Ethicists Argue in Favor of ‘After-Birth Abortions‘ as Newborns ’Are Not Persons’

• Posted on February 27, 2012 at 3:38pm by Liz Klimas

Two ethicists working with Australian universities argue in the latest online edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics that if abortion of a fetus is allowable, so to should be the termination of a newborn.

Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.”
The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” Why? Because it “[emphasizes] that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.” The authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.
The circumstances, the authors state, where after-birth abortion should be considered acceptable include instances where the newborn would be putting the well-being of the family at risk, even if it had the potential for an “acceptable” life. The authors cite Downs Syndrome as an example, stating that while the quality of life of individuals with Downs is often reported as happy, “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

This means a newborn whose family (or society) that could be socially, economically or psychologically burdened or damaged by the newborn should have the ability to seek out an after-birth abortion. They state that after-birth abortions are not preferable over early-term abortions of fetuses but should circumstances change with the family or the fetus in the womb, then they advocate that this option should be made available.
The authors go on to state that the moral status of a newborn is equivalent to a fetus in that it cannot be considered a person in the “morally relevant sense.” On this point, the authors write:

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.
[...]
Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

Giubilini and Minerva believe that being able to understand the value of a different situation, which often depends on mental development, determines personhood. For example, being able to tell the difference between an undesirable situation and a desirable one. They note that fetuses and newborns are “potential persons.” The authors do acknowledge that a mother, who they cite as an example of a true person, can attribute “subjective” moral rights to the fetus or newborn, but they state this is only a projected moral status.
The authors counter the argument that these “potential persons” have the right to reach that potential by stating it is “over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being because, as we have just argued, merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence.”
And what about adoption? Giubilini and Minerva write that, as for the mother putting the child up for adoption, her emotional state should be considered as a trumping right. For instance, if she were to “suffer psychological distress” from giving up her child to someone else — they state that natural mothers can dream their child will return to them — then after-birth abortion should be considered an allowable alternative.
The authors do not tackle the issue of what age an infant would be considered a person.
The National Catholic Register thinks that these authors are right — once you accept their ideas on personhood. The Register states that the argument made by the ethicists is almost pro-life in that it “highlights the absurdity of the pro-abortion argument”:

The second we allow ourselves to become the arbiters of who is human and who isn’t, this is the calamitous yet inevitable end. Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand.

First Things, a publication of the The Institute on Religion and Public Life, notes that while this article doesn’t mean the law could — or would — allow after-birth abortions in future medical procedures, arguments such as “the right to dehydrate the persistently unconscious” began in much the same way in bioethics journals.

Outrageous: Ethicists Argue For Acceptance of “After-Birth Abortions”

Outrageous: Ethicists Argue For Acceptance of “After-Birth Abortions”

[This is the same type logic that the Fascists in Germany used to justify the holocaust.]

Outrageous: Ethicists Argue For Acceptance of “After-Birth Abortions” By Cassy Fiano, Published February 27th, 2012

According to two Australian ethicists, the baby in that photo should be killed if the parents so wish it, in what they call “after-birth abortion”. It’s not infanticide or murder to them. No, it’s just another form of abortion, because newborns aren’t really people yet. And while it sounds crazy and horrific, this unfortunately isn’t something I’m making up.

Alberto Giubilini with Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne write that in “circumstances occur[ing] after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.”

The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” Why? Because it “[emphasizes] that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.” The authors also do not agree with the term euthanasia for this practice as the best interest of the person who would be killed is not necessarily the primary reason his or her life is being terminated. In other words, it may be in the parents’ best interest to terminate the life, not the newborns.

The circumstances, the authors state, where after-birth abortion should be considered acceptable include instances where the newborn would be putting the well-being of the family at risk, even if it had the potential for an “acceptable” life. The authors cite Downs Syndrome as an example, stating that while the quality of life of individuals with Downs is often reported as happy, “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

This means a newborn whose family (or society) that could be socially, economically or psychologically burdened or damaged by the newborn should have the ability to seek out an after-birth abortion. They state that after-birth abortions are not preferable over early-term abortions of fetuses but should circumstances change with the family or the fetus in the womb, then they advocate that this option should be made available.

