>
> Running on a Platform of Executing the Small, Unwanted and Unfit.
>
> By Leon H Wolf
>
>
>
>
> Ed. Note - I had originally intended to hold this piece until after the
> election; in light of the fact that Talent's Senate race has been
> turned, in many ways, into a referendum on embryo destruction, I
> thought that the more appropriate time might be now.
>
>
> We civilized men do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we
> build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute
> poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the
> life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that
> vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would
> formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of
> civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to
> the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly
> injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care,
> or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race;
> but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant
> as to allow his worst animals to breed.
>
> -Charles Darwin1
>
> Where am I going with this? Below the fold...
>
> The central tenet of the philosophy of modernism is the belief in the
> power of humans to "to make, improve and reshape their environment,
> with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical
> experimentation."2 The heady rush of the Enlightenment, which had
> produced numerous laudible scientific achievements, began to create in
> mankind a belief that everything in nature was subject to successful
> human manipulation; that if only we tinkered long enough and retained
> our commitment to dispassionate observation, we might find a cure for
> all of nature's ills. Darwin's observation, quoted above, was
> merely a passive Enlightenment observation about the way things were
> - it was left to the modernists like Francis Galton to take the next
> step and suggest that perhaps something could be done to fix the
> problem of poorly designed humans.3 This suggestion would set in motion
> an as-yet unresolved conflict between our commitment to modernism, and
> our commitment to the sanctity of human life. The purpose of this
> article is to suggest that, despite sporadic setbacks, the commitment
> to modernism continues to make consistent and alarming encroachments on
> our commitment to the sanctity of human life. Eugenics, the bold and
> logical conclusion of modernism as applied to humans, has theoretically
> been consigned to the dustbin of history, but the truth is that the
> devotees of eugenics have merely become more subtle and devious in
> their methods, and have thus succeeded in having their ideas accepted
> by an unwitting populace.
>
>
>
>
> Francis Galton and the Improvement of Humans
>
> Sir Francis Galton was one of the foremost thinkers and writers of the
> modern movement. Galton is known for many scientific achievements,
> including the creation of the first weather maps, the discovery of the
> significance of fingerprints as an index of personal identity, and the
> development of the statistical concepts of correlation and regression
> to the mean.4 Galton's primary fascination, however, was with the
> work of his cousin, Charles Darwin:
>
> In Galton's day, the science of genetics was not yet understood.
> Nevertheless, Darwin's theory of evolution taught that species did
> change as a result of natural selection, and it was well known that by
> artificial selection a farmer could obtain permanent breeds of plants
> and animals strong in particular characteristics. Galton wondered,
> "Could not the race of men be similarly improved?"
>
> Galton thus made the leap from Darwin's observation about the way
> nature supposedly operated, to the ever-present modernist question:
> "May this be turned to our advantage?" Galton observed (to his
> dismay) that human "civilization" tended to weaken the quality of
> the gene pool by allowing its weak and unfit members to reproduce.
> Interestingly enough, it was in this context that Dalton found
> inspiration for the statistical concept of "regression towards the
> mean" - it was originally intended to designate the tendency of
> humans to experience a "reversion towards mediocrity" through
> policies which allowed the "unfit" members of society to breed.6
> Galton's famous work on eugenics, Hereditary Genius, opened by
> proclaiming:
>
> I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are
> derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the
> form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as
> it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful
> selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar
> powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite
> practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious
> marriages during several consecutive generations.
>
> Thus the science of eugenics was born. It is important to realize at
> the outset that Galton realized that in order for eugenics to become a
> successful movement, social norms would have to be put in place that
> would discourage the poor and less intelligent from breeding, since in
> his view they were already outbreeding the intelligent members of
> society.8 The birth control movement of the early 20th century would
> take up this mantle.
