November 21, 2024
Abortion as a Non-issue: The Post-prohibition Precedent
To say that the Kamala Harris campaign bet heavily on the issue of abortion rights tilting the election is understatement. Recall that she pledged to end the Senate filibuster rule specifically to pass a national right to abortion. “We should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need…
November 9, 2024
NYC Safe Injection Sites Reduce OD Deaths—but Not in the Worst Neighborhoods
There is a glimmer—the slightest bright spot—of good news about drug overdoses in New York. The city’s Health Department reports that overdose deaths in 2023 declined compared to the previous year—but they fell just one percent, from 3,070 to 3,046. A close look at that number reveals not only is it tiny, but that an important indicator…
October 1, 2024
For the Sake of the Kids: Strengthening Families in the Lone Star State
The family is the fundamental unit of society. As Pope Saint John Paul II so eloquently stated, “as the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.” Unfortunately, rates of marriage and family formation have hit record lows across the nation in recent years. This report focuses…
September 20, 2024
How Public Housing Fueled Boston’s Busing Riots
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the North’s worst episode of school desegregation–related racial violence: Boston’s busing riots. Mobs hurled rocks at buses filled with black students newly assigned to South Boston High School, set on the “heights” of that largely white neighborhood. At the time, and in retrospect, the violence was blamed on…
September 9, 2024
The Nanny State Is Not the Answer to Parents’ Challenges
The chaos of summer is over. Kids have gone back to school. But fall brings a whole new set of challenges. We parents have spent the past few weeks creating complex matrices — schedules for child care, after-school activities, and car pools. But by next week, someone will get sick, or a babysitter will quit, and…
August 30, 2024
When It Comes to Declining Donations, There’s More to the Story
To the Editor: New research showing a sharp decline in giving in 2018 — the year after passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — must be tempered by a consideration of the extent of nonitemized giving, which is often difficult to capture. Rasheeda Childress’s article “Donors Likely Giving $16 Billion Less Each…
August 15, 2024
Women Want More Children Than They’re Having. America Can Do More to Help
In the wake of the media storm generated by Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s comment about “childless cat ladies,” fertility in America has vaulted to the top of the national conversation, with good reason. The fertility rate has hit a record low in the United States, with the average American woman now expected to have just…
June 18, 2024
Donald Trump is an Outlier on the Right: When It Comes to Fidelity and Marriage, Democrats Face Bigger Problems
The political and legal fallout of Donald Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels has not only complicated his run for the presidency, but it has also raised a deeper concern: Has the Republican standard bearer’s marital misbehavior eroded our collective commitment to the values and virtues that sustain the institution of marriage? On the left, journalist…
June 13, 2024
The Family-to-Prison-or-College Pipeline: Married Fathers and Young Men’s Transition to Adulthood
A growing minority of young men are floundering. “Failure to launch” is a description that’s all too common. Consider working a stable job—a decent proxy for whether someone has their life together. For young men (ages 16-24), labor force participation rates are dropping. In 1980, the share of young men who were looking for or had a…
June 13, 2024
Why Married Fathers Matter
The eighth grade girls cleaned up at the middle school graduation I attended last week. Of the four major awards, three went to girls, and just one to a boy. This pattern is all too typical in American life today. Two-thirds of high school students in the top 10% are girls, while boys dominate the…