Strollerderby : UK

Abortion Ads On Television?

Brett Singer — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

British TV viewers may soon see "adverts" for abortions alongside the more typical commercials for tea and crisps.

According to ABC News, "the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practices [in the U.K.] is considering rewriting the TV rules regarding advertising as a way of tackling the problem" of an increased rate of teen pregnancy. Rules on condom ads would be relaxed as well; currently prophylactic TV pitches are only allowed to air after 9pm.

Groups like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service would applaud the changes, with chief executive Ann Furedi saying, "Why would we not want women to be able to know quickly and simply where they can get pregnancy testing and referral for abortion treatment or antenatal care, depending on what they decide is best for them?"

Speaking for the other side is Dr. Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship. "This is like having the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to deal with the casualties rather than putting up a safety rail at the top of the cliff to stop them falling off."

Well, not exactly. It's more like telling people the ambulance exists. While it's true that if there were no abortion clinics, there would be fewer abortions, is it really so wrong to actually let women know what their options are? Of course, cigarettes exist, and we don't allow television ads for those. (That's true in the United States at least; I don't know what the rules are across the pond.)

Should the rules be relaxed, and should ads for abortion clinics be allowed on television?

Source: ABC News, BBC (Video report)

Image: SXC

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British Single Mums Forced to Name Father on Birth Certificates

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:55:00 GMT

A new British law could make it mandatory for single mothers in the UK to name the biological father on their birth certificates, unless they do not know who he is. Advocates of the law claim that this will make it easier to enforce child support payments and will signal “official recognition of the importance of fathers in children's lives.” But critics say the measure could endanger abused women, since it would allow estranged fathers to add themselves to the birth certificate.

Given that four out of 10 of the single mothers who give birth each year are teenagers, the law does seem like it could send an important message to teenage boys (and other men) that they are just as responsible for their actions as females.

But the potential backlash to victims of domestic violence seems to outweigh this benefit. As a charity for battered women points out, "A pregnant woman could, in theory, escape domestic violence only to find that her abuser has registered himself as the father of her child and has automatic rights to the child."

Photo: Upstream Gallery

Green Expert Says: Limit Kids to Two

JeanneSager — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Have at least two kids? Planning on having more?

A UK sustainable development expert says you should think twice about making any more babies – lest you want to see the world a blacker place.

The way Jonathon Porritt sees it, anyone with more than two kids is "irresponsible" about the way they're affecting the environment.

"I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don't really hear anyone say the "p" word." Porritt told the London Times.

By "P" word, of course, he means procreation.

The way he sees it, we should be shifting our monies away from curing illnesses (which, of course, keep the population on this earth) and push them toward increasing contraception and abortion.

It's true that each person has his or her own personal carbon footprint. A British study late last year put the figure around eleven tons of CO2 per year by a Brit, nearly double that per year by us in the states.

But if Porritt's adovacating for a shift in funding, how about focusing on ways to reduce people's carbon footprint rather than cutting people's family planning dreams off at the knees? Carbon emissions are indeed an important issue, and one that won't go away anytime soon.

I'm also deeply disturbed by the suggestion that abortion is one of the best ways he can come up with for keeping families down to just two kids. I'm pro-choice, but that's for women who want or need an out from a pregnancy, not for women who are happily pregnant and being told they need to suddenly reduce their carbon footprints.

Does this sound something coming a bit too close to the Chinese? You know, the country accused of human rights violations for its extreme methods of population control that borders on eugenics?

It's true Porritt isn't calling for selective breeding to create a master race but for an overall reduction in peoples populating the earth. But even as a mom who has just one kid, and one who would call for more parents to take a look at their capabilities (financial, first and emotional, next) before getting pregnant again and again, I think Porritt is cutting off the nose to spite the face.

The world is in trouble because people have been stupid. So let's smarten up, and create a "master race" of kids who are wise about the ways of green living - no matter how many there are. Our kids don't have to be a burden on the world's resources if we don't let them be.

