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In this article, it discusses the different opinions about transgender bathroom rights. Some people believe it is up to the school while others believe it's wrong all together. It's a controversial topic that has many sides.

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When the Obama administration directed public schools on Friday to accommodate transgender students by ensuring that they may use school bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice, the latest battle in the nation's culture wars became even more contentious. Conservatives called the action an illegal overreach that will put children in danger. Advocates for transgender rights hailed it as a breakthrough for civil rights.

High school students from around the country shared their thoughts with The New York Times on Facebook. Their opinions ranged from anger to joy, and they offered a glimpse into how students are experiencing the issue in their schools and neighborhoods.

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Zoe Allen

The Obama administration has taken significant steps in the right direction in social reform throughout its almost eight-year tenure, and this is just adding to its legacy. The United States was built on "freedom and justice for all," and discriminatory laws against transgender students simply disregard not just the Constitution, but the well-being of U.S. citizens. We live in 2016, and acceptance of everyone of every creed, race, sexuality, gender and background is not only a reflection of the time that we live in, but a necessity in American society.

−Zoe Allen, 16, Dallas

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Josh Booher

It's a decision that should be left for the school's administration and board to decide. Also, it shouldn't be a reason to pull out federal funding if schools choose not to follow this law.

It's also up to Congress to write the laws, not the executive department.
- Josh Booher, 18, Columbia, Pa.

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Grace Driggers Credit China Ard/Azalee Photography

1) I don't think it is the federal government's job to dictate what each school district does with its students. That is extreme government overreach, and it sets a bad precedent for the future.

2) I think that it is endangering females by opening the doors for any man who wants to enter locker rooms and restrooms where females are. I am not saying that transgender people will be the ones committing crimes; however, these laws and orders will allow any guy who wants to to enter these previously all-female spaces without being restricted by law. If schools want to provide a gender neutral restroom or space where transgender people can go, that is one thing, but eliminating any place where girls can go and have privacy from men is a very bad policy.
- Grace Driggers, 17, South Carolina
It is first of all not the federal government's job to determine this for every school, and to be 100 percent honest, this makes me as a female very uncomfortable. This liberal push for equality in virtually EVERYTHING is beyond ridiculous. You are given a gender, and whether you agree with it or not, you go to the bathroom you are assigned - not the one you determine. Mr. Obama, this is terrible, and for everyone out there that says this is a step for a safer environment, you are very, very mistaken.

- Abbey Morgan, Parrish, Ala.

While I agree with the Obama administration in general and am an advocate for transgender rights, I'm pessimistic about the outcome. Schools that oppose challenging the gender binary will continue to do so, as they probably already resent the fast pace of social change and left-leaning federal government. In fact, schools with conservative administrations may be even more anti-trans in defiance. More open-minded, progressive schools probably have listened to student input in allowing transgender students to use the appropriate bathrooms and don't need the federal government's advice. All in all, this decision seemed like it was made for show; however, I agree with it and its significance is in its empowerment of and official solidarity with transgender students. It gives them a voice.
- Jenny Xu, 16, New York

Andrew Figueiredo Credit Kari Schott

As a high schooler, I honestly couldn't care less which bathroom somebody uses if they're using whichever one matches their gender identification. I believe that the whole freakout on this issue is a ploy to distract people from the real issues that face us, like childhood poverty, undue corporate influence in politics and income inequality.

- Andrew Figueiredo, 18, Wichita, Kan.

Robbie Goldberg Credit Hoanghung Vancong

I'm a high schooler and the co-president of the Gay Straight Alliance at my school. I 100 percent think that this is a step in the right direction. We have been fighting for this right at my school for years and are very pleased that it is being addressed federally. We are thrilled that this will make our school a safer and more comfortable place for students to learn (and relieve themselves) regardless of their gender identity.
- Robbie Goldberg, 16, Framingham, Mass.

This is long overdue and especially appropriate. Being friends with many trans people myself, I find it nonsensical that conservatives will make up any excuse to oppose these laws, because in reality, they do not understand trans people, they do not want to and, as the word conservative implies, they are afraid of any kind of social progress. It is so easy to forget that there was extreme backlash to desegregation as well as women attending class, but the right for transgender people to use whichever bathroom they associate their identity with does indeed align with civil rights and social progress. There will be clamor, but the noise will die down eventually as people will realize this is a non-problem.
- Christian Mixson, 18, Gulf Shores, Ala.

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How High School Students See the Transgender Bathroom Issue

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When the Obama administration directed public schools on Friday to accommodate transgender students by ensuring that they may use school bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice, the latest battle in the nation's culture wars became even more contentious. Conservatives called the action an illegal overreach that will put children in danger.

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I chose the article "Does Sparkling Water Have A Downside?" This article talks about how sparkling water is healthier than soda, and other carbonated beverages, but is not as healthy as you may think. Sparkling water has no ill side effects although plain sparking water has a Ph level of 5 which is not low enough to cause tooth enamel erosion. When you add flavors to the sparkling water, it adds more acid, that can cause enamel erosion.

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Plain seltzer or sparkling water's lack of sugar, calories, added colors or artificial flavors and its relatively low acidity makes it a generally healthy choice compared to most beverage options on the market, including most sodas, juices and sports drinks. But check the product label to avoid added sweeteners or sodium or other additives.

Seltzer is water that has had pressurized carbon dioxide added to give it bubbles. Sparkling water is the umbrella term for carbonated water, including naturally carbonated sparkling mineral water and artificially carbonated seltzer and club soda. Studies have not shown ill health effects from drinking seltzer or other plain sparkling waters.

A 2006 study found an association between drinking colas and low bone mineral density. But the association was not seen in those who drank other carbonated beverages.

Colas, with their low pH (a measure of acidity), also have the potential to erode tooth enamel. But a study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Dental Association found that the pH of plain sparkling water, about 5, is not low enough to erode enamel.

Carbonation does not in itself lead to dental erosion, said Dr. John Ruby, an adjunct professor of pediatric dentistry at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, who co-authored the paper. "It's when they add citric acid or phosphoric acid that's in your classic soft drinks that the pH can drop below the critical pH of 4, where you then can have dental erosion as an outcome. For example, Coca-Cola has a pH of about 2.4," making it potentially over 100 times more erosive than sparkling water (because pH is on a logarithmic scale).

Bottled seltzers that have been flavored with citric acid, the acid found naturally in citrus fruits like lemons and limes, may be acidic enough to damage enamel. But you can get flavor in a less acidic form by adding a slice of lemon or lime (or other fruits, vegetables or herbs, such as cucumber, mint or basil) to plain sparkling water.

According to a spokesman from the American Dental Association, the greatest potential health drawback of consuming bottled sparkling water is missing out on the benefit of fluoride when you drink it instead of fluoridated tap water. In-home sparkling water makers, such as SodaStream, have gained popularity in recent years because they save money and have environmental benefits, but an additional advantage of making your own sparkling water from the tap may be the fluoride, which the ADA emphasizes is essential for maintaining long-term oral health.

An additional health note: Club soda, which contains added sodium to mimic the taste of mineral water, is not the same as seltzer. The amount of sodium can be small and varies by brand, but it can add up if consuming many servings. Too much sodium can increase blood pressure, and current sodium levels among most Americans are already considered too high.

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A Plain seltzer or sparkling water's lack of sugar, calories, added colors or artificial flavors and its relatively low acidity makes it a generally healthy choice compared to most beverage options on the market, including most sodas, juices and sports drinks. But check the product label to avoid added sweeteners or sodium or other additives.

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In my article, "The positives and negatives of using social networking sites," it talks about how social networks influence our society. Advantages including, it connects people together, share our thoughts and learn about someone. Just like anything else, there is a good side and also a bad one. The disadvantages are cyberbully, taking out a major part of our day, and privacy issues.

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Social networking is a topic that divides opinion - some people think it's an amazing tool but others are worried about the impact it has on people's lives.
From students to journalists, One Direction to the Prime Minister - lots of people use social media sites for both work and pleasure.

School Reporters from across the UK have reported on staying safe online and the perils of Twitter 'addiction' in the last few months.

Students from The Crest Girls' Academy in London are also interested in the topic and recently polled parents, carers and teachers at their school to get their views on social networking.

The survey found that 37% of those questioned had been left sleep-deprived as a result of social networking and 75% didn't like the idea of phones being kept close by while they slept. Other School Reporters have also looked into the issue of technology and its effect on teenagers' sleeping habits.

The students decided to explore the issue further and have been taking a closer look at the benefits - and potential risks - of using social networks. Here are some of their conclusions as to the main benefits and drawbacks of social media.

Negatives

Not everyone in the 21st century thinks about the negative effects of having social networking accounts - but simple things like not setting your privacy settings properly or liking someone's photo can have bad results.

Cyberbullying can be a problem as people can take advantage of the fact that there is no one who can effectively stop the bullying when it happens, due to everything being performed behind a screen. The only way for a bully to be stopped is if they are reported and victims may be too intimidated to do it.

Social networking can also ruin relationships as people may get jealous if they find out their boyfriend or girlfriend is exchanging messages with other people.

It can also be a waste of time as people can visit a site to check on thing and end up spending the whole day 'behind the screen' and as a result, not doing anything useful with their lives.

Positives

Social networking has lots of good points

You can express yourself, showing off your favourite song lyrics or posting pictures of your new outfit. It is a lot harder to feel embarrassment over the internet than in person, so people find it easier to vent their feelings on sites like Facebook.

In fact, it has become so much a part of people's lives that you can learn someone's life story just by checking their page. Their friends, likes and dislikes, relationship status, phone number, address...everything.

You can share your feelings and your mental stresses - and it is a great way to entertain yourself after a busy daily routine.

It also makes it a lot easier to keep in touch with family and friends, especially if they live far away. But you can also make new friends by connecting with friends of friends that you might not know.

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The positives and negatives of using social networking sites

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Social networking is a topic that divides opinion - some people think it's an amazing tool but others are worried about the impact it has on people's lives. From students to journalists, One Direction to the Prime Minister - lots of people use social media sites for both work and pleasure.

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In the TEDTALk video by Tristan Harris: How better tech could protect us from distraction talked about how as technologies advances, it allows people to do daily tasks with a much shorter amount of time. And with the time saved, it allows people to do something more valuble.

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How better tech could protect us from distraction

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How often does technology interrupt us from what we really mean to be doing? At work and at play, we spend a startling amount of time distracted by pings and pop-ups -- instead of helping us spend our time well, it often feels like our tech is stealing it away from us. Design thinker Tristan Harris offers thoughtful new ideas for technology that creates more meaningful interaction. He asks: “What does the future of technology look like when you’re designing for the deepest human values?”

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In this article titled "The Flip Side of Optimism about Life on Other Planets", written by Dennis Overbye,  the idea is put forth that maybe finding life elsewhere in the universe would suck. In other words, it could mean that the end is near. According to Oxford Philosopher Nick Bostrom, finding other life would mean that we are closer to the end of our species than we think because of something he calls the "Great Filter". In a shell, this theory postulates that all life to arise anywhere in the Universe must overcome a colossal obstacle in order to prevail. This great obstacle usually leads to the extinction of life wherever it crops up, and, if there truly are other advanced civilizations out there, that means we haven't hit that filter yet. Conversely, if we don’t find advanced life anywhere, we have already hurtled this mysterious obstacle and have come out on top, possibly as the first lifeforms to do so.  Either way, may the odds be ever in our favor.

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Out There

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Credit Credit Elwood Smith

If you dream of close encounters of the alien kind, this has been a hopeful summer.

In July, on the 46th anniversary of the first moon landing, Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist, said he would spend $100 million over the next decade on the search for alien signals, known as SETI, giving the field a financial stability and access to telescopes it had never had. That same week, NASA announced the discovery of what might be the most Earthlike planet yet beyond the solar system, Kepler 452b, a mere 1,400 light-years from here.

In a news conference accompanying Mr. Milner's announcement, Geoffrey Marcy, a planet hunter from the University of California, Berkeley, noted that "the universe is apparently bulging at the seams with ingredients for biology."

He said he would bet Yuri Milner's house, reportedly also worth $100 million, that there is at least microbial life out there.

You might think the discovery of microbes on Mars or fish in the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa would have scientists dancing in the streets. And you would probably be right.

But not everyone agrees that it would be such good news. For at least one prominent thinker, it would be a "crushing blow."

That would be Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford and director of the Future of Humanity Institute there, one of the great pessimists of this or any other age.

In an article published in Technology Review in 2008, Professor Bostrom declared that it would be a really bad sign for the future of humanity if we found even a microbe clinging to a rock on Mars. "Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit," he wrote.

Why?

It goes back to a lunch in 1950 in Los Alamos, N.M., the birthplace of the atomic bomb. The subject was flying saucers and interstellar travel. The physicist Enrico Fermi blurted out a question that has become famous among astronomers: " Where is everybody? "

The fact that there was no evidence outside supermarket tabloids that aliens had ever visited Earth convinced Fermi that interstellar travel was impossible. It would simply take too long to get anywhere.

The argument was expanded by scientists like Michael Hart and Frank Tipler, who concluded that extraterrestrial technological civilizations simply didn't exist.

The logic is simple. Imagine that one million years from now Earthlings launch a robot to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our own. It gets there in a few years, and a million years later sends off probes to two other star systems. A million years after that, each of those sends off two more probes. Even allowing for generous travel times, in 100 million years roughly a nonillion stars (10 ³⁰) could be visited. The galaxy contains maybe 200 billion stars, so each could be visited more than a trillion times in this robot crisscrossing.

The interstellar probe part of this is not so crazy, by the way. Serious people are already contemplating sending a probe to another star, using technology that could be achievable in the near future. See, for example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and its 100-Year Starship Study.

There are billions of potentially habitable planets in the galaxy, moreover. If only a small fraction of these develop life and technology, that would be enough to turn the whole galaxy into Times Square.

The Milky Way is 10 billion years old. So where are those aliens or their artifacts? We've found zilch. If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now. This is known as the Fermi paradox.

There are many loopholes in this argument, including the possibility that we wouldn't sufficiently recognize alien life if it camped in our front yards. The simplest explanation, Dr. Bostrom and others say, is that there are no other spacefaring civilizations.

There must be something, he concludes, that either stops life from starting at all, or shuts it down before it can conquer the stars. He calls it the Great Filter.

You can imagine all kinds of bottlenecks in the evolution of life and civilization - from the need for atoms to first combine into strands of RNA, the genetic molecule that plays Robin to DNA's Batman, to nuclear war, climate change or a mishap of genetic engineering - that could constitute a Great Filter.

The big question for Professor Bostrom is whether the Great Filter is in our past or our future, and for the answer he looks to the stars. If there is nothing else out there, then maybe we have survived whatever it is. As bizarre as it sounds, we are the first ones in the neighborhood to have run the cosmic obstacle course.

If there is company out there, it means the Great Filter is ahead of us. We are doomed.

This is a staggeringly existential piece of knowledge to have obtained at what seems to be a tender age as a species, based on a cursory examination of a sliver of our cosmic neighborhood. It is also a truly brave exercise of the power of human reason.

Maybe too brave. But there is a precedent of sorts in an old riddle known as Olbers' Paradox, after Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, a 19th-century amateur astronomer who enunciated a problem that had bothered some astronomers since the 16th century: Why is the sky dark at night? In an infinite eternal universe, every line of sight would end on a star, the thinking went, and even dust clouds would glow as bright as day.

Luminaries as disparate as the Scottish physicist Lord Kelvin and the writer Edgar Allan Poe suggested that the dark night sky was a clue to the fact that the universe is finite, at least in time, and had a beginning, a notion now cemented by the Big Bang.

If Olbers saw the dawn of time, perhaps Fermi and Bostrom have seen the sunset. We should hardly be surprised. Nothing lasts forever. The fathers of SETI, Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, stressed that a key unknown element in their equations was the average lifetime of technological civilizations. Too short a lifetime would eliminate the possibility of overlapping civilizations. Forget about the mythical brotherhood of the galaxy. The Klingons left the building long ago.

The best we could have hoped for was to be another evolutionary phase in the zigzag development of earthly life on the way to who knows what. But in a few billion years, the sun will die, and so will the earth, and our descendants - if they are still on it. The universe will not remember us or Shakespeare or Homer.

