Category: News & Fair Start Headlines

What is PIELC? “Over the last 35 years, the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference has brought together thousands of activists, students, and professionals, from a diverse array of communities and cultures, to advance efforts for environmental and social justice.” 

This year Having Kids presented at PIELC, making the irrefutable case that the best way to protect and restore the environment is by promoting smaller families that work together to invest more in each child.

Want to make the future better for children and others? Don’t be afraid to talk about family planning, and urge families around you to use the resources they would have spent having an additional child to instead help a different family give their first child a better start in life. And as brave families make this choice, lets all tear down government and corporate barriers – like unfair tax policies and corporate benefits – that stop other families from doing the same. 

Dozens of stories have emerged in the past year or so about parents breaking an age-old taboo by publicly admitting they regret having children. From heart-wrenching personal stories of overwhelming remorse to tales from a wide socioeconomic spectrum of families to exploding Facebook pages and reactionary criticism from conservatives, parents are starting to speak out.

What does parental regret have to do with family planning models? Today, the universal (and virtually unquestioned) model for family planning focuses exclusively on the parents’ subjective preferences. It offers little or no guidance as to what the best decision would actually be, and it isolates parents as they do their best to care for the children they do have. Is it then a surprise that parents come to regret having kids? Perhaps because they had them so early on in life, or without enough savings, or because they had more kids than they could adequately parent? It shouldn’t be surprising.

We have to do better than treating the biggest decision most people will ever make—for themselves, for others, and for the planet—as something guided merely by parents’ intuition and whim, as if parents were shopping in a store for a simple household product.

The Having Kids model breaks this isolating and outdated paradigm by using universally shared values to guide would-be parents. The model urges them to wait to have children until they can provide the things all children deserve, to demand help from the community in obtaining those things, and to not have more children than they—as well as their community and the planet—can nurture, sustain, and help thrive.

It’s great that parents are speaking out about regret. Let’s rethink family planning so that, in the future, they might not have to.

Many good people struggle every day to change the world and make it better for others. These people:

•         Provide basic food, shelter, and medical care for those who need it most.
•         Equalize opportunities by redistributing resources, through charities, from the wealthy to the poorest.
•         Protect animals and the environment from abuse and destruction.
•         Help build democracies by equipping and training people to work together to rule themselves.

What would happen if the people doing these things were not just focused on helping people alive today, but also on helping the people coming into this world? What if for every hour of effort people put into doing the four things above, they spent ten minutes helping parents plan their families? What if, in addition, we all:

•         Worked together so that no child came into the world without being provided with, ahead of their arrival, basic food, shelter, and medical care.
•         Rather than redistributing resources among adults, ensured that every child got a fair start in life, from the children of the poorest Americans to the President of the United States.
•         Protected animals and the environment by creating a world with fewer, but more compassionate, people than are alive today.
•         Equipped and trained every child, right from the start, to work together to govern themselves, rather than to elect others to rule for them.

How do we get there? It’s simple: Instead of investing time and money in another child, families choose to shift those resources, using them to help a different family plan a better start for their first child. We can also change our policies and incentives—from laws to corporate benefits—to encourage families to plan a better start for every child. That’s what Having Kids wants to do, and you can help.

Many well-meaning donors who want to improve child welfare, protect the environment, and build real democracies are focused on increasing global access to effective birth control so that parents can have fewer children and invest more in each child. They cite studies that show a high percentage of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and they assume that if we can just provide more access to contraception, would-be parents will use it and reduce fertility rates.

Of course access to birth control is vital. Having Kids supports it through our membership in coalitions that promote public funding for better contraceptives. But is access enough?

Some of the wealthiest communities in the world have great access to contraception, but they still choose to have some of the largest and most environmentally destructive families in the developed world. Many of my friends who consider themselves environmentalists—and even work for environmental organizations—are considering having a second or third child because they believe their first child needs a sibling. These parents do not lack access to contraception. So what’s missing?

Access to contraception is only half the equation. We need to change the norms around having kids in order to create the future we want. The Having Kids model encourages smaller families in communities that work together to ensure children have a fair start in life, access to a healthy environment, and the opportunity to have a better future than the generation before them. Why put effort and massive funding into half the equation (access) while ignoring the other half (family planning norms or models)? Let’s focus on both, and let’s change the norm about how we plan families to solve larger global issues.

Last week, the Trump administration reinstated Ronald Reagan’s Global Gag Rule policy, which prohibits the granting of U.S. foreign aid to health service providers abroad who advise abortion as a family-planning option (not just those who provide the service itself). This move comes on top of an existing U.S. law which prohibits the use of American taxpayer dollars for abortion services anywhere in the world.Here are four rarely stated and nonpartisan reasons why reinstating the Rule is a dangerous move.

• It will hurt children. The Rule will create a situation where vulnerable women who do not wish to have a child might be forced to do so, even if they know they will not be able to feed, clothe, and otherwise care for that child. And that will mean children living—and dying—in conditions none of the Rule’s proponents would allow their own children to live in. A good life requires more than simply being born; it requires the parents to have actual resources. Being pro-birth is not the same thing as being truly pro-life or being prepared to give kids the resources we ourselves would want and that they legally and morally deserve. Will those behind the Rule pay for the care of the severely disabled children affected by the Zika virus who will be born as a result of the policy? If not, why shouldn’t they?

• It will widen the global gap between rich and poor, and it will underscore the poor’s demands to take resources from the rich so that their kids get a fair start in life. Will the children affected by the Rule get a fair start in life, relative to the born-rich children of Mr. Trump and the other wealthy pro-birthers pushing this policy change? Probably not. Given that any human-rights-based and democratic system requires that all people enter the system as free and equal persons, the Rule degrades the system and heightens the likelihood of justified class conflict.

• It exacerbates the degradation of our atmosphere. While those living in many part of the word affected by the Rule probably have a negligible impact on climate change relative to those living in the U.S., the fact is that any rule interfering with a woman terminating her pregnancy blocks the most effective individual move a person can make—choosing a smaller family—to protect the environment. Given that the U.S. Department of Defense recognizes climate change as a threat to our national security, the Rule poses a threat to us and future generations.

• It interferes with building democracies around the world. U.S. efforts to help build democracies around the world operate on the backs of international development programs that work by promoting smaller families with higher investments in each child. The Rule moves in the opposite direction, ensuring crowding, inequality, lower rates of education, and other factors that create a human environment incompatible with the development of true democracy.

In short, if you care about kids, equality, the environment, or democracy, you will have reasons to oppose and work against the Global Gag Rule. Having Kids will stand with you as you do.