At least this guy practices what he preaches. Porritt has just two kids. Wonder if that has anything to do with his magic number?

Vatican to Women: The Pill Pollutes Environment, His Testes

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No Great Outpouring of Support for Struggling New Mom of Quintuplets

Community Raises Money for Blind Toddler's Stem Cell Treatment

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:55:00 GMT

When Joshua Clark of Wales was six months-old, he was diagnosed with optic nerve hypoplasia, a congenital condition that, in Joshua’s case, had caused total blindness. Doctors said there was no way to treat the condition.

But his parents, Joanna and Anthony, did some research and found out about a cutting-edge treatment for ONH using umbilical cord stem cells, which is currently only performed in China. They contacted people who had had the treatment, as well as doctors who were familiar with it, and ultimately decided it offered some hope of at least partially restoring Joshua's sight.

In response to the Clarks' fundraising campaign, their entire community has pitched in to help pay for the expensive treatment. A little boy even mailed the Clarks two pounds out of his pocket money, along with a photo of him and his sister.

Joshua’s parents are not hoping for a miracle cure. Rather, they believe the treatment will be well worth it if Joshua comes away with the ability to see lights, shapes, and colors.

According to a video (which I can’t post, but you can watch it here), Joshua is an adorable, calm 16-month-old who loves to listen to music. We have our fingers crossed for a successful outcome to the treatment!

Photo: stemcell.taragana.net

The Demise of the Fairy Tale

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Do you read traditional fairy tales to your kids? If so, you are in a dwindling group of parents. According to a survey of 3,000 British parents, Snow White and Hansel and Gretel are increasingly being replaced by happier modern favorites like Gruffalo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 25 percent of parents choose not to ever read fairy tales to their kids and 65 percent do not choose fairy tales for bedtime stories.

According to the parents who object to fairytales, Cinderella is not empowered enough. Rapunzel is “too dark.” Little Red Hiding is a bad role model for kids because she walks alone in the woods. And one-tenth of parents believe Snow White is offensive because of the un-PC term “dwarf.”

I can certainly understand the need to carefully introduce your kids to fairy tales—some of them are pretty scary, and I’ll be the first to admit that being rescued from a life of servitude by a handsome prince is no healthy goal for a young girl. But if you’re going to shield your child from Cinderella so as to avoid imparting gender stereotypes, you would have to shield her from nearly all pop culture. If Little Red Riding Hood is violent or scary, even commercials for the latest Superman movie are downright terrifying. And if Snow White wrongly teaches young women the value of being the “fairest in all the land,” Bratz dolls wrongly teach girls to be the most scantily clad in all the land.

This is not to say that we should just give up on fighting media that gives kids the wrong messages, but perhaps Jack and the Beanstalk is not the best battlefield.

Photo: The Daily Mail

Three-Year-Old Eats Solid Food for the First Time

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:31:00 GMT

There’s nothing quite as sweet as a child’s very first bite of birthday cake. (Particularly if you had health nuts for parents, so sneaking bites of carob bars was the closest you got to sweets until you were four. Not that I’m still bitter.) But imagine if that first bite of cake was also a child’s first experience of solid food.

Declan Stringer from the U.K. has suffered from an undiagnosed illness his whole life, making it impossible for him to eat solid foods on his own. Up until recently, his mother had to liquefy all of his food so he could eat it through a feeding tube.

But Declan has been getting healthier and healthier, gaining the ability to eat normally just in time for his third birthday. His family was overjoyed to watch him happily munching on a cake in the shape of castle. As his grandmother, who baked the cake, said, “I always believed he would conquer this. I say he's the king of the castle.”

