Current News
Pro-Life Legal Group Discusses Partial-Birth Abortion Court Strategies
Source: Pro-Life Infonet; March 23, 2003
Chicago, IL -- The Senate's passage of S.3, the Partial-Birth Abortion Act
of 2003 -- and the likelihood of House passage and the president's
signature this spring -- bring future court strategies to the strategic
forefront of pro-life legal strategists.
"Given that Congress and the administration will likely outlaw this
inhumane procedure, it is extremely important that the right legal
strategy is applied to the upcoming federal court challenge," says Nikolas
T. Nikas, general counsel of Chicago-based Americans United for Life.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Nebraska partial-birth ban
in a narrowly split 5-4 decision. Nikas explains that "the five-member
majority in Stenburg erred by applying the abortion law of Roe v. Wade and
its legal successors ["progeny" is a bad word choice when referring to
Roe; see Latin root] to a procedure that is medically and legally
infanticide, not abortion."
Continues Nikas, "Roe and later High Court abortion cases have always
recognized a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy'[1] -- not a right
to terminate the life of her child.'" Nikas pointed to the medically
established fact, on the record in many prior court cases, that the onset
of birth terminates a pregnancy.
"Therefore, any ban on killing after the onset of the process of birth
does not interfere with the right to terminate pregnancy -- it simply
establishes that there is no right to a dead child," says Nikas.
Attorney Nikas points to a comment made by Justice Thurgood Marshall
during the second oral argument in Roe v. Wade. That transcript shows that
in discussing Texas's parturition statute, Justice Marshall stated that
killing a child in the process of birth "is not an abortion."[2]
AUL attorney Dorinda C. Bordlee, who served from 1998-2000 as Special
Assistant Attorney General defending Louisiana's partial-birth statute,
concurs with Nikas that the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence,
including concepts such as its broad "health" definition[3], do not govern
the question of whether a ban on killing a child in the process of birth
is constitutional. Says Bordlee, "A federal ban on killing a child in the
process of birth is reasonably related to the nation's interest in
preventing the erosion of the line between abortion and infanticide, as
the Senate bill's findings reflect."[4]
Attorney Nikas applauds the Senate passage of S.3 and anticipates that
abortion advocates will not waste any time in filing a legal challenge in
federal district court. Nikas represented the state of Arizona in its 1997
partial-birth litigation and consulted with nearly two dozen states in the
litigation leading up to the Stenberg decision, in which he filed an
amicus ("friend of the court") brief on behalf of several states.
[1] See, e.g., Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 844 (1992).
[2] During the 1972 reargument of Roe, this Court discussed whether the
term "abortion" encompassed killing a child during the process of birth.
The following exchange between Justice Marshall and counsel for the State
of Texas occurred in the context of a discussion about the Texas
parturition statute, which had not been challenged as unconstitutional:
JUSTICE MARSHALL: What does that [parturition] statute mean?
MR. FLOWERS: Sir?
JUSTICE MARSHALL: What does it mean?
MR. FLOWERS: I would think that --
JUSTICE STEWART: That it is an offense to kill a child in the process of
childbirth?
MR. FLOWERS: Yes sir. It would be immediately before childbirth, or right
in the proximity of the child being born.
JUSTICE MARSHALL: Which is not an abortion.
MR. FLOWERS: Which is not -- would not be an abortion, yes, sir. You're
correct, sir. It would be homicide.
The entire written transcript of the October 11, 1972, reargument, along
with a link that plays the audio tape, can be found at the Northwestern
University website: http://oyez.nwu.edu/support/cases/334/reargument.html.
[3] "[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors
-- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age --
relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to
health." Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 192 (1973).
[4] The legislative finding section of S.3 states, "For these reasons,
Congress finds that partial-birth abortion is never medically indicated to
preserve the health of the mother; is in fact unrecognized as a valid
abortion procedure by the mainstream medical community; poses additional
health risks to the mother; blurs the line between abortion and
infanticide in the killing of a partially-born child just inches from
birth; and confuses the role of the physician in childbirth." S.3,
Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, Section II(14)(O).
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Fighting Terrorism... but at what price?
