Fair Start Movement

Category: News & Fair Start Headlines

Who Killed Roe v. Wade? We All Did. Help Us Fund Its Reincarnation.
As the Supreme Court of the United States prepares to strike down Roe v. Wade, paving the way for the states to ban abortion, many are wondering how we arrived in this place. While the pro-choice lobby and legal maneuvering meant to protect the right to terminate a pregnancy has focused on women’s bodily autonomy, there are actually at least three interests at stake in that decision: 1) Women’s bodily autonomy, 2) the interests of the future child (not the fetus, but the child that would have otherwise existed), and 3) the interests of society more generally. As a safe rule of thumb if a mother does not want to have a child, interests two and three are not going to go very well.

And while women’s bodily autonomy is crucial, interests two and three actually precede it because that autonomy occurs after and within the formation of society – which is the thing two and three account for.

So how did we all kill Roe? We should have prioritized two and three, or the importance of the autonomy because by preventing forced parenthood it prevents bad parenting, the social chaos that results, population-driven ecological disasters like the climate crisis, and other things that now threaten us and our kids’ future.

That bigger move, decades ago, might have resulted in a highly developed, self-governing and empathetic national populace unlikely to fall for people like Donald Trump. That’s not the populace we have now.

It’s not too late to make Roe three-sided, and as such much weightier, than it was before.

Here’s how: Help us fund a pilot program for the Reincarnation of Roe.

The Fair Start SMA Pilot Program

The Fair Start Movement (FSM) is dedicated to replacing the parent-centric and subjective family planning paradigm that fundamentally created the climate and inequity crises with a new paradigm of child-centric, ecologically restorative and objective systems of planning that are treated as the first and overriding human right (“The Right.”) The Right is premised on the concrete standards in the Children’s Convention, and is more weighty than traditional reproductive rights because it accounts for the interests of future children and society more generally, rather than maintaining a myopic focus on parental interests.

FSM pioneered the claim that such a right overrides all others – because existential justice necessarily precedes other forms – which is a claim now backed by voluminous peer-reviewed and recommended research. The right operates practically by making wealth at the top of the economic pyramid subject to family planning incentives/entitlements that will bend the population growth arc towards qualitative optimality. An example of this process involves our current campaign to shift the official interpretation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this regard.

While initial FSM proposals centered on furthering The Right through a broad challenge to a recent ban on abortions in Texas, this modified proposal will support elevating and scaling programs of education for self-managed abortion (SMA) by abortifacients for paramedical personnel across the U.S. by offering a high-profile pilot program for pro bono legal services to such personnel (the Project), initially in Texas and Oklahoma.

In democracy self-determination always begins with your place in the town hall. Always.

The key here is creating a movement of pro bono legal services interceding for SMA educators/providers that treat the service as the constitutional priority and human right with the biggest impact on our collective future. Note that while legal services for SMA do exist, we have yet to complete a comprehensive assessment of them. Note too that we will be expanding our initial research regarding safety.

The Project Goals:

1) To publicize a specific pilot program for priority pro bono legal services to paramedical personnel educating women in Texas and Oklahoma regarding SMA, as an example of the emergence of The Right, 2) to connect that story as a driver of prioritized pro bono legal services around the country from a network of firms we have access to.

Depending on progress on 1-2, we may add 3) developing eventual litigation regarding suing Texas over harm to children consigned to state foster care because of the state’s historic abortion laws, which will include direct action demands for wealth transfers from specific high-profile targets to pay for the resulting damages under the theory of The Right.

We may also peg #1 above to the filing of an amicus brief defending a specific physician in Texas, but we are still assessing the status of the case.

The key is creating a national movement of pro bono legal services interceding for SMA educators/providers that treat the service as the constitutional priority and human right with the biggest impact on our collective future.

