Sanctity of Life

Past, future of Roe vs. Wade: Should, would a Justice Alito upend the landmark decision?

Washington Post Steve Chapman January 12, 2006

Samuel Alito Jr. wrote a memo in 1985 arguing there is no constitutional right to abortion, and pro-choice groups are alarmed by that document. They say it proves he’s a right-wing extremist with a “long history of hostility to reproductive freedom,” in the words of the National Abortion Federation.

Maybe Alito is secretly plotting to make pregnancy mandatory for all fertile females, as the NAF suggests. But for those of us who are inclined to be charitable, there’s another possible explanation for why he said the Constitution doesn’t protect abortion rights: because it doesn’t.

It’s true the Supreme Court has ruled it does, but that only proves the Supreme Court has the final say on the matter. The right to abortion is a wholesale invention of the court. There is no reference to it anywhere in the Constitution, and it can’t be reasonably extrapolated from the principles enshrined in our national charter.

In the history of American jurisprudence, the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision stands out for its utter detachment from the actual language of the Constitution. That helps to explain why, 33 years later, it has yet to gain broad acceptance from the public at large.

. . . more

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Pope attacks “culture of death” at first baptisms

Reuters Crispian Balmer Sun Jan 8, 2006 9:40 AM ET172

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict performed the first baptisms of his pontificate on Sunday, using the occasion to launch an impassioned denunciation of irresponsible sex and a “culture of death” that he said pervaded the modern world.

Pope Benedict, abandoning his prepared sermon, compared the wild excesses of the ancient Roman empire to 21st century society and urged people to rediscover their faith.

“In our times we need to say ‘no’ to the largely dominant culture of death,” Benedict said during his improvised homily in the frescoed Sistine Chapel where he was elected Pope last April.

“(There is) an anti-culture demonstrated by the flight to drugs, by the flight from reality, by illusions, by false happiness … displayed in sexuality which has become pure pleasure devoid of responsibility,” he added.

…more

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Soul Man: Leon Kass sounds a warning about the perils of biotechnology

Wall Street Opinion Journal BRET STEPHENS Saturday, January 7, 2006

WASHINGTON–Leon Kass is willing–reluctantly willing–to indulge a request. I have asked him to refresh our interview of several weeks ago by reflecting on the case of Hwang Woo Suk, the internationally celebrated South Korean researcher who recently admitted to fabricating cloned stem cells. Dr. Kass thinks that a decennial White House conference on aging might make for an equally timely news peg. Health and longevity; dementia and death; euthanasia and living wills; performance enhancement and life-prolonging genetic manipulations–these are the subjects that really engage the mind of this 66-year-old physician and ethicist (and former philosophy professor of mine). As for embryos, stem cells, cloning and the uses and abuses thereof, they are “not the most profound of subjects,” he told me over a pot of tea in the kitchen of his Washington apartment. “The embryo question is really about the means. The real question has to do with the ends to which we put this.”

[Read more…]

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“It’s only a choice”; the great lie

I had a chance to hear her speak a couple years ago. I’m not easily moved by a speaker, but she is a compelling speaker. Her story is incredible and it’s hard to imagine anyone after hearing her speak continue to believe that abortion is only a choice over a “mass of tissue”.

Gianna Jessen was aborted at 7½ months. She survived. Astonishingly, she has forgiven her mother for trying to kill her.
By Elizabeth Day

Gianna Jessen grew up believing that she was born with cerebral palsy because she had been delivered prematurely in a particularly traumatic birth.

That was the story told to her by her adoptive mother and it was not until she was 12 years old that she discovered the truth about what made her different from the other children at school.

“I had an innate wondering,” Miss Jessen says. “I wasn’t satisfied for some reason, so I kept asking why I had this disability.

“She tried to break it to me gently and then, just as she was about to tell me, I said ‘I was aborted, right?’ She said ‘Yeah, you were.’ And my reaction was ‘Well, at least I have cerebral palsy for an interesting reason.’ ”

That was 16 years ago. Miss Jessen is now a pretty, fresh-faced 28-year-old with wavy shoulder-length red hair. She speaks with eloquence and composure, in a soft southern American accent, her forehead crinkling slightly as she talks.

But while her outward appearance might have changed, her inner determination to overcome even the most insurmountable challenges has remained absolutely constant.

From the very beginning, Miss Jessen survived in spite of herself. Her mother, Tina, a 17-year-old single woman, decided to have an abortion by saline injection when she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant (there is no legal time limit for abortion in America).

But in the early morning of April 6, 1977, the abortion failed. Against the odds, the baby had lived. A nurse called the emergency services and the child was taken to hospital. She weighed only 2lb and the abortionist had to sign her birth certificate.

