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Can Contraception Raise Family IQ’s?
Minorities are not generally high achievers so the government has a responsibility to reduce their population. (Stay with me, I have a point to make.) Singleton children from highly educated, successful parents tend to be self-centered, so the government needs to address that unpatriotic situation. Rich families breed kids with tendencies for depression, so they should be encouraged not to procreate.Are these hateful and ignorant statements? Uh, yeah. Would anyone dare speak them publically? Not if they value their reputations. So then, explain to me why one of President Obama’s top science advisers got away with claiming children from large families have lower IQ’s and the government has a responsibility to curb such populations.
Recently, CNS News writer, Terence P. Jeffery, reported that John P. Holdren (aforementioned advisor) co-authored a book with population control mongers, Paul and Anne Ehrlich in which they wrote, “It surely is no accident that so many of the most successful individuals are first or only children, nor that children of large families (particularly with more than four children), whatever their economic status, on the average perform less well in school and show lower I.Q. scores than their peers from small families.”
The book, Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions claims that our government has a responsibility to discourage large families. (More on IQ and family size later.) Certainly the Obama administration investigated Holdren before offering him a top-level advisory position, so it’s safe to assume that his views are acceptable with Obama. Since Obama’s Health and Humane Service (HHS) mandate requires all health-care plans to cover sterilizations, artificial contraceptives, and abortifacents without any fees, it’s clear the president is hell bent on limiting the creation of future citizens.
When Obama was honored at Notre Dame he promised to, “honor the conscience of those who disagree”. What’s the deal now? The deal is that his sentiments are showing and Obama is none too sentimental towards Catholic teaching.
Catholic Sex Ed Primer
The sexual revolution did not change Catholic teaching on love and sexuality. Until 1932, contraception was generally condemned by all Christian Churches including reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. The Anglican Church was the first to change its stance and began the domino effect of one protestant denomination after another reversing this teaching.
The Catholic Church continues to teach as it always has, that marital love is expressed both physically and spiritually and removing the life-giving force of this gift by tampering with our bodies to disrupt healthy functioning means: 1) lifeless sex 2) committing grave sin. The Church allows, however, for married couples to use natural methods in union with God for planning families.
Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae explains the Catholic teaching. He was prophetic in predicting that widespread use of contraception would lead to “conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.” Pope Paul VI also predicted that the widespread acceptance of contraception would place a “dangerous weapon… in the hands of those public authorities that take no heed of moral exigencies.”
The Obama administration is doing just that by mandating that the Catholic Church act against over 2,000 years of teaching.
All religious leaders should be alarmed and many non-Catholic leaders are. How dare the government tell us we must go against our consciences? All of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have denounced the HHS mandate. Sin may be a choice in a democracy but it cannot be mandated.
IQ’s and Big Families
Getting back to my original outrage over the unscientific opinion that children from large families have lower IQ’s and thus the government best be advised to curb such offspring—that contention is not only hateful, it’s wrong. Oh, and stupid too.
I come from a family of six kids, all college educated. My ten children are all very intelligent by standardized testing standards, even the two from Kenya. I went to a Catholic school during the Sixties and Seventies; lots of big families but not lots of dumb kids. My relatives had big families brimming with successful college graduates. I know countless big families whose children have achieved success according to the narrow confines of Holdren’s definition which centers on money, position and power. Yet, such trappings are more visible and easier to gain than true success—goodness of heart, kindness, mercy and all the things that grow from love. I say families grow love so why strive to limit them?
The research speaks to success in all areas for big families. In 2008, after 4 years of research in the UK, TV News reporter Colin Brazier, published a report in Civitas Review. His research indicates that children do well in large families; they have better social skills, are healthier, and do better at school on numerous measurements. And if that were not enough, given they are more efficient users of resources, they are even better for the environment.
Some of the pros Brazier found among children from big families were better social skills ranging from conflict resolution to making and maintaining friends and greater empathy. He found they were healthier with less asthma, eczema and hay fever, and had reduced risks of leukemia, cancer and diabetes. Children from large familiars were also are more independent, thriftier, more capable and have fewer divorces.
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But what about the IQ quotient Holdren is so concerned large families diminish in children? As a scientist, he should read the research.
A study by the American Psychological Association and published in the June 2000 issue of the American Psychologist found no link between family size or birth order with intelligence. “Resolving the Debate Over Birth Order, Family Size and Intelligence” followed 11,406 young people ages 14-22 for 22 years at yearly intervals.
“There are many good reasons why parents might consider limiting their family sizes, but the belief that, for a particular set of parents in a modern country like the United States, a larger family will lead to children with lower IQs appears to be, simply, wrong. The belief that birth order acts directly to decrease the intelligence of children born later in a given family also appears to be, simply, wrong,” state the authors.
At this point, it seems that Obama should be advised to get some new advisors. I think it’s clear that the administration desires to limit the creation of new souls in this world, but ignoring science and the Catholic Church and the US Constitution to trample citizen rights to further such an agenda, is wrong. It’s evil. It’s time to defend our faith. Here is one place you can begin Stop HHS Mandate .
