American Spectator G. Tracy Mehan, III November 14, 2006
The Queen’s English takes a beating whenever our politics turns to abortion. The most recent instance of this distortion of language — obfuscation, really — is the discussion of “partial birth” abortion. This barbaric practice is neither partial, nor is it an abortion. It is nothing short of infanticide.
Sophisticated brain scans of a woman diagnosed to be in a persistent vegetative state has revealed startling levels of activity. Indeed, it may indicate that she is aware.
The description of the patient in question is startlingly similar to Terri Schiavo: “Scientists don’t even agree on whether the woman had some real awareness–she seemed to follow, mentally, certain commands–or if her brain was responding more automatically to speech.”
From Wesley Smith email:
This is an excellent column by Colleen Carroll Campbell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). Apparently, a teenage “suicide craze” has hit the Netherlands and the government wonders why. But Campbell knows. The Dutch do “not seem to grasp the obvious,” she writes. “The law is a teacher and Dutch law has taught its young citizens well. The radical and sweeping embrace of suicide as an answer to the problem of human suffering, and the elevation of euthanasia to the status of a basic human right, has convinced Dutch teenagers that suicide must be a noble act, the kind that wins plaudits, prestige, and even legal protection.
Ed. This is the reason why we have to keep the euthansia crowd away from the infirm. They would argue that Terry Wallis should be dead. Note too how quickly the reporter points out the same cannot be hoped for someone like Terri Schaivo; clearly an implicit defense of her killing given how early it appears in the piece.
Brietbart.com Marilynn Marchione July 3, 2006
Doctors have their first proof that a man who was barely conscious for nearly 20 years regained speech and movement because his brain spontaneously rewired itself by growing tiny new nerve connections to replace the ones sheared apart in a car crash.
Terry Wallis, 42, is one of the few people known to have recovered so dramatically so long after a serious brain injury. He still needs help eating and cannot walk, but his speech continues to improve and he can count to 25 without interruption.
Wallis’ sudden recovery happened three years ago at a rehabilitation center in Mountain View, Ark., but doctors said the same cannot be hoped for people in a persistent vegetative state, such as Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who died last year after a fierce right-to- die court battle. Nor do they know how to make others with less serious damage, like Wallis, recover.
CNSNews.com Dawn Rizzoni June 26, 2006
(CNSNews.com) – Abortion rights supporters in the Colorado House of Representatives are crying foul after a pro-life legislator introduced an abortion survivor before a celebration honoring Planned Parenthood.
Illinois Right to Life Committee William Beckman May, 2006
The push by Planned Parenthood for “comprehensive sex education” in Illinois has generated recent media coverage. Their web site to promote this push (www.responsiblesexed.org) states, “Teaching a strong abstinence message in concert with information on contraception is considered a ‘best practice’ in teen pregnancy prevention.”
The Guardian Sarah Boseley Wednesday January 18, 2006
First UK study provokes furore
Doctors in the UK were responsible for the deaths, through euthanasia, of nearly 3,000 people last year, it was revealed yesterday in the first authoritative study of the decisions they take when faced with terminally-ill patients. More than 170,000 patients, almost a third of all deaths, had treatment withdrawn or withheld which would have hastened their demise.
The figures, extrapolated from the study, show rates of euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide which are significantly lower than anywhere else in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where similar studies have been done. The numbers immediately provoked controversy.
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.
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.
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.”