>
> The Birth Control Movement and Eugenics
>
> Perhaps no person was more central to the creation of the birth control
> movement than Margaret Sanger, co-founder of the American Birth Control
> League (which would later become Planned Parenthood). So great was
> Sanger's influence on her day, and so far-reaching was her success in
> mainstreaming eugenic beliefs, that H.G. Wells would proclaim in 1931,
> "When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a
> biological history, and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine." 9
> Sanger was a tireless crusader for birth control, opening one of the
> first "family planning" clinics in the country in 1916 in defiance
> of state law.10 Sanger dedicated her life to making birth control
> available, and was the central public figure for the birth control
> movement in the early twentieth century. It is important to realize
> that while some have erroneously claimed that Sanger engaged in her
> crusade in an attempt to make sure that "women mattered,"11 and
> were given equal freedom, the truth was that Margaret Sanger did not
> perceive sexual freedom as a positive good - and in fact argued
> against it.12 To Sanger and many other birth control activists, the
> primary reason to make birth control more available was to advance the
> process of eugenics. Sanger once declared "The campaign for birth
> control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical
> with the final aims of eugenics."13 Apart from more conventional
> methods of birth control, Sanger also advocated "[a] stern and rigid
> policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population
> whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that
> objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."14
>
> It should be noted that these ideas concerning birth control came to be
> very widely accepted during the first half of the twentieth century,
> particularly among the intelligensia, and that notions of eugenics were
> almost inextricably intertwined with birth control. For instance, in a
> majority Supreme Court opinion upholding the validity of a forced
> sterilization statute, Supreme Court Justice and legal giant Oliver
> Wendell Holmes declared:
>
> The judgment finds the facts that have been recited and that Carrie
> Buck "is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate
> offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized
> without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that
> of society will be promoted by her sterilization," and thereupon makes
> the order... We have seen more than once that the public welfare may
> call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it
> could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for
> these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned,
> in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better
> for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate
> offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility,
> society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing
> their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad
> enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of
> imbeciles are enough.15
>
> This opinion carried the day at the Supreme Court by an 8-1 margin;
> Justice Butler offered nothing in his dissent to refute this damnable
> doctrine.
>
> Eugenics also laid the foundation for other significant policies that
> were popular in the early and mid-twentieth century, including laws
> against miscegenation, and those supporting segregation and forced
> sterilization.16 These policies were enacted into law in at least 27
> states.17 Eugenics also laid the foundation for far more insidious
> policies which would eventually be carried out in Europe. Edwin Black
> discusses how eugenics laid the foundation for the Holocaust:
>
> The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not
> merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond,
> blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to
> inherit the Earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract
> emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East
> Europeans, Jews, dark- haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and
> anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by
> American raceologists.
>
> How? By identifying so-called defective family trees and subjecting
> them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their
> bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive
> capability of those deemed weak and inferior -- the so-called unfit.
> The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the
> population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.18
>
> Black notes that the more extreme eugenicists theorized that the best
> way to eliminate large sections of a population ("eugenicide")
> would probably be the large-scale use of gas chambers.19 The
> eugenicists also practiced cruel experiments in efforts to weed out the
> eugenically "unfit" - many of these experiments were performed on
> infants:
>
> One institution in Lincoln, Ill., fed its incoming patients milk from
> tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be
> immune. Thirty to 40 percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln.
> Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide [allowing the infant to
> starve for a predetermined amount of time to see if it would survive]
> one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions
> engaged in lethal neglect.20
>
> Needless to say, Hitler was very impressed with it all:
>
> Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-
> Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable
> pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more
> followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his
> side...
>
> Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the
> progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great
> interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states
> concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in
> all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."
>
> Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenics leader Madison
> Grant, calling his race-based eugenics book, "The Passing of the Great
> Race," his "bible."21
>
> Black also dispels the myth that the birth control movement had
> anything to do with advancing the sexual freedom of women:
>
> Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for
> eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and
> sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led
> the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little
> or no due process. In its first 25 years of eugenics legislation,
> California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were
> classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or
> "sexually wayward." At the Sonoma State Home, some women were
> sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or
> labia.22
>
> With the rise of Hitler to power in Germany, he provided the
> eugenicists with a national laboratory in which they might test their
> theories. In the pre-Holocaust years of 1934 and 1937, Hitler had an
> estimated 400,000 "unfit" individuals forcibly sterilized on the
> basis of physical or mental infirmity. The pace of German sterilization
> prompted American eugenicists to complain vocally that the Germans were
> "beating us at our own game."23 During the heat of World War II,
> the United States Supreme Court was still issuing opinions which gave
> explicit nods to the validity of eugenics as a science, and the
> legality of forced sterilization to achieve eugenic ends.24 Eventually,
> of course, the Germans took the further step of adopting the radical
> eugenic policies of "forced euthanasia," executing millions based
> on alleged genetic impurity, which they claimed could be identified (at
> least in part) by race.
