Another case of "Don't trust that headline!"

Perhaps you've seen the news that China is "relaxing" or "easing" or "ending" their one-child policy?  Most people don't realize that China still has a one-child policy to which they strictly adhere.  But in any event, upon closer examination, we see that China is not ending their policy.  They are barely "relaxing" it.  Instead, China will now allow couples of whom the mother or father is an only child to have two children.

That's right, it's a modified two child policy.  

Certainly, it's a modified victory for those couples who thought they could only legally have one (and to illegally become pregnant is to face forced abortion, fines and other punishments), but it's no reversal of the hideous policy.  Rather than praise China for their newly found leniency, we should continue to challenge them to embrace life and to see the negative effects of limiting children across the country for now and in the long term.  

The possibility of having two children reintroduces concepts such as, "aunt," "uncle," and "cousin" to the nationwide vocabulary, but it's not good enough, and we can't settle for this "concession" as a massive victory.

Looking for life in Auschwitz

A story of hope and life in the midst of the devastating brutality of Auschwitz has recently been told in the National Post.

Miriam Rosenthal was four-months pregnant, starving, bone-tired, cold, filthy and afraid when an SS officer in big black boots and a crisp uniform appeared before the barracks in Auschwitz with a loudspeaker in hand.

All pregnant women line up, he barked. Line up, line up — your food portions are being doubled.

“Can you imagine?” Miriam asks. “Even women who were not pregnant stepped forward. I was standing with my younger cousin, but I wouldn’t go. She says, ‘Miriam, what are you doing?’ ”

“Something was holding me back. Someone was watching over me. I feel maybe my mother, maybe God. Two hundred women stepped forward and 200 women went to the gas chamber. And I don’t know why I didn’t step forward.

Read the whole story here.