Summer 2012 Magazine Now Online

Special Report - August 3, 2012
The summer issue of Family North Carolina is now available online. This issue of the North Carolina Family Policy Council’s 40-page quarterly magazine touches on artificial reproduction, conscience clauses, cohabitation, religious freedom, and casino gambling threats. It also includes a review of the recently completed legislative session, and a commentary on the four words we never want to say in the public policy arena.

Attorney Mary Summa’s powerful feature article “Designer Babies” lays out the origins of the artificial reproductive technologies that are used today to separate babies from sex. Recognizing that not all progress is good progress, Mary examines the moral and societal costs that come from the commodification of babies as a “right” to which adults are entitled, when and how they wish.

Additionally, Mary Summa takes a closer look at the pros and cons of expanding conscience clause protections for medical professionals and organizations. Pro-life advocates have long touted such clauses as a way to protect people or groups from being forced to participate in practices to which they have a moral, religious, or philosophical objection.

As the research on negative lifetime outcomes for children raised in broken family structures continues to grow, more and more children are being raised by unmarried cohabiting parents. Alysse ElHage takes a look at the significant threat that cohabitation poses to the wellbeing of children in her spotlight article “Cohabiting with Children.”

In July, Republican legislators completed their first legislative session in control of both chambers for the first time since Reconstruction. Brittany Farrell takes a look back at some of the highs and lows of this historic session.

A growing concern exists over efforts by several universities to deny students their First Amendment rights in the name of “inclusion.” In his first article for Family North Carolina, attorney Sean O’Donnell provides some perspective on recent cases of college students being told to check their beliefs at the door. He goes on to outline proactive policies the General Assembly can adopt to further protect the First Amendment rights of students.

Despite repeated attempts to outlaw dangerous and addictive gambling in North Carolina, this year the General Assembly took a turn for the worse in this arena. Campbell law student Margaret Brooks summarizes the one gambling expansion effort that garnered the support necessary to become law this year—the introduction of Las Vegas style casino gambling on the Cherokee Indian reservation in Western North Carolina.

This issue’s interview with mom and author Amy Julia Becker is a powerful testimony about the blessings her daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, has brought to their family.

NCFPC President Bill Brooks offers a reminder of the admonitions from the Council and others that North Carolina’s decision to enter the gambling business by legalizing a state lottery has put the state on shaky ground when it comes to restricting other, and often even more addictive, forms of gambling.

The Summer 2012 issue of Family North Carolina can be accessed here.

Related resources:
Family North Carolina Magazine - FNC - Summer 2012 (and all previous issues)

Copyright © 2012. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.