The Right To Wrong
By Michael R. Bowen (05/20/03)
A few times every year I'm called in to remove a swallowed coin from a toddler's stomach. Before I lay a finger on the child, I must confer with the parents and obtain detailed permission. The coin is always sent to the pathology department, because the rule is that anything extracted from a human body must be saved and examined. I usually get a witty pathology report saying something like "FINAL PATHOLOGIC DIAGNOSIS: Penny, 1986".
The removal of a colon polyp from a teenager must be preceded by extensive documentation of permission from a parent. Likewise, here in New Hampshire a minor cannot obtain a tattoo or have her ears pierced without parental permission.
It seems you can hardly open the newspaper these days without reading that doctors are fleeing one state or another because of prohibitive malpractice insurance costs. The hardest hit is always obstetrics, for any undesired outcome of a pregnancy quickly leads to a crushing lawsuit.
See whether you can square those facts with these:
In New Hampshire this week, a bill requiring parental notification before a minor may obtain an abortion was gutted in committee. Sad to say, several Republicans were instrumental in the emasculation. The winning remark, however, goes predictably to a Democrat: "If this bill is all about parental rights, how come it's only concerned with abortion?"
On the Left Coast, the Peterson murder case prompted a NARAL Pro-Choice America spokesman to opine that Mr. Peterson must not be charged with two killings, lest the killing of a baby by any means be considered murder. Of course Conner Peterson, killed with his mother, was not referred to as "he", "baby", or even by his name. He was "it" or "fetus".
The comparison answers our New Hampshire Democrat. The reason that the bill is concerned only with abortion is that of all medical procedures, abortion alone is to be exempted from any parental involvement. Of all murders, the murder of an unborn baby is to be excused from justice, because to a Democrat there is no such thing as a bad abortion. No girl is too young to choose it, and there is no point up to and even after birth when it is unacceptable. If the Democratic Faith has any sacrament at all, it is the Abortion Ceremony.
The wacky logic of the Left has done to abortion what it did to sex. We were told to get rid of our hangups: mature people treat sex like any other bodily function..... except that just about every other bodily function is regulated by law or custom. There are times and places where it is permissible to relieve one's bladder or satisfy one's hunger, and other places where it is strictly forbidden, or at least considered rude. Sex alone is to be unrestricted and unjudged. Yet even the dimmest Democrat, while paying lip service to this ideal, lives quite comfortably with restrictions on the reproductive urge. For example, a President, Senator, or Admiral may not use his office to obtain sexual favors... unless he is essential in defense of the Right to Choose. Similarly, the economic sanctions on Iraq were wrong because they would result in the starvation of millions of babies. Liberating Iraq, on the other hand, was wrong because it would result in the killing of millions of babies. Putting Joe Camel on a billboard was wrong because it would induce children to smoke. Guns in the home are wrong because they will kill children. Wrong, wrong, wrong.......... unless the child's mother chooses to have the killing done. Apparently even murdering the child by killing his mother somehow still constitutes "Choice", perhaps because she still had the option, had she not been murdered first, of choosing it herself. Two deaths, neither one desired, but only one is murder. Two wrongs can make a right -- as long as one of them is the Right to Choice.
We are back to the 1860s. Once again the Democratic Party is wedded to a moral wrong, its defense forcing it to twist itself into ever more absurd postures. Murder is not murder, childhood is not childhood, and a litmus test for judges is not a litmus test. War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Clinging desperately to a lie, the Democrats must reject truth after truth. In order to sustain their folly, they must extinguish whatever wisdom they still possess.
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