Amy Chua’s Wall Street Journal piece, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” teaches the power of motherhood in many great ways even if all the mothers are not perfect and even if their goals may (in some cases) be too one sided and too utilitarian.

It pays to parse out the wheat from the chaff. First the wheat:

Children can reach much greater heights than most parents ask them to achieve. The fault here is not with the children but the parents — who themselves often are not prepared to do the work involved: they don’t realize the potential of their children for they do not realize their own potential.

The Jewish mother and Western and Central European Jews in particular had developed similar cultures of demanding a lot of their children. One of these children wrote a book that had a big effect on my raising my children: Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher (doctorate under Husserl and worked with Heidegger) who later became a Carmelite nun, death-camped by the Nazi’s for being a Jew and canonized by John Paul II. Volume One of her autobiography (Life in a Jewish Family) taught the lessons of hard work because of high expectations of parents. They rose to it because no one thought otherwise. And see what Jews achieve as a result. Wonderful is the capacity God has placed in man.

The conversation around our Sunday (extended-family) dinner table last week revealed a consensus that our children were the product of a Catholic “Chinese mother” and so were many of the children they knew. Those children were all home-schooled too for a significant portion of their early childhood. Home-schooling mothers had to recognize themselves in Amy Chua’s article — but with one exception.

Home school mothers probably agree with legendary basketball coach John Wooten that not all kids can be #1 but all kids can give of their best — and that is much more important. The dignity of the child and rejoicing in the talents he or she has (not the ones they wish they had) is the main lesson to be learned. And to develop talents to their fullest means lots of effort.

Amy Chua does the country a great service, reminding us of what is possible. Some “Chinese mothers” on the other hand go too far as some of the blog responses have clearly demonstrated: name calling and emotional abuse is the antithesis of being a good parent and it is no wonder some of the children have broken relationships with their “Chinese mothers”: they were treated like a piece of iron to be filed not a wonder of God to be nurtured.

Those who come closest to this golden mean are those who grow up in married families that worship weekly. Their hard work and dignity are most likely to be attained — and graduations from high school and colleget too. Check out Mappping America and you will see US national patterns for these outcomes.

And by the way, the overwhelming majority of home-schooling families fall into this category too. The American “Chinese mother” comes in many forms as Amy Chua indicated.

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Rob Schwarzwalder, Senior Vice President at FRC, explains why he’s pro-life.

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James Zambrana, FRC Staff Member, explains why he’s pro-life.

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We are less than a week away from ProLifeCon, and I am excited by the number of speakers who will be at this year’s event.  If you haven’t already, register for ProLifeCon today.

Image borrowed from Global Outreach Campus Ministries

Since we have confirmed a good number of speakers, I am particularly excited to hear from Dean Nelson, who is the Vice President of Underserved Outreach at Care Net. Dean was a campus minister for years, and is a graduate of the University of Virginia. Dean leads Care Net’s efforts to train urban leaders and churches in developing pregnancy centers in underserved communities. It will be great to hear Dean discuss how he uses technology to reach out to the underserved communities.

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Last Friday the world heard the news that the Catholic Church will beatify Pope John Paul II later this year, which is one step closer to the Church formally recognizing that he rests in Heaven.  I suspect that many of my Evangelical friends are well ahead of the Catholic Church in knowing that he is there, in the great cloud of witnesses, adoring his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Before beatification the Catholic Church confirms that a miracle has occurred due to the intercession of the deceased. In Pope John Paul’s case, it is the miraculous cure of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease.  This little nun says John Paul was and is an inspiration because of his defense of the unborn child. “John Paul II did everything he could for life, to defend life,” she said. “He was very close to the smallest and weakest. How many times did we see him approach a handicapped person, a sick person?”

It is hard for me to approach another anniversary of Roe v. Wade without thinking of this great man who once said that “a nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.”  His very life was a witness to the sanctity of all human life. John Paul survived an assassination attempt and immediately forgave his assassin.  He survived the two greatest threats to life and freedom of the 20^th century, Nazi Germany and Communist Totalitarianism, and of that bloody century, said: “The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.”

He dedicated an entire encyclical to abortion and euthanasia, and in the magnificent “Gospel of Life” he minced no words:  “No human law can claim to legitimize” abortion, he said.  We have a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” such laws, even through “conscientious objection.”

Another spiritual leader on her way to saintly recognition, Mother Teresa, was his comrade-in-arms on this issue and equally blunt:  “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation.  The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men.  It has portrayed the greatest of gifts — a child — as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.”

