Fair Start Movement

Category: News & Fair Start Headlines

  • Yale Climate Connections: It’s Time to Tell the Truth

    Yale Climate Connections: It’s Time to Tell the Truth

    Yale Climate Connections is a crucial media service for understanding the greatest environmental threat facing our species. But a recent article may have missed a key opportunity to further that understanding. The article involved an interview with fertility coach Elizabeth Bechard, and focused on the connection between family planning and our ecological future. Bechard, whose profession involves people having kids, gave this advice:

    I personally have, I guess, a spiritual framework that helps me to trust that there’s more going on than meets the eye, and I believe at a spiritual level that the children who come through are souls that chose to be here. And so, you know, if someone deeply desires a child, I would say listen to that.

    Is there better advice we can give prospective parents who want to protect their kids’ future? The key lies in Bechard’s own decision not to have a third child, for ecological and other reasons. Choosing a small family is the most effective thing one can do to mitigate the climate crisis – twenty times more effective than other lifetsyle changes like changing one’s diet. And if we go one step further, and collectively shape our family planning polcies around equity, and the distribution of resources that would give every child a fair start in life, we can effectively reverse many of the other crises facing our kids.

    If we really care about our kids’ future, shouldn’t we do what is most effective?

    TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Bechard at elizabeth@elizabethbechard.com to tell the truth about the connection between family planning and our shared future, and 2) tweet the Editor of Yale Climate Connections, @bud_ward, and urge him to ask the questions that really matter for our shared future.

  • Real Animal Rights Starts With Fair Start Family Planning

    Real Animal Rights Starts With Fair Start Family Planning

    Having Kids researchers recently published an article in Animal People Forum.

    The thesis: How could there be a coherent conception of nonhuman rights that does not account for the creation of the humans that torture, consume. and drive nonhumans into extinction? It’s hard to see how that would be possible.

    Instead, animal rights would have to start with some assessment of what the existential relationship should be between humans and nonhumans. When we engage in that assessment we find that compassion for nonhumans and humans align, and that compassion counsels us to create smaller human families, invest more in each child using equity as our guidestar, and use all means effective to dentralize bloated nation states and massive monopoly corporations into smaller democratic communities comprised of highly empathetic people capable of actual self-rule. Read the full Animal People Forum article here.

  • Who’s Responsible for the Climate Crisis? The BBC Misses the Mark

    Who’s Responsible for the Climate Crisis? The BBC Misses the Mark

    The BBC recently reported on who might be held responsible for the climate crisis and why that matters. Writer Jocelyn Timperley acknowledges that human activity causes climate change and argues that identifying the prime sources is essential to proposing solutions. She examines the blame that might be assigned to fossil fuel companies, rich people, or wealthy countries.

    But the article never mentions family planning and population, even though that is a fundamental driver of the climate crisis, with larger families in wealthy countries creating 20 times the impact on the climate by having children than they do with their other choices or behaviors such as energy consumption. Every one of the causes the article cites depends on population and related factors such as consumer demand. And population, or who we are and who we will be, ultimately flows from universal norms we create. In other words, we exist before we consume, and who we are flows from the norms that surround procreation. So who is fundamentally responsible?

    In the mid- to late 20th-century, world leaders including environmental organizations gambled that rising population would bring economic benefits without unacceptable ecological costs and evaded family-planning interventions like a human-rights approach to family planning. Whether someone has one child or five is the personal business of the parents, they said. It’s private, they said. They chose to ignore the increasing impact on equity and our ecologies, the impact that all along was leading to the interrelated crises we face today, such as the impact of the climate crisis on pregnancies, especially those of Black and Hispanic expectant mothers.

    They were wrong, having failed to account for greenhouse gas emissions. rising inequality, and the decline of democracy.

    We are paying the price of that mistake, and our kids will have it worse.

    Why does it matter to know this? World leaders and many nonprofit organizations are making the same mistake today and are exacerbating the situation. If we want to protect our kids, we will do what is most effective and change the way we plan families. What most matters in a degraded future is the quantity, social qualities, and relative positioning of the people who occupy the world.

    TAKE ACTION: Contact the head of the BBC, or find and engage him in person, and urge comprehensive reporting regarding a threat as serious as the climate crisis.