Total Information Awareness
by Beth Ubelacker
Our founding fathers risked everything to form a free state as embodied by the Constitution. Despite periods of panic and fear, like the Red Scare, these freedoms carry on today, over two centuries later, making the United States the oldest constitutional democracy in the world. In this country, we vary widely in, among other things, our political and religious views, yet we are united under one system. If we allow the Bill of Rights to be overridden and permit our government to spy on citizens, we cease to be a constitutional democracy. In other words, this country will no longer be "The United States of America, land of the free;" it will become some other kind of state, not so different from that of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia.
In the shock and fear that followed September 11th 2001, a number of bills and executive orders were passed to fight terrorism. Among those programs are the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act), the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, the Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA) and the Homeland Security Act.
An outgrowth of this array of programs is the Total Information Awareness Project (TIA), a project of the Information Awareness Office (IAO) in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense. The goal is to track individuals by collecting information from as many aspects of a person's life as possible and using a combination of computer and human analyses to detect potential terrorist activity.
The TIA project will encompass a system of counter-terrorism information search tools, some of which could be useful technologies. Babylon is a two-way, natural-language speech translation interface for users in combat and other field environments. Bio-ALIRT (Bio-event Advanced Leading Indicator Recognition Technology) will detect contagious biological agents using various detectors, including animal sentinels, for early detection of pathogens to reduce casualties and to differentiate between normal disease outbreaks and germ warfare. Communicator will be speech-to-text/text-to-speech software directed toward human-to-machine interactions to enable "war fighters to talk with computers." FutureMaP (Futures Market Applied to Prediction) will concentrate on market-based techniques for predicting future events. Genoa will combine data for analysis, and Genoa II will process data rapidly to assist teams in problem solving.
Other TIA initiatives, however, are eerily Orwellian. EARS (Effective, Affordable, Reusable Speech-to-Text) will transcribe natural speech into readable text, to assist officials in eavesdropping. TIDES (Translingual Information Detection, Extraction and Summarization) will locate, summarize and translate "large volumes" of information in other languages. EELD (Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery) will automatically extract data from "message traffic" to learn patterns about people and organizations for possible terrorist threats. HumanID (Human Identification at a Distance) will develop "automated biometric identification technologies" to identify people at a distance through "face, gait and iris recognition." WAE (Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment) hopes to predict terrorist attacks by examining behavior in "political, cultural and ideological environments." Genisys will combine commercial and government databases to form an "ultra-large" database, making it "easier to declassify and share data." All of this information is available on the IAO web site at www.darpa.mil/iao.
Development of this elaborate system will cost an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars, and its effectiveness remains unknown. For more information, see DARPA budget documents at www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/budget.html.
TIA will utilize information from financial, credit card, medical, communication (phone calls and emails), travel (including hotels, rental cars and airline tickets), library and bookstore records to create a comprehensive data file on any U.S. citizen. Everyone in the United States will be monitored and categorized according to possible terrorist threat. Planned data mining will not distinguish individuals; it will simply collect enormous amounts of data, search for patterns of activity and assign probabilities. The government will collect all this information without warrants - or even our knowledge.
Under these anti-terrorist programs, anyone could be labeled a terrorist. Once labeled, one can be detained indefinitely without even a hint of judicial proceedings, such as official charges or access to an attorney. If this does not erode our rights and privacy enough, now the rumored Patriot II (Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003) has been leaked to the press. This Act is even more invasive than the first PATRIOT Act and, if enacted, would make government surveillance of U.S. citizens even easier. Interestingly enough, Patriot II was drafted in the Justice Department, not by Congress. To read Patriot II, see www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/home.asp.
All this is being done in the name of fighting terrorism, but at what price? These programs infringe on our privacy and freedom, the framework of which is carefully laid out in the Constitution of the United States and reiterated in state constitutions.