Imagine the homecoming for these two giants for life: a choir of little ones, in the millions.

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Politics Daily writer Delia Lloyd recently opined about the key factors behind the recent small increase in the U.S. abortion rate in her article “Economics of Abortion: Recession and Contraception Among Key Factors“. She cites my organization, Family Research Council in a way that is misleading, and so I write today to clarify this matter.

Lloyd conflates two policy issues in her piece: she believes that the number of abortions will decrease if contraception is included in the recommended list of “preventive services” for women in the new healthcare law, i.e., contraception will have no co-payment or cost-pay.

Lloyd misses a few key components in the women’s preventive services debate.

1) Some pills that are labeled as contraceptives cause abortions. “Plan B”, labeled as an Emergency Contraceptive (EC) will prevent a newly conceived fetus from implanting in the mother’s womb and thereby cause the destruction of a human life. Moreover, the newest EC available, “ella” mimics the one legal abortion drug, RU-486, in the way it works. They both starve a developing fetus of proteins necessary to survive the first ten weeks. This occurs after the baby has implanted in the mother’s uterus. These drugs are misleadingly labeled as contraceptives.

2) If contraception is included in the list of women’s preventive services that will have no co-pay, American taxpayers, employees and companies will be forced to pay for abortion. Requiring American taxpayers to pay for these abortifacient drugs is a violation of conscience rights which have been long protected by federal law.

Where Lloyd and I agree is that there are far too many abortions in the United States. I would go so far as to say that any abortion is one too many. However, forcing Americans to foot the bill for abortifacient drugs is not the answer to decreasing the number of abortions.

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On January 19, FRC will be holding a Family Policy Lecture: Can Freedom Last Forever?–The Founders’ Forgotten Question, and Where the U.S. is today with Os Guinness.

Os Guinness is an expert on faith, public policy, and international relations. He worked as a freelance journalist for the BBC and as a scholar at the Brookings Institute and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Affairs. He has written and edited more than 25 books including The American Hour (1993), The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose for Your Life (1998), Invitation to the Classics (1998), Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror (2005), and The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It (2008).

Register today for Can Freedom Last Forever with Os Guinness

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Jeanne Monahan, FRC’s Director, Center for Human Dignity tells why she’s pro-life.

For more information on the video contest, “I’m Pro-Life Because…,” visit our Facebook page.

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The January 2011 issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy contains an important “commentary” piece – unfortunately not free ($25.00) – discussing the advent, workings, and possible effects of progesterone receptor modulators like mifepristone (RU-486) and ella (ulipristal).  The article was written by Donna Harrison, M.D. (President, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists) and James G. Mitroka, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lloyd L Gregory School of Pharmacy, Palm Beach Atlantic University) and is entitled, “Defining Reality: The Potential Role of Pharmacists in Assessing the Impact of Progesterone Receptor Modulators and Misoprostol in Reproductive Health.”  In part, it is directed toward pharmacists who may see the adverse events associated with these drugs.  Here is the abstract:

Medical abortion is increasingly heralded as an ideal method for decreasing maternal mortality in health-care resource-deprived areas and as an answer to the shrinking pool of physicians willing to perform abortions. The advent of progesterone receptor modulators (PRMs) and the recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of ella (ulipristal) as an emergency contraceptive put pharmacists in the center of abortion controversy. Pharmacists, worldwide, need to be aware of the controversy surrounding the introduction of PRMs, particularly with regard to the effect on health policy, their mechanism of action, associated adverse events, and common off-label uses. Once understood, genuine opportunity exists for pharmacists to serve a fundamental role in positively shaping public health policy.

A key sentence describes the potential abortifacient of ulipristal in humans:

Based on these data, it can be reasonably expected that the [FDA approved dose] will have an abortive effect on early pregnancy in humans.

And the possibility of embryological effect is noted as well:

Whether ulipristal is used intentionally or unintentionally by pregnant women, any surviving embryo may be exposed to an embryotoxic agent for >6 days, as the half-life of ulipristal acetate is approximately 32 hours.

The authors note that a fetal registry for ulipristal survivors needs to be established to track long term health defects in that there is a predictable 5% pregnancy rate for those who have taken the drug.  Hopefully, more writing will be done with regard to these aspects of ulipristal and its abortifacient effects.

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As ProLifeCon draws nearer, I am excited to introduce you to some awesome speakers who will be sharing their experiences.  However, I am really excited to hear from Ryan Scott Bomberger, who is the Chief Creative Officer at The Radiance Foundation.  Ryan’s story is inspiring, as he was adopted at six weeks by a loving family since his birth mother chose life, instead of abortion.

