For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II

By Mike Dash, Smithsonian.com, January 29, 2013,
Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth’s wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia’s arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.

When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world—not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. Siberia is the source of most of Russia’s oil and mineral resources, and, over the years, even its most distant parts have been overflown by oil prospectors and surveyors on their way to backwoods camps where the work of extracting wealth is carried on.

Thus it was in the remote south of the forest in the summer of 1978. A helicopter sent to find a safe spot to land a party of geologists was skimming the treeline a hundred or so miles from the Mongolian border when it dropped into the thickly wooded valley of an unnamed tributary of the Abakan, a seething ribbon of water rushing through dangerous terrain. The valley walls were narrow, with sides that were close to vertical in places, and the skinny pine and birch trees swaying in the rotors’ downdraft were so thickly clustered that there was no chance of finding a spot to set the aircraft down. But, peering intently through his windscreen in search of a landing place, the pilot saw something that should not have been there. It was a clearing, 6,000 feet up a mountainside, wedged between the pine and larch and scored with what looked like long, dark furrows. The baffled helicopter crew made several passes before reluctantly concluding that this was evidence of human habitation—a garden that, from the size and shape of the clearing, must have been there for a long time.

It was an astounding discovery. The mountain was more than 150 miles from the nearest settlement, in a spot that had never been explored. The Soviet authorities had no records of anyone living in the district.

The four scientists sent into the district to prospect for iron ore were told about the pilots’ sighting, and it perplexed and worried them. “It’s less dangerous,” the writer Vasily Peskov notes of this part of the taiga, “to run across a wild animal than a stranger,” and rather than wait at their own temporary base, 10 miles away, the scientists decided to investigate. Led by a geologist named Galina Pismenskaya, they “chose a fine day and put gifts in our packs for our prospective friends”—though, just to be sure, she recalled, “I did check the pistol that hung at my side.”

As the intruders scrambled up the mountain, heading for the spot pinpointed by their pilots, they began to come across signs of human activity: a rough path, a staff, a log laid across a stream, and finally a small shed filled with birch-bark containers of cut-up dried potatoes. Then, Pismenskaya said,

beside a stream there was a dwelling. Blackened by time and rain, the hut was piled up on all sides with taiga rubbish—bark, poles, planks. If it hadn’t been for a window the size of my backpack pocket, it would have been hard to believe that people lived there. But they did, no doubt about it…. Our arrival had been noticed, as we could see.

The low door creaked, and the figure of a very old man emerged into the light of day, straight out of a fairy tale. Barefoot. Wearing a patched and repatched shirt made of sacking. He wore trousers of the same material, also in patches, and had an uncombed beard. His hair was disheveled. He looked frightened and was very attentive…. We had to say something, so I began: ‘Greetings, grandfather! We’ve come to visit!’

The old man did not reply immediately…. Finally, we heard a soft, uncertain voice: ‘Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.’

The sight that greeted the geologists as they entered the cabin was like something from the middle ages. Jerry-built from whatever materials came to hand, the dwelling was not much more than a burrow—“a low, soot-blackened log kennel that was as cold as a cellar,” with a floor consisting of potato peel and pine-nut shells. Looking around in the dim light, the visitors saw that it consisted of a single room. It was cramped, musty and indescribably filthy, propped up by sagging joists—and, astonishingly, home to a family of five.

The silence was suddenly broken by sobs and lamentations. Only then did we see the silhouettes of two women. One was in hysterics, praying: ‘This is for our sins, our sins.’ The other, keeping behind a post… sank slowly to the floor. The light from the little window fell on her wide, terrified eyes, and we realized we had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Led by Pismenskaya, the scientists backed hurriedly out of the hut and retreated to a spot a few yards away, where they took out some provisions and began to eat. After about half an hour, the door of the cabin creaked open, and the old man and his two daughters emerged—no longer hysterical and, though still obviously frightened, “frankly curious.” Warily, the three strange figures approached and sat down with their visitors, rejecting everything that they were offered—jam, tea, bread—with a muttered, “We are not allowed that!” When Pismenskaya asked, “Have you ever eaten bread?” the old man answered: “I have. But they have not. They have never seen it.” At least he was intelligible. The daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. “When the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing.”

Slowly, over several visits, the full story of the family emerged. The old man’s name was Karp Lykov, and he was an Old Believer—a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 17th century. Old Believers had been persecuted since the days of Peter the Great, and Lykov talked about it as though it had happened only yesterday; for him, Peter was a personal enemy and “the anti-Christ in human form”—a point he insisted had been amply proved by Tsar’s campaign to modernize Russia by forcibly “chopping off the beards of Christians.”

Things had only got worse for the Lykov family when the atheist Bolsheviks took power. Under the Soviets, isolated Old Believer communities that had fled to Siberia to escape persecution began to retreat ever further from civilization. During the purges of the 1930s, with Christianity itself under assault, a Communist patrol had shot Lykov’s brother on the outskirts of their village while Lykov knelt working beside him. He had responded by scooping up his family and bolting into forest.

That was in 1936, and there were only four Lykovs then—Karp; his wife, Akulina; a son named Savin, 9 years old, and Natalia, a daughter who was only 2. Taking their possessions and some seeds, they had retreated ever deeper into the taiga, building themselves a succession of crude dwelling places, until at last they had fetched up in this desolate spot. Two more children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—and neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was not a member of their family. All that Agafia and Dmitry knew of the outside world they learned entirely from their parents’ stories. The family’s principal entertainment, the Russian journalist Vasily Peskov noted, “was for everyone to recount their dreams.”

The Lykov children knew there were places called cities where humans lived crammed together in tall buildings. They had heard there were countries other than Russia. But such concepts were no more than abstractions to them. Their only reading matter was prayer books and an ancient family Bible. Akulina had used the gospels to teach her children to read and write, using sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle juice as pen and ink. When Agafia was shown a picture of a horse, she recognized it from her mother’s Bible stories. “Look, papa,” she exclaimed. “A steed!”

But if the family’s isolation was hard to grasp, the unmitigated harshness of their lives was not. Traveling to the Lykov homestead on foot was astonishingly arduous, even with the help of a boat along the Abakan. On his first visit to the Lykovs, Peskov—who would appoint himself the family’s chief chronicler—noted that “we traversed 250 kilometres [155 miles] without seeing a single human dwelling!”

Isolation made survival in the wilderness close to impossible. Dependent solely on their own resources, the Lykovs struggled to replace the few things they had brought into the taiga with them. They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.

