The normally subdued and professional Ohio State Legislature nearly came to fisticuffs Friday evening. As representative Jimmy Stewart put it, "We were all at the end of a very long day. Most of us hold a strong opinion on the subject, and well, things were said. Mistakes were made." Stewart led the majority opinion in supporting the amoebae for recognition as the state's official protozoan, while the minority opinion vehemently defended the radiolarian.
Representative Steve Reinhard agreed that the discussion had "more fire that it deserved, from both sides," but went on to say that, "anyone that won't acknowledge the plucky radiolarian's place in Ohio's history and culture show themselves to be dimwitted pin-heads."
Neither classification of protozoa actually refers to a specific organism. Both are categories or groups, differentiated primarily by their means of locomotion. The amoebae moves through its environment by constantly reshaping its body to effectively swim. The radiolarian's locomotion is dependant on its pseudopodia, jutting out from its body in all directions, serving as paddles to move it about and allow it to capture food. "The very name -- pseudopodia -- should tell you something about the creature you're dealing with," explained Stewart, "Here's a creature with 'pseudo' arms and legs. Too good for real legs? Too dumb? What's the story? We don't know. Now contrast that with the honest amoebae. The choice is clear."
"Actually, the amoebae sickens 15,000 Ohioans a year," countered Reinhard, "While the non-violent radiolarian sickens no one. Whoever heard of 'radiolarian dysentery'?"
The Protozoan vote will be held Monday, barring a last-minute filibuster.
WASHINGTON (March 26, 2004) -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) assailed Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) for his vote against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997), which passed the U.S. Senate 61-38 on Thursday, March 25.
The bill, also known as "Laci and Conner's Law," recognizes the unborn child as a second victim when he or she is killed or injured during the commission of a violent federal crime.
"Apparently, John Kerry believes that if a criminal commits a federal crime that injures a pregnant woman and kills her unborn son or daughter, prosecutors should tell the grieving mother that she did not really lose a baby," stated NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
The Senate defeated, 50-49, a substitute proposal offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), that would have codified the doctrine that when a woman and her unborn child are injured or killed during a federal crime, that crime has only a single victim. Kerry voted for the Feinstein single-victim substitute.
Some other senators -- including Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) -- first voted for the Feinstein single-victim substitute, but after that killer amendment narrowly failed, turned around and voted to pass the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
To see how senators voted on the Feinstein Substitute and on passage of H.R. 1997, go to the NRLC Senate scorecard.
"When a criminal attacks a woman who carries an unborn child, he claims two victims -- but Senators Daschle, Specter, and 47 others initially voted for the bill to say there is only one victim in such a crime," said Johnson.
According to three national public opinion polls, about 80% of the public agrees that a crime like the killing of Laci and Conner Peterson in California has two victims and should be charged as two homicides. The position of opponents of the bill that such crimes have only one victim -- the pregnant woman -- is supported by only 7 to 10% of the public in the three polls cited.
Members of families who have lost loved ones -- born and unborn -- in violent crimes, were in Washington this week to urge senators to recognize that these crimes have two victims. These included Sharon Rocha and Ron Grantski, the mother and stepfather of Laci Peterson and grandparents of Conner. The State of California is prosecuting that crime as a double homicide.
The NRLC website contains detailed information on the cases of some of the other victims and family members of victims who were in Washington this week.
In a statement issued after the vote yesterday, President Bush said, "Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims -- the mother and the unborn child -- and both victims should be protected by Federal law. I look forward to signing this important legislation into law."
H.R. 1997 passed the House of Representatives on February 26 by a vote of 254-163.
“Next week [March 29], as trial begins in New York, Nebraska, and California, the Justice Department will work vigorously to defend the law prohibiting partial-birth abortions. The Department will be devoting all resources necessary to defend the bipartisan findings of Congress that this violent practice is unnecessary, as well as painful and cruel to the partially-born child. A bipartisan majority in Congress reached this conclusion after eight years of testimony from respected medical professionals who stated that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary.”
A statement issued last week by a Justice Department spokeswoman.
I used the time waiting for my youngest to get ready for her soccer match Saturday morning to quickly skim over the abortion-related headlines online. Here’s one we ought to keep.
Referring to NARAL president Kate Michelman, the headline writer for the San Francisco Chronicle opined, “Activist warns that Bush wants limits on abortion.” You don’t say? The second sentence was almost anti-climatic: “Rights group's leader urges vote for Kerry.”
On other hand, while we will read three gazillion words over the next seven months, this headline does have the advantage of cutting right to the chase, doesn’t it? To the average citizen the message is, if you want limits on abortion, vote for George W. Bush. If you’re comfortable with vacuuming out the brains of almost fully developed, almost fully delivered unborn children, then John Kerry is your kind of guy.
Today is a day rich in symbolism. From sea to shining sea, the abortion-without-apology crowd is challenging the new Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
Courts on each coast–New York City and San Francisco–and one in middle America –Lincoln, Nebraska–will hear criticisms from the likes of the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the National Abortion Federation (NAF) challenging the ban signed into law last November by President Bush. In response the Justice Department will vigorously rebut charges that (a) the narrowly and specifically written law would ban the use of other abortion techniques, and (b) the law is unconstitutional because it does not contain a health exception.
As was pointed out by Al Kamen of the Washington Post this morning, it is serendipitous that all three trials should commence the same day. The Justice Department had sought a firm court date “no more than four months after the initial filing of the lawsuits, and all three judges chose today, about the last day of that period.”
To Kamen’s credit, of all the stories I read online this morning, his was the only one to remind the reader that the law passed “handily” in both Houses of Congress and that a sizeable number of Democrats voted in favor. While pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate were especially ingenious in trying to sidetrack an up-or-down vote on the law, in the end 17 Senate Democrats voted for the measure, joining 62 of their Democratic colleagues in the House.
Once procedural obstacles were cleared away (along with counterfeit “substitutes”), a lot of Democrats thought better of opposing a proposal backed by an overwhelming majority of the American people. [Much the same occurred last week, when the Unborn Victims of Violence Act survived a killer amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.]
Just one quick word about the tenacious, ongoing battle over abortion records.
Pro-abortion plaintiffs contend they must–just MUST–have access to the grisly partial-birth abortion technique because sometimes it is needed to preserve a woman’s “health.” But they’ve fought tooth and nail the Justice Department’s eminently reasonable request to see the records (with all personal information removed) of women who’ve been aborted with this hideous technique to determine if that is true.
