Category Archives: Marriage and Family

Issues impacting marriages and families

Principles and Policies Podcast for 12/10/2011- Ignoring A Beating Heart; Trying To Pass The Heart Beat Bill

This entry is part 51 of 55 in the series Principles and Policies Podcast

Our Principles and Policies radio show for Saturday December 10, 2011. Barry Sheets and Chuck Michaelis of the Institute For Principled Policy discuss the tactics being employed by the opponents of the Heart Beat Bill. There is opposition from both sides of the issue of protecting life. Barry and Chuck try and make sense of the opposition from the nominally “pro-life” side of the issue.

More Information On Gardasil

Way back in 2007 the Institute For Principled Policy Led the fight to oppose mandatory Gardasil vaccinations for girls as young as 10. Gardasil is a vaccination created to immunize against a limited number of strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). It was being touted as a cervical cancer prevention method. We cited a complete lack of information on vital statistics regarding length of anti-viral activity, adverse immunological effects, possible adverse reactions (Guillain-Barre Syndrome, etc), actual statistical analysis regarding reduction of cancer, etc. For a complete list of the questions we were asking in the Spring of 2007 you can read our main article HERE.

Now, 3 years later, the bloom is off the “miracle vaccination” rose. It is becoming clear that the objections we raised were more than justified. Merck & Co. the pharmaceutical giant that developed this vaccine and has spent millions trying to guarantee itself indemnity from lawsuit via a little known section of the PATRIOT Act that makes mandatory vaccinations immune from damage lawsuits. That’s what was going on in Ohio in 2007 and we at the Institute For Principled Policy exposed it early, thus killing the bill (HB 81) that would have made the vaccine mandatory.

Since that time there have been nearly 9000 adverse reaction reports, including deaths, paralysis, mysterious pain, immunological impacts, reports of passing out, etc. Now Merck & Co. are trying to get boys in the act, claiming the vaccine will work in them, as well.

Here is a video that gives an interesting overview of the situation including a CBS Evening News report on Gardasil adverse reactions-

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJsEEXDGAsk[/youtube]

There is also a very well done video response to the first video that looks at the problem from a more scientific perspective. It targets both the medical journals and marketing of the vaccine-

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ32gAb1o-E[/youtube]

As the second video makes clear, there are many questions that MUST be answered about Gardasil primarily but also many other vaccinations. Vaccinations can be wonderful things (polio), but there is an immunological price to pay for their use. The extent of that price is not yet fully known. As consumers we need to be given considerably more information on that price than we now have.

Valuing Civil Dissent

Dr. Mark Hamilton, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Ashland University

In November 2008 I was attending a conference in downtown San Diego.  As I exited a Saturday session and emerged out of the hotel onto the street for a breath of warm fresh air, I was struck by a distant roar.  It was low and constant but seemed to be gradually increasing.  I walked in the direction of the reverberating echo  and in about two blocks came to a brigade of humans about six across marching orderly and chanting in rhythm.   As I carefully read the signs and listened to their repetitious outcries, I realized it was an organized march on behalf of gay marriage protesting California’s passage of the Marriage Amendment.

I was shocked by the massive turnout of people, but I was equally surprised at the relative control and respect demonstrated by the crowd.  My only previous experience with a gay parade had been over a decade ago in Boston when my wife and I, along with our two daughters, drove into Boston for a walk along the famous historic Freedom Trail and while on our casual walk encountered a shocking gay parade.  We were forced to step into several stores to shield our eyes and the eyes and ears of our young children from the profanities being shouted and the visual obscenities.   The San Diego march was quite different.  The signs made their points, the crowd was loud but orderly, and they were respectful to the surrounding citizenry.  They allowed me to politely cross through their midst to meet my ride.  I later found out that there were dissents like that all across America that day but that the San Diego one was the largest, estimated at between 20-25 thousand people.   And though I disagreed with the content of their political statements, it was important to recognize they were appropriately exercising their political rights and freedoms and doing so legally and without infringing upon the rights of others.

