TAKING SIDES: Clashing Views in Family and Personal Relationships, Seventh Edition
Unit 1 Parental Decision-Making: What’s Best for Children…Or What’s Best for Parents?
Issue 1. Is It Ever Appropriate to Spank a Child? YES: Walter L. Larimore, from "Is Spanking Actually Harmful to Children?" Focus on the Family (Focus on the Family, 2002) NO: Irwin A. Hyman, from The Case Against Spanking: How to Discipline Your Child Without Hitting (Jossey-Bass, 1997)
Walter L. Larrimore, vice president of medical outreach at Focus on the Family, explains that parents have always spanked their children, and believes that what we see in the media are only examples of times when parents have become abusive rather than using spanking appropriately. Irwin A. Hyman, director of the National Center for Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives, argues that there is never any reason to hit a child. Focusing on the emotional effects of spanking, he asserts that spanking is much more likely to teach children to tolerate and perpetuate violence than it is to correct disobedience.
Issue 2. Should Adoptive Parents Adopt Only Within Their Own Racial/Ethnic Group? New! YES: Leslie Doty Hollingsworth, from "Promoting Same-Race Adoption for Children of Color," Social Work (vol. 43, no. 2, 1998) New! NO: Ezra E. H. Griffith and Rachel L. Bergeron, from "Cultural Stereotypes Die Hard," The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (vol. 34, no. 3, 2006)
Leslie Doty Hollingsworth, an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan, offers a history of transracial adoption that has involved primarily white adoptive parents and Black or African American children. She argues that children are best served if they are adopted by families of their same racial background, and that systematic changes—such as adoption services and programs better geared towards adults of color—would enable more families to adopt children from their own backgrounds. Ezra Griffith and Rachel Bergeron, both faculty members of the Yale University School of Medicine’s psychiatry department, argue that requiring racial and ethnic matching, while an appropriate effort, would leave too many children of color languishing in the foster and adoption systems. By maintaining that only in-race adoption is the best and idea situation, they ask rhetorically, does our society actually do more to reinforce cultural stereotypes or to truly serve children needing homes?
Issue 3. Does Divorce Create Long-Term Negative Effects for Children? New! YES: Elizabeth Marquardt, from "The Bad Divorce," First Things (February 2005) New! NO: Constance Ahrons, from We're Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents' Divorce (Harper Collins, 2004)
In reviewing Constance Ahrons’ book, We’re Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorce, Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, argues that the manner in which Ahrons’ questions were asked in her study yielded comments from participants in which they minimized the negative effects that their parents’ divorce had on them. Through a combination of her own personal experience as a child of divorce and her work in the field, she maintains that divorce is a “tragedy” that dramatically and negatively impacts children for the rest of their lives. Constance Ahrons, author of What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorce and founding co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families, found in her research findings that the ideas that children of divorced families end up much more troubled and unable to form adult relationships themselves are myths, that many adults whose parents divorced emerged from the experience stronger, wiser, and with closer relationships with their fathers, remaining connected to their families of origin even when the parent with whom they lived created a new stepfamily.
Issue 4. Should Parents Homeschool Their Children? New! YES: Chris Jeub, from "Homeschool” and “Reasons for Homeschooling," Focus on the Family (2006) New! NO: Carole Moore, from "Why It's Not Right for Us," Scholastic.com (2006)
Chris Jeub, writer and president of Training Minds Ministries, is a former public school teacher with 11 children, all of whom he and his wife have homeschooled. Naming several famous homeschooled individuals, such as Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, and Florence Nightingale, he argues that the home is the bst environment in which to teach children, for social, academic, family strengthening, and religious reasons. Homeschooling, he maintains, frees parents to impart their own values to their children without concern for how these beliefs might clash with what is presented in the public school system. Carole Moore, a freelance writer, discusses how she weighed the options of home vs. public schooling and argues that even though homeschooling might offer some benefits to children, in the end, children who are homeschooled provides a distorted view of the world at large. Children will, she writes, make good decisions and bad decisions as a part of growing up, and whether they are home schooled or public schooled is not the determining factor in whether they grow up healthy and well-adjusted.