In response to all this, numerous legislators and local groups are speaking out. In Congress, Senators have introduced the "Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act of 2003" which would enable Congress to oversee the FBI's surveillance of Americans. Senator Feingold has introduced "The Data-Mining Moratorium Act" and Congressman Bernie Sanders has proposed the "Freedom to Read Protection Act" that would exempt libraries and bookstores from expanded FBI surveillance. Local Bill of Rights Defense Committees are emerging across the country. To date, 64 cities have passed resolutions protecting their citizens from civil liberties violations. Hawaii and New Mexico have proposed state resolutions and numerous other communities have organized groups. To learn more about local efforts, see www.bordc.org.
This issue is uniting conservatives and liberals alike because despite our differences, we are all Americans and cherish the freedom that comes with it. Let us not get caught up in a whirlwind of fear and paranoia that destroys all rationality.
Source: The Denton Scramble
Back to Religious Freedom
Librarians Use Shredder to Show Opposition to New F.B.I. Powers
By DEAN E. MURPHY
ANTA CRUZ, Calif., April 4 — The humming noise from a back room of the
central library here today was the sound of Barbara Gail Snider, a
librarian, at work. Her hands stuffed with wads of paper, Ms. Snider was
feeding a small shredding machine mounted on a plastic wastebasket.
First to be sliced by the electronic teeth were several pink sheets with
handwritten requests to the reference desk. One asked for the origin of
the expression "to cost an arm and a leg." Another sought the address
of a collection agency.
Next to go were the logs of people who had signed up to use the library's
Internet computer stations. Bill L., Mike B., Rolando, Steve and
Patrick were all shredded into white paper spaghetti.
"It used to be a librarian would be pictured with a book," said Ms.
Snider, the branch manager, slightly exasperated as she hunched over the
wastebasket. "Now it is a librarian with a shredder."
Actually, the shredder here is not new, but the rush to use it is. In
the old days, staff members in the nine-branch Santa Cruz Public Library
System would destroy discarded paperwork as time allowed, typically
once a week.
But at a meeting of library officials last week, it was decided the
materials should be shredded daily.
"The basic strategy now is to keep as little historical information as
possible," said Anne M. Turner, director of the library system.
The move was part of a campaign by the Santa Cruz libraries to
demonstrate their opposition to the Patriot Act, the law passed in the
wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that broadened the federal authorities'
powers in fighting terrorism.
Among provisions that have angered librarians nationwide is one that
allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation to review certain business
records of people under suspicion, which has been interpreted to include
the borrowing or purchase of books and the use of the Internet at
libraries, bookstores and cafes.
In a survey sent to 1,500 libraries last fall by the Library Research
Center at the University of Illinois, the staffs at 219 libraries said
they had cooperated with law enforcement requests for information about
patrons; staffs at 225 libraries said they had not.
Ms. Turner said the authorities had made no inquiries about patrons in
Santa Cruz. But the librarians here and the library board, which sets
policies for the 10 branches, felt strongly about the matter nonetheless.
Last month, Santa Cruz became one of the first library systems in the
country to post warning signs about the Patriot Act at all of its
checkout counters.
Today, the libraries went further and began distributing a handout to
visitors that outlines objections to the enhanced F.B.I. powers and
explains that the libraries were reviewing all records "to make sure
that we really need every piece of data" about borrowers and Internet
users.
Maurice J. Freedman, president of the American Library Association and
director of the library system in Westchester, N.Y., said only a handful
of libraries had posted signs or handed out literature about the
Patriot Act. Warning signs are posted in the computer room at a library
in Killington, Vt., and the library board in Skokie, Ill., recently
voted to post signs, Mr. Freedman said.
Many other libraries, he said, including those in Westchester, decided
that warnings might unnecessarily alarm patrons.
"There are people, especially older people who lived through the
McCarthy era, who might be intimidated by this," he said. "As of right
now, the odds are very great that there will be no search made of a
person's records at public libraries, so I don't want to scare people
away."
At the same time, though, thousands of libraries have joined the rush to
destroy records.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said libraries were not breaking
the law by destroying records, even at a faster pace. The spokesman,
Mark Corallo, said it would be illegal only if a library destroyed
records that had been subpoenaed by the F.B.I.
Ms. Turner, the library director here, said librarians did not want to
help terrorists, but she said other values were at stake as well.