Ryan has had a passion for adoption and pro-life, pro-family causes since childhood, and he has been involved in several youth outreach programs.  His passion for creativity has led him to minister to others through this medium.

Please register for ProLifeCon today to hear from exciting speakers, who will leave you more empowered to make a difference in your community.

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Register today on Facebook for our new contest, “I’m Pro-Life because…” There will be some amazing prizes for the best video, including an Amazon Kindle 3G.

If you want to see a sample, check this out.

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Richard “Dick” Winters, commander of the “Easy Company” made famous in the “Band of Brothers” book and movie, has died. He was 92.

Dick Winters quietly, calmly, and boldly led his men on mission after mission. The moving tribute to him found here tells something of his story.

What is not widely known is that Winters objected strenuously to the obscenity-laced version of the “Brothers” miniseries in the early 2000s, feeling it debased his men and misrepresented the high level of respect between enlisted men and their officers. In the words of Winters’ close friend Bob Hoffman,

(Winters) wrote a letter to Tom Hanks, who was a co-producer, saying he did not want to be part of the project. Hanks called Winters and tried to explain that’s Hollywood, Hoffman said. But Winters stood by his principles, and Hanks and his co-producer, Steven Spielberg, soon agreed to edit the miniseries.

Although the miniseries is still too full of objectionable language, it was Dick Winters’ principled willingness to stay faithful to his moral convictions that improved it substantially.

Dick Winters was tenacious in the face of the enemy – on one occasion, leading 35 men in a frontal assault on more than 300 Germans. Yet perhaps two anecdotes, more than any others, say something about the character of this remarkable man.

As told by Stephen Ambrose in his book, Band of Brothers, as Winters and Ambrose walked along once in the Pennsylvania countryside, they came upon a wounded duck or goose. Ambrose suggested that Winters kill the animal, to which Winters replied, with some shock, “I could never do that.”

Former state Sen. David Brightbill, then an attorney in Lebanon County, worked with Winters following the war. Winters once phoned Brightbill to tell him he was headed to Europe for a couple of weeks. “I asked him, ‘Have you been there before?’” Brightbill recalled. “He just said, “Yes, the government sent me over there.”

Dick Winters, winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, man of honor and integrity, role model for all Americans: May God bless his family during this time of their mourning, and bless the country he served so faithfully all his life.

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Late last week, New Yorkers learned the crushing news that in 2009 the Big Apple had an abortion rate of 41%.  In other words, in 2009, four out of ten children were denied the right to life in New York City. And if you happened to be African-American, it was statistically more likely that you would be aborted than born in 2009 (60% of black children were aborted).

These numbers are staggering, even to abortion advocates. One pro-choice New Yorker had this to say, “The rate reflects an epidemic of irresponsible sexual behavior that has serious social and economic impacts… When you consider that nationwide, about a quarter of pregnancies end in abortion, it’s clear that New York City has too many men and too many women who are engaging in sex without thinking through the consequences.” The title of her article was “You don’t have to be anti-choice to believe far too many abortions are performed in New York.”

In truth any abortion is one too many. Abortion not only takes the innocent life of a defenseless baby growing in its mother’s womb but scores of studies continue to show that this violent procedure also deeply wounds the mother psychologically and physically.

Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) are one of the few groups who work to decrease the number of abortions in New York City by tirelessly (and gratuitously) helping women who are facing unexpected pregnancies. Sadly and ironically these very groups are now the political target of an anti-life piece of legislation introduced by New York City’s Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D) and Councilwoman Jessica Lappin (D) and written by NARAL New York. For more information on NYC Bill 371 and to sign a petition opposing this bill click here: www.savethelifecenters.com.

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Hello Friends,

Welcome to the first issue of The SoCon Review of the New Year.  Today is Epiphany, the final day of the Christmas season, Shakespeare’s madcap “Twelfth Night.”  But a carnival it is not: A day of joy, yes, but a joy grounded in great truth.  In the words of Edwin and Jennifer Woodruff Tait:

Epiphany sends us into the world to live out the Incarnation, to witness to the light of Christ in the darkness … We are part of the strange society of people whose world has been turned upside down, and we go out to witness to this topsy-turvy truth: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us: and we beheld his glory … and of his fullness have we all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:14, 16).

May the revolutionary truth of God Incarnate guide and strengthen you throughout 2011.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Family Research Council

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our state legislative tracker for up-to-the-minute updates on issues relative to faith, family and freedom in your home state.