It has been rightly stated innumerable times that America is a nation built on dissent.  The founding fathers began the rebellion against England as a form of dissent and had the insight to protect the rights of others to dissent through the First Amendment.  America’s great strength has been its ability to allow disagreement and dialogue.  I am a conservative yet I often dissented with the Bush administration on issues like spending, the increasing size of government, the War in Iraq, the use of what I would consider questionable means of extracting information, the lack of foresight in developing renewable sources of energy or the inability to make a decision on the status of the detainees in Guantanamo prison by placing them on military trial.

One of the great failures of the Bush presidency was its breakdown to dialogue with friendly dissenters, with conservatives.   I have been frequently disturbed by so-called conservatives who blindly followed his policies thinking that Republicans are naturally conservative, are always right, or that because Bush confessed Christ he was making “Christian decisions.”   Unfortunately many conservatives mindlessly think that a dislike of war is a lack of patriotism or that the more one refuses to support the use of force the more un-American a person becomes.  We fail to look at the complexities that are involved in defining a truly “just war.”   America is becoming a country of mindless conservatives and mindless liberals where dissent is seen as unpatriotic or as immoral where we must fight back or silence the dissenters.  Just look at the recent events at the University of North Carolina where students violently disrupted and shouted down Tim Tancredo.  One UNC student defended the action saying, “He was not able to practice hate speech.”  Have we become so afraid of words?

We can no longer just blindly trust our government’s interpretation or our media’s reporting on these events.  They all seem to want disagreement shut down.  I want to live in America because it is a place of dissent and discussion.  I feel threatened that we contrarians are being forced to be silent by both the liberals and the conservatives.  People no longer understand what free speech is; it is a necessary freedom with great responsibility.  We may disagree with the content of what fools may say but we cannot take away their right to speak.  I’ve known the freedom to peacefully demonstrate against nuclear build-ups, against abortion, against hazardous waste incinerators, or against child pornography in mainstream bookstores and the freedom to discuss openly great issues of controversy in the college classroom.  Do we dare annihilate this freedom?

Many liberals used to be strong supporters of free speech.  Sadly this has eroded from their midst.  Even the supposed “Tolerant Mr. Obama” has prided himself on this, but if this is so why does he mock those who attended the Tea Party rallies?  Was his ridicule of the Tea Baggers a form of “Hate Speech?”  Why has the media failed to fairly cover these Tea Party events the way it covered similar Gay Rights demonstrations?  My eyes were opened to this liberal failure several years ago when they wanted protestors outside abortion mills prosecuted for racketeering (RICO act).   I had always thought that liberals knew what free speech was.  That may have been true in the past but it is no more.  I am greatly disappointed in my American friends who are liberal.    Boy, was I fooled by thinking all these years that one of the real positive things that liberals stood for was the First Amendment.  I can no longer be fooled.   Ideology has replaced American ideals.    Certainly it is politics and not ideology or justice behind the desire for “Hate Speech” legislation and the desire to silence talk radio. I’m an American and dissent is at the fabric of my being.  Do not take this away from me and do not shut me down.   If you do so you shut down the last vestiges of America.

YES On State Issue 5

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series 2008 Election Issues

Voting MachineOne of the two most contentious issues on Ohio’s Fall 2008 ballot is Issue 5. In 1995 Ohio’s legislature foolishly repealed the existing usury laws. In the wake of that action hundreds of so-called “payday” lenders popped up all over the state, usually in or near areas where predominantly lower- to lower middle class workers reside.

Just a few years ago, Ohio passed very tight new bankruptcy laws. The combination of tighter bankruptcy laws and the repeal of usury laws have created an economic atmosphere in which usurers can flourish. And have they ever flourished. The number of payday lenders grew by more than 1500% since 1996 from 107 to 1638 in 2007. Between 2006 and 2007 the number of Ohio’s payday lenders grew by 76 or over 5%1.