We can't really blame Professor Bostrom for that. But he has a history of disturbing thoughts. In 2003, he argued that we were probably all living in a computer simulation, something he said would be easy for "technologically mature" civilizations to do.

What his and other sci-fi-style calculations have in common is that they are extrapolations, of the doubling of chip capacity decreed by Moore's Law in the case of computer simulations, or the doubling of space probes over the eons. Believe them at your peril. Chips can't get smaller forever. Untended machines far, far from home break or forget why they are there. Apple can't keep doubling iPhone sales eternally.

As the great science writer and biologist Lewis Thomas liked to say, we are an ignorant species. This is why we do the experiment.

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The Flip Side of Optimism About Life on Other Planets

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Out There If you dream of close encounters of the alien kind, this has been a hopeful summer. In July, on the 46th anniversary of the first moon landing, Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist, said he would spend $100 million over the next decade on the search for alien signals, known as SETI, giving the field a financial stability and access to telescopes it had never had.

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In this article written by Mike Ozanian, he discusses how rising temperatures and artificial turf can be linked to the development of cancer. They look into soccer players and the type of cancers they have after playing on artificial fields for years.

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The heat is being turned up on the health issues between artificial turf and cancer.

A professor at the University of Stirling says he has identified cancer-causing chemicals in crumb samples from artificial turf soccer fields.

Specifically, the professor was analyzing 3G pitches--which claim to be the most significant and successful development in synthetic surface technology designed for football (soccer) and rugby. In 3G turf, the pile (artificial grass 'blades') is supported by a thin base layer of sand, and by an infill of rubber crumb. The pile height ranges from 40mm to 65mm depending on which primary sport is to be played on the surface.

An article in The Scotsman reports: "Samples of the crumb - pellets spread on the artificial turf to improve its bounce - were sent for testing by the Environment Scientifics Group, and the results were passed to Professor Andrew Watterson, an environmental health expert from the University of Stirling. Watterson was quoted as saying: "This report confirms and reveals the presence of a number of carcinogens at various levels in the rubber crumb. "If the chemicals and metals remain locked in to the crumb, then there will be no exposure. "However, it seems to be fairly clear that there may be some potential risk from some of these substances to sports people."

FieldTurf, a big seller of artificial turf fields, claims: " Volumes of research and testing from academics and state governments like New York, California, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and school systems have examined everything called into question about synthetic turf. The conclusions show that there isn't conclusive scientific evidence proving that artificial turf systems cause health risks. Synthetic turf is, and has always been safe. There is no scientific or medical evidence that synthetic turf poses a human health or environmental risk."

There has been concern about the safety of artificial turf for years. In 1978, experts found exposing mice to Chrysene led to a huge increase in tumours in the animals. A 1993 study into Benzo (E) Pyrene said the substance promotes tumours forming on skin.

In 2014, NBC looked into the potential link between the rubber crumbs used in artificial turf and female soccer players getting cancer. The broadcast focused on Amy Griffin, associate head coach for the University of Washington's women's soccer team. Griffin, in her words, has discovered "a stream of kids" that have played on artificial turf and soon gotten cancer. Griffin has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players-34 of them goalies-who have been diagnosed with cancer. At least a dozen played in Washington, but the geographic spread is nationwide. Blood cancers like lymphoma and leukemia dominate the list.

In response to a NBC News investigation, the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the EPA Administrator looking for more information about the safety of crumb rubber fields. Congress gave the EPA a November 6, 2015 deadline, which the EPA failed to meet.

Finally in February three U.S. government agencies will team up to study whether artificial turf fields and playgrounds that use bits of recycled tires are exposing children to dangerous chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday they will study the issue, CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye said in a statement.

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Professor Identifies Cancer-Causing Chemicals In Artificial Turf

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The heat is being turned up on the health issues between artificial turf and cancer. A professor at the University of Stirling says he has identified cancer-causing chemicals in crumb samples from artificial turf soccer fields. Specifically, the professor was analyzing 3G pitches--which claim to be the most significant and successful development in synthetic surface technology designed for football (soccer) and rugby.

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In the article "Using Mastery Learning for Success with Difficult Students", educator Melanie Taylor talks about with her experience in using mastery education for kids who were disruptive in the classroom. She explains that this method of learning allowed students to see their specific success in the classroom. She further explains how she finds mastery learning very effective in her own experiences.

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I tried every trick in the book: framing the lesson, detailed instructions, hands-on learning, proximity, hand signals, rewards, punishment, and ultimatums -- all to no avail. My middle school Spanish students continued to want to chat, throw paper airplanes, get out of their seats, and disrupt instruction. Only two things that seemed to work in getting my students to pay attention were total physical response (TPR) and worksheets.

I was in a quandary because I couldn't do TPR all the time and I only do worksheets as a last resort- though I was reaching that point very quickly.

In taking inventory of the situation (called reflection), I realized that several of the students already had Spanish language skills, and that these were some of the ring leaders of classroom disruption. Rather than let their energies be used to disrupt the class, I decided to enlist their aid in helping the students learn in Spanish. This takes some trust and certainly is a risk.

Defining Mastery Learning

I couldn't have them doing my job of teaching, but I could have them help the student to gain mastery over Spanish basics that I had already taught through a system called mastery learning.

So what is mastery learning? The concept is simple: Students master concepts and skills before going onto other learning. How do you know they mastered it? You give them tests. If they do not reach mastery, then they go back and study and take the test again until they pass it. Benjamin Bloom, of Bloom's Taxonomy fame, came up with mastery learning in 1971. This was a time when leveled readers became popular, as well as many other "go at your own pace" programs.

I had noticed that because of the unruly nature of my Spanish classes, a large portion of students had not mastered some of the real basics of Spanish using traditional methods. I also discovered that some of the basic concepts of Spanish that they should have learned the year before had not been learned. I realize that part of the difficulty is that I am teaching a high school level course in middle school, and the other part is that learning languages is not easy, no matter what age.

In the Classroom

The first thing I did was to find basic explanations of Spanish concepts and put them in study sheets that my Spanish speaking helpers could help the students understand as they individually reviewed the information. Using the mastery-learning concept, I engaged these Spanish speakers to help small groups of students in my class (no more than five) to master concrete concepts such as plural of nouns, verb agreement, and subject pronouns. They read through the sheets and they looked at the examples together.

The Spanish speaking helper would ask "checking for understanding" questions and once they felt their small group was ready, they would administer a small quiz on that subject. The students would retake the quiz until they got one hundred percent correct.

Students keep track of their progress on a chart they have in their binders. For extra motivation, I made charts with their student numbers and placed them on the wall and would fill in a square for each concept mastered.

After five concepts mastered, the students get certificates of mastery. Twice a week the class time is dedicated to mastery learning while the other three days I focus on conversation, vocabulary development, and pronunciation.

Refocusing the effort of my Spanish-speaking students using mastery learning has made all the difference. I am happy to report that the misbehavior was curbed to a great extent and the students were able to focus on learning Spanish once again. What are your successes with mastery learning?

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Using Mastery Learning for Success with Difficult Students

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I tried every trick in the book: framing the lesson, detailed instructions, hands-on learning, proximity, hand signals, rewards, punishment, and ultimatums -- all to no avail. My middle school Spanish students continued to want to chat, throw paper airplanes, get out of their seats, and disrupt instruction.

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In my article, "The Sale of Human Organs", the author outlines the positive and the negative opinions/sides that are associated with the sale of human organs. Both sides of the argument were equally represented and the facts were stated without bias. In addition, the author provided a bibliography of all the sources he used, all of which were established and of high respectability and credibility.

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The expression 'organ sale' covers a wide range of different practices. People most readily associate it with the case in which one individual (who needs or wants money) sells his or her kidney to another (who needs a kidney). But there are other possibilities too. One (in countries where the prior consent of the deceased is required for cadaveric organ donation) is to pay people living now for rights over their body after death. Another (in countries where the consent of relatives is required for cadaveric organ donation) is to pay relatives for transplant rights over their recently deceased loved ones' bodies.

Since the kidney is the most commonly transplanted organ and since the ethics literature on organ sale is mainly about kidney sale from live donors, that is the practice on which this entry will focus. 'Organ sale' as the term is used here does not include the sale of body products (a category which includes blood, eggs, hair, and sperm) since this is different in some important respects. For example, the risk of permanent harm is generally much less in the case of blood and hair donation; while, the donation of eggs and sperm raises additional issues relating to the creation and parenting of additional future people. That said, many of the fundamental issues are similar and the very same concerns about (for example) exploitation and consent arise in both cases.

An important preliminary point is that almost all serious advocates of allowing payment for human organs argue not for an unfettered 'free market' but for a regulated one. Radcliffe Richards et al. (1998, 1950) for example, in their paper "The Case for Allowing Kidney Sales" say:

It must be stressed that we are not arguing for the positive conclusion that organ sales must always be acceptable, let alone that there should be an unfettered market.

While Wilkinson (2003, 132) is typical of organ sale defenders in wishing to distance himself from today's (largely 'underground') organ trade:

... far from being a reason to continue the ban on sale, the dreadfulness of present practice may be a reason to discontinue prohibition, so that the organ trade can be brought 'overground' and properly regulated.

Different scholars have different views about the precise scope and extent of the regulation required, but most support the requirements that organ sellers give valid consent, are paid a reasonable fee, and are provided with adequate medical care. Taylor (2005, 110) for example, says that:

At minimum ... a market should require that vendors give their informed consent to the sale of their kidneys, that they not be coerced into selling their kidneys by a third party and that they receive adequate post-operative care.

One noteworthy policy proposal comes from Erin and Harris (1994; 2003) who suggest that a market in human organs should have the following features:

1. It is limited to a particular geopolitical area, such as a state or the European Union, with only citizens or residents of that area being allowed to sell or to receive organs.

2. There is a central public body responsible for making (and funding) all purchases and for allocating organs fairly in accordance with clinical criteria. Direct sales are banned.

3. Prices are set at a reasonably generous level to attract people voluntarily into the market.

Features (1) and (2) combined are supposed to rule out exploitative organ trafficking from poorer countries, while the ban on direct sales and allocation by a central agency ensure that the organs go not to those most able to pay, but to those in most need. In common with many other defenders of organ sale, Erin and Harris also propose building in practical protections for donors and recipients (e.g., adequate medical care and thorough health checkups before donation takes place).

When ethically evaluating organ sale therefore it is best to focus not on the worst aspects of today's organ trafficking practices (since that is not what any serious ethicist is defending or proposing) but rather on what a reasonably well-regulated system of organ sale, controlled by some combination of the medical profession and state regulators, would look like. More specifically, it should be assumed (as it is in what follows) that the doctors, nurses, and transplant coordinators implementing an organ sale system should at least adhere to the standards around consent and clinical care advocated by The Transplantation Society and the World Health Organisation (leaving aside of course those bodies' opposition to organ sale itself) (see Other Internet Resources section below).

One final preliminary point is the distinction between questions of law and public policy, on the one hand, and personal morality on the other. The debate about organ sale is largely about whether this should be allowed (by law) and, if so, about what system of remuneration would be best. However, there is a set of separable questions about personal morality: about (for example) whether buying an organ for oneself might be morally problematic even if it should not be prohibited. Although this distinction is important, and should be kept in mind throughout, it will not be referred to much in the following sections. That is because, for the most part, the very same arguments are used both in attempts to show that organ sale is morally problematic and in attempts to show that it ought not to be allowed.

Three main positive arguments are advanced in favour of permitting organ sale.

While there are many different variants under this heading, the basic claim common to all is that autonomous and competent adults have a strong presumptive right to do as they please with their own bodies (especially where this is not substantially harmful to third parties). Therefore, at least in the absence of strong reasons to do otherwise, people should be allowed to sell parts of their bodies if they so wish. Whether there are any such strong reasons is of course a moot point and the main candidate reasons are discussed in subsequent sections.

Not much directly will be said about these positive arguments for permitting organ sale since they rely on more fundamental and general questions in moral and political theory that cannot be tackled within the confines of a piece on organ sale (within SEP, see the entries on libertarianism, privacy and medicine, and property and ownership). Later sections will indirectly address these arguments, though, because many of the objections to sale considered could, if successful, overturn any defeasible presumption in favour of allowing 'self-ownership' to prevail.

This argument is straightforward. Permitting (or encouraging) organ sale will, it is claimed, save lives by (at least partially) alleviating the shortage of transplant organs. The saving of lives is a good end and organ sale is then defensible as a means of achieving that positive end.

The shortage of transplant organs is a major worldwide public health problem. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there are approximately 123,000 patients on transplant waiting lists in the US and around 300,000 patients waiting for an organ transplant in China (The Economist 2014). In the US in 2014, the overall median waiting time for a kidney transplant was over three and a half years (National Kidney Foundation 2014). The situation is similar in the UK (Department of Health 2014). Furthermore, waiting list sizes do not even fully reflect the actual level of need because doctors are sometimes reluctant even to list patients who they feel do not stand a realistic chance of getting an organ in time. (see Other Internet Resources section below).

Opposition to the Saving of Lives Argument takes one of two forms. It may be objected to empirically, with the critic arguing either that permitting organ sale would be ineffective or that an alternative system would work better: for example, the ways in which we approach bereaved relatives could be improved, as could the ways in which the possibility of (unpaid) living donation is publicized, or there could be a move to a Mandated Choice or Presumed Consent system (Hinkley 2005). Alternatively, one might concede the empirical point that allowing organ sale would be an effective option, but nonetheless argue that there are sufficiently strong countervailing (moral or practical) reasons to justify leaving the prohibition on sale in place. These reasons are the subject of some later sections.

The Saving of Lives Argument (unless rejected on empirical grounds) has an important role in placing the onus of proof on the shoulders of the prohibitionists (those who wish organ sale to be banned). For given that this prohibition may, in effect, be causing deaths (or at least preventing the saving of lives) a strong reason to continue with it will be required.

Many authors have pointed out that there appears to be no fundamental difference between selling organs and other widely accepted practices, particularly selling one's own 'risky labour' (work that involves a risk of harm that is the same as or greater than that involved in organ donation) (Harris 1992; Brecher 1990, 1994; Wilkinson & Garrard 1996). Furthermore, common forms of 'risky labour' (coal mining, deep-sea diving, fire fighting, military service in a just war, etc.) are often more dangerous than selling a kidney, but are regarded as heroic, rather than condemned; it is seen as just and proper to reward those who do these things. This difference in attitude cannot be justified in terms of the good consequences that 'risky labour' produces, since the consequences of an organ sale (often, saving a life) may be just as good or better. Therefore, it is inconsistent to allow people to be paid for 'risky labour' while not allowing them to be paid for their organs. Savulescu (2003, 138) makes the point as follows:

If we should be allowed to sell our labour, why not sell the means to that labour? If we should be allowed to risk damaging our body for pleasure (by smoking or skiing), why not for money which we will use to realise other goods in life? ... or consider the diver. He takes on a job as a deep sea diver which pays him an extra $30,000 ... This loading is paid because the job has higher risks to his life and health. He takes the job because he likes holidays in expensive exotic locations.

Similarly, Fabre (2006, 131) argues that:

If someone's interest in raising income by engaging in very risky activities, such as being a full-time boxer or a building-site worker, is deemed important enough to confer on her the right to do so ... there is no reason to deny her the right to make parts of her body available to others in exchange for money, even though she would incur similar risks in doing so.

Recently, some scholars have questioned whether organ sale and 'risky labour' are as similar as they might appear to be. Malmqvist (2015), for example, argues that it is not clear that kidney sales and dangerous jobs really do involve comparable risks, all things considered.

The first, and most straightforward, objection to organ sale is that it is excessively harmful or dangerous for paid organ donors. Present-day organ trafficking certainly does involve excessive and unacceptable levels of harm. But, as mentioned earlier, when considering the moral permissibility of organ sale, it is advisable to focus not on the worst case, but rather on the likely level of harm that would occur within a properly regulated system. Once this is borne in mind, the harm argument against organ sale appears vulnerable to a number of objections.

