Fear Her*

M. Sara Rosenthal is a "bioethicist" at the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine. She spoke to CNN concerning the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets. Behold:

Rosenthal, on the other hand, questions the woman's capacity to make a good decision under the circumstances. Some neonatologists believe that when pregnant women are told about dangers of prematurity or have great expectations about giving birth, their judgment can be impaired, she said.

The situation raises the issue of whether a doctor ought to override a patient's wishes for the sake of saving lives, she said. Although the health care system in America gives patients autonomy in making decisions about their own bodies, when emotionally distraught, some people decide poorly, she said.

A mother deciding not to kill any of her children is "decid[ing] poorly"? A bioethicist is even considering whether a doctor should override the wishes of the patient if they think that their patient is making the wrong decision? What would she do, arrest people and perform forced abortions a la China?

This is disgusting. It should terrify any woman looking to get pregnant, or indeed, who is pregnant and believes that motherhood doesn't start in the delivery room. As alarmist and crazy as it sounds, there are bioethicists who question your right to not have an abortion.

It's only more frightening when you realize that this woman is a teacher.

*Bonus points to any sci-fi fan (or Briton, for that matter) who gets the post title reference.

Doomed, doomed

to quote John Derbyshire. I saw this article, by Amir Taheri, yesterday while catching up on the news. Opener:

In his "first message to the Muslim world" Tuesday, President Obama on Al-Arabiya TV invited the Is lamic Republic in Iran to "unclench its fist" and accept his offer of "unconditional talks." A few hours later, after Obama had appeared on the Saudi-owned satellite-TV channel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of militants that no talks are possible unless the United States met a set of conditions.

Ahmadinejad: You aren't going to set conditions?
Pres. Obama: That's right.
Ahmadinejad: Oh, that's great. We will.

Ahmadinejad's requests are only modest, of course. They include an apology for U.S. "crimes", and not only those against Iran, but the entire Muslim world-- apparently the whole religion elected Mahmoud, not just Iran. He also demands that U.S. troops leave not just Iraq, not just Afghanistan, but every foreign base.

Give a donkey a carrot and he'll take the entire farm.

American Invertebrates

First off, where on earth have I been? I have been fighting the Black Breath-- in this case, pregnancy-induced migraines. Sorry for the lack of posting recently. I get visual migraines, which leave me functionally blind for a while. Which makes blogging hard.

Anyway, I finally got enough vision back to start reading the news yesterday. I have never seen Instapundit so torqued as he seems to be over the "stimulus" bill-- he's calling it the looting bill. Click through the links you'll find over there, and (as I did), you'll find out why. Will someone (other than Nancy Pelosi, please) explain how $335 MILLION in teenager STD prevention will create jobs, or stimulate the economy? Or any of the other liberal monstrosities that are tucked away in there? See Ron Brownstein:

"[T]he bill also emphatically expands programs targeted more at the far term than the near term — from aid to schools in low-income areas ($13 billion) to expanded college loans ($16 billion) and scientific research ($10 billion). In normal times, Congress might never enlarge so many programs at once. But, as with Reagan's tax cut, the crisis-induced demand for action may suspend the normal laws of political gravity — and allow Democrats to redirect federal priorities as boldly as Reagan did. "This is a once-in-a-25-year opportunity to [implement] a lot of our agenda," a top House Democratic aide says."

This is no stimulus bill. This is a liberal reworking of society. There's even wording in there with the capability to undo the welfare reform of the 90's, according to Charles Hurt. Support for the bill is falling rapidly, but (surprise!) the Democrats that we elected simply do not care.

As they are fond of saying over at National Review's Corner, elections have consequences. As a people, we elected Barack Obama. We put in a nearly filibuster-proof Dem majority with only a few conservatives and weak-kneed "compassionate conservatives" to oppose them. We did this. I remember the incredulous tone over at The Corner a couple of days before the election-- "Are we really going to do this? Elect the most liberal, inexperienced member of the Senate to the office of the President?" Well, yeah. We did. Or rather, as a people, we became so complacently ignorant that we let Hollywood and the main-stream media do it for us. We let ourselves be railroaded. This is what happens when America loses its collective spine. This is what happens when we lose any sense of self-reliance, let alone fair play.

This is what happens when we decide to let the liberal, nobody-should-have-to-lose playground mentality of the left take over.

This is what happens when we decide to let the government take care of us.

Unalienable rights

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

I've seen two or three posts on the Corner over the past couple days, regarding the question, "When should Israel stop?" When should Israel stop its bombarding of Gaza, the ground troop incursion it recently began, etc.? And there were a few answers: Victor Davis Hanson, who originally posed the question, said, "When they think there is a good chance the rockets will stop — and not until then." Responding to Hanson, Andrew Stuttaford said that there were no easy answers, but that, from the U.S. point of view, it would be a mistake to ignore the propaganda Israel is giving terrorist recruiters in the form of dead Gaza civilians.

Here is a good place to point out of that I have great respect for both Hanson and Stuttaford, and that I agree with them on most things. But here, they are wrong. Very wrong.

When should Israel stop? She should stop when her children are safe. She should stop, not when there's a good chance of the rockets stopping, but when they have stopped, and Hamas offers complete and unconditional surrender. She should stop when she has secured the rights of her citizens. Americans hold that ALL people are given the right to life-- but how secure is that right when you're a civilian and cowards are dropping bombs in your (civilian) city? How secure is your right to liberty when you're terrified to leave your bomb shelter? And how happy can you be when your children are under constant, deadly threat?

The people of this world who think they are enlightened like to portray the Palestinians as victims. And maybe, in the beginning, they were. I don't know, and can't speak to that. But Israel and Israelis have been in existence as long as three of your average suicide bombers. If every country in the world dealt with every historical grievance as they seem to condone Palestinians doing, the world would be in constant, never-ending war. If any other country tried it, the "elites" would be quick to point out the idiocy. But Israel, according to the "elites", may not defend herself. She may not defend her children. She may only accede to the demands and whims of the barbarians across the way.

Palestinians as a whole are not victims. They have the right to life-- and they blow it away in order to strip that right from others. They have the right to liberty-- and they exercised it by electing terrorists and launching rockets. They have the right to happiness-- and every time they failed to condemn a suicide bombing, a rocket launch, or incitement to another Holocaust, they forfeited that right by terrorizing others, including the innocent of their own people, whom they use as living shields with one hand and dead propaganda with the other.

Propaganda value is not more important than doing what is right. International opinion is not as important as drawing a line in Israeli sand and saying that barbarism has come thus far, but no farther. If Israel can stand up for herself, she has a golden opportunity to show terrorists that civilized people are not something to be trampled over on the way to the caliphate. If Israel can win first and then show mercy, she can show the Muslim world another light-- not one that requires murder, mayhem, and conversion or death, but one that allows all peaceful people to live. Without barbarians like Hamas.

There is an easy answer-- just not one that most people like to hear. It is to do what our grandfathers would have done, and did do: defeat evil, and defend their children.