  • Fair Start Family Planning: Using One Problem to Solve Others

    Fair Start Family Planning: Using One Problem to Solve Others

    The pandemic is a good time for the uber-wealthy, the few thousand billionaires who together hold more wealth than 60% of the people on this planet, to worry about losing their place in the world’s pecking order. History has shown that plagues and pandemics are when transitions of power often happen, when the balance between rich and poor has historically shifted. And it’s hard to believe that targeting these people for a fairer distribution of power would be unjust.

    But can we use inequity to solve other problems at the same time?

    What if we leveled the playing field for kids through new family planning policies that created socially and ecologically regenerative communities? There is a policy pathway. In short, it involves gearing the progressive distribution of resources around financially incentivizing all parents to a) be ready before they have children, b) to work together to give each child born a fair start in life, and c) to embrace smaller and more sustainable families that make all of this possible. In short, the rich would pay to level the playing field for the future children of the poor.   

    This would not only address inequity, but it would also represent the most effective way to mitigate the climate and other ecological crises, and to build human rights and democracy. Fair Start family planning gives whole new meaning to the idea of living our values. And because Fair Start family planning is the fundamental human right, it overrides other rights, including the property rights of the wealthy.

    Let’s use one problem to constructively solve many others. Learn more here about the Fair Start model. 

  • Meghan and Harry Support Smaller Families. When Will Environmental Orgs?

    Meghan and Harry Support Smaller Families. When Will Environmental Orgs?

    Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are not afraid to break taboos and do what’s right. Recently, they talked about their fears and hopes for their son Archie’s future, given the way humans are destroying the planet and our kids’ futures. They took a bold step last year, promoting the idea of smaller families as the most effective way by far to protect the future.

    They are opening a conversation and laying the pathway for polices that promote sustinable and equitable family planning. Environmental organizations should be leading the charge but have been hesitant to do so, fearing backlash from donors. Urge them to stand up and support the most effective long-term solution to our biggest social and ecological crises.

    Contact the heads of these key organziations and urge them to support Fair Start family planning or other models that are as effective:

    Tweet:
    • Carter Roberts, @Carter_Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund
    • Annie Leonard, @AnnieMLeonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA
    • Michael Brune, @bruneski, executive director of the Sierra Club
    and urge them to take a stand on the most effective way to protect our future: policies that promote sustainable and equitable family planning.

  • Is WaPo Promoting Nationalism Over Democracy?

    Is WaPo Promoting Nationalism Over Democracy?

    In a recent news analysis article, not an editorial, a Washington Post writer lamented the recent drop in U.S. fertility rate:

    A news article discusses economists’ predictions of a decline in U.S. births due to COVID-19, referencing a Brookings Institution report. A chart below shows how the Great Recession impacted birth rates.

    “Rather, the pandemic left a permanent mark on American families, with many having fewer children than they would have otherwise, leaving tens of thousands of future American citizens permanently unborn.” The author, Christopher Ingraham, went on:

    Of course, at the individual level, the fertility cost is literally incalculable. How does a parent put a price tag on a child that was never had? What is the loss to an only child who will never have siblings to play with? The discussion is a reminder that even after the pandemic is behind us, it is likely to leave a deep scar on society for years to come.

    — Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, June 17, 2020

    Does this rhetoric — the assertion that birthing fewer children exacts a toll on society — sound familiar? It might, because this has been a talking point of nationalist leaders across the globe. Recently, Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro recently called on women in the country to have more kids to “let the homeland grow.” U.S. President Donald Trump chimed in as well, approving a barely noticed tax tweak that pays people even more money to have kids.

    This policy promotes nationalism over democracy because it pushes society away from improving birth conditions for every child; giving kids a fair start in life; ensuring that children grow up in a natural, healthy, and safe environment; and allowing everyone to exercise meaningful voices in their democracies that won’t get lost in the chaotic crowd.

    The problem with this reasoning is that the state and other institutions are artifice: Democracy and legitimate societies derive power from the individual, not the other way around. We should not have children for the state or the economy. Instead, we should cooperatively plan to have kids in ways that empower them to comprise a better future and build real democracies, not bloated nation-states and economies that demand more bodies — even in the middle of ecological and social crises.

