Death Panels 'R' Us

About twenty years ago I wrote a column called The Armchair Commando in which I addressed numerous political topics, among them, issues concerning life and death. In one installment I warned my readers about the not-too-distant possibility of the institutional genocide of the elderly by government bureaucrats challenged by the health care needs of the aging baby boom generation. The recent developments of Obamacare and the possibility of government "death panels" to determine how best to allocate limited health care resources to an aging population have done absolutely nothing to alter my prognostications.
With the federal government virtually taking over the health care industry, how long does anyone think it will take for Washington bureaucrats to start addressing the high cost of health care by rationing it to those it deems worthy of better health, namely young and middle-aged adults with enough productive years ahead to continue contributing to the tax base? Does a New York minute come to mind?   This is the price we pay for turning more of the responsibility for ourselves over to the government. As for the so-called death panels, Secretary Sebilius made it abundantly clear, in that recent case involving the little girl who needed a new lung, that the federal government considers itself THE authority in deciding who is qualified to receive life-saving medical treatment. Thus, whatever group of bureaucratic appointees are selected to evaluate these cases and make a determination who lives and who dies is, in effect, a death panel. Uncle Sam was once a symbol of the benevolence of the U.S. government looking after the interests of the American people. But now that he's gone from "uncle" to "big brother," that relationship is looking more and more dubious.

Umbert Attacked by "Pro-Choice" Bloggers!

Having recently attended the National Right to Life Conference in Dallas, Texas, I settled back into my usual routine at the studio and caught up on some email correspondence. To my surprise, fellow attendee Michael Ciccocioppo, sent me a message alerting me to the fact that my comic strip was being attacked by a pro-abortion blogger who had been "undercover" at the convention for the purpose of tearing it down in her column. The blog site was called RH (Reproductive Health) Reality Check and the columnist was Andrea Grimes, who called my display of Umbert books and other paraphernalia "unsettling." She then directed her barbs at the conference itself, making numerous unfair and untrue observations about the program and its attendees.
I responded on her blogsite and was immediately set upon by several of her "regulars," who seemed to be lying in wait for any pro-lifers who happened to venture into their blogosphere. Members of the National Right to Life Committee observed the situation in Washington and contacted me, asking permission to run the story on their national online newsletter. I agreed and edited it down to a digestible length. You may read the article at the following link: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/07/umbert-strikes-back-cartoonist-gary-cangemi-responds-to-pro-abortion-blogger-ambush-of-nrlc-conference/#.UeM53o2-1Bl

The problem with attempting to enter into a dialogue with people on the internet is that the anonymity of blogging makes it easier to say things one wouldn't ordinarily say to someone in a face to face confrontation. We tend to be more civil to a live person in front of us and more uncivil to a faceless, nameless person on a blog. That's unfortunate as I genuinely wanted to engage these people who call themselves pro-choice and explain why I do what I do with the Umbert comic strip. One even asked me how Umbert could possibly talk to other unborn babies or operate a computer. I told her I would explain it when she could tell me how a cartoon beagle could engage in aerial combat with a WWI flying ace.

By the way, this IS a BLOG. Please feel free to post your own thoughts. Just keep them civil, OK?

A Hubbling Experience

I got into a blogging debate recently over the release of some new Hubble Telescope photographs. I had the audacity to suggest that, for me, it was unimaginable that anyone could view these photos and not believe in God. I consider the Hubble to be one of the greatest achievements of the 20th Century because it gives us a view of our universe beyond anything we could imagine. The startling clarity and detail of these pictures of objects that are billions of light years away is amazing. Some of these photos reveal distant glittering objects that are not stars, but galaxies that look like stars because they are so far away. These objects are so far away, many of them may not even exist anymore but we still see them because their light is still travelling to Earth.
In ancient times, our forebears thought the Earth was the center of the universe and that the stars were light fixtures fastened onto a huge glass dome that rotated above our sky. Now that we know better, we get a greater sense of just how small and perhaps insignificant we seem with respect to the universe as a whole. It reminds me of the Dr. Suess  tale, Horton Hears a Who, in which Horton discovers a tiny little civilization on a tiny speck of dust, but nobody believes him that it exists. This book has been embraced by folks in the pro-life movement because of its anthem...a person's a person no matter how small.
No matter how immense we discover this universe to be, it only serves to emphasize, in my view, how important the individual is, being a part of something so vast and being able to observe and contemplate it from our tiny little speck. And if we ever learn to respect life on this speck, we may actually survive to one day explore and expand our civilization to other specks throughout our galaxy and beyond. Elwood, the womb's resident little genius, is my idea of what a scientist should be...a person who stands in awe of God's creation as he seeks to better understand it.

Due Process Rights for the Unborn

Suppose we do elect a pro-life president, he appoints the next Supreme Court justice and the land's highest court overturns the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. What then?  The abortion debate goes back to the states and is decided on a state by state basis? Will America become a land  where only half its unborn citizens have a right to life?

