State Morality and the Myth of Moral Relativism

From time to time I slip into 'blog apathy' and simply can't bring myself to write posts, which is why I haven't posted since November. Things have also been rather hectic in my life recently (nothing sinister, merely purely professional challenges that I am quite happy to tackle). But the world is moving fast and lots of things are going on. No time to comment on them all, but an issue that has been addressed more and more frequently in the British Catholic blogosphere is the government's bill to teach sex education to children as young as five - including information on contraception from eight years of age and on abortion from 11 years. Initially these provisions were made mandatory also for 'faith schools' - such as Catholic schools which absolutely could not in good conscience teach a curriculum that said contraception and especially abortion were perfectly legitimate options. After much consternation, including a sharp comment from Pope Benedict, an amendment was introduced that opened up for such schools to be able to present the views of the denominations they are affiliated with - but they would still be required to present opposing views in addition to their own, including providing information to little girls about how they can have sex without getting pregnant and how they can have their babies killed if it happens anyway!!

Though the government will deny it, what it is doing is passing moral judgments in the manner of religious authorities. It is not possible to divorce sex & relationship education from morality: no matter whether you teach that abortion is acceptable or unacceptable, you are expounding a particular morality. Even if you desire to remain 'neutral' by presenting both sides of the argument and leave it to the pupils to decide you are still sending the message that both are legitimate options in their own right. This shows the flaw of Moral Relativism - though it purports to be 'neutral' and 'balanced', by arguing for the moral equivalence of multiple paths of moral reasoning, it is itself passing a moral judgment that it is perfectly legitimate for a person to abitrarily select one such path or the other. As such the very concept of Moral Relativism is self-contradictory, because it itself presupposes the existence of the very Absolutist principles it claims do not exist (it is readily demonstrable that the statement "Everything is relative" is self-contradictory because it is Absolutist - as long as one believes in logic).

(Interestingly, secular schools are not required - or even allowed - to present more than one side of the arguments on S&R issues. This does not seem particularly 'pluralist'. Indeed, most contemporary Western governments do not even base their policies upon moral relativist reasoning intended to represent a genuine plurality of viewpoints, but rather increasingly upon an agressive 'secularism' which embodies a distinctive morality of its own that a priori excludes the legitimacy of other viewpoints. Thus the 'secular' view that contraception and abortion are legitimate options is made the norm, and the 'religious' view that they are not is merely tolerated, and then only to a certain degree. This 'secularism' is thus an ideology in itself that seeks to exclude and destroy opposing ideologies and as such it is irrational to tout it as a common platform for all of society.)

Obama's Stall on Stupak Betrays His Duplicity

I thought the Stupak Amendment deserved a post for itself. This bill, introduced by pro-life Democrats, attempted to exclude most (though by no means all) abortion coverage from the health care bill of the US House of Representatives. I am not betting that it will get past the Senate, especially since President Obama is seeking to roll it back - this despite the fact that all polls show that the American people were overwhelmingly in favour of the amendment . He even has the gall to claim that it violates the status quo on abortion - which it does, but in the opposite direction of what he claims: since the status quo is that no federal money whatsoever goes to abortion (at least not inside the US), by allowing federal insurance to cover abortions in case of rape and incest it will in fact expand federal funding for abortions infinitely. But even this is not enough for the President, whose rhetoric about seeking 'common ground' on abortion rings more hollow by the minute.

His assertion that the amendment "restricts women's insurance choices" is a red herring since he is putting up a system that will create federally-sponsored health insurance ex nihilo; even if they do not cover abortions, they still will expand insurance coverage to many people who have never had it, so where is the restriction? Ah, unless of course he is betting on a great number of people who now have private insurance trading it for the public option - something left-wing legislators are hoping will eventually lead to a single-payer European-style system, a system which Obama has previously supported but now publicly claims he is not working for.

Either way, it just goes to show that the man can't be trusted. No more than your average politician, anyway. This is a guy who calls himself a 'Democrat' but doesn't care what the majority of the population wants or does not want.

(Actually, the amendment part aside, it was remarkable that the bill could get through the House at all since 72% of the US public opposed it in its current form. Not surprisingly, since the Speaker wanted to hide from them what was in the bill before it was voted on - even breaking a clear promise to publish it.)

Just Following Orders

I don't even know how to begin reporting this revolting and outrageous story. So without further ado:

"Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday. Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment."

"Just following..." Now where have we heard that one before?

But it gets better. Listen to this nasty bit of nitpicking:

"Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks. In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks."