The first (an empirical point) is that the most widely discussed form of organ sale, kidney sale, is not terribly dangerous if performed in good conditions. Radcliffe Richards makes the point as follows.

... living organ donation is now so safe that many surgeons actively recommend it, and they would hardly do that if they expected a string of dead or damaged donors. They expect that virtually all donors will make a full recovery to normal health. But the only obvious difference between paid and unpaid donation is that the vendor receives something in return which is, to all appearances, a positive advantage. (Radcliffe Richards 2012, 55).

The UK body NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), for example, informs us that the risk of postoperative death (to the donor) is about one in 3,000. There is also a small risk (less than 1%) of minor complications (such as chest, wound, or urine infections). As regards long-term health risks, NHSBT claims that there is no long-term effect on the health of the donor or on his/her remaining kidney, and that donors are at no greater risk of developing kidney failure after donating than anyone in the general population. So, while there are some not completely insignificant risks to consider, arguably these are tolerable compared to both the risks to the prospective recipient of not receiving the kidney, and the financial benefit to the donor, provided that the level of reward is set at a suitably high level.

The second objection says that, if our concern is exposing the organ vendor to risk, then the last thing we should be doing is banning sale since, as Cameron and Hoffenberg put it:

It is the marginalization of paid organ donation that leads to its performance in less than ideal circumstances. Paid organ donations need be no more risky than unpaid.

In other words, the best way of avoiding harm to organ vendors is not to criminalize and drive sale underground but rather to accept and regulate it. This style of argument is familiar from other contexts: notably debates about the legalization of abortion, drugs, and prostitution.

The third (related) objection is that no matter how dangerous paid donation is, it need not be any more dangerous than unpaid donation, since the mere fact of payment does not add any danger. So if paid donation is wrong because of the danger to which the donor is subjected, then free donation must also be wrong on the very same ground. Free donation, though, is not wrong; on the contrary, it is generally regarded as commendable and heroic. Therefore, paid donation is not wrong either; or, if it is wrong, it is wrong because of something other than the danger to which the donor is subjected (Radcliffe Richards 2012; Wilkinson and Garrard 1996).

It might be argued that what is wrong with organ sale is not danger per se but rather the fact that someone is being paid to endanger herself. There are two readings of this. One is as a worry about consent, the idea being that payment invalidates the vendor's consent; this will be examined in Section 5. The other is as a moral principle according to which (independently of concerns about consent) it is wrong to pay someone to endanger herself. Quite what the basis for such a principle might be is hard to fathom and it does seem implausible for reasons given during the earlier discussion of consistency. Paying people to undertake dangerous and/or unpleasant work is widespread and, while the world might well be a better place if people were not required to undertake such tasks, it would be hard to defend the view that all such arrangements are wrong: especially in those cases where the work is done voluntarily for fair pay.

A very different style of argument against organ sale appeals to the supposed value of altruism. These arguments arise in a number of different forms, but most of them have the following underlying structure:

1. Altruism is a good thing, either intrinsically, or because of its positive effects (or both).

2. Permitting and/or practicing organ sale would lessen the amount of altruism in the world.

3. So we ought not to permit and/or practice organ sale.

Altruism is usually defined as acting out of a concern for the well-being of others (Nagel 1970; Scott & Seglow 2007). Why might one think that such actions are morally good? Two main answers are available. The first is that altruism is intrinsically good and to be contrasted with morally bad characteristics and motivations, in particular selfishness. The second (which is not incompatible with the first) says that altruism is good because of its positive effects, not only its direct effects on the person to whom the altruism is directed but also its indirect effects on society. Both answers have considerable plausibility. Many examples of acting out of disinterested concern for the well-being of others do seem to be clear-cut cases of moral virtue. And it seems likely that, all other things being equal, a society with more altruistic acts would be a better place to live than one with fewer.

That said, two reservations about the claim that altruism is a good thing should be noted. First, altruistic acts are not always morally good. Scott and Seglow (2007, 2) give the following very pertinent example:

Consider the racist organ donor ... who wishes to donate their organs, but only to those of their own race. They are altruistic but hardly moral.

Indeed, there seem to be several ways in which an altruistic act might be wrong. For example:

1. The altruist is culpably mistaken about what is really in the interests of the person s/he is trying to help and ends up harming rather than helping.

2. The altruist benefits the person s/he is trying to help, but her intervention is wrongfully paternalistic.

3. The altruist benefits the person s/he is trying to help, but in so doing wrongfully harms innocent third parties.

It is not hard to come up with examples in which A loves B so much that A is prepared to do bad things to a third party, C, in order to benefit A. Such cases range from minor wrongdoing to serious evil. So, as McLachlan (1998) points out, while many acts of altruism are paradigm cases of virtue, others are 'extremely wicked'.

In defence of the value of altruism, it could be argued that even though many altruistic acts are wrong, all things considered, nonetheless altruism is always a positive (or 'right-making') characteristic. On this view, the analysis of Scott and Seglow's racist donor example is that, while his racism is to be condemned, his altruism is not and that, in the case of racist donation (assuming that this really is wrong, all things considered), the 'negative' racism simply outweighs the 'positive' altruism. If this view is correct, then the claim that some altruistic acts are wrong becomes less relevant than it might at first appear, since what matters is the value of altruism as a positive moral property of actions, not whether all altruistic acts are good or permissible all things considered.

... if to a voluntary blood donor system we add the possibility of selling blood, we have only expanded the individual's range of alternatives. If he derives satisfaction from giving ... he can still give, and nothing has been done to impair that right (Arrow 1972, 350).

As the quotation from Arrow (above) suggests, there is a puzzle about why permitting payment for blood or organs should be thought to reduce the amount of altruism in the world. For why couldn't paid and unpaid donation systems peacefully coexist, with people who want to give freely continuing to do so? Furthermore, paid donations may even add to the amount of altruism in the world. For there can be cases in which a person sells an organ not for 'selfish' reasons, but in order to pay (for example) for someone else's medical care (Brecher 1994).

Given this, how exactly will allowing organ sale lead to there being less altruism in the world? The main answer given is that it would undermine the practice of free donation. Abouna (1991, 167), for example, claims that there is:

... considerable evidence to indicate that marketing in human organs will eventually deprecate and destroy the present willingness of members of the public to donate their organs out of altruism.

One explanation for this is that when we give people financial incentives to do some act this undermines or reduce the extent to which they feel morally obliged to do that act. In this way, financial incentives 'crowd out' altruism (Satz 2010, 193; Sandel 2012).

But is it really true that kidney sale would undermine the practice of free donation? Well, it could do and ultimately this is a contested empirical matter about which, as a mere philosopher, one ought not to claim to have an authoritative view. That said, there are reasons for scepticism about the claim that kidney sale would undermine the practice of free donation.

The most important of these is that, at least as far as living donation is concerned, there is not a very large practice out there to be undermined. Given the pain and inconvenience involved, free donation is likely to remain a minority pursuit. Living donation is admittedly on the rise and, according to the National Kidney Foundation, almost a third of US kidney transplants in 2014 came from live donors. However, this is still a 'drop in the ocean' compared to the 102,000 people on the waiting list and a majority of these live donors are friends or (more commonly) relatives of the recipient, or are part of a 'pairing arrangement' (where A's relative donates to B, and B's relative donates to A). Given such people's strong interest in saving their friends' or relatives' lives, one would think that many of them will not be put off by the mere possibility of payment. And it is notable that fewer than 200 people in the US in the same year became unrelated anonymous live donors.

Kidneys may then be importantly different from (say) blood. For if there is no substantial system of free donation in place, then free donation cannot be undermined by permitting sale. But if an almost adequate system of free donation does exist (as, in many countries, it does with blood) then there is a serious possibility of its being undermined. Thus, the argument which says that what is wrong with sale is that free donation would be undermined might well work for blood, even if it does not for kidneys. The same might be true of the arguments in favour of an altruistic blood system proposed by Titmuss and others. Perhaps the voluntary blood donation system (and indeed a voluntary posthumous organ donation system) can be used as a method of encouraging a valuable culture of altruism, but this is much less likely to work in the case of living organ donation (Archard 2002; Campbell 2009; Titmuss 1997).

This difference between kidneys and blood reveals a general structural difficulty for altruism arguments against sale. For altruism arguments (insofar as they work at all) work better for those things which are already freely donated on a large scale, than for those things which are hardly freely donated at all. Hence, they will tend to be most successful where, in a sense, they are needed least-because if there is already widespread free donation, then commercialization will be unnecessary. This is not a decisive objection, since there are things which are in short supply in spite of widespread free donation (blood and sperm might be examples of this). But it is a problem for this style of argument because there will be a tendency for it to be least successful where it is most needed (Radcliffe Richards 1996, 2009, 2012; Wilkinson & Moore 1999).

However, even if altruism can survive this first challenge, there is a second reason to question its importance for the debate about the permissibility of organ sale. This is the distinction between cases in which altruism is obligatory (where there is a moral duty to help others) and those in which altruism is supererogatory (morally good, but not morally required-going 'above and beyond' one's duty) (Wilkinson 2003). This distinction is relevant for the following reason. If (say) altruistic kidney donation were morally obligatory, then to demand money for one's organ (and, arguably, to accede to such a demand) would be wrong. But if, on the other hand, altruistic donation were supererogatory, then to demand money for one's organ would not be wrong. Rather, it would be merely non-supererogatory: perhaps not good, but not wrong. So, with this distinction in place, one might (at least in some cases) accept that altruistic donations are good whilst also saying that there is nothing wrong with non-altruistic donation-the point being that non-altruistic donation, while not as good as altruistic donation, is nonetheless (morally) permissible. This has implications for the sort of altruism argument which can be made against organ sale. If it could be shown that altruistic donation is obligatory then the argument would be stronger, or at least more straightforward, because it would follow that selling was wrong (it is wrong to demand money for what one ought to be giving freely anyway). But if all that could be shown was that altruistic donation is good, then it would not follow from this, or at least it would not follow directly, that selling is wrong. For it might be merely non-supererogatory (Wilkinson & Garrard 1996).

This may be one area then where the differences between different possible organ sale systems are relevant. For it is not wildly implausible to posit the existence of a duty to donate one's organs for posthumous transplantation. Indeed, this view is not confined to utilitarian bioethicists, with even the Church of England stating in 2007 that (posthumous) organ donation is a Christian duty (BBC News Online 2007). Thus there may well be a valid altruism argument against a system in which people sell rights to their body after death: the argument being that they should donate them anyway without expecting payment. This style of argument looks less promising, though, when looking at non-directed living kidney donation (to strangers). Here, I suspect most of us want to say that becoming such a donor is heroic and supererogatory, not a moral obligation, and so the altruism argument does not engage. Another interesting example is blood (from living donors). In many countries, there is a widespread view that people ought to do this freely and (if this view is correct) this could underpin an altruism argument against paying for blood: the claim being that people ought not to be paid for that which they have an obligation freely to give.

Monetary incentives, it is sometimes argued, make valid consent difficult, impossible, or problematic (Radcliffe Richards 2010, 2012). Some of the main arguments offered for this view are that-

1. Financial incentives encourage people to do things that they would not otherwise do.

2. Financial incentives encourage people to do things that are likely to be harmful to them and which go against their 'better judgement'.

3. Financial incentives can make people's actions, consents, and decisions less autonomous or less voluntary (Wilkinson 2005).

(a) will not work. For the fact that payments encourage people to do things that they otherwise would not does not, in and of itself, invalidate consent. If it did, consent problems would be endemic and occur every time someone was encouraged by payment to go to work for wages or to surrender property for a price. So although some people would only provide organs because of the money, this fact alone would not invalidate consent.

(b) is more plausible. Or at least it is plausible to suppose that we ought not to encourage donors to subject themselves to more than a certain level of danger. But the fundamental problem with this would be not payment or consent, but rather the fact that they are exposed to too much danger. So, provided that we have an adequate way of controlling and regulating risk to organ sellers this particular worry about payment ought not to arise.

This is supported by two additional considerations.

First, as mentioned earlier, the amount of danger remains the same regardless of whether or not payment takes place. So if someone objects to paying donors on the grounds that payment will encourage excessive risk-taking, s/he ought to object to donation itself (including free donation) not just the payment. Imagine someone who objects to paying astronauts on the grounds that it encourages them to do something excessively dangerous. Surely we should say to her that, if the objection is danger, s/he should object to space travel in general, not (just) to paid space travel. Much the same goes for paying organ donors. If the worry is danger, we should object to dangerous donation of all kinds, not just the paid variety.

Second, it is not clear that monetary incentives make people act against their better interests or judgement. Indeed, this is a rather surprising view to take since people trade off monetary gains and losses against other factors on a daily basis; commerce and work require us to do this all the time. So if an adequately informed and competent person decides, after deliberation, that it is worth subjecting herself to a given risk in return for $10,000 then we should not just assume that s/he is acting against her better judgement since, for all we know, the $10,000 is more valuable to her than avoiding the risk (Wilkinson 2005).

Finally, there is (c): the idea that financial incentives, when allowed to operate in certain conditions, 'pressurise' people in ways which are harmful and/or which render their decisions not truly voluntary. Rippon (2014, 148), for example, tells us that:

... because people in poverty often find themselves either indebted or in need of cash to meet their own basic needs and those of their families, they would predictably find themselves faced with social or legal pressure to pay the bills by selling their organs, if selling organs were permitted. So we would harm people in poverty by introducing a legal market that would subject them to such pressures.

It is difficult, he argues:

... to see how regulation could prevent the kind of pressure in question, while still maintaining the organ supply. Suppose that a high minimum price for organs was set. This would prevent one sort of exploitation ... as everyone who sold an organ would be substantially compensated for it. However, this would do nothing to address the problem that some might sell their organs out of economic desperation, rather than out of a choice made free from external pressure.

The underlying argument here is that certain sorts of payment, or payment in certain circumstances, exert undue influence on a person's decision (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002). Accusations of undue inducement almost always occur in one of two different contexts. The first is where the 'victim' of the inducement is in desperate need of money; the second is where the 'victim' is not desperate, but is offered such a huge amount of money to do X that doing X becomes almost irresistible. Wilkinson terms these 'desperate offeree' cases and 'enormous offer' cases. One notable thing that these have in common is that there is a huge gap between the offeree's welfare-level if s/he does not accept the offer, and her welfare-level if s/he does accept (Wilkinson 2003).

Is valid consent possible in these cases? In both scenarios it may be terrifically hard to decline. However this does not mean that valid consent to the offer is impossible. Radcliffe Richards (2010, 291) makes the point as follows:

It does not normally occur to us that people coerced by circumstances into doing things they would not otherwise do should have their consent regarded as invalid. If you have cancer, with the choice between risking its unchecked progression and putting up with pretty nasty treatments, nobody would think of arguing that the narrow range of options made your consent to treatment invalid.

So even if we grant that the recipients of enormous offers and desperate offerees will find it hard to refuse, this does not mean that they cannot validly consent. This must be so. Otherwise, it would be impossible for anyone ever to consent validly to lifesaving operations, not to mention lottery 'jackpot' wins or large wage rises; the mere fact that a proposal is tremendously attractive does not mean that it cannot be voluntarily accepted.

A slightly different tack is to invoke the idea of coercion by circumstances, specifically coercion by poverty (Annas 1984; Rippon 2014; Torcello & Wear 2000). Thus, someone might argue that even though valid consent from 'desperate' people is possible in principle for the reasons just given, consent will normally be invalid when the person consenting (e.g., to selling her kidney) is coerced by poverty. The difference between coercion by poverty and Radcliffe Richards' cancer example is supposed to be that whereas the cancer is a morally neutral natural occurrence, the poverty (at least in some cases) is the result of immoral acts and policies; it is unjust poverty.

One initial response to the 'coercion by poverty' refers us back to the fact that almost all defenders of organ sale are arguing not for unfettered international trafficking in transplant organs but rather for a regulated system of compensation. Within the context of a regulated system (particularly that advocated by Erin and Harris, which would be limited to one economic area) there is no reason to believe that most organ sellers would be desperately poor. Organ sale may admittedly be more attractive to those with the least money (for why would someone rich need or want to sell an organ?) but then much the same can be said of some of the least sought-after and worst paid agricultural and cleaning jobs, and we do not generally say that people cannot consent to do these or that these types of employment should be banned.

