Macho Nachos

Thank God for the Federal Judiciary

Because otherwise, we'd have no one to protect the right of doctors to puncture babies' skulls while delivering them. And I don't know if the Republic would survive the destruction of that particular liberty.

In other news, in case anyone was still on the fence, Burger and Blackmun were bumbling fools who knew not what they did. 40 million children say "thanks."

Human Tragedies

I won't repost the whole thing here - but compared to what I normally do, I put a little bit of effort into this post. Check it out, if you have time.

Abortion is Funny! Just Ask Larry King!

Before I get into the actual "meat" of this story, I should probably offer a word of explanation as to why I am covering a Larry King broadcast that first aired ten days ago. The answer is very simple: I almost never watch television. Especially when said television is CNN. With the advent of the internet, whenever a talking-head show is scheduled to appear with a guest I'm actually interested in, I'll just either tune in on the web or (more often) snatch a transcript off the internet a couple hours after the fact.

This particular story slipped under my radar because the guest on the Larry King show in question was Bill Maher, piece of human filth extraordinaire, who generally has all the moral compass of your average member of the Khmer Rouge, as evidenced by statements like this from the very Larry King show in question:

I am more sympathetic on the abortion issue than I am on most right wing socially conservative issues, because you know, you don't have to be religious to be against abortion.

I do sort of understand what they're saying. If you've ever seen a sonogram, you know, you could see something that's emerging as a human being in there. And we are sort of reaching in and killing it. I'm just not against that.

That's pretty much standard fare for Maher, and not really all that shocking when you consider that Maher sold his soul to the devil for his brief stint on network television. We're still unsure what he pays his studio audience with, in order to get them to laugh at his completely humorless tripe, but suffice it to say that we've come to expect nothing less from HBO's "funniest" "serious" "political commentator."

What IS interesting about this interview was something that Larry King himself actually did. Which, not surprisingly, didn't make it into this transcript of the show and therefore eluded my notice. However, whilst driving home from Jack-in-the-Box tonight, with Bacon Bacon Cheeseburger in hand, the local FM talker was replaying an old Laura Ingraham show in which she played several audio clips of Maher's appearance on Larry King. (A video of the segement in question is avialable here to RealPass subscribers). In one of these clips, Ingraham captured this line from Maher (also available in the transcript:

So, at least he has a shot, I think. We don't know what he'd do if he had to rule on Roe versus Wade, but at least he has a shot, I think, at becoming the kind of justice that is not in the hip pocket of the right wing. Having said that, ladies, get your abortions now. If you need one, go now!

Again, standard fare for Maher. What is not standard fare for supposedly objective television is the fact that Larry King actually laughed in response to this excuse for a "joke"! I was (and am) utterly flabbergasted at this phenomenon, and I long ago thought that I was past the point of amazement at anything Larry King might presume to do.

What kind of contemptible person, in any occupation, would find a "joke" of this sort humorous? What's more, what supposedly objective news anchor would have such a stunning lapse of judgment as to laugh at a joke about women rushing out to get abortions before John Roberts gets confirmed?

This kind of unwarranted and calloused garbage is only funny to those who have such a low regard not only for human life, but also for anyone who does value human life, that they sneeringly view anyone of the pro-life position as such an embarrassing buffoon that their very existence is humorous. Maher here is like the kid in elementary school seeking a few cheap laughs by mimicking the kid with the cleft palate, and King is the buffoon egging him on with laughter.

This behavior is inexcusable for a news anchor, and is further evidence of why viewers continue to flock away from the contemptible liberal shills they find on CNN toward a venue where conservatism is, at the very least, given a fair shake at FoxNews. This particular show, however, represents a brand new low for even CNN, in my view, and should justifiably be met with a further thinning of their already decimated audience.

Condoms, Decaptiations and Fraud

In case you missed the ridiculous Planned Parenthood Golden Gate cartoon (since unceremoniously removed from their website), The Dawn Patrol has got you covered, complete with a hilarious play-by-play.

