Life Links 11/4/08

Public Discourse shares a letter Hadley Arkes wrote to a liberal student regarding abortion and infanticide.

This is a problem for liberalism. I was a liberal and a Democrat years ago, but this issue turned me, for it has to call into question everything that a liberal would claim under the name of liberalism. With this matter of abortion, the liberals have backed themselves into the old principle of the Rule of the Strong. Those who have power over others are more real than the ones who are at the mercy of their power. The interests of the strong, in this setting, claim precedence over the interests of the weak. Step by step liberals have stripped themselves of any claim to be the party of liberal generosity, expanding the circle of those who are protected. It has happened so subtly that people may not be aware of it any longer. But now we look up--as Aaron looked up--and say, in candor, Yes, that is who we are, and what we have become. We cannot tell you any longer, as Democrats and liberals, that we reject infanticide, because we cannot reject it without calling into question that which we have come to care about more than we care about anything else.

Ed Morrisey and Elizabeth Scalia have a final plea to Catholic voters.

Even beyond this, though, consider why the Church supports social-justice issues. Our faith does not emphasize fighting poverty and oppression as mere Boy Scout merit badges, or to give Catholics something to do on the weekends. The emphasis on social justice springs from the foundational belief that all human life is sacred, anointed by God for His purposes, and not ours. The need for social justice is for us to recognize the spark of divinity in all of us.
What does abortion says about human life? It reduces it to commodity, and values it based on convenience. If that is what we think about human life, then that rejects the entire idea that God created humankind at all, let alone for any divine purpose. Without that fundamental understanding of the faith, then all kinds of horrors become possible — abortion, euthanasia, genocide on massive scales, war for acquisition, and the exploitation of the poor.
Why care about the poor if humans have no divine purpose? If we can kill millions of our offspring without a second thought, why not leave the poor to their own devices? Abortion represents the ultimate rejection of God and God’s plan.....

Barack Obama - inconsistent though he be - is no Hitler, or a Stalin or a Pol Pot. However, developing a fanciful notion of Obama’s ability to do and be more than man has ever done or been before - based on nothing more than a bit of charisma and an highly overprotective press - is to surrender, rather than apply, one’s use of reason.

The Wall Street Journal has an article on Michigan's Proposal 2. Unfortunately, reporter Suzanne Sataline starts by writing,

Seven years after the ban on federal funding of further embryonic stem-cell experiments, the issue has moved onto state ballot proposals for financing and expanding this research.

Another sentence says,

Since the Bush administration banned further federal funding of stem-cell research in 2001, states have wrestled with the issue.

It would really would be nice if reporters could correctly describe Bush's 7-year-old embryonic stem cell policy. Is it really that hard? Or are journalists really that lazy and/or biased? Providing approximately $40 million in federal funds a year for human embryonic stem cell research (not to mention the additional millions in adult and animal stem cell research funding) can hardly be described as banning "further federal funding of stem-cell research."