>
> When the extent of the Holocaust became known, the public was horrified
> by the result, and eugenics suffered a serious blow in credibility. It
> was not, however, completely erased from the mainstream of American
> viewpoints, as evidenced by its mention in the landmark 1972 case of
> Furman v. Georgia, which resulted in the temporary end of the death
> penalty.25 By and large, though, eugenics had been tainted by
> association with racism and atrocity, and public espousal of eugenics
> was to fade from national consciousness during the 60s and 70s. The
> notion that humans could be made better by weeding out the less
> desirable members of society, however, had not.
>
> Eugenics and the Modern Birth Control Movement
>
> The forces which gave rise to the birth control movement of the last
> four decades are manifold and complex, and do not admit of easy
> categorization, as the forces which gave rise to the early birth
> control movement did. When the issue of birth control gained steam for
> a second time during the early 60s and into the 70s, there was
> undoubtedly an element of desire for lifestyle freedom, born in part
> from the increased involvement of women in the workforce as a
> consequence of World War II, and a desire for sexual freedom born of
> the "sexual revolution" of the 60s. There is no doubt that,
> whatever their worth, these forces played a significant part in the
> movement to legalize birth control and abortion - a movement which
> gained a series of momentous legal victories in the 60s and 70s, when
> the Supreme Court declared that the government could not prohibit
> married couples from obtaining contraception in Griswold v.
> Connecticut, and when the Supreme Court declared that
> abortion-on-demand was a constitutional right in the twin cases of Roe
> and Doe. To neglect these forces is to miss the whole picture; however,
> it would also not be appropriate to neglect the role eugenics played
> for many of the proponents of the modern birth control movement. For
> instance, Ron Weddington, the victorious co-counsel in Roe v. Wade,
> wrote a letter to then-President Bill Clinton in January of 1993,
> declaring his support for social eugenics:
>
> He said the new leader can "start immediately to eliminate the barely
> educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country."
>
> Weddington qualified his statement, saying, "No, I'm not advocating
> some sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs
> and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers
> are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies
> to people who can't afford to have babies.
>
> "There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only
> whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we
> view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as
> discriminatory, mean-spirited and ... well ... so Republican."26
>
> The statistics with respect to abortion present troubling racial
> implications. According to the CDC, black women are approximately 3
> times as likely as white women to have an abortion.27 The abortion rate
> for black children is an astonishing 491 abortions per 1000 live
> births.28 Indeed, one could scarcely invent a policy short of active
> eugenocide that would more effectively stagnate and/or reduce the black
> proportional population than legalized abortion. The effect of abortion
> on the black community is so pervasive that Jesse Jackson once
> exclaimed:
>
> That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then
> whites further dehumanized us by calling us "n*****s." It was part of
> the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us
> as human beings in order to justify that which they wanted to do and
> not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of
> taking. life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder; they call
> it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that
> would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus.
> Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified.29
>
> Numerous public supporters of legalized abortion - too many to count
> - have also publicly made the eugenistic argument that abortion must
> remain legal so that there will not be a sudden influx of poor children
> in society.30
>
> Perhaps just as troubling, the advances of modern science combined with
> the legalization of abortion-on-demand have supposedly created a world
> in which the truly unwanted can be eliminated before they are born.
> This reality is especially insidious because it provides the so-called
> "benefits" of eugenics, without forcing people to confront the
> reality of what means are necessary to produce those benefits. Before,
> someone had to leave the child born with Down's Syndrome outside to
> starve; a choice not many have the intestinal fortitude to make. Now,
> the mother can just get an amniocentesis, and have the "unfit"
> child eliminated before anyone has to look it in the face and make the
> conscious choice that it does not deserve to live. The evidence
> suggests that as many as 80 per cent of children who are prenatally
> diagnosed with Down's Syndrome are aborted today,31 which suggests
> that we have come to the a priori conclusion that those with Down's
> Syndrome do not deserve to live. When those sorts of decisions are made
> a priori, rather than on a case-by-case basis, monstrosity is never far
> around the corner.
>
> For instance, Britain recently legalized the practice of screening out
> embryos which carry certain genetic mutations that increase the risk of
> cancer.32 The specific mutations listed in the article are the BRCA-1
> and BRCA-2 mutations - mutations which run in my immediate family. I
> am certain that at least three members of my immediate family have this
> mutation, and I may indeed have it myself. The only effect of this
> mutation upon the life of those who have it is an increased risk of
> breast cancer. I will not air the personal struggles of my family
> members in this article, but suffice it to say that none of them has
> ever expressed to me that they would rather have never been born. It
> appears clear, however, that we are moving toward a world in which the
> smart and sensible thing to do is improve the gene pool of the human
> race, and preemptively eliminate all those who do not fit the genetic
> mold of "perfection." Such a solution might make the human race
> "better," as some would use that word, but I doubt that it would
> make us better humans for the monstrosities we would commit seeking it.