Project AOMIs and Project budget:

Final Activity List:

1) To publicize a specific pilot program for priority pro bono legal services to paramedical personnel educating women in Texas and Oklahoma regarding SMA, as an example of the emergence of The Right:

Budget: $6000 – primarily towards two law firms, and two public relations firms.
- To finalize recruiting two law firms we are in conversation with.
- To complete the initial research, and determine the number of hours we can provide pro bono.
- To assess the target educator/provider audience, and to provide the advice.
- To publicize the process nationally, via two public relations firms we are in conversation with.
- To connect with leading family planning organizations in the nation to see whether they will replicate the process.
2) To connect that story as a driver of prioritized pro bono legal services around the country from a network of firms we have access to:

Budget: $3,500 – primarily towards FSM administrative contractors, and follow-on services from the public relations firms.
- To solicit interest from our network of pro bono firms.
- To develop a script for why this work is a priority.
- To recruit at least twenty (20) firms who can provide extensive pro bono services.
- To evaluate the services provided.
- To publicize the process and seek to triple the number of firms in a future round.
Which activities can and will be used as key performance indicators for quarterly reporting?
1. The number of news articles, the reach of those articles, and other communication impacts, including social media. There are more precise metrics we can obtain from the firms.
2. The number of educators/providers reporting positive encouragement and advice that altered their plans.
3. The number of leading family planning organizations that will replicate the process.
4. The number of law firms that commit to pro bono services, and the hours they will commit to.
Climate mitigation anyone?

Project review assessment includes these considerations for a successful project award:

– Does the project promote innovation and experimentation?

Yes. The Right as described herein is nascent in practice, but irrefutable, and Texas/Oklahoma provide ideal theaters in which to experiment with the messaging, political development, and eventual establishment of The Right.

– Does the design of the project include specific interventions that impact local or global population issues?

Yes. We intend to provide pro bono legal services in Texas and Oklahoma, and expand on that pilot towards a national provision of services. If this process furthers The Right, the impact on bending the population curve would outweigh many comparable efforts.

– Are there quantitative process and outcome measures that reflect the success of the project’s goals?

Yes, per the KPIs above.

– Does the project include new ideas and approaches that might improve or extend an activity into a new setting?

Yes, we have intentionally used a pilot-to-scale design, ideally around a movement that will be compelling.

Conclusion:

This project is not meant to further a particular goal while operating within the parent-centric and subjective family planning paradigm that fundamentally created the climate crisis. Rather it is meant to further a new fundamental movement that changes the paradigm towards child-centric, ecologically restorative and objective systems of planning that are treated as the first and overriding human right.
May 5, 2022
Want World Leaders to Act? Help Us Put Their Adult Children in the Spotlight

The Secretary General of the United Nations Promised to Mitigate Climate Change and Failed. Maybe His Son Can Help?

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has promised to mitigate the climate crisis. He is obligated to support doing so in the most effective way possible because of his position. The most effective long-run change alters the conditions in which we permit children to be born, requiring redistribution of resources to incentivize and entitle better family planning. António has refused multiple requests from dozens of organizations to both effectively mitigate the climate crisis and prepare future generations to be resilient in the face of ecological degradation. António has refused to begin policy reforms that would eventually assure that every child born enjoy what they are promised by the Children’s Convention.

Nothing has a bigger impact. This solution operates, or mitigates, on multiple levels. We can bend the curve to benefit future generations, or stay a failed course.

Do what is effective.

And yet his son, Pedro Guimarães e Melo Guterres, has enjoyed a life of privilege that is relatively free from the ravages of the climate crisis. That’s not right.

Let’s engage Pedro directly to help pay what he owes, and to offset the costs an unfair family planning system placed on others – especially in the global south – while he benefitted as the son of an influential European politician. We can make that ask because just family planning is the first human right. And we can replicate this tactic with all world leaders.

If some will take their own lives to try to bend our world away from the worst of the crisis, the least we can do is short-circuit a political process that’s failed and instead engage with the adult children of world leaders to bend a curve that benefitted them at cost to others. Perhaps this action is too personal? Not really. Ignoring the interpersonal nature of intergenerational power dynamics is what fundamentally created the climate crisis. The children of world leaders can support redistribution of wealth that incentivizes/entitles socially and ecologically just family planning. Urge them to do so.

Contact Ashley@FairStartMovement.org to help us engage Pedro.

We can change this by all means effective because people come first.

