Premarital Sex Detrimental to Relationships

Study: Premarital Sex Detrimental to Relationships - Negatively Impacts Intimacy, Commitment, Sexual Satisfaction: Researchers at Cornell University have stated that abstaining from sex at the beginning of a courtship could lead to a healthier relationship. The research also suggested that having sex early on could stunt the growth of key factors from developing within a healthy relationship including "caring and understanding." The study, printed in the Journal of Marriage and Family, revealed that women who put having sex off for over six months were more satisfied with their relationships than those women who waited less time.

"Precocious premarital sexual activities may have lasting effects on relationship quality," researchers said. "Courtship is a time for exploration and decision-making about the relationship, when partners assess compatibility, make commitments and build on emotional and physical intimacy."

Percentage of Pro-Abortion Americans Drops to Record Low

LifeNews: A new Gallup survey out today finds the percentage of Americans who identify them selves as supporting legalized abortion has dropped to a record low. “The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009,” the polling firm noted. On the other hand, 51 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life, one percentage point away from the record high.

CNN Poll: 62% Want All or Most Abortions Illegal

CNN Poll: 62% Want All or Most Abortions Made Illegal | LifeNews.com: CNN asked the question, “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal under only certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?” The survey found 25 percent of Americans want all abortions legal while 21 percent want all abortions illegal, and it had a large group of 53 percent of Americans saying abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Related: In Reasons US Women Have Abortions, researchers said

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

All of these are valid reasons for abstaining from sexual activity or using birth control, not -- according to most Americans -- for having an abortion. The "certain circumstances" usually cited as permitting abortion include those not mentioned in the summary above: Rape (1%), incest (less than .5%), possible problem with the health of the baby (13%), or the mother's health (12%).

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World abortion statistics

Poodwaddle.com

Check out this World Clock, that keeps track of world population and deaths -- including abortions (lower left of death feature).

More children born to unmarried parents

USA Today: A growing number of firstborns in the USA have unmarried parents, reflecting dramatic increases since 2002 in births to cohabiting women, according to government figures out today. The rise in first births to cohabiting women parallels increases in first births to unmarried women overall, according to a report

The percentage of first births to women living with a male partner jumped from 12% in 2002 to 22% in 2006-10 — an 83% increase. The percentage of cohabiting new fathers rose from 18% to 25%. The analysis, by the National Center for Health Statistics, is based on data collected from 2006 to 2010.

"We were a little surprised in such a short time period to see these increases," says demographer Gladys Martinez, lead author of the report, based on face-to-face interviews with 12,279 women and 10,403 men ages 15-44.

Karishma’s Grandmother tried to Kill Her: Her Story

Karishma’s Grandmother tried to Kill Her: Her Story «: Karishma survived infancy through the vigilance of her mother. But when she was not yet a year old, her paternal grandmother started physically abusing Karishma. Over time the beatings intensified such that there were times when Karishma would pass out with the pain. She often had bruising all over her. The grandmother even taught Karishma’s young brother how to strangle her. She told him, “If you kill your sister, you will be even more loved by us.”

Related:

• 50% of girls in India don’t want to be girls. They feel so unloved and unwanted as girls in this society that they wish they were born as boys (according to a government survey)!
• Hundreds of girls born in India are given names like ‘Unwanted’ and ‘Undesired’ by their parents.
• 90% of abandoned children in India are girls who were discarded by their parents who did not want daughters. There are about 10 million abandoned girls in India.

Read more here: A report on the state of India's girls

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Picturing the Loss of 54 Million

Picturing the Loss of 54 Million: Fifty-four million = 58.6 percent of Generation Y and 71 percent of the Baby Boomer Generation. It is also 12 million more than the entire population of Generation X. Abortion has truly created a “lost generation.”

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NYC, Abortion Capital

NRO: Today the Chiaroscuro Foundation released an interactive map illustrating the abortion ratioby zip code in New York City from 2000 to 2009. The highest annual abortion ratio in any zip code in the period was 72.7 percent in Queens’s lightly populated 11430 in 2001, with 16 abortions and 6 live births. 11430 had the highest abortion ratio in the city three times over the period.