>
>
> The latest modernistic attempt to improve the human race does not
> involve eugenics at all, but deserves mention in this article because
> it may yet be the most insidious. I am talking, of course, about the
> destruction of human embryos for the harvesting of Embryonic Stem
> Cells, which we are constantly assured will provide the cure for
> Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, paralysis, cancer, heart disease,
> and maybe hemorrhoids. The potential efficacy of the science is beyond
> the purview of this article - the implications of the policy itself
> are not. Like eugenics, this particular foray into the improvement of
> the human species involves killing some humans in the hope of making
> the human race better. However, unlike eugenics, the humans who are
> chosen for elimination are not chosen on the basis of some supposed
> genetic defect, but rather solely on the basis of being unwanted.
>
> The public hypnosis with the promise of human betterment through the
> use of Embryonic Stem Cells has reached an alarming level. If polls are
> to be believed, a significant portion of individuals who do not favor
> the legalized killing of an embryo implanted on the uterine wall do
> favor federal subsidization of the killing of embryos located in Petri
> dishes.33 The primary difference, of course, is that the former does
> not offer the promise of the betterment of the human race, except to
> those with eugenic sympathies. The latter, however, offers the siren
> call of modernism - things can be made better, we can improve
> everything, even human beings, if you give us the chance. In the midst
> of a heated Missouri Senate race this year, Michael J. Fox appeared in
> television commercials for Democratic challenger, visibly shaking from
> his Parkinson's medication, pleading on behalf of a candidate who
> will stand aside for the march of modernism. Why? Because Michael J.
> Fox is talented, he is an actor, he is beloved by society, and those
> who must be sacrificed in the hope of curing his disease are so very
> small and besides which unwanted, and they'll never make a show like
> Family Ties for you.
>
> Under countless circumstances, we have heeded the call of modernism,
> and justly so. We have, however, allowed ourselves to believe that we
> will not listen to that call when the cost for the betterment of
> humanity is the lives of selected human beings. The current debate over
> the destruction of embryos suggests that if only the human beings are
> small enough that they can be safely ignored, we are perfectly capable
> of ignoring them and reverting to our old practices. Perhaps we have
> not come so far from the 1940s after all.
>
> Modernistic Eugenics in a Postmodern World
>
> A full examination of this issue must include an examination of why
> people today are instinctively bothered by a recounting of the history
> of eugenics, yet seem strangely content to ignore the de facto effort
> to eliminate children with Down's Syndrome or other genetic
> abnormalities, and the (conscious or unconscious) elimination of poor,
> black children in this country. This is to say nothing of the commonly
> accepted practice of destroying the youngest members of our society
> that we might harvest their stem cells to cure the diseases of the old.
> Why, we should ask, are we comfortable with the latter, but not the
> former?
>
> It might first be objected that today's efforts at improving the
> human race do not involve the elimination of individuals based on race.
> However, to concede this as a legitimate point is to say that the
> efforts of the eugenicists were legitimate, but overinclusive since
> genetic undesirability does not perfectly correspond to race. Surely,
> the rejection of eugenics involves more than a complaint that eugenics
> swept up some good with the bad. Is our society really ready to accept
> that the eugenicists had the basic principle right, but merely lacked
> the science to accurately target those whose very existence affronted
> our species? This argument also ignores the reality that the
> eugenicists of old did not specifically target race qua race, but
> rather believed that certain races were populated with many more
> genetically unfit individuals, and hence were subject to greater
> scrutiny. Thus the Holocaust swept up Jews, gypsies, homosexuals,
> physically and mentally handicapped individuals, and others. In the
> same way, the modern statistics regarding abortion tell what should be
> a very troubling tale about the gutting of a particular economic class,
> especially as it implicates a particular race.
>
> Whatever the case, the inevitable march of science has made available
> new avenues of testing our commitment to the worth of each individual
> human life. Against this commitment, science has raised the possibility
> of better days on the horizon for the whole human species; the unending
> modernistic promise that if we just tinker with human beings enough, we
> can make humanity better. The only thing that stands in our way is the
> foolish insistence on commitment to the worth of each individual human,
> Will we continue to let this commitment stand in the way of the
> ultimate fulfillment of modernism?