Two other points and we’ll be done for today. First, some news stories have been remarkably fair, others remarkably one-sided. When a reporter writes something that comes out of left field as if it is a fact rather than a concoction of the pro-abortion spin machine, don’t let them get away with it.
Newsday, for example, wrote this morning, “The New York case, which includes seven physicians among the plaintiffs, challenges the ban that seeks to halt abortions 13 weeks [sic] and later in a pregnancy.” That is patently untrue. It is a talking point sent out to gullible/sympathetic reporters in furtherance of the pro-abortion game plan.
Second, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Casey has ruled that renowned pediatrician Dr. K.S. Anand can offer his considerable expertise on the issue of fetal pain. Dr. Anand’s carefully conducted work with newborns over a period of twenty years has persuaded this professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology, pharmacology, and neurobiology that the unborn child can experience pain at 20 weeks.
If we compared the legal sparring to a boxing match, winning in Congress was almost like a qualifying round. The real fight began when the bad guys won preliminary injunctions last November.
Round One was all the filings of legal briefs. We are, in effect, in Round Two. In those courts where the referee (the judge) is neutral, we have reason to believe we will prevail. In others, where he or she isn’t, it’ll be tougher going.
But this slugfest will ultimately make its way to the United States Supreme Court. All along the way, even if only by osmosis, the public will learn more and more about the disastrous fallout inherent in the vicious stupidity that is Roe v. Wade.
And the more the people learn, the better off the cause of life.
In an unprecedented joint US/UK government effort the United States and the United Kingdom yesterday announced the creation of a joint website. An acknowledgement of the complex and fluid nature of international diplomacy in the modern world, the aim of the new service will be to provide citizens of both countries with a continuously updated list of enemies and allies of the two countries.
“The basic concept will be very simple”, Bill Igbrother told us. “The site will show a map of the world with a continuously updated colour code dividing the world into Enemy and Friendly states.” “Simply rolling the cursor over any country will enable users to check not only if a country is an enemy or friendly state, but also whether that status is currently in the process of changing for instance when a previous enemy such as Libya is half way through becoming a friend.”
Tony Blair simultaneously announcing the website in a BBC interview told reporters “We have become aware that it’s very difficult for our citizens to follow just who our friends and enemies are nowadays. Monday Libya, and Iran are enemies, Wednesday Libya is a friend and Iran is kind of so-so, and by Friday we’re all best of friends and we’re dispatching Prince Charles. It’s hard for people in the government to follow, let alone ordinary citizens. Friendorenemy.com will address that issue.”
The website, to be built by Microsoft corporation will feature patented technology to display different information for users from the different countries. “Sometimes there’s a lag of a few days before a status change in the US is seen in the UK or vice versa or sometimes we just forget to tell each other about a change. The double-take™ technology that Microsoft have specifically developed for us will enable users in both countries to see up to date and country specific information as it happens and will also tailor it’s use of the English language to be more easily readable in each country. Thus terms such as “friend/enemy” in the UK will become “Good/Bad Guy” in the US.
"Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims -- the mother and the unborn child -- and both victims should be protected by federal law." President George W. Bush
"The Senate cleared the way for passage with a 50-49 vote to defeat an amendment, backed by opponents of the bill, that would have increased penalties but maintained that an attack on a pregnant woman was a single victim crime. Sen. John Kerry, D Mass., President Bush's opponent this fall, interrupted his campaign schedule to vote yes on the one victim amendment. He voted no on final passage." Associated Press
"Cynthia Warner said her daughter, Heather Fliegelman, was stabbed at least 47 times in her eighth month of pregnancy. Fliegelman's husband was convicted of her murder. He could have faced four additional years in jail for killing the family cats under Maine law, but he faced no extra charges for the death of the fetus, Warner said." Boston Globe
"The Senate bill would specifically exclude prosecution of legally performed abortions -- a fact supporters cite in arguing that the bill would not undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy. 'The criminals who commit these crimes are not committing abortions,' said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. 'They are depriving these unborn children of the right to life. It's a separate issue related to the right to life.'" Associated Press
"Civilized society has an obligation to punish injustice, no matter the size, strength, or political inconvenience of its victim. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is a matter of common sense and common decency." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
One other quotation I could have used that dealt with Senate passage yesterday of Laci and Conner's Law came from Reuters news service: "The U.S. Senate, after an emotional debate, easily passed legislation on Thursday to make it a federal crime to harm or kill an "unborn child..."
The writer was alluding to the lopsided 61-38 vote on final passage. But there was nothing whatsoever easy about the struggle in the Senate.
The real test came on an amendment offered by pro-abortion Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.). Feinstein's proposal would have codified the doctrine that when a woman and her unborn child are injured or killed during a federal crime, that crime has only a single victim. Had it passed, it would have turned the plain intent of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act on its head.
That white-knuckle vote saw the Feinstein amendment defeated 50-49. It was about as dramatic a vote as I have experienced in my 22 years at National Right to Life.
John Kerry at least was consistent: he voted for the Feinstein amendment and against the act, sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio). "Apparently, John Kerry believes that if a criminal commits a federal crime that injures a pregnant woman and kills her unborn son or daughter, prosecutors should tell the grieving mother that she did not really lose a baby," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) tried to have it both ways. Specter, up for re-election this fall, did NARAL's and Planned Parenthood's bidding in supporting the amendment to eviscerate the law. Then in a shameless display of political expediency, he voted for final passage--on the side of a law that several polls show is supported by 80% of the American public.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, facing a close election in pro-life South Dakota, did likewise. He voted for the gutting Feinstein amendment and then, once the bill was sure to pass, voted in favor.
There will be, of course, very thorough, very complete coverage of Laci and Conner's Law in the April edition of National Right to Life News. (If you are not a subscriber, you are missing an invaluable resource. Call 202-626-8828 today.)
Thus I'll only make three additional points here.
#1. This bill is about assailants who attack pregnant women and who not only injury or kill the mother, but injure or kill her unborn child. That the usual suspects turned this into a referendum on abortion demonstrates that they don't understand these are separate issues in the law, or choose to pretend not to grasp this.
After all, Prof. Walter Dellinger at Duke Law School, who once co-chaired a national commission to defend Roe and who later served as President Clinton's chief legal advisor on constitutional issues, is among prominent pro-Roe v. Wade legal authorities who have in recent months declared that fetal homicide laws do not conflict with Roe. This is something you will seldom read in the so-called "mainstream press."