Taking advantage of Ohio’s current law which allows a 391% Annual Percentage Rate (APR) ceiling (this is for a two-week loan. A 10 day loan can be as high as 548% APR2 due to the decreased loan duration and subsequent increase in annual repayment periods ; to be fair a loan at the $800 cap is “only” 367% APR3) and an $800 borrowing cap, Ohio’s virtually unregulated payday lenders are reaping huge revenues from their chosen targeted customer base. And just who is that base? Those who can least afford it, naturally. People who have limited or no access to other kinds short-term credit- credit cards, equity in real property, acceptable credit rating (or in the case of young people new to the job market and college students, any credit rating) people in low-income jobs (seasonal employees, etc) or on a “fixed-income (retirees, injured and disabled workers4).” A favored target of payday lenders is families of enlisted military, whose pay rates tend to be dismally low. In many states payday lenders cluster near military bases. Or they used to. The federal government recently (2006) capped loans to soldiers and their immediate families at 36% and most payday lenders have moved on to greener pastures like subsidized housing.5 So much for noble payday industry claims of “just being there to provide a necessary service.” Only if the interest rate is in the triple digits as we will prove later.

What payday industry watchdogs say about the industry-

Morgan Stanley IPO Analysis of Advance America:

The Georgetown study reveals the long-term nature of much payday lending. At a 300 percent APR, the interest on a payday advance would exceed the principal after about four months. In these circumstances, the loan starts to look counterproductive: rather than bridging a gap in income, the payday advance may contribute to real financial distress. Advance America’s disclosures show that repeat borrowing is important. [emphasis added]

FDIC Center for Financial Research:

‘We find that high-frequency borrowers account for a disproportionate share of a payday store’s loan and profits.

Ernst & Young Analysis of Payday Lending Business Model:

The survival of payday loan operators depends on establishing and maintaining a substantial repeat customer base.’

Michael Stegman’s “Payday Lending: A Business Model that Encourages Chronic Borrowing” – Economic Development Quarterly:

The financial success of payday lenders depends on their ability to convert occasional users into chronic borrowers.

What the Payday lenders themselves say-

Stephen Winslow–Former Harrisonburg, Virginia Payday Store Manager:

This industry could not survive if the goal was for the customer to be ‘one and done’. Their survival is based on the ability to create the need to return, and the only way to do that is to take the choice of leaving away. That is what I did.6

My customers were not stupid or ignorant – they were in crisis. I ended any ability they may have had to overcome that crisis by putting the final nail in their financial coffins.7 [emphasis added]

Rebecca Flippo – Former Virginia Payday Store Manager:8

These companies feed on the people living on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis.The customers who do come in and repay the loans take out another loan right then almost every time.They want to create a dependence on their services so the customer is forced to reissue the loan on every payday.

We saw most of our customers every month.

We really played down the APR. We disclosed it, but we played it down.[emphasis added]

What the Bible has to say about deliberate gouging those who can least afford it-

If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. Ex. 22:25 ESV

Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your [poor] brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. Lev. 25:36, 37 ESV

You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. Deu. 23:19 ESV

Whoever multiplies his wealth by interest and profit [That is, profit that comes from charging interest to the poor] gathers it for him who is generous to the poor. Prov. 14:31 ESV

Though the exegesis of this is well beyond the scope of this article (see Gary North and R.J. Rushdoony for an expansion), the Bible doesn’t condemn interest bearing loans for commercial purposes. The Institute For Principled Policy believes in the basic economic premise that market forces should set interest rates for commercial loans under normal circumstances. However, the Bible does strongly condemn the lending of money at interest, especially at rates that are condemned as usury under any circumstances except extreme hyperinflation, to those in society least able to repay the loan for reasons that are obvious. Truly, the book of Proverbs states it most eloquently

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender [emphasis added] Prov. 22:7 ESV

Compare the verse above with the highlighted part of Steven Winslow’s quote above. The payday lenders know they are a lender of last resort (i.e., the bad players are little better than loan sharks) and they are fully aware that most of their customers are unable to repay within the normal 2 week window without creating either a severe financial hardship or taking out another loan at the same usurous interest rate. That is why payday lenders specifically target a specific demographic of borrower. Why would anyone with a credit card or home equity loan capped at no more than 36% APR borrow from a payday lender at 391% APR in an emergency?

