Fair Start Movement

Category: Campaigns & Accountability

  • Having Kids Calls on Elon Musk to Clarify Position on Family Planning and Population Growth

    Having Kids Calls on Elon Musk to Clarify Position on Family Planning and Population Growth

    Elon Musk, the outspoken billionaire who’s been attacking journalists lately, has also been sending conflicting messages about population growth. He’s incorrectly said that “world population is accelerating towards collapse,” but also decried the “soul destroying traffic” of urban centers like Los Angeles and proposed controversial tunneling by his companies as a solution.  It sounds as if Musk wants to increase population pressures and intensify climate change in order to profit from trying to solve them, and exacerbate the massive gap between poor people and billionaires like Musk in the process.

    Today Having Kids called on Musk to clarify his position on family planning and population growth by endorsing a human-rights based family planning model based on the principle that every child deserves a fair start in life. Musk was born into a privileged upbringing, having attended boarding school in South Africa during its Apartheid era, before leaving the country to avoid military service.

    Having Kids is asking Musk this question: Does he believe that every child deserves a fair start in life, with equal opportunities relative to children like his own? Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids, had this to say: “Elon should promote better family planning and true social and economic balance and sustainability, not the creation of more consumers and workers to further his economic empire.” “Many of the world’s richest people are calling for systemic change to avoid class warfare – this is Elon’s chance to do the same, and promote environmental protection at the same time.”

    Take action and tweet @elonmusk to politely ask for him to take a stand. 

    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.

  • CONCERNED MOTHER URGES IVANKA TRUMP TO CHANGE COURSE ON CHILD CARE POLICY

    CONCERNED MOTHER URGES IVANKA TRUMP TO CHANGE COURSE ON CHILD CARE POLICY

    Erika Mathews, a mother concerned for the welfare of her child, wrote to Ivanka Trump today to urge her to champion a major federal policy shift that would protect all children.

    Read Erika’s plea to Ivanka here.

    • A recent study from Stanford University has found that efforts to mitigate climate change could yield trillions in economic benefits.
    • The best way to mitigate climate change is by choosing smaller families,
    • Given the study, Erika asked Ivanka to change course from her current preferred child care policy, to instead champion a new federal policy fully funding “529” educational savings accounts through a cooperative family planning system.
    • That would align with the trend toward smaller in the United States, but also augment it by including incentives that would shift the family planning from a focus on parents, to a focus on future children and their right to a fair start in life.
    • A recent wave of news stories have reflected on the clear trend in the United States towards parents choosing smaller families. While many of the articles suggested this trend might harm the economy, there are no studies showing the per capita cost to Americans of reduced fertility.

    Erika had this to say: “Environmental degradation and social inequity are the greatest threats to our children.” “Ivanka should consider championing a new policy. Parents have the right to protect their children’s future and our government should help them do that.”

    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.

  • Indiana Child Abuse: Take Action

    Indiana Child Abuse: Take Action

    Having Kids is petitioning Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, as well as state officials, to consider the possibility of an unusual order in the event an Indiana couple is convicted of child abuse or neglect.

    Read the full letter here. 

    In mid-April 2018, the Department of Child Service, in response to multiple anonymous phone calls, removed four children from a home in Greenfield, Indiana occupied by Christopher Smith and Chantelle Oliver.  According to court records, Smith allegedly engaged in regular physical and verbal abuse of the children including punching and slapping them, grabbed the children by the hair, and smacking them in the face. Per DCS records, the children were, at first, afraid to talk to investigators, fearing for their own safety.  One child stated that Smith once pushed her head into a wall, causing her nose to bleed. Smith was arrested and charged with multiple counts, including three felony counts of domestic battery on a person less than 14 years old. He has denied harming any of the children.

    Having Kids is urging state officials to consider a Fair Start court order, in the event of a conviction, temporarily prohibiting the couple from having additional children during the pendency of any probation in order to facilitate the couple’s rehabilitation and recovery, and also to prevent the neglect of any future children.

    “We waiting for kids to be abused, rather than preventing the abuse” said Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids. “It’s time to change the way we plan families” The model Fair Start order is noncoercive and seeks to strike a balance between the rights of parents and the needs of future children and the community.

    In 2016 alone, there were 28,430 victims of abuse or neglect in Indiana, an increase of 7.7% from 2015.[4]  Even more alarming, the number of fatalities as a result of child abuse and neglect more than doubled in Indiana in 2016 to 70 deaths (from 34 in 2015), making Indiana have the unfortunate distinction as the state with the highest percentage of increases in child-abuse-related deaths in the country.[5]  

    Take action: Tweet Gov. Holcomb at @GovHolcomb and politely ask him to consider our request.