But let us allow for the sake of argument that organ vendors would be very poor. What would follow from this? Poverty (or threatening poverty) can clearly be a method of coercion. An obvious example of this is the behaviour of exploitative employers during times of high unemployment. They can threaten workers with unemployment-and, hence, poverty-if they do not comply with their demands (Wilkinson 2003). The position of the prospective organ buyer though seems rather unlike that of the exploitative employer and, as Wilkinson and Moore (1999, 378) point out:

... it is a necessary condition of an offer's being coercive that the offerer is also responsible for the bad circumstances of the offeree. For example, if we poison you and then offer to provide the only available antidote in exchange for your stamp collection, that is coercive. If you are poisoned in a way for which we are not responsible, and we make the same offer, that is not coercive ... as long as those making an offer are not responsible for the circumstances of the potential subjects, their offer is not coercive.

So in order for prospective organ purchasers to be coercing through poverty, they must be responsible for the poverty. This need not mean that they caused the poverty, for people may be responsible for (improving or preventing) situations that they have not themselves caused. Hence, another scenario in which the buyers may be responsible is if they have a positive duty to rescue the prospective sellers from poverty (and 'for free' rather than in exchange for an organ).

An illuminating analogy is Nozick's Drowning Case (Nozick 1969, 449). This is a situation in which P (the occupant of a boat) offers to save Q (who is drowning close to the boat) but only if Q promises to pay P $10,000 within three days of reaching shore. One view of this case is that P coerces Q (into paying) if and only if P has a freestanding duty to save Q without reward. Whether P does in fact have such a duty is not something we need to decide upon here and that will depend upon a wide range of facts about the situation.

Organ vendors then are somewhat like the person in the boat. If they have an independent duty to alleviate the poverty (i.e., a duty that does not depend on their getting an organ in return) then to insist on an organ for the money (when they should have been giving the money anyway) would be coercive. It would be like charging someone who would otherwise drown in a situation where there is a duty freely to rescue.

It is not hard to see how, in principle, this style of coercion argument could work against organ sale. What is much harder is working out whether, in most of the cases envisaged, organ buyers have a duty to alleviate the poverty. The case most often discussed is where the organ purchaser is a rich Westerner and the vendor is someone desperately poor from the developing world. The Westerner, it is said, uses poverty to 'force' (coerce) the poor person into giving up the organ. This may be the case if the Westerner has a duty to alleviate the prospective organ seller's poverty. But, as well as difficult general questions about global distributive justice and the like, there is also the question of whether the individual in question is directly responsible for alleviating the other's poverty in these cases. The problem with attributing responsibility to individual organ purchasers is that the extent to which they have a positive 'duty to rescue' those in dire poverty may vary enormously depending on their own positions of wealth and power, and on the extent to which they have already done virtuous things in an attempt to act on their duties towards the poor. For example, a Western organ purchaser could have already devoted a large part of her income and time to charitable projects aimed at the alleviation of poverty and may herself have relatively little money-just enough to buy a kidney. Do we really want to say that such a person has a duty to give her money to the prospective organ vendor without receiving the kidney (without which she may well die) in return?

A more promising option is to focus on groups rather than individuals. One might argue, for example, that the rich nations have a duty to alleviate poverty in the poor nations. With this (plausible) assumption in place, it could then be argued that when the rich nations collectively offer the poor nations money (but only) in return for organs, this is not really an offer, but rather a threat (a threat to wrongfully withhold resources if they do not hand over organs). The rich nations (it is argued) should be giving the money anyway, not demanding organs in return for it. So what the rich nations are doing is threatening to withhold resources to which the poor nations have a moral right, unless the poor nations hand over organs: a seemingly clear case of coercion.

However, there is a further problem with the 'coercion by poverty' argument-or at least there is a serious problem with attempting to use it specifically as an argument for the legal prohibition of organ sale. The problem is that the argument works equally well against all trade between the rich nations and the poor ones. For (in simplistic terms) if the rich nations have a duty to give resources to the poor nations, then any time that the rich nations insist on trading rather than donating, they will be practicing coercion-threatening to withhold money that they should be giving anyway, unless they are provided with goods of one sort or another. And, as far as the coercion argument is concerned, there is no reason to single out the trade in organs for special treatment. This looks like a decisive objection to the coercion argument. Either it does not work at all, or it works but 'proves too much' and gives us no reason to single out organ sale for condemnation and/or prohibition.

One possible reply to this is to make a distinction between forms of global trade which benefit developing world economies and societies and those which do not. One might then argue that a difference between the organ trade and (say) the development of hi-tech manufacturing is that only the latter has the potential to emancipate populations in the longer-term, whereas buying an organ is merely a 'resource grab' with no positive side-effects on socio-economic development. Like many of the other arguments discussed in this entry, much depends on the how the empirical evidence shapes up, but this response does seem to have some plausibility. However, it could still be claimed that the international organ trade is no worse (as far as the quality of consent is concerned) than any other form of international trade which fails positively to contribute to long-term development. So perhaps the organ trade is (in this respect) on a par with logging, or mining, or some basic forms of agriculture.

Perhaps more importantly, though, we must remember that, in any case, most of these concerns about coercion and poverty can be dealt with by having a controlled system such as the Erin-Harris proposal. Of course it is not the case that there is no unfair poverty within the Western countries that they have in mind. And so, even under the Erin-Harris system, some account would have to be taken of the coercion by poverty argument. Perhaps, for example, we would want to say that, in order for the national organ purchasing agency not to be coercing-by-poverty it needs to be the case that there is a minimum wage law and a welfare state that are at least close to being fair, so that there is no poverty in society for which the state is morally responsible (either actively or by omission). This is probably a lot to ask but then we must remember that any actual organ sale system, along with all other aspects of the economy, is unlikely to be perfect; and, provided that the organ sale system is not substantially more exploitative or harmful than most other widely accepted economic transactions then it would seem arbitrary and unfair to single it out for particular condemnation or prohibition.

Finally, Radcliffe Richards offers an argument to the effect that even if there is a consent problem caused by 'coercion through poverty' (a claim about which she is sceptical) this is unlikely to be a sound basis for prohibiting sale. She asks us to consider a case in which your daughter is kidnapped. The kidnappers ask for a ransom in return for your daughter's life. Clearly, your consent to this arrangement (if forthcoming) would be invalid because coerced. But-

Suppose the police appeared on the kidnapping scene and prevented you from signing the [ransom payment] document, perhaps with the outcome that your child was shot. They might have good public policy reasons for doing this ... but it would be preposterous for them to claim that they were doing it because the consent you were trying to give would be invalid ... [T]he whole point of declaring invalidity is to protect the alleged consenter, and here the police would actually be compounding the wrong done to you by constricting still further the range of options already constricted by the kidnapper (Radcliffe Richards 2010, 294).

According to Radcliffe Richards, this is analogous to the situation in which state action is used to prevent organ sale. As with the kidnapping, there may be legitimate reasons for such state action (for example, if the police suspect that the organ purchaser's surgeon is planning to take several organs and then kill the organ vendor). However, the invalidity of the seller's consent (due to poverty) would not in and of itself be a sufficient reason for state intervention in these circumstances.

Since the metaphorical coercer (poverty) is still present, and the individual is making the best choice among a still-constricted range of options, disallowing the choice is like preventing you from meeting the demands of the kidnapper while he still has your child (Radcliffe Richards 2010, 294).

So even if there is a quality of consent problem in these organ sale cases this is unlikely to justify prohibition.

Perhaps the most commonly discussed objection to organ sale is the claim that it is exploitative (Greasley 2014; Hughes 1998; Lawler 2011, 2014; Wilkinson 2003). Saying what exploitation amounts to is itself a complex task, however, and I will not say much here about how it should be defined (see the SEP entry on exploitation). It is, however, worth noting that, on one view, defective (or invalid) consent is a necessary condition for the occurrence of exploitation. Thus (according to this view) a transaction can only be exploitative if the putative victim of exploitation is coerced, lacking capacity, ill-informed, or manipulated (or more generally, if there is some consent-invalidating factor in play). If this view of the relationship between consent and exploitation were correct, then the discussion of exploitation could be ended here; for consent issues were dealt with in the previous section and the exploitation worry about organ sale would only be worth taking seriously inasmuch as those consent arguments discussed above were sound. However, not everyone thinks that defective consent is required for there to be exploitation and so there may be some mileage in looking independently at exploitation.

Similar thoughts apply to the unjust distribution of benefits and burdens. One view is that a transaction can only count as exploitative if the relevant benefits and burdens are unfairly distributed in favour of the exploiter and/or against the exploited. With this in mind, Harris (1992, 120) usefully distinguishes between two kinds of exploitation-claim. The first:

... involves the idea of some disparity in the value of an exchange of goods and services.

Exploitation concerns of this kind, or at least most of them, can be taken care of by utilizing some version of the Erin-Harris proposal (discussed above) since this is designed to ensure that organ sellers receive just rewards and adequate care, whilst also going a long way towards ensuring that the distribution of organs to transplant recipients is fair. And while there may be some practical obstacles to creating such a system there seem no reasons to suppose that it is impossible in principle.

There is, however, another sense of 'exploitation'. This is:

... the idea of wrongful use and may occur when there are no financial or commercial dimensions to the transaction. A classic case here would be where it is claimed that lovers may exploit one another, that is, use one another in some wrongful way. The most familiar of such wrongful ways in this context might be where it is claimed that one partner uses the other or treats the other merely as a 'sex object' (1992, 120).

Similarly Goodin (1987, 166) notes that:

Lovers can exploit one another just as surely as can economic classes. Yet neither party in an affectionate relationship is functioning in any standard sense as a 'factor of production'. Nor, since neither party is creating valuable objects in any ordinary respect, does it in that context make much sense to define exploitation in the standard economics-based terms ...

So it looks as if (in Harris's terms) 'wrongful use' exploitation is independent of some of the usual concerns about distributive justice and could persist even within a distributively fair organ sale system. Exploitation of this second kind is closely related to a number of other concepts or terms (Wilkinson 2003). One of these is objectification: wrongfully treating something (or someone) that is not a mere object as if it were a mere object. Another is instrumentalisation, which can be similarly defined as treating something (or someone) that is not a mere means as if it were a mere means (Davis 2009). A third is commodification, treating something (or someone) that is not a mere commodity as if it were a mere commodity (Sandel 2012; Wilkinson 2000). These ideas are closely connected to the Kantian idea of dignity (Radin 1996). As Dillon (2010) puts it, on this view:

To be a person is to have a status and worth that is unlike that of any other kind of being: it is to be an end in itself with dignity. And the only response that is appropriate to such a being is respect.

So we have the claim that exploitation, objectification, instrumentalisation, or commodification could occur within distributively fair transactions. How might this apply in the case of organ sale? Specifically, how could these ideas underpin a sound moral argument against organ sale?

In common with some of the arguments considered earlier, attempts to use these ideas in an argument against organ sale run up against two problems. First, there is the similarity of (free) donation and sale. Let us say that someone objects to organ sale (even where there is consent and distributive justice) on the grounds that the seller's body (organ) or the seller herself is objectified or instrumentalised. This immediately raises the question of why the very same consideration does not apply to (free) donation, which is standardly thought to be admirable rather than morally dubious. For in both cases, a part of the donor's (or vendor's) body is removed and treated (quite possibly solely) as a means by the recipient and the transplant team.

Then, second, there is the question of consent. For can we really make sense of someone being instrumentalised or objectified (in the relevant normative or pejorative senses of these terms) if what is done to them is done with valid consent, and especially if what is done to them would not have been done but for their giving of valid consent? So one possible principle that we might wish to endorse here is that:

If A requires and obtains from B valid consent to do x to B, that is sufficient to guarantee that, in doing x to B, A does not wrongfully instrumentalise or objectify B.

Or, to put it another way, as with the other sort of exploitation discussed above, perhaps even instrumentalisation and objectification turn out to rely on defective consent: or perhaps rather on the fact that the putative instrumentaliser (objectifier) does not care about or require valid consent. Alternatively we might make this principle slightly more cautious and include a substantial harm constraint as follows:

If A requires and obtains from B valid consent to do x to B, and if doing x to B will not substantially harm B, that is sufficient to guarantee that, in doing x to B, A does not wrongfully instrumentalise or objectify B.

To help think through these principles consider the case of Manuel Wackenheim. Wackenheim is a (so-called) 'dwarf' who (until a ban was imposed by the local mayor) made a living from being 'tossed' by customers in bars and nightclubs. This 'tossing' formed part of a dwarf throwing competition-a sport 'in which the aim of the competitors is to fling a dwarf over the furthest distance possible' (Millns 1996, 375). Wackenheim appeared keen to pursue his chosen career and didn't welcome the ban on dwarf throwing, saying 'this spectacle is my life; I want to be allowed to do what I want'.

Wackenheim can be regarded both as intrinsically valuable as a person but also as instrumentally valuable as an object (specifically as a projectile). That is, there is no reason in principle why a friend of his could not both respect him as an 'end' and recognise the fact that his body is formed in a way which makes it instrumentally valuable to 'dwarf throwers'. But could Wackenheim's friend actually use him as a projectile, whilst at the same time respecting the fact that he is a person or (in Kantian terms) an end-in-himself? It is the overall context of the relationship, along with other structural features of the situation, which determine whether he is appropriately respected. Surely this must be right, for it would be extraordinarily hard to argue plausibly that it is impossible, in all contexts, to use Wackenheim as a projectile whilst at the same time respecting his personhood. For what if he enjoys being thrown, gets paid for it, and freely and knowingly consents to it? If for these reasons-i.e., because I want to ensure that he derives pleasure and money, and am certain that it is what he really wants etc.-I throw him, then there seems no basis whatsoever for saying that I am failing to respect his personhood. For in such a case, I am (let us assume) deliberately giving him what he wants (and wants in a free, informed and otherwise autonomous way) and deliberately benefiting him. How can this be a failure to recognise his status as an 'end'?

It is difficult to see how it could be. Although we should add two caveats. First, this doesn't rule out the existence of other separate moral objections to 'dwarf throwing'. Second, there certainly are contexts in which this practice would constitute wrongful instrumentalisation. These may include cases in which the people thrown are substantially harmed and cases in which they do not consent or in which their consent is invalid. Indeed, this is the main point. What does all the ethical work here is context: in particular issues relating to the existence and quality of the 'dwarf's' consent-and perhaps also those relating to harm and welfare.

Much the same goes for organ sale, or indeed (unpaid) organ donation. When we look at a person with a view to using her organs for transplantation we are of course viewing at least the organ, or possibly even the person, as a means to an end, and as a useful object. But this is not inconsistent with also respecting the person's dignity and viewing her as an end-in-herself provided that we take seriously the person's rational agency by requiring her valid consent for the organ removal and by ensuring that any risk of harm is minimized and reasonable. The particular issues for organ sale (as opposed to free donation) then turn out to be those discussed at length in previous sections. Perhaps there is an increased risk that consent will be flawed in sale cases; if organ removal proceeded without proper consent then that could be a failure to respect the person. And perhaps there is an increased risk that harm will occur in sale cases; if so (and if the risk goes above a certain level) then perhaps this also would constitute a failure to respect the person. Thus the appeal to dignity, instrumentalisation, and objectification would seem merely to amplify some of the concerns aired previously about consent and harm.

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The expression 'organ sale' covers a wide range of different practices. People most readily associate it with the case in which one individual (who needs or wants money) sells his or her kidney to another (who needs a kidney). But there are other possibilities too.

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In Chris Urmson's ted talk,"How a driverless car sees the road", he goes into the operational nuances of a self-driving car. He introduces this by talking about how 1.3 million people die on roads every year, most of which are due to human error. He later goes into how self-driving car technology could help those who are intellectually or physically disabled people get around. He presents the fascinating laser technology that self-driving cars use to make decisions 8 orders of magnitude faster than any human ever could. He compares it to "I can train to run as fast as I can, but I can never run as fast as the speed of light". This illustrates the safety implications of self-driving cars, a road without accidents. He finishes the talk by mentioning his 11 year old son who will get his license in 4.5 years, he says his job is to make sure that doesn't happen.