The Lykovs had carried a crude spinning wheel and, incredibly, the components of a loom into the taiga with them—moving these from place to place as they gradually went further into the wilderness must have required many long and arduous journeys—but they had no technology for replacing metal. A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark. Since these could not be placed in a fire, it became far harder to cook. By the time the Lykovs were discovered, their staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.

In some respects, Peskov makes clear, the taiga did offer some abundance: “Beside the dwelling ran a clear, cold stream. Stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take…. Bilberries and raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right on the roof.”

Yet the Lykovs lived permanently on the edge of famine. It was not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion. Dmitry built up astonishing endurance, and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk across his shoulders. More often than not, though, there was no meat, and their diet gradually became more monotonous. Wild animals destroyed their crop of carrots, and Agafia recalled the late 1950s as “the hungry years.” “We ate the rowanberry leaf,” she said, “roots, grass, mushrooms, potato tops, and bark, We were hungry all the time. Every year we held a council to decide whether to eat everything up or leave some for seed.”

Famine was an ever-present danger in these circumstances, and in 1961 it snowed in June. The hard frost killed everything growing in their garden, and by spring the family had been reduced to eating shoes and bark. Akulina chose to see her children fed, and that year she died of starvation. The rest of the family were saved by what they regarded as a miracle: a single grain of rye sprouted in their pea patch. The Lykovs put up a fence around the shoot and guarded it zealously night and day to keep off mice and squirrels. At harvest time, the solitary spike yielded 18 grains, and from this they painstakingly rebuilt their rye crop.

As the Soviet geologists got to know the Lykov family, they realized that they had underestimated their abilities and intelligence. Each family member had a distinct personality; Old Karp was usually delighted by the latest innovations that the scientists brought up from their camp, and though he steadfastly refused to believe that man had set foot on the moon, he adapted swiftly to the idea of satellites. The Lykovs had noticed them as early as the 1950s, when “the stars began to go quickly across the sky,” and Karp himself conceived a theory to explain this: “People have thought something up and are sending out fires that are very like stars.”

“What amazed him most of all,” Peskov recorded, “was a transparent cellophane package. ‘Lord, what have they thought up—it is glass, but it crumples!’” His eldest child, Savin, cast himself as the family’s unbending arbiter in matters of religion. “He was strong of faith, but a harsh man,” his own father said of him, and Karp seems to have worried about what would happen to his family after he died if Savin took control. Certainly the eldest son would have encountered little resistance from Natalia, who always struggled to replace her mother as cook, seamstress and nurse.

The two younger children, on the other hand, were more approachable and more open to change and innovation. “Fanaticism was not terribly marked in Agafia,” Peskov said, and in time he came to realize that the youngest of the Lykovs had a sense of irony and could poke fun at herself. Agafia was markedly intelligent, and took charge of the difficult task, in a family that possessed no calendars, of keeping track of time. She thought nothing of hard work, either, excavating a new cellar by hand late in the fall and working on by moonlight when the sun had set. Asked by an astonished Peskov whether she was not frightened to be out alone in the wilderness after dark, she replied: “What would there be out here to hurt me?”

Of all the Lykovs, though, the geologists’ favorite was Dmitry, a consummate outdoorsman who knew all of the taiga’s moods. He was the most curious and perhaps the most forward-looking member of the family. It was he who had built the family stove, and all the birch-bark buckets that they used to store food. It was also Dmitry who spent days hand-cutting and hand-planing each log that the Lykovs felled. Perhaps it was no surprise that he was also the most enraptured by the scientists’ technology. Once relations had improved to the point that the Lykovs could be persuaded to visit the Soviets’ camp, downstream, he spent many happy hours in its little sawmill, marveling at how easily a circular saw and lathes could finish wood. “It’s not hard to figure,” Peskov wrote. “The log that took Dmitry a day or two to plane was transformed into handsome, even boards before his eyes. Dmitry felt the boards with his palm and said: ‘Fine!’”

Karp Lykov fought a long and losing battle with himself to keep all this modernity at bay. When they first got to know the geologists, the family would accept only a single gift—salt. (Living without it for four decades, Karp said, had been “true torture.”) Over time, however, they began to take more. They welcomed the assistance of their special friend among the geologists—a driller named Yerofei Sedov, who spent much of his spare time helping them to plant and harvest crops. They took knives, forks, handles, grain and eventually even pen and paper and an electric torch. Most of these innovations were only grudgingly acknowledged, but the sin of television, which they encountered at the geologists’ camp, proved irresistible for them…. On their rare appearances, they would invariably sit down and watch. Karp sat directly in front of the screen. Agafia watched poking her head from behind a door. She tried to pray away her transgression immediately—whispering, crossing herself…. The old man prayed afterward, diligently and in one fell swoop.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs’ strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. In the fall of 1981, three of the four children followed their mother to the grave within a few days of one another. Both Savin and Natalia suffered from kidney failure, most likely a result of their harsh diet. But Dmitry died of pneumonia, which might have begun as an infection he acquired from his new friends.

His death shook the geologists, who tried desperately to save him. They offered to call in a helicopter and have him evacuated to a hospital. But Dmitry, in extremis, would abandon neither his family nor the religion he had practiced all his life. “We are not allowed that,” he whispered just before he died. “A man lives for howsoever God grants.”

When all three Lykovs had been buried, the geologists attempted to talk Karp and Agafia into leaving the forest and returning to be with relatives who had survived the persecutions of the purge years, and who still lived on in the same old villages. But neither of the survivors would hear of it. They rebuilt their old cabin, but stayed close to their old home.

Karp Lykov died in his sleep on February 16, 1988, 27 years to the day after his wife, Akulina. Agafia buried him on the mountain slopes with the help of the geologists, then turned and headed back to her home. The Lord would provide, and she would stay, she said—as indeed she has. A quarter of a century later, now in her seventies herself, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.

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Singapore In-Laws Rage as Women Spurn Lee's Babies Plea

By Shamim Adam, Bloomberg, Jan 22, 2013
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is cranking up a national debate on babies this month, with proposals to Parliament that would attempt to stem the country’s slumping birthrate. Penelope Sim isn’t listening.

“My mother-in-law hates me and she says I’m selfish, but I don’t really care,” Sim, a human resources consultant who’s been married for six years, said as she shopped for lipstick and eye liner. “Everything’s crazy expensive and life’s already stressful enough here without kids. If there’s no one to carry on the family name, then so be it.”