  • Time to End Child Abuse? Take Action Now.

    Time to End Child Abuse? Take Action Now.

    Today Having Kids is petitioning Gov. Rick Scott, as well as state officials and a presiding judge, to consider the possibility of an unusual order in the event a Sarasota couple is convicted of child abuse or neglect.

    In late January, 2018, the Department of Children and Family Services went to the home of Shane Samuels on a child welfare check.  Inside a home with cigarette butts and trash strewn about the floor, investigators found a four-year-old boy with a large red, swollen handprint on the side his face.  Samuels told investigators (and later Sarasota County Sheriff’s deputies) that this child had simply fallen in the backyard and that his injuries were the result of an accident. Doctors’ reports described the boy’s injuries, bruising and hemorrhaging on his face, neck and ears, as the result of “severe physical child abuse” and, on February 13, 2018, the Sheriff’s deputies arrested Samuels and charged him with aggravated child abuse.

    Having Kids is urging state officials to consider a Fair Start court order, in the event of a conviction, temporarily prohibiting the couple from having additional children during the pendency of any probation in order to facilitate the couple’s rehabilitation and recovery, and also to prevent the neglect of any future children.

    Read the full letter here.

    In 2015 alone, there were more than 160,000 reports of child abuse and neglect referred for investigation in Florida. Even more alarming, there were a staggering 126 fatalities from child abuse and neglect in Florida in 2017 – twice as high as the national average. This contributes to Florida’s dismal ranking of 40th in the nation for child wellbeing.

    Take action: Write Gov. Scott a polite message at Rick.Scott@eog.myflorida.gov or tweet him at @FLGovScott and ask him to consider Having Kids’ letter. 

     

  • Urge the U.N. Secretary General to Support Child-First Family Planning

    Urge the U.N. Secretary General to Support Child-First Family Planning

    As the United Nations Commission on Population and Development meets in New York this week, Having Kids is urging Secretary General António Guterres to issue a new statement on family planning. Previous Secretary General statements have focused on the rights of parents; Having Kids is urging the Secretary-General to now make a statement that includes the needs of future children and how those needs must shape truly human rights-based family planning models.

    Read the full letter here. 

    Circumstances have changed since former Secretaries General have issued family planning statements; a revised statement is urgently needed.

    • Several studies confirm that smaller families are the best way to confront climate change, as well as other and related environmental crises. If we take climate change seriously, we must laud the benefits of a global family planning ethic that promotes smaller families.
    • 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 now understood to be an effective way to prevent the conditions that give rise to terrorism and other conflict-based threats to human rights and democracy.

    Take action now. Contact Secretary General Guterres here and politely urge him to consider our request.

    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.

  • Having Kids Seeks Court Order to Prevent Neglectful Couple from Having Additional Children

    Having Kids Seeks Court Order to Prevent Neglectful Couple from Having Additional Children

    Sharon Helene Robinson and Bradley Dwight Hill of Tennessee have been accused of criminal child neglect after their severely autistic child was found naked, and covered in both human and dog feces, which he was eating. Excrement was also found in the child’s bed. The police reported: “Ms. Robinson stated that she is a meth user and this also contributed to her not caring for her autistic son.”

    Having Kids is petitioning state authorities to seek a Fair Start court order, in the event the couple are convicted, temporarily prohibiting them from having additional children during the pendency of any probation in order to facilitate the couple’s rehabilitation and recovery, and also to prevent the neglect of any future children. Having Kids will eventually also call for specific legislation to authorize Fair Start orders in Tennessee. Having Kids is targeting Tennessee because the state is currently considering legislation HB 2520 / SB2133, regarding coercive family planning and sentencing. The model Fair Start order is noncoercive and seeks to strike a balance between the rights of parents and the needs of future children and the community. The charges against Robinson and Hill show a clear need for that balance, and Fair Start orders can make clear the state’s compelling interest in the welfare of future children, counteracting any dangerous and inadvertent signal HB 2520 / SB2133 might send.

    Learn more about Fair Start orders and why they can help us change a dysfunctional family planning model based solely on what parents want, to a better family planning model based on what all children need.

