Pope Francis gives his blessing to spanking children

Spanking children is OK according to Pope Francis:

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis says it's OK to spank your children to discipline them - as long as their dignity is maintained.
Francis made the remarks this week during his weekly general audience, which was devoted to the role of fathers in the family.
Francis outlined the traits of a good father: one who forgives but is able to "correct with firmness" while not discouraging the child.
"One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say 'I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them,'" Francis said.
"How beautiful!" Francis remarked. "He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on."

Reverend Jeff Hood is spot on when he says that the Pope´s statement is ignorant:

A few days ago, Pope Francis endorsed spanking. Believing that one can spank children and leave them with dignity, Pope Francis even called such a means of punishment, "beautiful." Unless there are records or evidence of the Pope spanking children that are not his own, I don't think that the Pope has much direct knowledge with this subject. In an age of serial and often unreported abuse of children in the Christian world, I can think of few more ignorant statements than for the Pope to give his blessing to the abuse of children. Some might argue that the language of abuse is too strong. I would argue that abuse always begins with the violent exercising of power over someone who is powerless and this is what the Pope has just endorsed.

China´s inhuman and shameful one-child policy

Yesterday marked the 32th anniversary of China´s one-child family planning policy, which has resulted in massive human rights abuses. US Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, one of the leading pro-life and human rights advocates in Congress, has condemned the inhuman Chinese policy: 

“On that date in 1980 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party sent an open letter to party members setting forth its plan to embark on a national one-child policy,” Smith said. “What came out of that letter? A cruel and inhumane policy, a human rights violation that is, in scope and seriousness, the worst human rights abuse in the world today. No other government policy anywhere else in the world systematically punishes, abuses, and violates women so grossly as this.”

Smith said the policy has made it so brothers and sisters are illegal and children are growing up in a society with no aunts and uncle because the one-child policy has now been around for a generation.

The policy is unlike any other in the world in that it requires all women to obtain a birth permit before becoming pregnant and children of unwed mothers are subjected to abortions. And it monitors the reproductive cycles of all women of childbearing age through a system of mandatory, regular, and crudely invasive physical check-ups.

He says the policy has created an “atmosphere of fear” where anonymous pregnancy informants spy on citizens.

“The brave pregnant woman who refuses to give in is usually detained and beaten – or, if she goes into hiding, her relatives are detained and beaten. Families that succeed in hiding an “out-of-plan” pregnancy are punished with fines up to ten times the average annual income,” he explained.

Congressman Smith has called on President Obama to speak out against this shameful and inhuman Chinese policy: ” Doing so, he said, would provide encouragement for millions of Chinese people, “to suddenly feel that the leader of the free world understands and empathizes with their plight.”

Regrettably, knowing Obama´s general kowtowing to the Chinese, it is not likely that he will react in any way. 

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, has written a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, in which she is asking him to stop the violence. The letter includes some grim examples of the reality of the once-child policy: 

Feng Jianmei, for example, was forcibly aborted at seven months when she and her husband, Deng Jiyuan, could not pay a 40,000 yuan fine ($6300). Officials of Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, tried to force Feng into a car, but she escaped to her aunt’s house.  They broke through the gate, so she fled to the mountains, where officials found her hiding under a bed.  After forcibly aborting her baby, officials laid the bloody body of her dead daughter next to her in the bed.  The story and photograph immediately went viral, sent shockwaves around the world, and ignited a firestorm of outrage.

Our hearts go out to the victims of forced abortion and their families.  The coercive enforcement of China’s cruel and barbaric One Child Policy causes more violence towards women and girls than any other official policy on earth.  It is China’s war against women and girls. Women are forcibly aborted up to the ninth month of pregnancy.  Forced abortion is not a choice.  It is systematic, institutionalized violence against women, official government rape; and it continues to this day.  Women’s Rights Without Frontiers urges you to put an end to this hideous crime against humanity.

Feng Jianmei is not alone.  Several other cases of coercion have emerged in the past year:

Lijing County, Shandong Province. October 12, 2011.  Jihong Ma died during a forced abortion, six months pregnant.  Due to the trauma of being seized by Family Planning Officials, she had been placed on oxygen.  In the words of a family member:

“More than ten persons from the Family Planning Bureau came, took off the oxygen mask from her and forced her to induce labor. From the time she was put into operating room at 4:00 p.m., there was no news about her . . . At night around 10:00 p.m., someone came, opened the door of the delivery room and slipped away. We ran into the delivery room and saw that the doctors and nurses all disappeared while poor Jihong Ma’s body had already been totally freezing cold, with purple lips and bleeding nose, lying on the operating table without any movement.”

Linyi City, Shandong Province. March 2012.  A photo of a forcibly aborted full term baby drowned in a bucket, submitted anonymously, circulated on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, and in the West.  The infant reportedly cried at birth, but was drowned in a bucket by family planning personnel.

Huangqiao Town, Jishui County, Jiangxi Province. March 2012.  A 46-year-old woman was forcibly sterilized, in retaliation for bringing a petition. The woman posted the following account on the internet:

On March 14, my husband was being escorted back from making a petition.  To retaliate for his petition, the town government sent more than 20 strong men.  I could no longer give birth to a child at that time, but they still dragged my legs, treated me like an animal, and forcibly performed a tubal ligation on the operating table of the Family Planning Office.  Guoqing Luo (the Deputy Town Secretary) also exclaimed, “The Government takes the consequences!  The Government has the money!”

Cao Ruyi, Changsha City, Hunan Province. June 2012 and ongoing.  Five months pregnant, Cao Ruyi was detained by Family Planning Officials, who beat her husband and attempted to forcibly abort her.  They demanded that she pay the Chinese equivalent of approximately $24,000, or face forced abortion.  Because of international pressure, this amount was reduced and Cao was allowed to leave the hospital, but she remains in jeopardy.

Hu Jia, Jianli County, Hubei Province. June 19, 2012.  China’s Southern Metropolis Daily reported that Hu Jia was forcibly aborted at nearly eight months.  This case was reported by a major Chinese newspaper, indicating the growing discontent with the policy inside China and the courage of the Chinese news media to report it.

Chen Guangcheng. Not only are women oppressed, but so are those who try to defend them.  Blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng exposed the widespread and systematic use of forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations in Linyi County in 2005.  The Chinese Communist Party imprisoned Chen for four years and three months.  They then kept him and his family under strict house arrest from September, 2010 until his dramatic escape.  Chen arrived in the United States on May 19, 2012.

Read the entire article here

Regrettably, also Reggie Littlejohn´s appeal will fall on deaf ears. The Communist Party authoritarians - today widely feted by western leaders begging for economic assistance  - may look civilized in their dark business suits, but in reality they are a bunch of corrupted brutes, who could not care less about human rights or democracy. 

UNICEF spreading global warming propaganda

UNICEF used to be a respectable organization helping children in need all over the world. The organisation is probably doing some of those traditional good things even now, but one wonders, why it has chosen to start spreading alarmist climate scare propaganda to those it is supposed to help:

The video is according to MarketingWeek part of UNICEF´s digital campaign "to raise awareness of the impact of climate change on children and aid projects in developing countries".

The charity has partnered with environmental non-profit group Do The Green Thing to create a 90 second illustrated video featuring a character called Climate Kid voiced by broadcaster Jon Snow.

The video illustrates how the boy would need to adapt to cope with the effects of climate change, such as drought and flooding, on his environment.

PS

There are fortunately still a number of organizations that have remained true to what they were supposed to work for. From now on my own small contributions go to them - not to UNICEF.