So - two (2) days later and the doctors would have agreed that he would have had a chance of survival - even though the 'guidelines' say this is not so until a week later? If they are willing to show a latitude of 7 days, why not 9? This is simply a disgusting show of bureaucratism. You can laugh at this kind of thing if it happens at a post office where the clerk complains that your stamp slants at 2 degrees too much, but here we're talking people's lives!

There is no doctor with respect for his job and profession who makes decisions on whether to intervene or not based on arbitrary limits composed by bureaucrats. Doctors may, and very often do, decide that treating a particular patient is not feasible - but they do it by drawing on their theoretical knowledge and clinical experience and applying it to that particular individual patient in front of them! Doctors are not machines, where you insert patient data into one end and out the other pops a prescription. And any doctor who acts like he is such a machine is not fit for his profession, which is not so much a job as it is an art, as the ancients acknowledged.

And now for a bit of background knowledge on this curious 'guideline':

"Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago. Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'."

We'll return to that phrase presently. Now spot the non-sequitur here:

"More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year, and of those some 40,000 need to be treated in intensive care. The NHS spends an estimated £1 billion a year on their care."

So bloody what? I bet the NHS spends about the same amount on wages for top-level managers and 'commissions' like the one that crafted these rules.

"Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain."

Except that, like so much of what 'experts' say, that's not true:

"But weeks before they were published in 2006, a child was born in the U.S. which proved a baby could survive at earlier than 22 weeks if it was given medical treatment. Amillia Taylor was born in Florida on October 24, 2006, after just 21 weeks and six days in the womb. She celebrated her second birthday last year."

And now the clincher:

"Doctors believed she was a week older and so gave her intensive care, but later admitted she would not have received treatment if they had known her true age."

Time to revise the guidelines, you might think? Oh no. Remember, there's money involved.

"However, experts say cases like Amillia Taylor's are rare, and can raise false expectations about survival rates. Studies show that only 1 per cent of babies born before 23 weeks survive, and many suffer serious disabilities."

I actually happen to think that 1 percent is not too bad. Anyway, the job of doctors is first and foremost to save lives, and this we should always try to do if at all possible. Only when it is not possible, or when intervention is arguably riskier than non-intervention, do we settle for next best, i.e. alleviate suffering. In fact, the most unsettling thing about this story is perhaps that the doctors didn't even want to do that - they allegedly wouldn't even see the baby once it was born. Because they were afraid that they would be overcome by the impulse to treat it, perhaps? Anyways, to refuse to treat anyone out of hand on the basis of purely arbitrary criteria is beneath a doctor and an insult to the people he is supposed to serve - as human beings, not as so many appliances on an assembly line.

I was made aware of this story by Matt Archbold over at CMR, who, though a little off the top sometimes, is always good for some incisive comments. Like this, referring to the 'best interests' comment in the guidelines:

"Pardon me but I get a little tired of hearing the government decide what's in the 'best interests' of people."

And further:

"Pro-choice punks are all about allowing the mother to decide if the baby's allowed to live or die until the mother actually decides she wants the baby to live. Then and only then does the government jump in and say sorry, now we actually care about what's in the best interest of the baby. Then the mother doesn't get to choose. And guess what? The government decides it's in the best interests of the baby to die."

He even goes so far as saying this proves that Western civilization has turned into a "death cult". I won't go that far, but it certainly shows that when you're a poor little foetus, there is just no way you can win in this world.

Obama Advisors Envision the End of US Health Care

I should say from the start that I have never been a fan of the US health care system. I have of course been fed with all the usual Liberal/European propaganda against it, and I am in no doubt that it is better than its reputation, but I still do not think it particularly charming to allocate patients to varying standards of treatment based on their income. Nor can I see anything cost-effective about spending time trying to determine what procedures a patient's insurance will cover.

Now in Denmark we have a deeply Socialist health care system which is taxpayer funded and covers all citizens. It is a principle set down in law that all persons must receive the same treatment based on no other consideration than their need. Naturally, people with higher mental and social resources know how to work the system better, but in principle there is equal access for every single citizen. When we see a patient needing surgery, we don't waste time wondering about which procedure is most affordable or cost-effective, we just refer them to what they need.

Such a system is naturally very costly, and Denmark cannot be said to be in the vanguard when it comes to pioneering treatments and medical technology. In due course, public health bombs such as obesity and the growing number of elderly might break the back of the system. The waiting lists for treatment are also in many cases prohibitively long. To salvage the system, I envision a two-track solution where those who can afford it may receive privately funded care at separate private hospitals while an equal access system remains in place for the majority of the populace.