Sim, 33, embodies Lee’s challenge to convince Singaporeans to wed younger and procreate more, four decades after concern about overcrowding prompted his father to urge citizens to delay nuptials and have smaller families. The younger Lee is caught between a rock and a hard place. While the birthrate was about 1.3 children per woman in 2012—barely enough to replace one parent—a backlash against soaring immigration forced the government to curb the influx of foreigners, leading to labor shortages and slower economic growth.

Measures since 1987 to reverse declining fertility, including handouts of as much as S$18,000 ($14,600) and extended maternity leave, haven’t worked. The nation’s birthrate in 2010 and 2011 were the lowest in 47 years of independence. About 36,000 babies were born to residents in 2011, compared with nearly 50,000 in 1990.

The failure to encourage more births means the country will have to contend with a shrinking pool of workers and consumers, a deterrent to future investment. It will also increase the burden on younger employees to pay for an aging population. Lee has said higher taxes will be needed in the next two decades as the government boosts social spending to support the elderly.

The city state isn’t alone in struggling with falling birthrates. The level in the U.S. hit a record low in 2011, while Japan’s population is forecast to drop by almost a third by 2060 from 128 million in 2010. China’s three-decade-old, one-child policy is accelerating declines in its workforce, and Germany’s birthrate is among the lowest in Europe even as it spends billions of euros to encourage women to have more children.

Singapore, smaller in size than New York City, has few natural resources, and the government relies on a skilled workforce to sustain growth. The economy has expanded for all but four years since independence in 1965, bringing million- dollar high-rise apartments and shopping malls in place of pig farms and fishing villages.

Singapore’s home ownership rate is about 89 percent and the Boston Consulting Group estimates there were 188,000 millionaire households in the city state in 2011. The Economist Intelligence Unit declared Singapore to be the best place in Asia to be born in 2013. Gross domestic product per capita climbed to $50,123 in 2011, from $516 in 1965.

Back then, the country boasted a fertility rate of 4.7 and so many women gave birth in the national maternity hospital in 1966 that it entered the Guinness Book of World Records.

The so-called birthquake raised concern that the fledgling economy would be overburdened, and Lee’s father, Lee Kuan Yew, promoted family planning, legalized abortion and encouraged sterilization. A “Stop at Two” campaign in the 1970s and the natural decline in childbirth as the economy developed brought the fertility rate down to 1.82 by the end of the decade.

Last August, Lee Kuan Yew lamented that the number of births in the city has halved since he came to power in 1959, even with twice as many people.

“If we go on like that, this place would fold up because there will be no original citizens left to form the majority,” Lee, 89, said in a speech published in the Straits Times newspaper. “We’ve got to persuade people to understand that getting married is important, having children is important.”

Singaporean men and women are delaying getting married in part because they want to “concentrate fully” on their jobs or studies, a government survey of 2,120 singles showed this month. The median age for grooms has risen to 30.1 in 2011, from 26.9 in 1970. For brides, it has climbed to 28, from 23.1.

“We have to find effective ways to encourage Singaporeans to have more babies,” the younger Lee said in his New Year message. “We are not impersonal, calculating robots, mindlessly pursuing economic growth and material wealth.”

Pursuit of possessions may be partly to blame. Singaporean women are more materialistic than their American counterparts, which could explain a smaller desire for children, according to a 2010 study by researchers at the Singapore Management University and the Northern Illinois University.

In the 1990s, success in Singapore was measured by the attainment of the so-called five Cs—cash, car, credit card, condominium and country club membership. Now, there are 9.3 million credit cards in circulation on the island, private property prices are at a record, and a Volkswagen Golf can cost more than the median price of an existing U.S. home.

The role of women in the economy may also have contributed to the falling birth rate. They made up 44 percent of the resident labor pool last year as the government encouraged greater participation and offered larger tax breaks to working mothers. In 2010, female graduates outnumbered males in three of the five most common fields, including business and administration.

A survey by I Love Children, an organization that promotes a “children-plenty” Singapore, showed couples cited money as the top factor for not having babies. It costs at least S$340,000 to raise a child in Singapore from infancy to the age of 21, the Asian Parent website estimated last year. A middle-income U.S. family may spend $234,900 to raise a child born in 2011 to the age of 18, a government report last year showed.

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US commandos boost numbers to train Mexican forces

By Kimberly Dozier, AP, Jan. 17, 2013
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon is stepping up aid for Mexico’s bloody drug war with a new U.S.-based special operations headquarters to teach Mexican security forces how to hunt drug cartels the same way special operations teams hunt al-Qaida, according to documents and interviews with multiple U.S. officials.

Such assistance could help newly elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto establish a military force to focus on drug criminal networks that have terrorized Mexico’s northern states and threatened the U.S. Southwest border. Mexican officials say warring drug gangs have killed at least 70,000 people between 2006 and 2012.

Based at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado, Special Operations Command-North will build on a commando program that has brought Mexican military, intelligence and law enforcement officials to study U.S. counterterrorist operations, to show them how special operations troops built an interagency network to target al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden and his followers.

The special operations team within Northcom will be turned into a new headquarters, led by a general instead of a colonel. It was established in a Dec. 31 memo signed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. That move gives the group more autonomy and the number of people could eventually quintuple from 30 to 150, meaning the headquarters could expand its training missions with the Mexicans, even though no new money is being assigned to the mission.

The special operations program has already helped Mexican officials set up their own intelligence center in Mexico City to target criminal networks, patterned after similar centers in war zones built to target al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Iraq, two current U.S. officials said.

Mexican and U.S. military officials played down the change, and it’s unclear whether the Mexican government will agree to boost its training.

The creation of the new command marks another expansion of Adm. Bill McRaven’s special operations empire, as he seeks to migrate special operators from their decade of service in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan to new missions, even as the rest of the military fights postwar contraction and multibillion-dollar budget cuts.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu´s Choice

By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, January 22, 2013
The Israeli elections delivered a blow to the conventional wisdom, always a welcome development: although widely expected to lurch rightward, Israeli voters surprised everyone by moving toward the center—and even giving a bit of a boost to what passes for the Israeli “left.”

While returns are still coming in as of this writing, it looks like the rightist bloc in the Knesset is on track to win 61 seats, while the center-left garners 59. The big winner: television personality Yair Lapid, whose newly-founded centrist Yesh Atid party is projected to rack up some 19 seats, ahead of Labor, with 17. The biggest loser: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud-Yisrael Beitenu merger won 31, eleven less than they had before. Another big loser: Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, who was expected to come in second. Bennett and his homies look to be winning a mere 12 seats, instead of the 17 or so projected earlier. Also: the “Strong Israel” party, even further to the right than Bennett, lost its two Knesset seats—in spite (or, perhaps, because of) their explicitly racist anti-African refugee campaign in southern Tel Aviv. The religious Orthodox parties—Shas and United Torah Judaism—apparently showed little movement.