Currently there is no mechanism for making 0% bridge loans to needy borrowers. The Progressive movement and its influence on policy making, has resulted in the takeover of church functions like charitable loans, feeding, clothing, housing and educating the needy through the old church tithe agencies by the government, complete with gross over-taxation, nearly completely. Therefore, the biblical concept of equity provides for the private-enterprise establishment of a system to provide loans at reasonable cost and under reasonable repayment conditions for those who have fiscal emergencies but have no other recourse.

Unfortunately, the lenders have completely failed to govern themselves, as illustrated by the earlier quotes and, more importantly, the statistics which show that unscrupulous lenders know a cash cow ripe for milking when they see one.

Here are some interesting numbers9. Statistically, the average Ohio payday loan is $328. The average interest rate is 391% with a two-week interest due payment of $49.33. But as we have noted, the payday industry thrives on and cultivates repeat business. The average payday borrower visits a single location 7.4 times per year. This means that the average borrower pays out $365.01in interest alone on top of his original loan amount of $328 or more than 111% of the original. But that doesn’t end the story. That same borrower doesn’t just visit one payday store front. On average, he visits 1.7 per year. That means that the 7.4 times he visits a single shop has to be multiplied by 1.7 to get his total number of loans taken each year at the average $328. That brings the total to 12.6 loans of $328 each with an interest payout of $49.33 each, bringing the total interest only to $621.51or 189%  total interest paid. This also means that the average payday borrower is indebted to a payday lender for nearly 6 months per year!

But the situation is worse than it looks at first blush. Using data from Michigan , the state closest to Ohio’s demographic and economic numbers, we find that 94% of the entire revenue generated by payday lenders came from borrowers who had 5 or more transactions per year (pretty close to our example above and the equivalent of 75% interest only repayment). Seventy-seven per-cent of their revenue came from borrowers who had 12 or more transactions per year (very close to the example). Eight per-cent of Michigan customers had 30 or more transactions but they accounted for 27% of the revenue of Michigan payday lenders. In other words, a small but significant percentage of borrowers were indebted with one loan for the entire year, and a second loan virtually certainly with at least one other payday lender for at least part of the year and paid 450% or more in total interest. That’s $1476 or more in interest alone for a $328 loan. If that’s not usury then what is?

Here’s the bottom line. Low-income payday borrowers are easily trapped in a cycle of debt by extremely high interest rates and very short pay-off times from which there is virtually no escape.10 It’s designed that way by testimony of former and present industry insiders and industry analysts

The financial success of payday lenders depends on their ability to convert occasional users into chronic borrowers.11

Irrespective of whether the repeat transactions are cast as “renewals,” “extensions,” or “new loans,” the result is a continuous flow of interest-only payments at very short intervals that never reduce the principal.12

– Michael Stegman, “Payday Lending: A Business Model that Encourages Chronic Borrowing,” Economic Development Quarterly

Having put to rest the false industry arguments that it “isn’t really 391% interest” by showing that, indeed it can be 391% interest and more and that the APR is a reasonable description that allows loan comparisons with credit cards, banks and credit unions, we now must deal with the question that seems to have ruffled so many libertarian feathers- the loan registry.

An analysis of HB 545 shows the following information: Under the new law loans are capped at 28% APR and borrowers are permitted only 4 loans per year, only one at a time and only 2 in a given 90 day period (this final requirement is waived for borrowers who complete a state-approved “financial literacy” course to be offered at low cost at local community colleges). The repayment period must be longer than 30 days.

And, to insure that these requirements (and a number of others borrower safeguards including seriously restrictions to the loan shark-style harassment collection methods often used by payday lenders against those whose finances they have had a significant hand in ruining) are adhered to there is a provision for the creation of a loan registry. BUT, and this is important, the registry CANNOT be used by law for any purpose other than tracking the transparency of the loan transactions, CANNOT by law contain any private financial identity information (e.g., the Social Security number of the borrower, bank ID numbers, etc.) and CANNOT by law even be created if there are less than 400 licensed payday lenders. Industry sources have made it clear that 90-95% of lenders will leave the state if the law passes.

