Month: January 2014

Pro-Life Activists Who Were Conceived in Rape

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Why is Business Insider covering the “anti-abortion activists who were conceived in rape and incest”? I don’t know. Seems a bit outside their bailiwick. Still, despite the typically slanted title, it’s actually a really interesting piece.

2014-01-27 Rebecca Kiessling
Rebecca Kiessling, who was conceived in a rape, is one of the more prominent voices opposing abortion even in cases of rape.

I’ve written about abortion and the rape exception before in a piece that was carried by Secular Pro-Life . In the short run, and thinking pragmatically, it doesn’t strike me as a good issue to get hung up on. The vast majority of abortions are for purely elective reasons. In other words: most abortions are a form of voluntary birth control. This is the biggest problem numerically and ethically, and I think the focus should be on ending abortion as a method of birth control.

In the long run, however, I have a lot of empathy for the position that folks like Rebecca Kiessling and her group Save the 1 take. A careful reading of the piece I wrote for SPL will show just how narrow our differences are.

1991 Radio Shack and Dematerialization

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Look at the 1991 Radio Shack ads below.

As the author of the piece I’ve borrowed this from states, “There are 15 electronic gimzo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket.” Here is the list of the items above which are now conveniently on your iPhone:

  • All weather personal stereo, $11.88. I now use my iPhone with an Otter Box
  • AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone.
  • In-Ear Stereo Phones, $7.88. Came with iPhone.
  • Microthin calculator, $4.88. Swipe up on iPhone.
  • Tandy 1000 TL/3, $1599. I actually owned a Tandy 1000, and I used it for games and word processing. I now do most of both of those things on my phone.
  • VHS Camcorder, $799. iPhone.
  • Mobile Cellular Telephone, $199. Obvs.
  • Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says “You’ll never drive ‘alone’ again!” iPhone.
  • 20-Memory Speed-Dial phone, $29.95.
  • Deluxe Portable CD Player, $159.95. 80 minutes of music, or 80 hours of music? iPhone.
  • 10-Channel Desktop Scanner, $99.55. I still have a scanner, but I have a scanner app, too. iPhone.
  • Easiest-to-Use Phone Answerer, $49.95. iPhone voicemail.
  • Handheld Cassette Tape Recorder, $29.95. I use the Voice Memo app almost daily.
  • BONUS REPLACEMENT: It’s not an item for sale, but at the bottom of the ad, you’re instructed to ‘check your phone book for the Radio Shack Store nearest you.’  Do you even know how to use a phone book?

All this was $3054.82 in 1991 (about $5100 in 2012 dollars) and has been “replaced by the 3.95 ounce bundle of plastic, glass, and processors in our pockets” (which is about $200 nowadays). A few years ago, Reason‘s science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote on the concept of “dematerialization”:

Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, show that the world economy is increasingly using less to produce more. They call this process “dematerialization.” By dematerialization, they mean declining consumption of energy or goods per unit of GDP. In a 2008 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ausubel and Waggoner, using data from 1980 to 2005, show that the world is on a dematerialization binge, wringing ever more value from less material. It turns out that dematerialization achieves many of the same environmental goals as deconsumption. 

Ausubel and Waggoner demonstrate that the global economy dematerialized (got more outputs from fewer inputs) steadily in the production of crops, use of fertilizer and wood, and carbon dioxide emissions. For example, while global per capita income rose by 40 percent between 1980 and 2005, farmers around the world raised crop yields 57 percent. Had farming productivity remained stuck at the 1980 level, farmers would have had to plow down an additional 1 billion hectares (about half the land area of the U.S. and six times current U.S. cropland) to produce the amount of food grown in 2005. Instead cropland expanded by less than 100 million hectares and farmers so boosted their productivity that they could produce the same amount of crops on only 60 percent of the amount of land they used in 1980. 

The world economy emitted more carbon dioxide in 2005 than it did in 1980, but nearly 30 percent less than it would have had emissions grown at the same rate as the world economy grew. Using European Carbon Exchange prices per ton of carbon dioxide, Ausubel and Waggoner calculate that this dematerialized carbon would be worth nearly $400 billion dollars per year.

As the Cato Institute’s Marian Tupy notes, “Dematerialization, in other words, should be welcome news for those who worry about the ostensible conflict between the growing world population on the one hand and availability of natural resources on the other hand. While opinions regarding scarcity of resources in the future differ, dematerialization will better enable our species to go on enjoying material comforts and be good stewards of our planet at the same time. That is particularly important with regard to the people in developing countries, who ought to have a chance to experience material plenty in an age of rising environmental concerns.”

 

Are Prophets Superheroes? (And: Have I Watched Kill Bill?)

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2014-01-27 Stripling Warriors Movie PosterIn today’s post at Times And Seasons I tackle the question: Are prophets superheroes? I think it’s a good post (not that I’m biased) and you should check it out.

But I also want to use this space to talk about some of the pop-culture references I made in that post. You see, I didn’t just cite conventional superheroes.  I also quoted from Kill Bill and referenced Watchmen and Kick-Ass. I know plenty of people who would be horrified at the thought of watching Kill Bill and plenty of people who would literally not comprehend that this could be an issue for anyone. And, at the risk of offending everyone, I want to talk about that.

