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Show OPINION KATHLEEN PARKER ..... .. ~ , .. ... ...,...... I JOSEPH SOBRAN COMMENTARY _..,! Generation no longer values human life As fetuses, newborns and infants pile ultimate change of heart. And partialup in garbage cans, dump sters and birth abortion is n ever medically toilets-and as an au pair walks away i ndicated t o prot ect the pregn ant from killing her 8-month-old charge- women's h ea lth and h e r fe rtil i ty , we whose mothers allowed us to live according to th e Physicians:_.Ad Hoc are left with some unpleasant questions Coa liti on for Truth . " In fact, th e opposite is true," fou_r of the coalition's about the value of human life. Pretty quickly we realize, we don't physicians wrote in The Wall Street have good answers. fournal. In the past year, Americans have Let's not pretend anymore that we choked on their toast as they read the value human life. We don't . We point a s tories : An upsca le co llege co upl e finger at other countries that commit delivers a baby in a motel and tosses genocide, yet we're in denial about our his body in a dumpster. A high school own attitudes. The kids who kill their girl gives birth in the bathroom during newborns and walk away, or who give her prom, dumps the baby in the trash, birth in a toilet and forget to flush, are and returns to the dance floor. Another the offspring of our denial. The effective acquittal of Louise stashes her recently delivered baby in a duffel bag in her parents' garage. Woodward for the Eappen baby's death A few days ago, a just-delivered baby is but an extension of that denial. was found in a toilet at Disney World, Abse nt malice, Woodward 's new umbilica l cord wrapped around her conviction of manslaughter may be n eck, pla centa still attached. With justified, but manslaughter shouldn't Tinkerbell timing, a doctor happened go unpunished. Serving 279 days for a life that only la sted by in time to save the 262 days is not baby, who is thriving in a Florida hospital punishment. _ amid hundr eds of We can safely be t , that had Matthew adoption offers. A few hours earlier, been 8 years old Loui se Woo dward, a ·;;1: :r instead of 8 months, "it would be a totally 19-year-old British au. U'S.l: pair, rec e iv e d the different story," said reduced sent e nc e of Dr. Michael Durfee, a involuntary m an consultant to the slaughter in the death Nati o n a l Center on Child Review Fatality. of Matthew Eappen. Presiding Judge But Ma tth ew was a baby-inarti c ulat e, Hiller B. Zobel decided that the jury's verdict immobile, helplessof murd er was n o t which on our e verap propriat e, and h e sliding sca le of life declared as s uffi cient m ea n s not -quitepunishm ent the 2 79 human. In Durfee's words, days she served while awaiting the trial. we don't see babies as Woodward shook th e "real people." baby a n d banged his If they're not r ea l before th ey're b orn, h ea d agai nst a h ard s urf ace, th e judge what makes th em real con cede d, but, sh e .___________________........ after they're born ? In a didn't m ean to. virtual world, at what p oint do we And, no, Matthew didn't die of an old become viable, real people? As newscasts segue to the h ea d injury that re-b led, as defense attorneys claimed. Fifty pediatricians Unabomber, Saddam Hussein and Paula who treat victims of abuse have signed Jones, parents are left to answer their a lett e r d en o uncing the defense children's predictable question: H ow position: "Infants simply do not suffer com e th e baby-sitt er didn ' t get in massive head injury, show no trouble for killing the baby? significa nt symptoms for days, then Experts already are promulgating suddenly collapse and die," they said. answers. Meanwhile, Congress continues to "The best thing parents can do is be debate partial-birth abortions, which honest and say, ' We don't really everyone's heard of by now. I can' t bear know, "' said Robert Bornstein, to read another description myself, so professor of psychology at Gettysburg I'll spare you. Suffice to say, the baby is College in Pennsylvania. full-term, viable and partially delivered Good question; bad answer. We know why, and soon the next generation will, when the doctor kills it. And, no, partial-birth abortions aren't too. . performed only in cases of extreme We no longer value human life. fetal deformity or when the mother's life is threatened. A majority are Kathleen Parker .is a nationally performed for convenience after all, the syndicated