Other sparsely populated zip codes had ratios well above 60 percent on several occasions in the ten-year period, but zip codes with substantial populations and larger numbers of both abortions and births tend to top out at about a 60 percent abortion ratio and go down from there toward the citywide ratio of 41 to 43 percent.

Related: Abortion and Gentrification

Female Genocide in India and the 50 Million Missing Campaign

Annual Rates of Female Homicide in India 

• Female foeticide approximately 1 million
• Female infanticide approximately 25000 in the State of Kerala alone
• Dowry-related murders approximately 25000
• Preadolescent mortality 1 in 6 dies before 15 yrs - Mortality rate 40% higher for girls under 5 than boys the same age (UNICEF)
• Maternal mortality rate - 136,000 (1 woman dies every 5 minutes due to pregnancy-related causes, WHO)

The number one means of elimination is female foetal abortions. An estimated 1 million female foetuses are selectively eliminated in India each year, and that number is expected to rise to 2.5 million within the next few years. Method number two is female infanticide, a practice that has a long history in India. Rita Banerji

Editor: The WHO maternal mortality rate has been disputed.

Is 10% of the Population Gay?

Stand to Reason: In an Oxford University Press publication, Bruce Voeller admitted that he “campaigned with gay groups and in the media across the country for the Kinsey-based finding that ‘We are everywhere.’ And after years of our educating those who inform the public and make its laws, the concept that 10 percent of the population is gay has become generally accepted ‘fact’…As with so many pieces of knowledge and myth, repeated telling made it so.”

Regardless of the actual percentage of homosexuals in the population, it’s not relevant to our obligation to “get along and be more tolerant.” Even if there were only ten homosexuals in the country, it would still be virtuous for Christians to tolerate (in the accurate sense of the word) them. The number is irrelevant for that purpose.

But tolerance shouldn’t be our goal. Christians shouldn’t aspire to treat homosexuals the way the secular culture treats them. We fail if we do. Instead, we should treat them better. That doesn’t mean we advocate for gay rights or pitch their agenda. It just means we love them better than they’re loved by the world. That’s the first step in transforming our relationship with them for the sake of transforming their relationship with God.

Characteristics US abortion patients, 2008: Religion

Guttmacher Institute: Almost three-quarters of women obtaining abortions in 2008 reported a religious affiliation. The largest proportion were Protestant (37%),* and most of the rest said that they were Catholic (28%) or that they had no religious affiliation (27%). One in five abortion patients identified themselves as born-again, evangelical, charismatic or fundamentalist; 75% of these were Protestant (not shown).†

The proportion of abortion patients lacking a religious affiliation increased significantly, from 22%, in 2000.
Protestants were underrepresented among abortion patients, and the relative abortion rate for this group was
lower than the rate for all women (abortion index, 0.75). While the Catholic Church has strong proscriptions against abortion, the relative abortion rate for Catholic women was no different from that for all women (1.04). Women with no religious affiliation had a relative abortion rate one and one-half times that of all women (1.59). The abortion indices for Protestant and Catholic women changed little between 2000 and 2008.

Attendance at religious services is sometimes regarded as an indicator of an individual’s adherence to religious doctrines. In 2008, 15% of women having abortions reported attending religious services once a week or more, 13% attended 1–3 times a month and 32% attended less frequently; 41% never attended religious services (not shown). According to the General Social Survey (see Appendix 1), 23% of U.S. women aged 18–44 in 2006 and 2008 reported that they never attended religious services, and 24% that they attended once a week or more. Thus, tentative evidence suggests that women obtaining abortions attend religious services less frequently than all women.

____

*As in the previous surveys, Protestants include women who wrote in that they were Christian and did not specify a denomination (8% of abortion patients in 2008).

†In 2000, some 13% of abortion patients aged 18 and older identified as born-again or evangelical. However, the item was reworded slightly for the 2008 survey, and we therefore cannot compare changes according to this characteristic over time.