Let’s start out with full disclosure: I’ve seen large chunks of Kill Bill (both volumes), but only on network TV. I read all of Watchmen, but haven’t seen the movie. I watched Kick-Ass, but I haven’t read the comics. I’ve also seen a handful of episodes from each of  Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, and other critically-acclaimed and wildly popular TV shows. But, along with my wife, I’ve made the conscious decision not to continue watching them. (Justified is about the only show in this category I watched regularly. I think I did through the end of season 3 before it got to be too much and I quit.) You now have the raw material with which to make your own independent moral / geek-cred assessments of me.

Here’s the thing: I really don’t want to be in the business of telling other people what to watch. That’s not a thing that interests me even a little bit. But I do know that these shows all get a ton of publicity and it seems like everybody watches them, and the only possible reason to not watch them would be one of taste. On the contrary, I believe that decision about what entertainment you consume do have a moral component. You’re deciding what themes and images you’re going to allow into your mind, which is a kind of sacred space for me. I think what you consume, not just what you eat, affects the kind of person that you are.

I liked pretty much all of those shows. The production quality was great, the writing was great, and the acting was great. It’s not an issue of taste for me. It’s an ethical decision. I realize that sounds judgmental, but that’s not my intent. I don’t think that I have the one true standard of what is OK to watch. I just know there are other people who opt out of these shows, and that we can kind of feel like losers and freaks for doing so. I sort of want to reach out and simply say, “You’re OK.”  The only general point I want to make is that drawing a line and deciding what you want to support and what you don’t is  a legitimate thing to do. I won’t tell anyone else where to draw the line, but I do think that it’s something everyone should think about and decide in a conscious, intentional way for themselves.

Lastly: I just don’t want folks to assume that everything I reference I am also recommending. I read quite a bit about these shows (reviews and plot summaries) just so that I can keep up with conversations that happen around me. So I’m generally aware of what they are about, what happens, and why people like them. But just because they are significant enough for me to reference doesn’t mean that I, personally, think it’s a good idea to watch them.

 

Why Bitcoin Matters

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2014-01-25 Bitcoins

This New York Times piece is by far the best one I’ve read yet on the impact of Bitcoin. It’s interesting, then, that it’s also one of the most positive. In the post Marc Andreessen puts Bitcoin in context as the culmination of decades of computer science research rather than just some weird, ultra-libertarian pipe-dream. He explains what really matters about the new currency (mostly: eliminating the 2-3% charged by credit cards and making transactions almost literally costless). And lastly, he responds to some of the complaints that it is a criminal paradise (“Much like email, which is quite traceable, Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous.”)

Definitely worth the read.

And almost enough to convince me to join a mining pool…

Child Support

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This post is reprinted with permission from Secular Pro-Life:

 

When arguing about abortion, I’ve seen a lot of people claim “sex isn’t a contract.” Other variations of this idea include: 

  • Consent to A doesn’t mean consent to B (that is, consent to sex doesn’t mean consent to reproduction).
  • You clearly don’t consent to reproduce if you use birth control.
  • Sex is not a crime and shouldn’t be punished / Rights cannot be restricted unless there is a crime.

The problem is, when it comes to reproduction, these arguments only apply to women. 

If a man gets a woman pregnant–be it his wife, girlfriend, affair, or one night stand–he is legally bound to provide support for that child. In other words, because the man participated in the child’s conception (because the man had sex), his rights are altered. It doesn’t matter if the man was only consenting to sex, and not to reproduction. It doesn’t matter if he used birth control. It doesn’t matter that sex isn’t a crime. He fathered the kid, so the law considers him responsible for the kid.

And the law takes a pretty hard line on the subject. Courts can require a father to pay child support based not just on what he earns, but on what courts believe he has the ability to earn. Child support obligations remain even if a father goes to prison, or declares bankruptcy. Even if he wants to terminate his parental rights (and therefore his parental responsibilities), the courts usually won’t allow it unless there is another adult prepared to adopt the child and take over that responsibility. And there are many methods for enforcing child support. A man’s tax refunds can be intercepted, his property seized, business or occupational license suspended, and in some states his driver’s license can be revoked. If he still fails to make payment, he can be held in contempt and given jail time.

In short, if a man has sex he runs the risk of being (rather tightly) legally bound to any new life he creates. In the essay “Abortion and Fathers’ Rights“, author Stephen D. Hales summarizes the situation:

…the father, having participated in conception, cannot escape the future duties he will have toward the child. The father can decide that he cannot afford another child, that he is not psychologically prepared to be a parent, that a child would hinder the lifestyle he wishes to pursue, and so on, to no avail.

Sound sad? If a man is forced to pay child support, that could mean serious emotional, psychological, financial, and social repercussions for him. So why do we have child support laws? Is it because we hate sex, and want to punish people for having sex?

