Biological facts upheld in court. Also, more on Unnatural Selection.

It's been a big day so far for pro-life news. For one thing, a federal judge upheld an Indiana law requiring that patients for an abortion be informed of the basic biological fact that a fetus is a member of the species Homo Sapiens:

The court also disagreed with Planned Parenthood’s argument that the statement is “misleading.”

“Here, the mandated statement states only a biological fact relating to the development of the living organism; therefore, it may be reasonably read to provide accurate, non-misleading information to the patient,” the court wrote. “Under Indiana law, a physician must disclose the facts and risks of a treatment which a reasonably prudent physician would be expected to disclose under like circumstances, and which a reasonable person would want to know.”

In other news, Ross Douthat has a review of Unnatural Selection, which I mentioned recently. The review highlights Western culpability in the moral perversions of population control.

From the 1950s onward, Asian countries that legalized and then promoted abortion did so with vocal, deep-pocketed American support. Digging into the archives of groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Hvistendahl depicts an unlikely alliance between Republican cold warriors worried that population growth would fuel the spread of Communism and left-wing scientists and activists who believed that abortion was necessary for both “the needs of women” and “the future prosperity — or maybe survival — of mankind,” as the Planned Parenthood federation’s medical director put it in 1976.

I can't say I'm surprised by this ironic alliance, but it is disgusting, all the same.

Douthat finds one thing lacking in Hvistendahl's book. Although he praises her for the "sense of moral urgency" with which the book is written, he points out the gaping hole in the basic moral argument: what enormous crime has been committed, exactly? Hvistendahl herself remains "agnostic" about when life begins. What then is the moral outrage? Douthat answers his own question:

Here the anti-abortion side has it easier. We can say outright what’s implied on every page of “Unnatural Selection,” even if the author can’t quite bring herself around.

The tragedy of the world’s 160 million missing girls isn’t that they’re “missing.” The tragedy is that they’re dead.

Unnatural Selection

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl is a book about the sex selection problem, particularly in Asia. I ran into this book via Tyler Cowen, who has a good excerpt from the book. Here's a review on the Amazon.com page:

“Unnatural Selection is an important book and a fascinating read. Mara Hvistendahl is a delightful writer: witty, engaging, and acute. But the tale she tells is deeply disturbing. Asia alone is missing 160 million women and girls, a number equal to the entire female population of the United States. According to Hvistendahl, the culprit is less deeply rooted cultural gender bias than rising wealth, elite attitudes, and Western influence and technology. Development, at least for the coming decades, will produce not only fewer children overall, but also many fewer girls. The result is a future for many parts of the world, from India to China, Azerbaijan to Albania, where brides are much more likely to be bought, women are much more likely to be trafficked, and men are much more likely to be frustrated. For the present, women who are pro-choice must confront the stark reality that the availability of ultrasound and ready abortion are sharply reducing the number of women in the world.” —Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

So how about it? If abortion is acceptable, and we can identify the sex of a fetus, what's the moral problem with aborting based on gender bias?

Or any other bias, for that matter?

Two bioethics issues with one story

A helpful article from LifeNews.com: "Babies Can Be Treated With Adult Stem Cells, Even in the Womb." As the title suggests, this report outlines a few ways in which scientists are using adult (not embryonic) stem cells to treat children of a young age, even unborn children.

Two things: First, the more the public realizes the advantages of adult stem cell research, hopefully the less we will support the destructive kind of embryonic stem cell research. They really are two very different things.

Second, I wonder how long we can live with the moral tension created by the ability to both save and destroy life in the womb. In a world where it's possible to cure defects in children still in the womb, how much longer will we really believe it's okay to kill these same children?

On Respecting Life

On the occasion of the 38th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision cementing abortion rights into our nation's law, I decided to compose a somewhat comprehensive statement on respecting life. My goal is defend a set of principles explaining the meaning and value of human life, and how it ought to be treated. These principles not only form the basis for the "pro-life" position on bioethics, but also may be used as guiding principles on all political issues.

Something you definitely should read

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519181,00.html

There's not much point in me giving you an analysis; I just think everyone should read the article. It's amazing.

They don't even try anymore...

So in one of those random web surfing experiences, I happened to find myself looking at Time Magazine's "Top 10 of Everything of 2008," and I noticed that on bio-ethical issues, their reviewers don't even make an attempt to acknowledge a different side of the debate.

Let's take the top medical breakthrough of 2008 (emphases added):

"President-elect Obama has pledged to lift the seven-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research — a boon for the field. But for some scientists, it almost doesn't matter. Researchers at Harvard and Columbia reported a milestone experiment in July, using a new method — one that doesn't require embryos at all — to generate the first motor neurons from stem cells in two elderly women with Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS."

Of course, it's such a boon for the field that we can now kill embryos for the sake of science, even though it's unnecessary--oh wait, my bad, almost unnecessary--to do so. I mean, heck, it's just neurons. I'm sure embryonic stem cells will gives us ultra-cool-super-awesome cells that will allow us to recover instantly from diseases or read people's minds. Thanks, President Obama!

And in another stunning display of totally unbiased reviewing, Time Magazine highlights the movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days as the fourth best movie of 2008:

"In Romania under the Ceausescu regime, abortion was banned, and within 20 years some half a million women had died from having botched illegal abortions. This severe thriller from writer-director Christian Mungiu focuses on Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), a pregnant college student, and her friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who finds a man who'll do the job: a quietly thuggish fellow who calls himself Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). Remorseless long takes build the suspense as the young women secure a hotel room and, when Bebe explains how they'll have to pay, question whether it's worth the price. Strap yourself in for this minimalist, splendidly acted horror film — and count your blessings that you live in a country where choosing an abortion doesn't mean losing a life."

Don't get me wrong: the plot does sound rather intriguing. It is undeniable that certain regimes that have outlawed abortions have also been horrible regimes.

But, seriously? Is there just not even another side in this debate? Once again, the mainstream media thinks abortion is all about choosing, without any thought given to the other side, who truly believes abortion means that someone is losing a life.

People sometimes ask why there are complaints about mainstream media bias. I guess the answer is that even when it comes to simple reviews of current events and pop culture, the mainstream media wears its opinions on its sleeves.