Photo: The Telegraph

Mother Blames Cervical Cancer Vaccine For Daughter's Paralysis

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:20:00 GMT

The cervical cancer vaccine can’t seem to untangle itself of controversy. First, abstinence groups worked overtime to block its widespread use, arguing that it would encourage premarital sex. What it actually does is prevent girls from contracting four of the strands of HPV that are responsible for the majority of cervical cancer cases in the world. Yes, HPV is an STD, but the vaccine has almost nothing to do with premarital sex. Since HPV is so easily spread, it is entirely possible that a girl could wait until marriage to have sex and then contract HPV if her husband had had as much as one sexual encounter before the marriage.

Fortunately, the abstinence argument against the vaccine has been mostly steamrolled, particularly in the U.K., where a government-funded program aims to save 400 lives a year by administering the Cervarix vaccine to 300,000 12- and 13-year-old girls. (In the U.S., the more commonly used, but very similar, vaccine is called Gardasil.)

But the program has gotten some bad—and scary—press recently, after a 12-year-old girl became paralyzed from the waist down shortly after receiving the vaccine at school. Ashleigh Cave’s mother, Cheryl, believes that the shot was implicated in her daughter’s illness, but doctors have claimed that the vaccination was unrelated to the sudden onset of Ashleigh’s dizziness and eventual loss of the use of her legs.

Although nothing I’ve read indicates that Ashleigh has been definitely diagnosed yet, it seems clear that she has Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, and which has previously been linked (perhaps wrongly) with the cervical cancer vaccine.

13 girls are reported to have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré after receiving the Gardasil vaccine in the U.S., causing some concern among parents about the safety of getting their daughters vaccinated. However, considering the total number of girls who received the vaccine and the natural incidence of the disease, 13 is within the number of people who would be expected to fall prey to Guillain-Barré just by chance. Doctors and health experts continue to assert that there is no reason to believe the cervical cancer vaccine is unsafe.

Still, it is only too easy to understand why Ashleigh’s mother harbors her doubts, considering that her daughter’s initial diagnosis was “vertigo and generalised myalgia, probably due to recent vaccinations.” I hope further investigations can set the public’s collective mind at ease.

Photo: straightfromthedoc.com

Defying Doctors, Parents Blame MMR Vaccine on Toddler's Sudden Death

Coroner Finds No Link Between Vaccine and Toddler's Sudden Death

Smokers No Longer Allowed Foster Children

Brett Singer — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:45:00 GMT

The East London borough of Redbridge will no longer allow smokers to be foster parents.

From The Scotsman:

The ban, which was passed unanimously at a cabinet meeting of Redbridge Council last night, means that children in the east London borough will not be placed with foster carers who smoke after January 2010.
Councillors say the move is crucial in protecting children.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, children shouldn't be inhaling second-hand smoke because it is a health risk. On the other hand, this is discrimination, isn't it? I'm actually a big smoker's rights guy in certain areas. For example, I think it should be legal for me to start an airline that lets people smoke – Up In Smoke Air. Make smoking illegal on commercial flights, fine. But why can't I start a business where the whole point is to give smokers a place to go? (I'm not a smoker, but I was for many years.)

Another publication, Business Report, has a little more info on the ban:

"Some people will feel it is an intrusion on personal freedoms," said councillor Michael Stark. "But we also know that smoking increases the risk of serious illness in childhood.
"On balance, we have decided children in our care shouldn't grow up breathing second-hand smoke."
...
A spokesperson for Forest, a pro-smoking group, said: "It's going to exclude people who could be outstanding foster parents.
"It sends out an insidious message that smokers in general are unfit parents and I don't think any politician has the right to do that."

Look, it's a nasty, unhealthy habit that has proven to be unhealthy for children (and everyone else) to be around. But is it better for kids to stay in a potentially worse situation? And if this ban is OK, doesn’t that open the door for banning other behaviors? I'm slightly surprised at my reaction to this story, actually. What do you think – is it OK for a government to ban smokers from being foster parents? Or is that going too far?