Issue 5. Do Mothers Who Work Outside the Home Have a Negative Effect on Their Children? New! YES: Jeanne/Brooks-Gunn, Wen-Jui Han and Jane Waldfogel, from "Maternal Employment and Child Cognitive Outcomes in the First Three Years of Life: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care," Child Development (July/August 2002) New! NO: Thomas M. Vander Ven et al., from "Home Alone: The Impact of Maternal Employment on Delinquency," Social Problems (May 2001)
Child developmentalists Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Wen-Jui Han, and Jane Waldfogel assert that their findings show many types of negative effects from maternal employment on the later cognitive and educational outcomes of children. Professor of sociology and anthropology Thomas M. Vander Ven and his colleagues argue that their studies show that the qualities or quantities of a mother working have relatively little or no influence on the social, emotional, and behavioral functioning of her children. Unit 2 How Much Control Should Parents Have Over Their Children?
Issue 6. Should "Abstinence-Until-Marriage" Be the Only Message for Teens? YES: Bridget E. Maher, from "Abstinence Until Marriage: The Best Message for Teens," Family Research Council (2004) NO: Sue Alford, from "What's Wrong with Federal Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Requirements?" Transitions (March 2001)
Bridget E. Maher, an analyst on marriage and family issues at the Family Research Council, argues that far too much funding has gone into programs that teach young people about sexuality and contraception—programs that she asserts are ineffective. She points out that most teens say they and their peers should receive strong messages about abstinence. Sue Alford, editor and director of public information services at Advocates for Youth, argues that young people are receiving sexuality information and messages from so many sources that it is irresponsible to restrict sexuality and other educators from discussing only abstinence. She maintains that the programs taught under the Abstinence Until Marriage funding often provide factually inaccurate information and hyperbolic assertions pertaining to the potential consequences of sexual relationships outside of marriage.
Issue 7. Should Parents Routinely Vaccinate Their Children? New! YES: Ferdinand D. Yates, Jr., from "Should Children Be Routinely Immunized?" The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (April 16, 2004) New! NO: Jini Patel Thompson, from "Should I Vaccinate My Child?" Well Being Journal (March/April 2003)
Ferdinand Yates, Jr. supports routine childhood immunizations, and offers an array of research demonstrating their efficacy and relative low risk of harm. He argues that society needs to be able to think beyond its own family structure, and consider that not vaccinating a child puts that child at higher risk for several contagious diseases, which could then be transmitted to others. Jini Patel Thompson speaks from her position as a parent who had to decide whether to vaccinate her child, and based on her own research, decided against it. She, too, cites a variety of research sources to demonstrate that the potential negative side effects of vaccinations, both long- and short-term, are not worth the potential positive outcomes for children.
Issue 8. Should Parents Be Able to Select the Biological Sex of Their Children? New! YES: John A. Robertson, from "Preconception Gender Selection," The American Journal of Bioethics (Winter 2001) New! NO: Norman Daniels, from “It Isn’t Just the Sex…”; Carson Strong, from “Can’t You Control Your Children?”; Mary B. Mahowald, from “Reverse Sexism? Not to Worry”; and Mark V. Sauer, from "Preconception Sex Selection: A Commentary," The American Journal of Bioethics (Winter 2001)
Professor John A. Robertson of the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law argues that preconception gender selection of infants in utero for medical purposes should be allowed, and that insufficient data exist to demonstrate that any clear harm exists in allowing parents to do so. Norman Daniels (Tufts University), Carson Strong (University of Tennessee), Mary B. Mahowald (University of Chicago), and Mark V. Sauer (Columbia University) each take one aspect of Professor Robertson’s arguments to demonstrate why preconception gender selection should not be allowed, including, for example, the socioeconomic status inequity that allowing such a procedure, which likely would not be covered by health insurance, would create.
Issue 9. Should Parents Surgically Alter Their Intersex Infants? YES: Amicur Farkas, B. Chertin, and Irith Hadas-Halpren, from "One-Stage Feminizing Genitoplasty: Eight Years of Experience with Forty-Nine Cases," Journal of Urology (June 2001) New! NO: Paul McHugh, from "Surgical Sex," First Things (November 2004)
Amicur Farkas, B. Chertin, and Irith Hadas-Halpren, faculty of the Ben-Gurion University in Jerusalem, Israel, see ambiguous genitalia as a true emergency. They assert that feminizing surgery should be done on an infant with congenital adrenal hyperplasia to ensure that as an adult woman she will have sexual functioning and be able to give birth. Paul McHugh argues that a person’s sense of gender identity is biologically based—that by changing an infant’s or child’s body before that child has a sense of who they are and risking being wrong about that sex assignment can do much more damage than good.
