ABORTION IS THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF BLACK AMERICANS
Premeditated Murder of Newborn Babies Justified as
Morally Equivalent to Abortion
Contact: Jeff Sagnip, 202-225-3765; chrissmith.house.gov
OPINION, March 8, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith:
Late last month, two bioethicists -- Dr. Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva -- published an outrageous "paper" in the Journal of Medical Ethics justifying the deliberate, premeditated murder of newborn babies during the first days and weeks after birth.
Giubilini and Minerva wrote "when circumstances occur after birth that would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible."
If a newly born child poses an economic burden on a family, or is disabled, or is unwanted, that child can be murdered in cold blood because the baby lacks intrinsic value, and according to Giubilini and Minerva, is not a person.
Giubilini and Minerva wrote, "actual people's well-being could be threatened by a newborn even if healthy child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of."
As any parents -- especially moms -- will tell you, children in general and newborns in particular require enormous energy, money and boatloads of love. If any of these are lacking or pose what Giubilini and Minerva called a "threat," does that justify a death sentence?
Are the lives of newborn babies so cheap? Are babies so expendable?
The murder of newly born children is further justified by Giubilini and Minerva because newborn infants, like their slightly younger sisters and brothers in the womb, "cannot have formed any aim that she is prevented from accomplishing."
In other words, no dreams, no plans for the future, no "aims" that can be discerned, recognized or understood by adults, no life.
This preposterous, arbitrary and evil prerequisite for the attainment of legal personhood is not only bizarre -- it is inhumane in the extreme. Stripped of its pseudo-intellectual underpinnings, Giubilini and Minerva rationale for murdering newborns in the nursery is indistinguishable from any other child predator wielding a knife or gun.
Giubilini and Minerva say the devaluation of newborn babies is inextricably linked to the devaluation of unborn children, and is indeed the logical extension of the abortion culture, and wrote that they, "propose to call the practice afterbirth abortion rather than infanticide to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed -- the newborn baby -- is comparable with that of a fetus... Whether she will exist is exactly what our choice is about."
These anti-child, pro-murder rationalizations remind me of other, equally disturbing rants from highly credentialed individuals. Princeton's Peter Singer suggested a couple of years ago that, "There are various things you could say that are sufficient to give some moral status [to a child] after a few months, maybe six months or something like that, and you get perhaps to full moral status, really, only after two years."
Dr. James Watson, Nobel laureate for unraveling the mystery of DNA, wrote in Prism Magazine, "If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have."
In like manner, Dr. Francis Crick, who received the Nobel Prize with Watson, said that, "...no newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests it forfeits the right to live."
The dehumanization of newborns isn't new but it's getting worse.
Giubilini and Minerva's article must be a wakeup call. The lives of young children -- an unprotected class -- are under assault. Hard questions need to be asked and answered, and defenders of life must be mobilized. We have a duty to protect the weakest and most vulnerable from violence.
As lawmakers, we must strive for consistency.
Why do so many who claim to be proponents of human rights systematically dehumanize and exclude the weakest and most vulnerable human beings from legal protection?
Why the modern-day surge in prejudice and ugly bias against unborn children and newborns? Why the policy of exclusion, rather than inclusion?
Why is lethal violence against children -- abortion and premeditated killing of newborn infants -- marketed and sold as benign, progressive, enlightened and compassionate?
Why have so many "good people" turned a blind eye and looked askance as mothers are wounded by abortion and babies in the womb are pulverized by suction machines twenty to thirty times more powerful than household vacuum cleaners, or dismembered with surgical knives or poisoned with chemicals? Looking back, how could anyone in this House, or Senate or both President's Obama and Clinton, justify the hideous procedure called partial birth abortion?
Since 1973, over 54,000,000 babies have had abortion forced on them. Some of those children have been exterminated in the second and third trimester -- pain capable babies -- who suffered excruciating pain as the abortionist committed his violence.
Why are some surprised that the new emerging class of victims -- newborns -- are being slaughtered in Holland and elsewhere, while a perverse proposal to murder any newborn child -- sick or healthy -- is advanced in an otherwise serious and respected ethics journal?
Children -- born and unborn -- are precious.
Children -- sick, disabled or healthy -- possess fundamental human rights that no sane or compassionate society can abridge.
The premeditated murder of newborn babies is being justified as morally equivalent to abortion.
Congress, the courts, the president and society at large have a sacred duty to protect all children from violence, murder and exploitation. We don't have a moment to lose.
Coming up...
May 10: Maryland Right to Life's Second Annual Banquet!