In the US, in addition to the problems with the uninsured (the numbers of which have, though, been grossly overestimated) the costs of public health programs is skyrocketing (the US actually spends almost the same proportion of GDP on public health programs as Denmark). So President Obama is trying to reform the health care system - a worthy aim, to be sure, but the plans envisioned are of dubious quality. And some of the advice he is getting seems to not be entirely sound even according to normal Liberal principles. According to the NY Post, two of the President's close advisors on health care policy, Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel and David Blumenthal, favour rationing health care by making doctors assign treatments based on government-issued guidelines for appropriate and cost-effective treatment. At least Dr. Emanuel openly argues that disabled and elderly persons should not receive treatment:

"He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96)."

Say what you will about the American health care system, but it undoubtedly does have the highest standards in the world. Not everyone may have access to the very best clinics, but it is a misconception that you have to be very wealthy to do so: taking out a second mortgage and loaning money from friends and relatives is possible for most people. If the government takes over the system, inefficiency and waiting lists will mount. Even then, what the system might lack in efficiency it might make up for in humanity as long as all patients are treated equally. What Obama's advisors are envisioning is, meanwhile, not a 'nanny state' solution but rather an 'evil stepmother state' solution where patients are viewed as inferior and undeserving of help if they are not good, productive citizens. It is totalitarian to the core, and unabashedly so.

Of course, it is not the first time that media outside the mainstream have exposed strong totalitarian sentiments among Pres. Obama's advisors. One has to wonder why he surrounds himself with people who hold such despicable views - and why the mainstream media couldn't care less.

(Via the Cube)

US Nurse Forced to Assist at Abortion

The New York Post reports that a nurse from Brooklyn was coerced into assisting at an abortion against her religious convictions:

"It felt like a horror film unfolding," said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35, who claims she has had gruesome nightmares and hasn't been able to sleep since the May 24 incident.

The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.

Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

The supervisor "claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion."

But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient's life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.

Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

Feeling threatened, Cenzon-DeCarlo assisted in the procedure.

She said she later learned that the hospital's own records deemed the procedure "Category II," which is not considered immediately life threatening.

"I felt violated and betrayed," she recalled. "I couldn't believe that this could happen."
A native of the Philippines, Cenzon-DeCarlo moved to New York in 2001 and started at Mount Sinai on the East Side as an operating-room nurse in 2004. During her job interview, an administrator asked Cenzon-DeCarlo whether she'd be willing to participate in abortions. She flatly said no.

The nurse said she put her beliefs in writing.

The day after the procedure, Cenzon-DeCarlo filed a grievance with her union. Later that week, she was cornered by two supervisors who told her if she wanted any more overtime shifts, she would have to sign a statement agreeing to participate in abortions, the suit says.

The next month, Cenzon-DeCarlo was assigned to one overtime shift, rather than the eight or nine she usually received, the suit claims.

Although the Brooklyn resident is still working at Mount Sinai, she's asking a court to order the hospital to pay unspecified damages, restore her shifts and respect her objections to abortion.

"I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred," Cenzon-DeCarlo said. "Doctors and nurses shouldn't be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs."

This story is deeply troubling. Even if we were willing for a moment to pretend that abortion does not objectively constitute murder, it is undeniable that subjectively she was coerced to assist at a murder; for that is what she sincerely believes to be the case. No wonder she's been having nightmares since the incident. No person should be put in such a situation.

One of the very last things George W. Bush did before leaving office was to sign a sweeping conscience protection clause which guaranteed the right of any healthcare provider to refuse to participate in treatment which they found morally objectionable. And one of the very first things Barack Obama did upon taking up office was to annul this clause by executive order, that is literally with a stroke of a pen, ostensibly because it had not been "properly reviewed." The Obama administration is instead working on a new clause which will certainly be more modest and will most probably involve some kind of exception for medical emergencies - otherwise the prompt scrapping of the Bush clause would make little sense.

Most Liberals view the right to abstain from compulsory military service as something sacrosanct. The US does not at present employ the draft, but back in the days of the Vietnam war deserters and draft dodgers were viewed as heroes among the Left. In their view, no-one should be forced to kill or even be taught to kill another person if it conflicts with his beliefs - as long as this happens in the context of a war. But on the hospital ward this fierce demand for respect for conscience is largely absent. Why? It seems to me that for Liberals, there is one right that trumps all other rights, even that of the right to respect for conscience, and that is the right to have your life look as you want it to, with a minimum of suffering, even if it requires killing other people to achieve that end.

