Keith Lockitch
The Conservatives’ War on Birth Control
Religious conservatives are increasingly opposing birth control. The Bush administration has shifted funding from sex education endorsing condoms to programs preaching “abstinence only.” And Bush F.D.A. appointees spent three years blocking nonprescription use of the “morning after” pill, despite overwhelming evidence of its safety. Shockingly, there has been an increasing number of Christian pharmacists refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions–in some cases even for ordinary birth control pills for married women. What is behind this disturbing hostility to reproductive freedom?
Reject Environmentalism, Not DDT
The World Health Organization has announced that it will encourage the use of DDT to fight malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that kills a million people a year. This announcement is a positive development, but it is tragic that malaria was allowed to persist unchecked for so long.
The Bait and Switch of “Intelligent Design”
Legal and political battle lines have been drawn across the country over the teaching of “intelligent design”–the view that life is so complex it must be the product of a “higher intelligence.” The central issue under debate is whether “intelligent design” is, in fact, a genuine scientific theory or merely a disguised form of religious advocacy–creationism in camouflage.
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Objectivism
The Undercurrent's cultural commentary is based on Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Objectivism, which animates Ayn Rand's fiction, is a systematic philosophy of life. It holds that the universe is orderly and comprehensible, that man survives by reason, that his life and happiness comprise his highest moral purpose, and that he flourishes only in a society that protects his individual rights.Event Calendar
