Life Chain And SCHIP

Joe Guarino tells us about tomorrow's "Life Chain" in GSO, an event that protests abortion. Cara Michelle has the details.

I've always admired those who took principled stands solely on principle. Joe and Cara are tops in my book. Alas, my position on abortion has changed over the years . . . tempered by the practical realities of working in a world where I regularly "diagnose" pregnancy in 13, 14 and 15 year-olds . . . as well as STD's in little boys who were never taught by fathers-who-aren't-there to keep their "thang" in their pants . . . not to mention the broken body parts & jumbled brains of the battered infants that occasionally roll into my path.

My position on abortion is not one I flaunt or am particularly proud of. We have ourselves a pretty sick society.

I make these observations as a 45-year-old, God-fearing/Commandment-believing Pediatrician who always wanted children . . . especially a daughter. But then I did that little dance in Asheboro, and thereafter I was never in a position . . . either financially or personally (i.e. married & settled) . . . to give a child what I thought he/she would need. Moreover, I never expected or felt entitled to government support (for all that I would like to see a little justice from that government I served).

And last year, the plumbing came out.

I watch people . . . generations now literally . . . acting with a total absence of morality and/or personal responsibility . . . AND draping themselves & the offspring they produce (yet can IN NO WAY SUPPORT) in entitlement . . . and I just don't get it.

But I keep plodding along . . . taking care of other women's children.

This brings me to Oak Ridge Runner's first comment on Joe's post: The hypocrisy of the Left is staggering. They wrap themselves in "It's for the children" on issues like SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), where they want all children to have free health care, but support a woman's right to choose to murder their unborn. Just once, I'd like for one of them to recognize how hypocritical it is to fight for children that are lucky enough to be born, but could care less about the ones that don't see the light of day, alive.

Now I know that, according to the AMA and the NC Medical & Pediatric Societies (in the last few weeks I've been e-mailed to death), and Binker at the N&R, I'm supposed to drop everything and call those 20 Congressman "we" need to over-ride Bush's veto of SCHIP.

I've called Congressmen (and Senators) before, thank you very much. And (while I'm at it) I think it's fairly pretentious for the AMA and state medical societies to assume that all of their members supported this bill. I actually think President Bush did the right thing.

You see I remember what the state of North Carolina did with federal money once before. But no one in Raleigh wants to talk about "disproportionate share" now.

That was about "charity" too.

I hear Carolinas Medical Center has some real pretty, state-of-the-art buildings now.

Knowing I risked public pummeling for saying what I think, I was going to wait to comment on SCHIP until I saw what happened with the attempt to over-ride the veto. But what the hay. Here's what I've got to say on the subject (I said it to a friend last week in an e-mail exchange, and I said it at Joe's today):

Joe, I realize that as a Pediatrician, it is probably treasonous to say this, but as I told a (Bush-bashing) friend just last week, if anyone thinks this SCHIP business is about charity and and generosity . . . if they think it is about ANYTHING BUT POLITICAL POSTURING FOR POWER and MONEY TO KEEP THE MACHINE RUNNING - then they are deluding themselves.

There. A Pediatrician went and said it. It's so NOT just "for the children".

Reality bites doesn't it?