying to amend our family planning policies in ways that hurt women and children, including imposition of a domestic “gag rule.” They are proposing changes to Title X – the only federal program dedicated to increasing access to contraceptive care for low-income women. It would take away funding to providers who simply mention abortion as an option.

    The Title X changes are an obvious effort to defund Planned Parenthood, who is the only healthcare service for many. The proposed rules are intended to mislead women about their health care options and would encourage the use of ineffective birth control methods. Women deserve facts. The proposed Title X changes will affect people for their entire lives.

    TAKE ACTION – Comments are due 07/31/2018 at 11:59 PM EDT.

    Draft key points are below – feel free to copy, modify and/or otherwise use: 

    • This radical proposal has never been implemented in the United States and it would jeopardize the trusting relationship between women and their providers and put the health of the 4 million women nationwide who use Title X clinics at risk.
    • The proposed rule could increase the rate of unintended pregnancy by eliminating the requirement that Title X clinics provide access to the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive methods,
    • Methods encouraged in this rule such as “natural family planning” and “fertility awareness-based” methods are significantly less effective with typical use than long-acting methods, leading to a higher number of unintended pregnancies.
    • Reducing unintended pregnancy helps families get off to the best possible start. It empowers women to attain their education goals, helping create financially secure and strong families, lowers the abortion rate and reduces the number of people who need to use Medicaid and other public assistance programs.