Issue 10. Should Minors Be Required to Get Their Parents' Permission in Order to Obtain an Abortion? YES: Teresa Stanton Collett, from Testimony Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives (September 6, 2001) NO: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., from "Fact Sheet: Teenagers, Abortion and Government Intrusion Laws," Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (August 1999)
Teresa Stanton Collett, professor at South Texas College of Law, testifies in front of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of the federal Child Custody Protection Act. She advocates parental involvement in a minor’s pregnancy, regardless of the girl’s intention to carry or terminate the pregnancy. Parental involvement, Collett maintains, is not punitive; rather, it offers the girl herself additional protection against injury and sexual assault. Minors tend to have less access to information and education than adults; without this information and education, they are not able to provide truly “informed” consent, concludes Collett. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., the oldest and largest reproductive health organization in the United States, argues that parental notification and consent laws keep girls from exercising their legal right to access abortion. Notifying parents of their daughter’s intent to terminate a pregnancy puts many girls at risk for severe punishment, expulsion from the home, or even physical violence. Planned Parenthood contends that, just as minors have the power to give their consent for other surgical procedures, they should be able to give their own consent to terminate a pregnancy. Unit 3 Revisiting Ozzie and Harriet: Where Do Same-Sex Couples and Their Families Fit In?
Issue 11. Should Same-Sex Couples Be Allowed to Legally Marry? YES: Human Rights Campaign, from Answers to Questions about Marriage Equality (HRC's FamilyNet Project, 2004) NO: Peter Sprigg, from Questions and Answers: What's Wrong with Letting Same-Sex Couples ‘Marry’? (Family Research Council, 2004)
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America’s largest lesbian and gay organization, outlines the current disparities American lesbian and gay couples because they are not allowed to marry legally, as well as the logistical considerations involved in granting same-sex couples the right to marry. Peter Sprigg, director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council, outlines why non-heterosexual relationships do not carry with them the same validity as heterosexual relationships, and therefore should not be allowed to marry legally.
Issue 12. Should the U.S. Constitution Be Amended to Protect the “Sanctity of Marriage”? YES: National Review, from "The Right Amendment—Marriage," National Review Online (January 26, 2004) NO: Jonah Goldberg, from "Federal Marriage Amendment a Bad Idea," Townhall.com (2003)
The National Review, a conservative news magazine, believes that a constitutional amendment is needed to reserve the word "marriage" for a man and a woman. It would also keep any state from allowing same-sex unions and any judge from making a decision inconsistent with federal law. Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, does not support same-sex marriage, but he does not think that a constitutional amendment is the way to go, either. He argues that many supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment believe that this amendment protects and strengthens heterosexual marriage, and that this reasoning is flawed.
Issue 13. Should Lesbians and Gay Individuals Be Allowed to Adopt Children? YES: Joan Biskupic, from "Same-Sex Couples Redefining Family Law in USA," USA Today (February 17, 2003) NO: Timothy J. Dailey, from "State of the States: Update on Homosexual Adoption in the U.S.," Family Research Council (no. 243, 2004)
Joan Biskupic, legal affairs correspondent for USA Today, discuss both the personal challenges for same-gender couples attempting to adopt in states that are not friendly to them, and provides an update of legal issues and options available to lesbian and gay couples, indicating a changing tide of acceptance toward couples of the same gender, as well as lesbian and gay individuals, adopting children. Timothy J. Dailey, senior research fellow at the Center for Marriage and Family Studies, provides an overview of state laws pertaining to adoption by lesbian or gay parents. He points to studies showing that children do much better in family settings that include both a mother and a father, and that the sexual behaviors same-sex parents engage in make them, by definition, inappropriate role models for children. Unit 4 Twenty-First Century Sexuality Issues
Issue 14. Is Cybersex "Cheating"? YES: Stephen O. Watters, from Real Solutions for Overcoming Internet Addictions (Servant Publications, 2001) NO: CBSNEWs.com, from "A Look at Internet Infidelity," (August 4, 2003)
Stephen O. Watters shares personal experiences of several women whose marriages have been unsatisfying and who have sought connection with men online. He argues that the type of connection people can establish via the Internet can be extremely powerful, and that the significance of these relationships can be just as damaging to a marriage as a live affair—perhaps even more so, since these online sexual relationships can, he says, lead to an addiction. CBSNEWS.com reports that while Internet relationships may not be healthy for a relationship, they are not the same thing as, and should not be equated with, an actual affair. A sexual relationship maintained only in print is nowhere near as intense as a relationship that is consummated in person.
