Monday, March 23, 2009

Is Post-birth Abortion A Possibility?

As the first 60 days of Obama's administration have unfolded, we have heard people say that he's nowhere near as liberal as he was made out to be in the campaign...and we have also heard that he's MORE liberal than was even imagined. I have a friend who says that he's not done enough for anyone to say one way or the other what he's going to do. But, that is only part of the problem facing the country. The other half is the Democrat controlled Senate and House, with Nanci Pelosi leading the liberal charge.

One of the euphemisms for Obama is "President Present" - so called because he voted present so many times in the Illinois state senate. Only he knows the full reasons why, but the popular theory, and one he has not disputed, is that he voted present on controversial issues so that people would not be able to point to his record and label him one way or the other, and it worked. Critics say that he cannot vote present in the white house - but I disagree. He's got Pelosi and Reid to do the dirty work and advance his causes, and then if there's an uproar, he can step in and look like the mediator rather than the instigator.

Which brings me to abortion. How far will they go in their quest to change the laws? There's no doubt that liberals are furious about the ban on partial-birth abortions that Bush signed into law. In case you don't know, the generally accepted gestational age of viability is 24 weeks, and babies born this early now have a good chance of survival. Repealing the ban on partial birth abortion would allow babies to be killed right up to the 40th week, well beyond established dates for fetal viability.

But is repealing the ban going to be enough? Not for some liberals. Take Peter Singer, author of "Animal Liberation." This publication has been the inspiration for PETA; featured in the movie "Legally Blonde" and is the animal rights bible to which animal rights activists turn for guidance the same way Christians reference the actual bible. Beyond rights for animals (see if you catch the irony here) Singer believes that abortion should be available for any reason, up to and beyond birth. That's right - if you eat a hamburger, he'll call you a murder, but if you kill a baby he'll say you're doing the right thing. He believes that killing a disabled baby leads to a world with greater happiness, so therefore is not only desirable, it's the moral thing to do.

But is that enough? Not for Singer. He views killing a day old infant is no different than killing a slug; he even advocates killing babies with 28 days of birth. Only after 28 days does a baby have any right to life. Most rational people would think he's off his nut, and no right thinking person could give him any credence, right? If you think that, you would be wrong.

Princeton University, in 1998 made him - Orwellian Newspseak alert - their first Professor of BioEthics. Yes, the "Life Ethics" professor believes in infanticide. Amy Guttman, director of Princeton's Center For Human Values, defends him when she calls his views "mainstream." Maybe she believes that because the world of academia is so liberal that the majority of the people she associates agree with him, but the nation is divided roughly down the middle on abortion. Without doing any real research, I am willing to bet that mainstream America is not in favor of infanticide. But I digress.

What does any of this have to Obama? Hopefully nothing; but with his election and the Democratic takeover of both houses of congress, the liberals are large and in charge. However, they know that it won't be that way forever; history shows that when power shifts this far to one side, it swings back fairly quickly. Look for Republicans to make some gains back in 2010. So, that gives the liberals less than 2 years to ram through as much of their agenda a possible. And like someone who loses their sight slowly, if we don't get more conservative leaders elected in 2010, we may suddenly see Peter Singer in a Health and Human Services post, whittling away at the walls that keep abortion at bay.

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