While Bibi trained his guns on the threat from the ultra-right—Bennett and the super-nationalists on the fringe, supposedly on the upswing—Yesh Atid campaigned mainly on economic issues, most significantly against the privileges accorded to ultra-Orthodox Jews in housing, military service, and government subsidies. Indeed, the party’s campaign ads sounded like what one might hear from our own Democratic party: pious pledges of fealty to the sacred Middle Class, an assertive secularism, and shameless demographic demagoguery (not “enough” women were at the top of Likud’s party list).

Bibi, for his part, emphasized national security issues, pointing to his record as the one who kept Israel “safe” and trying to appease the ultra-rightists around Bennett by declaring he would build yet more settlements. In response to anti-African riots in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, he also pledged to crack down on refugees coming from Africa, and deport those who had already arrived.

This rightist strategy failed spectacularly: the great right-wing surge widely predicted—including here, I might add—never materialized. Instead, what we have is a walk-back to the center—although, when it comes to Israeli politics, this description may be a bit misleading. Before anyone gets too excited about the exact meaning of this “walk to the center,” they should understand that Lapid’s “centrist” views on the Palestinians are, um, decidedly non-centrist. As Arutz Sheva reported:

“‘I do not think that the Arabs want peace,’ he wrote on his Facebook page. Lapid said that he does not care what the Arabs want. ‘What I want is not a new Middle East, but to be rid of them and put a tall fence between us and them.’ The important thing, he added, is ‘to maintain a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel.’

“Lapid has said recently that the Left ‘makes the same mistake again when it negotiates the division of Jerusalem. The Palestinians must be brought to an understanding that Jerusalem will always remain under Israeli sovereignty and that there is no point for them in opening negotiations about Jerusalem.’”

Such views are hardly a cause for celebration among those who hope for a more reasonable Israeli approach to the peace process: however, Yesh Atid did not emphasize these views in its election campaign, at least from what I can tell. Insofar as this election reflects the electorate’s evolving views on national security issues, one can look at what didn’t happen—Jewish Home’s expected rise to the nation’s second largest party—as the big take-away. Bennett campaigned, in part, on the strength of his plan to annex most of the West Bank—a proposal that would have isolated Israel even more than it already is, and which is now dead in the water.

This election, it turned out, wasn’t about national security but about the quality of life in Israel: the secular middle class had its revenge. The rise of Yesh Atid augurs a backlash against the privileges of the haredi—ultra-orthodox “scholars” who don’t get drafted and get preferential treatment in housing—and also against the ideological and religious concerns that were the focus of the rightists’ election campaign strategy.

This election was also about Barack Obama, and Israel’s increasingly strained relationship with the US. In the last days of the campaign the White House “leak,” via Jeffrey Goldberg—that the President thinks Bibi hasn’t a clue as to what’s best for Israel—apparently really hit home: the Israelis know, even if Bibi often seems to have forgotten, how dependent the Jewish state is on America’s patronage. Goldberg’s reportage was seen as payback for Bibi’s brazen interference in the American election, during which the Israeli Prime Minister allowed himself to be weaponized by the Republicans (albeit not to any discernible GOP advantage). The lesson here: the Americans have more electoral clout in Israel than vice versa—that is, if the White House chooses to exercise it.

Netanyahu will form the next government, but clearly he is in a much weaker position, particularly vis-à-vis the US. If Lapid joins the governing coalition, the Israelis will be more open to re-starting negotiations with the Palestinians, and more amenable to American pressure—this in spite of Netanyahu’s implicitly anti-American campaign rhetoric. For Likud, and Bibi, this election is a slap in the face, and the sting is not likely to wear off any time soon.

The humiliation of the Israeli right is conditional good news—conditional, that is, on the assumption that Netanyahu will seek a coalition with the centrists, as in this scenario, rather than with Bennett and the religious bloc. While this would seem to make the most sense—there is reportedly a lot of bad blood between Netanyahu and Bennett—when it comes to Israel’s fractious politics, you never know. It is perfectly possible Bibi could put together a right-wing coalition with a one-vote majority in the Knesset, in which case all bets are off.

The new government, whatever its composition, will face the bleak prospect of Israel’s increasing international isolation—and stepped up pressure from the US to re-start the peace process and let Obama earn his Nobel peace prize.

It’s Bibi’s choice. As he struggles to put together a government, the longest serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history stands at a crossroads: he can build a coalition committed to putting the two-state solution back on the agenda—and take the nutty notion of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran completely off the table—or he can march off the ideological cliff with Bennett and the rest of the crazies.

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Evidence grows for narcolepsy link to GSK swine flu shot

By Kate Kelland, Reuters, Jan. 21, 2013
STOCKHOLM (Reuters)—Emelie Olsson is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares. When she wakes up, she’s often paralyzed, unable to breathe properly or call for help. During the day she can barely stay awake, and often misses school or having fun with friends. She is only 14, but at times she has wondered if her life is worth living.

Emelie is one of around 800 children in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe who developed narcolepsy, an incurable sleep disorder, after being immunized with the Pandemrix H1N1 swine flu vaccine made by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in 2009.

Finland, Norway, Ireland and France have seen spikes in narcolepsy cases, too, and people familiar with the results of a soon-to-be-published study in Britain have told Reuters it will show a similar pattern in children there.

Their fate, coping with an illness that all but destroys normal life, is developing into what the health official who coordinated Sweden’s vaccination campaign calls a “medical tragedy” that will demand rising scientific and medical attention.

Europe’s drugs regulator has ruled Pandemrix should no longer be used in people aged under 20. The chief medical officer at GSK’s vaccines division, Norman Begg, says his firm views the issue extremely seriously and is “absolutely committed to getting to the bottom of this”, but adds there is not yet enough data or evidence to suggest a causal link.

Others—including Emmanuel Mignot, one of the world’s leading experts on narcolepsy, who is being funded by GSK to investigate further—agree more research is needed but say the evidence is already clearly pointing in one direction.

“There’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Pandemrix increased the occurrence of narcolepsy onset in children in some countries—and probably in most countries,” says Mignot, a specialist in the sleep disorder at Stanford University in the United States.

In total, the GSK shot was given to more than 30 million people in 47 countries during the 2009-2010 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Because it contains an adjuvant, or booster, it was not used in the United States because drug regulators there are wary of adjuvanted vaccines.

GSK says 795 people across Europe have reported developing narcolepsy since the vaccine’s use began in 2009.