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Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road

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Statistically, the least reliable part of the car is ... the driver. Chris Urmson heads up Google's driverless car program, one of several efforts to remove humans from the driver's seat. He talks about where his program is right now, and shares fascinating footage that shows how the car sees the road and makes autonomous decisions about what to do next.

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In the article "US Strikes Help Libyan Forces Against ISIS in Surt" by Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt from the NY Times talks about the US getting involved in the fight against ISIS by providing airstrikes. As ISIS advanced deeper into Surt. United States officials say that the airstrikes are necessary for the "American national security interest"

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Libyan forces allied with the United Nations-backed interim government firing a shell from a Soviet T-55 tank at Islamic State fighters in Surt, Libya, on Tuesday. Credit Credit Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday stepped up a new bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Libya, conducting its first armed drone flights from Jordan to strike militant targets in the coastal city of Surt.

President Obama, during a news conference, said the airstrikes were critical to helping Libya's fragile United Nations-backed government to drive Islamic State militants out of Surt, which the group has controlled since June 2015.

Calling the strikes necessary to protect American national security interests, the president promised that the air campaign would continue as long as necessary to make sure that the extremist group "does not get a stronghold in Libya." He also linked instability in Libya to the migration crisis in Europe.

The new round of airstrikes came as Libyan forces were reported by Agence France-Presse to be making advances in their months-old offensive to oust the Islamic State from Surt. The advances were aided by two American airstrikes on Tuesday, United States officials said. The day before, the United States opened the campaign by carrying out five airstrikes, two of which were announced by the Pentagon then.

A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, told reporters that the targets in Surt included two tanks, construction vehicles, military vehicles, a rocket launcher and an Islamic State fighting position. He said one strike, which destroyed a T-72 tank in the Surt neighborhood of Al Dular, had helped Libyan forces on the ground.

The tank "had really proved to be a menacing problem for the G.N.A.," Captain Davis said, referring to Libya's interim government of national accord. Fighters working with the government had asked that the tank be destroyed. Captain Davis said Islamic State fighters had repeatedly used the tank to "beat back advances."

Once the tank was destroyed, Libyan forces were able to enter the neighborhood, he said.

The Pentagon said on Monday that another T-72 tank and two transport vehicles had been struck.

Pentagon officials declined to publicly identify the sites from which the strikes were being launched. But three United States military officials said they were being conducted by Harrier jets from the amphibious assault ship Wasp in the Mediterranean and by armed Reaper drones from a base in Jordan. The officials said the strikes could provide vital leverage to the Libyan forces.

The attacks are the first time that the United States has flown armed drone missions from Jordan, a staunch ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon also conducts drone flights from a base in Sicily, but those missions are restricted to surveillance. A spokeswoman for the Jordanian Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

Under the procedures set up for the Surt operation, Libyan ground commanders meet at a Libyan operations center outside Surt with American Special Operations forces who have been in the country for months. The Libyan commanders request targets they want the Americans to hit, such as the T-72 tanks.

The American forces, working with military spotters and officials at the United States Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, analyze the prospective targets using imagery from American surveillance drones and other intelligence. If deemed valid and not too great a risk to civilians, the targets are approved for attack.

Captain Davis said that it was hard to predict how long the air campaign would last, but that it would probably be "weeks, not months," given the relatively small size of the contested city center of Surt.

He said that the Islamic State fighters now numbered in the hundreds in Surt, down from several thousand, and that many had fled into the desert or other Islamic State enclaves in the country.

The president, during his news conference Tuesday with the visiting prime minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, expressed regret that the 2011 NATO-led bombing campaign that had driven Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power in Libya had also led to the deterioration of the country.

"I think that all of us, collectively, were not sufficiently attentive to what had to happen the day after, and the day after, and the day after that, in order to ensure that there were strong structures in place to assure basic security and peace inside of Libya," Mr. Obama said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Strikes Help Libyans Move on Surt Against ISIS. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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U.S. Strikes Help Libyan Forces Against ISIS in Surt

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WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday stepped up a new bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Libya, conducting its first armed drone flights from Jordan to strike militant targets in the coastal city of Surt.

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My article " Why Schools Can't Teach Sex Ed" pretty much talked about why sex education isn't really taught in schools anymore. The author doesn't necessarily state their opinion but shows facts they have found from their research. The purpose of this article was to teach parents and adults alike how young people are receiving their knowledge about sex, and why that's important.

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In spring 2014, parents in the normally progressive Bay Area city of Fremont, California, started a campaign to get a book removed from the 9 th grade curriculum for the five district high schools, arguing it was inappropriate for their 13 and 14-year olds. They hired a local lawyer and put together a petition with more than 2500 signatures.

Their target: Your Health Today, a sex-ed book published by McGraw Hill. It offers the traditional advice and awkward diagrams plus some considerably more modern tips: a how-to for asking partners if they've been tested for STDs, a debate on legalizing prostitution. And then there was this: "[One] kind of sex game is bondage and discipline, in which restriction of movement (e.g. using handcuffs or ropes) or sensory deprivation (using blindfolds or masks) is employed for sexual enjoyment. Most sex games are safe and harmless, but partners need to openly discuss and agree beforehand on what they are comfortable doing."

"I was just astounded," says Fremont mom Teri Topham. "My daughter is 13. She needs to know how boys feel. I frankly don't want her debating with other 13-year-olds how well the adult film industry is practicing safe sex." Another parent, Asfia Ahmed, who has eight and ninth grade boys, adds: "It assumes the audience is already drinking alcohol, already doing drugs, already have multiple sexual partners...Even if they are experimenting at this age, it says atypical sexual behaviors are normal. "

But school board members contend that 9 th grade students have already been exposed to the contents of the book-and much, much more. They argue that even relatively modern sex ed has even not begun to reckon with what kids are now exposed to in person and online.

The singer Rihanna, for example, has legions of young fans. Her music video for the song "S&M"-viewed more than 57 million times on YouTube so far-shows the artist, pig-tied and writhing, cooing "chains and whips excite me." It then cuts to her using a whip on men and women with mouths covered in duct tape.

"I think denying that [sex] is part of our culture in 2014 is really not serving our kids well," says Lara Calvert-York, president of the Fremont school board, who argues that kids are already seeing hyper-sexualized content-on after school TV. "So, let's have a frank conversation about what these things are if that's what the kids need to talk about," she says. "And let's do it in classroom setting, with highly qualified, credentialed teachers, who know how to have those conversations. Because a lot of parents don't know how to have that conversation when they're sitting next to their kids and it comes up in a TV show. Everyone is feeling a little awkward."

But the Fremont parents aren't budging. "Any good parent monitors what their child has access to," says Topham. "We don't say, 'they're going to drink anyway, let's give them a car with bigger airbags.'" The parents note that the book was actually written for college students, and refers to college-related activities like bar crawls. (While acknowledging this, the book's author Sara L. C. Mackenzie, believes it's appropriate for high schoolers; her children read it at 13.)

The book has been shelved, at least for this year. But the problem isn't going away. The Fremont showdown is a local skirmish in what has become a complicated and exhausting battle that schools and parents are facing across the nation. How, when, and what to tell kids about sex today? TIME reviewed the leading research on the subject as well as currently available resources to produce the information that follows, as well as specific guides to how and when to talk to kids on individual topics.

(Read more: How-and when-to talk your kids about which subjects.)

The average American young person spends over seven hours a day on media devices, often using multiple systems at once. Studies show that more than 75% of primetime TV programs contain sexual content, and the mention of sex on TV can occur up to eight to 10 times in a single hour. And that's the soft stuff: A national sample study of 1,500 10 to 17-year-olds showed that about half of those that use the Internet had been exposed to online porn in the last year.

How do you learn appropriateness and consent in a culture where Beyoncé's song about pleasuring a guy in a car is championed by some as feminist and others as lewd? Or where Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" can refer to violent sexual acts in a music video viewed on the web at least 36 million times? Or where, in a major news story, it becomes apparent that wholesome girls from teen adventure movies send naked photos. Or where primetime TV shows-the kind you often watch with your family-not infrequently make reference to anal sex?

Uncensored media is not harmless. Longitudinal studies suggest exposure to sexual content on TV and other media in early adolescence is linked to double the risk of early sexual intercourse, and young people whose parents limit their TV time are less likely to partake in early sexual behavior. Other studies have found that 10% of young women who had their first sexual experience in their teenage years say it was not their choice, and the younger they were, the more likely this was the case. While the vast majority of primetime programming contains sexual content, only 14% of sexual incidents mention the risks or responsibilities associated with sexual activity according to research from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

And that's just the media teenagers consume. There's a whole different set of issues raised by the other ways they use tools of communication.

"I was sexting and sending pictures to a guy older than me because he told me he loved me and i believed him and he showed everyone my picture and i had everyone asking me for photos and making fun of me and calling me a slut."

"me n my girlfriend have been datin a year an almost 2months, she has sent me naked pics of her and she asked me to send her some of me naked, but i dont want too and i dont want to lose her either."

"My girlfriend will text me good morning, if i dont respond right away she will send a question mark with a question, then a few more question marks, then call me. If i don't respond she gets realy upset and angry. is this abuse? what do i do?"

Young people now engage in relationships increasingly via technology, which means they're able to connect in a variety of ways and at a speed and frequency not known to prior generations. They also appear to be more comfortable showing skin. A 2014 survey published in the journal Pediatrics among over 1,000 early middle school students found 20% reporting receiving sexually explicit cell phone text or picture messages (more colloquially known as "sexts") and 5% reporting sending them.

While many parents think that explaining the consequences of sending out explicit images will get teens to stop, they may be missing the point. "There's a pressure that people feel to send a sext as a digital currency of trust," says Emily Weinstein a Harvard University doctoral student who collected the texts above from an online forum run by MTV, for a study on the digital stress of adolescence. "It's a way to say to someone, here is a thing that could destroy me, I trust that you won't use it."

On paper, the United States is checking all the right boxes of managing teen sexual behavior. The national pregnancy rate is at a record low and it appears teens are waiting longer to have sex, and those that are sexually active are using birth control more than previous years. But these numbers only tell a tiny snippet of the story.

"Sex education in the U.S. has only gotten worse," says Victor Strasburger, an adolescent medicine expert and distinguished professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. "Most of the time they don't talk about contraception, they don't talk about risk of pregnancy, STIs [sexually transmitted infections]-certainly not abortion. At some point you would think adults would come to their senses and say hey we have to counteract this."

(Read more: Sex Education, From 'Social Hygiene' to 'The Porn Factor')

Strasburger says the U.S. shouldn't base success on its teen pregnancy numbers: "Everyone else's teen pregnancy rate has gone down too. Before we pat ourselves on the back, we should acknowledge that we still have the highest rate in the Western World."

Not only does sex education still virtually not exist in some areas of the country, but school programs that do teach kids about what used to be called the facts of life start too late. A recent CDC study showed that among teens ages 15-17 who have had sex, nearly 80% did not receive any formal sex education before they lost their virginity. Or, if they did, it was only to discourage them from being sexually active. "Parents and legislators fail to understand that although they may favor abstinence-only sex education (despite the lack of any evidence of its effectiveness), the media are decidedly not abstinence only," reads a 2010 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement.

"I had sex with my older boyfriend at 16," says Ashley Jones, 22, a young Georgia woman. "Suddenly my dad wanted to talk about the birds and the bees. I was like, what? It's too late!" (The Kinsey institute puts the average age that kids have first have sex at 16.9 for boys and 17.4 for girls.)

Current sex education, where it does exist, often teaches the basic plumbing, but it's not answering the questions young people really have when it comes to sexuality: What should I do when my girlfriend/boyfriend is pressuring me to have sex? What on earth was happening in that video I probably shouldn't have clicked online? What do I do when my best friend tells me they're gay-or I think I am?

School-wide sex education largely ignores gay men and women. "I think the Internet is one of the most commonly used sources for young LGBT folks to gain information," says Adrian Nava, 19, who says his question about same sex relationships in his Colorado high school sex ed class that was shot down by the teacher. "In some ways it's great because online forums tend to be supportive and positive. But there's so much misinformation that reinforces negative feelings."

(Read more: How to Talk to Your Gay Teen About Sex)

Sex ed courses tends to hyper-focus on the girls. "Girls are the ones who have babies," says Victoria Jennings, director of the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, whose research has shown there are globally more programs developed to help young girls navigate their sexuality than to help boys. Given the fact that recent CDC literature shows 43.9% of women have experienced some form of unwanted sexual violence that was not rape, and 23.4% of men have experienced the same, public health experts agree both sexes need education on appropriate behavior.

It doesn't help that the two groups are getting quite different messages. "The way we talk to boys is antiquated and stereotypical," says Rosalind Wiseman, educator and author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, about teen girls and Masterminds and Wingmen, on boys. "There's an assumption that they're insensitive, sex-crazed, hormone-crazed. It's no surprise that so many boys disengage from so many conversations about sex ed."

We teach girls how to protect themselves, adds Wiseman, and their rights to say yes and no to sexual behaviors. But we don't teach boys the complexities of these situations or that they're a part of the conversation. "We talk to them in sound bites: 'no means no.' Well, of course it does, but it's really confusing when you're a 15-year-old boy and you're interacting with girls that are trying out their sexuality," she adds. Data show that boys are less likely than girls to talk to their parents about birth control or "how to say no to sex," and 46% of sexually experienced teen boys do not receive formal instruction about contraception before they first have sex compared to 33% of teen girls.

Yet completely reshaping the sex education landscape is currently almost impossible, not just because of disagreements like the one in Fremont, but because schools lack resources. There's historically large funding for abstinence-only education, but supporters of comprehensive sex education-which deals with contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and relationships-face significant logistical and financial barriers.

Only 22 states and the District of Columbia require public schools teach sex education. Oklahoma and Alabama-two states with the highest teen pregnancy rates-don't require any sex ed. And few states really take a critical look at sexuality in the way kids encounter it, through TV shows, movies, and yes, even pornography. It's like taking a child to a waterpark without teaching them how to swim.

This leaves the ball in the parents' court. A recent survey from Planned Parenthood shows that 80% of parents are willing to have "the talk" with their kids, but in order for these conversations to have real meaning, parents need to understand just how much sexual exposure their kids are getting daily and how soon. They also need to overcome the desire to lecture, and kids need to understand that the conversation is less about rules and more about guidance. All of this while having a conversation about what is usually a very private matter.

(See a gallery of vintage sex education books from the 19th Century to now: Sex Education Through the Ages.)

Some experts believe that many of the obstacles can be overcome by approaching the adolescent in his or her own habitat: using the Internet or cell phones as learning tools.

"Perhaps it's time to fully embrace the power of 21 st century communication and direct it toward public health goals more deliberately," wrote Strasburger and Sarah Brown, the CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, in a July report. "Online material and social media could help to fill the gaps in sex education and support for many young people."

Websites like Bedsider.org (developed by Brown's group) offer easy to understand facts about contraception in an open-minded and legitimate way. As do other websites like StayTeen.org, GoAskAlice! and Sex, etc. On Scarleteen.com, educators answer questions from "How do I behave sexually without someone thinking I'm a slut?" to questions about pubic hair.

For reaching teenagers right where they gather, it's hard to beat YouTube. Laci Green has made a name for herself by providing frank and funny videos that answer common questions young people have and dispel myths. Her approach is not for everyone; two of her more popular episodes are " You Can't POP Your Cherry! (Hymen 101)" and " Sex Object BS."

Texting has also proved to be a surprisingly useful tool. Some health departments and community groups in states like California and North Carolina have established services where teens can text their sex-related questions to a number and receive a texted response in 24 hours, allowing for anonymity. Planned Parenthood offers a chat/text program where teens and young adults can either live text or chat with a Planned Parenthood staffer. Since the launch in May this year, there have been a total of 393,174 conversations.

Should parents really cede sex education to the digital realm? Given that an incredibly high number of young people go to the Internet for information on sex anyway, directing them to quality material that appeals to their age range may be the one of the better ways to circumvent poor education at school. Showing kids a reliable website can't replace a good conversation, but it can complement one.