Even some of those who have followed the Supreme Court's rulings for these many years might not know or remember that in its 1989 "Webster" decision the Court allowed to stand a part of a Missouri statute that stipulated that "the life of each human being begins at conception," and that the "unborn child" has the rights of others under all state laws (including criminal laws). Commonsensically (for once) the Supreme Court observing that this law could be constitutionally applied outside the realm of abortion.
#2. This law took five years to pass. It didn't spring fully grown like Minerva from the head of Zeus. It has a history and a lineage. For example, 29 states already have what are often called "fetal homicide" laws. Legal challenges to them have been uniformly unsuccessful.
What the new law would do, as NRLC's Johnson explained, is "include a 'child in utero' as a second victim when he or she is injured or killed during commission of a violent federal crime against his or her mother. The bill applies to specific existing federal laws, such as military crimes, crimes in federal jurisdictions, terrorism, and stalking across state lines."
#3. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the testimony given by members of families who have lost loved ones--born and unborn--to violent crimes. Most people know about Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner, who were murdered in California in December 2002. Their deaths are rightly being prosecuted as a double homicide.
But most people don't know that their deaths, tragically, are not unique. The Boston Globe reported this morning that, "Carol Lyons, whose 18-year-old pregnant daughter was killed in Kentucky in January, told reporters:'I know my grandbaby was real. I saw the ultrasound. I saw his heart beat.'"
And, then there is Heather Fliegelman, mentioned at the beginning of this edition, who was stabbed at least 47 times in her eighth month of pregnancy.
Their courage, resolution, and determination is remarkable.
Passage of Laci and Conner's law comes only three months after President Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Both were NRLC priorities. Without sounding too immodest, they became law in large part because of NRLC and the pressure exerted on lawmakers by members of NRLC state affiliates.
There are other pro-life laws in the pipeline. With your help, someday they, too, will be enacted.
There is a reason we are the largest and most influential single-issue pro-life organization on the face of the planet. NRLC knows what it is doing.
Please remember that the next time someone suggests otherwise.
Earlier this week as I walked from the upstairs of our home to the family room downstairs, something happened that got me to thinking. See if it makes sense to you.
There was music playing in the upstairs kids’ rooms, and so, too, as it happened, from the computer which we installed two floors down in our basement. As I reached the main floor the music emitting from the computer one floor down began to compete with the dominating sound blasting from the upstairs' stereos.
A few feet further I reached that exact spot where I could hear the music equally well from both sources. With a couple more steps I could barely hear the music from my kids’ rooms.
In a real sense that is the situation we find ourselves in now as it relates to the cacophony of voices in the abortion debate. For years the loudest voices-–because the media powers-that-be handed the microphones over to them–-came from the pro-abortionists.
Gradually, for many reasons, our voices (never absent, only ignored) have begun to be heard. Powered by a more sophisticated media strategy, the rise of alternative sources (such as NRL News, the NRLC web page, and the Internet), and the appearance of news sources more willing to give both sides a chance to be heard, the competing case for life is no longer a faint whisper.
It is as if the abortion debate has now reached the main floor. Pro-abortion hegemony, long an unpleasant fact of life, has fallen on hard times as the public begins to hear the intelligent alternative to their anti-life gibberish.
To carry the metaphor forward, the question is, how do we move the discussion forward yet a few more feet? For as long as I have been in the Movement, I’ve argued that there is a catalyst that holds the potential to decisively move the debate in a life-affirming direction.
It is something that I believe will first challenge and then eventually drown out the static about “choice” “and “potential life” and other drivel. And that is the soul-chilling reality of fetal pain.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Conway Casey ruled that a world famous expert on pain in unborn babies and newborns will be allowed to testify in a case brought by pro-abortionists who are challenging the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The potential importance is hard to exaggerate.
A little background. Once the law passed last November Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, and several individual abortionists immediately took the law to court, maintaining it was unconstitutional because it has no “health” exception. It doesn’t. After extensive hearings, Congress concluded that a partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to preserve the health of the mother.
The pro-abortion side says the opposite: there were and are instances where a partial-birth abortion is appropriate. Defending the law, the Justice Department said, in effect, “Prove it.”
To that end the Justice Department proposed to Judge Casey to have all personal information removed [“redacted”] and then have the medical records passed along to him. This will allow us to determine if the use of the gruesome partial-birth abortion technique was needed or was merely the abortionists' preference.
Put on the spot, the pro-abortion side has tried a number of stalling techniques. It appears as if they may have painted themselves into a corner.
As government attorneys explained in another courtroom on the same question, those challenging the act contend that partial-birth abortions are sometimes medically necessary. “[A]nd, critically, they base their contention not merely on general knowledge or expertise, but on their clinical experience based on actual and specific medical procedures [abortions] that they have performed. Because the plaintiff-physicians in the underlying case have themselves placed the medical necessity of their past procedures squarely at issue, because medical necessity is central to the constitutional question in that case, and because the Government has a duty to defend the constitutionality of federal statutes, the Government sought the redacted medical records at issue to test the assertions made by the New York plaintiffs forming the centerpiece of their constitutional challenge.”
But it got worse for the pro-abortion side. The Justice Department also asked Judge Casey to allow the testimony of Dr. K. S. Anand, a renowned expert in the area of pain and stress in fetuses and newborns. Dr. Anand, a pediatrician, co-authored a famous article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that concluded, among other things, that newborn babies are not only capable of feeling pain, but may possess a short-term "pain memory.”
More to the point, as Judge Casey summarized it, “Dr. Anand will likely opine that a fetus ‘possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation.’” Representing the National Abortion Federation [NAF], the ACLU maintained that Dr. Anand’s testimony is not sufficiently reliable because “he will testify only that it is likely that a fetus experiences pain during a partial-birth abortion.” Judge Casey disagreed.
He wrote that Dr. Anand’s opinion on fetal pain is based on twenty years of work in the field and on “research involving anatomical, functional, physiological and behavioral indicators,” as the Associated Press (in a remarkably accurate and balanced story) summarized Judge Casey’s remarks.
In rejecting NAF's motion, Casey noted that Congress “concluded that a fetus can feel pain during a partial-birth abortion procedure.” Because of these findings, “Congress determined that its interest in prohibiting partial-birth abortion was ‘compelling,’” he wrote.