In his glass-topped office building overlooking the Maria Magdalena church in Stockholm, Goran Stiernstedt, a doctor turned public health official, has spent many difficult hours going over what happened in his country during the swine flu pandemic, wondering if things should have been different.

“The big question is was it worth it? And retrospectively I have to say it was not,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Being a wealthy country, Sweden was at the front of the queue for pandemic vaccines. It got Pandemrix from GSK almost as soon as it was available, and a nationwide campaign got uptake of the vaccine to 59 percent, meaning around 5 million people got the shot.

Stiernstedt, director for health and social care at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, helped coordinate the vaccination campaign across Sweden’s 21 regions.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the 2009-2010 pandemic killed 18,500 people, although a study last year said that total might be up to 15 times higher.

While estimates vary, Stiernstedt says Sweden’s mass vaccination saved between 30 and 60 people from swine flu death. Yet since the pandemic ended, more than 200 cases of narcolepsy have been reported in Sweden.

With hindsight, this risk-benefit balance is unacceptable. “This is a medical tragedy,” he said. “Hundreds of young people have had their lives almost destroyed.”

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Change or Die! EVG Research Team

EVG Research Team <News@TheElevationGroup.com>

Adapt to the Changes
Life Brings, Or Be Replaced

Hi, Did you know humans have a natural resistance to change?That tendency can often protect you from harm. But sometimes it can be deadly.

EVG Research Team here. We understand the reluctance to change (we're human too).

But as entrepreneurs we've learned to embrace change. To adapt. Switch gears when necessary. Keep things fresh.

All great individual investors and companies possess these traits.

One of our goals with The Elevation Group is to help our members develop the traits and habits that will propel them to personal success.

If you'd like a solid foundation for your financial success and growth, be sure to check out how EVG's Wealth Blueprint can help you. Click here for details

We also believe our blueprint is a "living document." Which means that we'll be making changes along the way as economic conditions and the wealth cycle changes.

Because...
If You Are Unwilling to Change,
Bad Things Can Happen

Take Kodak, for instance.



You probably heard that Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

It's a shame too.

Kodak was one of the first "social media" companies ... long before that term was a buzz phrase.

Kodak connected people. They brought us closer together.

They were "Facebook" long before Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) was born.

You could capture a moment in your life, save it for later use, and send it to a friend.

And Kodak made it easy enough for a kid to use (check out the ad for the Brownie camera above).

As founder George Eastman once said ...


You push the button, we do the rest.

Seeing a company like Kodak fail is sad.

Especially for the generation that captured their growing years on Kodak film with Instamatic cameras...

...and sang along with Paul Simon's 1973 hit, "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away..."
The Culture of Complacency

How could a giant in the industry like Kodak fail?

How do you go from dominating 90% of the film market and 85% of camera sales in America (like it did in the 1970's and 80's) to bankrupt in 2012?

Well, that's what happens when you refuse to change. When you're too stubborn to let go of the old before you embrace the new.

You see, until the 1990s, analysts consistently rated Kodak as one of the world's five most valuable brands.

Kodak had built that reputation on the back of their film business and their consumer-level cameras.

And here's the crazy thing. Kodak knew (before almost anyone else) that film-based cameras would soon be obsolete.

An internal memo passed around the Kodak front offices in 1979 predicted that digital imaging would fully replace traditional film by the year 2010! Wow!

So why didn't they change?

Well, they tried. But a culture of the "complacent monopolist" permeated the company.

In other words, they were making money and that was good enough for much of the upper management.

Why change when you're making money?

As late as 1999, the company was still making $16 billion in revenues and $2.5 billion in annual profits.

The demand for film was still strong. Digital photography had not yet reached the masses.

Kodak executives didn't want to abandon their flagship film business at the expense of their digital research. They resisted the change.

And it cost them. Big time.

During the first decade of the new millennium, Kodak watched helplessly as digital photography swiftly replaced film, and as smartphones rapidly took the place of cameras.

Without a solid foot in the door on either of those industries, Kodak also watched their profits plummet ... and their net worth drop off a cliff.

In 2009, Kodak stopped manufacturing their last remaining film product, Kodachrome64.

At the time they filed for bankruptcy in early 2012, they were upside down by nearly $2 billion.
How You Can Learn
From Kodak's Mistake

Companies and individuals are different ... but there are important take-aways from Kodak's demise that can help you.

First, recognize that change is already here. The old (comfortable) ways are gone.

Think about it...
The global economy is still on life support.


Unemployment is sky-high.


Reliance on government subsidy and handouts is at epidemic levels.


Inflation is sneakily sucking the sails out of your net worth ... and it's getting worse by the day.



So, to keep from just scraping by... or postponing retirement ... or facing a jobless future...

YOU need to change with the times.

It might mean learning a new (more valuable) skill.

It might mean moving to a different part of the country or the world.

It might mean starting a business.

It might mean learning a new way of investing (and ditching the old, outdated ways).

Whatever it means to you ... recognize that change isn't always easy.

It will require you to move outside of your comfort zone (exactly what Kodak failed to do).

But it can be the only way to survive in changing times.

And the times... oh, they are a changing.

The Elevation Group equips you for the changes going on in our world and in the economy.

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From Saudi Arabia to North Korea, Modern Persecution of Christians Spans Globe

By Dietrich Alexander, Die Welt, Jan. 21, 2013
BERLIN—Asir’s life was preprogrammed. The North African Muslim was to be trained to be a jihadist in a Palestinian terrorist camp. There he would learn how to build bombs and kill non-believers. But just before he was due to leave, he started to have doubts.

“I realized that there were several versions of the Koran, and that some texts contradict each other,” he says now, four years later. His imam was unable to explain these contradictions satisfactorily. Questioning the dogma underlying his Salafist affinities and the religious fanaticism environment around him, he ended up tearing up his passport—thus making the trip to the camp impossible.

It was during this period of religious confusion that Asir met a Christian, who told him about Jesus. He looked for more information on Christianity on the Internet, called a Christian hotline, came across a Christian TV station, and started reading the Bible. He ended up converting to Christianity—which means that his life is at constant risk in his country.

Azni from Chechnya is also a Christian, and she’s paying a high price for her beliefs. Her brothers want to kill her. Her husband says she has put a curse on the family. The 40-year-old woman prays fervently for her survival. “I’m tired and I’m scared,” she says.

Saliha’s home is in northern Nigeria, where sharia law prevails. The 20-year-old grew up a Christian. Then one day her father converted to Islam. Her mother refused to do so, so the man threw her and his then eight-year-old daughter out of the house. But he later came after Saliha and forced her to wear the veil and attend an Islamic school.