    National statistics, despite underreporting, estimate that 1,670 to 1740 children die from parental or caregiver abuse and neglect in the U.S. annually. And many of the perpetrators continue to have and abuse additional children. The recent opioid crisis in the U.S. has only accelerated the problem. State child protection systems around the country are in crisis, with multiple state systems failing and clear linkages to increased child abuse. Foster care cases involving drug-using parents have hit the highest point in more than three decades of record-keeping, accounting for 92,000 children entering the system in 2016, according to data by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

    “If even one fewer child is abused, that represents a better world,” said Anne Green, Executive Director of Having Kids. “We can do so much more to protect the most vulnerable.”

    UPDATE: Having Kids has already received a response from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. After review of our letter, he forwarded it to Commissioner Hommrich and the Department of Children’s Services. Therefore, Having Kids is now urging supporters to contact Commissioner Hommrich Department of Children’s Services only to respectfully request that action be taken to ensure better family planning that protects parents, children, and the community.

  • Toys R Us Fails To Adapt, Blames Fertility Rates

    Toys R Us Fails To Adapt, Blames Fertility Rates

    In the wake of its bankruptcy announcement, Toys R Us is giving out free family planning advice: Americans, and millennials in particular, are not having enough kids.

    Forget the fact that having large families is the worst way for the average person to exacerbate climate change, otherwise destroy the environment all kids will need to thrive in the future, and lock in the family-based disparity of wealth that is ripping at the fabric of American democracy. What really matters is that Toys R Us exploit more workers to sell more toys, toys that your kids don’t need.

    Toys R Us is worried that smaller families will hurt the U.S. economy. Here’s a thought: The U.S. is meant, primarily, to be a democracy, rather than an economy. What’s the difference? Democracies are by nature smaller, so that each person in them has a voice and plays a role. Their members are not lost in the crowd. Democracies are by nature sustainable, because their future citizens matter. Democracies are made up of free and equal people in whom prior generations have invested much, and right from the start. People in democracies don’t plan families based on how to best sell toys. They plan them based on what children need to thrive as self-determining, free and equal people.

    The move towards smaller families, with parents investing more in each child, represents a move away from the oppressive and unsustainable economies of old towards real democracy, and the end of companies like Toys R Us  – which recently filed for bankruptcy. They should accept the blame for failing to adapt to the 21st century landscape in order to compete with Amazon and other big box and online retailers, rather than pointing the finger at families.

    Toys R Us is wrong on family planning. Tweet @ToysRUs and tell them to stop blaming parents for their business failures.

  • New York Times: Time to Take a Deeper Look at Family Planning?

    New York Times: Time to Take a Deeper Look at Family Planning?

    Leta Hong Fincher’s New York Times piece on China’s family planning regime raises many questions: We decry population growth policies as violating women’s rights and autonomy. Should we also look beyond parents, to future children, and consider their rights to a world free of population-driven climate change and the environmental destruction that typifies massive China today?

    Would such rights limit parents’ autonomy in family planning? China is the bogeyman when it comes to family planning, but isn’t the United States attempting to also use women to produce workers, consumers, and taxpayers for the state? China uses family planning to limit the number of children born into poverty, and that has disparate impact on some families, but if a policy does not independently use genetics or race as a factor, is it eugenics? Could states compensate for that disparity by using equity as baseline for cooperative planning?

    Regardless of how we answer these questions, family planning is morally complex – with immense consequences for more than just parents – and rarely a matter of evil state actors and blameless citizens. The New York Times needs to dig deeper when it covers an issue that, more than anything else, defines the world around us.

  • Tell Unilever: Promote Civility Not Censorship

    Tell Unilever: Promote Civility Not Censorship

    Unilever, a corporation with a roughly $9 billion dollar annual marketing budget, is threatening to pull its advertising from platforms like Google and Facebook if they don’t censor and remove more of the content posted by users.

    We appreciate the move to exercise corporate citizenship by forcing accountability on platforms like Facebook and Youtube. Cracking down on fake news is good. But is Unilever’s standard too broad? What is considered acceptable content? They have massive spending power to influence the content that we and our kids see.

    The company claims it wants to protect children. Are we protecting children and creating a stronger democracy by allowing corporations have a larger voice, as citizens have a smaller voice?

    If Unilever wants civility on digital platforms, it should consider the impact of family planning on our becoming, over time, a developed and civil society. Rather than encouraging parents to ignore their concerns and just have kids, it should encourage smaller and more sustainable families that cooperate to plan a fair start for every child. Instead of promoting censorship after-the-fact, Unilever should promote sustainable families that thoughtfully develop children for a civil, rather than consumerist, society.

    Tweet Unilever CEO Paul Polman at @PaulPolman and politely suggest the following:
    We want civility without the requirement for censorship. Use your influence to promote better family planning and thoughtful citizens, not an infinite supply of silenced consumers.