“Despite this conclusion, Plaintiffs assert that the Act furthers no legitimate state interest,” according to Judge Casey. “Accordingly, evidence regarding fetal pain—including Dr. Anand’s testimony on the matter–is relevant to a claim at issue in this action.”
In other words, Dr. Anand’s testimony will help him assess "Congress's factual findings that partial-birth abortion is a 'brutal and inhumane procedure' and that 'during the partial-birth abortion procedure, the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain."'
The trial before Judge Casey is one of three that are set to begin March 29 in New York, Omaha, and San Francisco.
Whatever the outcomes, a horrific reality that has been smothered in silence for more than 30 years will at last get a public hearing.
Stay tuned to this space and to the April issue of National Right to Life News. If you are not receiving NRL News, call us at 202-626-8828 and we’ll get your subscription started immediately.
For the first time in the 95-year history of the nation's largest civil rights organization, the NAACP has stepped into the abortion fray. In a low-key announcement late last month, the group officially announced a position in favor of keeping abortions legal.
NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond said, "This is an issue of equal rights, and we are pleased to join those insisting on a woman's right to control her own body."
Janine Simpson, director of Urban Center Development for Care Net, a network of 750 pregnancy resource centers, condemned the NAACP's decision.
"The NAACP's decision to endorse abortion rights is irresponsible," said Simpson. "This organization should be concerned that one in three African American pregnancies end in abortion."
In their statement endorsing abortion, the NAACP says "public opinion surveys indicate that women of color seek abortions at rates higher than their percentage in the population."
But Simpson says that's because abortion businesses target black women and "an estimated 70 percent of abortion providers are in minority neighborhoods."
Day Gardner, director of Black Americans for Life, agrees, saying abortion exploits black women and unfairly targets the African-American community.
"Abortion is the number-one killer of African Americans, killing more Black people than all other causes combined," Gardner explains. "By the end of this very day, 1,200 black babies -- the babies that ensure our future -- will die."
During its quarterly meeting in New York on February 21, the NAACP board of directors adopted a resolution supporting the April 25th national pro-abortion march, which is co-sponsored by leading abortion advocacy groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood and NOW.
The resolution, introduced by board member Rupert Richardson, noted that 80 years ago, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, one of the association's founders, said every woman must have the right of procreation "at her own discretion."
In addition to Bond, the NAACP is led by president Kwesi Mfume, a former Maryland congressman. During his tenure in office, Mfume built a consistent pro-abortion voting record.
African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, yet African-American women have more than 35% of all abortions in the United States. The abortion rate of black women is three times that of white women.
Gardner said the most recent census shows that black Americans are no longer the largest minority group in the United States. She attributes that to the 14 million abortions of African-American children since Roe v. Wade.
Gardner said abortion makes a certain class of people "less than human" just as slavery made black Americans seem less than human.
Instead of promoting abortion, Simpson added that the NAACP should instead "look for solutions for the African American family.
ACTION: Make your views known. Contact the NAACP about their decision to endorse abortion at NAACP, 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore, MD 21215 or call (877) NAACP-98. Email washingtonbureau@naacpnet .org.
In a stunning move, a large group of Linux users have decided that in order to "protect the purity and sanctity of Linux, the most holy of codes", a new church containing "only the truest of believers" must be formed immediately to combat the forces of evil in "our final days."
"When the Antichrist has revealed himself unto us and the final battle draws neigh, the faithful must gather together and prepare to fight", said Frank Coventry, spokesperson for the new "True Church of Linux".
Church members believe that the lawsuit brought by SCO against IBM and other Linux vendors has shown that the "Antichrist" is none other than Darl McBride, CEO of SCO.
"His highest servant", later revealed as Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, "failed to stop us. So now, the dark one himself is with us, and we shall once again prevail over him".
Church members noted that there are other forces against them. "Those who have polluted Linux in the name of user-friendliness have allowed the unbelievers to foul and profane the once glorious OS we worshipped", said one member who only identified himself as punkbust12.
Another member noted "Those who blaspheme against the command line, who can not grasp the glory of inetd.conf, the rapture of sendmail; it is these heathen lusers that too many have slavishly appeased. No more. They are not worthy of the awesome beauty and healing grace of /dev/proc. KDE Sucks. GNOME too. [sic]" KDE and GNOME are popular windowing environments for Linux.
It is rumored that some in the church frevently believe that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, will reveal himself to be none other than the savior himself. One member, who asked not to be named, noted that "Linus and Jesus do kind of sound alike."
When asked to comment, Torvalds refused, saying only "I'm not wasting my time answering that bunch of stark raving loonies" also muttering "The nerve of some people".
The SCO lawsuit claims that IBM and others have violated their copyrights on Unix. Some at SCO believe that IBM, HP and other major companies have ruined SCOs ability to do business by giving away software that is very similar to what they sell. SCO's claims have raised the ire of many Linux users.
Experts note that it is clear that the lawsuit is a first for the software industry. "Certainly, I can't think of any case before this in which a smaller company claimed to be irreparably damaged by a large company giving away software", said Rob Donnell, a software law expert.
"The war of good and evil begins. Our number may seem few, but we shall arise victorious, and the glory of Open Source shall beam from the heavens upon us all.", said Mr. Coventry.
Mr. Coventry went on to say that "even the Apple-worshipper shall fall onto his knees and praise the one true OS." The Church of Jobs refused offical comment.
Church members are steeling themselves for a long battle. "We are prepared. Our souls are light, our PCs overclocked", said one member.
A passerby, after being told what the meeting, being held in a smallish room at the local community college, was about, commented "A damn church. Over stuff that runs on a computer. Fucking nutballs".
When told that Linux was a OS, not "some idiotic trashy game that dumb kids get way into." the passerby then proceeded to yell "Dumb asses!" a few times at churchgoers before leaving.
Yasser Arafat, coming to terms with the fact that he is no longer considered the leader of the Palestinian people by world leaders, has taken on a new role in his life; that of a movie critic.
"I really like the movies." Stated Yasser Arafat, "Don't get me wrong. I still hate America, but I love Hollywood. I can separate entertainment from politics. I'm good like that. Anyhow. Yes. I watched the movie that Mel Gibson made, The Passion Of The Christ. I liked it very much. It was not that violent. I mean, believe me, I've done, I mean, I've seen worst."
Mr. Arafat watched the movie at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah along with other prominent Palestinian and Christian leaders.