The American Civil War determined that we could not remain a nation half slave and half free and the same could be argued of the right to life. Simply overturning Roe V. Wade won't end the abortion battle, it will only change the landscape of the battlefield. In my view, the key to ending or significantly reducing abortion in America may lie in the Constitution itself. The 14th amendment clearly states that no State may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

Thus, according to one possible interpretation of the Constitution, NO abortions should be performed in this country without the unborn child having some sort of legal process in which their interests are taken into account. Thus, if the courts were to uphold the due process rights of the unborn, hearings would be required to determine whether the mother's interest in aborting the child outweighs the child's fundamental right to life, potentially reducing the number of abortions performed each year significantly below current statistics.

Such hearings need not require a full court trial, but could be dealt with by a master or appointee of the court, as many other family matters are currently handled.  But the Constitution, if so interpreted, would be clear: no unborn child should have his life terminated without full legal recourse and a duly executed, case by case legal process which weighs the interests of all parties concerned;  a "due process" that was denied when the last 53 million children were put to death in America's abortuaries. 

Ultrasound Logic

     Throughout the country, many states are passing new laws requiring that women seeking an abortion submit to an ultrasound, the rationale being that they should have ALL of the facts before making such a permanent and life altering decision. As a result of seeing their unborn child alive with a beating heart and human form, a significant number of women have second thoughts about destroying it. In my home state of Pennsylvania, similar legislation is under consideration. Of course, pro-abortion advocates are off the wall and proposing all kinds of absurd legislation in retaliation; bills calling for mandatory prostate exams for men with erectile dysfunction to silly legislation that would protect every ovum and sperm cell. 

     As a person who defends the right to life, but who also supports the Constitution, I'm not 100% sure that mandatory ultrasounds are constitutional. Requiring a woman to undergo a medical procedure sounds a lot like forcing every American to purchase health insurance, something I'm hoping the Supreme Court will rule out by June. I suppose it would depend on how such legislation were worded. I certainly believe every woman should have access to an ultrasound if contemplating an abortion but then there's the question of who would be required to pay for it. Since the abortion clinic stands to make a profit on the abortion, I would think they should have to cover expense of the ultrasound. I do support the spirit of this legislation, because I believe that too many women have been wrongfully convinced that the unborn child is an inanimate mass of cells with no rights and no future unless granted one by its mother. They need to see the truth with their own eyes. For that reason, I would support taxpayer funded ultrasounds if need be.

     Of course, this all begs the question as to whether an abortion itself is constitutional. I, for one, believe it is not. I believe abortion on demand violates not only the baby's right to life, it violates his or her due process rights under the fourteenth amendment. More on this subject next time.

It's the Abortions, Stupid!

As this cartoon featuring Umbert's super smart buddy Elwood illustrates, the current economic crisis is deeply rooted in another American crisis-the loss of nearly fifty million Americans in the past 40 years. Think about it. If the fifty million people we allowed to be legally aborted were alive today what impact would they have had on our economy? Multiply all of the products and services that a person typically uses in their lifetime by fifty million and we are talking about trillions of dollars in added GDP. Then there's the gaping hole in the federal treasury that likely would not exist if the added tax dollars of fifty million workers was flowing into Washington, not to mention the balance that would have been restored to the ratio of workers to retirees, thus keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent. And how's this for irony? The national teachers unions support abortion, guaranteeing the death of over one million future pupils per year! If class sizes are an average of 27 students, that's over half a million teachers over a twelve year period who won't be hired to preside over all those empty desks.Class dismissed!

Children, An Endangered Species

If the recent media circus over the Casey Anthony trial demonstrated anything, it is how low on the totem pole children are in this country. Who is going to pay for that child's murder? No one! This woman gets off scot-free and is probably headed for a small fortune in book deals and movie rights. But this isn't unusual, it is typical. Children are murdered every day in this country and no one seeks justice on their behalf because their murder is considered somebody else's constitutional right. Has abortion made us so desensitized to the death of children that we are going to start thinking of the Caylee Anthony's of the world as simply late-term abortions? Dr. Kermit Gosnell is under indictment for the murder of several infants whom he killed AFTER they were extracted from their mother's wombs in attempted abortions. Yet so called pro-choice groups consider what this man did at his West Philadelphia clinic health care for women.
I feel sorry for children today. Not only are they no longer safe in their mother's wombs, they are no longer safe when they exit the womb. Child abuse today is rampant and children are being forced to grow up too fast in a pop media culture which imposes a sexually charged template on adolescence. And the perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse against children are treated like victims themselves by a society too weak to impose   judgment and enforce its laws. It's a toss up whether Umbert is better off staying in the womb for another ten years or taking his chances on the outside.