John's Blog

Tyranny of the Majority?

From the Sunday Times

Abortion rights groups warn that, in the end, the combination of a more conservative court and the anti-abortion movement's piecemeal approach to new abortion restrictions means that Roe could be overturned piece by piece. "They don't want Americans to see what they're up to," said Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America. "They want this to be by stealth."

Anti-abortion leaders say they are simply trusting in democracy, noting that laws on parental notification and "partial-birth" abortion are quite popular. "Do we respect the judgment of the American people?" Mr. Bopp asked. "That's what is fundamentally at stake here."

Also from the Sunday Times

Jack Newbold is a 59-year-old retired tugboat captain who is dying of bone cancer. It's one of the most painful cancers, and he doesn't want to put his wife and 17-year-old daughter through the trauma of caring for him as he loses control over his body. So Mr. Newbold faces a wrenching choice in the coming weeks: should he fight the cancer until his last breath, or should he take a glass of a barbiturate solution prescribed by a doctor and put himself to sleep forever? He's leaning toward the latter.

Unfortunately, [President] Bush is fighting to overturn the Oregon Death With Dignity law, which gives Mr. Newbold the option of hastening his death. Oregon voters twice passed referendums approving the law, which has been used since 1998, and it has wide support in the state.

So the right-to-life movement simply respects the will of the people until it doesn't? Is the Newbold case yet another Schiavo case in the making?

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