"I am more terrified of having my First Amendment rights to information
and free speech infringed than I am by the kind of terrorist acts that
have come down so far," Ms. Turner said.
Library officials here said the response to the warning signs had been
overwhelmingly positive, and visitors interviewed today had nothing but
praise. Several of them noted, however, that Santa Cruz was not
necessarily a microcosm of America.
Santa Cruz is a community well known for its leftward leanings and
progressive politics. Last fall, city officials allowed marijuana for
medicinal purposes to be distributed from the steps of City Hall. The
City Council also passed a resolution condemning the Patriot Act.
"That is the nice thing about living in this town," said Elizabeth Smith,
a waitress, who dropped by the central library today to use the
Internet. "They call something like this to our attention that is being
ignored in so many other parts of the country."
Source: New York Times
Back to Religious Freedom
Actress Patricia Heaton Continues Pro-Life, Pro-Woman Stance
Hollywood, CA -- Two-time Emmy winner and Feminists for Life of
America Honorary Chair Patricia Heaton was profiled Tuesday,
April 1 on an A&E during "Primetime Women Week" on Biography.
Displaying the Feminists for Life website where Heaton appears in
an ad stating, "Refuse to choose. Women deserve better," the hour
long Biography noted that she was "a celebrity who's not afraid
of stirring up controversy whether the subject is politics,
morality or herself." In her work with Feminists for Life of
America, "Heaton uses her fame, for instance, as a platform to
campaign against abortion."
Patricia Heaton is best known for her role as Debra in the hit
CBS comedy, "Everybody Loves Raymond, for which she has been
recognized by her peers with back-to-back Emmys for Outstanding
Actress in a Lead Role in a comedy series.
Her book, "How to Get a Job Like Mine in Hollywood " which has
just gone paperback, has made her a New York Times best selling
author.
In real life Heaton is also the wife and mother of four beautiful
boys. Heaton told Biography that he son Sam and the 3 boys that
followed turned her into a better actress: "When I had kids, they
took away all my free time, but they gave me tons of emotional
life that I had never experienced before. Things came much more
naturally to me, and I feel that my work loosened up and filled
out because I had these other people in my life who were showing
me a whole new way to live."
When Heaton received the first of her two Emmys in 2000, she
began with gratitude to her own mother. "I just want to thank God
for thinking me up and my mother for letting me come out, because
life is really amazing!"
By the year 2000, she was one of the most recognizable stars on
television. She was being compared to some of the greatest
actresses who'd ever been on television: "Audrey Meadows, Mary
Tyler Moore. That's a good league to be in, don't you think?"
asks Phillip Rosenthal, executive producer for "Everybody Loves
Raymond."
"She is also in league with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and other trailblazing women who refused to chose between
women and unborn children," said FFL President Serrin Foster.
Feminists for Life continues the tradition of the early American
Feminists who opposed abortion because of their belief in the
worth of all human beings.
"I feel like everybody has the right to life according to the
Constitution," Heaton is pictured saying to an audience this past
November at UCLA, as FFL President Serrin Foster, at her side,
cheers her on with a resounding "Yes!" Heaton describes how she
finds the courage to hold a position unpopular in her profession
by explaining: "At the end of the day, I believe I have to answer
to God for the actions in my life, the actions that I took and
the actions that I didn't take. So that's scarier to me than
somebody in the Hollywood community not liking me."
"It's not the sort of stance you usually hear from stars in
Hollywood," notes Biography.
But is a stance you will hear more and more. Actor Margaret
Colin, noted for her roles in "Independence Day," "Three Men and
a Baby," serves as Honorary Co-chair, was pictured along with
Serrin Foster after a White House press briefing on human cloning
by President Bush
"Patricia's stands are unusual for Hollywood. In a town where
people obsessively chase fame, where she worked for years to
achieve it herself, Patricia Heaton said if her career ever dries
up, she will walk away with no regrets," notes Biography.
Source: Pro-Life Infonet
Back to Pro-Life
Abortion Surviver Continues to Tell Her Story
Lancaster, PA -- Gianna Jessen could be bitter. She could be
angry and resentful. But she's not any of those things.