Taking the best case scenario given by lenders would leave 10% of the current number of lenders or about 164 proprietors left to pull licenses, well under 400. Therefore, no registry.13 And if there ever is one, it will most likely be under the supervision of a contractor with experience handling sensitive records- just like a bank, credit card company or credit union!

The loan registry is recommended by groups like The Ohio Coalition For Responsible Lending because it keeps the more predatory payday lenders from playing the corporate shell game of moving loans around to corporate subsidiaries and partners to hide them from regulators, hardly an unimaginable scenario for companies who have no qualms about targeting low- and fixed- income borrowers with 391% APR interest rates. The experience of other states proves the necessity of the registry.

Frankly, we’ve left out a lot of information regarding details like interest rate and cost deception and collection methods employed by the payday industry but you can research these yourself, especially by reading Stephen Winslow’s blog site and The Center For Responsible Lending website (see footnotes below).

It is clear that the current payday lender regulation is completely inadequate to control the rampant greed and usury that creates a cycle of debt in the low- and fixed-income community which the industry targets. While the Institute For Principled Policy applauds initiative and vehemently supports the right of businessmen to conduct their chosen business, we cannot sit on our hands and say nothing as social Darwinists actively work to allow the poor to be trapped into penury and wage slavery by unscrupulous lenders. To do so would be a dishonor and curse on our own heads.

The legislation which will be approved by a “YES” vote on the Issue 5 referendum will go a long towards keeping low- and fixed-income families from disintegrating due to debt and bankruptcy and the downward spiral of family despair and destruction that often follows. It will also allow the principled players in the industry who really do want to provide a needed service stay and run an efficient and profitable business to continue to operate. It is not an outright ban, as the industry has claimed. We know this from the several other states which have been forced, as has Ohio, to regulate corporations who have allowed themselves to become no better than the loan sharks the usury laws were passed to stop originally.

VOTE “YES” ON ISSUE 5

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Rothstein, David & Jeffrey D. Dillman, The Continued Growth of Payday Lending, Policy Matters Ohio, The Housing Research & Advocacy Center, Mar., 2008, p. 1

2 Rothstein, p. 3f

3 Rothstein, P. 3, table 1

4 Rothstein, P. 8

5 Rothstein, P. 8

6 King, Uriah & Leslie Parish, Center For Responsible Lending, Springing the Debt Trap: Rate caps are only proven payday lending reform Dec., 2007, P. 12

7 Winslow, Stephen, Payday Lending: A practice whose end has come, Conservative Viewpoint blog entry for May 25, 2007

8 Center For Responsible Lending, Payday Loans Trap Borrowers, video at http://www.responsiblelending.org/issues/payday/inside-the-payday-industry.html

9 Ohio Coalition For Responsible Lending Trapped By Design: Payday Lending By The Numbers, Sept. 19, 2007

10 Rothstein, P. 10, Table 5

11 King, P. 11

12 King, P. 12

13 Gakh, Max, Ohio General Assembly Legislative Service Commission Final Analysis Sub. H.B. 545 127th General Assembly

Vacation’s Over! Back To Blogging!

BeachThe webmaster (me) is back from vacation and all caught up with the avalanche of work at his real job. And nobody even tried to post while he was gone.

And wow! What a time to go out of town! The AG, Marc Dann, is revealed as a grafter! Well, no one here was shocked as anyone who has read any of our blog entries on Dann’s very suspicious “Tic-Tac-Fruit” tap dance knows (look under the archives under the “gambling” category). How long has the Governor known that there was a problem in the AG’s office or, even more importantly, the Dann campaign?