Editor: The same research shows that while cohabiting women are roughly 8% of the population (of women of childbearing age), they are almost 3.5 times more likely to get an abortion. 

The secret sexual revolution

Relavent: As young Christians mature into their 20s, itʼs natural for them to reevaluate their beliefs as they strive to figure out how faith fits into their expanding worldview. If they determine they can drink responsibly and watch movies and listen to music with a discerning spirit, is it possible the “donʼt do it because itʼs wrong” message gets tossed aside along with all those other “legalistic” messages of youth? That they start to believe they can also have sex “with discernment”?

. . . If the statistics are correct and 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals between the ages of 18-29 have already had sex, then what does this mean for the majority of Christians in their 20s? If chastity is understood as “one strike and youʼre out,” what hope is there for the large percentage of Christians who have essentially “failed” by having sex outside of marriage?

Research: The DCR Report (basis of the statistics); Religious characteristics of women getting abortions (Guttmacher Institute)
Related: NYTimes article on the "new normal"

For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage

NY Times: It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Commentary: The 'New Normal' of Rampant Illegitimacy

Editor: Sadly, Christians are no different.

Abortion Statistics: US Data & Trends

NRLC

Obama Celebrates Roe vs. Wade Decision

LifeNews: On Sunday, President Barack Obama released a statement celebrating the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that allowed for 54 million abortions. The decision, handed down on January 22, 1973, overturned pro-life laws offering protection for unborn children in most states across the country, and made abortions legal and virtually unlimited.The statement by Obama says:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right. While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue- no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Latest abortion statistics from the CDC, for 2008

Abortion Surveillance --- United States, 2008: A total of 825,564 abortions were reported to the CDC for 2008. Women aged 20--29 years accounted for 57.1% of all abortions. That age group also had the highest abortion rates. Adolescents aged 15--19 years accounted for 16.2% of all abortions in 2008 and had an abortion rate of 14.3 abortions per 1,000 adolescents aged 15--19 years. Abortion rates decreased among adolescents aged ≤19 years, whereas they increased among women aged ≥35 years.

FRC summary of the report

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Famed pollster's interest in religion went beyond numbers

Famed pollster's interest in religion went beyond numbers » Abilene Reporter-News: "We revere the Bible, but don't read it," warned the famous pollster George Gallup, Jr., in an address to the Evangelical Press Association. "We believe the Ten Commandments to be valid rules for living, although we can't name them. We believe in God, but this God is a totally affirming one, not a demanding one. He does not command our total allegiance. We have other gods before him." The bottom line is that most American believers simply "want the fruits of religion, but not the obligations."

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Nicholas Kristof and Toddlers: When You Really Need a Fact Checker

Nicholas Kristof and Toddlers: When You Really Need a Fact Checker « Public Discourse: It took only a 30-second Google search to demolish the thesis that the birth of the world’s 7 billionth person is the result of too much unprotected sex that contributes to all these ills. The 30-second search confirms that population growth is not fueled by an excess of babies, as Kristof contends; it is fueled by more folks living longer than ever.

Related: Nicholas Kristof was wrong

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The American-Western Europe Values Gap

Americans also distinguish themselves from Western Europeans on views about the importance of religion. Half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives; fewer than a quarter in Spain (22%), Germany (21%), Britain (17%) and France (13%) share this view.

Moreover, Americans are far more inclined than Western Europeans to say it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values; 53% say this is the case in the U.S., compared with just one-third in Germany, 20% in Britain, 19% in Spain and 15% in France. Pew Forum

Collusion, complicity, and consent

Conflict Of Interest: "If AGI's data is scientific, and over 1.2 million children lost to abortion each year does not move you to call the Body of Christ to a solemn assembly of prayer and fasting to break the blood thirsty stronghold of Satan in our Churches then how many abortions are too many? If AGI's data is reliable and over 54 million children brutally lost to abortion as they were dismembered in the wombs of their own mothers since 1973, does not move you to publicly fight to end abortion, then where do you draw the line?"

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