Is There a Co-Pay with Forced Abortion?August 3, 2009The president has more "czars" running around than Mother Russia. It's mondo bizarro. Kind of fitting, though; must be a communist thing. Still, as the debate over Obama's multi-trillion dollar pet experiment in socialized health care reaches terminal velocity, one of his newest czars underscores - in permanent marker - the true depth of BHO's deep-seated radicalism. His choice of Harvard professor and self-styled "neo-Malthusian" John Holdren as "science czar" provides the latest and perhaps most troubling example of just how bad America really muffed it last November. It could give us a sneak-peak into the not-so-distant future should this Obamacare-health-scare become reality. In the name of population control, Holdren has advocated both forced abortion and compulsory sterilization through government-administered tainting of the water supply. In a book he co-authored, entitled "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," Holdren calls for a "Planetary Regime" to enforce mandatory abortions and limit the use of natural resources. He writes: "There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." Holdren further suggests that since "[a]dding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control," such an approach would have to "meet some rather stiff requirements; ... be uniformly effective; ... free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects;" and pass both PETA and AARP muster by having "no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock." Czar Holdren further postulates that "a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable. The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits." He concludes that "sterilizing women after their second or third child" may be more practical than sterilizing men, and proposes a "long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin" at puberty and then "might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births. "Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?" he asks, suggesting "that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution. [N]either the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce," observes the learned professor. OK, so, by any reasonable standard this guy's an off-the-rails, helmet-for-his-own-safety, bona fide barking Moonbat. He makes Ward Churchill look like William F. Buckley. He's piggy Napoleon from Orwell's "Animal Farm" personified. But that's not what's so unsettling. There are plenty of nuts in the world. In fact, Harvard alone accounts for a significant percentage of them. What's utterly horrifying is that our president - the leader of the free world - would even think, if only for a moment, "Hey, I just gotta have that Planetary Regime guy in my administration!" That says a lot more about him than it does Herr Holdren. Indeed "birds of a feather flock together," and these perching political pigeons look down upon our unique American freedoms only to see a newly washed windshield. Obama's über-extremism continues to astound. The mainstream media can't cover it up much longer, and they're finally starting to get that. As the left pushes this monolithic socialized health care scheme (imagine going to the DMV for your emergency appendectomy), the American people are slowly beginning to grasp the radical nature of the minds and philosophies behind it. I'm not saying that forced abortion and compulsory sterilization are an express part of Obamacare ... yet. But once again, look who's baking. They've already mixed the batter, we've licked the spoon and it tastes like ... well, see for yourself: First, it provides a federal bailout for Planned Parenthood and the rest of the multi-billion dollar abortion industry through taxpayer funded abortion on demand; ostensibly to include reanimation of the horrific and currently banned practice of partial-birth abortion. The bill requires - as Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski admitted - "any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate." This means that - with a loaded IRS to your head - you, me and every other taxpayer gets to be a moral codefendant in abortion homicide. Isn't "having the right to choose" wonderful? Secondly, and as Obama has fundamentally admitted, it will, undeniably, necessitate "Animal Farm" style health care rationing for the elderly and infirm. Don't forget: "Some animals are more equal than others." Or as Obama put it, Grandma may have to forgo "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care. ... Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller." (Got that? Sorry, Granny, you're 66 years old - no kidney transplant for you. Here's some morphine, now go lie down and die.) But if all that's not enough, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee's official summary of the bill additionally authorizes a CDC-funded "Community Preventive Services Task Force ... to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults ... through the use of evidence-based interventions," up to and including, "home visits." Mom, Dad - decided against a potentially deadly Gardasil injection for your fourth-grade tween? Well, get ready for that needle-ready knock at your door from the government vaccination "task force." It's time for your "evidence-based intervention." I wonder: Do jackboots go well with scrubs? So let's recap: We have taxpayer-funded abortion, health care rationing for the elderly and infirm, and vaccination interventions in your living room. I fit all that into one sentence. Obamacare is nearly 1,100 pages long, and even the president hasn't read it. I see no evidence anyone has. But half the fun is in finding out what other gems it holds. Forced abortion? Compulsory sterilization? Well, maybe not yet, but is it really that much of a stretch? We already know it's on Holdren's Christmas list. Suppose Obama's feeling jolly?
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Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action (LCA on Facebook). (Title and affiliation provided for identification purposes only.)
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