And isn’t it interesting that the Ohio Republican Party continues to do its best to commit political suicide, in a presidential election year where the national party stands poised to nominate a candidate that is sure to cause a significant percentage of the so-called “values voter” block to shrug its collective shoulders and stay home in the fall? For instance, what’s up with Republican State Senator David Goodman pushing a bill that would force places like Christian schools and day care centers to hire open homosexuals, cross-dressers, “trans-genders” (still don’t know how an XY can change to a XX or vice-versa; can someone explain it to this degreed biochemist?)? And what about Republicans working double-overtime to kill a human cloning ban bill? And how about the Republicans being so accommodating in the Governor’s plan to take advantage of the lack of inhibition of those who have over-imbibed by expanding gambling with keno slots in bars? I thought Ohioans had said “NO” repeatedly to these moves by private industry. Apparently, the constitutional restriction on gambling only counts for private industry, not government.

Yes, indeed, a bad time to go on vacation.

Watch this space.

What will you do when they come for you?

RadarThis article posted on Worldnetdaily has so many things wrong that I don’t know where to start. This all transpires because some paramedic has been indoctrinated into thinking HE is responsible for the welfare of the child…doesn’t matter whose rights are trampled on. Remember, it takes a village to raise a child…right?

Think about the following points:

The father is a paramedic…the ER physician found nothing wrong with the boy…the paramedic checked out the child, found nothing wrong, but STILL wanted to take the child to the hospital, just in case…even the sheriff said that he would want to have the right to make these types of decisions for his children…

I think the comment here that most concerns me is the following one…The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a “self-proclaimed constitutionalist” and had made threats and “comments” over the years.

So, if a citizen understands the rights and protections guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, he is a potential threat that requires a SWAT team?

Let us know what you think with your comments?

Guest Blogger- Abstinence Education Begins At Home

Christians Should Stop Begging the State to Teach ‘Our’ Children Morality

Education In Crisis
Since his election in 2006, Ohio’s Democratic Governor Ted Strickland has been working to eliminate funding for abstinence education in state schools. In response, Christian organizations throughout the state have been urging citizens to write to the governor and ask him to reinstate this funding. In a recent email, for example, the Ohio Christian Alliance wrote

“We want our children to be exposed to the truth that it is in their best interest — physically, emotionally and spiritually — to abstain from sex until marriage!”

My first thought upon reading this was, “Well then folks… They’re YOUR children, so TEACH THEM already!”

When Christians send their children away to humanistic government schools and allow the state to take their money through taxation to fund “education” we should not be surprised that these non-Christian bureaucrats want to teach immorality.

The solution is not to keep sending the children to the humanist schools where they are being taught evolution, pluralism, and situational “ethics” and then BEG the bureaucrats to spend MORE money to teach morality on the side. What a waste of effort!

We’re fighting the wrong battle here! The solution is to take God’s children out of Satan’s schools and separate the school from the state. That is, we should PRIVATIZE education! Let’s demand that our elected representatives stop taking our money and spending it on “public education” – period! We cannot expect a humanist school system to effectively teach morality.

Check out the Alliance for the Separation of School and State to learn more.

Nathan Radcliffe

Nathan Radcliffe is a former Christian school teacher and a long-time advocate for home education and limited government. He is a husband and father of two young girls. Nathan and his wife, Rachel, live in Lancaster, Ohio and attend a local Vineyard Church.

Voice Your Voice For Abstinence Education

RadarFrom a Citizens For Community Values (CCV) alert:

Pro-life and Abstinence-Until-Marriage advocates across Ohio are fighting to protect the physical, emotional and spiritual health of our children.

They are fighting against Ohio’s Governor, Ted Strickland, who since taking office has been systematically stripping abstinence education out of Ohio’s schools.

Were you aware…

  • that Gov. Strickland has refused free federal funds for abstinence education in favor of less comprehensive programs that don’t provide the tools and instruction to help students make the choice to develop healthy relationships and wait until marriage to have sex?
  • that Gov. Strickland has quietly abolished the abstinence education office for Ohio and wants to replace the strong message of abstinence with a risky curriculum developed at Ohio taxpayers’ expense that offers much less to Ohio teens?