As if that wasn’t sickening enough, there’s also this little gem:

Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

So if a baby is born with Down Syndrome, or another disability, then according to these two, a parent should be able to just kill it. Or let’s say that the mother decides that being a parent is just too stressful for her. She should be able to kill her baby then, too. Baby costs too much money? Yep, just kill it. All of these things are perfectly acceptable, because newborns aren’t real people yet. And as for adoption in any of these circumstances? Well, that could cause the mother emotional distress, so the answer would be… kill the baby! The fact that they see adoption as something that would cause a mother emotional distress but not the murder of their own child just shows how sick these two people are.

The sad thing is, that this point of view is inevitable once you start allowing people to define just what a human being actually is. If we don’t value all life, then does it really make a difference when we kill a baby? At this point, what difference does it make if the baby is inside the mother’s womb or outside of it?

And while it sounds incredible that anything like this would ever be allowed outside of speculation in a bioethics journal, keep in mind the horrors of partial birth abortion. Keep in mind that our own president voted in favor of infanticide. And the arguments that these ethicists are making are the exact same arguments that pro-abortion advocates make for abortion every day.

Pro-aborts would surely scoff at this as fear-mongering, but I’d be curious to know what their answer is to why it is acceptable to kill a baby one day before they are born, and unacceptable to kill them the next day after they’ve been born. When we fail to stand for life, this is the inevitable conclusion. First it’s just the unborn babies that it’s OK to kill. Then it’s the newborns, and then the “undesirables”. If pro-choice is all about the choice of the mother, with no protection given to the child whatsoever, then why should it really make a difference when she kills her child?

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This is a VERY simple way to understand the tax laws. Read on - it does make you think!!

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner.

The bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this.

... The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing;

The fifth would pay $1:

the sixth would pay $3;

the seventh $7;

the eighth $12;

The ninth $18.

The tenth man -- the richest -- would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement -- until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So the first four men were unaffected.

They would still eat for free.

But what about the other six -- the paying customers?

How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.

But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being *paid* to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man.

"I only saved a dollar, too.

It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man.

"Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?

The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.

"We didn't get anything at all.

The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.

They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Unfortunately, some cannot grasp this straight-forward logic!

Kock Industries responds to Obama Fund Raising Letter

They're obsessed

By Jim Messina, Campaign Manager on February 24, 2012

In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.

Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who bankrolled Tea Party extremism, and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.

So in the hours before Romney courts two men obsessed with making Barack Obama a one-term president, let's see how many of us can chip in to the Two-Term Fund.

Here's what Mitt Romney told his supporters just after his victory in the Florida GOP primary:

"We must not forget what this election is really about: defeating Barack Obama."

Pitch in $3 or more over the next 24 hours to show that, while that message may fire up two oil-industry billionaires, it's also one that plenty of us are tired of hearing.

Friday, February 24th, 2012

A Letter to the Obama Campaign

Mr. Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Dear Mr. Messina:

Because every American has the right to take part in the public discourse on matters that affect the future of our country, I feel compelled to respond directly about a fundraising letter you sent out on February 24 denouncing Koch. It is both surprising and disappointing that the President would allow his re-election team to send such an irresponsible and misleading letter to his supporters.

For example, it is false that our “business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump.” Our business vision begins and ends with value creation — real, long-term value for customers and for society. We own no gasoline stations and the part of our business you allude to, oil and gas refining, actually lowers the price of gasoline by increasing supply. Either you simply misunderstand the way commodities markets work or you are misleading your supporters and the rest of the American people.

