(Via AoSHQ) This was written by John Holdren, Obama Science Czar, in 1977:
Individual rights. Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction. Some people—respected legislators, judges, and lawyers included—have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce. Nor does the UN Charter describe such a right, although a resolution of the United Nations affirms the “right responsibly to choose” the number and spacing of children (our emphasis). In the United States, individuals have a constitutional right to privacy and it has been held that the right to privacy includes the right to choose whether or not to have children, at least to the extent that a woman has a right to choose not to have children. But the right is not unlimited. Where the society has a “compelling, subordinating interest” in regulating population size, the right of the individual may be curtailed. If society’s survival depended on having more children, women could he required to bear children, just as men can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed forces. Similarly, given a crisis caused by overpopulation, reasonably necessary laws to control excessive reproduction could be enacted.
It is often argued that the right to have children is so personal that the government should not regulate it. In an ideal society, no doubt the state should leave family size and composition solely to the desires of the parents. In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?
This is, of course, appalling to any person who identifies as ‘pro-life’ - but it should be even more appalling to any person who identifies as ‘pro-choice.’ It is simply impossible to reconcile the position that the government may regulate the number of children with the position that a woman has a ‘fundamental right to choose’ whether or not to have an abortion. If you consider that right to automatically overrule the government’s ability to force you to carry an unwanted child to term, then it logically follows that you must also consider that right to also overrule the government’s ability to force you not to carry a wanted child to term*. And if you admit that the government has the right to dictate your fertility, then you don’t actually believe in a ‘fundamental right to choose’ in the first place; you believe in the government’s right to choose for you. Reading the rest of Zombietime’s article, it is fairly clear that Holdren is firmly of the opinion that the government does have that right, and that it trumps individual opinions on the matter. And now he’s in charge of science policy.
Or, to put this another way: they told me that if I voted for John McCain the President would appoint an anti-choice fanatic as science czar, and they were right.
Moe Lane
*State-sanctioned population-control programs almost guarantee forced abortions. Like it or don’t like it, as you please; it still happens.
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
This sentence is particularly troubling:
Uma Richie Saturday, July 11th at 11:59AM EDT (link)“If society’s survival depended on having more children, women could be required to bear children, just as men can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed forces.”
So would he condone raping women who refused to become pregnant the old-fashioned way? Or would they be forced to undergo artificial insemination?
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“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.” -Lech Walesa
Hollywood
Pomme Saturday, July 11th at 3:07PM EDT (link)Wasn’t there a movie about this stuff??
Or at least this is the stuff of science fiction.
Unimaginable!
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views” William F Buckley Jr.
I never read _The Handmaid's Tale_
Uma Richie Saturday, July 11th at 3:25PM EDT (link)I guess that’s what I’m getting on my next trip to the library.
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“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.” -Lech Walesa
"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
nessa Sunday, July 12th at 11:13AM EDT (link)Inspired by HG Wells and other popular Utopian novels of the 20s and 30s Brave New World is set in a world society where the world population is limited to 2 billion, children are raised and conditioned by the state. Its a frightening portrait of Utopia gone horribly wrong. As they always do…
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to The Minority Report
So much for Obama's vetting processes
bs Saturday, July 11th at 12:01PM EDT (link)although it makes one wonder if this is precisely the kind of person that he wants advising him. The U.S.’s most leftist president since the founding of the nation is most likely going to surround himself with ideological extremists like this clown.
I hope plenty of folks are emailing, twittering, and otherwise exposing this story, because it is one of the most blatant examples of how Obama is promoting extreme leftist philosophies via his appointments and nominees. This makes Sotomayor look like a member of the VRWC.
Decorum is fo’ suckas
I believe that Obama is in total agreement with this.
Vegas_Rick Saturday, July 11th at 12:06PM EDT (link)It fits right in with his own statist thinking and personal history.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge.
Why does it feel like....
marshmom Saturday, July 11th at 12:09PM EDT (link)I’ve been in the Twilight Zone ever since BO got elected?? This whole excerpt is extremely appalling, and VERY extremist, but yet, the right-wing “extremists” are the dangerous ones??
Does this guy have mentors named Mao or Hitler? What insanity!
Did he spend any years in Communist China?
penguin2 Saturday, July 11th at 1:11PM EDT (link)This is so appalling, that I am almost speechless. Who the hell does he think he is? He is part of the inbred crowd out of the 60’s and 70’s of world order domination and control. Maybe Obama should have appointed him as ambassador to China, he certainly would fit right in with their thinking.
I’m with you, marshmom, I feel like our country has been taken over by aliens. But event the Twilight Zone had a moral to the story.
Sorry, to moderators, for language. It is so unlike me, but I couldn’t help myself. I hope we can expose this guy to the average American. No matter how the vote went these past two election cycles, I still believe that Americans are not quite ready to give up their freedom. Maybe they will have to experience the loss of it first…
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
Benjamin Franklin
Of course not...
mikefisk Saturday, July 11th at 2:53PM EDT (link)…he’d never have mentors named Mao or Hitler.
After all, they were eventually cowed, and they didn’t go far enough fast enough.