Source: The Scotsman, Business Report,

Image: Church Times

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6-Foot-Tall Lego Man Washes Up On Beach

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:25:00 GMT

Somewhere in Europe, a giant Lego family is missing a father.

Children playing on a Brighton, UK beach were stunned and thrilled to find a 6-foot-tall Lego man washed up on the beach, looking like he'd taken quite a swim. No one knows where the Lego man came from, though there are theories that he may have ties to a Dutch artist named Ego Leonard.

The Lego company was as surprised as anyone, though the giant Lego man's timing was impeccable: this year is the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Lego man, bringing police officers, firefighters, astronauts, and more yellow-faced, smiling men into Lego constructions everywhere.

Last year, a similar Lego man washed up on a Holland beach, bearing a grammatically esoteric slogan:

Take heed: the Lego people have spoken.

Photo (Right): Kent News and Pictures

British TV journo turns down big bucks for baby pics

Brett Singer — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Natasha Kaplinsky, a British television journalist (is that an oxymoron? The television journalist part, not the British thing) recently turned down an offer of £500,000 from "several celebrity magazines" for photos of her newborn babe, according to Mail Online. At current exchange rates, that's… wait… carry the one… one hundred billion U.S. dollars, right? (It's not, but it's still a lot of money.)

"A source has revealed that the glamorous journalist is hoping to spend some time enjoying being a new mum before revealing the child's face to the world."

My question is, why not tell the "celebrity magazines" that they'll just have to wait? Maybe they wouldn't. Or she just didn't want to deal with them at all, which is fair. She doesn't need the money I suppose – she is probably well paid, and her husband is an investment banker. Wait, in this economy, maybe she should take that offer after all…

Famecrawler has been all over this story; see below for links.

Source/Image: dailymail.co.uk

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Red eye? Nope, eye cancer

Brett Singer — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

You know those people you've befriended online? Never met them, but you trade baby pictures? It's all just a little casual thing, right? A way to connect with people who are experiencing the same things that you are.

For one woman, that seemingly casual connection actually saved her baby's life.

Megan Santos of Riverview, Fla. and Madeleine Robb, of London, were online buddies. They gave birth the same day and swapped photos of their bundles of joy. The U.K. mom noticed something odd about one of little Rowan Santos' eyes.

It wasn’t easy for Madeleine Robb to send an e-mail to another mom warning that her baby might have a deadly form of eye cancer. But she’s glad she did it — and so is the mother of 1-year-old Rowan Santos.
…
Just hours after reading the e-mail, Megan Santos of Riverview, Fla., learned from a doctor that Rowan has a potentially deadly form of childhood cancer called retinoblastoma.

WOW.

(For what it's worth, "retinoblastoma" isn't on my spell-check.)

Here's a video report from the Today Show:

source: NBC

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Best of FameCrawler: Week of June 27th

Whit Honea — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Billie Piper's Topless Role

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Not So Hot - Male Strip Tease Teach Suspended

Brett Singer — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:00:00 GMT

If you heard that a teacher did a strip tease in front of their class, you probably would think of a Van Halen-esque scene ("I got my pencil -- give me something to write on." Ah, the 80's.) At least that's what I would think of.

But, once again, I would be wrong. An English teacher at the Sudbury Upper School in the U.K. was trying to get his students to calm down. They wouldn't, so he threatened to take his clothes off. The teacher is not, shall we say, in the best physical condition. When the wild rumpus continued, he made good on his promise, "whipping off his shirt…before flexing his muscles…topless for a few seconds then spending half a minute getting his shirt back on."

A student filmed Mr. Rose Lee (not his real name, I just made that up) with her cellphone and posted the footage to YouTube. Unlike R. Kelly, he was unable to convince anyone that it wasn't him, and was promptly "sacked" as they say in Britain.

Bizarrely, some people actually seem to think this was an extreme punishment. Over at the Daily Mail, one commenter said, "I just think it's sick to take a bloke's job away for that. At least he got the pupils' attention." Another weighed in with, "I suppose this was a bit of fun, he never really hurt anyone, things like this make school life all a bit more fun."

