Fair Start Movement

Category: Family Planning & Child Rights

  • 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.

  • Gabriel Fernandez Was Tortured. We Must Prevent Child Abuse Before it Happens.

    Gabriel Fernandez Was Tortured. We Must Prevent Child Abuse Before it Happens.

    From “Why Did No One Save Gabriel?” published in The Atlantic, October 2nd, 2018.

    “Is it normal for your mom to hit you with the part of the belt that has that metal thing on the end?”

    “You mean the buckle?” Garcia (his first-grade teacher) asked.

    “Yeah,” he said. “Is it normal for you to bleed?”

    ———————–

    “Near the end of January, Garcia was reading to a group of students when the door opened. It was Gabriel. This time, the students didn’t laugh. They didn’t understand what they saw. Gabriel’s eyes were swollen, and squinty like a cat’s. Little round bruises dotted his face. Garcia told him to sit down. When she was finally alone with him at recess, she asked what had happened.

    “I fell,” he said.

    “I don’t believe you, Gabriel,” she said, noting that this was the first time he’d lied to her. She saw the anger swell inside him.

    “It’s because my mom shot me in the face with a BB gun!”

    “Okay.” She paused, not knowing what to say. “Why did you lie and tell me you fell?”

    “When I tell you, and that lady comes, then I get hurt worse.”

     

    Gabriel Fernandez was tortured to death by his mother and her boyfriend.

    Nearly five children die every day due to abuse and neglect in the U.S. The system failed to protect a little boy, who despite the cruelty inflicted upon him, still loved his mother. Gabriel’s case is a heartbreaking reminder that downstream solutions are not enough to keep kids safe.

    prevent child abuse

    But we cannot let him become another statistic. We must prevent abuse before it happens. Having Kids is the only organization working to stop child abuse through Fair Start orders, which prevent child abusers from having additional children while they are on probation and undergoing rehabilitative programs.

    You can prevent this harm inflicted on so many kids with your gift on this Giving Tuesday.

     

  • Shocking Child Abuse in Florida – Having Kids Offers Solution

    Shocking Child Abuse in Florida – Having Kids Offers Solution

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    Today the national child-protection organization Having Kids called upon Florida Governor-elect Ron DeSantis to adopt a policy of preventing child abusers from having additional children. Together we can end child abuse.

    Read the full letter here.

    On August 19, 2018, the 4-year daughter of Jacqui Lyne Carter was brought into an emergency room in Jacksonville with severe head trauma. While the child’s mother Carter, told investigators that her daughter had simply hit her head from moving around excitedly in a bouncy chair, a medical examination showed a very different story. A CAT scan revealed multiple skull fractures as well as multiple brain bleeds. Medical reports from the hospital revealed that this young child had both “old and new skull fractures.” This type of skull fracture and brain damage was not from an accidental “bump,” but clearly “indicative of a blow to her head with force.” Even more horrifying, exams revealed not one, but two fractures, indicating at least two separate forceful blows to the girl’s head.

    In 2016 alone, Florida Department of Children and Families received more than 225,000 referrals for child abuse and neglect. 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. Florida’s child maltreatment reporting rate has consistently exceeded the national average and Florida is in the top 10 states in the nation for reporting by calculating children investigated per 1,000 children in the general population. In fact, per a study by the SAS Institute that followed a 2005 birth cohort for 10 years, approximately one in every five children born in Florida in 2005 were reported at least once to the child welfare system within 60 months from birth. Florida’s child population has increased by 1.8% from 4,031,098 in 2007 to 4,105,129 in 2015 compared to a 0.5% decrease in the United States’ child population. Florida’s poverty rate for 2015 was 2% higher than the comparable national average.

    Having Kids is urging DeSantis to develop policies, and encourage legislation, that enables judges to issue Fair Start Orders. This would allow courts, at the judge’s discretion, to issue an order to prevent offenders in the most egregious child abuse and neglect cases from having children for a limited time period as a condition of his or her probation. Having Kids Executive Director Erika Mathews said this: “We offer child-first Fair Start family planning as a way to actually protect children, by preventing child abuse at the source – poor family planning.” “If we want a better world, we have to start thinking ahead.”

    Tweet him at @RonDeSantisFL and ask him to pursue Fair Start policies. 

     

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  • Having Kids Partners On Animal Impact Calculator

    Having Kids Partners On Animal Impact Calculator

    Despite declining fertility rates in the US and a handful of other countries, our population is on track to grow exponentially in the coming decades. At the same time, Earth has entered the sixth mass extinction. It is one that rivals the extermination of the dinosaurs and 76% of life on Earth. However, unlike past extinction events caused by natural global pulses, humans have already caused the extinction of nearly 60% of wildlife. And these trends are accelerating (1). 

    Animals are disappearing and humans are to blame. 

    We will fail our children and future generations if we do not take significant action to mitigate our impact on the planet and wildlife.