>
>
>
>
> 1 Stephen R.L. Clark, Deconstructing Darwin, Address at Alan Richardson
> Lecture (Mar. 04, 1999), in Instilling Ethics (Rowman & Littlefield:
> Lanham, Maryland 2000), 2000, at 119.
> 2 Modernism, Wikipedia, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
> (visited Oct. 23, 2006).
> 3 Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Darwin,
PBS.org, at
>
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/darwin/nameof/index.html (visited
> Oct. 23, 2006).
> 4 Human Intelligence: Francis Galton, University of Indiana, at
>
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton.shtml (visited Oct. 23, 2006).
> 5 Kevles, In the Name of Darwin, supra note 3
> 6 See Eugenics, Wikipedia, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
> (visited Oct. 23, 2006), citing Donald A. MacKenzie, Statistics in
> Britain, 1865-1930: The social construction of scientific knowledge
> (Edinburgh University Press 1981).
> 7 Id.
> 8 Id.
> 9 Gloria Steinem, Margaret Sanger, The Time 100, at
>
http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/sanger.html (visited
> Oct. 23, 2006).
> 10 See Margaret Sanger, Wikipedia, at
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger (visited Oct. 23, 2006).
> 11 See Steinem, Margaret Sanger, supra note 9.
> 12 Sanger, supra note 10 ("Though sex cells are placed in a part of
> the anatomy for the essential purpose of easily expelling them into the
> female for the purpose of reproduction, there are other elements in the
> sexual fluid which are the essence of blood, nerve, brain, and muscle.
> When redirected in to the building and strengthening of these, we find
> men or women of the greatest endurance greatest magnetic power. A girl
> can waste her creative powers by brooding over a love affair to the
> extent of exhausting her system, with the results not unlike the
> effects of masturbation and debauchery.")
> 13 Id., citing Margaret Sanger, The Eugenic Value of Birth Control
> Propaganda, 1921 Birth Control Rev. 1, 5 (1921).
> 14 Id.
> 15 Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 207 (U.S. 1927).
> 16 Edwin Black, Eugenics and the Nazis -- The California connection,
> San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 9, 2003, at
>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/1....
> 17 Id.
> 18 Id.
> 19 Id.
> 20 Id.
> 21 Id.
> 22 Id.
> 23 Eugenics, supra note 6, citing Selgelid, Michael J., Neugenics?, 19
> Monash Bioethics Rev. 9 (2000).
> 24 See Skinner v. State of Okla. ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (U.S.
> 1942). The court overturned the sterilization statute in question on
> equal protection grounds, but gave such a blessing to the principles of
> eugenics that Justice Jackson felt it necessary to point out in a
> concurrence that, while he was in agreement with Buck v. Bell, supra,
> "There are limits to the extent to which a legislatively represented
> majority may conduct biological experiments at the expense of the
> dignity and personality and natural powers of a minority -- even those
> who have been guilty of what the majority define as crimes. But this
> Act falls down before reaching this problem, which I mention only to
> avoid the implication that such a question may not exist because not
> discussed. On it I would also reserve judgment." (at 546-47)
> 25 Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 342 (U.S. 1972) (Marshall, J.,
> concurring) (Justice Marshall's mention of Eugenics is not exactly
> favorable, but neither is it condemnatory, and it leaves open the
> proposition that a state might defend the use of the death penalty on
> eugenic grounds).
> 26 Roe attorney: Use abortion to 'eliminate poor', WorldNet Daily, at
>
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50191 (last
> modified May 13, 2006).
> 27 Lilo T Strauss, Joy Herndon, et. al, Abortion Surveillance ----
> United States, 2001,
CDC.gov, at
>
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm (visited Oct. 23,
> 2006).
> 28 Id.
> 29 Jesse Jackson, How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue,
> Right to Life News (1977).
> 30 See, e.g.,
http://www.balancedpolitics.org/abortion.htm#no.
> Presumably, it is better to not exist than to be poor.
> 31 George F. Will, Eugenics by Abortion: Is perfection an entitlement?,
> Washington Post, April 14, 2005, at A27.
> 32 Rick Weiss, Human Embryos in Britain May be Screened for Cancer
> Risk, Washington Post, May 11, 2006, at A12.
> 33 See, e.g., Jesse F. Derris, Life Support? Stem Cell Backing Holds at
> Six in Ten,
ABCNEWS.com, at
>
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll010803.html
> (visited Oct. 24, 2006).