In Fremont, parents are supplementing their children's sex education in different ways. "I don't just rely on the school to teach sex ed to my children," says Topham. "I told my kids about [sex] when they are in third grade, and open up the dialogue at that point. When we are watching movies together or discussing current events that may touch on this topic, we talk about it."

Not all parents are prepared to go as far as Topham: Her five kids did not get a smartphone until they were 18 and they can't have TVs or computers in their bedrooms. "You can be the best kid possible but we don't want you to have porn in your pocket," she says. To some her views may seem extreme, but when it comes to sex ed, Topham's decided it's better to take no chances. In the age of Innocence vs. the Internet, some parents won't go down without a fight.

More than 100 years of trying to teach kids the facts of life

Advice from Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo, co-authors of This Is a Book For Parents of Gay Kids
I never learned how to have safe sex. I am sure that I had a few health classes that talked about condoms and rattled off a lot of facts about scary diseases I might get if I did the wrong thing with the wrong person-but no one ever mentioned what to do if I wasn't having sex with a boy. I didn't know if I was supposed to protect myself and, if I was, I had never heard of any ways in which I could do so. My parents didn't know that I was gay until after I was sexually active, and I don't think they ever even considered talking to me about having safe "gay" sex. -Kristin
If your kid has recently come out to you as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, there is a chance that you might feel a bit like a deer in headlights when it comes to approaching them with tips on safe sex. Between 1991 and 2010, the average age of coming out dropped dramatically from 25 to 16, which means many young people are already out by the time parents would start talking with them about sex.

Finding out how to talk to your LGBTQ kid about safe sex is much, much easier than you think. The more you know, the more open you can be with your child and the more open you can be about sex, the easier it becomes for your kid to talk to you about their questions and concerns. Here are the three main points to remember:
Be Open to Questions
The earlier you start talking to your kids, the easier things will be for you later in the game, according to globally recognized sex expert Dr. Justine Shuey. "The most important thing you can accomplish is to become an askable parent," she says. This does not mean you have to have all of the answers, or that you need to be comfortable talking to your child about everything (or telling them what you do sexually) - just that you are approachable. If you don't know an answer, research it together, or look for reliable and factually accurate sources with your child.

"When I teach educators, I teach them to first say 'Good question,' " Shuey explains. "That is your moment to think about your answer before you laugh or blurt out something silly or negative."
Educate Yourself
Before you start looking for resources to answer your questions, it's helpful to address the many misconceptions surrounding the LGBTQ community. First, your child isn't going to have any more sex than their classmates - our identities do not shape our personalities or our interest in sex. Second, they face the same risks; fluids are fluids are fluids, and sexually transmitted infections can happen to any sexually active human being on this planet.

Lastly, there's no such thing as "gay" sex acts-there are sexual acts that are shared between people of all genders, and the way we keep ourselves safe is always the same. Inform yourself about ways to be safe when engaging in oral sex, anal sex and sex with toys. Newsflash: these are sexual acts that any person may engage in, so even if your kid doesn't identify as LGBT, they still need to be informed.
Learn What Works for Your Kid
We all have our own relationships to sex, and we also all have our own relationships to our children. You know your kid, and you also know yourself, so don't feel as though there's only one way to exchange this important information. The "sex talk" doesn't-and most likely shouldn't-have to be one long conversation held at the dinner table. It can be something that evolves over time, perhaps in a letter or over the course of several smaller discussions. Prepare yourself with information, and communicate in the way that you think will bring the highest level of comfort to both you and your child.

Sometimes that means having a talk without actually talking. Oluremi, an out 18-year-old whom we spoke to while researching our book, said her mother took a different route than most when approaching safe sex.

"Luckily, my mom understood that I wasn't really one for talking, but knew I would read anything put in front of me," she said. Oluremi's mom communicated most of her thoughts on safe sex with her daughter through e-mail, which she knew would make the exchange of information easier.

Just like Oluremi's mom, you can send your kid an email if that's easier. Or hand them a copy of This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids with the safe sex chapter bookmarked (shameless plug alert!). Or talk to them about your feelings on sex as much as you are both comfortable and then tell them to check out some of the websites listed in the main story. You can even make them read this article. The point is, you have options in how you approach this topic with your kid.

When all is said and done, familiarizing yourself with the resources available and making them available to your kid is the critical piece of this sex-talk puzzle. Be prepared in case your kid does feel comfortable enough to ask you questions, even if that means just knowing where to point them when you don't have the answers. Many teens say that they listen to their parents more than anyone else when it comes to practicing safe sex. What you say matters, and what you don't say can matter even more.

How to talk to your kids about sex, intimacy and other awkward subjects. Plus reliable, relatable sites to send them for more information.
What kids should know at what age: As a parent, it can be tricky to know when to have The Talk, and how much you should bring up to your kids at what time. The National Sexuality Education Standards suggests that by the end of second grade, kids should know the proper names for male and female body parts and know that all people have the right to tell others not to touch their body when they don't want to be touched. By the end of fifth grade, they should be able to define the process of human reproduction, and be able to describe puberty and how friends, family, media, society and culture can influence ideas about body image. By the end of eighth grade, kids should be able to explain the health benefits, risks and effectiveness rates of various methods or contraception, including abstinence and condoms and should know how alcohol and drugs can influence sexual decisions. By the end of 12th grade, students should know how to communicate decisions about whether and when to engage in sexual behaviors and understand why using tricks, threats or coercion in a relationship is wrong. (For more detailed information, click on the NSES link above.)
Other useful and reliable websites: For Parents
Common Sense Media
When it comes to advice and resources for healthy media and technology consumption, Common Sense Media is a one-stop shop. Parents can use the organization's media reviews tool to look up movies, apps, TV shows, books and games and view a content breakdown of specific elements like violence, language, substance abuse, role models and sex. There are also resources to answer parental concerns related to themes like cyberbullying and social media use. For instance: "How can I help my kid avoid digital drama."

Answer
Answer is a national organization established by the New Jersey Network for Family Life Education to offer sex ed resources to parents, teens, and advocacy groups. It publishes Sex, Etc. magazine and has a website for teens, written by teens. Especially helpful is Answer's curated book list, organized by age appropriateness.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Planned Parenthood wants parents be the go-to resources for their kids and teens. The site offers advice for how to talk to young people about sex and sexuality, how to parent teens who may be sexually active, and even how to answer questions from LGBT children and teens. Planned Parenthood also offers book lists for both parents and children.

The Guttmacher Institute
For parents who are curious about trends, and want the latest data on issues like contraceptives, puberty and sexual initiation, the Guttmacher Institute offers a scholarly approach on research, education, and police. It publishes two peer-reviewed journals and collects data on topics like adolescents, contraceptives, abortion and STIs.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
The National Campaign's goal is to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy, especially among single, young adults. The site offers resources to parents and runs several spin off websites like StayTeen.org and Bedsider.org that target young people at different ages and stages in their sexuality.

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
SIECUS educates and advocates for better sex ed in the United States. Along with other groups that advocate comprehensive sex ed, it developed "The Future of Sex Education," an initiative to spur discussion about the future of sex education and to encourage implementing comprehensive sexuality education in public schools.

Sexual Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
For the most frank and up to date information about sexual health, check out the CDC's resources on all topics from sexual violence prevention to healthy pregnancies.
For Kids
KidsHealth
Developed by the Nemours Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on children's health, the site provides health resources for parents, kids and teens. The kids' site has information about topics like puberty as well as explainers on how all parts of the body work, from the brain to the kidney.

It's My Life
Run by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, It's My Life provides kid-friendly information on everything from dating to puberty to eating disorders and money. The site also offers games that help kids navigate issues like gossiping and cheating on school work.
For Teens
Bedsider
Bedsider is an online birth control support network for women 18-29. The site talks to teens like a best friend, and prides itself on being unbiased: It's not funded by pharmaceutical companies or the government.

Answer
(see above) Answer's Sex, Etc. magazine and website offer teens advice about gender and talking to parents about sex, plus forums where Answer's experts answer questions.

Stay Teen
The goal of Stay Teen, a site sponsored by the nonprofit organization National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, is to encourage young people to enjoy their teen years and avoid the responsibilities that come with a too-early pregnancy. It provides resources and advice for how to say no to situations young people are not ready for.

Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood has easy to use chat and text sex education programs that allow young people to chat in realtime with a Planned Parenthood staffer about everything from STD to morning-after pill question. The organization also has an Awkward or Not app that takes young people through an online quiz that gives them the chance to send their parents a text to start a conversation about dating and sex.

Go Ask Alice!
Go Ask Alice! is the health question and answer site produced by Alice! Health Promotion at Columbia University. Users can get answers to their questions from how to use a condom properly to urinary problems.

I Wanna Know
Run by the American Sexual Health Association (ASHA), I Wanna Know offers sexual health information for teens and young adults. There's in-depth information on topics like STDs, relationships and myths. Common Sense says I Wanna Know is appropriate for ages 13 and up.

Laci Green
Laci Green is a sexual health educator who creates fun and flashy videos to answer sex-related questions people are often too embarrassed to ask. Green has over one million subscribers to her YouTube channel. Her content is fun, but some parents may find it too explicit.

Scarleteen
Scarleteen is an edgy site that provides sexuality education through popular message boards and fact sheets. Data has shown young people spend almost twice as long on the site as THE AVERAGE user DOES on Facebook. It's also more explicit than OTHER sexual health sites, but answers questions submitted by teenagers themselves. All message boards are moderated by Scarleteen staff and volunteers.

Center for Young Women's Health
Young women looking for easy-to-access accurate and extensive information about all sexual and gynecological health topics can find it at the Center for Young Women's Health. The center is developed as a partnership between the Division of Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine, the Division of Gynecology, and the Center for Congenital Anomalies of the Reproductive Tract at Boston Children's Hospital.

Young Men's Health
Youngmenshealthsite.org (YMH) is produced by the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. The site provides well-researched health information to teen boys and young men. There's sexual health information as well as explainers on other health issues from celiac disease to Ebola.

Advocates for Youth
Advocated for Youth is an organization meant to help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. The organization also offers support to young people who want to bring better sex education to their schools.

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In spring 2014, parents in the normally progressive Bay Area city of Fremont, California, started a campaign to get a book removed from the 9 th grade curriculum for the five district high schools, arguing it was inappropriate for their 13 and 14-year olds.

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Seema Bansal has forever changed the educational structure of public schooling in Haryana, India by instilling her vision for 80 percent of students to be at grade level intellect by 2020. In her TedTalk "How to fix broken education system...without any money" Bansal describes the demanding task of rebuilding a broken education system with insufficient resources, no money and little communication. Bansal, along with her group of colleagues have found success thus far by educating teachers on how to create a hands-on learning environment with little to no outside resources. The transmission of this information has all been made possible through messaging on a popular application, "WhatsApp." This communication and these in- class activities have improved the classroom and the quality of education immensely, and While Bansal and her team still have a task on their hands, the classrooms in Haryana, India will never be the same.

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Seema Bansal: How to fix a broken education system ... without any more money

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Seema Bansal forged a path to public education reform for 15,000 schools in Haryana, India, by setting an ambitious goal: by 2020, 80 percent of children should have grade-level knowledge. She's looking to meet this goal by seeking reforms that will work in every school without additional resources.

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The article, "All these choices!--parents and censorship" talks about bringing up children in a society riddled with unsuitable material for young minds to take in. The article not only focuses on the typical controversial topics such as racism and taboo topics (sex, drugs, homosexuality, etc.,) and includes topics such as peer pressure, bullying, and body shaming.

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Jaberwocky-Rae

Jabberwocky

All these choices! - parents and censorship

Heather Rae

Heather Rae lives in Melbourne, Australia. As the busy mother of two young boys, like many modern parents she not only juggles her work commitments, as a teacher, an oral language examiner in German for the Victorian Certificate of Education (senior high school) and a feature article writer, but also tries to steer a course through the maze of modern society for her children.

Recently I watched an old Indiana Jones film with my 5 and 7 year old children. The new Indiana Jones film, regardless of rating, is being promoted through children's toys and has become the latest Lego obsession. As a result my children were longing to see the earlier films.

As a mother I cringed and wanted to stop the film completely as people were lowered into boiling lava. Looking around, I realised my 5 year old had long since turned away to his own creative world of Lego figures. The content was simply beyond his level of maturity, understanding and interest.

The 7 year old was genuinely worried - 'The pretty woman might die...' But as we watched I was able to reassure him that this was just a pretend story. I explained the difference between fact and fiction. No one was hurt, and film is not the real world. His level of understanding meant he was ready to start grasping the concept of fact-fiction, unlike his younger brother. However he could easily have been terrified had he watched the film in isolation without a supportive adult.

When parents first contemplate unsuitable material for their children, material that ought to be censored, the usual concepts that come to mind include violence, sexually explicit scenes or obscene language. However a simple evening in front of the box can quickly add many more images which make parents feel uncomfortable for young minds: murder, violence, misery and famine on the nightly news. Ultra-skinny models are glamorized. To be successful and rich means you are so much better than the struggling poor. A dare is cool even if it involves bullying, hurting others or damaging property.

At the same time it seems everything is potentially censorable: monsters (even Cookie ones!), witches and wizards; Red Riding Hood who carries a bottle of wine; the Road Runner and The Three Stooges! Where do we draw a line?

In the 1960s many were anxious about television, believing it to have potential to harm. Children would get square eyes and be brainwashed by the box in the corner of every living room. Many still believe that to be the case, but today the Internet has taken over as the modern demon, an apparently boundless medium where anybody can access anything anytime: films, music, photos, limitless information.

No one queries that it is inappropriate for children to be exposed to sexually explicit, violent, pornographic and obscene material, whatever the medium. The question, however, of how parents should protect children from such material elicits as many opinions as stars in the sky.

What role should governments, parents, schools, libraries, publishers and ISP providers take with regard to children? As far as the Internet is concerned, many believe the government should make Internet filters compulsory, but the very worldwide nature of www makes control effectively impossible. Depending on your view, everyone or no one should be responsible for influencing, restricting, controlling or banning material to which children have access.

Perhaps a good starting point for parents is to consider what is appropriate for children and what is not.

John Cox, Deputy Principal of my sons' school, expresses real concern about children being exposed to violence. "In our society we see kids desensitized to violence at a very young age. Over a period of time it must have an effect on children. That really concerns me."

Analysis suggests that children will see an horrendous number of murders by the time they are ten years old, a frightening idea given that most of these will be on the news or general exhibition television shows. Alarming previews of the news are often shown immediately after children's programs like Play School or Sesame Street, with scant regard for the juvenile audience.

Schools sometimes see examples of children play-acting inappropriate actions, sexual or violent, that subsequent questions reveal reflect something they have seen in a film at home. We can only hope that schools are able to interact with parents to reinforce the (Australian) Office of Film and Literature Classification's ratings system. With advice and support children can be guided away from accessing such material. At the same time schools need to make their own decisions about what material they recommend or use in the classroom.

Cox explains, "It's difficult, because what you perceive, what I see to be appropriate, is not necessarily what others see as appropriate, and in the role of school that can be fairly difficult." This can become a dilemma for schools when material is freely accessible for students. Films that are popular in the general community might be considered unacceptable to sections of the school community. "We try to be guided by what we think is appropriate and by what is in the public domain. Things that are commonly available, and that children would normally have access to, are appropriate to be in the school," continues Cox.

This does not stop some lobby groups within communities, however, from attempting to influence or censor school libraries and curriculum, with or without the support of others in the community. Many communities across the world have been split about the instruction of creation versus evolution, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has renewed the battle about the place of magic and witchcraft within children's literature and culture.

The concept of 'censorship' has had ugly connotations at times - mass book burning in Nazi Germany, or extreme religious groups across the world - but ultimately the simple reality is that parents want to protect their children. Most parents will ask themselves at some stage, is it time to say 'No' or is it time to relax a little?

For parents floundering with the decision about how to guide and, where necessary, restrict what their children view, it can be reassuring that they do not have to take sole responsibility for every decision for a child. Internet service providers are required to offer Internet filters, and libraries and schools do in fact take a very serious view of assessing material they offer as acceptable for children. However can any external authority adequately replace parental guidance or supervision?