    The vast and detrimental changes to Earth’s ecosystems are largely to meet our rapidly growing need for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, minerals, and fuel. They are the result of irresponsible human overpopulation, consumption, and a false-dependency on economic growth (2). It is becoming alarmingly clear that the demand we put on the planet is unsustainable. Although there are been substantial gains in human physical well-being and economic development for a few, the long-term costs are now being experienced in the form of climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, disease, war, displacement, hunger, and mass mortality in humans and nearly all other life forms (3)

    But effective change cannot happen without an informed scientific assessment to guide those strategies. That is why Having Kids is partnering with the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver to research individual impact on other species. Dr. Sarah M. Bexell is serving as the principal investigator on the project titled, the Animal Mortality Footprint Calculator.

    A similar tool has been developed to assess human individual impacts on the natural environment as a whole through the Ecological Footprint Calculator. And while estimates are available about the number of animals typically consumed for food, which measures in the billions in the U.S. alone, this research will go further to consider the cost to other species. The project will develop the algorithms to calculate the average number of animals that die to support the lifestyle of one human individual.

    This information will make a clear case to policymakers, economists, conservationists, environmental and social scientists, the philanthropic community, local communities, and citizens of the urgent need for consequential behavior change in terms of family planning and family size. The Animal Mortality Footprint Calculator will expose the inescapable truth of the direct impact that each person imposes on the most vulnerable beings.

    We know that choosing smaller families is the best way to protect for all animals, including humans.

    Unfortunately, the animal protection community has largely avoided that fact. A key aim of this project is to increase support of the Fair Start Model of family planning by animal advocates as well as communities everywhere.

    We must start a larger conversation on the choice to have smaller families size to protect biodiversity and the planet, and to reduce animal suffering caused by human activity. Sustainable family planning creates a path forward to a habitable world for all kids and animals.

    We will share updates as this research progresses. In the meantime, add your name to our open letter to the U.N, and learn more about the impact of humans on animals.

    1. WWF, 2016
    2. Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; WWF, 2014; 2016
    3. e.g., Ceballos, et al., 2015; Cohen, et. al., 2017; Dockery & Evans, 2017; Raworth, 2012; Rockstrom et al., 2009

     

  • Animals Are Disappearing and Large Families Are to Blame

    Animals Are Disappearing and Large Families Are to Blame

    Animals are disappearing. A recent study has determined that just two generations of humans have killed off more than half the world’s wildlife populations. Populations of animals have declined by 60 percent since 1970, according to a report released Monday by the World Wildlife Fund. According to the Washington Post, “the animals that remain will fight against warming oceans choked with plastic, toppled rainforests may zero out fragile species, and refuges such as coral reefs may nearly die off.”

    The loss is directly attributable to the fundamental cause of all environmental crises: Large, poorly planned families and the unsustainable population growth they cause. 

    Many of the environmental crises today are caused by variables that we did not understand when setting environmental polices decades ago, variables like the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But at that time we did know about one variable – population growth as an underlying multiplier of all anthropogenic impacts. Had we taken family planning more seriously then, we would not be where we are today.

    Poor family planning is enabled by an outdated social model that focuses on what parents want more than on what future children need. It was a system developed for survival in a different time, before we knew what we know today about human impact on the planet, early childhood development needs, and the lasting impact that crowding has on inequality. We are not living in that world anymore. Our cities and towns are becoming increasingly crowded and we’re demanding more than the natural world can comfortably provide. That type of isolated living of the past no longer serves us. It does not account for the nonhuman world. It does not leave room for animals.

    There is a better way. 

    Urge the WWF, at @PavanSukhdev, to publicly support our call on the United Nations Secretary-General to issue a statement on the need for a new and cooperative “smaller family” planning model designed to give every kid a fair start in life.

  • We Have a Right to Better Male Birth Control. Who’s Standing in Our Way?

    We Have a Right to Better Male Birth Control. Who’s Standing in Our Way?

    Women have shouldered the costs of birth control for too long. They live with the side effects, risks, and responsibilities of obtaining and using it, or they risk pregnancy. Men face no such consequence. Perhaps that is why surveys report that men have a lower tolerance for the associated side effects. Given that men cause 100% of unplanned pregnancies, isn’t it time for them to share some of the responsibility?

    The good news is that many millennial men indicate that they do want options and the ability to choose for themselves. Education can also help to dispel concerns that may have led to the unfavorable opinions in survey results.

    A birth control pill for men and other long-acting and reversible contraceptives would drastically cut unwanted pregnancies. These options could be game-changers when it comes to solving the world’s biggest problems. Family planning is the most effective way to address climate change, child welfare, and economic equality. There are several new methods, including a gel and a pill, that could be approved more quickly with better policies and more funding.

    What’s blocking these new technologies that could solve some of the world’s greatest problems? In one word: men.


    Resistance to Societal Changes

    The patriarchal systems that run our country and which have been in place for thousands of years rely on control of women’s bodies. By increasing reproductive freedom for all, women gain greater power in their household, the workplace, and in society. And that threatens the influence of cultural norms and institutions.  