(Via CMR)

Obama's Science Czar was (is?) a Eugenics Nut

... because this is absolutely too mind-boggingly awful to prevent commenting on. A "Czar", btw, in American political terminology denotes an executive official in charge of a specific area of public policy. The position is ad hoc and appointed by the government, meaning that unlike other officials such as the Surgeon General a Czar does not have to undergo confirmation by Congress or any other democratically elected organ (save for the President).

The 'Science Czar' is the unofficial title of the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is also Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Thus, he has an important role in determining policy on all matters involving science and technology, including, presumably, research.

Barack Obama's pick for this position is a certain John Holdren, PhD, a physicist who has among other things taught Environmental Policy at Harvard (go figure). This has not prevented him from making a bit of an overstatement regarding global warming, stating that sea levels might rise to as much as 13 feet (the IPCC 4th assessment report on climate change, which is largely viewed as authoritative, predicts 23 inches in its absolute worst-case scenario - it can be accessed here).

But this is not the first instance, nor by far the worst, in which he has seriously overestimated the state of the planet's decline. In 1977, he co-authored a book with Paul R. Ehrlich (author of the influential book The Population Bomb) and his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, named Ecoscience - Population, Resources, Environment. The book adresses the issue of overpopulation, which it sees as an alarming and imminent danger to all of humanity, including the United States itself (on another occasion, he stated that the US would not be able to support a population of 280 million by 2040; as of 2009 the population is well over 300 million and the problem faced by most people in the area of nutrition is not exactly that they have too little food). To counter this danger, the authors argue for the following propositions:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" - in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of the lives of all human persons - using an armed international police force.

Surely this is exaggerated? Nope. The guy who uncovered it all has provided scans of pages in the book at his website. It is absolutely clear that the authors are endorsing these propositions. But it must be out of context then? Well, reading the quotes in context arguably only makes them scarier. Do read the whole thing; it provides quite the insight into the mind of a certain strand of radical Environmentalist Malthusianism which wants to sacrifice human life and liberty to save the environment and ensure decent living standards for all (remaining) people. Did I say radical? No, it really isn't radical at all since the people who espoused it are apparently much respected in the scientific establishment and teach at Harvard.

The program outlined above is eugenics, plain and simple. There is very little difference between this and the eugenics program launched by the Nazis. The Nazis only resorted to direct killing of adult 'undesirables' at a late stage, but in the beginning the program was comprised of much the same elements: involuntary sterilization of 'undesirables' (mentally handicapped and people with hereditary defects) and forced removal of the children they already had. They, too, employed a police force which interfered in intimate details of the lives of all citizens. If anything, Holdren & al.'s program is even more radical than that of the Nazis. Now, the Nazis' motive was racial hygeine, while the motive of Holdren & al. was ensuring decent living standards for all humans on the planet and preventing environmental degradation caused by overpopulation. The latter are worthy aims, to be sure. But does the end justify the means? Those human persons who will have their rights curtailed, forced to being sterilized, abort their children or see them taken away by the authorities are not going to bloody well care about the motives behind these heinous and utterly despicable acts. They are evil no matter what purpose they are intended to serve (i.e., intrinsically evil).

The blogger whom the story originates with has not been able to identify any statement where Holdren distances himself from these views. Granted, the book was written in 1977, so a lot can have happened since then. Yet it still gives me the creeps that a person who has once displayed such profoundly twisted reasoning is now in charge of the scientific and technological policy of the world's only remaining superpower.

And even more, that this fellow was made a Professor of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley - in 1978!

(Brought to my attention by the redoubtable Cube)

A Tale of Two Decisions

Via CMR, I was made aware of a book review in the June issue of Psychiatric Services, which I gather is the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association. The reviewed book is named Three Generations, No Imbeciles and recounts the history of an infamous US Supreme Court decision from he 1920's, Buck v. Bell, which assured mental institutions of the right to forcibly sterilize their patients (inmates, rather). The decision was outright fraudulent as the poor woman who had brought the case was supplied a lawyer who "was a prominent sterilization advocate with ties to the institution petitioning for her sterilization" and the expert witness "had a eugenics agenda." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated in his opinion, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." (Holmes was, by the way, in his time viewed as a 'progressive'.) The decision resulted in hundreds of thousands of poor and disabled people being coerced into sterilization for 'social purposes' right into the 1970's.