Issue 15. Are Open Relationships Healthy? New! YES: Kathy Labriola, from "Models of Open Relationships," Cat and Dragon Communications (2006) New! NO: Stanley Kurtz, from "Here Comes the Brides," The Weekly Standard (December 26, 2005)
Counselor and nurse Kathy Labriola argues that our society has a very limited view of what can be seen as “healthy” when it comes to relationship structures by offering several possible models of nontraditional relationships involving various relationship compositions. If society did not exclusively sanction the heterosexual monogamous marriage as the ideal relationship structure, more people would realize that they have other options and potentially have more fulfilling relationships. Stanley Kurtz, a writer and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues against what he sees as some people’s passivity to the reality of open relationships by discussing the Netherlands in which plural marriage is allowed. He believes that same-sex marriage is wrong, will lead to the acceptance of plural marriage, and that the institution of marriage as a whole will disintegrate.
Issue 16. Does Pornography Reduce the Incidence of Rape? New! YES: Anthony D'Amato, from "Porn Up, Rape Down," Northwestern University School of Law, Public Law and Legal Theory Research Series (June 23, 2006) New! NO: Judith Reisman, from "Pornography's Link to Rape," Worldnet Daily.com (July 29, 2006)
Professor of law Anthony D’Amato highlights statistics from the most recent National Crime Victimization Survey that demonstrate a correlation between the increased consumption of pornography over the years with the decreased incidence of rape. Some people, he argues, watch pornography in order to push any desire to rape out of their minds, and thus have no further desire to go out and actually do it. Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education, asserts that sex criminals imitate what they see depicted in the media, providing examples of serial rapists and killers who had large stores of pornography in their possession, and research in which approximately 33% of rapists said that they had viewed pornography immediately prior to at least one of their rapes.
Issue 17. Should Men Who Have Sex with Men Be Allowed to Donate Blood? New! YES: Bob Roehr, from "The Gift of Life: Gay Men and U.S. Blood Donation Policy," Liberty Education Forum (2006) New! NO: Marc Germain and Graham Sher, from "Men Who Have Had Sex With Men and Blood Donation," Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (July/September 2002)
Journalist and medical writer Bob Roehr believes that the 30-year blood donation policy that continues to ban men who have sex with other men is irrational, because it discriminates based on a behavior, not on risk factors. Why, for example, is a heterosexual woman who has unprotected intercourse with many male partners allowed to donate blood but a man who is in a monogamous relationship with only one other man in which they use condoms consistently is not? Dr. Marc Germain, medical director of microbiology and epidemiology at Héma-Québec, and Graham Sher, chief executive officer of the Canadian Blood Services, cite data that show a small increase in risk of transmitting HIV between men who have sex with other men, and that even this small increase merits restricting who can donate blood in order to serve the safety of the greater society. The expectation of the people receiving a blood donation that their blood will be disease-free outweighs, they say, the rights of those who are seen as high risk for HIV and other transfusion-transmitted diseases.
Issue 18. Are Statutory Rape Laws Effective at Protecting Minors? YES: Sherry F. Colb, from "The Pros and Cons of Statutory Rape Laws," CNN.com (February 11, 2004) NO: Marc Tunzi, from "Curbside Consultation: Isn't This Statutory Rape?" American Family Physician (May 1, 2002)
Sherry F. Colb, columnist and law professor, uses a case study involving a statutory rape case to raise concerns about whether rape and assault cases would be prosecuted sufficiently without statutory rape laws. Although not perfect, statutory rape laws can be assets in such cases as when the older partner denies the rape occurred or denies any responsibility for a resulting pregnancy or infection. Marc Tunzi, a family physician, believes that statutory rape laws are ineffective because people can get around them too easily. These laws, he argues, require that an otherwise healthy relationship between two people of different ages be criminalized, solely because there is some kind of sexual activity involved. As a result, medical and other licensed professionals do not want to break up these relationships that, in their professional opinion, are not problematic solely because of the age difference between the two partners.
