The politics of death

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“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:26

I have read about two items in the news in the past two days which are disturbing. The first I blogged about; Democratic Congressional staffers were calling crisis pregnancy centers posing as women in crisis, in an effort to catch them giving advice which, they claim, was not backed up by science or research (even though it was). Apparently the motivation behind this was to get their federal funding revoked (a small percentage of crisis pregnancy centers receive a small amount of federal funding for providing abstinence education).

Now prominent Democrats claim that they want abortion to be rare, but kept legal for those instances when it is a necessity. If Democrats want abortion to be rare, then what is up with harrassing centers which provide alternatives to abortion?

The second item is three related pieces of stem cell research legislation which were up for vote in the Congress yesterday. The first piece expands federal funding for stem cell research which destroys embryos, introduced by two Democrats. Let’s call this the Death Bill, because it mandates death in the legislation. The second funds research into obtaining ‘embryonic-like’ stem cells without destroying embryos, introduced by two Republicans. Let’s call this the Alternatives Bill, because it seeks alternatives to death. The third bans fetal- farming, or growing embryos for the express purpose of harvesting their body parts, introduced by two Republicans. And let’s call this the Anti- Frankenstein Bill, because only Dr. Frankenstein is sick enough to harvest body parts from living humans for the advancement of “science.”

All three bills passed, but at the last minute House Democrats mounted a campaign against the Alternatives Bill which resulted in it being suspended in limbo for a while, unable to move forward. But why? The Democrats got their Death Bill, so why sabotage the Alternatives Bill?

There can only be one answer. They are not pro- choice. They cannot be, because in these two completely separate instances, they torpedoed choices which do not involve death. Therefore, they must be pro- death.

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Update: the president signed the Anti- Frankenstein Bill and vetoed the Death Bill. The Congress tried to override the veto, but failed, and Democrats are gleeful that they can hang the stigma of He Vetoed the Death Bill! around the Republican’s necks for the 2006 elections. I sincerely hope that we haven’t become so cold- hearted a nation that we would prefer Death to Alternatives.

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Update: Here are the remarks the president made when vetoing the Death Hill. And I didn’t realize a book had already been written about this very topic; the politics of death. It’s called The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life by Ramesh Ponnuru.