I am not sure whether it is the book itself or the reviewer who makes the connection to another infamous SCOTUS decision, but it is a very interesting one:

This book also resonates with policy questions about the tension between individual autonomy and protecting people with disabilities. Lombardo sees Buck v. Bell and Roe v. Wade as fundamentally opposed because the former gives the power over reproductive decision making to the state and the latter reserves it to the individual. But Roe v. Wade was used to overturn protective state legislation banning sterilization of people with mental retardation and enabling guardians to impose sterilization on their wards (2). Thus each case has been used to support sterilization of people with mental disabilities. Our continuing social ambivalence about these issues makes Lombardo's book starkly relevant today, when women are using the rights they gained under Roe v. Wade to abort fetuses found to have Down's syndrome and the Supreme Court protects hospitals that follow parents' direction to provide only palliative care to infants born disabled when those infants could have been treated and lived (3). Is it hypocritical to criticize the statement that "three generations of imbeciles are enough" when individuals today decide that even one generation is too many?

This is a meticulously detailed and researched history that should be read not only by those who enjoy history but also because, as Lombardo says, "one of the important lessons of the Buck story [is that] a small number of zealous advocates can have an impact on the law that defies both science and conventional wisdom." As Lombardo shows, the move to sterilize "social undesirables" is far from extinct today.

The complete review is available here.

Catholics Persecuted by Catholics

One of the foremost Catholic universities in the US, Notre Dame, decided it would be a good idea to invite President Obama to deliver the address at their graduation ceremony and award him an honorary doctorate, as is apparently a tradition of theirs. The US Bishops didn't agree, with over 70 ordinaries criticizing the invitation - that's about one in four, including the Chair of the Bishop's Conference. Quite a few ordinary US Catholics are enraged as well that the university is not only inviting the most radically pro-abortion President ever to speak (which would not in itself be objectionable) but that they are honouring him as well. An honorary doctorate is an explicit endorsement of a person's politics. The university is playing the tired old record that there are so many other issues on which Catholics agree with Obama. Sorry, but that doesn't really cut it. Increasing federal funding for healthcare etc. is all very well, but it's not really of any use to those aborted people who are not actually around to enjoy it.

This video shows one of the most prepostorous events I've ever witnessed: a Catholic Priest (who is, by the way, 80 years old and fragile) is arrested by the campus police of a Catholic university for demonstrating for the right to life.

Yeah, he was probably trespassing, and he was probably not obeying police instructions, but that's not really the point. The point is that if Notre Dame was true to its Catholic identity, his demonstration wouldn't have been necessary in the first place. Anyway, Obama or not, it can simply not be the case that faithful Catholics are not allowed to voice their support for the unborn on the grounds of a Catholic institution. If this is what passes for freedom of religion in America, I'd take Saudi Arabia any day.

God bless this good Priest, who let himself be humiliated to restore the honour of our great Queen whose name has been so sullied by this sad affair, and to save the lives of her poor children who are condemned to death before they even see the life of day. And may the American public one day realize that what happened at Selma, Alabama is not only part of the same struggle as this, but utterly pales in comparison.

Schoolgirls to Obtain Morning-after Pills by Text Message

I fully understand that people worry about teenage pregnancy. In my opinion, people are not well suited to either have sex or be parents until they have gone through the turbulent years of adolescence and developed a reasonably stable sense of their own identity and an appreciation for the identity and dignity of others. It is even more worrying when very emotionally immature persons, even pre-teens, are having sex - they are being profoundly irresponsible and are doing damage to themselves and to others by not knowing how to set limits for their own behaviour, and in the case of girls they are often exploited by older teens or even grown men.

But how does one discourage this type of behaviour? The Oxfordshire County Council thought it would be a brilliant idea to set up a text message service where school pupils in some of the areas most affected by teenage pregnancies could receive easily accessible medical "support" if they thought they had "taken a risk." According to this article from the Times, the service is primarily directed towards handing out 'morning-after pills' to girls who had had unprotected sex or whose contraception had failed.

Now I, and many others, are asking exactly what good that will do? Apart from the obvious but controversial fact that 'morning-after pills' are usually abortifacient and thus entail the taking of an innocent life, this approach is solely directed towards treating the symptoms of a problem rather than the cause. The service may prevent some teenage pregnancies, but it is very likely that more will result from it since it will be come to seen as a handy 'back-up' plan to contraception, meaning contraception will be taken less seriously - resulting in not only more teenage pregnancies, but also more sexually transmitted diseases!

