Ruth Institute Blog

by Carolyn Moynihan

When prenatal diagnosis brings bad news about their child, parents deserve a real choice of paths. Happily, there is a beautiful option available.

In a Melbourne maternity hospital last month a very shocking event occurred. A healthy, 32-week-old, wanted, unborn child was killed by a lethal injection when the sonographer performing the procedure mistook the child for its unhealthy twin. When the mistake was realised, the mother had an emergency caesarean section and the sick child was also terminated, according to news reports. The whole tragic episode left the mother traumatised and everybody involved distraught. Read more…

WASHINGTON, September 1, 2011– R&B Pop Superstar Beyonce Knowles’ recently announced pregnancy has ignited lots of interest but also social debate about controversial issues like the high rate of out-of-wedlock births in urban cities. Read more…

An urban high school teacher in Connecticut talks about unwed motherhood, fatherlessness, and how it affects the kids in his classroom.

by Gerry Garibaldi

…Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch… Read more…

By TERI FIGUEROA

An internationally known Poway attorney who specialized in reproductive law pleaded guilty Tuesday to a key role in what federal authorities said was a baby-selling ring.

Theresa Erickson, 43, admitted that she and her co-conspirators used women to create an inventory of unborn babies that they would sell for over $100,000 each, according to the San Diego offices of the U.S. attorney. Read more…

Wowsers. Some people have totally lost their minds, particularly regarding the tidbit in the very last paragraph.

by Carolyn Moynihan

British secondary schools are required by law to teach the biological facts of human reproduction in science lessons, but students themselves often say the instruction given is too biological. The facts also speak for themselves: Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. Read more…

About ten years ago, I set the goal for myself to perform a one-arm pullup.

Working diligently and using a variety of training techniques, I got very close to that goal.  Agonizingly close.  Despite years of effort, the feat eluded me.  Yet I never gave up.

Finally, I got the idea to radically restrict my carbohydrate intake, lose the belly I was developing and thereby increase my strength-to-weight ratio.  I cut out sugar, grain and other starchy foods.  Fifteen pounds came right off, and I was able to get my chin over the bar using one hand.  This makes me very happy.

You might ask, Ari, what the heck does this have to do with anything that the Ruth Institute stands for?  Are you just writing this to brag? Read more…

by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D. and Scott Talkington, Ph.D.

The 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that females who grew up in intact families who frequently attended religious services are least likely to have had an unwed pregnancy.

Description: Examining structure of family of origin, 19 percent of females who grew up in an intact married family have had an unwed pregnancy, followed by females from intact cohabiting families (26 percent), single divorced parent families (36 percent) and married stepfamilies (36 percent), cohabiting stepfamilies (37 percent), and always single parent families (54 percent). Read more…

Yesterday there was a segment on NPR titled Taming The Twin Trend From Fertility Treatments. They talked about how various forms of ART have caused an increase in the incidence of twin pregnancies:

Twins, once a rarity to marvel over, are now a common part of American culture, thanks in large part to increased use of reproductive technology. Twins are conceived naturally just 2 percent of the time; for those who get pregnant with fertility treatments the rate is more than 40 percent.

They also discussed some of the health risks associated with twins: Read more…

Would it surprise anyone to find out that left-wing extremists believe that religious hospitals must perform abortions?

Uh… no, I doubt very much that would surprise anyone at all.

In fact, I doubt anyone would be at all surprised to learn that, as this article points out: Read more…

One of the greatest media hoaxes of the 20th century is The Reproductive Healthcare Movement’s concern for social justice & women’s safety

Also from the article:

…history has proven this to be completely false! After 1967-73 most abortionists simply moved out from the back alley onto Main St. and little has changed to help make surgical abortion anymore safe since Roe vs. Wade.

The article speaks for itself.

There’s been some flak in the news lately about new abortion counseling guidelines issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

LifeNews.com:
The guidelines, which have already been panned for ignoring the link between abortion and breast cancer, contain other scientific flaws.

The guidelines say “Women should be advised that abortion is generally safer than continuing a pregnancy to term,” even though abortion comes with a host of medical and mental health concerns and has been found to cause more problems for women than childbirth. Read more…

Teen girls keep having children, writes high school teacher Gerry Garibaldi, and we keep encouraging them

Teen pregnancy is an “intractable problem,” says Gerry Garibaldi, that urban teachers “cannot spend or even teach [their] way out of.” Photo: Corbis

IN MY SHORT time as a teacher in Connecticut, I have muddled through President Bush’s No Child Left Behind act, which tied federal funding of schools to various reforms, and through President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, which does much the same thing, though with different benchmarks. Thanks to the Feds, urban schools like mine are swimming in money. Our facility is state-of-the-art, thanks to a recent $40 million face-lift, with gleaming new hallways and bathrooms and a fully computerized library. Read more…

Seems like a logical conclusion they should have come to in advance.

by Carolyn Moynihan

A decade ago public health experts and frontline health professionals convinced the UK government that easy (free, over the counter) access to the morning after pill would bring down the country’s record rates of teenage pregnancy. It hasn’t, but it has helped to increase sexually transmitted infections among teens. Read more…

Wow this really caught my attention:

Unemployed Father of 10 Having 5 More Children

The article is about a guy who’s fathered up to 15 kids by the age of 25. There are potentially ten women involved.

I am completely mystified as to why these women are willing to bear his children. He’s not handsome, he’s not rich, he’s not employed… what is the attraction for SO many woman toward one seemingly undesirable man?

Read more…

According to Gallup’s recent Values and Beliefs survey, Americans are “sharply divided” on 4 issues: doctor-assisted suicide, homosexual relations, abortion, and out-of-wedlock childbearing.  Close to half of us perceive these activities in particular as “morally acceptable;” close to half disagree and find them “morally wrong.”  (The survey asked about 16 behaviors; these were the most evenly divided among those polled.)  Curious?  Listen in. (Click the POD icon.)

The thought of kids having kids is really disturbing to me. I had my first child when I was 25, and I can say, it’s serious business. I can’t imagine doing it while trying to go to high school or even college. And who is really going to be raising these children anyhow? My guess is, the grandmothers. Let’s do a survey of how mothers of pregnant teens feel about teen pregnancy.

The picture a 13-year-old boy sitting next to his baby, which accompanied an article on this topic a while back, still burns in my memory. It was such a heart-wrenching sight. The thirteen-year-old  looked so tiny. Plus his face spoke volumes of “What have I gotten myself into?” This dad is still asking to have his pb and j cut into triangles and for rides to the library. I wouldn’t let a 13-year-old boy babysit my toddlers. Babies deserve more. Read more…

My money is on the horrible movies and tv shows geered toward teens. Just a preview for an American Pie movie was enough to make me want to retch.

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -

Teen pregnancies were up three percent in 2006, which is the latest reporting period available. Proponents of comprehensive sex education are blaming abstinence programs for the increase. Read more…

The Internet TV show, Bump+ is up and running. The Party reveals more about Hailey, Katie, and Denise, and follows their individual stories as they struggle to make a decision about their unintended pregnancies.  New episodes will follow every Monday and Thursday through March 15, 2010.  And of course, the conversation between viewers continues around the clock.