The "Born-Alive" bill was introduced by Rep. Charles Canady, a Florida Republican and approved by a 22-1 House Judiciary Committee vote. It defines "born alive" as meaning "complete expulsion or extraction from its mother" of "a member of Homo sapiens. . . who after such expulsion or extraction, breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles. . . ." The bill recapitulates existing law in 40 states and brings their standard up to the federal level. Precisely, the bill argues that babies born during abortions must be placed on the same plane and extended the same care and constitutional protection as other babies. Once born, in other words, it is illegal to discriminate against them, kill them or allow them to die. How should we think about this?

This is a desperately needed piece of legislation. When we have philosophers like Peter Singer and Michael Tooley arguing that birth is not the point to define personhood and assign constitutional rights, we must have such a law. Each is making arguments to justify infanticide; they each argue that birth is an arbitrary point to assign constitutional protection and rights. They argue for other criteria to define personhood's value (e.g., IQ, relational abilities, able to understand oneself, etc.) They want parents to decide whether the baby should live or not. Another philosopher, James Reiman, of American University, states that "infants do not possess in their own right a property that makes it wrong to kill them." Therefore, babies born accidentally as a result of an abortion must be protected with such a law.

It is also imperative because many on the pro-abortion side argue that abortionists must let such children die because they were marked for death anyway, or that the mother's intent must govern in such cases, or that it is wrong to tell a mother who came in for an abortion that she is now a mother. The mother's intent is an overriding issue as evidenced by the Court's recent decision striking down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law and the Third Circuit's July decision striking down New Jersey's partial-birth abortion ban as well. This is pushing the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision far beyond its already expanding limits, for it stated that a child's legal status depended on whether the child was "born" or "unborn," its location in relation to the mother's body. We need this law!

Further, this law would end the ethical never-never land created by the "induced-labor" abortion procedure, where a drug forces open the woman's cervix and the woman expels a premature baby who dies during the process or soon afterward. In testimony by nurses and medical personnel before the Judiciary Committee, the fact that this procedure produces live babies was affirmed over and over. We need this law!

Finally, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League announces that this legislation "attempts to inject Congress into what should be personal and private decisions about medical treatment." In other words, the NARAL is deciding what is legal and what is not when it comes to defining life. When a child is outside the womb, it must have constitutional protection or we will continue down the slippery slope of infanticide. This is legislation that all people should be able to agree on. But those who are for abortion do not desire to even give an inch of protection to the child, inside or outside the womb. May God help us!!

See John Leo, "Baby-Saving Made Easy," US News and World Report (25 September 2000) and "Breakpoint" (20 September 2000) and George Will, "A Question for Gore Next Week," Newsweek (2 October 2000).

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HATE-CRIMES LEGISLATION: IS IT NECESSARY

Those who argue for this legislation are pushing beyond credulity. As Chuck Colson has argued, "Does anyone seriously believe that we need the FBI and the Department of Justice to make certain homosexual victims of violence receive justice?" Consider the case of Matthew Shepard: His killers, prosecuted by the state, are now serving life sentences without parole. What more would a federal law have done or even a federal prosecutor? They have not proven their case!

The reason for this legislation is to change people's attitudes. The goal is to have the typical American associate homosexuality with racism and ethnic cleansing. It is designed to make Americans see the issue of homosexuality as a lifestyle issue, not an ethical issue about which God is concerned. Raising ethical questions about homosexuals is like hating African-Americans or treating disrespectfully the disabled. If you have ethical concerns about homosexuality then you could potentially be prosecuted under such a law. Once you verbalize those reservations you could be charged with prejudice. At the heart of liberty under the First Amendment is the right to make ethical evaluations based on religious convictions. Those who have ethical concerns about homosexuality are not calling for the criminalizing of homosexual acts, only for the right to disapprove of those acts. There is a difference, and proposed hate-crimes legislation would criminalize those who raise ethical concerns about the homosexual lifestyle. To do so is to violate the First Amendment as it relates to religious freedom.

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DESTROYING EVOLUTIONS MYTHS

In a soon-to-be-published book (Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?), Jonathan Wells takes out after some of the more famous popular stories or facts that purportedly show the truth of evolution. Allow me to share three with you:

First, today many who justify research on stem cells obtained from aborted fetuses argue that the embryo is something less than human, that the transformation to a human takes place gradually as in evolution. What they are employing is something similar to German biologist Ernst Haeckel, who purportedly showed that you cannot tell the difference between the embryos of a fish, a reptile, a bird or a human, when they are all lined up. He even offered an illustration, which was later shown to be a fake. In other words, Haeckel committed fraud. Strangely, that same drawing still appears in some biology texts.

Second, is the evolutionary "tree of life," which also appears in so many biology texts. It also purportedly shows how all life originated from an original amoeba-like ancestor. But in the fossil record, all the major groups of life appear at about the same time (the Cambrian explosion)--with no fossil record of common ancestry. (See a recent Scientific American article entitled "Uprooting the Tree of Life.") Life's appearance, says Nancy Pearcey, is more like a lawn than a tree.

Finally, is the finch on the Galapagos Islands, which so influenced Darwin. Recent research has shown that the changes in finch beaks were due to nothing more than cyclical variations, providing absolutely no evidence that small changes can add up for long periods in a single direction to evolutionary change.

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