columnist. -~g9 JlJl COMMENTARY -- Is Clinton concerned with his imageJ Nearly 35 years after his If Clinton had a presidential motto, it assassina tion, we are still learning would be the '60s slogan, "Make love, about John Kennedy's sex life. The not war." The slogan implies a stunted Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter version of "love" as recreational sex. Seymour Hersh has just published his But that is the point of th e sexual n ew findings about the remarkably revol ution of which Clinton is both lecherous young president in his book advocate and exemplar. "The Dark Side of Camelot." We are Recreational sex requires th e treated to scenes in which the Secret availability, an d legitim ation , of Service is put in th e positi on of abortion. This is where the sexual Arkansas state troopers, as it were. revolution and feminism converge. In Hersh justifies publishing details of fact mos t sexual revolutio nari es, Kennedy 's secret life on the high- including Hugh Hefner himself, are big minded grounds that they might have on "womens' rights, " by which they had something or other to do with chiefly mean the right to abort, right up Kennedy's foreign policy and stuff. It's a to the moment of birth. The Playboy bit of a stretch, but that won ' t stop male, after all, is hardly inconvenienced people from buying the book, even if by legal abortion; it's just what he they don't give a hoot about Kennedy's wants. The key to both the foreign policy. Kennedy's defenders, l"Y''"\·'"'+c',/Sfa% sexual revolution and on the other hand, womens' "liberation" is the destruction of argue that his private life, however squalid, the traditional responsibilities of men and can never tarnish his public legacy. women alike. Clinton, the nation's Meanwhile, in the world of today, 17,i,:1·.,,.1.,n,r..1 first baby bo omer President Clinton is president, is a charter member of the '60s said to be concerned " generation - the one about his own legacy. He has b een a ,,, that, assured of its peculiarly zigzagging own wisdom an d president. He has no " liberation " from definable foreign tradition, was inpolicy; in domestic sou ciant enough to affairs he has alter throw it all away. For nated conservative Clinton th ere is no gestures with piecesuch thing as ancestral wisdom. A roo t less meal moves to expand the reach of th e man from a troubled government. home in a gamb li ng In one area, though, t own, he a tt ach es a Clinton has been peculiar authority to consistent: sex. He has - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - trendiness, and h e fought with something like conviction habitually associates the pa st with for abortion, including late- term "prejudice" and "hate"-which he, of abortion, and he has now committed course, fearlessly opposes. His moral hi s a dm inistratio n to h omosexual rhetoric is the platitudinous patter of a rights. He pointedl y hobnobs with co mplete opportunist. The character swinging Hollywood types, including displayed in his ingeniously the lesbian actress Ellen DeGeneres, unscrupulous fund-raising efforts is also who recently smooched with her lover the character of his sexual conduct. · For all his rattling hypocrisy, Clinton in his presence at a White House do. Clinton is also the first president has found one area where he has been whose sex life hasn 't had to wait for able to adapt his avowed principles to posthumous revelations: They began his actual practice. He wants to enact during his candidacy, when he and his the New Morality into legislation. This wife appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss is what his presidency will most his rumored adulteries. deserve to be remembered for : his Since then we have been treated to desire to make his own vices normative graphic descriptions of his amatory for the whole nation. Someday he may have his own techniques and his private parts. The names of his mistresses have been Seymour Hersh, a biographer who will published (in some cases self- disclose that Clinton actually had a published), and he is the target of a coherent, albeit secret, foreign policy. sensational lawsuit for an alleged crude This shocking revelation will no doubt pass at an unwilling state employee. No be justified on grounds that Clinton's stickler for privacy, he has cheerfully foreign policy had a direct impact on answered questions about his his sex life. underwear and joked about his premarital adventures in a pickup foseph So bran is a nationally truck. syndicated columnist. r |