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Liberal Multiple Choice

Liberal conflict about multiple abortions. Free registration required.

The New Republic Garance Franke-Ruta Post date 11.25.05

When Amy got pregnant during her freshman year of college, she knew that, at 18, she wasn’t ready to be a mother. So she had an abortion. “That was a very easy decision to get to, but a very difficult emotional experience, both before and after,” she says from San Francisco, where she now lives. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.” Six years later, she says, she was living and working in New York City when, after a condom failure, she found herself with a second unwanted pregnancy. “That time, it was like, ‘Oh, no! This sucks. Let me just take care of this.'” She had another abortion. “Oh well, that’s over,” she recalls thinking immediately afterward. “And then I didn’t think about it very much.” She didn’t talk about it very much either, and, even today, she is loath to reveal it. “I rarely talk about the second abortion because of society’s judgments about women who have a second abortion,” she says. “It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re allowed one mistake.'” But not two….

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Latest On Legalizing Infanticide in the Netherlands

From Wesley Smith blog.

The Dutch Government is moving to expeditiously legalize infanticide. It has now created a commission to create the rules for the legal killing of “seriously suffering” babies. This is a tremendous violation of human rights. Shame on the Netherlands and the general lack of protest around the world.

The “patriarch of bioethics” Joseph Fletcher once called infanticide “post birth abortion.” Apparently the Dutch agree. Note this quote from a high official, “We wanted to respond to the needs of doctors to create clarity in how to deal with ending the life of seriously suffering newborns as well as the legal consequences of late abortions,” Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner and Junior Health Minister Clemence Ross-van Dorp wrote in a letter to parliament.

For shame.

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Alito and Abortion

Wall Street Opinion Journal ROGER PILON Monday, November 28, 2005

Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, but he shouldn’t say if he’d overturn it.

There’s little doubt any longer: Samuel Alito’s now-famous 1985 memo has changed the dynamics of the upcoming confirmation battle. Not that abortion would not be at the center of the battle in any event, but in that memo Judge Alito stated his view unambiguously: “The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.” That denies him the option of remaining vague on the subject, say senators on both sides. Republicans Olympia Snowe and John Cornyn along with Democrat Charles Schumer are reported as saying Judge Alito now has only two options: He can say he’s changed his mind; or he can say that Roe v. Wade and the cases affirming it since 1973 are now settled law, outweighing his view that Roe was wrongly decided.

Neither option is satisfying, of course, the first for obvious reasons, the second because it elevates precedent over the Constitution. To be sure, liberals of late have a selective regard for precedent–now that they’ve jiggered the Constitution into a shape they like. But conservatives too give the appearance of being less than straight when they imply, as they often do, that precedent should trump the Constitution. If that’s the case, why the conservative enthusiasm for Judge Alito?

…more

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Religions target female foeticide

By Geeta Pandey
BBC News, Haryana

A caravan of 25 vehicles and 200 people has been criss-crossing five northern and western states of India for the past 10 days.

The travellers are on a mission. They are campaigning against female foeticide, which has resulted in a gender imbalance in some parts of the country.

The campaign is being led by well-known religious leader and social activist, Swami Agnivesh.

“There’s no other form of violence that’s more painful, more abhorrent, more shameful,” declares Swami Agnivesh.
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Assisting suicides is bad law, policy

Discovery Institute Wesley J. Smith

Sacramento is considering creating an Oregon-style system to end lives

Advocates of assisted suicide label hastened death a “compassionate choice.” But such gooey euphemisms seek to hide the harsh truth: Assisted suicide isn’t about caring: It is about the intentional ending of human life – an act barred by the Hippocratic Oath for more than 2000 years.

We are told that assisted suicide would be restricted to cases of unbearable suffering. Yet, legislation in California to legalize assisted suicide – AB651 by Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka – contains no such requirement. Nor does the law in Oregon, where doctors who assist suicides report that most patients do not seek death because of pain, but because they can no longer engage in enjoyable activities, fear losing dignity or are worried about becoming burdens.
[Read more…]

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Euthanasia in the Big Easy

Townhall.com Charles Colson

It turns out that many of the most horrific stories we heard about New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina weren’t true. But there’s one nightmarish story that may turn out to be an exception—a story that should cause anyone who plans on growing old to lose some sleep.

Following Katrina, stories began to circulate about the goings on at Memorial Hospital. These stories depicted an overwhelmed and increasingly desperate staff repeatedly discussing the unthinkable: “euthanizing patients they thought might not survive the ordeal.”

Fran Butler, a nurse manager at Memorial, told CNN that her “nurses wanted to know what was the plan.” Were they supposed to put people out of their misery? Dr. Bryant King has told authorities about similar discussions among doctors, adding that he thinks that the matter went beyond mere talk.

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