April 30, 2022
“When Wealth Can Buy Speech”, Elon Musk and Twitter

“Behind Elon Musk’s blather about free markets, free speech, and free choice is his goal to be free from accountability,” Robert Reich warns. Like the actions of fellow billionaire Trump, this move to influence the public with false claims and dangerous propaganda threatens democracy. So what does this have to do with a fair start in life? A lot. Unjust birth conditions are the root of inequality. That inequality allows unjust wealth to flow to the hands of a few. When we ensure equity from birth, we build communities where voices are equal and democracy is truly exercised.

April 25, 2022
“UN warns Earth ‘firmly on track toward an unlivable world”

Speaking about an IPCC report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres revealed “a litany of broken climate promises” by governments and corporations that threaten human lives and will costs governments hundreds of billions to confront. Fossil fuels take the spotlight. But that ignores all other growth driven harms like habitat destruction and water scarcity. We can no longer ignore that the quest endless-growth and profits above all has had catastrophic consequences for all life on our fragile planet. Children have a right to an eco-social fair start. That means restoring nature for the next and future generations. We can do that through Fair Start policies.

April 25, 2022
“We Can Solve the Racial Wealth Gap”

Kimberly Atkins Stohr, The Emancipator’s senior columnist, a senior opinion writer and columnist at The Boston Globe, and author of “We Can Solve the Racial Wealth Gap” series highlights the black and white financial gap in the U.S. She suggests that a number of solutions are needed to reimagine reparations and dismantle systemic racism that fuels the racial wealth gap. We agree. And those solutions must include policies to ensure equity right from birth if we hope to effectively close that gap, because without a fair start in life, children will be playing a lifelong game of catch up.

April 25, 2022
ExxonMobil’s Progress on Climate Misses Critical Factor: Humanity

By Terra Walters, a concerned Texan.

In honor of Earth Day 2022, we at the Fair Start Movement encourage ExxonMobil to include every child’s human right to a Fair Start as part of its commitment to meet standards set out in the Paris Agreement.

To the leadership of ExxonMobil,

We members of the Fair Start Movement, on this Earth Day, April 22, 2022, write to inform ExxonMobil of an oversight in your commendable efforts toward sustainability.

You must amend your policy in order to acknowledge the needs and rights of future human generations. Policies that ignore critical factors such as family planning and universal basic human rights will fail. All of us are locked in a global struggle to ensure the existence of our species.

We implore ExxonMobil to take into account the environmental impacts of humankind. Too many children today are born unwanted, into poverty, famine, or war. Our approach to offer a Fair Start to every child born on Earth will ensure that these conditions will be eliminated moving into the future.

We demand that ExxonMobil allocate funds to support restorative ecological policies that acknowledge and actively promote the primary and overriding human right to an ecosocial Fair Start for every child born today and tomorrow.

Fundamental change starts with family policy.

By supporting our and our allies’ initiatives, ExxonMobil will begin to substantively repair damage done by its historical environmental misconduct. You will truly become part of the solution by sustaining and protecting humanity.

Will you commit today, in honor of Earth Day, to right past wrongs? Will you catapult forward the global effort to survive? Will you join our movement’s efforts to ensure every child’s right to a Fair Start?

We thank you for your time and consideration.

-The Team at Fair Start Movement

The Fair Start Movement (FSM) comprises groups and individuals who prioritize every child’s right to an ecosocial Fair Start in life – outlined by the Children’s Rights Convention – as the first and overriding human right.

April 21, 2022
Earth Day 2022: Climate Reparations, Existential Justice, and Our Open Letter to Exxon

Earth Day 2022: Exxon Should Pay Reparations for the Climate Crisis That Physically Create Just and Sustainable Communities Through Family Planning Investments

Dear Exxon Directors,

The Fair Start Movement (FSM) is a collection of groups and individuals committed to prioritizing every child’s right to an ecosocial Fair Start in life – defined minimally as the birth and development conditions required by the Children’s Rights Convention – as the first and overriding human right. We are writing in honor of Earth Day 2022. We differ from other environmental and children’s rights organizations because we prioritize family planning reforms, making the planning child-centric and oriented around incentives/entitlements that would level the playing field for all children, to achieve change. Child-centric planning is the only truly democratic form, because it is focused on the majority – those who will live in the future.