Now, a lot of folks are upset by the fact that the cartoon depicts the "hero" (PPGG's President, an apparently fraudulent character) blowing up non-violent abortion protesters, and later in the credits, shows an abortion protester being decapitated by a condom. All of this is in extremely poor taste, to be sure, and would probably have gotten PPGG a visit from a District Attorney if they were a pro-life group. However, that's already been adequately covered elsewhere.

What I'm more upset about is the absolute incompetence of our opposition. In this cartoon, the "hero" cures a Senator of his conservativism by washing him in some mysterious green goo, from which he emerges naked on a platter, and repentant of his evil conservative ways. If I had the time and energy to count, there would probably be over 300 images of condoms in this 8 minute cartoon. This is what passes for argument from the ardent defenders of abortion.

I'm sad that 32 years later, we haven't pushed these people into the sea (rhetorically speaking). I suppose I could say I'm glad that they're getting lazy, and that victory is around the corner, but I honestly can't recall ever hearing "arguments" better than this tripe from the pro-abortion crowd. Self-interest, even at the expense of the life of another, is a powerful political motivator indeed.

The Line Between Evil and Monstrous

A friend of mine (John Cole) recently alerted me to this Charles Krauthammer piece on stem cells, which has a lot of "interesting" information from a bioethicist on the ethics of using human embryos for scientific experimentation. What was most "interesting" to me, in reading this article, was the line that Krauthammer attempted to draw between experimenting on human embryos already in existence, and creating new embryos specifically for the purpose of experimentation:

It is a good idea to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. It is a bad idea to do that without prohibiting research that uses embryos created specifically to be used in research and destroyed.

Perhaps, in my own sheltered existence in which I am not a noted bioethicist as Krauthammer is, I am simply unable to see why such a distinction factually exists, or why one is less monstrous than the other.

On the other hand, it could be because the distinction is not valid at all, except as a salve to the conscience of one who has determined beforehand that he will do monstrous things, whatever the ethical consequences.

The real threat to our humanity is the creation of new human life willfully for the sole purpose of making it the means to someone else's end -- dissecting it for its parts the way we would dissect something with no more moral standing than a mollusk or paramecium. The real Brave New World looming before us is the rise of the industry of human manufacture, where human embryos are created not to produce children -- the purpose of IVF clinics -- but for spare body parts.

Krauthammer and I agree about halfway on this point. I agree that it's a threat to our humanity that we take these embryos and dissect them for their parts - that we accord them no more moral standing than a mollusk or paramecium. Where we disagree is at the line Krauthammer draws in which the dissection of embryos for their parts, in which they are accorded mo more moral standing than a mollusk, is okay if the embryo has not been created specifically for that purpose.

In this article, Krauthammer continually seeks to draw this line without ever explaining why there is a difference between the two - and if there is a difference, why it should be considered as important:

Both in my writings and as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, I have advocated this dual policy: Expand federal funding of stem cell research by using discarded embryos, but couple that with a firm national ban on creating human embryos for any purpose other than the birth of a human baby. We finally have a chance to enact this grand compromise -- but only if a majority of senators insist that the welcome expansion provided in the Castle-DeGette bill, which will yield a near endless supply of embryonic stem cells, cannot take place unless the door is firmly closed now, while we still have the chance, on the manufacture of human embryos for research and destruction.

Why, Charles? Why does this matter? Is the dissection of an unwanted child, a ward of the state, more ethical than the dissection of a child whose parents conceived him for the purpose of scientific experimentation? Would Mengele have been excused for his monostrosity, so long as he did not specicially breed Jews to experiment on them?

I frankly have more respect for those who frankly admit that they don't think that the embryo has any more moral standing than the mollusk, or a cancerous tumor, and are in favor of unrestricted experimentation upon them on that basis. What Krauthammer is attempting to do here is to preserve the essential human value of embryos, while at the same time supporting their dissection for the sake of "science." But he seeks to speak as a sage voice of moderation by claiming the "moral high ground," and sanctimoniously declaring, "But only under certain circumstances!"

