When Kindness Kills
Topic: Culture of Death Updates

The Great Progressive Death Ride goes on—all in the name of kindness and compassion, of course.

Congressional Democrats are fanatically determined to remove all restraints on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research—this despite the fact that the latest science suggests there's no need to destroy human embryos in order to obtain stem cells. What is it about the destruction of human life that so excites the Left?

Feminist Sacrament
Topic: Culture of Death Updates

Women Sign "We Had Abortions" Petition

Mom and Dad must be so proud:

Tyffine Jones, 27, of Jackson, Miss., said she had no hesitation about signing _ although she lives in a state where restrictions on abortion are tough and all but one abortion clinic has been closed.

Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago _ enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the clinic _ in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law school.

How touching. But who knows? Perhaps her never-to-be born child would have been the second person in Tyffine's family to graduate from college.

Stand Up and Cheer for Abortion
Topic: Culture of Death Updates

That's the plan at the flagship publication of feminism, Ms. magazine, as Doug Bandow sees it in this article for the American Spectator.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that making abortion a point of pride might be a counterproductive public relation strategy. In fact, it strikes me as ghoulish.

Do the Math
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
German mother jailed for 15 years for killing eight newborns

Let's see. . .that's less than two years per dead infant. Ah, those civilized and sophisticated Europeans! If only we backward Americans could be more like them!

Get in Line and Die
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
Ah, "fairness"! It's the Holy Grail of contemporary progressivism and it trumps everything, even elementary common sense. If you should happen to need a kidney transplant, for example, progressivism's fairness doctrine could kill you.

As Dr. Sally Satel writes in the Weekly Standard, so-called medical ethicists are prepared to allow people in need of transplants to die rather than violate their totally arbitrary standard of "fairness." Every day, eighteen Americans on the national transplant waiting list die, many of them needlessly. It's a shocking situation, and I urge you to read Dr. Satel's story in full.

Cosmic Justice in Michigan
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
I must confess that I'm having a tough time pinpointing the downside of this story:

Lawyer: Kevorkian May Not Survive Another Year in Prison

That would be Jack Kevorkian, MD, otherwise known as Doctor Death, onetime champion of the right to die. Now that he himself is faced with death, Kevorkian seems to be having some second thoughts about emigrating to that undiscovered country. He is petitioning for pardon, parole or commutation of his 10-to-25 sentence.

For the sake of all the people that he conned into dying, Kevorkian's request should be denied.

Acceptable Losses?
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
The Great Progressive Death Ride rolls on:

Abortion Pill Investigated in Four California Deaths

Remember how desperately the pro-abortion extremists fought to have RU-486 approved? If they'd had their way, the stuff would have been available at checkout, like chewing gum and breath mints. Now it turns out that RU-486 can cause a deadly bacterial infection under certain circumstances.

How has the pro-abortion mob reacted to all this? Here's a sample:

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said such concerns were vastly overblown. "There has been no causal relationship established between the medical abortion and the subsequent infection," she said. "This is a very, very rare occurrence. Childbirth is 10 to 13 times riskier than having an abortion, either medical or surgical."

The NAF, it seems, is willing to make a few human sacrifices for the sake of the cause. How noble of them.

Some Good News for a Change
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
Yesterday afternoon the US House of Representatives passed the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act by a vote of 270-157. The law would make it a federal offense to take a child across state lines to obtain an abortion.

This bill has passed in the House before, only to die in the Senate. This time around, though, Senate Republicans appear set to pass it. And needless to say, President Bush is prepared to sign the bill into law.

For the Record
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
Concerning Terri Schiavo, I'd like to make one thing clear.

Though I believe that what we are witnessing amounts to the judicial murder of a helpless woman--surely a perversion of the rule of law--I do not stand with those who insist that in this case, the law can and must be broken. I understand their point of view, but I do not approve of it.

In a nation where the rule of law prevails, the law, such as it is, must be respected. Sometimes this is easier said than done. In the United States, slavery and Jim Crow once were enshrined in law.

But if, on the whole, the rule of law does prevail, the law must not be mocked. There's nothing wrong with protesting against unwarranted judicial activism. There was nothing wrong with what Congress did in the Schiavo case. But it would be very wrong for President Bush or Governor Bush to show the courts a middle finger and send in the troops.

Terri Schiavo is likely to die. That is not only a tragedy but an injustice. Yet the courts did not act outside their well-recognized authority. Nor can the other branches of government--and we shouldn't ask them to do so.

Progressive Insanity
Topic: Culture of Death Updates
Just a quick note to advise that the right-to deathers of Democratic Underground are still howling for the blood of Terri Schiavo. Don't ask me how, but the DU mob seem to have convinced itself that the only way to "defend democracy" right now is to starve a helpless woman to death.

There's certainly room for disagreement on this issue. There's no room, however, for the demented, hate-filled raving and ranting of these progressives, as I suppose we must continue to call them, regardless of the violence done to language thereby.