She ultimately fled, and today lives in a Christian institution where she is considered an excellent student. She must continue to be careful though, because her father is still after her and if he finds her, she faces forced marriage to a Muslim.

Three Christians, three fates. They represent 100 million people that are persecuted around the world for their Christian beliefs, according to the Christian aid organization Open Doors. In the 2013 edition of their World Watch List the organization puts North Korea—for the 11th time—at the head of 50 countries where the persecution of Christians is strongest.

In North Korea, between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are interned in labor camps, Open Doors reports. Under the dictatorship, just owning a Bible can mean the death penalty or internment of the whole family. An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Christians have to live their faith in secret, but despite the persecution the government has yet to eradicate what is in fact a growing network of believers who worship at services in each others’ homes.

Also topping the Open Doors list are Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, the Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen and Eritrea. The Arab revolts against dictatorial regimes have apparently done little to change the persecution of Christians. Indications so far point to one autocracy having replaced another.

“Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists used revolutions and democratic elections such as Egypt’s as a stepping stone to power,” says Markus Rode, head of Open Doors in Germany. “Unfortunately we see no end to Islamic extremism spreading across country and massive persecution and displacement of Christian minorities.”

In Syria, Christians are mostly targeted by foreign Islamists who have joined the Free Syrian Army. The result is that on the 2013 list Syria has moved up from number 36 to 11th place. Libya moved from 26 to 17th place, Tunisia from 35 to 30. Egypt occupies the 25th place.

For the first time, the annual list includes Sub-Saharan countries—Mali, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Niger—because the situation of Christian minorities in those countries has worsened dramatically. Violent attacks on Christians have also been tracked by Open Doors in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Niger and Nigeria.

China has moved down to 37th place from 21st because those conducting services in their homes—as long as they obey set limitations—are generally not persecuted although the regime is ramping up measures to keep home churches under control and at least 100 Christians are in prison because of their beliefs or religious activities.

According to Open Doors, there has been clear improvement in the position of Christians in Chechnya, Cuba, Turkey, Belarus and Bangladesh, which no longer figure on the 2013 list. This by no means that Christians aren’t persecuted in these countries, just that the countries aren’t among the top 50 worst offenders.

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Reaction to Dr. Tyson´s History of Science

By Dennis Edwards:

Ronald Jackson Boyd:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3mtDC2fQo

Neil Tyson presentation about intelligent design

Dennis : This is interesting Ron, but as you see, he believes in evolution. That is his unquestioned foundation assumption, that evolution is true. He is making a straw-man argument by presenting the intelligent design position incorrectly, to make it seem that his logic is correct. However, creation scientists are doing real science in the classroom, just as many great creation scientists in the past have done, like Kepler, Newton, Mendel, Pasteur, Carver, etc. They use their creationist assumptions and do their science, just as evolutionists use their evolution assumptions and do their science. Because of their foundation assumptions both come to different conclusions. 

The question we need to ask is which conclusions are more closely consistent with the evidence and need fewer saving or supporting assumptions or hypothetical devices along the way. 

There are so many good creation science books, dealing with real empirical science and not just philosophy or historical science, that I am at wonder to how and why this speaker does not seem to understand the creation position correctly. He is either ignorant of the real position, and has not done his homework, or he is purposely presenting a straw-man argument for the sake of winning his argument. He comes across quite sincere, so it seems for some reason he has not studied the creation science/intelligent design question fully, to understand it correctly, however sincere he may be.

Ronald Jackson Boyd: If he hasn't studied the creation science/intelligent design argument fully, it may be because of the likes of Kent Hovind and Ray Comfort and others, which are living straw-men. When these people's assumptions coincide with a set of religious tenants which cannot be questioned, then what other conclusions can they come to? 

Many of the same arguments brought up by creationists are simply the same ones argued in the 19th century. Some creationists actually duplicate Darwin's theories deriving their own terminology for the same ideas. 

Maybe this is Tyson's synopsis of the creationist movement, but he looked at Newton and others not with the assumption that they were wrong in their observations but in a positive light. Our educational system does not go into that much detail about the thinking of people like Pythagoras, Darwin, Kepler, Pascal, and other scientists but just uses their theories which have been pretty well distilled throughout a long history which is covered in distinctly separate courses. 

Most people don't do their homework on issues because of the sheer volume of repetitive information, so stereotypes based on a few examples are convenient. Not to say that I am not guilty of doing this kind of thing also, but I appreciate my high school an college education and it will always have an influence on the kinds of assumptions I would accept or reject. I regret that I did not study harder, but I think I can spot propaganda to some extent. When political agendas and fraudulent behaviors permeate a science, it casts doubt on whether it can be trusted.

Dennis´reply:

How anyone can believe that our highly and finely tuned for life on planet earth solar system/ universe is a result of an explosive "Big Bang" with all the laws of physics and chemistry, math and logic resulting from it, is beyond my comprehension.

However, I did believe those things during the time of my life when I was rejecting God, because of my experiences with the hypocritical religious system. My accepting the assumption that there was no spiritual plane and my belief in naturalism, led me to accept evolutionary doctrine.

We need to remember that naturalism, which denies the supernatural and metaphysical, denies the existence of a supreme being. The philosophy of science for many hundreds of years was the "search for truth." Today´s evolutionists have been trying to change that definition so that "naturalism" becomes the guiding principle of science. Science is defined as the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us. By removing the possibility of God as a possible assumption from the scientific equation, they push God out of the scientific debate.

The intelligent design movement has been trying to show in the laboratory that the scientific assumptions in the evolutionary paradigm do not add up to the facts of empirical science. Evolution is based on the false assumption that there is no supernatural. A theory based on a false assumption will lead to a false conclusion. The theory of evolution is based on the false assumption of naturalism, there is no supernatural, and therefore, leads to the false conclusion that evolution is true.

But naturalism is not a scientific fact, but only a philosophical assumption. Philosophical assumptions can be wrong and can lead to wrong conclusions. The philosophical assumption that evolution was true led to the idea that the white races were the privileged and fittest race. Other more primitive races were considered lower on the evolutionary scale and closer to the ape. The search for missing links, led to the murder of thousands of Australian aborigines, who were not considered human. Their skulls were then sold to Natural History Museums in England and the USA as proof that evolution had occurred and that this lower race of homo-sapiens was a link between modern man and his primitive evolutionary ancestors. Of course, modern empirical genetic science shows us there is only one race of people on the planet descending from one original couple. Had we started with Biblical assumptions, we would have arrived at this correctly proven scientific fact. The false evolutionary assumptions led scientific investigation astray and led to the cruel deaths of thousands of innocent people.

