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February 10, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
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January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
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Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
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Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
August 7, 2006
/ 13 Menachem-Av, 5766
Don't patronize the abortion debate
By
Kathryn Lopez
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Ideally, political debates, like people, should mature over time. There's little indication this happening in the abortion debate; in elite discussions of the topic, honesty can be a lonely virtue.
Recently, on ABC's morning talk show "The View," Elisabeth Hasselbeck the program's Republican got a little impassioned. Barbara Walters had brought up the topic of Plan B, "the morning-after pill," which is expected to be approved soon by the federal Food & Drug Administration for over-the-counter sales. Elisabeth's lonely objection on the panel to its ready availability is one worth raising: While sometimes the pill works as a contraceptive, preventing fertilization, it can also work to prevent implantation of an already-fertilized embryo on the uterine wall thus acting as an abortifacient.
Before folks rush to pop this pill (and to encourage its use as a "fire extinguisher"), that fact ought to be known and considered. Hasselbeck said that she believes "that life begins at the moment of conception and fertilization" and that life, even in its earliest stages, "has value." After her stern rebuke of young Elisabeth, Barbara announced that, as the portrait of journalistic objectivity, she was not giving her own view on the matter which was as laughable a contention as if Hasselbeck had pretended she didn't really care about the issue either way. You would think that on a show called The View, an actual "view" might be tolerated.
In any case, the confrontation was instructive. In one quick daytime-TV moment, we can see a crystallization of the dishonesty of today's abortion debate. Earlier that week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a moderately pro-life Democrat, gave a speech touting his "Prevention First Agenda," on which he has collaborated with Hillary Clinton. This was yet another installment of the pro-choice movement's insistence that they are all about common-sense compromise something in which abortion opponents supposedly have no interest. But Reid's contention that he's the reasonable one was just a little too much like Walters's faux objectivity.
"As a pro-life senator in the Democratic Party," said Reid, "I know this common ground exists, and it's called prevention. If we're serious about breaking the stalemate in the abortion debate, both sides must stop posturing and start seeking the positive results we share."
But when compared with his actions, his words ring hollow. At the very moment he was giving this speech, Reid was holding up passage of a supremely commonsensical bill that would forbid adults to transport children from one state to another to circumvent their state's parental-notification or parental-consent laws on abortion. Although Reid eventually voted for the legislation, he delayed it and played politics with it, while accusing the other side of the debate of refusing to meet on common ground.
The bill solves a very real problem. Most states have parental-notification and parental-consent mandates on the books, because these measures are sensible and highly popular with voters. But the handful of jurisdictions that don't including New York, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia are full of doctors who can and will perform abortions on minors from out-of-state. As a result, state laws and parents' rights are being flouted.
Say a Pennsylvania teacher gets involved with a student and wants to have the evidence destroyed: All he has to do is take her across the state line to New Jersey. Or let's say your daughter's boyfriend's family doesn't like your family's supportive have-the-baby plan: They take her to another state for an abortion without your consent.
On issues like this, is it too much to ask that people like Reid leave the petty politics aside, and just say what they think? Agree or disagree with Hasselbeck on Plan B (even some pro-lifers do) or even on abortion itself, there's something refreshing about her. She's a public voice who is honest. She gets grief for it (scan the Web and you'll see her critics call her a ditz who parrots right-wing talking points) but she's a breath of fresh air and she's dishing out the truth in a forum where anti-abortion and other conservative views tend to be presented only in a caricatured form.
At a time when medical "progress" and additional "choices" make the life issues ever more complicated, dishonesty only makes conversation more difficult. As Barbara Walters lectured Hasselbeck, "We have to learn how to discuss these things in some kind of rational way."
The Reid/Walters way patronizing hypocrisy is not the way.
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