My friend Lyn, a parent of sons and a grandparent, believes parents bear the responsibility to bring up their children with the right values. "They are the ones who should decide what they want for their children. It is not the responsibility of teachers or schools to give children values in the first place." She explains that she believes parents today rely too much on 'other people' to influence their children.

Even in today's busy world there is nothing more important than setting aside time to spend with children, to share experiences, to talk over suggestions and worries. Being able to watch a film with a child means you can discuss issues and themes that arise. Often if children watch shows in isolation, they get the wrong idea about themes being presented, so watching together may be a good compromise. However you need to be aware of your children, to know how they are going to react to certain things.

Former president of the Australian Children's Book Council Mark Macleod said recently, "One of the roles adults have is to take the ugly side of life and get it into a sense of proportion. Kids need a balance."

Shared time with kids can help them develop a moral framework to base their judgements on. Parents are able to give their children a balanced view and some perspective when they are confronted with the enormity of everyday current topics such as drugs, terrorism, global threats and worse. At the same time it remains important to assess how appropriate material is for children rather than discussing issues after they have frightened or distressed a child.

From a school perspective, Deputy Principal Cox describes the importance for parents to help children develop the knowledge of what is appropriate or not. "We need to help them build a framework to understand what to do when they are faced with something they don't understand, want or like. That is part of values programs, the sort of things we do with older kids." Children need help in learning to make good choices for themselves, because once they reach the stage when they can bypass all the security on their parents' computer, they can access an incredible amount of material. They can look at whatever they want. And young people will find undesirable material, so it is essential that they have the moral background to base a decision on. When they come across something where they think, "This doesn't feel right, or this isn't good" they can decide to stop, or to seek assistance to make a decision in their best interest. This generally happens in secondary school, when children are reaching the stage of exploring and testing their limits.

Another friend, Annie, parent and primary school teacher, suggests parents should screen certain television programs and films, talk to children about potential dangers, but also take an interest in their friends and what they do. The peer group should not be underestimated at any age for its influence and control over decision making. To watch "forbidden material" can become a rite of passage for many young people. Just as forbidden fruit can be so much more appealing, parents need to be careful not to be too rigid in their attitude to some material, yet sensitive to the needs of their children.

The early Star Wars films started with ratings appropriate for children, but as the 'Dark Side' was steadily revealed over the years, the suitability of these films for younger children quickly came into question. The ratings moved into the adult categories, yet promotional material was still aimed at children, leaving parents in a censorship dilemma. A parent putting a blanket ban on material regularly watched by their children's friends may be based on sound reasons, but it can also help build an attitude of resentment and fascination with the unknown and out of reach. Maybe limited exposure in a supportive family environment can lead to a better understanding of difficult concepts.

However, as each of the people I have mentioned reminded me, we should not underestimate the minds of children. Give children credit for knowing what is right. They really are smart enough to work out how to deal with situations and what is not appropriate. As Lyn said, "It seems to me many children are put in cotton wool these days. The world is not full of nice people unfortunately, and no matter how hard some parents try to protect their children, at some point the kids have to understand and deal with that. We just can't shut out reality."

For many adults there is a sense of nostalgia for the 'good old days', when parents didn't have to worry about internet stalking, exposure to sex and violence on television, or children having access to pornographic DVDs. Anne of Green Gables did not face foul mouthed street gangs. Lassie was not overtly threatened with brutal murder, and Noddy and Big Ears were in fact "just good friends".

Or were we simply not as honest about what was or wasn't available? Did we simply not bring the risks out into the open, so that children were not educated about what they ought to be wary of and the risks around them every day?

Perhaps the most important lesson for parents and children is helping children know whom to trust, to improve the filter between their ears, and to know that they can always click the "back button", turn off a film or put a book aside to avoid inappropriate content. In this way children can enjoy the world around them safely and without fear.

Work Cited

Mark McLeod, quoted in Edwards, Hannah. "Censorship of Children's Books on the Rise." feature. The Age. April 30 2006. <http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/censors-in-move-on-kids-books/2006/04/29/1146198391643.html>

Heather Rae

Volume 12, Issue 2 The Looking Glass, May/June, 2008

Site design and content, except where noted, © The Looking Glass 2008. © Heather Rae, 2008
"Parents and Censorship"
Send general correspondence regarding The Looking Glass c/o The Editor
The Looking Glass: new perspectives on children's literature
ISBN 1551-5680

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The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature

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Jaberwocky-Rae Jabberwocky All these choices! - parents and censorship Heather Rae Heather Rae lives in Melbourne, Australia. As the busy mother of two young boys, like many modern parents she not only juggles her work commitments, as a teacher, an oral language examiner in German for the Victorian Certificate of Education (senior high school) and a feature article writer, but also tries to steer a course through the maze of modern society for her children.

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In the TEDtalk "The Power of Vulnerability" by Brene' Brown , Brown discusses her research to help her understand being vulnerable and how to except it. She conducted research by asking other people about shame, fear, happiness, pride and other feelings. From her research she gathers that the only way to live happily and fully is to except vulnerability. Vulnerability is important because it allows us to feel wholeheartedly, without sadness we cannot know happiness, without shame we cannot know pride.

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Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share.

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In this article by Gregory Korte, there is discussion about opposing opinions about the transgender bathroom issue. Korte writes about a judge who opposes the transgender bathroom ruling. It shows opposing opinions on the controversial subject.

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CLOSE

WASHINGTON - A federal judge in Texas has sided with school districts opposing the Obama administration's directive on transgender bathrooms, temporarily blocking the directive just before on the first day of school in Texas Monday.

The ruling prevents the U.S. Department of Education from implementing guidance that required school districts to allow transgender students to choose which restroom and locker facilities to use.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor's 38-page order said federal agencies exceeded their authority under the 1972 law banning sex discrimination in schools. The injunction applies nationwide, and follows a number of other recent court rulings against transgender students and employees.

The Texas ruling, issued late Sunday, turned on the congressional intent behind Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which requires that "facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex."

"It cannot be disputed that the plain meaning of the term sex" in that law "meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth," the judge wrote. "Without question, permitting educational institutions to provide separate housing to male and female students, and separate educational instruction concerning human sexuality, was to protect students' personal privacy, or discussion of their personal privacy, while in the presence of members of the opposite biological sex."

The judge also ruled that the guidance failed to follow the law requiring that it get input from the public before drafting new regulations, and suggested that the federal guidance could be implemented if the Department of Education conducts a more formal rule-making process.

And he emphasized that nothing in the law prohibits other states from requiring transgender facilities on their own. "Those states who do not want to be covered by this injunction can easily avoid doing so by state law," he said. Other lawsuits by transgender students can also go forward, he said.

"This case presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students' rights and that of personal privacy when using school bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other intimate facilities, while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school," wrote O'Connor, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2007 and sits in Fort Worth, Texas. "The sensitivity to this matter is heightened because defendants' actions apply to the youngest child attending school and continues for every year throughout each child's educational career."

The decision is at least the third legal setback for transgender rights in federal court this month. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a lower court ruling requiring a Virginia school district to allow a biologically female transgender student to use the boy's restroom on Aug. 3. And last Thursday, a federal judge in Detroit upheld the firing of a transgender funeral home employee, ruling that "neither transgender status nor gender identity are protected classes" under anti-discrimination laws.

The Texas case was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, who led a group of plaintiffs that included 12 other states and two school districts.

The plaintiffs argued that the Obama administration guidance came with the implicit threat that federal education funds could be withheld if school districts refused to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their chosen gender identity. The guidance also had implications for federal student privacy laws, threatening education officials with sanctions if they fail to address students by their preferred gender pronouns.

In a statement, Paxton praised the ruling as correcting "illegal federal overreach" by the Obama administration.

"This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threating to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform," Paxton said. "That cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we took action to protect states and school districts, who are charged under state law to establish a safe and disciplined environment conducive to student learning."

The Texas judge's ruling came the day before the first day of classes for most Texas public schools.

Paul Castillo, a Dallas attorney for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, called the injunction a "bump in the road" and said the case will likely proceed to the federal district court in New Orleans and the U.S. Supreme Court, where it ultimately be resolved.

"Transgender students are already at high risk of harassment and being targeted for discrimination," he said. "This decision is certainly indicative of the harm to transgender students who are simply seeking to be treated equally in all aspects of their education."

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said the Obama administration was disappointed in the decision and that "we are reviewing our options."

Contributing: Rick Jervis in Austin, Texas and Christopher Collins of the (Wichita Falls, Texas) Times Record News.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2bfwSR3

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Judge in Texas blocks Obama transgender bathroom rules

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CLOSE WASHINGTON - A federal judge in Texas has sided with school districts opposing the Obama administration's directive on transgender bathrooms, temporarily blocking the directive just before on the first day of school in Texas Monday. The ruling prevents the U.S.

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In the TEDtalk "How better technology could protect us from distraction" , Tristan Harris discusses how if technology became more wrapped around human values then we would be able to spend our time more productively.

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How better tech could protect us from distraction

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How often does technology interrupt us from what we really mean to be doing? At work and at play, we spend a startling amount of time distracted by pings and pop-ups -- instead of helping us spend our time well, it often feels like our tech is stealing it away from us. Design thinker Tristan Harris offers thoughtful new ideas for technology that creates more meaningful interaction. He asks: “What does the future of technology look like when you’re designing for the deepest human values?”

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In the TEDTalk "What makes a word real?", Curzan talks about how our language changes as time goes on. Words like "lol", "hangry", "yolo" did not exist until recent years. Dictionary editors like Curzan are the ones that struggle to determine the validity of a word. In the video, she says there is not a really true meaning of a "real" word, a word is real if we make it real. Dictionaries are often what we go to when we want to look up a word, it sets a standard for us. But many of us do not know that dictionary editors set meaning based on how we use it. In closing, she says not to fear our changing language, but to embrace it because it shows our society is changing culturally.

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One could argue that slang words like ‘hangry,’ ‘defriend’ and ‘adorkable’ fill crucial meaning gaps in the English language, even if they don’t appear in the dictionary. After all, who actually decides which words make it into those pages? Language historian Anne Curzan gives a charming look at the humans behind dictionaries, and the choices they make.

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In the TEDTalk video "Bring on the female superheroes!", Christopher Bell discusses the problem with media and its influence on today's society. We live in a society that is heavily influenced by the media, specifically 6 major companies. Not only does the media get you thinking about what they want you to think about they are also controlling the conversations you are having. Bell also touches on the women in the media and how they are viewed by the public. He argues the point that equal representation is a necessary in today's society. The example used was of the Walt Disney Corporation, their superheros and the female leads that are not being equally represented.

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Christopher Bell: Bring on the female superheroes!

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Why is it so hard to find female superhero merchandise? In this passionate, sparkling talk, media studies scholar (and father of a Star Wars-obsessed daughter) Christopher Bell addresses the alarming lack of female superheroes in the toys and products marketed to kids -- and what it means for how we teach them about the world.

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In Justin Worland's article "Self Driving Cars Could Help Save the Environment--or ruin it". He describes the potential ecological ramifications of large scale implementation of self-driving cars. He introduces the topic by suggesting that through self-driving cars, all industries somewhat connected to automobiles would change significantly. The main focus of the article, however, is the environment. He describes this as a spectrum, one end of which projects that self-driving cars will significantly reduce environmental pollutants related to automobiles, and the other states that it could make the problem even worse by giving people more of an incentive to travel, potentially doubling pollutants given from cars. Another issue addressed in the article is safety. The most compelling part of this article was a quote by Ann Schlenker, transportation researcher, she said "If I'm not going to crash, I could redesign cars. Think of that." With self-driving cars having fewer accidents than human-driven vehicles she implies that cars could reduce unnecessary, heavy features that increase safety, while limiting efficiency.

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Self-Driving Cars Could Help Save the Environment-Or Ruin It. It Depends on Us

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Self-driving cars will have a profound effect on the environment, but whether it's for better or worse will depend on choices yet to be made

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"3 Moons and a Planet That Could Have Alien Life" is a video in which James Green, NASA's Director of Planetary Science, delves into the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists both within our solar system and beyond. Green first explains what conditions must be present on a planet in order for life to occur. He then continues on to describe in detail four prospective celestial locations (the moons Titan, Europa, and Enceladus, and the planet Mars) which each have idiosyncratic geographical and environmental conditions that point to a potential for life. Green ultimately comes to a close with the pragmatic notion that within ten years we will answer the interminable question "are we alone", and that the answer may very well be "no".

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James Green: 3 moons and a planet that could have alien life

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Is there life beyond Earth? Join NASA's director of planetary science James Green for a survey of the places in our solar system that are most likely to harbor alien life.

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The TedTalk video "Tracking our online trackers" talked about how people are leaking their privacy to the internet. After watching the video, i learned that there is something called the behavioral tracking industry which are websites collects bits and piceses of user's information each time users go on their sites. As the data compiles over time, users completely expose themselfs to the interent world. Users have no controll over how their information is being used. There are add ons for different browser that can track sites that have been tracking users and can able to avoid such sites.

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Gary Kovacs: Tracking our online trackers

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As you surf the Web, information is being collected about you. Web tracking is not 100% evil -- personal data can make your browsing more efficient; cookies can help your favorite websites stay in business. But, says Gary Kovacs, it's your right to know what data is being collected about you.

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The TEDTalk, "Let's teach for mastery-not test scores" is a discussion given by Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, about how we are moving from the "Industrial Age" into what is called an "Information Revolution." In order for society to adapt to the changing times, we must first change our education system in a way that students begin to master concepts taught in the classrooms instead of learning enough just to advance onto the next grade. In order to master concepts they don't understand, students today have a variety of educational assistance outside of the classroom, such as Khan Academy, to assist them in improving whatever area they are lacking in.
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Let’s teach for mastery -- not test scores

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Would you choose to build a house on top of an unfinished foundation? Of course not. Why, then, do we rush students through education when they haven’t always grasped the basics? Yes, it’s complicated, but educator Sal Khan shares his plan to turn struggling students into scholars by helping them master concepts at their own pace.

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The PBS article "Where the wild things go once their land is gone" discusses how drastically our wilderness is depleting. scientists have predicted that if we keep going at this rate that we will lose all wilderness within fifty years. The article goes on to suggest asking our political leaders to focus more on protecting the worlds wilderness ecosystems.

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In just two decades, the world has lost about a tenth of its wilderness, according to an investigation in Current Biology. The study compared an updated map of wilderness - biological and ecological landscapes mostly free of human disturbance - with those charted in early 1990s. The scientists found that the area that had been destroyed was large enough to cover Alaska twice.

"If this continues, we could lose all wilderness areas within 50 years." - James Watson, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's science and research initiative

"Losing 10 percent of global wilderness in 20 years shocked me," James Watson, study co-author and director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's science and research initiative, told the NewsHour. "If this continues, we could lose all wilderness areas within 50 years."

Watson and his team analyzed data on population density of humans in an area, land use transformation, accessibility of the area to people and electrical power infrastructure. The researchers examined these variables in order to map how humans have impacted the Earth and to what degree. They concluded that children born today may lose wilderness areas in their lifetime.

"I was worried about the loss of wilderness around the world and realized that no thorough map had ever been made," Watson said.

The Amazon and central Africa were hit the hardest over the last 20 years, based on the team's estimations. The Amazon - a rainforest twice the size of India and home to more than 10 percent of the living species on Earth - dwindled by 30 percent. Central Africa lost 10 percent of its wilderness.

The mapping study also showed that current international conservation initiatives, like the Paris Climate Change Agreement and various UN initiatives, are not slowing the decline of wilderness, which is happening at double the pace of all preservation projects. One shortcoming is the rate at which lands earn protected status. Other barriers include funding limitations for these projects and political gridlock.

Greg Asner is a global ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science that assesses forests across the globe for biodiversity and signs of deforestation. After tracking down an area with Internet access in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Asner told the NewsHour that the new study proves that remote wilderness is not immune to human influence.

"The take-home message is that conservation and climate mitigation policy need to address all of the world's natural ecosystems, not just the ones that conservationists think are the most threatened, based on the old way of thinking," Asner said.

Wilderness ecosystems provide enormous benefits, ranging from freshwater resources to carbon sequestration to climate regulation, Asner said.