The rationale for not treating the root of this problem is, as far as I can see, that this would entail an admittance of the fact that the 'cult of orgasm' which is so prevalent in our society and is spreading to ever younger ages, is at some level problematic - that the encouragement of teens and pre-teens to delay sexual relations until they are more mature and responsible, and to develop instead within them the idea that relationships ought to be loving, caring, lasting, and not focused exclusively upon sex would amount to a disqualification of the sexual practices of adults themselves, which are often very far from this ideal. Thus the health and well-being of the next generation is essentially sacrificed in order to protect the care-free lifestyle to which the present one has become addicted.

The fact that there is no parental notification involved also makes this scheme a blatant attack upon the rights (and duties) of parents to be responsible for their children's well-being. It boggles the mind that the article states that "Child protection staff will step in if any girl aged between 11 and 13 uses the service." What of children under 11? Is that an impossible scenario? And, the legal age of consent in Britain is 16, so why set the limit at 13? As if girls aged 14 could not be the victims of exploitative relationships.

(On another note: LifeSiteNews reports that one of the schools involved in the pilot project is a Catholic school, and that the County had unilatererally included it in the project, offering it no option not to participate. Is this what passes for freedom of religion in the West?)

The Legacy of Margaret Sanger to be Fulfilled - Or?

Now it's official (as if we didn't know it): Hillary Clinton has affirmed that one of the stated aims of the Obama administration is to advance so-called 'reproductive rights', including the 'right' to abortion, throughout the world.

The same Hillary Clinton recently expressed her admiration for the founder of what would become the largest perpetrator of abortions in the US, Planned Parenthood, saying she was "in awe" of Margaret Sanger and that "her work is not yet done".

Many Catholic bloggers are going into bouts of frenzy over Margaret Sanger, stating that she was a eugenicist, a racist with ties to the KKK, and whatnot. Actually, I think they are missing a far deeper point about Sanger. I don't know much about her, but if the information about her on Wikipedia is anything to go by, it turns out she was not such a horrible person after all; in fact, she was quite conservative, even for her time. She was not a eugenicist in the most perjorative sense of the word - while encouraging women to be smart about when to get pregnant and with whom, she abhorred the murderous eugenics programs in Nazi Germany. She regarded other races than the white one as intellectually and emotionally inferior, but then such a view was not a rarity in her day. The most horrible thing she advocated was actually birth control, which, although morally reprehensible and sometimes abortifacient, seldom constitutes outright murder. On all other issues regarding sexuality and reproduction she was very much a product of the century in which she was born. She viewed masturbation as gravely disordered behaviour and had great disdain for chronic masturbators. Her rationale for birth control was not to 'liberate' women, as the feminists of the 60's sought to do, but rather to prevent their immature and irrational sexual impulses (which were of course unavoidable) from getting them into trouble. And she actually opposed abortion in all instances on the grounds that it always constituted a taking of a life.

So it seems that Margaret Sanger, godmother of abortionism and hero of the sex-obsessive Left, was herself an avid opponent of abortion and had a rather more negative view of human sexuality than the Catholic Church does today. In embracing the teaching of the Church, Planned Parenthood and Hillary Clinton would ironically be much more true to the ideals of their great hero than they are now, and even develop a more rounded view of human sexuality and the joys which accompany it than she ever attained.

Viva Berlusconi!

I never thought I would ever had written that header, but Berlusconi (whom I have well and truly loathed in the past for his populism and not-so-latent sexism) has really impressed me in the case of Eluana Englaro, the young Italian woman in a vegetative state for 17 years whose father recently got permission to disconnect her feeding tubes and starve her to death. The Vatican and the Italian Bishops have attempted to save her life for a long time, but recently Berlusconi entered the fray, stating that he would not have Eluana's death on his conscience. His government drafted a law to protect her but President Napolitano balked and she sadly passed away because of dehydration on Tuesday. More about the case here, with observations by prominent Italian neurologists who opposed the murder.

Berlusconi seems genuinely upset by the whole matter and offers this pithy analysis:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected the notion that Englaro had died of natural causes after she was deprived of food and water. "Eluana did not die a natural death," he said. "She was killed."

Amen. Access to food and water is not an "extraordinary treatment". It is an inalienable human right, also for persons with severe cerebral damage. I'm glad Berlusconi has seen this; maybe there is hope for Italy after all?