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “Homeschooling Community Grows Beyond 2 Million,” Elena Garcia, The Christian Post
• “Colleges Nationwide Recruit Homeschool Grads,” Christian Newswire
• “Effort to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum,” Hilary Stout, New York Times

Private and Religious Education

• “Choice without Options,” Mark Schneider, Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, American Enterprise Institute
• “Gauging Education Scholars’ Public Presence,” Daniel Lautzenheiser, The American
• “Accountability Is Working in Florida’s Schools,” Jeb Bush, The Wall Street Journal
• “How Far Does an Education Take You?,” Rebekah Rast, GetLiberty.org
• “Daniels Puts Hoosier State on School Choice Map,” Lindsey Burke, The Heritage Foundation
• “D.C. Needs Real School Choice,” Rachel Sheffield, The Heritage Foundation

Continue reading »

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Did you know that only 45 percent of American children will grow up in an intact family?

Everyone wants to belong, but American family culture has become a culture of rejection. 55 percent of children in the U.S. will see their parents reject one another by the time they reach 18, either through divorce, separation, or choosing not to get married.

To add to the injustice, the misery of family brokenness is concentrated in specific areas; it’s most often inflicted on teens living in urban areas, with high-minority or less educated, less affluent populations.

Rather than being raised in a culture of belonging—a family where parents love and respect each other, and children feel safe, loved, and secure—these teens grow up with an example of marital brokenness and rejection, and the effects are profound.

Children who grow up in broken families are at greater risk of poverty or dependence on welfare, enjoy less academic achievement and social development, suffer more accidents and injuries, and have worse mental health, more behavioral problems, and worse relationships with their parents.

And the effects for individual communities and the nation as a whole are just as profound. The Index of Belonging and Rejection shows that the root of the problem is an improper understanding of the male-female relationship. We’ve forgotten what it means to belong.

As a culture, we need to restore the husband-wife relationship. Help end rejection. Foster belonging.

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A study just published in the journal Cell Stem Cell has highlighted the erratic and abnormal nature of pluripotent stem cells such as embryonic stem cells, and the inherent danger of such cells for clinical applications. The new study found significant genetic abnormalities in human pluripotent stem cells, including embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cell lines. The team identified regions in the genome that had a greater tendency to become abnormal in pluripotent cell lines.

According to lead author Louise Laurent:

“We found that human pluripotent cells (hESCs and iPSCs) had higher frequencies of genomic aberrations than other cell types. We were surprised to see profound genetic changes occurring in some cultures over very short periods of time.”

Genetic aberrations have been strongly associated with cancers. They found that the degree of abnormality differs more between hESC lines than hiPSC lines, and that the reprogramming process was associated with deletions of tumor-suppressor genes, whereas time in culture was associated with duplications of oncogenic genes.

Previous studies have documented numerous genetic and chromosomal problems with embryonic stem cells, including a substantial number of pluripotent cell lines with full and partial chromosomal aberrations. This new study used a high-resolution molecular technique called “single nucleotide polymorphism” (SNP) analysis, allowing the researchers to check genetic changes at more than a million sites in the human genome.

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On January 24, FRC will be holding ProLifeCon.  We have several amazing speakers lined up to discuss the issues impacting the pro-life online community.

Lila Rose, President of LiveAction, is one of our featured speakers, and I am excited to hear about her experiences exposing corruption and illegal activity within Planned Parenthood. Lila is also a recipient of a Life Prize from the Gerard Health Foundation and Young Leader Award from the Susan B. Anthony List.

Lila is a graduate of UCLA. When Lila was 15, she founded Live Action, which uses new media to educate and mobilize people from across the country to demand accountability from the abortion industry and human rights for the unborn. Since Live Action was founded, Lila has gone undercover to expose the illegal activity occurring within Planned Parenthood through the Mona Lisa Project. With many of her videos surfacing, several state investigations have occurred and Tennessee passed legislation to stop funding Planned Parenthood. Below is one of Lila’s videos from the Rosa Acuna project:

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Accuracy in Media’s interview with Melanie Phillips, the British author, known for her book, Londonistan, is tremendously thought provoking.  The interviewer, Roger Aronoff, discusses her latest book, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power, in this interview.  Aronoff writes of her:

Among the issues most important to Ms. Phillips, are the breakdown of the family, the obsession with multiculturalism, the phenomenon of radical Islam coming into Britain and not being dealt with properly, and Israel, of which she is a passionate supporter.