The 26-year-old Tennessee woman says that every day is a blessing
and that her life is proof that miracles exist. After all, she
wasn't even supposed to be alive.
She plans to share her story when she travels to Lancaster County
next Thursday to speak at a dinner sponsored by A Woman's
Concern, a crisis pregnancy and resource medical center.
In 1977, Jessen's 17-year-old mother, at 7 1/4 months of
pregnancy, decided abort her.
An abortionist in southern California injected a saline solution
into the teenager's amniotic sac. The fluid poisons the baby and
burns her lungs and skin. The abortion procedure -- less commonly
used today -- can last up to 24 hours.
Eighteen hours into the process, Jessen slid out. Alive.
"Without any burns on my body,'' she says proudly. "They said I
should be blind and burned and that I shouldn't be able to
sing.''
Who knew that 26 years later she'd be recording an album and
traveling around the country and the world to talk about her
experiences?
As it happened on that day, a nurse picked up the 2-pound newborn
and took her to a nearby hospital, where staff placed her in an
incubator. "After several months of not dying, they concluded I
had a tremendous will to live,'' she says.
Eventually, doctors diagnosed Jessen with cerebral palsy, from
lack of oxygen to her brain during the abortion, she says.
Meanwhile, she had been placed in a foster home. Doctors believed
she'd never move -- never sit, stand, crawl or walk. Today, she
walks with only a limp and even runs and rock climbs. She calls
cerebral palsy her "gift.''
Jessen credits her faith in God and the love and prayers of her
foster mother for helping her to prove the doctors wrong. Her
foster mother's daughter, Diana DePaul, later adopted Jessen and
made her a permanent member of the family. It was DePaul who told
Jessen, at age 12, the story of her birth and why she had
cerebral palsy.
Jessen has never met her biological mother, but has "completely
forgiven her.''
She says, "My life is truly a miracle. I'm a Christian, and I
truly believe it was God who allowed me to live. How can you be
alive like this and not believe there's this awesome Creator?''
Jessen, now a Christian motivational speaker and outspoken
pro-life supporter, uses her story and her passion for music to
speak and sing to audiences around the world.
Jessen, in a telephone interview from her home in Franklin,
Tenn., said she fully supports the work of A Woman's Concern and
the thousands of crisis pregnancy centers across the country.
The center offers medical services, pregnancy testing, material
assistance and counseling and support to women and their families
facing unplanned pregnancies.
"We offer an alternative to abortion because we don't believe
that's ever a solution,'' says Cathy Hendrixson, the center's
executive director.
Jessen says, "There may be someone...who says that it's a woman's
right to choose (whether or not to have an abortion.) Just simply
put, I would ask, "If it's all about women's rights and there's
nothing else involved, what were my rights? As a female in the
womb, what were my rights?''
"I feel that in our culture we perpetuate the idea that our
decisions only affect us. But I live with the choice that someone
made 26 years ago. Her decision didn't just affect her,'' Jessen
says.
Source: Lancaster New Era; April 17, 2003
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British scientists say fish do feel pain
LONDON, April 30 — Anglers take note — British scientists say that after years of debate, they now have proof that fish feel pain. Animal activists are on the warpath after a study released on Wednesday showed how rainbow trout react to discomfort. They condemned fishing as cruel and demanded an end to the sport — but anglers themselves dismissed the study.
THE RESEARCH FOUND that fish have receptors in their heads and that subjecting them to noxious substances causes “adverse behavioral and physiological changes.”
“This fulfils the criteria for animal pain,” said Dr. Lynne Sneddon, who headed the research, published Wednesday by the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science.
Bee venom or acetic acid was injected into the lips of some of the trout, while control groups of fish were injected with saline solution or merely handled.
The trout injected with venom or acid began to show “rocking” motion — similar to that seen in stressed higher vertebrates — and those injected with acetic acid began rubbing their lips in the gravel of their tank.
“These do not appear to be reflex responses,” Sneddon said.
The affected fish also took three times longer to resume feeding activity, compared with those in the control groups.
The team from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh found the fish had polymodal nociceptors — receptors that respond to tissue-damaging stimuli — on their heads.