The National Abstinence Education Association in conjunction with pro-abstinence organizations across the state has organized a Voice Your Voice for Abstinence event at the State Capitol Atrium on this Thursday, November 29 at 10:00 AM. If at all possible, please make plans to join us at this event.

Many organizations currently teaching Abstinence Until Marriage to public school students across the state will lose critical funding if Gov. Strickland continues along this course. This will be a travesty for our children. We must let the governor know that Ohio’s families want their children to understand that abstaining from sex until marriage is the only sure way to avoid the physical and emotional risks associated with casual sex.

Rand Corporation Report On Human Trafficking

RadarRecent Research on Human Trafficking in Ohio

A previous post on this blog introduced you to the topic of human trafficking and its prevalence, both internationally and domestically. Most policy-makers like to know its impact on their own state or local community.

As a result, the Rand Corporation was contracted to conduct a study on human trafficking, specifically addressing its impact in Ohio. They recently concluded their study and have published their findings in a report, aptly titled “Human Trafficking in Ohio; markets, responses, and considerations”.

Their research came from primary source documents (newspaper articles specifically related to human trafficking) and interviews with law enforcement and social service providers.

The goals of this research were three-fold:

  1. To describe the minimum extent to which human trafficking occurs in Ohio using concrete cases for which there is evidence supporting a trafficking offense

  2. To describe the awareness and response of the criminal justice community, focusing on such issues as how agencies become aware of human trafficking cases and what factors, facilitate or impede detection, investigation, and prosecution of human trafficking, and

  3. Explore how the social service community has responded to the human trafficking community, seeking to describe the needs that are critical to the trafficking victim.

Some highlights:

Research focused on two urban regions, Toledo and Columbus. Toledo research focused primarily on several underage prostitution cases. Columbus research addressed several brothels in the NE part of the city and also labor trafficking cases.

Juvenile victims of human sex trafficking in the case studies were exclusively female, ranging in age from 10 -17.

Recruitment of victims suggests that these victims are often runaways or are on the street due to family or substance abuse problems.

These trafficking victims made $300 – $1,000 per night (focusing on a Harrisburg, PA prostitution ring that originated in Toledo).

In Toledo, the criminal justice community has made significant changes to promote awareness, identification, and investigation of human trafficking cases. In Columbus, however, there is very little awareness of this issue.

Key Policy Considerations:

  • Need for greater awareness among the general public, potential first responders, parents, prosecutors, and other justice system personnel. This would be provided in two parts: general awareness information to all parties, and stakeholder-specific training (such as law enforcement, hospital workers, etc.).

  • Improved services for human trafficking victims. These could include safe havens, secure placement, short and long-term housing assistance, treatment and outreach, legal aid services, etc.

  • The need to address the “demand” side of trafficking. This may include john schools, increased penalties for johns and others who benefit from the trafficking of the victim, etc. Also, better mechanisms to prosecute the owners of various establishments if they are found to house illegal businesses.

  • Need for more personnel and resources (including financial) to address this issue. Human trafficking investigations consume significant amounts of time and are low-yield in terms of prosecution.

  • Refinement of departmental policies. There are at least three changes that should be made:
    1. a screening process and standard protocol for law enforcement personnel to follow when interacting with human trafficking victims (what questions to ask, what behaviors to watch for, etc.).

    2. addressing overlapping jurisdictional issues to assist victims – such as a shelter only serving a certain county, etc.

    3. helping child welfare and juvenile welfare agencies to see an underage prostitute as a victim, not a criminal. Make this person have a higher priority in the system.

For more information, or to obtain a copy of this report, please visit: www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG689/

Are You Still A Hero If Your “Heroic Cause” Kills Babies?

Unborn ChildWe simply could not let one of the most egregious examples of fact twisting in the name of propaganda in recent memory to pass without comment. On Thursday October 25,2007 a column by Joe Blundo ran in the Columbus Dispatch. The apparent purpose was to lionize Hattie Lazarus, who was instrumental in founding Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio (PP) in 1932, then euphemistically known as the Mother’s Health Service. Lazarus was married into the Columbus department store family and Blundo does his best to paint her as a courageous crusader for “reproductive rights” another euphemism for abortion.