The video is gone from YouTube, but some screenshots survived. For comparison, here is the classic Van Halen "Hot For Teacher" video. Even if the teacher looked more like the Van Halen girl and less like Fatty Arbuckle (actually, he kind of looks like Rob Reiner), I still think a firing isn't exactly unwarranted. Maybe he should hook up with this guy and start a day care center.

images: DailyMail

Group Asks For Ban On Food Additives Linked to Hyperactivity

Kelly Mills — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:03:00 GMT

Those wacky Europeans. When a bunch of food additives were linked to hyperactivity in children, the UK Food Standards Agency actually asked that the EU ban those additives, and that UK food manufacturers sign a voluntary ban on the chemicals in effect by the end of 2009. Talk about drastic. All because some researchers at the University of Southampton said the number of hyperactive kids could be cut by a third if the additives were banned. But how are Brits going to know something is cherry-flavored if it isn't colored bright red?

The industry Food & Drink Federation spokesperson says, "UK food and drink manufacturers are already taking these colours out of products on supermarket shelves, so we are surprised the FSA board feels it is an appropriate use of their powers to call for a voluntary ban." Yeah, I mean, as we know here in the U.S., industries are totally good at looking out for the safety of consumers if you just leave them alone and let them do their own thing. Voluntary ban. Sheesh. And the watchdog groups say the additives aren't necessary, so a ban is a no brainer, but how the hell are we going to get foods to be such pretty colors now? Besides, hyperactive kids help keep teachers sharp and on their toes.

The additives in question are: tartrazine (E102); quinoline yellow (E104); sunset yellow (E110); carmoisine (E122); ponceau 4R (E124); and allura red (E129), in case you are unamerican and wanna know. How can something called "sunset yellow" be bad for you?

Police: Put 5-Year-Olds In DNA Offender Database

Cole Gamble — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Last weekend we were at the McDonald’s Playland when my 1-year-old took a swing at a much bigger kid. I chided my son, knowing full well he’d strike again. He is going through a hitting phase. Luckily, kids grow out of this stuff but a senior police expert in Britain would not think so lightly of it. If he had his way, he’d have my boy, and maybe your child, on the Most Wanted list.

The Guardian brings us this story about Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, who has suggested police should start keeping DNA profiles of “bad” children as early as 5 years of age. Pugh cites the position of some experts who believe a future offender’s habits can be detected as early as that age.

And what kind of offences would get your child on the list? Pugh doesn’t say. What is the greatest offense a five-year-old could commit? Noogies? You know what noogies lead to: grand theft auto. At the risk of validating Mr. Pugh by wasting another moment with his whimsical suggestion, this assertion does highlight an interesting debate on the power of labeling upon children. Many experts, probably not the same experts Pugh is citing, believe that labeling a child as “bad” can serve as prophesy. In other words, in the mind of a child when you are told you are bad then you will seek more bad behavior. You may think differently. Do you believe Pugh goes too far, or is he on to something? Personally, I can’t wait for Cops: Kiddie Edition. Who doesn’t want to see a shirtless 7-year-old get slammed onto the hood of a police cruiser for pulling pigtails?

Photo: www.affordablehousinginstitute.org

Bear Eats Child (almost)

Cole Gamble — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:30:00 GMT

I think this photo kinda speaks for itself but I have to say a couple of things:

First, is that kid a stone-cold customer or what? Big ol’ bear up in his grill and he’s not even flinching. What do you want to bet the next picture is of the kid flipping the bear off, making kissy faces, rubbing his ass on the glass or mouthing the words “suck it, bear!” Of course, maybe the kid isn’t a bad ass. Maybe the photo was fired at the precise right moment before the “shit your pants” signal reached the kid’s brain.

Second, Even though that bear is not kidding around and he’d make that kid a Triscuit if the thick glass were not in place, don’t you have to admit this photo is adorable?

