Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Man, I tell you what, there have been some gems in the most recent NR (as I began to point out yesterday). Maybe it’s just because I haven’t been able to read the magazine in awhile, but I feel like I have to share some of them with you. So I’m going to. Here’s one:
Most liberals embrace illegal immigrants; they are not, by and large, great
friends of the unborn. But fetus talk can be desirable in the service of
another agenda—as it was in a Kansas City, Mo., immigration case in May. A
pregnant Mexican, in the U.S. illegally, resisted deportation by claiming U.S.
citizen status for her unborn child. U.S. district judge Scott Wright—who has
overturned the Missouri legislature’s partian-birth-abortion ban—agreed, citing
the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. That act recognizes that fetuses bear some
rights, at least when their mothers want them; but it can hardly be said to
confer citizenship, which still requires (see Amendment XIV) birth on American
soil. The Kansas City story is laughable, but not isolated: A similar case has
now arisen in California, to which climes a deported Mexican woman, eight
months pregnant, seeks to return—for her unborn baby’s health. (She has
suffered various complications during her pregnancy.) Lawyers in the
California case are citing the Missouri decision, and the Unborn Victims of
Violence Act; it seems immigration lawyers consider this a fresh, legitimate
approach to fighting deportation. Thus it is that the Left would sooner see
the abortion of potential U.S. citizens that their removal to Mexico. As a
friend of NR observed, they have their newest bumper sticker: “You can
abort ’em, but you can’t deport ’em.”
And speaking of the murder of human beings, here is a disgusting and nearly unspeakable tale:
“Now I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house
because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only
at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.” Those were the words of
Manhattanite Amy Richards, in an article in The New York Times Magazine, about
her unexpected pregnancy—with triplets. The unmarried Richards asked her
doctor, “Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?” Indeed,
it was. Two of them were “selectively reduced” and Richards later gave birth
to a boy, making it possible for her to avoid the suburbs and wholesale clubs.
Whew. But the outrageousness of this piece goes beyond a woman’s callousness.
There’s also the magazine’s lack of disclosure: The piece appeared as an “as
told to” job and had no identifier for Richards. But Richards is not just any
single New Yorker; she is a prominent feminist activist, the co-author
of ‘Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future’, a paid employee of
Gloria Steinem, associated with Planned Parenthood…you get the picture. The
Times, which eventually blamed the nondisclosure on editing, at first claimed
it was unfamiliar with her easily accessible bio—an implausible assertion in
the age of Google. A creepy ending to a creepy story.
Creepy, indeed.
Most liberals embrace illegal immigrants; they are not, by and large, great
friends of the unborn. But fetus talk can be desirable in the service of
another agenda—as it was in a Kansas City, Mo., immigration case in May. A
pregnant Mexican, in the U.S. illegally, resisted deportation by claiming U.S.
citizen status for her unborn child. U.S. district judge Scott Wright—who has
overturned the Missouri legislature’s partian-birth-abortion ban—agreed, citing
the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. That act recognizes that fetuses bear some
rights, at least when their mothers want them; but it can hardly be said to
confer citizenship, which still requires (see Amendment XIV) birth on American
soil. The Kansas City story is laughable, but not isolated: A similar case has
now arisen in California, to which climes a deported Mexican woman, eight
months pregnant, seeks to return—for her unborn baby’s health. (She has
suffered various complications during her pregnancy.) Lawyers in the
California case are citing the Missouri decision, and the Unborn Victims of
Violence Act; it seems immigration lawyers consider this a fresh, legitimate
approach to fighting deportation. Thus it is that the Left would sooner see
the abortion of potential U.S. citizens that their removal to Mexico. As a
friend of NR observed, they have their newest bumper sticker: “You can
abort ’em, but you can’t deport ’em.”
And speaking of the murder of human beings, here is a disgusting and nearly unspeakable tale:
“Now I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house
because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only
at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.” Those were the words of
Manhattanite Amy Richards, in an article in The New York Times Magazine, about
her unexpected pregnancy—with triplets. The unmarried Richards asked her
doctor, “Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?” Indeed,
it was. Two of them were “selectively reduced” and Richards later gave birth
to a boy, making it possible for her to avoid the suburbs and wholesale clubs.
Whew. But the outrageousness of this piece goes beyond a woman’s callousness.
There’s also the magazine’s lack of disclosure: The piece appeared as an “as
told to” job and had no identifier for Richards. But Richards is not just any
single New Yorker; she is a prominent feminist activist, the co-author
of ‘Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future’, a paid employee of
Gloria Steinem, associated with Planned Parenthood…you get the picture. The
Times, which eventually blamed the nondisclosure on editing, at first claimed
it was unfamiliar with her easily accessible bio—an implausible assertion in
the age of Google. A creepy ending to a creepy story.
Creepy, indeed.