"President Arafat really enjoyed the film," stated a source close to Mr. Arafat who watched the movie with him, "He did not think it was anti-Semitic at all. And if he thinks that, then you know it's not. He is a very partial person. He can appreciate all sorts of religions and has no problem with the Jews and Israel. So, of course, his recommendation carries a lot of weight."
Nabil Abu Rdainah, Mr. Arafat's advisor, said that Arafat hailed the movie as historic. "He was extremely moved by the movie," stated Mr. Rdainah, "He liked it so much, he asked Mr. Gibson to personally work on a movie he is currently writing, appropriately entitled 'The Passion Of The Allah'. Mr. Gibson said he would review it and get back to him. He is very excited."
"I looked at the script that Mr. Arafat gave me," stated Mel Gibson, "It has potential. But there is not enough hatred and blame toward the Jews in it, so I will have to change it a bit. You know, it will make for good marketing and publicity."
Mr. Arafat is in current negotiations with Roger Ebert to create a movie review program to air locally in Palestinian Television called "Arafat and Ebert At The Movies". Depending on its popularity, it may seek syndication in most of the Arab world and Israel.
Tue Mar 23,10:53 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A pediatrician who says a fetus can feel pain during an abortion will be allowed to testify in a legal challenge to a new law banning a type of late-term abortion, a judge has ruled.
AP Photo Slideshow: Abortion Issues
U.S. District Judge Richard Casey ruled Friday that Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand can testify as a government witness at a trial scheduled for later this month.
The judge rejected arguments from the National Abortion Federation (news - web sites) that the testimony would be irrelevant and unreliable.
The new law, passed by Congress last year, forbids a procedure anti-abortion activists call "partial-birth abortion." It is generally performed in the second or third trimester.
The judge said the doctor's testimony will help him assess Congress' findings that the procedure is "brutal and inhumane" and that "the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain."
Anand has conducted research on pain in fetuses and newborns and concluded that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation.
The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), which is representing the National Abortion Federation, argued that Anand's testimony is insufficient because he will say it is likely but not definite that a fetus experiences pain during late-term abortions.
But the judge said Anand's testimony has a sufficiently reliable foundation because it is based on extensive experience and research.
Simultaneous trials challenging the law are set to begin March 29 in New York, Lincoln, Neb., and San Francisco.
I will not belabor what we've said before or what Michael New reinforces so well below. The climate on college campuses is noticeably warmer for pro-lifers.
The following is an excellent account of a forum that took place March 9 at Harvard. NRLC Political Director Carol Tobias was one of the four featured speakers.
I'm confident that by the time you finish the article, you'll regret not being in attendance.
************************* *********** Reasons for optimism at Harvard By Michael J. New
Pro-lifers can sometimes find reason for optimism in the most unusual places. Take, for instance, a forum recently hosted by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government that discussed “The Politics of Abortion.”
Though the event was held at a campus where sentiment for legalized abortion is strong, pro-life students from around Boston turned out in large numbers. Even more important, some of the pro-abortion panelists conceded that the pro-life position was gaining in public support and making considerable inroads among young people.
The panel featured two former Congressmen. The first was Kentucky Democrat Romano Mazzoli, a pro-life congressman from a pro-abortion party. The second was Kansas Democrat Dan Glickman, a pro-abortion Congressman from a largely pro-life state. NRLC's Political Director Carol Tobias and NARAL president Kate Michelman also addressed the audience.
Mr. Mazzoli spoke first. The twelve-term congressman said the abortion issue is always “vexing, meddlesome, and difficult.” He said it was a struggle to be a pro-life Congressman in the Democratic Party, adding that it was a shame to know he could never be elected President because he would fail his party's "pro-choice" litmus test.
Congressman Mazzoli concluded his remarks by saying, “As Kermit the Frog said, it is not easy being green," alluding to his minority status within the Democratic Party. "But sometimes you have to be green, you have to do what you think is right.” He added, "I had to be honest to myself...honest to my constituents."
Glickman now serves as Director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. For 18 years he was a pro-abortion Congressman from Kansas where there is a considerable pro-life sentiment.
What stood out in his remarks were a number of comments in which he readily conceded that there is more energy, effort, and enthusiasm on the pro-life side. For example, Glickman ruefully pointed out how the activism of pro-lifers had a lot to do with his loss in 1994 to pro-life Congressman Todd Tiahrt.
At the end of his remarks Glickman asked NRLC's Carol Tobias if she was one of those who worked to defeat him in 1994. The audience was quite amused when she raised her hand and said, “Yes.”
But Glickman didn't just talk about the past. During his remarks, Glickman articulated his belief that the momentum is with the pro-life side.
After Tobias discussed a study from UCLA showing that college students are moving in a pro-life direction, Glickman said that studies done by Harvard found the same thing–-that there is a perceptible shift among college students in a pro-life direction.
[By the way, the results of the Institute of Politics’ survey of 1,202 college students nationwide can be found at htpp://www.iop.harvard.edu/pressreleases/survey_ october_2003.pdf. The data reveals that a total of nearly three-quarters (73%) of college undergraduates believe either that abortion should be legal only in "some circumstances" (53%) or “illegal in all circumstances “ (20%).]
Glickman concluded his remarks by warning the audience: "If you want to keep abortion legal, you really have your work cut out for you."
When she addressed the forum, Tobias described her role as Political Director at National Right to Life. She argued that taking a pro-life position helps candidates at all levels in most contests.
Tobias said that she was happy that many people vote consistently for pro-life candidates. "It is wonderful that there are so many who are concerned about unborn children."
NARAL president Kate Michelman spent much of her time assailing Congress and state legislatures for passing laws that restrict abortion. Tobias countered that these laws were passed by members of Congress and the 50 state legislatures who were elected by the citizenry.
A woman of many words Michelman railed against "Republican efforts to undo the right to choose." She warned that whoever wins the Presidential election this November could appoint up to four Supreme Court justices. For someone who is forever denouncing the "politics of fear," Michelman spent most of her time trying to scare those in attendance into voting for pro-abortion candidates.
NRLC'S Tobias ended the forum on an optimistic note. "The development of ultrasound technology has been a tremendous benefit to the pro-life cause," she said.
Tobias added that the first pictures people see of their children and grandchildren are ultrasounds. When she observed that these photos now show up on refrigerators across the country, it was to the visible consternation of Kate Michelman.