In the interview Phillips makes this point about the driving beliefs of the Left:

The higher up the social and educational scale you go, particularly people who have been educated in universities in the last decade or two, you find that they are people who are much more likely to have a highly ideological view of the world, to be anti-America, anti-West, anti-capitalism, and to have—most importantly—no idea what truth and objectivity actually are.  They disdain the whole notion of truth and objectivity, and they’re the people who are the most vicious and venomous towards Israel, a subject I care about very deeply.

Paradoxically and suicidally all these animosities leave the Western intellectual open to tolerance of Isamists.  They seem motivated by something like the enemy of my enemy is my ally.  “Anybody who hates capitalism, the United States, and Israel can’t be all bad.”  Consequently, Sharia law is treated with an acceptance and promotion that no Christian could ever dare to expect for his beliefs:

…in Britain, we’ve given a lot of ground to sharia law.  We’re turning a blind eye to it.  So we are tolerating, in Britain, for example, polygamy.  We are giving welfare benefits to polygamous households.  We are tolerating, and even tolerating, sharia courts.  Now, sharia courts, they are courts which do not recognize a superior law of the land, and, consequently, we have the terrible phenomenon developing in Britain of parallel jurisdictions in which British Muslim women, who are British citizens, are effectively being forced to live under a rule of law administered informally within their communities which makes them into second-class citizens.  One cannot have that.

Well, hopefully that will be prevented in the United States, but the same nihilistic forces are at work here that are working to destroy political freedom and Western values in Britain.

* * *

Phillips’ analysis also points to what is perhaps the most suicidal aspect of modern life in the secular West: its embrace of a demographic self-annihilation.  Birth control and abortion have led to the depopulation of the advanced industrialized societies.  This is no news flash.  It has been known for many years to demographers.  Pat Buchanan popularized these trends long ago in his 2002 book The Death of the West (see Rod Dreher’s short review).

There is not abating this development: for example, in 2008 Japan had more deaths than births, so said a report that country’s health ministry.

At what point does the right of a society to survive outweigh the “right to privacy” – in American judicial parlance?  Couldn’t there be a compelling public interest in survival that outweighs the rights announced in Griswold v. Connecticut (contraception) or Roe v. Wade (abortion).  Is the answer to merely allow immigration to the point that a society no longer recognizes itself?

The Japanese have chosen not to allow immigration and to have population aging and decline.  Their beloved culture is self-destructing, but it appears better to continue to allow abortion.

Now that is a world turned upside.

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Today John Boehner became Speaker of the House of Representatives. As the cheers and hoo-rahs poured forth from the House floor and the visitors’ gallery, the new Speaker smiled and said quietly, “It’s still just me.”  Then he began his formal speech.

In an era when government has grown to almost imponderable proportions and pretense, it is nice to have someone in a senior leadership position who remembers where he is from and that political power is, however long in life-years, objectively very brief.

There are scores of new Members of Congress.   Around the nation hundreds of new state legislators are being sworn-in as well.  There is much to celebrate about this: The transfer of partisan power whose peacefulness we take for granted; a recent election that gave much cause for social conservative rejoicing; and the prospect of a more serious commitment to constitutional governance.

Yet — as Isaiah 40 reminds us — in God’s sight, “nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales … He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.”

In other words, political power is fleeting.  When politicians recognize this — as it seems John Boehner does — a humbler, wiser, less arrogant government might well ensue.  This will be especially true if the new Speaker, and all public servants, recall God’s words about where true power lies:

“To whom then will you liken Me, that I would be his equal?” says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing. (Isaiah 40:25-26)

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ProLifeCon is right around the corner on January 24.  I hope you will be able to join us at ProLifeCon and hear from some amazing speakers.  Not to mention that this event will allow you to meet other pro-life internet activists throughout the country as well.

Image originally from JillStanek.com

Jill Stanek, who runs JillStanek.com, is one of our featured speakers and emcee at ProLifeCon.  I’m excited to see and hear Jill speak again, as she is enthusiastic about pro-life causes.  Jill is also a 2008 recipient of a Life Prizes award.

Jill served as a registered nurse in the Labor and Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Illinois, and it was her commitment to her faith that led her to risk her job, reputation, and friendships to stop the practices of abortion.  While as a nurse at Christ Hospital, Jill discovered that abortions were being committed at the hospital and babies were being aborted alive to die without medical care.  After the hospital refused to stop the practice of abortion, Jill exposed the hospital’s practices and became a national figure to protect the unborn.  Since then, Jill has testified before the Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

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