    More crowding and poor family planning exacerbates the spread and threat of pandemics, is the worst way to exacerbate the climate crisis, and expands the inequity tearing our communities apart.

    TAKE ACTION: The Washingtion Post holds itself up as a champion of democracy, but it is promoting nationalistic policies. Because family planning is truly constitutional in nature and because the right to a fair start in life is the first and most fundamental human right, we can engage people (and especially wealthy people) pushing women to have kids to instead help pay for sustainable family planning, and for every kid to get a fair start in life. Write the Post editor Marty Baron @PostBaron, or engage him in person, and urge him to reconsider what democracy means and to pay his share to support better family planning.

  • “Reversing the Gender Imbalance With Male Contraceptives”

    “Reversing the Gender Imbalance With Male Contraceptives”

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    By Erika Mathews

    Earlier this month, The New York Times published an article that made us feminists shake in our boots. “The crisis seems to be cementing traditional gender roles,” the piece read. A poll for the Times found that women with families are bearing the brunt of the increased workload due to coronavirus stay-at-home measures. Even if women earn more than their husbands, the responsibility of housework, childcare, or distance learning for their school-age children tends to fall upon the mother.

    Unfortunately, it may not come as a surprise to many that women in opposite-sex partnerships often disproportionately shoulder certain loads within the partnership. As an example, this has been happening with our bodies in the realm of family planning for millennia.

    The Coronavirus and Inequality

    Given that May is the month back in 1968 that the U.N. declared family planning a human right, it seems fitting to shine light on an opportunity before American society to drill away at outdated gender roles. It’s also an opportunity to tackle the socioeconomic inequality we’ve witnessed the coronavirus expose.

    The opportunity I’m referring to lies in male contraceptives. The challenges around gender parity and socioeconomic inequality that are now staring us in the face amid this pandemic are exactly why Having Kids is calling upon Congress and the National Institute of Health to prioritize the research, development, and deployment of the male pill and other long-acting, reversible male contraceptives — or “LARCs,” for short. 

    Male Birth Control and Greater Equality

    How can LARCs address such longstanding problems so deeply embedded within our society? 

    Research shows that smaller families benefit children and that the economic disadvantage correlated with the alternative tends to perpetuate a greater divide between those with and without. Still, we see the U.S. tax system incentivizing larger families, though incentivizing pregnancy delay may better set up women and future generations for greater equality. 

    Since family planning was declared a human right five decades ago, women have made great strides in terms of physical and economic well-being. Still, nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. today are unintended, which costs taxpayers $15 billion annually. In a few short months, the COVID-19 pandemic has made family planning even more difficult due to lack of access to contraceptives and to reproductive healthcare.

    While the discussion around family planning often centers on abortion, it should go without saying in today’s politically polarized America that any solution propelling us forward — while side-stepping partisan hot spots — should be a no-brainer. This should be baseline territory. Pre-fertilization forms of birth control, a category into which male contraception falls nicely, show promise to be excellent candidates for building bridges across the political aisle. Unfortunately, apart from the “pullout” method and abstinence, women in the U.S. currently have over a dozen options for pregnancy prevention while men have only two: condoms and vasectomies. 

    Why Men Should Take Larger Role in Family Planning

    Recent studies show that American men want the ability to use their bodies to further participate in their right to family planning. While vestiges of a more sexist yesteryear set speed bumps on the track toward deploying more viable male options, we’re incredibly close to breakthroughs in the field, and this is no time to let up on the gas pedal. If fully tested and approved in the U.S., LARC options like RISUG and Contraline could empower men to share more equally in family planning through leveraging their own bodies, helping reverse the trend of traditional gender roles being “cemented.” Our friends at the Male Contraceptive Initiative have outlined several others.

    Again, men want more options to play a larger role in family planning. We women — certainly in our new, less certain reality when fewer couples are opting to get pregnant — could use the support. Ultimately, when communities and parents cooperatively embrace better family planning, we can invest more in every child and create the future we all deserve.

    For these reasons, we at Having Kids call upon the National Institute of Health and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo — chairpeople of congressional committees on health that oversee family planning matters — to increase funding for the research and development of male contraceptives. 

