Again this year, I'm combining my thoughts on these two days into one column. (If you'd like, you can review 2005's combined entry and 2004's entries for MLK's birthday and the sanctity of human life.) Much has happened over the past year in the realm of life issues and race relations, and I'd like to take a look back to see what we can learn from these recent happenings.

Recently, discussion on abortion has come to the forefront, thanks to the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. The people on the left like to pitch this as a case of women's rights, but the issue before the Supreme Court is even more basic than that. That question is, “Is there a right to ‘privacy’ in the Constitution?” In the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court “found” this previously unrecognized right deep within a “penumbra” in our nearly 200-year-old Constitution. In this specific case, we learn that the Constitution prohibits states from having laws prohibiting the sale of contraceptives. (I'm curious as to whether any people have appealed laws against other types of drugs, citing this precedent.) Based on the faulty logic of Griswold, the 1973 case Roe v. Wade struck down all restrictions on abortion, viewing it as just another contraceptive method.

In last year's entry, I dealt with the medical advances over the intervening 30 years since Roe was decided. I will, though, give you a link to one of the best abortion information resources I've seen - Abortion Facts. This site has links and information on almost every aspect of reproductive health, from a worldview that values life and realizes the negative effect that abortion has had not only on the babies that die each day, but on our society's view of life, women, and appropriate sexual behavior. Also, a startling statistic from the New York Daily News - for every 100 births in NYC last year, 74 abortions were performed. That's 42.5%!

Back in March 2005, we had another fight regarding life, this time on the other side with Terri Schiavo, a lady who had been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state for several years, but who had not recorded her wishes before she died. Her husband Michael claims that she had said that she would not have wanted heroic measures used to prolong her life, and that her current nature of medical care constituted “heroic” measures. He petitioned the court to order her nursing home to remove the feeding tube that was giving her food and water. On the other side, Terri's parents did not feel that their daughter would want to starve to death; rather, they wanted Michael to divorce Terri, at which point they would become the ones responsible for continuing her care. (Of course, had he divorced her, he wouldn't get any insurance money… Hmmm…) Astoundingly, Michael won, and Terri was starved to death, passing away on March 31^st. He claims that it was what she would have wanted - but, sadly, she's not here to present her side. (Here's a link to the entry I wrote at the time about Terri and her case.)

This is the case where the “pro-choice” movement morphed into the “pro-death” movement. Their true beliefs about their opinion of human life was on display for all to see. Terri Schiavo had made her choice. Choosing not to have a living will means that her care would fall back to normal medical processes - every attempt to save her life would be made. The “pro-choice” crowd, though, ignoring her choice, sided with her adulterous husband in his quest for her death. I guess they're pro-choice, as long as the choice is death.

On January 28^th, 2005, Condoleezza Rice was sworn in as only the second black (and first black female) Secretary of State. It is interesting that, for all the lip service the Democrats give to people of color, it was a Republican President who has appointed both black Secretaries of State our nation has had. Throughout this past year, she has been quite busy, working hard to act as this country's face to the rest of the world. She is presiding over the difficult diplomatic processes with North Korea and Iran, two rogue countries that are dangerously close to developing nuclear weapons.

Once September rolled around, though, we saw something much less inspiring. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, destroying Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi and, though it only hit New Orleans, Louisiana with a glancing blow, the water broke some of the levees around the city, and it flooded. We heard reports of stacks of bodies, rapes, and rampant looting. (Thankfully, all but the looting seems to have been vastly overreported.) Then, we have the ridiculous outburst from Kanye West during a Katrina fundraising special, claiming that our President doesn't care about black people. Preposterous! And, during a time of national disaster, an irresponsible and disrespectful thing to do. Seems it was all a publicity stunt - his album came out a few weeks later, and his name was fresh on people's minds. So, he basically exploited the same people he claimed President Bush didn't care about. Definitely not a high point…

To wrap up our mini year-in-review, let's come back to the recently completed Alito hearings. Aspersions were cast on Judge Alito's character because he had been a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), and that group had written that it opposed allowing minorities and women into Princeton. The only problem is that those lines came from a parody that was published in the Princeton student newspaper. (Look for the quotes from Dinesh D'Souza in that article.) Turns out, CAP was also concerned about the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program being banished from Princeton, and that is why Justice-to-Be Alito had joined the group. The group did oppose quotas of minority/female admissions, and they also opposed lowered admissions standards for minority/female admissions - but, they were not opposed to minorities or women based on their race or gender. (And, this insinuation from the left is getting more than a little insulting!) Also, during the hearings, one of the committee members said that they couldn't think of a single decision that Judge Alito had made that was beneficial to minorities. However, this article, written in November of 2005, shows his belief that all people are equal under the law, no matter what their skin color.

Our nation misses Dr. King's guidance. He believed that, just as God sees us all as people, men should look at men with color-blind eyes as well. I hope that, over the next few years, less focus will be placed on divisive things. And, I hope that minorities realize that while one group emphasizes our differences, there is another group that has accepted those of whatever color, and encourage them to do the things that will improve their lives.