In Exxon’s public commitment to address the climate crisis, the company uses a particular ecological goal or baseline for its risk assessments and climate mitigation strategy that – compliance aside – is at least comparable to the goals of the Paris Climate Accord. While we focus on Exxon in this letter, to be clear, the logic applies to many companies and well beyond the energy sector.

FSM was formed because these goals or baselines are premised on an error. They were developed based on the assumption that nations operate from a place of historical political legitimacy, and can themselves freely define ecological goals, including anthropocentric ones like those of the Paris Accord. That assumption is incorrect. As recent peer-reviewed research shows, nations are constituting, not constituted in the past, and they are either doing so legitimately or not depending on their family policies. Nations cannot simply declare their legitimacy. Legitimacy is a political ideal based relative self-determination that would require, again minimally, that all children enjoy the ecosocial birth and development conditions required by the Children’s Rights Convention.

Resolving this baseline error involves treating legitimacy as contingent on our ongoing fulfillment of our obligations to future generations.

Because no nation has properly adhered to its obligations in this regard through just and sustainable family policies, a fact evidenced by the climate crisis, we cannot assume we operate from a place of legitimacy. Instead of preparing children for meaningful roles in their democracies, the world has historically treated children as inputs of economic growth, or as bodies to expand undemocratic political structures like those in Russia.

In other words, to properly assess costs and benefits we have to first become groups of people capable of doing so in a way that is actually inclusive and reflective of the group constituents. This is simply the ideal of the “we,” in “We the People.” The ideal political we, meaning fundamental power relations defined by the goals of the Children’s Convention, is the primary baseline. We cannot think of, or describe, an ecological outcome that is not first contingent upon family planning outcomes, on at least five levels.

If we value human self-determination or freedom, we have to begin from an ecocentric – rather than anthropocentric – baseline, because that makes relative self-determination possible, freeing us from the influences of others, including the harmful impacts of even the current rise in global temperature. Humans cannot self-determine when their childhood development is defined by the pollution of others. Moreover, climate goals cannot be limited to ecological outcomes, but should include changes in family policy that maximize the resilience, equity, and democratic cooperability of future generations to thrive despite the crisis. Our creation is the intersection of our values.

Nothing would have a greater or more comprehensive impact on bettering our future.

In other words, if we correct the error described above, the correct goal or baseline must entail our becoming democratic and legitimate groups of free and equal people, which requires concrete and specific restorative ecological policies much more aggressive than the Paris Accord, redistributive and equalizing family planning reforms that recognize the right to nature and level the playing field for all kids, financially and ecologically. A simple litmus test, given these standards, for our being free and equal persons involves whether we first treat the capacity for each person’s self-determination as directly inverse to population growth, relative to a neutral baseline such as the nonhuman world. This is proof that each person is politically, and equally, empowered. Not treating growth as such calls into question the true role of citizens in their own democracy.

Moreover, because this unifying goal or baseline is primary in nature, it overrides state issued property rights and entitlements enjoyed by Exxon, enabling intending parents claims to wealth at the top as part of their constituting just and sustainable societies. Our becoming just and sustainable people comes first. A helpful analogy relies on what is generally called the “myth of ownership,” which requires that ownership of wealth first account for the societal costs the creation of that wealth entails. Based on our research, the costs to our being free and equal people positioned to truly consent to the influence of others are first costs we must account for.

We cannot assign property rights in ways that undercut physically constituting and democratically empowering future generations. Our being, and in this case becoming, positioned to determine costs and benefits in a way that is inclusive of the reasoned views of all, is the first baseline.

Again, we can refer to this helpful summary of the baseline problem. All of the solutions to the problem Professor Solum gives jump to what we should do rather than who we should be, and thus ignore the need to be fair people, in terms of the physical power relations determined by our creation, before we can be positioned/empowered to make fair rules/laws. Ideally we would be created/grouped to look like a functional Rawlsian constitutional convention before fundamentally assessing costs and benefits, hence our being an ideal “We the People,” is the first baseline. And for that, the minimal guidelines that would apply to family planning would be the standards we hold up for extant persons, like parental fitness, the Children’s Convention, equality of opportunity, restoration-based climate sequestration targets, biodiversity restoration targets, historic voter-representative ratios, etc. Those point us towards the UN low-variant population, something aggressive family planning incentives – funded with claims to wealth at the top of the economic pyramid – could practically help achieve.