Contrary to your assertion that we have “committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama,” we have stated publicly and repeatedly since last November that we have never made any such claim or pledge. It is hard to imagine that the campaign is unaware of our publicly stated position on that point. Similarly, Americans for Prosperity is not simply “funded by the Koch brothers,” as you state — rather it has tens of thousands of members and contributors from across the country and from all walks of life. Further, our opposition to this President’s policies is not based on partisan politics but on principles. Charles Koch and David Koch have been outspoken advocates of the free-market for over 50 years and they have consistently opposed policies that frustrate or subvert free markets, regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican was President.

If the President’s campaign has some principled disagreement with the arguments we are making publicly about the staggering debt the President and previous administrations have imposed on the country, the regulations that are stifling business growth and innovation, the increasing intrusion of government into nearly every aspect of American life, we would be eager to hear them. But it is an abuse of the President’s position and does a disservice to our nation for the President and his campaign to criticize private citizens simply for the act of engaging in their constitutional right of free speech about important matters of public policy. The implication in that sort of attack is obvious: dare to criticize the President’s policies and you will be singled out and personally maligned by the President and his campaign in an effort to chill free speech and squelch dissent.

This is not the first time that the President and his Administration have engaged in this sort of disturbing behavior. As far back as August, 2010, Austan Goolsbee, then the President’s chief economic advisor, made public comments concerning Koch’s tax status and falsely stated that the company did not pay income tax, which triggered a federal investigation into Mr. Goolsbee’s conduct that potentially implicated federal law against improper disclosure of taxpayer information. Last June, your colleagues sent fundraising letters disparaging us as “plotting oil men” bent on “misleading people” with “disinformation” in order to “smear” the President’s record. Those accusations were baseless and were made at the very same time the president was publicly calling for a more “civil conversation” in the country.

It is understandable that the President and his campaign may be “tired of hearing” that many Americans would rather not see the president re-elected. However, the inference is that you would prefer that citizens who disagree with the President and his policies refrain from voicing their own viewpoint. Clearly, that’s not the way a free society should operate.

We agree with the President that civil discourse is an American strength. That is why it is troubling to see a national political campaign apparently target individual citizens and private companies for some perceived political advantage. I also hope the President will reflect on how the approach the campaign is using is at odds with our national values and the constitutional right to free speech.

Sincerely,

Philip Ellender
President, Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

The Perversion of Rights - National Review Online

The Perversion of Rights - National Review Online

The Perversion of Rights

By Mark Steyn

February 25, 2012 4:00 A.M.

CNN’s John King did his best the other night, producing a question from one of his viewers:

“Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why?”

To their credit, no Republican candidate was inclined to accept the premise of the question. King might have done better to put the issue to Danica Patrick. For some reason, Michelle Fields of the Daily Caller sought the views of the NASCAR driver and Sports Illustrated swimwear model about “the Obama administration’s dictate that religious employers provide health-care plans that cover contraceptives.” Miss Patrick, a practicing Catholic, gave the perfect citizen’s response for the Age of Obama:

“I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans.”

That’s the real “hot topic” here — whether a majority of citizens, in America as elsewhere in the West, is willing to “leave it up to the government” to make decisions on everything that matters. On the face of it, the choice between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church should not be a tough one. On the one hand, we have the plain language of the First Amendment as stated in the U.S. Constitution since 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

On the other, we have a regulation invented by executive order under the vast powers given to Kathleen Sebelius under a 2,500-page catalogue of statist enforcement passed into law by a government party that didn’t even bother to read it.

Commissar Sebelius says that she is trying to “strike the appropriate balance.” But these two things — a core, bedrock, constitutional principle, and Section 47(e)viii of Micro-Regulation Four Bazillion and One issued by Leviathan’s Bureau of Compliance — are not equal, and you can only “balance” them by massively increasing state power and massively diminishing the citizen’s. Or, to put it more benignly, by “leaving it up to the government to make good decisions.”

