The most recent fertility survey, conducted in 1998, found that among women who had reached the age of 40, 19 percent had not yet had a child....In fact, 1971 was the last year when white Americans had enough children to replace themselves."

• Andrew Hacker, "The Case Against Kids," New York Review of Books, Nov. 30, 2000.

In 1998/99 "well over 70,000 human embryos were created, implanted and died" in the course of in vitro fertilization treatment in the United Kingdom. This figure contrasts to only 8,300 live births resulting from all forms of IVF treatment." One expert estimated that only 1.7 percent of IVF conceptions actually result in a live birth.

• Dr. E.L. Billings, 1999, SPUC Information Office, 12/15/00.

In the U.S., 547,000 children are in foster care. The average time spent in foster care is three years, but 18 percent remain in foster care five years or more. At least 36,000 of the children currently in foster care will never get home. They will "age-out" of foster care without a permanent family.

• "Children Under Government's Wing: Not Much Protection," Insight (a publication of the Family Research Council), July 21, 2000.

Presbyterian pastor Candace Adams and her husband have adopted five older children. They are happy to talk to you about their experience and encourage your interest in adopting older children. You can reach Candace through PPL.

"I have argued that the life of a fetus [and even more plainly, that of an embryo] is of no greater value than the life of a non-human animal at a similar level of rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, etc., and that since no fetus is a person, no fetus has the same claim to life as a person. Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus.
"A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either...the implications of this position for the status of the newborn life are at odds with the virtually unchallenged assumption that the life of a newborn baby is as sacrosanct as that of an adult....
"If we can put aside ... emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby, we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants."

• Peter Singer, Princeton University professor of ethics, in his new book, Writings on an Ethical Life.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. "Who-ever receives one such child in my name receives me."

• Matthew 18: 1-4

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