We are writing in the spirit of Earth Day 2022 to urge Exxon to embrace the specific restorative ecological policies described above as the part of the first and overriding human right to a Fair Start in life, and to commit some share of its wealth and resources as Fair Start planning reparations to offset the harm it has done to future generations, relative to baseline discussed above. Exxon could easily practice this change by supporting the child tax credit reforms linked above, while treating them as a fundamental human right.

This is not about liberal or conservative politics. Family planning redistributions – as primary obligations – can replace wasteful tax obligations that would simply create larger governments which do not reflect the will of the people. This is about a commitment to human freedom and equality of opportunity, enabled by policies that ensure children can develop and physically comprise communities that liberate them from the threats they face today. This is something we all should value. Correcting the baseline error described above enables such a future.

Please let us know if Exxon will commit to these changes.

Sincerely,

The Team at Fair Start Movement

April 14, 2022
Democratizing Russia?

We Can Democratize Russia and Disempower Putin by Targeting His Concentrations of Wealth to Instead Fund Child Development

Vladimir Putin was able to invade Ukraine and wage war crimes and atrocities because for decades he has been able to prevent democratization in Russia. One of the most fundamental ways he’s blocked reforms involves a decades-old system of pushing women to have children – or to be mothers for the motherland – instead of requiring democratic family reforms that would physically limit and decentralize the power of Putin, his state infrastructure, and the oligarchs. Putin could not operate if Russia had to invest equitably in children as democratic citizens, rather than exploit them as future workers and soldiers.

Family policy in Russia is the fundamental source of his power – expanding the base of the pyramid atop which Putin sits. And while much of the world opposes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, world leadership has done nothing to demand reform of his family policies. In many cases world leaders looked to Russia – which pays women to produce children – as a possible model of creating growth in their own nations, much the way they supported the globalized fossil fuel economies that helped create Putin.

The theme is the same – the United Nations and world leaders are outraged by the invasion, but complicit in ensuring the fundamental top-down power relations that enable it.

We can reverse this trend by embracing every child’s right to a Fair Start, ecologically and socially, as the first and overriding human right. This enables demands upon, and the taking, of wealth and other concentrations of power at the top. We do this to limit and decentralize those concentrations, and to instead empower future persons as democratic citizens.

Take Action:

1. Fair Start has urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to embrace Fair Start modeling as the first and overriding human right. Ask them to publicly support the right of young Russians to demand and take wealth from the power structures that support Putin. Atrocities begin with the creation of people inclined, through our power relations, to comit them. The United Nations should be destabilizing despots, not supporting family policies that prop them up. Contact them here.

2. Massive sanctions against oligarchs are a step in the right direction, but we don’t want resources fueling the fundamental problem by simply propping up declining democracies outside of Russia. Urge President Biden here to use the sanctions to explicitly support Fair Start reforms in the United States that would restore democracy, and make the United States a true leader in empowering people.

3. Help us encourage protests and direct actions in Russia to demand Fair Start wealth and resources from the top, and policies that build democracy, rather than simply create more soldiers for Putin. Patriarch Kirill is an ideal target for Fair Start direct action, and we are urging Russians to take action with the message below.

Every child born in Russia has a right to an ecosocial Fair Start in life, which will enable to safe, healthy and democratic future for all. Young Russians can fund their children’s future by taking wealth and resources from the top, from men like Patriarch Kirill, who pose a threat to the welfare and equality of all children. Russians can pressure him to admit this truth. Together we can fundamentally disempower Putin, and prevent future wars, by moving wealth and power from the top and into future generations. Here is an example of the change, in action.

Каждый ребенок, родившийся в России, имеет право на экосоциальный Справедливый Старт в жизни, который является основой безопасного, здорового и демократического будущего для всех. Такие люди, как патриарх Кирилл, представляют угрозу благополучию и равенству детей. Поэтому, мы должны заявить о том, что права детей перевешивают право собственности богатой верхушки. Вместе мы можем обезоружить Путина и предотвратить будущие войны, а также обеспечить Справедливый Старт будущим поколениям.