Some of us have been here before. For most of the last five years, I’ve been battling Canada’s so-called “human rights” commissions, and similar thought police in Britain, Europe, and elsewhere. As I write this, I’m in Australia, to talk up the cause of free speech, which is, alas, endangered even in that great land. In that sense, the “latest hot topic” — the clash between Obama and American Catholics — is, in fact, a perfect distillation of the broader struggle in the West today. When it comes to human rights, I go back to 1215 and Magna Carta — or, to give it its full name, Magna Carta Libertatum. My italics: I don’t think they had them back in 1215. But they understood that “libertatum” is the word that matters. Back then, “human rights” were rights of humans, of individuals — and restraints upon the king: They’re the rights that matter: limitations upon kingly power. Eight centuries later, we have entirely inverted the principle: “Rights” are now gifts that a benign king graciously showers upon his subjects — the right to “free” health care, to affordable housing, the “right of access to a free placement service” (to quote the European Constitution’s “rights” for workers). The Democratic National Committee understands the new school of rights very well: In its recent video, Obama’s bureaucratic edict is upgraded into the “right to contraception coverage at no additional cost.” And, up against a “human right” as basic as that, how can such peripheral rights as freedom of conscience possibly compete?

The transformation of “human rights” from restraints upon state power into a pretext for state power is nicely encapsulated in the language of Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which states that everyone has the right “to receive free compulsory education.” Got that? You have the human right to be forced to do something by the government.

Commissar Sebelius isn’t the only one interested in “striking the appropriate balance” between individual liberty and state compulsion. Everyone talks like that these days. For Canada’s Chief Censor, Jennifer Lynch, freedom of expression is just one menu item in the great all-you-can-eat salad bar of rights, so don’t be surprised if we’re occasionally out of stock. Instead, why not try one of our tasty nutritious rights du jour? Like the human right to a transsexual labiaplasty, or the human right of McDonald’s employees not to have to wash their hands after visiting the bathroom. Commissar Lynch puts it this way: “The modern conception of rights is that of a matrix with different rights and freedoms mutually reinforcing each other to build a strong and durable human rights system.”

That would be a matrix as in some sort of intricate biological sequencing very few people can understand? Or a Matrix as in the illusory world created to maintain a supine citizenry by all-controlling government officials? The point is, with so many pseudo-“rights” bouncing around, you need a bigger and bigger state: Individual rights are less important than a “rights system” — i.e., a government bureaucracy.

This perversion of rights is killing the Western world. First, unlike real rights — to freedom of speech and freedom of religion — these new freedoms come with quite a price tag. All the free stuff is free in the sense of those offers that begin “You pay nothing now!” But you will eventually. No nation is rich enough to give you all this “free” stuff year in, year out. Spain’s government debt works out to $18,000 per person, France’s to $33,000, Greece’s to $39,000. Thank God we’re not Greece, huh? Er, in fact, according to the Senate Budget Committee, U.S. government debt is currently $44,215 per person. Going by the official Obama budget numbers, it will rise over the next ten years to $75,000. As I say, that’s per person: 75 grand in debt for every man, woman, and child, not to mention every one of the ever-swelling ranks of retirees and disabled Social Security recipients — or about $200,000 per household.

So maybe you’re not interested in philosophical notions of liberty vs. statism — like Danica Patrick, tens of millions of people are happy to “leave it up to the government to make good decisions.” Maybe you’re relatively relaxed about the less theoretical encroachments of Big Government — the diversion of so much American energy into “professional services,” all the lawyering and bookkeeping and paperwork shuffling necessary to keep you and your economic activity in full compliance with the Bureau of Compliance. But at some point no matter how painless the seductions of statism, you run up against the hard math: As those debt per capita numbers make plain, all this “free” stuff is doing is mortgaging your liberty and lining up a future of serfdom.

I used to think that the U.S. Constitution would prove more resilient than the less absolutist liberties of other Western nations. But the president has calculated that, with Obamacare, the First Amendment and much else will crumble before his will. And, given trends in U.S. jurisprudence, who’s to say he won’t get his way? That’s the point about all this “free” stuff: Ultimately, it’s not about your rights, but about his.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2012 Mark Steyn

Articles: President Obama's Theology: Is It Phony?