Krauthammer's piece, which seeks to walk a fine ethical line, manages to completely dodge the central question when it comes to the destruction of embryos for scientific experimentation: Are the embryos human? If they are human, then it is monstrous to kill them for scientific experimentation under any circumstances, regardless of how they came into existence. If they are not, and their destruction can help us as a species, then we are obligated to engage in this experimentation.

Krauthammer, like so many others, is attempting to draw a false line in which this monstrous practice is okay in certain situations. In so doing, he has painted himself as the worst kind of ethicist, the man who recognizes that a thing is monstrous, but advocates doing that thing anyway.

I'll pass on wondering about the number of angels dancing on the head of this pin, and hold my position clear. Let us hope that Bush does the same.

Speaking of People We Can't Trust

ogsHow about if we throw Mitt Romney's name in there for good measure:

Well, I would welcome the overturning of that portion of Roe v. Wade that says abortion has to apply in every single state and removes from the state the opportunity it has to make important decisions of its own. I believe in democracy. I believe in the right of states to deal with difficult issues in different ways, state to state. Fundamentally, that's one of the things that allows our country to hang together --that we allow each state to choose its own course when there is controversy. When we come together with a national connsensus, well then we can do something at a national level, but when there is a great deal of controversy, let's let the states deal with it through a democractic process rather than have a judiciary make a pronouncement of one size fits all.

Why does Mitt Romney think we can't recognize when we're being pandered to? Why are Hugh Hewitt and everyone else with a conservative bully pulpit carrying his water for him? What, exactly, has he accomplished as Governor of Massachusetts that would lead us to believe he'd do a decent job of running the whole country?

By the way, Hugh, who is right on most things, is still dead wrong on Tancredo. And he's still missing the entire point of brinksmanship. Nobody's perfect, I guess.

On Things Super

Pejman Yousefzadeh  takes a look at the notion that Roe v. Wade  is some sort of super-precedent, that has somehow become irrevocable in modern law:

Regarding this post, a commenter writes with a reference to this case and the following comment from Judge Michael Luttig--himself a favorite conservative candidate for the United States Supreme Court:

I understand the Supreme Court to have intended its decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), to be a decision of super-stare decisis with respect to a woman's fundamental right to choose whether or not to proceed with a pregnancy. See Casey, 505 U.S. at 844-46 ("Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), that defi- nition of liberty is still questioned. . . . After considering the funda-mental constitutional questions resolved by Roe, principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis, we are led to con- clude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed."). And I believe this understanding to have been not merely confirmed, but reinforced, by the Court's recent decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000 WL 825889, at *4 (June 28, 2000) ("[T]his Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992). We shall not revisit those legal principles.").

My thanks for the reference. But I still don't know what makes a particular precedent achieve the status of "super stare-decisis." Does the case merely have to be reaffirmed a few times? Does it merely have to be reaffirmed once? What if it is reaffirmed a whole bunch of times and then overruled? Will "super-stare decisis" be thus found to have met its match in jurisprudential red kryptonite?

So perhaps it might not be a bad idea to dismiss this talk altogether. Specter did not make the reference up out of whole cloth, but from his commentary, one would think that there is some kind of "super-stare decisis" school of thought out there equivalent to strict constructionism, originalism, or even (stars help us) "the living Constitution." There is not. Not even close. At best, it is a fringe school of thought with paltry references in the legal literature. And that would tend to make it something of a red herring for the purposes of debate and edification, would it not? Additionally, lower court judges may very well find themselves bound by stare decisis, whether "super" or not. But Supreme Court Justices can take a different tack and have in the past--overruling cases that have been affirmed and reaffirmed over and over. Something that adds to my suspicion that "super stare-decisis" has little application to our discussion or to the resolution of various legal issues and problems.

Indeed.

