"The Party of Death" will unsettle those who lean towards or favor abortion, embryonic stem research, and/or euthanasia. Author Ramash Ponnuru, a senior editor at the National Review, writing with razor-edged moral acuity, skillfully debunks the excesses and hypocrisy of those promoting these as morally acceptable by scrupulously sticking to non-religious arguments.
Ponnuru begins his book by correcting several myths relating to the Supreme Court's Roe V. Wade decision - that it is a grand compromise between extremes, that the decision is more limited than it is, and that overturning Roe would criminalize all abortions. Ponnuru methodically demonstrates that these are not true.
Roe and its companion case, Doe v Bolton, make abortion on-demand a constitutional right up until moments before the birth. States may regulate abortion in the second and third trimester, says the court, but not if they run afoul of the mother's "health." This is not a compromise when the interpretation of a "mother's health" is understood. "Health," as Ponnuru shows, can mean anything under the elastic category of a woman's overall "well-being."
Ponnuru adds that the Supreme Court overreached and acted as a legislative body with the Roe decision. A point also eloquently made by former Senator John Danforth in his recent book, "Faith and Politics." Ponnuru notes that the public actually favors many restrictions on abortion and believes that the issue should be returned to the states where favored restrictions can be legislated.
"The Party of Death" moves from a detailed discussion of abortion to how the "culture of death" has been extrapolated and now threatens the elderly and disabled with weeding out the unfit, cloning, and euthanasia.
The hypocrisy of these positions was further amplified by Nathanael Blake, in his June 2006 column: "Why do so many ardently support such a morally and logically untenable position, even though it contradicts their own stated principles. Those distressed by the clubbing of baby seals don't mind the murder of the club-footed. Those who support extending legal protection to apes because their abilities resemble those of mentally disabled humans encourage the killing of mentally disabled humans in utero... People have been killing those who get in the way of the life they'd like for all of history. Even abortionists can be understood - those who will murder for money have long been among us."
The "Party of Death" is not the Democratic Party but rather those who continue to spawn a convenient cultural disregard for "human life." Unfortunately, for the Democratic Party, these people have made the Democratic Party their home and have made it synonymous with abortion and death.
Ponnuru's title is provocative. His book states bluntly what many people would rather couch in euphemism or, better yet, not say at all. Death is the important word. Ponnuru shows us how these choices, right or wrong, are a choice for death. And unfortunately, the debate, today, is over "what" is killed and who gets to decide.
This is a must read for anyone interested in the landscape which the "Culture Wars" are being fought and in the future of western society.
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