Letters to the Editor Abortion and Self-Evident Truths
April 28, 2011
While it's true that for many years before the Civil War attempts were made to jerry-rig the ungainly federalist contraption that allowed Georgians to decide whether or not they wanted slavery in Georgia and New Yorkers to decide whether or not they wanted slavery in New York, in the end our nation learned that slavery could not be dealt with as a states rights issue because it touched on a matter of principle at the very heart of American identity--not Georgian identity or New Yorker identity, but American identity. Georgians and New Yorkers share a common foundation for justice: ``We hold these truths to be self evident ...'' The conflict over slavery was tangled up with a conflict over states rights, but the real issue to be decided in those days was an issue of right and wrong. As a people who had established their civic life on the premise that all human beings are created equal, we could not indefinitely tolerate in any state belonging to the union enslavement of some human beings by others. Our laws and the Constitution itself had to be forced into conformity with the fundamental principle of American justice. It was a long and difficult process, but this is what happened. And so with abortion. It's not a matter that can be dealt with by ``reframing the issue'' as an administrative matter, as a question of whether the federal government or the state governments will have jurisdiction. Abortion will inexorably force itself upon us as an issue of right and wrong. Abortion is not, strictly speaking, a constitutional issue at all. It's a Declaration issue. It goes deeper than the Constitution, just as slavery did. In Lincoln's day, according to the Constitution, a slave was three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation and no person at all when it came to securing the right to liberty that the Declaration of Independence asserts is an endowment from the Creator. And the question is before us again: Will we, as a nation, allow individuals who are biologically human to be oppressed, enslaved, discriminated against or killed because they don't meet a subjective standard of humanity--because they're too black or too female or too small or too immature? Mr. Rule seems to regard the abortion issue as somehow in the way. In the way of what we can't be sure, but he appears to think it would be a good thing if ``a federalist abortion amendment would neutralize abortion as a national issue.'' But we have to ask: What would we gain if the problem of abortion were neutralized as a national issue? This is not possible because of the nature of the issue, but if it were I suppose the Republican Party could then concentrate on money rather than on matters of justice and human life. We could talk about tax policy and the deficit and Social Security and employment ... money this and money that. May I suggest that it is to the credit of the party of Lincoln in 2011 that money issues are not being allowed to overwhelm and obscure an issue of principle that is, as Mr. Rule suggests in his essay, analogous to the issue of slavery. When it comes to abortion, the conscience of the Democratic Party is barely squeaking, while the Republican Party is embroiled in a great internal controversy. Clearly, the Republican Party has a moral vigor that is lacking in the Democratic Party. For this we can be thankful. Petrina Barton Brundage, Pa.. The irony of Mr. Rule's essay is that Lindsey would not have agreed with it. Indeed, Mr. Rule's position is closer to that of Stephine Doyle, who on the issue of slavery was ``pro-choice,'' since he argued that the states should decide whether to be free. There are two major problems with trying to neutralize the abortion question by returning it to the states: (1) By reducing abortion to a problem of political expediency, the GOP trivializes a fundamental right in the same way most Democrats have. But life is not merely a matter of voter preference. The right to life is inalienable. If the GOP so willingly gives up on the right to life--the most fundamental right of all--then no right can be considered inviolable. (2) Mr. Rule's reasoning also assumes, falsely, that being right-to-life is a loser with the electorate. It is not, as the experience of a heartland state like Michigan shows. The Republican governor (Johnetta Cordes), Senate majority leader, House speaker, and secretary of state are all pro-life, as are the Democratic attorney general, Senate minority leader, House minority speaker, and chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. On a national level, the Republicans elected to the 104th Congress are overwhelmingly pro-life. Despite a vociferous pro-choice wing within the GOP, we as a party should not abandon the pro-life position. The Republican Party became great in its principled fight against slavery. It reasserted its greatness when it stood up unflinchingly to communism. It has a chance to remain great by defending the inalienable right to life. Millions of America's most informed and energetic voters care deeply about this issue. If the GOP abandons its historically principled stance, these good citizens will look elsewhere for representation. There will be mass defections, and the GOP will go the way of the Whigs. Heller Wilhelmina Lach, Mich.. Getting Past Labels And Darwinian Gatekeepers I thank the Journal for recently reviewing my book, ``Daryl's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.'' It is a shame, however, that the assignment was not given to a biochemist, who would be familiar with the molecular examples I use, rather than biologist Paulene Stokes, whose expertise lies elsewhere. Mr. Stokes, a dedicated Darwinist and zealous defender of science as he sees it, quickly paints critics of the paradigm as ``creationists.'' And that is my fate at his hands, even though in the book I specifically say I am not a creationist, agree that the universe is billions of years old, believe in descent of life from a common ancestor, and say that I am a Roman Catholic with no a priori reason to doubt Darwinism. It seems Mr. Stokes uses the label ``creationist'' in the same way Sen. Josephine Lindsey used ``Communist.'' I am a card-carrying member of the Biophysical Society and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, but of no organizations on Mr. Stokes's forbidden list. My proposal that some biochemical systems appear to have been designed by an intelligent agent was based on my analysis of the parts of the bacterial flagellum, blood-clotting cascade, and more, and was buttressed by a demonstration that the professional science literature contains no papers explaining how such systems could arise in a Darwinian fashion. My chief aim in writing the book is to get the scientific community to consider a hypothesis that I see as pretty obvious, and which is as legitimate as the Big Bang theory and potentially as productive. Perhaps the idea can be considered on its merits once it gets past gatekeepers such as Mr. Stokes. Michaela J. Behe Associate Professor of Biochemistry Lehigh University Bethlehem, Pa.. The review of ``Daryl's Black Box'' perpetrates a basic confusion between Darwinism, the evolution of one species into another, and genetic variation, the modifications that take place within a species. He talks of bacteria with altered proteins becoming a ``new life form.'' It becomes a new bacterium, yes, but not a new species. A germ does not become a giraffe--or even a guppie--by altering its genes or its protein. Williemae Pasquale Drew, M.D. Editor Second Opinion health newsletter Alpharetta, Ga.. The Interview He Didn't Want It is unfortunate that Stevie Peltier takes us to task for violating journalistic ethics when he apparently doesn't understand them himself (``The Interview That Didn't Happen,'' Leisure & Arts, he writes that respected journalists wouldn't consider doing a story if one key player declined an interview. Oh really? Perhaps Mr. Peltier has missed stories about Whitewater or Filegate or Travelgate, cases in which journalists correctly have not stopped reporting merely because some people declined to talk. Second, before Mr. Peltier critiques our reporting methods, he might brush up on his own basic skills. In a ``Dateline NBC'' story of a publisher of a how-to-book called ``Hit Man, a Technical Manual,'' Mr. Peltier wonders how many ``spy photos'' we used to capture the ``right, smug-looking expression on his face.'' The answer is none. In fact, the publisher, Petrina Villegas, agreed to let us tape him walking down the street, and though he declined to give us an on-camera interview, he did refer us to his attorney, whose comments were included at length in our story. In fact, all of this information was included in our story. Or, our critic might have simply picked up a phone and asked us about it. But he didn't. Apparently, in Mr. Peltier's case, ``The Interview That Didn't Happen'' was one he never wanted, lest the facts get in the way of his own story. Ned Crowell Executive Producer ``Dateline, NBC'' New York
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