THE DAILY BLADE: Proposed Amendment To CO Constitution Extends Rights To Fertilized Human Eggs
Back in the Middle Ages, the ontological argument of the day concerned the number of angels that can dance on the head of a needle. Ever since Roe v. Wade, it’s been when life begins. It is a biological fact that when a human sperm and a human egg meet, the result is a human being; only in the laboratory can scientists create “cybrids” (animal human hybrids).
That a percentage of embryos are nonviable and fail to implant in the womb or are expelled in a later stage of pregnancy (known medically as “spontaneous abortion”) doesn’t make them any less human. Thus, the difference between a spontaneous abortion and one induced by an abortionist is the same as the difference between a natural death and one induced by Dr. Kevorkian.
This basic biological fact – that human life begins at conception – will be enshrined in law, if a proposed amendment to the CO Constitution that gives legal rights to fertilized human eggs makes it onto the ballot in 2008 and is approved by voters. Reports The New York Times:
The ballot measure, which passed a legal hurdle this week when the Colorado Supreme Court upheld an administrative panel’s ruling about its wording, would give Colorado perhaps the most sweeping language in the nation about the rights of the unborn, legal experts said. …
The measure, just one paragraph long, would ask voters whether inalienable rights, due process rights and equality of justice rights as defined in the state Constitution should be extended to “any human being from the moment of fertilization.” …
A lawyer who represented supporters of the proposal, MichaelJ.Norton, said the real impact of the proposal would be in its simplicity, asking a profound philosophical and moral question.
“The whole issue centers on when does life begin,” Mr.Norton said. He said that though the word “abortion” would not appear in the language of the proposal, it would effectively make an abortion “the destruction of a person” and therefore illegal.
Meanwhile, this past Election Day voters in NJ rejected a ballot proposal (53 percent voted “nay,” despite Dem Gov. Jon Corzine’s relentless lobbying effort that included forked over $150K of his own vast fortune) that would have allowed the state to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research. In this case, it wasn’t so much that these Blue State voters had any moral qualms about destroying nascent human life to suck out its stem cells, as a fiscal objection to the state increasing it debt load (now at $30 billion). As The Stiletto has previously noted, the only stem cell research that has panned out has used adult, not embryonic, cells. Killing embryos for research is not only morally wrong, but a bad investment of taxpayer and private funds.
They Don’t Make Men Like Mannix Anymore
The Washington Post publishes a paean to Joe Mannix (AKA Mike Connors), “Mannix Was The Man,” and laments that Paramount/Viacom has not yet released DVDs of the Richard Levinson-William Link TV classic that aired on CBS from 1967 to 1975 (online bootlegs are said to be selling briskly):
Somewhere out there, there's a place where a sport-coat-clad private eye can whip around L.A. in a convertible, get beat down by some goons, shake it off with a Scotch on the rocks, then solve the case of the week with an assist from his leggy secretary.
Somewhere out there, but not on DVD.
"Mannix," one of the longest-running, most violent (for its time), most popular television detective shows in the medium's history, has been left out of the DVD trade. …
Mannix was the last of a certain type of American manhood, circa early '70s. He wore a tie and a wistful smile. He did not know doubt but was a friend of irony. He didn't worry about giving women "their space," and he wasn't "in touch with his feelings." He was kind to small dogs, little old ladies, and femmes fatales in deep trouble and short skirts.
He drove too fast, drank too much and smoked like he got paid for it. He slugged people and shot guys and never got pulled in by the cops. …
[T]his also tended to happen a lot - Mannix gets shot, right? And loses his sight because the bullet creases his left temple and, while not doing much physical damage, still shows him death! Heavy, baby! …
Mannix comes home from this diagnosis, blind, under serious medication, and what does he do?
He gets a drink, that's what! Like a MAN! …
He regains his sight - when he shoots the bad guy. (Mannix was so bad he could shoot people when he was blind.)
The WaPo reports reruns broadcast on TV Land in the late 1990s got good ratings, and argues that “Mannix” is worthy of historical preservation as a popular culture artifact, being “one of the last unapologetically masculine and completely unrealistic American icons, at least in the myths we tell ourselves on television. Cops and detectives got cute or complicated later on, and there really hasn't been much on television like it since.”
Editorial Note: WaPo includes this bit of trivia: Composer Lalo Schifrin said the jazz waltz (audio clip may take a couple of seconds to play) he composed for the show is “second only to his ‘
Figured I might as well go straight to using HannahJ for everything, since it's hard to remember which blogs I post on as Qwerty and which as Hannah.
Re the stem cells: I just published a post about this (http://therenaissancebiologist.blogspot.com/2007/11/stem-cell-hope.html/) that lends ever more support to the adult-stem-cell people.
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