Liberal views on death are hypocritical

Right Reason
    By Matthew G. Alexander

The last few months have seen some of the clearest examples yet of the hypocritical and perverse tactics of those who would advance the culture of death. The issues at stake—abortion and assisted suicide—are two of the most important moral concerns of our times. The efforts of their supporters speak volumes about their respect (or lack thereof) for American democracy and the American people.

Although some may argue that the advocates of abortion and assisted suicide are different, they do share an essential similarity. Both groups are really opposing one of the most fundamental tenets of the Western ethical tradition: the equal and infinite value of all human life. They are essentially saying that some lives are of less significance or of lower quality than others, and that people may thus be killed or be allowed to kill themselves.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

In September, the Missouri state legislature passed a law banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion. It defined the crime of infanticide as causing "the death of a living infant with the purpose to cause said death by an overt act performed when the infant is partially born or born." For those unfamiliar with the partial-birth procedure, it consists of partially delivering a baby from its mother's womb and puncturing its skull. The American Medical Association is on record as saying that this barbaric procedure is never medically necessary, and the United States Congress has sent bills banning it to the president's desk for the past three years.

Immediately after Missouri passed its ban, Planned Parenthood filed suit in federal court, claiming that the law was unconstitutional, and U.S. District Court Judge Scott Wright delayed enactment of the law. This is not the first time such a judicial appeal has succeeded; the courts have struck down similar laws in Arkansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. When an appeals court upheld Illinois' version, Janet Benshoof of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy lamented, "This decision creates a constitutional crisis which will probably go to the Supreme Court." Actually, the Supreme Court created a constitutional crisis in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision when it invented a "right" to privacy out of whole cloth, citing "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution. With this decision, our system of self-governance and elected legislatures gave way to the power of the imperial federal judiciary.

Yet when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill limiting assisted suicide, the anti-life forces suddenly became populists and states-rights advocates. An amendment to the Controlled Substances Act, the bill banned the use of federally regulated drugs in physician-assisted suicide.

The amendment, the critics argue, was an illegitimate attack by the federal government on Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which passed the state legislature with the support of 60 percent of Oregonians support. Officials in Oregon are now mulling legal action to block it.

The officials' response displayed a rare blend of hypocrisy and error. Not only did they rush to federal court to overrule adverse state legislative actions in Illinois and Missouri, but they also had no case against Congress in Oregon. Although Oregon attorney general David Schuman said that the amendment "will nullify Oregon's Death With Dignity Act," it clearly will do no such thing.

The Congressional bill only targeted federally regulated medications, and such an action falls within the scope of the accepted interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause of Article I of the Constitution. Assisted suicide remains legal in Oregon, but means other than federally controlled drugs must be used. While this outcome is not ideal for pro-life Congressmen who desire an outright ban, they restricted themselves to the authority of the Constitution. Their opponents, on the other hand, do not respect American constitutional government—they only manipulate it to achieve their ends. When the laws passed suit their interests, they cheer the virtues of self-government, but when the laws oppose their cause, they run to an elected judiciary.

It is now very likely that the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of one of the state partial birth abortion laws. Should the laws be upheld, the pro-abortion side's legal escape hatch will be sealed. In that case, pro-abortionists will have to convince the country at large that infanticide is right and that suffering people should be abandoned to their despair rather than comforted in their pain—and that will be a tough sell.

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