Pejman has been doing yeoman's work dispelling the notion that Roe v. Wade exists in some special category of precedent that is so firm that it cannot be overturned. For the record, Plessy was unsuccessfully challenged 6 times before being overturned in Brown. 

A truly sickening story

I normally don't read LaShawn Barber, but today, I'm glad I did (I guess). LaShawn started me down the trail of baby Rowan, who was reputedly born alive and left to die in a Florida abortion clinic. The sometimes dubious WND reports the following:

On April 1, Angele (the mother, MN) was given Valium and laminaria were inserted in her cervix to begin dilation. She was told to return the following day. On April 2, Angele took prescribed medicine to induce labor. Cramping and crying, she went to the clinic and knocked repeatedly on the door. Eventually someone came and directed her to a room that had dried blood on the wall. She was given a blanket that was still wet. She began to bleed and go into labor. Despite her cries, no one assisted her. After one hard push, the baby was born, fully intact and definitely alive. Angele said, “His right leg moved. He curled up a bit, like he was cold; I screamed but no one came.” She pleaded for the clinic workers to call 911 but they did not.

Continuing the saga, Evangelical Underground has a link that contains the official autopsy report, which says that there was "no forensic evidence" that the fetus was born alive, based upon the conclusion that there was no air in the lungs. Operation Rescue obtained an exclusive interview with Dr. Jan C. Garavaglia, the CME who performed the autopsy, and learned that according to Dr. Garavaglia, the only evidence that she could possibly hope to find from an autopsy report that the baby was born alive was air in the lungs.

However, as the article correctly points out, according to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a baby is considered alive if it exhibits any one of the following four criteria:

1. Breathing
2. A beating heart
3. Pulsating umbilical cord
4. Movement of voluntary muscles

Dr. Garavaglia admitted frankly in the interview that an autopsy could not determine any of the four criteria except for number one. What is significant is that the mother has repeatedly testified that baby Rowan turned his head toward her voice, curled his leg, and grasped her finger with his hand before he passed away.

Dr. Garavaglia's autopsy also produced evidence that flatly contradicts one of the key assertions of the abortion clinic in question, that the baby could not have been born with a heartbeat, because they gave the baby a lethal shot of digoxin before it exited the birth canal, a claim which the mother flatly denies, and Dr. Garavaglia's autopsy also contradicts. Dr. Garavaglia even went so far in the interview as to say that while she could not conclusively say from an autopsy whether the baby's heart was beating after it left the birth canal (illustrating the abitrariness of defining life at the point of leaving the birth canal), that it was "probable" that Rowan's heart stopped beating after he left the birth canal.

Angele stated in an interview with WorldNetDaily that she presented herself for an "induction" abortion at the EPOC abortion clinic in Orlando where Dr. Harry Perper prepared her to begin an abortion by premature delivery. After a harrowing labor experience, Angele delivered her 22-week old baby boy into a toilet at the abortion mill. She repeatedly called for help once she saw movement in her son, but was denied assistance by abortion clinic workers. She instructed her friend to call 911, which was done, but emergency workers who responded to the call were led to believe that no emergency existed and were turned away.

I'll be keeping close tabs on this story. More to come.

Thanks, ACLU!

Cheat Seeking Missiles (the best blog that isn't on your daily-read list) links us to this James Taranto piece regarding the ACLU and abortion.

From the AP:

Michelle Ann Foust, 31, was jailed last Wednesday when a urine sample allegedly showed the presence of methamphetamine, which would violate the terms of her bond agreement.

Just five days earlier, Foust was in court for a preliminary hearing on a charge of child endangerment. She was arrested last October shortly after she gave birth to a son after blood tests allegedly showed both Foust and the infant had meth in their bloodstreams. . . .

The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized Fremont County Attorney Ed Newell for bringing the case. Foust's attorney, Gordon Ellis, said the law shouldn't apply to Foust because a fetus is not a child.

Never, ever, ever say that the pro-abortion lobby in this country can't sink lower, even if you can't possibly imagine how it could be so. Remember that they're more creative than you are.

MachoNachos