No, of course not. And interestingly, you rarely see anyone even suggest as much. No, it’s clear to most people that we have child support laws in order to, you know, support children. Child support laws aren’t enforced to punish men for having sex—they’re enforced because it’s best for the child. In the same way, abortion shouldn’t be outlawed to punish women for having sex—it should be outlawed to protect fetal life. In both cases, it’s not about punishment, it’s about protection.

And that’s as it should be.

I’d love to live in a world in which there are no unplanned pregnancies and no unintentional parents. I think people should have control over whether they become parents, in the sense that people should have control over whether they get pregnant or get someone pregnant. That’s why I support comprehensive sex education: I want people to understand their own fertility and, if they do choose to have sex, I want them to understand how they can best prevent pregnancy while being sexually active.

However, once pregnancy has happened, once there’s already a new human organism in the picture, it changes everything. I think the people whose actions created that new life should be responsible for its protection. 

Of course, many people disagree. Abortion rights advocates place reproductive freedom over protecting the lives we create, at least when it comes to women and pregnancy. How would this mentality look if they also applied it to men and child support? Hales has an idea:

A man has the moral right to decide not to become a father (in the social, nonbiological sense) during the time that the woman he has impregnated may permissibly abort. He can make a unilateral decision whether to refuse fatherhood, and is not morally obliged to consult with the mother or any other person before reaching a decision. Moreover, neither the mother nor any other person can veto or override a man’s decision about becoming a father. He has first and last say about what he does with his life in this regard.

(And if we’re being really consistent, he doesn’t have to inform the woman he impregnated, or anyone else, about his decision to refuse fatherhood.)

It seems to me that consistency requires abortion rights advocates to argue for the man’s right to choose as well as the woman’s: the pro-choice mentality means that, as women can “walk away” from their pregnancies, men should be able to walk away from the women they have impregnated. 

Not very uplifting, is it?

Or we could strive for a different kind of consistency–the kind that holds both men and women to a higher standard. This is why I’m for child support laws, and this is why I’m against abortion.

Miller Eccles Study Group Texas: Terryl & Fiona Givens

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Terryl and Fiona Givens (Nathaniel’s parents) were here in Texas this past weekend at the invitation of the Miller Eccles Study Group and the Genesis Group. Their presentations were based on their books The God Who Weeps and the upcoming The Crucible of Doubt. I’ve written up a brief commentary at Worlds Without End on their Saturday presentation (based largely on Crucible), sprinkling it with a bit of neuroscience.

Check it out.

Heineken’s New Add: Dance More, Drink Less

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OK, they said "drink slow" and I said "drink less". Close enough.
OK, they said “drink slow” and I said “drink less”. Close enough.

Of course we can be cynical about a company that sells beer making a commercial that says if you’re really having fun you’re going to drink less beer, but I still think it’s a great message. Don’t get me wrong: as a Mormon I don’t drink any beer so on the one hand it doesn’t apply to me. But, also as a Mormon, I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with other folks drinking, as long as they’re being reasonable and not hurting themselves of encouraging others to hurt themselves.

What I really liked about the video is simply this: I grew up having a lot of fun without ever drinking. I often hear about how alcohol is a “social lubricant” that helps people loosen up, but in my experience Mormons never needed any help. One of the best times I ever had was when I hung out with a bunch of other Mormon kids (all of us teenagers) and we played hide-and-seek in someone’s house. Yes, a bunch of adolescents with driver’s licenses for real played hide-and-seek, and it was amazing. Hilarious. Fun.

So if Heineken wants to tell people they can shift their attention from the drinking to the dancing (or whatever), I think that’s pretty cool. And if it helps them sell more Heineken, that’s fine.

As long as folks don’t, you know, drink them all at once. :-)

A Regressive “Progressive” Report

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Brad Wilcox
Brad Wilcox

Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox (Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia) has a piece at National Review on the new Shriver Report. The report suggests that “government, business, and other institutions must accommodate themselves to the “profound change in the makeup and reality of American families,” especially the dramatic increase in single motherhood.” Wilcox points out “three profoundly unequal and regressive trends in American life” that would result from the “deal with change” proposals of the report:

  1. Parenting will become primarily the work of women via single motherhood.
  2. Children remain in an intergenerational cycle of poverty.
  3. A whole class of children will face higher amounts of social and emotional trauma.

See the piece for details why.

Minimum Wage Hikes: Still (Possibly) Dumb

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Nathaniel recently argued that minimum wage hikes were dumb, largely due to the policy harming those it intends to help. New research (2012 working paper version here) examines turnover rates in relation to minimum wage increases. The researchers

find that when the minimum wage is higher, all low educated workers face jobs that are more stable (in the sense that they are less likely to end in a lay-off) but harder to get. This shifts the debate over the usefulness of minimum wages to the question of whether workers are better off with improved job stability or improved chances of finding a job when unemployed. It also means that minimum wages affect a much larger part of the labour market than is usually recognised and potentially raises the stakes in the policy debates…Thus, the policy debate should not just be about the employment rate effects of minimum wage increases but about the trade-off between good jobs with higher wages and more job stability versus easier access to jobs. And the debate is relevant for all of the low educated labour market, not just teenagers.