It is the first time these receptors have been found in fish. They have similar properties to those found in amphibians, birds and mammals including humans.
Animal activists said the findings showed that fishing was cruel.
“We would encourage anglers to lay down their rods. It’s ridiculous that in 2003 we are still talking about whether fish feel pain — of course they do,” Dawn Carr of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told Sky News.
But anglers vowed to keep on enjoying their sport.
“Until we have proper, bona fide evidence, we will never know. It’s supposition,” said Charles Jardine, director of pro-angling group Gone Fishing. “I don’t think the millions of anglers throughout the whole of the world would see themselves as cruel individuals.”
Source: MSNBC
Back to Non-Human Animals
Jim Furnish Quits Forest Service in Act of Conscience
Jim Furnish is a life-long Republican who voted for President Bush. But he resigned after 30 years with the Forest Service to protest the agency's opening of our national forests to unsustainable logging and other quick-cash exploitation at the expense of endangered wildlife. Furnish, who was the agency's deputy chief, said he was powerless to stop the Bush administration's anti-environmental assault. "It was like I was the manager of a professional baseball team," he said. "When the team took the field, the owner made me stay in the clubhouse. In fact, I couldn't even see the game." Furnish has been speaking out against the Bush administration's proposal to gut the National Forest Management Act to allow more logging of our national forests.
Source: Defenders of Wildlife, April 30, 2003
Back to Environment
Study: Violent Lyrics Linked to Aggressive Thoughts
May 5, 2003
Yahoo News
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young adults may experience a surge in aggression-related thoughts and feelings after listening to music that contains violent lyrics, new study findings suggest.
Results of the experiments showed that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguous words and increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive versus nonaggressive words.
The study, released Sunday by the Washington, D.C.-based American Psychological Association (APA), included five experiments involving more than 500 college students. It is published in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In the study, violent songs increased feelings of hostility. The increased hostility was not an effect of differences in musical style or a specific performing artist. Instead, the violent lyrics themselves appear to be responsible for the increase in aggressive thoughts and feelings, according to the report.
Even violent songs that were of a humorous nature increased aggressive thoughts, the study showed. The researchers believe that current findings contradict a popular notion that listening to angry, violent music actually serves as a positive catharsis for people.
"Research on potential violent song effects on aggressive behavior becomes even more important now that we have clearly demonstrated that such songs increase aggressive thoughts and feelings," writes a team led by Dr. Craig A. Anderson of Iowa State University in Ames.
The music industry came under criticism from lawmakers in October for failing to use more descriptive parental advisory labels that specify whether the music contains sex, violence or strong language.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has said that current CD labels give parents enough information without violating the right to free expression.
The RIAA is the trade group for the world's five big labels, including AOL Time Warner Inc., EMI Group Plc, Bertelsmann AG, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music and Sony Corp.
In response to pressure from Tipper Gore, the wife of former Vice President Al Gore, the industry agreed in 1985 to put labels on records that contain explicit sex or violence. At the time, artists said the labels were government-sponsored censorship.
During the five experiments, Anderson's team examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists. In some cases the students heard both types of songs by the same recording artist.
After listening to the songs, students were given various psychological tests to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings, including asking the participants to classify words that have both aggressive and nonaggressive meanings, like rock and stick.
"One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters," Anderson said in a statement from the APA.
"This message is important for all consumers, but especially for parents of children and adolescents," added Anderson.
Still, Anderson's team points out that any aggressive thoughts or feelings that result from violent lyrics "may last only a fairly short time."
Commenting on the study, the RIAA said "we agree that parents should be educated so they can make their own determinations about what media content is appropriate for their children."
"More than 75 percent of parents are satisfied with our current voluntary labeling program," the group said.
The RIAA noted that it will continue to educate parents on the security, privacy and legal risks posed by illegal activity on music-sharing networks on the Internet.
"Unlike the numerous legitimate online music sites that properly display the Parental Advisory Logo, these unauthorized networks allow easy access to songs without letting parents know what their kids are listening to," the group said.
SOURCE: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003;84:960-971.
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