Though pro-life students were outnumbered at this forum, they still made their presence felt. Students representing all three of Harvard’s pro-life groups were in attendance: Harvard Right to Life, the Kennedy School pro-life caucus, and the Law School’s Society for Law, Life, and Religion. The students all sat in the front row and gamely applauded the good points made by the pro-life panelists.
After the forum concluded, students began to file out of the auditorium, while others approached the stage to talk to the speakers. Suddenly Michelman rushed to the microphone.
“Wait!” she exclaimed. “Women’s Mobilization March, April 25, Washington, D.C.” A quick witted pro-life student jumped on to the stage to add, “March for Life, January 22, 2005, Washington, D.C.”
Editor's note. Fr. Frank Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life. The following is excerpted from one of his many fine columns.
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“Catholic” Kerry A Proud Promoter of Abortion By Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
Pope John Paul II has words for politicians like presidential candidate John Kerry. "The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life…is not defended with maximum determination . . ." (Christifideles Laici, 38)
Despite Kerry's protestations that he is “personally opposed” to abortion, his voting record and public statements indicate that he is an active, proud promoter of abortion. According to "NARAL Pro-Choice America," Kerry has a 100% pro-abortion voting record. [Kerry has a 0% voting record with NRLC.] Kerry has hired NARAL’s vice-president as his communications adviser.
At last year’s NARAL Dinner, Kerry declared, “There is no overturning of Roe v. Wade... there are no more cutbacks on population control efforts around the world...We need to take on...all the forces of intolerance on this issue.” For Kerry, those who oppose abortion are “intolerant.” Obviously, that includes the Catholic Church, to which he claims to belong.
What Kerry promotes includes support of partial-birth abortions and a pro-abortion litmus test for Supreme Court Justices: “As President, I will only appoint Supreme Court Justices who will uphold a woman’s right to choose.” This is a policy of which Kerry is proud. He has also stated that “abortions need to be moved out of the fringes of medicine and into the mainstream of medical practice,” and that those opposing this present a “danger of fanaticism.” If Kerry considers abortion a needed “medical procedure," how can he “personally oppose” it?
Kerry insists he is a “believing and practicing Catholic, married to another believing and practicing Catholic.” But as the US Bishops wrote in Living the Gospel of Life, "No public official, especially one claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can responsibly advocate for or actively support direct attacks on innocent human life" (n. 32). Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston has stated clearly that a Catholic politician who supports abortion should not receive communion.
I was hunting for something else when I stumbled across a finely- honed essay that appeared in 2000 in the Wall Street Journal. Written by radio talk show host, author, and movie critic Michael Medved, it dealt with one illustration of the egregious double standard that plagued the entire presidential election cycle.
Medved, who proudly describes himself as an Orthodox Jew, was lamenting how unfair it was that a fellow Orthodox Jew--Senator Joseph Lieberman, chosen to be Al Gore's running mate--could openly, proudly discuss his faith without a whisper of criticism from the press at the same time President Bush was taken to the media woodshed when he said in a debate that Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher.
Although what I'm about to quote from Medved applies specifically to expressions of religious faith, it is illustrative of something we're already seeing repeatedly--and will witness many more times during the next seven and a half months. Medved wrote,
"Why has this double standard flourished so shamelessly in America? The answer lies in the basic assumption by most in the media that liberals are at heart good people--so that any expression of religiosity only seems to amplify and reflect that core goodness. Conventional wisdom holds, on the other hand, that a conservative outlook emerges from selfishness and cruelty, so that when a conservative speaks of religious faith it is merely an attempt to mask his inherent heartlessness with 'Elmer Gantry' pieties. When 'progressives' (Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton and the Rev. Robert Drinan) cite religious sources in public debate, they do so to 'uplift' or 'inspire' America. If conservatives refer to the same biblical authority, then they... want 'to ram their values down our throats.'"
I bring this up for one simple reason. I've watched electoral politics up close for thirty years. In all that time, never have I seen the Media Establishment more obviously determined to elect their favorite, in this case, pro-abortion Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
The list of examples could go on for days. It can be as simple as good old boy Dan Rather yipping in glee when a poll shows Kerry ahead of Bush and then going silent when a subsequent polls reveals the President ahead. (Actually it's worse than that. A few weeks ago, when the President's approval ratings dipped below 50%, it merited a story on the CBS Evening News. When Mr. Bush rebounded, not a peep.)
But the most unpleasant and persistent behavior is the megaphone phenomenon. There will be no charge leveled against Mr. Bush--no matter how unfair, absurd, or obviously planted by his opponents--that will go unnoticed, unmentioned, or unhyped. Especially anything that smacks of a "conspiracy"-- you can bet it'll take wing and fly.
Pro-lifers understand media bias the way a podiatrist knows bunions. Painful as all get out, in many cases it cannot be removed, only recognized and called to the media outlet's attention.
When it's the media high mucky mucks, such as Rather and Peter Jennings, drawing their one-sidedness to their attention will likely only harden their hearts. But others, less deliberately biased than they are soaked in the brine of antagonism toward pro-lifers, can often be reasoned with.
Please keep that in mind in the months to come. We may have limited ability to get consistently fair coverage of our issue and candidates who espouse the pro-life position, but we can appeal to reporters' professionalism when their bias seeps [or rushes] through.
Today and Wednesday I will update you on assisted suicide in Hawaii and Oregon. The latest numbers, incomplete and sketchy as they are, show that the number of physician-assisted suicides in Oregon increased again in 2003.
"There is a wall of secrecy around assisted suicide in Oregon," says Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a cancer doctor in Portland, Oregon, quoted by Physicians for Compassionate Care. "The proponents of assisted suicide and the Oregon Department of Human Services agency had promised that appropriate information would be provided to the public regarding what is happening with assisted suicide in what has been called the 'Oregon Experiment.' However, under the guise of confidentiality, assisted suicide is practiced covertly in Oregon."
Meanwhile, in Hawaii, days after the House Judiciary Committee approved an assisted suicide bill (mislabeled, as usual, as "Death With Dignity"), the measure was returned to the committee without a vote in the full house.
House Judiciary Vice Chairman Blake Oshiro, described by the Honolulu Advertiser as "among the main proponents," told the newspaper that House members were "divided" over HB 862, and that the Democrats believed it would be better to raise the issue again later, but not this session. "People were a little uncomfortable about taking this up in an election year," he said.