April 13, 2022
Societal Pressures on Female Humans and Nonhuman Animals: Calling for Change

by Jess Beaulieu

One Voice Speaks Out for the Only Form of True Inclusivity

As a child, I was famously aware of society’s pressure on females to reproduce. I was gifted baby dolls by countless family members in the hopes that I would begin to foster a need to procreate – just as they had. And as I grew up, the pressures of motherhood were relentless. I’ll never forget the required class in my Georgia middle school that taught girls how to be fit stay-at-home mothers while boys learned business and home repair skills. Not to mention the recurrent phrases that haunted me throughout my young adult years: “how can you not want children,” “you’ll change your mind when you’re older,” and “I didn’t want children either until I had my own, and that changed everything.” Rather than taking these questions to heart and seriously considering my need to reproduce for my family, and society at large, I found myself concerned about how this pressure on females generally would impact humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment long-term.

Consider how our current systems exploit females whether human or nonhuman – and even Mother Earth. For example, in the dairy industry, female cows are artificially inseminated and upon giving birth, their calves are ripped from their side so that their milk may be preserved for the industry itself – all to make a profit. This insidious pattern is repeated throughout a female cow’s life until she is considered no longer useful by the industry and is rewarded for her life-long trauma by being sent to slaughter. Similarly, female human autonomy is under direct attack. State governments are attempting to rip a woman’s abortion right from her to directly benefit the system by producing more bodies for more labor. This pro-natal, pro-capital conviction has generated a world with massive inequities. In both scenarios we see female exploitation for economic gain and supremacy.

Care about the majority of sentient beings? Focus on family reforms.

And concerning Mother Earth, with the largest meat and dairy companies’ impact on the climate now outweighing that of numerous developed nations, no bigger threat to the future of the planet exists than that of factory farming expansion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that livestock operations make up 25% of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and that manure management operations are responsible for 12% of overall agricultural emissions. (See David Worford, Letter Asks Congress to Give EPA Power to Regulate Livestock Emissions, Environmental Leader (Feb. 18, 2022), https://www.environmentalleader.com/2022/02/letter-asks-congress-to-give-epa-power-to-regulate-livestock-emissions/.)

And factory farming, which almost always goes unnoticed as the climate culprit within the agriculture sector, tears down forests to plant crops for animal feed, releasing carbon into the atmosphere; shatters wildlife habitats; displaces local communities; and profits from the immense suffering of billions of farmed animals each year. (See Jacqueline Mills, Factory Farming: The Real Climate Culprit, World Animal Protection (Oct. 29, 2021), https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/blogs/factory-farming-real-climate-culprit.) And yet the government does not require that factory farms obtain permits under the Clean Air Act, and it has failed to determine how to measure emissions from feedlots, barns, and croplands.

To this climate change point, Fair Start Movement’s Carter Dillard has stated, “[y]oung people are increasingly choosing not to have children, not because they don’t want them, but because they’re worried about how the climate crisis will impact their children’s future.” (See Elena Shao, More Young People Don’t Want Children Because of Climate Change. Has the UN Failed to Protect Them?, Inside Climate News (Nov. 16, 2021), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112021/young-people-children-united-nations-climate-change/.) We may not all have the same reasons behind our choice to not have children, but the fate of the planet is an increasingly rooted concern of many. I join both Fair Start Movement and Population Balances’ desire to see the social pressure and bias shift away from reproduction. Much needs to change for the future of all females.

We can go further.

The most effective way to address many impacts on our environment and other species, such as climate change, is to choose sustainable families. Putting the child first when family planning provides a human rights-based solution, ensuring the availability of resources for all. It is both equitable and sustainable and is also reflected in the worldwide trend towards families that can invest more in each child and ensure a safer future. And all of this considered will empower females in the long-term.

Taking matters into our own hands, rather than continually allowing corrupt systems to determine our futures, the future of nonhuman animals, and the future of Mother Earth, is how we will dismantle unjust societal expectations and guarantee a sustainable future for all.

March 22, 2022