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The real top tier candidates

Posted by John C. Walker on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 8:23:44 PM

The media suggests that the top tier candidates are those currently receiving the highest poll numbers.

I'll argue that the top tier candidates are those that most protect the sanctity of life.

The criteria of fit recognizes that all life is sacred, from the moment of conception until natural death. This means that such a candidate would oppose abortion, oppose all use of embryonic stem cells, limit the death penalty only in extremely rare circumstances, defend the disabled from euthanasia, and respect the pro-creative and indissolubility of marriage (yes, marriage is a sanctity of life issue).

Only one candidate meets all of this criteria: Senator Sam Brownback.

In second position is former Congressman Ron Paul. Paul's only sanctity of life weakness is that he opposed government intervention in the Teri Schiavo case despite being a vocal opponent against euthanasia. Additionally, his advocacy of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq questions his concern with the sanctity of life of the Iraqi people. Regardless of the morality of this war, abandoning them into total civil war wouldn't not be just either. One of his strengths is that he vocally opposes any use of the death penalty.

In third place is Mike Huckabee. Huckabee opposes abortion and creating new human life for embryonic stem cell research, but he supports using existing embryonic stem cell lines. Huckabee supports only limited use of the death penalty and based on his past comments, probably would support it never being used.

In fourth position is Mitt Romney. Romney shares the same viewpoint on embryonic stem cell research and the death penalty as Huckabee, but Romney opposed government intervention in the Teri Schiavo case. Romney has the significant weakness of being a recent convert to these values. Thus, trust is the real issue with Romney. No matter what he says, we still need time in order to build that trust. 2008 might be too early for us to know.  I'm sorry Mitt but faith without works is dead.  In time, when I see the work of your pro-life belief, perhaps then I will have faith in your conversion.


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Ames, Iowa Straw Poll: A Christian conservative surprise and disappointment

Posted by John C. Walker on Sunday, August 12, 2007 10:16:26 AM
The 2nd and 3rd place finishes of Huckabee and Brownback in Iowa is both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment.

Only 6 days prior, a Washington Post/ABC News poll of likely caucus voters showed that the absent 3 (Giuliani, Thompson, and McCain) would finish easily at 2, 3 and 4.  This made it look like Christian conservatives would not be an influence on the election, or perhaps more importantly, that they didn't care.

Clearly, the liberal media was wrong.  While I personally expected either Brownback or Huckabee to be a top finisher, to see them both at the top was a huge victory for the Christian conservatives.

The media is also ignoring the fact that their combined percentages exceed what Romney won the poll with. This is a significant fact. It clearly establishes that the Christian conservatives, who have been silent so far in the GOP contest, clearly are a voting force that will have to be dealt with.  Additionally, if you consider the fact that Romney is currently promoting those same values (his negative only being his recent conversion to these beliefs), fully 2/3rds of the voters exclaimed that these values are the heart of the Republican party.  It is said of the Iowa race that there only three finishes that count:  win, place and show.  Conservative values took all of these and the liberal media was blindsided by it.

Unfortunately, these two candidates are, in fact, courting the same Christian conservative vote. It was my hope that one of them would not finish well so that we could have a single conservative candidate building momentum into the primaries.

Brownback's weaknesses are that he does not have executive experience (neither does Hillary or Obama) and that he is Catholic (and more significantly, a convert). Among the Christian evangelicals, a quick scan of various blogs reveals that significant hate for the Catholic Church still exists. As usual, it centers on myths, not truths, about Catholic beliefs.

Huckabee's weaknesses are that he has no experience in federal politics and there are questions about his ability to be a fiscal conservative. The latter could be a huge weakness in 2008 given the current Administration's spending train. Huckabee is a Baptist minister which means little to an orthodox Catholic who, respecting the Church's teaching, recognizes that many Baptists are among the elect (and that many Catholics aren't).

Perhaps Huckabee and Brownback can meet in a room and flip a coin to determine who should go forward as the Christian conservative voice.

While Brownback remains my first choice, the results of the poll might suggest he should bow out and move his resources behind Huckabee.  Huckabee spent roughly $50 per vote and finished second.  That's 1/3 what Brownback spent and 1/10 the amount Romney spent per vote.  Brownback's campaign is vastly better run than Huckabee's, but Huckabee is the better public speaker and it is clear he can appeal to the masses better than Brownback.  If Brownback would shift his well-oiled machine to Huckabee's team, we would have a real Christian conservative challenge in the race.


John C. Walker
Software Architect, Charlotte, NC
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The immorality of "The Ashley Treatment": Unethical medical experimentation on the disabled

Posted by John C. Walker on Saturday, January 06, 2007 6:47:50 AM
Recently the news has carried headlines about Ashley X, a profoundly mentally disabled child that, with hopes of easing home care and reducing potential suffering, had her growth medically stunted and her breasts buds and uterus removed by ethically corrupt doctors under the encouragement of her parents.

I do walk in the same shoes as these parents as I not only have a daughter in a virtually identical condition (mine is worst) who actually will be more difficult than Ashley to care for at home, I have a second child with special needs to care for as well.

However, objective morality requires that one cannot simply use circumstances to justify an immoral act. The Church teaches that it is an "error judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances which supply their context." (CCC, 1756)

These medical interventions are addressed by the Church and "[e]xcept when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law." (CCC, 2297). "Therapeutic" is "of or pertaining to the treating or curing of disease; curative." (Dictionary.com, 2007).

First, these medical interventions are not therapeutic in that they DO NOT treat her disease or the symptoms of the disease.  The treatments have nothing to do with her brain disorder.  Rather, these medical interventions are an attempt to alleviate a social defect in our inability to adequately support this family in their home care of this child (which is the goal specified in the cited Pediatrics and Adolescence Medicine Journal). Her brain dysfunction is a consequence of world broken by original sin and should be treated, but her normal growth and normal size is part of God's masterful design of the human body.  The medical profession once had a motto of "first do no harm,"  yet, in this case, these doctors removed her breast buds and uterus to eliminate the significant cancer risk they themselves introduced as a consequence not of her disease, but of their blitzkrieg of estrogen hormones to stunt her growth.

Second, the parents admit in their own blog that their reasoning is "intuitive" and that "we do not know of a study to reference that provides us with an objective and quantitative understanding of these benefits." (Ashley Treatment, 2007). Even the abstract of the one medical journal cited only hypothesizes a benefit ("home care"), but establishes no quantitative framework to provide a statistical justification for such a medical intervention. (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, 2007).  At what point did America become a place where radical medical experimentation could occur on the profoundly disabled without first proving the hypothesis scientifically?

Third, while I'm not a theologian, I would argue that these acts demean the dignity of the human body and commit the gnostic heresy that implies we are spiritual creatures merely trapped in our physical bodies. The doctors did, in fact, euthenize her breasts and her uterus.  While 70% of Americans claim to be Christian, they often forget that we believe in a physical resurrection. Humans are both physical and spiritual creatures, incomplete without the other, and to deliberately mutilate the physical is to rob one of the inherit dignity as a complete human person.  This intrinsic dignity of the human body is part of the reason the Church has always held that mutilations (particularly of the innocent) are immoral (mentioned above). 

John C. Walker
Software Architect, Charlotte, NC

References
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United States Catholic Conference, Inc. (1994). English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.
Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. (2007). therapeutic. Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=therapeutic.
Anonymous. (January 3, 2007). The Ashley Treatment. Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com.
Gunther, Daniel F. and Diekema, Douglas S. (2006). Attenuating Growth in Children With Profound Developmental Disability. Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/160/10/1013.
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