Generally speaking, social services do not remove children from their homes as a first choice. Most have family programs that work with parents to resolve issues with parenting skills, nutrition, education, addiction issues and so on. A child has to be in imminent danger for them to be removed from their parents’ care. A lot of kids are in imminent danger. Not only that: the social workers who must work with these families are overwhelmed. Joseph Turner reports: In my...

Five adults (three men, two women) in the Netherlands are having a child together, and plan to raise said child together. I know this is a little tricky so let me explain. Jaco and Sjoerd (those are the guys) and Daantje and Dewi (the women) are all homosexual. They’ve known each other for 10 years. Then there is Sean, who is the third person in Jaco and Sjoerd’s relationship. They would marry him, but cannot legally. The five folks want...

Tonight is the first Republican primary presidential debate of the election season. The debates are promoted as a way to distinguish the candidates from one another. But they are a terrible format for achieving that objective. Currently, there are 38 Republicans who have declared they are running for their party’s nomination (though you’ve likely only heard of 17 of them). Onthe other side of the political spectrum you have 17 Democrats who have declared they are running (though you only...

An article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on the just price of cancer drugs in the United States contains an odd reference to a nonexistent book by Aristotle, notesJohn B. Shannon.Unraveling the origins of this error reveals an almost farcical series of misinterpretations. Arguments from authority are generally a good thing. If e from people with a few letters after their names, it’s often safe to bet that those claims are backed up by years of invested study and...

Series Note: Jobs are one of the most important aspects of a morally functioning economy. They help us serve the needs of our neighbors and lead to human flourishing both for the individual and munities. Conversely, not having a job can adversely affect spiritual and psychological well-being of individuals and families. Because unemployment is a spiritual problem, Christians in America need to understand and be aware of the monthly data on employment. Each month highlight the latest numbers we need...

In today’s Crisis Magazine, Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg calls for a a new papal encyclical: one addressing ” the on-going brutal persecution of Christians in the Middle East.” The facts about the deepening subjugation of Christians around the world hardly need repeating. Every day we read of the mistreatment of Christian guest-workers in Saudi Arabia, the violence unleashed against Christians in India by Hindu nationalists, the repression of Christians by China’s Communist regime, or the slaughter of African...

You may have noticed over the past couple of years that effective altruism has e the hot new trend/buzzword in philanthropy. As the Centre for Effective Altruism explains, Effective Altruism is a growing social movement bines both the heart and the passion guided by data and reason. It’s about dedicating a significant part of one’s life to improving the world and rigorously asking the question, “Of all the possible ways to make a difference, how can I make the greatest...

EMTs have incredibly difficult and stressful jobs. They may go long stretches with little to do, and then be suddenly very busy, very fast. They need to know how to calm down a child with a broken arm, treat a woman pinned in a truck in a massive interstate pileup during a snowstorm, and deal with a potential elderly stroke victim. They are like an ER on wheels. In munities, they are a lifeline between people in munities and the...

Acton’s director of research, Samuel Gregg, is looking ahead to a post-Obama economy. He notes that every presidency has problems it leaves behind upon exiting the White House, but we have some major economic and moral obstacles to e. Gregg outlines the challenges: mounting debt, entitlement programs that keep growing, crony capitalism, unemployment. What to do? Doing nothing isn’t an option for American conservatives. I’d suggest, however, that the incremental approach generally followed by conservatives—which often amounts to trying to...

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” I’m no Michael Corleone, nor am I much of a businessman, but Al Pacino’s Godfather III quote came to mind this morning after reading an email I received from Ceres’ President Mindy Lubber. Ms. Lubber is quite happy with the Clean Power Plan, the Environmental Protection Agency and President Obama’s latest boondoggle to raise energy prices in the interest of saving Mother Earth. It seems no matter how...