    A variety of safe, commonsense, accessible options, along with communities and parents cooperatively embracing better family planning, are key to providing coming generations the future they deserve. Male LARCs would serve as a huge step forward in getting us there.

    Erika Mathews is the executive director of Having Kids, a U.S.-based non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness for The Fair Start Model, a human rights-based, child-focused approach to family planning. Erika holds a bachelor’s degree in English/Journalism and German from Rutgers University.

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  • World Environment Day 2020: Urging 100 Key Influencers to Adopt Sustainable and Equitable Family Planning

    World Environment Day 2020: Urging 100 Key Influencers to Adopt Sustainable and Equitable Family Planning

    Today, Having Kids is urging 100 key world environmental influencers to move from our current and failing and unsustainable approach to family planning to a cooperative system based on what all children objectively need. This new system is based upon a variety of peer-reviewed research papers, and has been featured in Newsweek, Salon, Hello Magazine, and many other popular outlets. That change has never been more vital, given recent reactions to vast racial and economic inequity, the ongoing threat of pandemics, and massive volatility in world population prospects.

    Read the full letter here. 

    Our current family planning system does not guarantee children any minimum level of welfare or equity, and does not take into account impacts on our ecologies, or the relationship between family planning and the building of human rights-based democracies. As our ecological and social conditions continue to deteriorate, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current system failed to account for a variety of factors. It was a mistake, and one that enables policies that Nobel laureate Steven Chu likened to a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.

    The alternative we propose, called Fair Start, is simple: communities help parents to plan and wait to be ready before having kids, and ensure resources to give all kids a fair start in life, and smaller and more regenerative families make it all possible. We believe it is the best interpretation of the fundamental right to have children. The Fair Start Model is ten to twenty times more effective at protecting children and our environment, and building human rights and democracy, than other policies that address these issues. For many reasons, it is an overriding human right which can be furthered by all means effective. 

    According to Executive Director Erika Mathews: “Because our current system of family planning oppresses future generations and puts us all at existential risk, it is illegitimate, and an impediment to the constituting of true democracies.” 

  • Want to Hold Rich White Men Accountable to the Law? Let’s Start with Elon Musk.

    Want to Hold Rich White Men Accountable to the Law? Let’s Start with Elon Musk.

    Police brutalizing people of color and the poor is nothing new, but the issue is finally getting the attention it deserves.

    Meanwhile rich white men like Elon Musk, who’s looted billions in profits during the pandemic, can ignore COVID-19 shutdown orders and reopen a car factory rife with racism, and nothing happens. People like Musk and Donald Trump – born rich – are playing with their space toys, launching a mission that does little good for most people, and seems like some version of the movie Elysium, while black men are being killed down here on Earth.

    • In the United States, one set of laws exists for the rich and another one applies to the poor. This system is illegitimate.
    • This double system will persist as long as an extreme imbalance of wealth and power remains. Violence is one form of power, money is another, and the solution has to deal with both. We need to focus on a fundamental fix to the massive imbalance right now, and the one with the greatest impact – by far – for the most numerous and vulnerable classes.
    • Because a child’s right to a fair start in life is the fundamental human right that overrides all other interests including property rights, we can use that right to redistribute resources, end the inequity, and build the real constitutional democracies we all deserve.

    Take Action to Hold Musk Accountable

    Contact the California governor here, explain why Musk committed a crime when he reopened the California Tesla plant, and demand action. Let’s see how legitimate our system really is.

    Find and engage Musk in person, lawfully and peacefully, and demand that the resources he’s using to colonize space, worsen inequity, and turn his own six children into billionaires be used instead to fund Fair Start family planning and the constituting of real democracies. Musk, whose wealth originated from a system of colonization and exploitation in Africa and who very likely has a net negative impact on the environment, has publicly mocked the Occupy movement. He has also consistently promoted family planning systems designed to create massive economies filled with workers and consumers that serve the rich, rather than human rights based systems that empower people. Instead of speaking out, Musk is deliberatly using SpaceX to distract people away from an issue of justice, to focus instead on his newest display of wealth.

    Finally, we can move from a regressive legal system based on violence at its worst, and incentives as a lesser evil, to one based on true self-determination, starting with the birth of every child. Urge our leadership to adopt Fair Start family planning as the fundamental basis for our laws and policies.