Category Archives: News

News

Environmentalists support restrictions on number of children per family

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Here’s the first story from CNS News. (H/T American Spectator via ECM)

Here’s New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin.

Excerpt:

At the event, Revkin said: “Well, some of the people have recently proposed: Well, should there be carbon credits for a family planning program in Africa let’s say? Should that be monetized as a part of something that, you know, if you, if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward an accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?

“And I have even proposed recently, I can’t remember if it’s in the blog, but just think about this: Should–probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children,” said Revkin.

“So should there be, eventually you get, should you get credit–If we’re going to become carbon-centric–for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three,” said Revkin. “And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”

And here’s the second story from the UK Guardian. (H/T National Review via ECM)

And here’s the UK Guardian’s reporter Alex Renton.

Excerpt:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess…

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today’s standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis… As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: “Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso.” So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy..?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women’s rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? Could children perhaps become part of an adult’s personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?

After all, based on current emissions and life expectancy, one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

A lot of people ask why I am so concerned about getting married in a nation in which 77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama and his radically leftist science czar and radically leftist former green jobs czar. (The science czar favored mass sterilizations and forced abortions). And now we can see part of the answer: the left wants to interfere with my reproductive freedom using state coercion.

And it’s not just environmental reporters who are against people having children. It’s Obama’s own nominees. These fears of overpopulation are like “Left Behind” novels for the secular left. The failed doomsday predictions of Paul Ehrlich are identical to the failed doomsday predictions of Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is something very strange about these people – and women should not have voted for them.

Recall that Social Security and other government programs are fueled by income taxes on younger workers. Except that the overpopulation nutters aborted the next generation of American workers. Ooops. So where are we supposed to get the money for these ballooning social programs from if the left keeps putting restrictions on pregnancy? Here’s my previous post about Britain’s looming demographics crisis.

News

Conservative Doug Hoffman fights Republican establishment in NY-23 race

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If you haven’t heard of this story, LifeSiteNews has a nice re-cap.

Background:

A conservative uprising against the GOP’s selection of a staunchly pro-abortion, pro-gay “marriage” nominee has transformed the battle for New York’s 23rd congressional district into a tight three-way race that has the strong possibility of a dark horse Conservative Party candidate pulling an upset victory – or sending a strong message to the GOP that they alienate social and fiscal conservatives at their peril.

New York’s 23rd Congressional District covers much of the northern areas of upstate New York just north of Syracuse, bordering Canada, and encompassing most of the Adirondacks. While conservative values figure greatly into the political landscape of upstate New York, GOP party bosses instead chose to nominate NY Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava – a far-left Republican who has strong pro-abortion, pro-gay “marriage”, pro-tax, and pro-card check positions – to replace Rep. John McHugh, who handily won nine consecutive terms in a district that was safely Republican.

What’s interesting is that Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and a host of other conservatives have endorsed Hoffman. Newt Gingrich, who is not a conservative, endorsed Scozzafava.

The Wall Street Journal excoriated GOP leaders for supporting Scozzafava in a October 21 editorial, saying that “A defeat would teach Republicans that running candidates who believe in nothing will keep them in the minority for years to come.”

The Journal’s editors pointed out that Scozzafava stands to the left of President Barack Obama on the question of same-sex “marriage” and her position on taxes makes her Democratic opponent Bill Owens look conservative. Scozzafava has also run on the ticket of the socialist Working Families Party and there is no guarantee that she would not switch parties and caucus with the Democrats if she lost a GOP primary fight in 2010.

Pro-life and pro-family advocates are devoting considerable time and effort to canvass voters and make the difference for Hoffman in the election fight. Emily Buchanan, executive director of the Susan B. Anthony List is coordinating an independent project for the National Organization for Marriage & the Susan B. Anthony List to elect Hoffman by enlisting pro-life/pro-family advocates to man the polls on November 3.

Caffeinated Thoughts has a round-up here.

News

MUST-READ: How government-run health care leads to euthanasia

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I have been writing a lot of posts in the last few months about the pitfalls of government-run health care in Canada’s single-payer system, and in the National Health Service in Britain. Some people may wonder whether comparisons can be made between these systems and Obama’s government-run medical insurance idea.

Consider the words of bioethicist Wesley J. Smith: (H/T ECM)

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence–the Orwellian-named NICE–is the template promoted by Obamacare’s primary non government pusher, Former Senator Tom Daschle, called by the New York Times to be the most influential adviser to the POTUS and Congressional Democrats on health care reform.  Indeed, he has repeatedly stated we need an American version of NICE.

That means what NICE does matters to Americans.

Smith then notes this article from the UK Guardian which explains what NICE does.

Excerpt:

A drug which can give women with advanced breast cancer extra weeks or months of life has been turned down by a government watchdog body for use in the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says it proposes to reject Tyverb (lapatinib) in spite of changes in the rules brought in specifically to allow people at the end of their lives to have the chance of new and often expensive treatments.

Tyverb is the only drug licensed for women with advanced breast cancer whose tumours test positive for a protein called HER2 and for whom Herceptin, a Nice-approved drug, is no longer working. In much of the rest of Europe, Tyverb is then given, in combination with a standard chemotherapy drug called capecitabine. Around 2,000 women in the UK could be eligible for the drug, which has the additional benefit of being taken in pill form, which means that women can stay at home and attempt to live normal lives. Nice turned down Tyverb earlier this year, saying it was too expensive for the benefit to patients it offered…

Smith concludes:

And don’t forget NICE also pushed the Liverpool Care Pathway, that may have brought back door euthanasia to the UK.  Similarly, we recently discussed a similar refusal of coverage in Ontario, Canada, for life-extending colon cancer chemotherapy.

This is our future if we pass Obamacare, unless we explicitly forbid by statute such rationing power to the cost control boards. But attempts to do so have all been turned down.  NICE isn’t nice, and it is an approach to health care that Americans should reject.

Now consider this story about the Liverpool Care Pathway from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial ‘death pathway’.

Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year- old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers.

He died within two weeks. But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection.

To his family’s horror, they were told he could have recovered if he’d been given the correct treatment.

[…]Mr Jones was being cared for at a hospice which was central to the contentious Liverpool Care Pathway under which dying patients have their life support taken away, although the hospice claims it wasn’t officially applied in his case.

The scheme is used by hundreds of hospitals and care homes, and is followed in as many as 20,000 deaths a year.

Read the whole thing.

In a socialized system, you pay you income to the ruling elite based on your ability to produce. You only have value to the state while you are working to pay taxes, taxes that socialists can use to buy votes and control other people lives. When you stop working and start needing services, you become the enemy of the state.

Contrast socialism with a free market system. Now you have the power because you have the money. Doctors and hospitals only get paid if they give you what you want – quality health care for the lowest price. You can go a competitor if you don’t like what you are offered from any particular provider. Choice and competition.

More NHS horror stories listed here.