Watson said there is an urgent need for international policies that will protect these wild areas. "People should realize that their natural heritage is disappearing in front of their eyes," he said. "Maybe they should think of their children and ask their political leaders to prioritize the protection of these important places."

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Where will wild things go once their land is gone?

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In just two decades, the world has lost about a tenth of its wilderness, according to an investigation in Current Biology. The study compared an updated map of wilderness - biological and ecological landscapes mostly free of human disturbance - with those charted in early 1990s.

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Washington Post "Trump pushes expanded ban on Muslims entering the US"  talks about both presidential candidates views after terrorist attacks. While they have differing views the article mainly focuses on Trump's views mainly his push to ban Muslims from entering the US.

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Suzanne Simard presented interesting and novel ideas on the interdependence and communication between trees in her TedTalk "How trees talk to each other." Contrary to common belief and major pushback expressed from the Scientific community, Simard constructed an experiment in which she monitored the flow of Carbon, Oxygen, pheromones and water from one tree to the next. Simard explained how trees communicate to one another by sending natural elements and gases through their roots, almost as if they were "instant messaging" one another. These messages may even be as complex as a defense signal, to warn its neighbors of a possible chemical intruder. The transmission of information from one tree to the next can even be exemplified as a mother and her kin, where she noted that a dominate tree will frequently transmit pheromones to a younger organism. Simard expressed Forests aren't simply a collection of organisms and trees, they are institutions of life and communication.

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Suzanne Simard: How trees talk to each other

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"A forest is much more than what you see," says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery -- trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.

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The NPR article "Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million Over Creation Of Fake Accounts For Bonuses" is a very recent article about a nation-wide scam by Wells Fargo banks discretely opening accounts of customers to meet corporate expectations. This has caused the  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to fine Wells Fargo $100 million, a sum that's larget than has ever been enacted. This exploit should raise awareness to all citizens of the United States about sketchy behaviors and exploits by companies.

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Wells Fargo Bank has been ordered to pay $185 million in fines and penalties to settle what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calls "the widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts."

Thousands of Wells Fargo employees opened the accounts in secret so they would get bonuses for hitting their sales targets, according to investigators. More than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts may have been created without customer authorization.

The bank must pay $100 million to the CFPB - the largest fine ever levied by the federal consumer watchdog. It also will pay $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles, along with a $35 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

It's also on the hook to pay full restitution to all victims of the scheme.

"Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "Today's action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences."

The CFPB's consent order says the bank has already terminated 5,300 employees as part of an internal review.

Wells Fargo said in a statement that it has fired managers and employees "who acted counter to our values" in carrying out the schemes. It also refunded $2.6 million in fees it collected from customers. The bank said that "accounts refunded represented a fraction of one percent of the accounts reviewed, and refunds averaged $25."

In addition, the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based bank says it is taking steps to keep this type of scheme from occurring again, noting that it will now send a customer an email confirmation shortly after a deposit account is opened.

"This is a major victory for consumers," said Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, whose office sued Wells Fargo in 2015 after a Los Angeles Times investigation into the fake accounts. "Consumers must be able to trust their banks. They should never be taken advantage of by their banks."

Feuer's office says that after the suit was filed, the city attorney received "more than 1,000 phone calls and emails from customers and current and former Wells Fargo employees across the nation about the issues raised in the litigation."

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Wells Fargo Fined $185 Million Over Creation Of Fake Accounts For Bonuses

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Wells Fargo Bank has been ordered to pay $185 million in fines and penalties to settle what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calls "the widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts." Thousands of Wells Fargo employees opened the accounts in secret so they would get bonuses for hitting their sales targets, according to investigators.

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The TEDTalk "Why You Should Talk to Strangers" is a talk by Kio Stark that encourages listeners to talk to strangers more often. She talks about how beneficial the effects of opening up to strangers is for your mental health. By creating these more personal connections with strangers in your everyday life it can help you become more confident and outgoing. By pushing out of your comfort zone to talk to people you don't know you can gain a lot of insight that you may not have gotten before.

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“When you talk to strangers, you’re making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life -- and theirs,” says Kio Stark. In this delightful talk, Stark explores the overlooked benefits of pushing past our default discomfort when it comes to strangers and embracing those fleeting but profoundly beautiful moments of genuine connection.

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The TEDTalk "Let's teach for mastery-not test scores" is an informative lecture given by educator Sal Khan that ties together the ideas of learning, mastery, and mindset. Khan emphasizes on the idea that students must master the foundations before advancing, reminding us that sometimes all it takes is repetition to gain all the skills necessary to move on. He underscores the idea of perseverance and agency over learning in his lecture.

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Sal Khan: Let's teach for mastery -- not test scores

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Would you choose to build a house on top of an unfinished foundation? Of course not. Why, then, do we rush students through education when they haven't always grasped the basics? Yes, it's complicated, but educator Sal Khan shares his plan to turn struggling students into scholars by helping them master concepts at their own pace.

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The New York Times article "What's Really Missing From the New iPhone" talks about the major components Apple is missing when they come out with new devices. His main argument was about how when Apple comes out with a new phone, they only upgrade the interface, and as a result, their aesthetics are lacking. He encourages them to reevaluate the updates they are doing with these phones, because at this point, they're giving people the same phone with new software, hot hardware.

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State of the Art

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Credit Credit Stuart Goldenberg

Forget about the headphone jack for a second.

Sure, it's pretty annoying that Apple's newest iPhones - the 7 and 7 Plus, which were unveiled in San Francisco on Wednesday and will start shipping to customers on Sept. 16 - will not include a port for plugging in standard earbuds. But you'll get used to it.

The absence of a jack is far from the worst shortcoming in Apple's latest product launch. Instead, it's a symptom of a deeper issue with the new iPhones, part of a problem that afflicts much of the company's product lineup: Apple's aesthetics have grown stale.

Apple has squandered its once-commanding lead in hardware and software design. Though the new iPhones include several new features, including water resistance and upgraded cameras, they look pretty much the same as the old ones. The new Apple Watch does too. And as competitors have borrowed and even begun to surpass Apple's best designs, what was iconic about the company's phones, computers, tablets and other products has come to seem generic.

This is a subjective assessment, and it's one that Apple rebuts. The company says it does not change its designs just for the sake of change; the current iPhone design, which debuted in 2014, has sold hundreds of millions of units, so why mess with success? In a video accompanying the iPhone 7 unveiling on Wednesday, Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief, called the device the "most deliberate evolution" of its design vision for the smartphone.

Yet there are signs that my critique of Apple's designs are shared by others. Industrial designers and tech critics used to swoon over Apple's latest hardware; nowadays you witness less swooning and more bemusement.

Last year, Apple put out a battery case that looked comically pregnant - "a design embarrassment," said The Verge - and a rechargeable mouse with the charging port on the bottom, meaning you have to turn it over to charge it. And the remote control for Apple TV violated the first rule of TV remote design: Don't make it symmetrical, so people can figure out which button is which in the dark. ( One tip: Put a rubber band on the bottom, so you can quickly figure out which end is up.)

Then there's software interface design. The Apple Watch, also released last year, looked fine (and some of its wristbands were truly stunning), but its user interface was so puzzling and took so long to learn that Apple was forced to go back to the drawing board. In a new update to be introduced soon, the watch's interface has been substantially simplified.

It's the same story for Apple Music. After the streaming service was widely panned for its confusing array of options, Apple had to completely redesign it this year.

It's not just that a few new Apple products have been plagued with design flaws. The bigger problem is an absence of delight. I recently checked in with several tech-pundit friends for their assessment of Apple's aesthetic choices. "What was the last Apple design that really dazzled you?" I asked.

There was a small chorus of support for the MacBook, the beautifully tiny ( if functionally flawed) laptop that Apple released last year. But most respondents were split between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 5 - two daring smartphone designs that were instantly recognized as surpassing anything else on the market.

The iPhone 5, in particular, was a jewel; to me, its flat sides, chamfered edges and remarkable build quality suggested something miraculous, as if Mr. Ive had been divinely inspired in his locked white room. But the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 were released in 2010 and 2012. If you have to reach back to the last presidential election to find an Apple design that really caught your eye, there's something amiss.

Apple's design difficulties prompt two questions: How bad is this problem? And how can Apple solve it?

To the first: It's not acute, but it is urgent. Despite a slowdown in growth, Apple is still by far the most profitable consumer electronics company in the world. Consumer satisfaction surveys show that customers love its products. And even if the tech cognoscenti no longer rave about Apple's designs, there's little sign that their griping has affected sales.

Despite criticism, Apple Music also signed up 17 million subscribers in about a year. Apple doesn't release sales numbers for the watch, but many analysts believe that sales have been brisk, and customer-satisfaction surveys are through the roof. And the iPhone has proved remarkably durable; as I argued last year, the iPhone's continuing dominance is the closest bet in tech to a sure thing.

The real danger is in Apple's long-term reputation. Much of Apple's brand is built on design and on a sense that everything it delivers is a gift from the vanguard.

Two years ago, the designer Khoi Vinh, a former design director for The New York Times who now works at Adobe, summed up Apple's design prowess this way: "If there's a single thread that runs through nearly every piece of Apple hardware, it's conviction, the sense that its designers believed with every fiber of their being that the form factor they delivered was the result of countless correct choices that, in totality, add up to the best and only choice for giving shape to that particular product."

But in assessing the iPhone 6, then new, Mr. Vinh felt Apple had gone astray. Whereas the iPhone 5 had sharp, sophisticated lines that set it apart from everything else, "the iPhone 6's form seems uninspired, harkening back to the dated-looking forms of the original iPhone, and barely managing to distinguish itself from the countless other phones that have since aped that look," he wrote.

That was in 2014. Now, two years later, we still have the same basic iPhone design. For years, Apple has released a redesigned iPhone every other year, but now we're going to go three years without a new iPhone look.

And while Apple has slowed its design cadence, its rivals have sped up. Last year Samsung remade its lineup of Galaxy smartphones in a new glass-and-metal design that looked practically identical to the iPhone. Then it went further. Over the course of a few months, Samsung put out several design refinements, culminating in the Note 7, a big phone that has been universally praised by critics. With its curved sides and edge-to-edge display, the Note 7 pulls off a neat trick: Though it is physically smaller than Apple's big phone, it actually has a larger screen. So thanks to clever design, you get more from a smaller thing - exactly the sort of advance we once looked to Apple for.

An important caveat: Samsung's software is still bloated, and its reputation for overall build quality took a hit when it announced last week that it would recall and replace the Note 7 because of a battery defect that caused spontaneous explosions. To the extent that making a device that doesn't explode suggests design expertise, Apple is still ahead of Samsung.

But the setbacks from Apple's rivals aren't likely to last. Apple can't afford to rest on its past successes for long.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Never Mind That Jack. the Dazzle Is Missing.. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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What's Really Missing From the New iPhone: Cutting-Edge Design

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State of the Art Forget about the headphone jack for a second. Sure, it's pretty annoying that Apple's newest iPhones - the 7 and 7 Plus, which were unveiled in San Francisco on Wednesday and will start shipping to customers on Sept. 16 - will not include a port for plugging in standard earbuds.

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The TEDtalk "A Better Way to Talk about Abortion" begins with the speaker, Aspen Baker, recounting the mixed emotions, opinions, and thoughts that she experienced throughout the process of her own abortion. She explains the night she told her best friend of her unplanned pregnancy and spoke about wanting to have an abortion. Her friend turned to her in complete support and told her that she too has had an abortion in the past. At that moment, Aspen Baker realized that she was not alone and many other people are going through difficult things as well. This lead to the creation of Pro-Voice, an organization and support group that enables people to speak about the difficulties they are currently experiencing. Pro-Voice is a safe-place that allows people to express and voice their personal opinions without judgment on otherwise controversial topics.

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Beyond abortion, pro-voice works on hard issues that we've struggled with globally for years, issues like immigration, religious tolerance, violence against women. It also works on deeply personal topics that might only matter to you and your immediate family and friends. They have a terminal illness, their mother just died, they have a child with special needs and they can't talk about it. Listening and storytelling are the hallmarks of pro-voice practice. Listening and storytelling. That sounds pretty nice. Sounds maybe, easy? We could all do that. It's not easy. It's very hard. Pro-voice is hard because we are talking about things everyone's fighting about or the things that no one wants to talk about. I wish I could tell you that when you decide to be pro-voice, that you'll find beautiful moments of breakthrough and gardens full of flowers, where listening and storytelling creates wonderful "a-ha" moments. I wish I could tell you that there would be a feminist welcoming party for you, or that there's a long-lost sisterhood of people who are just ready to have your back when you get slammed. But it can be vulnerable and exhausting to tell our own stories when it feels like nobody cares. And if we truly listen to one another, we will hear things that demand that we shift our own perceptions. There is no perfect time and there is no perfect place to start a difficult conversation. There's never a time when everyone will be on the same page, share the same lens, or know the same history. So, let's talk about listening and how to be a good listener. There's lots of ways to be a good listener and I'm going to give you just a couple. One is to ask open-ended questions. You can ask yourself or someone that you know, "How are you feeling?" "What was that like?" "What do you hope for, now?" Another way to be a good listener is to use reflective language. If someone is talking about their own personal experience, use the words that they use. If someone is talking about an abortion and they say the word "baby," you can say "baby." If they say "fetus," you can say "fetus." If someone describes themselves as gender queer to you, you can say "gender queer." If someone kind of looks like a he, but they say they're a she - it's cool. Call that person a she. When we reflect the language of the person who is sharing their own story, we are conveying that we are interested in understanding who they are and what they're going through. The same way that we hope people are interested in knowing us. So, I'll never forget being in one of the Exhale counselor meetings, listening to a volunteer talk about how she was getting a lot of calls from Christian women who were talking about God. Now, some of our volunteers are religious, but this particular one was not. At first, it felt a little weird for her to talk to callers about God. So, she decided to get comfortable. And she stood in front of her mirror at home, and she said the word "God." "God." "God." "God." "God." "God." "God." Over and over and over again until the word no longer felt strange coming out her mouth. Saying the word God did not turn this volunteer into a Christian, but it did make her a much better listener of Christian women. So, another way to be pro-voice is to share stories, and one risk that you take on, when you share your story with someone else, is that given the same set of circumstances as you they might actually make a different decision. For example, if you're telling a story about your abortion, realize that she might have had the baby. She might have placed for adoption. She might have told her parents and her partner - or not. She might have felt relief and confidence, even though you felt sad and lost. This is okay. Empathy gets created the moment we imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes. It doesn't mean we all have to end up in the same place. It's not agreement, it's not sameness that pro-voice is after. It creates a culture and a society that values what make us special and unique. It values what makes us human, our flaws and our imperfections. And this way of thinking allows us to see our differences with respect, instead of fear. And it generates the empathy that we need to overcome all the ways that we try to hurt one another. Stigma, shame, prejudice, discrimination, oppression. Pro-voice is contagious, and the more it's practiced the more it spreads. So, last year I was pregnant again. This time I was looking forward to the birth of my son. And while pregnant, I had never been asked how I was feeling so much in all my life. (Laughter) And however I replied, whether I was feeling wonderful and excited or scared and totally freaked out, there was always someone there giving me a "been there" response. It was awesome. It was a welcome, yet dramatic departure from what I experience when I talk about my mixed feelings of my abortion. Pro-voice is about the real stories of real people making an impact on the way abortion and so many other politicized and stigmatized issues are understood and discussed. From sexuality and mental health to poverty and incarceration. Far beyond definition as single right or wrong decisions, our experiences can exist on a spectrum. Pro-voice focuses that conversation on human experience and it makes support and respect possible for all. Thank you. (Applause)

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Transcript of "A better way to talk about abortion"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Abortion is extremely common. In America, for example, one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime, yet the strong emotions sparked by the topic -- and the highly politicized rhetoric around it -- leave little room for thoughtful, open debate.

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The TEDtalk by Sarah Kay "If I should have a daughter.." is a lecture that begins with a poem being preformed through spoken word yet explores the depth and complexity of poetry and spoken word. Sarah Kay explains how poetry and spoken word present many opportunities. For example, the opportunity to tell a story, and/or express yourself.

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Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ...

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"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E.