(Being facetious, but only just barely)
“Once within the maw of Leviathan, degree of digestion is irrelevant.” - Michael Fisk
7.88, -1.97
It's never been about a woman's right to choose.
NightTwister Saturday, July 11th at 12:19PM EDT (link)Rather, it’s been about a woman’s right to end the life of her unborn child. The fact that the government can require this as well wouldn’t cause the pro-abort folks to even bat an eyelash. If they can also single out the poor and minorities, so much the better.
Get Connected in Colorado.
Pure Evil
SoFiMil Saturday, July 11th at 3:15PM EDT (link)It’s appalling there isn’t more of an outcry for this depravity:
1) Justice Ginsburg support for eugenics (regardless of whether the “undesirable” trait is economic, ability/disability, or race-based).
2) Euthanasia of “undesirable” young and old alike is next, if it isn’t already before us. (Witness Obama’s support for infanticide.)
3) Science Czar/Comrade Holdren touts a UN resolution advocating population control as his legal authority, with further justification that “neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce.” Never mind that the Constitution also does not give a woman a right to kill an unborn baby (even in private).
A logical result of not believing that evil exists is the recent news that Obama will either disband or significantly revamp the Bio-ethics Commission set up under President Bush.
http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com
The PETA Principle
ntrepid Sunday, July 12th at 1:21PM EDT (link)Your listing provides a good example of why I prefer the example of PETA as a subscale model of the modern American Left as a whole.
I do not believe the vast majority…greater than 99 percent…of the respective “memberships” to be evil. Most maintain a very narrow focus and within their self-limited worldview truly believe they are doing / supporting something unquestionably good. Unfortunately, most are completely ignorant of the true agendas being carried out with their support and for which their good name provides the legitimate and publically palatable cover.
If last November’s fifty-two percent were subjected to a thirty minute primer prior to voting on the meaning and implications of what you’ve listed above we’d all be complaining about President McCain’s wasted $578 Billion stimulus today.
At least I hope we would be.
Ntrepid
Proud Member for 4 Years and 10 Months
“Everybody has an agenda. Except for me.” - Michael Crichton, State of Fear.
Lemme guess...the "PETA Principle" states
6eorge Jetson Sunday, July 12th at 1:26PM EDT (link)People Eating Tasty Animals
Yep, that's the People Eating Tasty Animals" principle n/t
Swamp_Yankee Sunday, July 12th at 1:29PM EDT (link)nt
Not Dead Yet!
so another D is
JHancock Saturday, July 11th at 2:38PM EDT (link)Soulless baby killing scum–is anyone surprised??
In My Stupid Youth, I Was a "Green" Republican
Repair_Man_Jack Saturday, July 11th at 2:44PM EDT (link)I used to always wonder why the GOP couldn’t get on board w/ environmentalism more. THen I attended a symposium on Peak Oil. It was an eye-opener.
The speaker explained that the Earth had more people than it had crude to drive them around. THerefore “choices” had to be made.
Essentially, this guy was saying we could either abort and contracept now, or not eat so good and fight wars later. He saw North Korea as a model of what would later happen in the world at large. Therefore, he viewed frequent and (I wish I was making this up) strategic abortions as a good component to enlightened public policy.
PS. I guess tactical abortions occur when the guy makes her pregnant and can’t find the scratch for an apartment and a ring…
Hope is not a plan. Change is not always good.
Justice Ginsberg
Pomme Saturday, July 11th at 3:10PM EDT (link)The story in the NYT recently was a prompt telling people this line of thinking was OK. Didn’t you hear?
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views” William F Buckley Jr.
So now it's good to have government in your bedroom
civil_truth Saturday, July 11th at 3:39PM EDT (link)…and to have the state compel you to conceive or to abort. But at least the masters of your body will be good leftists, so that make it all fine.
Once again proving that totalitarianism always ends up controlling sexual behavior.
Only this time, its midwife will be ecoreligion. We’re already seeing here a convergence between population control and global
warmingclimate change zealots who want to invoke the state to coerce their program. Soon enough these zealots will become fertilizer, and their last cry will be “we we calling for others to change their behavior”.And Rightly So!
Typical Malthusian belief system of leftist extremists.
Big Apple Infidel Saturday, July 11th at 4:02PM EDT (link)According to an article in Forbes, in the 1970’s Holdren and Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) engaged in a dispute with environmentalist Barry Commoner regarding whether or not technology or population was more detrimental to the environment. Tellingly, Holdren and Ehrlich engaged in behavior similar to fellow traveler Al Gore (another Malthusian), whereby they attempted to stonewall debate on the issue and ban Commoner’s view, since it was detrimental to their own (shades of global warming debate).
Greetings from occupied territory!
Wow, Bargain... Science Czar and Lawyer All In One
rcov092 Sunday, July 12th at 1:26AM EDT (link)a communist one at that. No wonder he qualified for the Energy Czar position.
“Not One Red Dime for the NRSC or NRCC till they stop trying to elect liberals”
Join the RedState Strike Force
Seems like just yesterday the left said we needed to stay out of the bedroom
bk Sunday, July 12th at 1:31PM EDT (link)But I guess this was different.