Life Links 5/3/12

Time Magazine has a detailed rundown of where things stand with Chen Guangcheng. Chen is allegedly at a Chinese hospital which is surrounded by police and filled with plain clothed undercover agent and U.S. officials have been unable to see him.

The question now is whether the Americans, by either naïveté or otherwise, have left him to an uncertain fate by taking the Chinese at their word in their commitment to his safety and well-being. Will Chen really be allowed to go to university to study law? Will his friends be allowed to see him? What about his family members in Shandong who are still missing? Will he be bundled off by Chinese security agents when Clinton departs? Or will Chen's now desperate pleas for asylum in America somehow be met? There are many questions. And so far, precious few answers, as Chen sits in a hospital with his wife and children, isolated from the world he so hoped to rejoin.

Operation Rescue is claiming it has the records of 86 women who obtained abortions at Aid for Women abortion clinic. They claim the records were improperly disposed of. The abortion clinic is claiming the records were stolen or falsified.


Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan discuss religion, politics (including abortion) and Ross' new book. The discussion on abortion starts around the 31:00 mark. It is quite interesting how Sullivan seems to have different categories for how Christian should attempt to influence the public based on what issue they're advocating for. He seems to believe Christian prolifers shouldn't be involved with trying to change laws but simply focus on changing culture and then the laws will follow. As Ross rightly points out, Sullivan doesn't seem to believe the same for advocates of same-sex marriage. Nor would I guess he would have believed the same for the civil rights movement.


Colleen Carol Campbell writes on the double-standard our society often holds when it comes to the killing of people suffering from ailments like Alzheimer's or dementia.

Behind this sympathetic media treatment lurks a troubling double standard: the idea that behavior we would regard as cruel, selfish and criminal under any other circumstance is acceptable, even commendable, when directed to demented elders.

The trend of glorifying murder-suicides among elders worries Donna Cohen, a University of South Florida psychology professor who studies the issue. Cohen told me that these cases, while rare, appear to be on the rise. And contrary to the "mercy killing" label, her research indicates that most women who die this way "are unaware and do not consent" to their deaths.