Articles: President Obama's Theology: Is It Phony?

President Obama's Theology: Is It Phony?

By Adam G. Mersereau

President Obama frequently professes his Christian faith and argues confidently that his policies are rooted in biblical truths. So when his administration issued a mandate requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraception and abortion-inducing pills to their employees, conservatives demanded an explanation. Why would someone who professes faith in God try to force Catholics to obey government over God (as they believe God to have spoken on the issue)?

Former Senator Rick Santorum, while not challenging Obama's profession of personal faith in Christ, has branded Obama's public-policy-theology as unbiblical and even "phony." Is this a cynical effort by Santorum to stoke anger among his conservative Christian base? Or is Obama indeed using Christian language improperly to justify liberal government policies?

Love Thy Neighbor

Fortunately, we do not have to guess at Obama's theological views. At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 1, Obama explained in detail his theology of God and government. Using the Bible as his authority, he expressed his devotion to God's command to "love thy neighbor as thyself." Much of his speech was premised on the idea that this command should apply not only to individuals, but also to governments.

The implication was hard to miss. President Obama believes that God's command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" provides the moral underpinning for his policies of centralized government power, increased taxation, and extravagant government spending. Presumably, it also justifies his attempts to redefine personhood, marriage, and our First-Amendment freedoms.

But God's command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" cannot properly be used to justify Obama's policies. This command was given by God to individuals, not to governments. This fact should be fairly obvious because governments cannot exercise biblical love -- only individuals can. You, as an individual person made in the image of God, have the God-given capacity to love your neighbor. You might express that love by sharing a portion of your personal income when your neighbor needs an expensive operation. You might sacrifice your time by helping him fix his roof. Or you might share your dinner table with him when he falls on hard times. Such displays of love from one person to another, welling up from a heart that sincerely desires to serve God, may well fulfill the command.

When the command to love others is "socialized" and applied to government, however, it actually forms the basis for tyranny. A government bureaucracy is not a person, and so it cannot love. It cannot express love toward a neighbor, nor can it cause one citizen to truly love another. Government bureaucracies can regulate among neighbors, but they cannot love them. By threat of force or punishment, a government can take resources from one person and give them to another -- but this has nothing to do with the biblical command to "love they neighbor."

Under a traditional biblical theology, government power should be exercised within boundaries prescribed by God. In America, we have articulated our shared view of those boundaries in the Constitution and its amendments. But a "socialized" biblical theology reverses the roles. It places government's authority over God's. Government assumes the authority to dictate which neighbors will do the loving and which neighbors will receive that love. Usurping the role of God Himself, government thus purports to define the meaning of neighborly love, and the amount of love that will satisfy God's command. Instead of governing within its God-given boundaries, the government, in its sovereignty, places boundaries around God. This leaves government with the power to define all of the rights of its citizens. Government, in effect, sits on God's throne.

And it gets worse. Because government is not actually God, it does not have the ability to act in a personal way toward each individual citizen. So its godlike power takes on a distinctly impersonal quality. Citizens are grouped into impersonal classifications (rich, poor, middle-class, black, white, brown) and treated not as individuals, but as mere integers in a larger societal equation. They become a means to the end of achieving the societal vision held by those in power. Eventually, they become pawns in the class warfare waged by those jostling for the throne.

My Brother's Keeper

Also at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama reiterated his belief that, as president, he is under a biblical burden to be his "brother's keeper." Of course, there is no Bible verse that encourages anyone to assume the role of his "brother's keeper." This phrase is found only in Genesis, chapter 4. Just after Cain murdered his brother, Abel, God asked Cain the whereabouts of his brother. Cain was terrified of God's looming wrath and evaded the question with sarcasm: "Am I my brother's keeper?" A careful biblical theology would not use this phrase to imply that every person is "his brother's keeper," much less to justify big government. But under President Obama's theology, Cain's irreverent response provides the moral justification for centralizing government power, and for polices that require massive spending and unsustainable debt levels.

