Less Children & a Better World?

For myself, having children has always seemed like a given, I LOVE babies and cannot wait until the day I hold my very own baby in my arms; and then have the privilege to watch and help that baby, a part of myself grow. I understand that when I decide to have children that will be the end to a stage of my life. From then on, with every decision I make, I would have to take into consideration the fact that I have another living being to take care of. Does that mean having children is willingly giving up my freedom? In all honestly, it kind of is! No longer can you do whatever whenever you want, that baby is constantly relying on you for EVERYTHING.

When I read articles by women about why they are choosing to not have children, I am not shocked. Although when I hear that some people are choosing not to have children because they are worried about the environment? That's a little more surprising. Could not having children actually save our environment? I doubt it. Think about it, children take after their parent's mindsets, if all of the environment concerned people stop having children, they are eventually going to die off and then who is going to worry about the environment and make sure everything is "earth friendly"? Obviously this reasoning isn't exactly solid but I think it makes my point. The entire "save the earth and sterilize your body" philosophy is borderline dumb, for lack of a better word.

On the other hand there are a good amount of women who don't want to have kids simply because they don't want to. They would rather further their careers, travel abroad or just live less complicated lives. Which I believe is perfectly fine, if you don't want to have children then that is entirely your choice but I would recommend considering how that may hurt you in the future. Who is going to take care of you when you are old and helpless? I can almost guarantee it won't be that friend you travelled the world with, they will be too busy having the exact same problem! Darn...

It kind of makes you think that humans were created with the ability to reproduce for a reason? As if some supreme being planned this whole life thing out perfectly. What a coincidence!

Is there truth in religious liberty?

In the past, it has been understood that under the First Amendment, we have a right to religious liberty. Unfortunately, with every day and new law passed, that right is getting more and more blurred. This became very apparent to me when I looked into the Hobby Lobby case. It was decided religious liberty protections could not be applied to Hobby Lobby because it is a for-profit corporation, it isn’t a church/ "true religious employer" and it is wrong on the science behind their reasoning.

Most recently it has been ordered that every health care plan in the state of California must cover elective abortion. This law was made effective on August 22, yet California had not even applied this to its own state employee health plans --which at the time only covered “medically necessary” abortions. But nevertheless this law has been quietly imposed on every plan in the state, including Churches whose religious values go against elective abortion.

While California does exempt churches from its contraceptive mandate in their health policies, there is NO exception to this new abortion mandate. Yes, because that most definitely makes sense! You don't need to have contraceptives, but you must have abortion on your health plans --not to say it's right, but it would at least makes sense if they had it the other way around! It's ridiculous how illogical and impossible of a position this new law is putting California churches in --being free to exclude contraceptives from their health plan for reasons of religious conscience but required to provide their employees with abortion coverage.

So now we wonder, what will be the administration's response to this attack on religious liberty? If they couldn’t stand with Hobby Lobby because it was a for-profit business, not a church, and because they thought its concern was misplaced, will they now demand religious liberty for churches forced to cover elective abortion? Now that they are unable to use any of their excuses from the Hobby Lobby case, will they take a stand for our religious freedom?

Is there any truth left in the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections? Their response to California’s abortion mandate will reveal whether their claims of respect for religious liberty in the Hobby Lobby case were serious or simply excuses that point out an blantedly unvalued  view of religious liberty.

Missionary Medical Service

“No one complains when the West crams its commercial values down the throats of Africans, Indians, and Chinese, he pointed out in 1908. We insist that these unfortunate, uncivilized people buy our wheat flour and bicycles, even though rice and rickshaws are probably just as good. How is that different from what missionaries do? They simply offer Christianity rather than consumerism.” This is a point being made in the argument of missionary medical service.

The Ebola crisis, wiping our nation, has brought the dislike of missionary work to the surface. When an infected American missionary was flown back to the United States for treatment, Donald Trump grumbled that do-gooders trying to save Africa should be prepared to “suffer the consequences.” Ann Coulter called the doctor “idiotic,” and asked of his mission to Africa, “What was the point?”

How are people saying this?!

Brian Palmer on Slate.com stated that he “usually spends hours scouring PubMed, a research publications database from the National Institutes of Health, for data to support my story. You can’t do that with missionary work, because few organizations produce the kind of rigorous, peer-reviewed data that is required in the age of evidence-based medicine. How can we know if they’re effective, or how to improve the health care systems they participate in, if we don’t even know how many missionary doctors there are.”

