Toward the new future

Human Life Review, Winter 1999 by McFadden, J P

Other realities should be stated as well. For instance, every state in the Union has homicide statutes on its books which prohibit infanticide. Even if they did not, the Fourteenth Amendment should provide legal protection to "All persons born" under the jurisdiction of the United States against deprivation of life "without due process of law" and also denial of "equal protection" under state or federal law? The reality is that the laws are not being enforced, certainly not against those "medical professionals" who now believe themselves to be above the law, and entitled, literally, to get away with murder.

All this conjures up some grotesque ironies as well. Did not anti-abortionists predict that Roe v. Wade would produce just such lethal results? Have the pro-abortionists-most of whom publicly deplore the revival of Capital Punishment-noticed that the latest "humane" method of carrying out the execution of those judged guilty-just as in the execution of the innocent unborn-is by "medical professionals" thoroughly practiced in administering lethal injections?

The sad fact is that the Administration's Baby Doe regulations invoke only the weakest sanctions against infanticide. If the courts ever do allow enforcement (an unlikely event: as their myriad pro-abortion decisions have demonstrated overwhelmingly, the great majority of our judges are also willing converts to the New Future religion), the "regs" would do more than threaten possible cut-offs of federal funds to a hospital or practitioner who denied treatment to an "otherwise qualified handicapped individual"-the entire wording is extremely vague, and could easily be circumvented by any reasonably clever "health care provider," never mind a determined one. And that is the point: the cultists of the new ethic are determined to enforce their regulations as to who qualifies for a "meaningful life," and their loud opposition to even ineffectual regulation merely demonstrates their total rejection of any interference whatever.

Too harsh? Well, consider the words of Dr. James E. Strain, the current president of the American Academy of Pediatrics [in the July ' 83 issue of the Academy's own newsletter]. He writes: "It is clear that there are certain infants with handicaps who should have full treatment. There is another group whose handicaps are so severe that any treatment other than supportive care would be inhumane and only prolong pain and suffering. There is a third `in between' group where [sic] indications for unusual medical or surgical care are uncertain. It is the management of the third group of infants which should be reviewed by an ethics committee at the local hospital level. A model for this type of review is the institutional review committee that protects the rights of research subjects."

Medical jargon aside (not that it isn't worrisome: do you want your doctor to "manage" you in your hour of need?), Dr. Strain is plainly setting up his own triage situation, without bothering to mention that the prototype of triage was a horror justified (if it was justified) by emergency battlefield conditions, whereas most American babies are born in the best-equipped and lavishly-funded hospitals known to history.