Human beings are special precisely because they are human. In a cynical time such as ours, this statement may seem circular, but it is one of the truths that the Declaration of Independence concluded was "self-evident" when it stated that all men are created equal and endowed with the right to life. As Albert Schweitzer once warned, "Whenever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilization and morals are shaken and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a matter of time." Those inclined to join with Singer and rationalize the destruction of the innocent in the name of "the greater good" seem oblivious of the fact that that same rationale figured prominently in the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in the Soviet Union and China. Have they considered the question put to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol? "Will you decide what men shall live and what men shall die? It may be that in the site of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust."

-- James Bohan, Author, The House of Atreus: Abortion as a Human Rights Issue (posted 3/13, 10:40 a.m., E.S.T.)

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