This year guest speaker will be world reknown pediatric
neurosurgeon, Dr. Benjamin Carson.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO:
mdrtl.org/banquet2012
Chen Guangcheng
When Chen was under house
arrest, Batman star, Christian Bale
tried to visit Chen while in China
but was prevented from doing so
by police officers. See clip->>>
By Andrew Higgins, Sunday, May 6, 5:13 PM
HONG KONG — As the diplomatic storm around Chen Guangcheng calms, supporters and relatives of the blind activist now fear a tempest of retribution, a frequent feature of Communist Party crisis management known as “settling accounts after the autumn harvest.”
The ruling party, which has had a monopoly on power since 1949, has a long history of punishing not just those who challenge or embarrass it but also their families and friends. At least half a dozen people have already been detained for questioning over their role in Chen’s escape from house arrest in Shandong province on April 22 and his six-day stay at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. In addition, a Chinese lawyer who tried last week to visit Chen at a Beijing hospital said he was severely beaten by police and is now under constant surveillance. Others have been visited by security agents and ordered to keep quiet and to stay away from Chen's hospital ward.
12
Chen Guangcheng and other Chinese dissidents: Over the decades, several Chinese dissidents have criticized the Communist Party and have been detained by China or exiled in the United States.
Vice President Joe Biden says he believes that Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng's future is in the United States. He has an invitation to come to New York University.
But nearly all of those who got picked up in an initial sweep, including He Peirong, a female activist who helped transport Chen to Beijing, have now been released, with warnings to watch their step. This suggests that authorities have perhaps stepped back from or at least deferred a full-scale campaign of retribution. He, also known as “Pearl,” was detained in Nanjing, where she lives, on April 27 and sent a text message a week later saying she had been allowed to return home.
“The autumn harvest is not finished yet so the settling of accounts hasn’t really started,” said Bob Fu, an exiled Chinese activist who runs a group called China Aid. From his base in Texas, Fu helped engineer Chen’s flight from Shandong, a heavily rural and acutely conservative province in eastern China.
Chen had been under house arrest there since 2010, an extra-legal detention ordered by local officials infuriated by his efforts to challenge their use of forced abortions and other measures through the courts. Chen's escape, and his ability to evade authorities in Beijing as he moved between safehouses before taking refuge with U.S. diplomats, was a major embarrassment to China's vast security apparatus, which, according to official budget figures, gets more funding each year than even China’s military.
American officials have come under withering criticism, particularly from political foes of President Obama, for their handling of the Chen saga. Under a tentative deal struck Friday during a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. diplomats believe Chinese authorities will allow the self-taught lawyer to study law in New York. Chen himself, however, has voiced growing alarm about the fate of his family and those who assisted him.
“He is most worried about my safety, He Peirong's safety and that of other friends who helped him escape from illegal detention in Shandong,” read a Twitter-like message posted by Guo Yushan, a friend who was involved in Chen's flight and got taken away by police late at night on April 27 for several days of questioning. He, too, is again free .
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill banning abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving money through the state
By David Schwartz
Arizona joins six other states with similar laws, officials said. But three of those states — Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina — are facing legal challenges.
Arizona does not provide tax dollars for abortion, but backers said the law is needed to make sure that no indirect monies are funneled to organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide abortion and other health services. There were no estimates of how much money is involved.
But officials at Planned Parenthood Arizona, the state's largest abortion provider, said the law means that thousands of women in the state may now go without life-saving cancer screenings, birth control and basic health care.
"We are most concerned about the women and men who could be forced to go without health care as a result of this bill," Bryan Howard, Planned Parenthood Arizona's president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.
"We remain committed to providing Arizona communities with the professional, nonjudgmental and confidential health care they have relied on for 78 years," Howard said.
The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List called the bill a "major victory" in its fight to bar funding of abortion providers.
"Abortion-centered businesses like Planned Parenthood do not need or deserve taxpayer dollars," Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs for the organization, said in a written statement.
While Planned Parenthood suffered a setback in Arizona, it won a temporary battle in court on Friday with Texas. A federal appeals court ruled that the organization could participate in a health program for low-income women in Texas, despite a new state rule there that bans affiliates of abortion providers.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
updated 5/4/2012 11:50:13 PM ET
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill banning abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving money through the state, her office said in a statement.
The Republican-backed Whole Woman's Health Funding Priority Act cuts off funding for family planning and health services delivered by Planned Parenthood clinics and other organizations offering abortions.
"By signing this measure into law I stand with the majority of Americans who oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion," Brewer said in a statement.