Photo: www.dailymail.co.uk

How to Get Into a Good School: Dunk the Babies

Amy Kuras — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:30:00 GMT

How far would you go to get your kid in the right school? Would you espouse a religion you don’t actually believe in?

Apparently, it's happening in the UK, where lapsed Catholic parents are rushing to get their children baptized so they can enroll in overcrowded state-run Catholic school.

As a formerly-lapsed and now practicing Catholic, I'm of a couple minds about this. On the one hand, I don’t think you should join a church, or anything, if you don’t intend to really participate and make it a part of your life. Catholics consider baptism a sacrament.

On the other hand, what brought me back to the church of my childhood and, a few years later, caused my husband to convert was another life change -- that we were looking to get married in a church.

In my city, Catholic schools are closing all over the place and there is only one Catholic high school left and not very many grade schools. And since parents pay the tuition and bring the students that keep the schools going, local schools don’t ask much of them with regard to their faith other than refraining from jumping up and down yelling "ALL LIES" during religion class. Even ages ago, my best friend from my Catholic school high school wasn't Catholic. So it seems funny that there exists a Catholic school system that tries to screen non-Catholics out.

We serve on our church's baptism preparation team, made up of young families, to help people feel more welcome, make a connection, and maybe decide they want to participate fully in our community. It hasn’t worked as well as we'd hoped, but I'd rather be approaching people in welcoming when they brign their children for baptism, however old they are, and giving them a good impression of the church than holding the door shut until they prove themselves.

The church in the UK is declining, much as it is here, and if it's going to survive we need to be much more open to sort of our founding idea, that we're all equally deserving of love and redemption. Whether you can get your butt out of bed on Sunday morning or not.

UK Parents Can Grow IVF Babies for "Spare Parts"

Karen Murphy — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:24:00 GMT

The ethics of in vitro fertilization have sprung wide open in controversial new legislation in the UK that allows much greater latitude for parents of sick children to then grow "savior siblings" to use as a source of "spare parts" to potentially save the life of the sick sibling. Presently this translates into using umbilical cord blood or bone marrow to treat conditions like sickle cell anemia, but experts say that one day the technology could be available to use to grow a kid with good kidneys to save a sibling in renal failure.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. One the one hand it seems wrong to bring a life into being expressly for the purpose of saving another (what a burden on the "created" sibling, and then what do you do with him afterward? Is he truly wanted? I suppose that would depend...), but on the other hand I don't know what it's like to have a seriously ill child who could only be saved in this way. So I can't know how I would feel in that case, and wouldn't my love simply expand to embrace the new child anyway?

So this is expected to become law in the UK in 2009, and I'm curious to hear how it all works out and how people take this. It's already practiced in the US (the first "savior sibling" was born in 2000) but it's pretty much on the down low media-wise, and likely for good reason. Embryos are discarded based on tissue-matching for the illness being treated in the sick child (leukemia is a big one), and anytime you discard embryos, people get uncomfortable with that. So I would imagine that the UK controversy will have an affect here in the US.

Anybody here more intimately familiar with the IVF world? How do you feel about this?

Simon Cowell's "Bullying:" Child Advocacy Groups Don't Like It

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:03:00 GMT

British child protection groups have Simon Cowell in their sights after hearing of his plans to reduce the minimum age of contestants on his hit U.K. show The X Factor to 14-years-old.

Children's groups fear that harsh criticism from Cowell, who is known for his sharp tongue, will cause "emotional damage" in the young contestants when their dreams of fame and fortune are dashed. The groups also feel that the show sends out the wrong message about "bullying" as the much older and more powerful Cowell criticizes and berates contestants.

Representatives of these groups have asked for the show to provide proper support and counseling for their young contestants.

Show producers responded by saying, "Shyeah! As if! We're not the parents hanging our kids out to dry in front of Simon Cowell. But nice try!"