It is interesting to note that the word “abortion” appears only once in the article, claiming that PP only does “first-trimester abortions,” as if an arbitrarily chosen time-frame makes a difference. Great care is taken to avoid discussing the fact that PP is one of the primary, if not the leading abortion mill in Franklin County, Ohio and the United States. Yet, the specter of the evil practice can be found everywhere in the article. Phrases like the aforementioned “reproductive rights” and “emergency contraception” take the place of words more descriptive of the actual practices. Words like “infanticide,” “poisoning,” “chemical burning,” “dismemberment” and others even more descriptive come to mind.

Blundo takes great pains to tell us that

Planned Parenthood calls itself the largest provider of health care for low- to moderate-income women in central Ohio. For most of its 16,000 clients last year, it was their only source of health care.

This is a lofty claim and no citations by way of proof are provided. But for the sake of argument lets grant this claim. If we grant the claim as true we have to ask so what? Al Capone ran soup kitchens for the indigent from the profits he made selling beer and bathtub gin to speakeasys over the dead and broken bodies of his rivals for control of the gang, his competitors and bar owners who dealt with those competitors. According to Dr. George Grant in his devastating book Grand Illusions (available in our store), the offering of free or low-cost health care is a strategy outlined by Margaret Sanger to do exactly what is being done by Joe Blundo in this column, i.e., create a smoke screen to obscure the truth about where the tremendous profits that allow PP to provide these services come from- abortions, the sale of condoms and birth control pills including to minors without the knowledge or consent of parents (see this Dispatch poll to see what others think of this common PP practice).

Especially egregious is the fact that PP has non-profit tax-exempt status and receives tremendous amounts of money from local, state and federal grants, despite making tremendous amounts of money from sales of items and “services” mentioned above. Probably the lowest blow however is that PP receives huge amounts of money from Christians who are duped or coerced yearly into giving to United Way. Christians are duped by being told that their United Way contributions can be designated. Of course, they can be but it doesn’t change how PP is funded, except perhaps to increase it. How’s that? A United Way board decides how money is distributed to charities by percentage of funds collected, and often forces pro-life groups to accept their funding as the sole source, thus restricting additional fundraising efforts and keeping them small and dependent. At the same time funds designated for these pro-life groups are simply subtracted from the money that would have come out of the general pot without the designations, actually making more money available for favored groups like PP.

Christians are also coerced to contribute to United Way by unscrupulous corporate heads who often compete among themselves for the prestige connected to having the highest percentage of participation or largest contribution amounts. This is communicated to department heads and managers who then pressure employees with veiled threats of career damage if the employee doesn’t donate (the author of this article was subjected to just this type of coercion while employed at a large Columbus corporation; He handled the problem by donating $5. This gave his manager his coveted 100% participation and the author the satisfaction that it cost United Way more money to process his contribution than he gave).

Blundo tells us that Hattie Lazarus passed on her zeal for “education, services and advocacy of reproductive rights” to her offspring and that her grandson has just finished a term on PP’s board. How nice that he was around to be able to perform this “service.” Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the thousands of central Ohio babies and the tens of millions of them in the United States who did not have a similar opportunity to reach responsible adulthood, having been the victims of the “services and reproductive rights advocacy” pushed by the likes of Lazarus and the eugenicist nurse and PP founder Margaret Sanger.

Contrast these two quotes from the article

She died in 1971, having done all that she could to make sure Planned Parenthood would endure.It not only lived on; it outlasted the department store.

and

As it turned out, her involvement in the cause did raise a few eyebrows in conservative Columbus but never seemed to affect the family business, Robert Lazarus Jr. said.

As firm believers in covenantalism we would disagree with Robert Lazarus Jr.’s conclusion on the Lazarus family’s support for abortion not having any effect on the family’s business. As the article points out, there is no such business as F&R Lazarus any more.

The answer to the opening question? No, You aren’t.