    Economic Interests

    The men who shape our society and policies are subscribers to the “bigger is better” approach to the economy. This economic view relies on unrestrained population growth to create more consumers and taxpayers. Those like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio push for more babies because they falsely claim that “it’s good for the economy”.

    These unsustainable “capitalism at all costs” policymakers are the ones making decisions on the progress of male contraceptive, from the prioritization of testing and approvals, the allocation of funding, the determination of acceptable levels of risk, and tolerable side effects.

    In creating these pro-natalist economic policies, they didn’t consider the impact that these pro-growth policies have on the environment, equality, or the needs for children. And we’re all paying the price.


    Greater Reproductive Freedom for Men

    The Parsemus Foundation shows there is a demand from men for greater reproductive freedom as shown by these quotes from their site:

    “I want control of my fertility that is safe, convenient to use and totally effective. That way I can be in control of my life rather than putting it in the hands of women and government agencies.” – S. Gee, South Korea

    “Having control over when I have children is the foremost thing in my life. I place great value on having freedom of choice and freedom from worry…” – Anonymous, South Africa


    Breaking Down Barriers

    Our culture is unquestionably imbalanced in terms of gender equity, which begs an important question. If there’s a product that makes life easier for men, will there be fewer hurdles in accessing it? Considering that the majority of decision-makers are men, it’s not a big leap to assume that would be true. In such a case, increased acceptance, affordability and access to male contraceptive would create pressure for easier availability to women, pulling the rug out from much the resistance to women’s reproductive rights.


    The Big Picture

    You and your kids have a right to a world that is not ravaged by climate change, and environmentally and socially destabilized through massive population growth. The male pill and other contraceptives could go far towards preventing that scenario.

    Our archaic “bigger is better” child tax credit system pays the wealthy (along with everyone else) to have children. Why not shift that funding toward the development and clinical trials of male contraceptives for a more economically and environmentally sustainable future? That’s one of the many questions Having Kids will be asking members of Congress in the months to come.

  • What’s Progressive About Unsustainable Family Planning?

    What’s Progressive About Unsustainable Family Planning?

    In a one-sided piece that really should have been treated as an editorial, The Washington Post (WP) spills much ink lamenting falling birthrates in the United States. The article seems like an opinion-piece prelude to policies like Italy’s recent scheme to bribe parents into having more kids by giving them land in exchange. The U.S. is actually not that far behind, following Trump’s recent cash-for-babies tax credit increase.

    Pushing for larger families, without accounting for every child’s right to a fair start in life and the impact of growth on our environment is irresponsible. Smaller families mean more time, love and energy for each child, a safer and more sustainable environment, and more connected communities where each person’s voice can matter. That strengthens democracy. Promoting higher birthrates to fuel cheap future labor, voracious consumers, and compliant taxpayers is economic nationalism, the end of which we hope is coming. Bigger is not better, and if the WP truly values democracy, it will be more careful when reporting on its fundament, the trends in family planning that literally determine who we are and will be as a people.

    Tweet Marty Baron, Executive Editor of the WP, at @PostBaron and politely suggest fuller reporting on this vital issue.

  • Time for Guaranteed and Sustainable Child Income

    Time for Guaranteed and Sustainable Child Income

    Cory Booker is right. It’s time to target inequality, and baby bonds, as he proposes, are a great way to do it. But what if we could create more equity for kids and protect our environment – the environment our children will need in the future, at the same time? We can. 

    Today the national child-protection organization Having Kids called upon the District of Columbia to adopt a sustainable guaranteed income for children in the District, one pegged to better family planning. The idea is simple: The District can reach many of its goals at once by promoting smaller families so that communities and families can invest more in each child. The policy is centered around every child’s right to a fair start in life, and is designed to address the greatest threats facing the District and nation, including inequality and climate change.

    Can Washington D.C. make a difference by itself? It can for its residents. But it can also lead by example and set a trend – a line of dominoes – for the rest of the nation.

    Read the full letter here. 

    The policy urges the District to adopt a stable community model, where the financial resources formerly required to support growth could be directed to other beneficial investments. Rather than focusing on blunt and unsustainable economic growth, the Having Kids GMI proposal shrinks the wealth gap by specifically contemplating (1) household resources per capita, (2) level of access to public services such as health and education and (3) above all, the relationship between a child’s fair start in life and prospects for success.

    Several studies show that smaller families are the best way to confront climate change, as well as other and related environmental crises. Research also confirms the disproportionate impact of early childhood development on human wellbeing and inequality later in life.

    The current family planning model in use makes our future less secure, healthy and equitable than it should be. Having Kids Executive Director Anne Green said this: “We offer the child-first Fair Start family planning model as a sustainable and equitable alternative. The Fair Start model is cooperative rather than isolationist, is based upon binding sources of international law, and provides a clear human rights-based solution to our biggest problems and a path forward.”

    Tweet @MayorBowser and ask her to adopt sustainable income for kids that is tied to family planning.

     

  • 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.