The Advertiser reported that the proposal "also faced an uphill fight in the Senate," and that "Gov. Linda Lingle has stated her opposition."
The proposed bill largely duplicates the Oregon law, passed by referendum in 1994, that authorizes lethal prescriptions for a broadly defined group of 'terminally ill' individuals -- including those, such as people needing kidney dialysis, who could survive indefinitely with life-saving medical treatment.
According to Burke Balch, NRLC's Director of Medical Ethics, "The defeat of the bill is a tremendous victory for grass roots prolifers, who, on the basis of information urgently supplied by Hawaii Right to Life, sent e-mails and phone calls in opposition that greatly outnumbered those in support."
Registered Nurse Jackie Mishler testified against the bill and published an impressive op-ed in the Hawaii Star Bulletin under the headline, "Physician-assisted suicide will create a new set of victims."
She wrote, "Physician-assisted suicide [PAS] is subject to unforeseen consequences and uncontrollable abuse. So-called safeguards are window dressing, particularly in protecting the elderly from those who will benefit from their deaths."
Mishler went on to cite examples of abuse before moving onto a highly influential 1994 New York State Task Force on Life & the Law report which unanimously rejected PAS "despite some strong PAS sentiment among the members."
"Why unanimous?," she wrote. "All members agreed that PAS was uncontrollable in the real world--even those who felt PAS was theoretically desirable voted against the legislation because it would cause more harm than good. Both the Hawaii Medical Association and the Hawaii Nurses Association agree, and both oppose PAS."
Hawaii was one of two states cited as targets in a 2003 fundraising letter sent out by the Hemlock Foundation. According to Mishler, that letter explained that Hemlock had a goal of spending $250,000 "on media advertising alone."
As we shall see Wednesday, Oregon, the only state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, is an object lesson in what happens when physicians pull double duty as healers and dispensers of lethal drugs.
So much information crosses my desk--coming and going--that sometimes I lose track. Over a month ago, someone was kind enough to fax me the following story from the St. Cloud Visitor, in St. Cloud Minnesota.
I emailed the author and asked for reprint permission. I heard nothing until today, when the editor called. He told me that the author had been ill, and my email request had just gotten to him. He graciously gave me permission to reprint.
I thought it a touching story and a wonderful illustration of how to creatively tell the pro-life story. See if you don't agree.
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“Horton Hears a Who” and Students Hear What’s True
By Irene Voth St. Cloud Visitor Staff Writer
Elizabeth Boeddeker said she doesn’t know if “Horton Hears a Who” was intended as pro-life literature when Dr. Seuss wrote it in 1954. Probably most famous for ”How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “The Cat in the Hat,” the renowned children’s author who was awarded the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal in 1982 for his many value-laden contributions to children’s literature died in 1991.
But whether Dr. Seuss intended a pro-life message in “Horton Hears a Who,” such lines as “A person’s a person no matter how small” and “I’ve got to protect them; I’m bigger than they” launched in Boeddeker an idea for a pro-life presentation appropriate for children of all ages. She found support for her idea in the Sauk Rapids chapter of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life president, Marge Nierengarten.
“It was her idea, and I told her to run with it,” Nierengarten said. On Jan. 13, Boeddeker gave her presentation to children in kindergarten through second grade at Sacred Heart School in Sauk Rapids.
Nierengarten was on hand to help and lend moral support, she said. “We thought it was a really wonderful idea,” said Erin Hatlestad, principal of Sacred Heart School, where the teachers and school board previewed Boeddeker’s presentation before inviting her into Sacred Heart’s classrooms. Although Boeddeker has a degree in elementary education, the Sacred Heart parishioner said she is just an ordinary mom who reads to her own child-- Stephen is in second grade at Sacred Heart--as well as to the children in her in-home day care.
While she regularly reads a number of Dr. Seuss’ books to her charges, Boeddeker said the pro-life message in “Horton Hears a Who” became very clear to during a reading last November. But along with that message, she said, came another--to do something about it.
“My sister and I brainstormed about it,” Boeddeker said, referring to Ellen Roers, a member of St. Ann Parish in Brandon and the mother of eight. The result was a presentation in which Boeddeker warmed up her listeners with this question: “Can you name anything that is real even though you can’t see it”?
To their answers, which included the wind, germs and God, Boeddeker added babies, in that babies -- before they are born -- are also real people, just small. She then read the book, and afterward asked the children to reflect on Horton’s dedication to preserving the lives of the Whos, small as they were.
Following the reading, the children were shown a few minutes of a video showing ultrasound videos of active babies at various stages of gestation. Then the children were invited to take the shoe and sock off of one foot and have it traced onto a sheet of paper. A gold sticker of a baby’s feet at 10 weeks’ gestation was then applied to the paper so the children could compare.
“The kids seemed really interested,” Boeddeker said after the day of presentations. Boeddeker also made pro-life presentations to grades 3-6, but said a last minute change of plans precluded the reading of “Horton Hears a Who” to those students.
Rather than having a foot traced, older children were invited to take one of the newborn diapers into which a prayer card had been placed and told they could spiritually adopt a baby by praying for it during its nine months in the womb. Boeddeker said she learned later that one classroom of fifth-graders decided as a group to spiritually adopt a baby. “It is my hope that next year, people might volunteer to go into all the Christian schools with this idea,” Boeddeker said.
"We must continue to build a culture of life in this country, a compassionate society in which every child is born into a loving family and protected by law."
President George W. Bush, following House passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
It was one of those days that we simultaneously celebrate and caution ourselves that we’re only halfway there. Turning aside a mischievous and misleading alternative, the House overwhelmingly passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act yesterday 254-163.
President George W. Bush applauded the House action, saying, “Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims -- the mother and the unborn child -- and both victims should be protected by federal law.” Mr. Bush “urge[d] the Senate to pass this bill so that I can sign it into law.”
It’ll be much tougher sledding in the Senate which has never voted on the issue of fetal homicide. (The House passed identical bills in 1999 and 2001.) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tn.) has already pressed for action on the bill in the Senate, but thus far has been stymied by a set of procedural obstacles erected by Democratic senators.
There was plenty of emotion as legislators heatedly debated “Laci and Conner’s Law,” a measure that would recognize as a legal victim any "child in utero" who is injured or killed during the commission of a federal crime of violence. The bill defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)hosted a Capitol Hill press conference at which he played an audio-taped statement from Sharon Rocha, whose daughter Laci and unborn grandson Conner were murdered in a nationally publicized crime in California. Rocha sharply rebuked Senate Democrats for obstructing the bill, including her own two senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. She called on senators who had previously not supported the bill, including Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Senator John Edwards (D-NC), to reconsider their positions.