Both Hitler and Stalin used their evolutionary beliefs to justify the murder of thousands of people. Hitler said the Jews were more closely related to the ape than to man. He considered the German people to be the fittest race and therefore had the right to dominate and rule over those other weaker peoples. His ideas of military/politics had been adopted from the false paradigm of the evolution theory. Stalin, likewise, was a student of Darwin and felt liberated after reading the Origins. He, too, accepted this so-called scientific theory and applied it to the political/military realm resulting in the deaths of thousands.

Evolution is based on the assumption of naturalism, or the belief that there is no supernatural. However, naturalism is only a philosophy, an assumption or belief system and is not based on the facts of the world around us. I have had a supernatural or spiritual experience which changed me from an agnostic to a real believer. Millions of other people around the world have had similar experiences or know someone who has had one. My mother and father both shared their spiritual experiences with us, their children. As a missionary, many people have shared with me their spiritual experiences. Research has been done and books have been written about such experiences by qualified medical doctors. Life after death experiences have been studied. Therefore, we can conclude the the supernatural does exist.

Those with an evolutionary/naturalistic paradigm will come to a totally different conclusion because of their belief system. No scientist comes to the scientific table without assumptions. Like in the CSI and forensic science, usually different police investigators start with different assumptions of how the murder happened. However, the facts of the scientific investigation begin to eliminate the false assumptions. As the case goes on, the police reach a more probable conclusion. Usually they try to get the murderer to somehow confess, because they are never really sure unless he does. All they have is circumstantial evidence, however strong it may be.

Dr. Tyson´s comment about the 15% of the scientists who do not believe in evolution should be looked at more closely. Maybe the scientific community should be more open to their voice and viewpoints. If we study the history of science we see that usually what turned out to be the correct scientific truth was often in the minority and persecuted for years until finally the weight of scientific and factual proof defeated its adversaries.

The creation/intelligent design movement is advocating that the problems with the evolutionary paradigm be openly addressed and covered in the classroom. Students should be taught factual empirical science. However, philosophical/historical science needs to be presented as such so that contrary ideas/philosophies can be presented. Neither creation nor evolution can be proven in the laboratory. Neither can be tested. A valid scientific hypothesis must be capable of being tested. Neither evolution or creation can be either confirmed or falsified scientifically. They are both really outside the realm of empirical science and the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, testing and retesting to reach a conclusion which can be retested by others who reach the same conclusion. It would be better to think of them in terms of two scientific models or frameworks as that is a more accurate way to look at them. By doing this then maybe they can be debated more objectionably, scientifically and logically, to then be able to discern which is more aligned to observable facts and science.

One evolutionary scientist made the following comment after the conclusion of his life´s work in scientific investigation. Dr. N. Herribert-Nilson, Director of the Botanical Institute at Lund University in Sweden said "My attempt to demonstrate evolution by experiment carried on for more than 40 years of my life has completely failed......The idea of an evolution rests on pure belief." (1953)(References: "The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution" by Dave Schoch, 2008, and "Scientific Creationism" by Dr. Henry Morris, 1974.

It is interesting how Dr.Tyson does praise Newton so much, yet denies the God that Newton loved. Newton said "There are more sure proofs of the authenticity in the Bible than in any secular history. All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer. I can take my telescope and look millions of miles into space; but I can go away to my room and in prayer get nearer to God and Heaven than I can when assisted by all the telescopes of Earth."

Newton, however, was no friend of traditional religion of his time and remained on the outskirts of religiosity. Nevertheless, he had a firm faith in the Bible as the word of God, believed in a 6-day creation and a young earth/universe, and spent more time reading the Bible than doing science. He predicted that man in the future would be able to travel at a speed of more than 50 miles an hour. When the skeptic Voltaire heard of this prediction he said Newton had gone mad from reading the Bible so much. Now, today, we know better. 

At one point, Newton made a mechanical model of our solar system with the sun and planets. By turning a crank all the planets would travel in their course around the sun. An atheist friend of Newton's came for a visit and was admiring Newton´s model and asked, "Who made it?" Newton replied, "Nobody made it, it made itself." The obvious point he was trying to show his atheistic friend was that just as it would be stupid to think that no one had made the model solar system, so, too, it would be stupid to think that no one had made the actual solar system.

Originally published January 23, 2013

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The Atlantic: “The Pill: Contraceptive or Abortifacient?””

Semantics matter: what does “the pill” do?

With legislation set to go into effect requiring private employers to provide abortifacients as an insurance benefit, Liberty University English professor Karen Swallow Prior has called attention to the increasingly sloppy usage of relevant terms in the controversy. Unclear and confusing language in this instance is not inconsequential but actually muddies the moral waters. And an important aspect of this problem, Dr. Prior writes, is the need “for some political, scientific, and moral clarity on the birth control pill.” What does “the pill” do, and what does it not do?


Oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), a familiar daily sight to millions of American women since acquiring FDA approval as a contraceptive in the 1960s, typically contain low doses of two hormones. OCPs fool a woman’s hormonal regulatory mechanisms in order to inhibit ovulation. But what happens if ovulation and then fertilization do occur? Image credit: motorolka/Shutterstock through www.theatlantic.com

What is the difference between contraception and abortion? Historically, until pro-abortion activists began to push for a change of definition,5 conception was synonymous with fertilization—the union of a sperm and an egg. A human life begins at fertilization. Therefore, contraception has traditionally meant prevention of fertilization. In practical terms, this requires preventing contact between sperm and ova (eggs). Oral contraceptives (OCPs) accomplish this with reasonable success primarily by preventing ovulation. OCPs fool a woman’s hormonal regulatory systems with low daily doses of hormones. But if an accidental ovulation occurs and an egg is produced and fertilized, do OCPs prevent implantation of an embryo in the uterus?

This question, in the past, was primarily discussed among conservative pro-life professionals. As our knowledge has increased, it has become clear to most of us that OCPs neither prevent implantation nor damage the unborn child exposed to them. Lately, this question is attracting much more attention. Why?

As most of our readers are aware, the new health care law—aka Obamacare—opens the door for non-elected bureaucrats to demand “morning after pills”—often called “emergency contraceptives”—be routinely covered as an employee health benefit. These medications are abortifacients intended to prevent or disrupt the implantation of an embryo, thereby leading to the death of the child.6 Many Christians believe their duty to God requires that they not pay for abortions, even those accomplished invisibly and quietly using medications. Therefore, many Christian colleges and Christian-owned businesses have filed lawsuits begging our courts to protect several constitutional freedoms that Obamacare violates. (See News to Note, December 1, 2012 to learn more.)