President Obama's use of isolated Bible verses out of context is not new in politics. As misapplied by liberal politicians, biblical truths always seem to support government-designed utopia, which is a decidedly unbiblical endeavor (see Genesis Chapter 3, The Fall of Man). But liberal politicians rarely cite Bible verses that teach that poverty can be the fault of the individual, that governments are often arrogant and ungodly, that government's power should be limited, that God created marriage for one man and one woman, or that God rejects abortion and homosexuality. You will rarely hear a liberal politician invoke a Bible passage when speaking of the personal morality required of a free people. Instead, their interpretation of the Bible always seems to require the government to assume more power -- godlike power.

When God's commands to individuals are wrongly applied to governments, a new type of theology is created that is decidedly unbiblical. It even has a few names you might recognize. Liberal Protestants proudly call it the "Social Gospel." Catholic Marxists incorporated their class struggle and called it "Liberation Theology." Yet by whatever name, it is not biblical. Rick Santorum is right to question it.

Adam G. Mersereau is the author of Uncivil Society: Government's War Against God and the Plight of the Christian Citizen, available at Amazon.com and elsewhere. A frequent cultural commentator and former Marine officer, Mr. Mersereau now practices law in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/president_obamas_theology_is_it_phony.html#ixzz1nY6XizgT

Articles: Obama Skins the Cat

Articles: Obama Skins the Cat

Obama Skins the Cat

By S. Fred Singer

Much of White House policy is driven by pathological fear of global warming and the unreasonable compulsion to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a non-toxic natural constituent of the atmosphere and an absolute necessity for the survival of plants, animals, and humans. Never mind that there's no significant evidence that any recent warming has been caused by CO₂ increases -- or indeed, that any such warming would endanger human health and welfare. In addition, it should be quite obvious that any attempt by the U.S. to reduce its emissions unilaterally is an exercise in futility and self-delusion: it would have little measurable impact on the ongoing rise of global atmospheric CO₂ and would certainly not affect climate in any way.

But evidently, ideology trumps science, economics, and logic. Even common-sense considerations have not stopped President Obama from listening to his science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, one of the chief apostles of the global warming religion. Holdren is a former collaborator and associate of Stanford Prof. Paul Ehrlich, whose seminal book The Population Bomb, published some 40 years ago, preaches population control to achieve zero growth.

In this Malthusian spirit, we will shortly be "celebrating" the 40^th anniversary of the publication of Limits to Growth, a book sponsored by the so-called Club of Rome, which -- like Ehrlich's -- predicted all kinds of imminent disasters for the world's population: famines, resource depletion, dying oceans, etc. In spite of complete failure to use sound science and economics, there are still many "believers" happily ensconced in the present administration. It is interesting to note that Limits to Growth did not concern itself in any way with global warming; climate disasters came along only since 1992, courtesy of the infamous Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which also produced U.N. Agenda 21.

But one must give the Obama administration credit for trying hard to mandate CO₂ limits to "save the climate." Its high point came in mid-2009, when the House barely passed the Waxman-Markey "cap & trade" bill -- also known as the "tax & spend" bill. It was so bad that even the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to touch it. Then, by the end of 2009, the Climategate e-mails revealed evidence of U.N.-IPCC skullduggery -- followed by the utter collapse of U.N. negotiations in Copenhagen. But in spite of all this, the EPA has been moving ahead and issued an "Endangerment Finding" (EF) that claims CO₂ as an atmospheric pollutant, subject to regulation by the Clean Air Act.

