Life, Pro - and Con -. Those Darn White House E-Mails

Mitt Romney and the anti-choice Right wingers have a problem, even if they don't realize it. Their problem is that their rhetoric about the protection of human life from its very inception butts up against common practices taking place nationwide - in Red states as well as Blue.

The problem is this: if destroying any human life at any stage of gestation is tantamount to murder, than any doctor or nurse who performs an abortion is a de facto murderer. He or she should obviously be arrested, tried, and, if found guilty, sentenced to an appropriate sentence for premeditated murder (In the pro-life state of Texas, national superstar in the game of executing its prisoners, the death penalty is a favored punishment. So much for pro-life).

Now, most Americans can wrap their brains around that idea; that if abortion law were reversed, performing one would once again be a crime. Fine.

But what about other human lives, the ones discarded by fertility clinics? It is common knowledge that when a woman seeks in vitro fertilization, multiple eggs are fertilized and frozen. One or more are implanted in the woman's uterus, and away goes the process of life. Leftover embryos are kept for a period of time and then discarded.

Put another way, hundreds of thousands of frozen babies are murdered each year.

Now, I don't have numbers to back me up, but common sense tells me that, while there are whole states or even regions of the U.S. where abortion is completely unavailable, fertility clinics abound in even the staunchest anti-choice environs.

The Republican problem is that, as their intolerance for abortion brings the nation closer and closer to illegalizing abortion once again, lots of other people who destroy human embryos in the process of fertility treatment must needs be redefined as murderers. Even keeping the embryos frozen could be seen as some type of kidnapping; should social service agencies therefore be tasked to investigate fertility clinics to ensure that babies (very tiny, frozen ones) are not abused, neglected?

If destroying an embryo or fetus is murder, then we're going to need lots and lots of jail space for all the fertility specialists and scientists, and childless women and couples will just have to do without babies. Who in his right mind would provide them with one?


Another word on the White House Email Scandal:

When I said, "keep an eye on those e-mails because they will be incendiary," or words to that effect, I underestimated Karl Rove's willingness to brazenly defy the law and stare down anyone who suggests consequences for breaking long-established rules and laws, including those protecting presidential records from destruction.

I should have known that a group of people who would lie about nonexistent threats to get us into a war from which we can never be extricated, then lie about those lies, then lie further about almost anything and everything, would do anything they felt like doing.

The Bush administration is a cadre of criminals. This is a fact, whether they ever get their due. From lying about WMDs and Saddam's involvement in 9-11, to outing a secret agent, to running secret prisons and torture facilities, to domestic warrantless spying... where will it end?

It will only end when the administration ends.

Will there be justice?

Anyone's guess. But if the missing ingredient is courage from the Left, I'm not holding my breath.