As public debate has heated up, Dr. Prior notes there has been increasingly sloppy use of terminology. Of course, these semantic games didn’t just begin. When various medical organizations agreed to change the definition of conception to make it synonymous with implantation, deceptive words entered our language. Since several days elapse between fertilization and implantation, this change allowed health care providers to administer abortifacients under the guise of contraception. Ethically, this is killing a human being with impunity on the basis of a semantic technicality.

Since Obamacare has been on the firing line, the media and scientists are now paying more attention to how ordinary oral contraceptives (OCPs) work. Dr. Prior writes, “Some pro-lifers, this one included, find it at least a little bit suspect that now, in the midst of controversy around this issue . . . scientists are suddenly backtracking on long-held views about how the birth control pill works.”

OCPs, in addition to preventing ovulation, thin the lining of the uterus. Does OCP-induced thinning of the uterine lining render it unreceptive to an embryo? If so, then OCPs would be abortifacients also. If people can be convinced that oral contraceptives—which enjoy wide acceptance—have been doing the same thing as the “morning after pill” all along, then support for mandated medical coverage for abortifacients may well slide in to favor on the slippery slope of morality by public consensus.

Though some pro-lifers err on the side of caution, most physicians—including myself and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists—are convinced that OCPs do not cause embryo loss. Why would this be? It turns out that the lining of the uterus is never prepared for the implantation of an embryo—whether a woman is “taking the pill” or not—prior to ovulation. OCPs prevent ovulation, but when a “breakthrough ovulation” occurs it is possible to get pregnant. Once fertilization occurs—whether the woman is “on the pill” or not—the post-ovulation ovary continues producing the hormones needed to prepare the lining of the uterus for implantation. God’s design is such that while the fertilized egg is traveling down the fallopian tube, the uterus is preparing to receive it. Ordinary OCPs do not disrupt this process, but “emergency contraceptives” do.

The author of The Atlantic article mentions that the “morning after pill” delays ovulation and implies there is thus little moral difference between it and conventional OCPs. We disagree. When a “morning after pill” is taken before ovulation and succeeds in delaying ovulation until all living sperm scattered through the woman's reproductive tract have died, then it prevents fertilization. If this were the only mechanism by which “morning after pills” worked then—insofar as the risk of destroying a human life is concerned—they would be morally indistinguishable from conventional OCPs.7

Yet inhibition of ovulation is only one of the ways “emergency contraceptives” work. If ovulation has already occurred and the ovum has gotten or gets fertilized, then the only way for “emergency contraceptives” to prevent the continuation of the pregnancy is to prevent or disrupt the implantation. Some people claim that “emergency contraceptives” merely thin the lining of the uterus the same way ordinary OCPs do and that they therefore work in the same way. If that were the case, however, then “emergency contraceptives” would be quite unreliable. Drugs used as “emergency contraceptives” are effective because they do not simply thin the uterine lining the way ordinary OCPs do, but actively interfere with the embryo's implantation.

It is important to have our terminology straight as the public debate on this topic continues, lest semantics be used to distort truth.

“Reproductive freedom” is a concept that has received a great deal of attention since the advent of pharmacological contraceptives. Men and women make many choices in life, including whether to obey God’s moral law that reserves sexual activity to marriage. But when an inconvenient or unwanted pregnancy occurs, regardless of life circumstances, that “freedom” should not include the right to murder another human being. The embryonic human life produced has a right to live, and killing him or her by either dismembering the body (one common method of conventional abortion) or by using powerful drugs to deny him or her the opportunity to grow in the mother’s uterus is reprehensible, and “reproductive freedom” should never include those options. And if the law of the land for forty years since Roe v. Wade has allowed women to abort their babies in the name of “reproductive freedom,” our constitutionally protected freedoms should at least prevent private citizens and the businesses and institutions in their care from having to pay for women to kill their unborn children

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Around the World with Ken Ham

Hobby Lobby and Obamacare


Posted: 19 Jan 2013 06:39 AM PST


Many of you have been following the lawsuit that the Hobby Lobby corporation has filed against the Obama administration. Under the new health care mandate, Hobby Lobby, a retail chain of arts/crafts stores, is required to offer health insurance that provides abortion-inducing drugs (abortifacients) to its employees. (For a detailed discussion of how so-called “emergency contraceptives” work, in contrast to ordinary contraceptive pills, read this News to Note article by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell: www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/01/12/news-to-note-01122013#five).

Now, the owners of Hobby Lobby are standing their ground and have sued the federal government. Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green and his family have said that by being forced to offer insurance that provides abortifacients, their religious beliefs are being violated. The fines for not complying with the Obamacare mandate are about $1.3 million per day. Hobby Lobby asked that any fines be delayed until the court proceedings were over, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied the request.

A recent news report (www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/blog/2013/01/11/hobby-lobby-vs-health-care-law) said that Hobby Lobby has found a way to delay by a few months the January 1 requirement to comply with the health care mandate. This is good news for Hobby Lobby—but it still doesn’t solve the issue of what’s at stake with regard to religious freedom in the US.

Sadly, what is happening to Hobby Lobby doesn’t bode well for Christians in general. Joel Belz in World magazine (www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.php?id=24863) recently wrote, “If all this is not a blatant denial of an American citizen’s freedom to exercise his or her deeply help religious beliefs, it’s hard to imagine what the federal government might do to be offensive.” And that’s a legitimate concern to have.

You see, if Hobby Lobby is forced by the federal government to act in ways that violate the owners’ convictions concerning the authority of Scripture, what will stop the government from forcing churches and individual believers to act against what God’s Word says?

Scripture tells us that we’ll experience persecution for the sake of Christ:


If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. (John 15:18–21)

I applaud the Green family’s bold stand for the truth of God’s Word when it comes to the lives of unborn babies, and their stand for God’s Word will likely come at great cost to their organization. Please pray for them as they publicly stand for their biblical convictions. I pray that other Christians will be prepared to stand as they have done.

Actually, all companies and organizations are affected by this Obamacare mandate. Answers in Genesis is also working with our legal representatives to do what needs to be done legally in regard to this vital issue.

Please pray for AiG and other organizations as we also have to confront this sad issue head on.

For our eye-opening commentary on the abortion decision handed down 40 years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court (called Roe v. Wade), read: www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/01/18/roe-v-wade-40-years-later.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Note: Steve Golden assisted in the preparation of this blog item.

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