Full disclosure: We (SEPP) are part of the plaintiff group that has sued the EPA for not using sound science in arriving at its EF. Oral arguments are scheduled for late February 2012. And we are hoping the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will rule in our favor and toss out the EF. On further appeal, it might even lead the Supreme Court to rectify its 2007 decision declaring CO₂ a pollutant subject to regulation -- but with this all-important proviso: EPA must first demonstrate that CO₂ "endangers human health and welfare."

Once it had become clear to Obama that there was no chance to pass legislation to force CO₂ control, he vowed to find other ways to "skin the cat" (his words). Three of these subterfuges are underway, disguised in various ways to hide their true purpose.

1. Doubling mileage standards for automobiles by 2025 -- meant to reduce smog and other urban pollution, as well as the need for imported oil -- thereby improving national security. But the EPA, which has already drastically tightened existing standards, is quite open about the real purpose -- to reduce CO₂ emissions. In essence, EPA has preempted the role of the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), which has the statutory responsibility for setting CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. However, there is little chance that auto companies can produce reasonably priced cars that people will want to buy and -- note the irony -- are safe to drive. (Oh, Ralph Nader, where are you when we need you?)

2. In its December 2011 rule of 1,117 pages, EPA sets unrealistic limits on the emission of mercury from coal-fired power stations; it is part of their scheme to get rid of coal as a fuel, even though coal is the cheapest domestic energy source and requires no imports. The U.S. is blessed with abundant coal resources; over 50% of electric power was generated from coal, though the percentage has now dropped to 45%. The Chicago Tribune foresees a rise of 40%-60% in Midwest electricity rates; nationwide, the respected national economic consulting firm NERA predicts an 11% rise and a loss of 144,000 jobs by 2020.

The lame excuse the EPA is using is "to protect the children," but again, the science is lacking. In any case, most of the mercury emitted into the atmosphere comes from natural sources. Human sources, like coal-burning power plants, are located mostly in China or other regions outside the U.S. and outside EPA jurisdiction. In other words, mercury pollution is a global problem, much like CO₂; U.S. power plants contribute only 0.5% of all emissions.

The Bush administration had already promulgated plans to reduce U.S. emissions; any further tightening by the EPA will produce little marginal benefits but huge additional costs -- all for the sake of some reduction in CO₂ emissions. As usual, the EPA greatly underestimates costs by a large factor and hugely inflates benefits, claiming prevention of 11,000 premature deaths a year. In addition, EPA double-counts benefits; only 0.1% can be assigned to the reduction of mercury emissions.

3. Finally, we have the much-discussed Keystone XL pipeline, which is supposed to bring oil from Canadian tar sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf coast. Obama has decided to stop this pipeline in order to ingratiate himself with extreme environmentalists, who oppose the project -- as just revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle of Feb 16. Their weak excuse is that an oil leak in Nebraska might produce pollution to the underlying aquifer. Of course, there is no reason why oil should leak over Nebraska -- and in any case, some 20,000 miles of various pipelines already cross the state. The real reason: production of oil from tar sands requires large amounts of heat and thus emissions of CO₂.

Opposition to this capricious action by the White House is non- partisan. It involves labor unions, who see "shovel-ready jobs" disappearing; it involves national security concerns; and it involves the general public, who want cheaper and more secure oil from nearby sources -- not from overseas producers in the Persian Gulf, brought here by tankers.

In his 2008 election campaign, Obama promised to make electricity prices "skyrocket." He seems to be succeeding beyond all expectations, as a combination of White House policies is raising fuel prices. But as the cost of essential energy jumps upward, households are sliding into poverty; they can no longer afford to buy treats for the children; it's more important to keep them from starving and freezing to death. "Skinning the cat" may be a neat way of getting around the express wishes of the Congress and the public, but it is sure to backfire against the Obama White House in the November elections.

S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, specializing in climate science and energy policy. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute and of the Independent Institute. In 2007, he founded and chaired NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change). For recent writings see http://www.americanthinker.com/s_fred_singer/ and Google Scholar.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/obama_skins_the_cat.html#ixzz1nY6PAxYN