To phrase simply, he believes because of a lack of data, there is therefore a lack of proof of effectiveness and in response, lack of support. 

Palmer then stated, "And yet, truth be told, these valid critiques don’t fully explain my discomfort with missionary medicine. If we had thousands of secular doctors doing exactly the same work, I would probably excuse most of these flaws. “They’re doing work no one else will,” I would say. “You can’t expect perfection."

There are so many ethical problems with this statement! This author is openly admitting that he is religiously biased. Practically saying, “I don't have any problem with third world medicine volunteering, I just don't like the people doing it.” Excuse me, but do these individual’s religious beliefs in anyway effect their ability to give medical care?! No! Not even in the slightly way! What if my father, a member of the medical field, dropped his current job in the luxurious California and left behind his hefty paycheck to go preform lifesaving surgeries and spread the gospel in a third world country? Would his sacrifice be any less legitimate or helpful if an atheist made the same decision? Does that even deserve an answer?

Although this writer was honest enough to share that he doesn't support missionary medical work because he is "discomforted" by it, he wasn't honest enough with himself as to look at the truth behind his opinion. It isn't the logistics or statistics but rather an effort which has been crumbling our great nation for far too many years: the devastating effort to remove God from the picture. Whether it's our schools, government, pledges, currency or religion itself. Our nation has been hard at work, ripping out one of our deepest roots; and quite frankly, this missionary medical work argument is just another yank.  Fortunately, most of our Christian roots go deeper than where unbelievers can reach.

Laws Don't Change Morals

The California Legislature recently approved a bill that would require colleges receiving state-financed student aid to change the definition of consent in their sexual assault policies, replacing “no means no” with “affirmative consent,” or as commonly phrased “yes means yes.” California was the first state in the country to take it to the point that any college without a consent policy will lose state financial aid.

Colleges outside of California have incorporated similar consent policies into student orientations which they report are leading to grumbling about risking "hot hookups" turning into an awkward series of requests. But, nevertheless some administrators are insisting that they see signs that their consent strategy is working. Supporters of affirmative consent say its greatest strengths may lie in a simple change of attitude and growth in report rate.

 Since a university adopted an affirmative consent policy last year they stated, “we are seeing a big pickup  in the number of students who are reporting sexual assault and relationship violence,” said Jane Bost, associate director of the university’s counseling and mental health center. So is this new policy actually working? So far, I'm not convinced of it. John D. Foubert, president of One in Four, said that without rigorous research, no one can be sure.  It will be a few years before we can actually determine if this new policy is successful.

Melissa Tumas, a sexual assault specialist at the University of Washington, which does not have an affirmative consent policy, said: “A perpetrator is ignoring consent. Will a definition deter perpetrators? I’m not sure, unless it helps shore up community support that this isn’t OK.” Tumas pointed out an obvious point that we were all thinking. Perpetrators are sick in the head; can we really believe that some affirmative consent policy is going to make them stop and change their ways? One would need to be delusional to even hope that's a possibility.

Another point to address, could this policy do more harm than good? Some believe that the bill could have dangerously expanded the definition of assault. Therefore making it easier for so said victims to charge their supposed perpetrators. Some would ask, who would ever accuse their partner with rape? But it is getting more and more common. I had a very close friend of mine do that very thing. She was a virgin, vigorously pursuing an older guy who she knew was mostly only physically interested in her, then under the influence of alcohol, lost her virginity to him, and the very next morning, overwhelmed with guilt and shame, called the police and charged him with statutory rape.. All of her friends, including myself, knew it wasn't rape and was consensual, but in the eyes of the law, she was underage, under the influence and therefore a victim. The boy, only 19, was sent to jail for two years and will forever carry that charge on his record, and will therefore effect the rest of his life.

Let's look at the bill again. It now defines consent more simply as “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.” (It need not be spoken) 
In all honesty, that's useless! What is the huge change being made here? How can you prove there was or wasn't consent if it doesn't even need to be spoken? You can't! Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a bill out there that can make sexual assault a black or white charge for the courts. What's needs to be done is addressing the real problem here! The morals! Quite frankly it should be clear that any sexual action without consent from both participants is illegal and wrong. And for many that may be clear but what needs to be more heavily addressed is the fact that this doesn't change if one participant is under the influence. If someone is too drunk to say no or yes, then obviously that participant is far to gone to make a decision at all! That is taking advantage of someone, no matter what the circumstances are. No bill can teach people that, it's a moral lesson that each individual must learn for him or herself.