On the Pro-Life front, the Netherlands continues to be incredibly depressing, incredibly permeated by the culture of death. Michelle Malkin notes[1] that up to 28 percent of Dutch doctors would follow a child's request to die over the wishes of the child's parents. So apparently a child is competent to have an abortion, competent to choose to die, but not competent for his or her own criminal actions. Does anyone else see the falsity of the logic here?
Also in Pro-Life news, we have the story of a little baby named "Hope."[2] She is alive and in the care of the state because of North Carolina's "Safe Surrender Act" which allows a mother to leave her child with any responsible adult without being questioned and without fear of prosecution. The idea here is to prevent children from being killed or abandoned (much the same result most of the time) by parents who are unable or unwilling to care for them. Instead, under this law, they can be turned over to the state, which will attempt to find and contact the father (to see if he is willing to take on his responsibility for the child), and then, if the father consents (the article does not state what happens if he cannot be found), the child is put up for adoption.
As little in favor of state intervention in the family as I am, I think this a good law. I see it in the light of babies that have been found left in bathrooms, alleys, and dumpsters. I see it in light of babies found dead, killed by their parents. I see it as a state desperately battling to save some of the most defenseless of its citizens from death at the hands of those who will not or cannot do their duty to the child they have brought into the world. Further, this is not a state mandated intervention, it must be initiated by the mother, and the state does give the father a chance to exercise his responsibility. Thus I think this may even be a wholly positive measure. But, mother-initiated as it is, and as it does not involve the death of anyone, but rather holds the hope of adoption and life with a loving family for the child, even if it is not wholly positive, I strongly suspect that it is worth the cost (though it is of course impossible to state that with certainty while the cost is unknown).
Next we have the story of Kalea Lyn Allen, in Oklahoma.[3] This amazingly small 11 ounce baby was born three months premature. Further, even at that minuscule size, she is not the smallest known living baby. A little girl born in Chicago at 8.6 ounces is thought to be that. The littlest girl, born in September, was released from the hospital in February, and thus represents a miraculous success story. That in the face of law makers that would allow third trimester abortions. That in the face of those who would allow any abortions. For once this would have been called impossible, yet now these babies are born, nurtured, and live. Little Miss Allen has a 40 percent survival chance right now, she is being kept alive in a plastic tent, with her eyes covered, a tiny little oxygen tube, and presumably some kind of intravenous food source, as her intestines and kidneys are underdeveloped. Pray for both children.
[1] http://michellemalkin.com/archives/002456.htm
[2]
http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/local_state/local_article.aspx?storyid=40992
[3] http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/11633812.htm