"If Laci and Conner's Law is not enacted this year, I will keep fighting for it," Rocha promised. "I will not hesitate to explain the issue to their voters. To vote against Laci and Conner's Law, or to obstruct it, is indefensible." Democratic Presidential frontrunner Sen. Kerry sent a letter opposing the law in 2003.
On Thursday a phony "single-victim substitute" was defeated 229-186. The substitute would increase penalties for a violent federal crime if it causes "interruption" of a pregnancy -- but without recognizing an unborn victim.
Contrary to what you'd believe were you to listen to pro-abortion Members of Congress and outside advocacy groups, the bill explicitly exempts abortion or any act of a woman affecting her own unborn child. What it does do is something with which upwards of 80% of the American people agree: make it law that when a criminal murders a pregnant woman and kills her unborn child, two lives have been taken.
Addressing this instance of double murder is hardly breaking new legal ground. Twenty-nine states already have laws that allow separate homicide charges for unlawful killing of an "unborn child" or "fetus," at least in some circumstances.
When the Unborn Victims of Violence Act reaches the Senate, Sen. Feinstein will offer a similar substitute proposal. NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson explained the "logic" of the alternative: "Under the single-victim bill, if the mother survives the attack but loses her baby, federal authorities would have to tell her that the law says nobody really died."
There were many encouraging speeches and congratulations. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said, "Today the House took an important step to protect unborn children and their mothers. Today, we passed legislation that states once and for all that if you harm or kill a pregnant woman, you can get prosecuted for harming both the child and the mother."
Hastert emphasized, "Some may seek to make this into an abortion issue. This is not an abortion issue. It is a crime issue." He added,"Too many women are being victimized by criminals, and the current law does not reflect the reality that when a criminal harms the woman, that criminal is also harming the unborn child."
During debate over the bill, Congressman Mike Pence (R-In.) said, "This is not a debate about life; about the most contentious issue of our time and our culture. This is about justice, this is about compassion, and this is about this Congress standing for what justice demands."
Pro-life champion Henry Hyde (R-Il.) bemoaned the single-victim substitute measure offered by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Ca.). "It dehumanizes, it desensitizes, it reduces in standing and status the unborn, who needs our protection more than anything in the world because they are alone and defenseless," Hyde told House members.
Pro-abortionists fear more than anything else the recognition of the obvious. That is why the debate so often assumes an almost surreal quality.
We're supposed to accept that there is a disagreement about something as indisputable as the law of gravity: that the unborn is one of us. To "agree to disagree" in these circumstances is to cede the high moral ground.
Stay tuned as the debate moves to the Senate. The House has done its part, yet again. We can hope that commonsense makes a comeback in the Senate.
This Thursday, under direction from the estate of the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, more than 1,500 boxes of documents from the author of Roe v. Wade will go on display at the Library of Congress. According to USA Today reporter Joan Biskupic, "The papers include correspondence Blackmun had with other justices during his 24 years on the court, a tenure that ended in 1994." The archives likely will prove to be a bonanza for journalists and scholars and court watchers.
Yale University law professor Harold Koh is a former law clerk for Blackmun who helped to organize his papers. (By the way, it is very unusual for justices to have their papers opened so soon after their death.)
Koh told USA Today, "Justice Blackmun was a meticulous man.... My clear impression is that his files were far more comprehensive than files maintained in the same cases by other (justices') chambers."
For Biskupic, the chief fascination is two-fold: the light the correspondence will shed "on the thoughts of Blackmun, a Nixon appointee who became one of the court's liberals as other Republican appointees moved the bench to the right," and the "insights into personal relationships that remain at play on the court." (Of the current justices, only Associate Justice Stephen Breyer was not on the Court when Blackmun retired.)
Indeed, it ought to be interesting. Blackmun was infinitely self-congratulatory, a trait fed and nurtured by those who wanted the Court to substitute its policy preferences for those of elected officeholders.
Thus it came as absolutely no surprise that Sally Blackmun, one of the justice's daughters and the executor of the papers, gave the New York Times and National Public Radio special treatment. USA Today reports that they were allowed to "comb through" the files so that they could prepare stories for Thursday, the day the papers are officially opened. Needless to say, "The access they received has spurred protests by other media organizations."
In his long tenure on the High Court Blackmun's press coverage grew increasingly idolatrous. Why? Because he "grew," a euphemism for treating the justices as if their opinions came down from Mt. Olympus. Nowhere was this more true than with abortion.
Prior to Roe, Blackmun was dismissed by academic and media elites alike as a flyweight. In the pre-Roe days Blackmun and his childhood friend from St. Paul, Chief Justice Warren Burger (no less dismissively treated), were condescendingly dubbed the "Minnesota Twins." Until Blackmun discovered the "right" to abortion, there was no chance pro-abortion columnist Ellen Goodman would describe him (as she did at his death) as this "gentle, careful jurist."
Interestingly, Blackmun had a curious love/hate relationship with Roe.
With one breath he would whine about having his entire career reduced to authoring the 1973 decision. With the next breath he would pompously talk about how the 7-2 decision was "a step that had to be taken as we go down the road toward the full emancipation of women."
Roe remains very much worth reading. I wrote the following in 1999 following Blackmun's death:
"Few people, other than lawyers, read Roe today. What a pity. In an hour or two the careful reader can get quite an education. In his 50-page decision Blackmun (who had been on the Court less than three years) goes hither and yon in vain pursuit of an argument which would rebut the charge that he had created the 'right' to abortion out of whole cloth in an exercise of what Justice Byron White labeled 'raw judicial power.'
"In prose as tedious as it was revolutionary, the then-63-year-old Blackmun weaved together strands from various patches in the Constitution- -the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments - - in the hope that the resulting jurisprudential garment would give his results-driven decision cover. His choices may have been alliterative but the result was a hopelessly muddled, mixed-up, and misguided mess."
My guess is that his papers will likely illuminate some of the steps he took at he trod down the path toward the darkness that was Roe v. Wade. But however intellectually fascinating this may be, it will be no consolation to those who mourn the devastating results Blackmun unleashed: abortion on demand and 44 million deaths.
COLUMBUS, Ohio