It's bad enough that many do not consider unborn children to be persons with human rights (and in fact our current law holds that view). But Obama's science czar, John Holdren, believes that children are not "human beings" until many years after birth.

From CNS News, via John Lott:

President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child "will ultimately develop into a human being" if he or she is properly fed and socialized.

"The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being." (emphasis added)

When, exactly, does Holdren believe children become "human"?

Another Obama czar, regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, is a big believer in the ideas of Peter Singer. According to David Martosko, that includes the idea that "animals should have some of the same rights as humans, in fact, greater rights than some people." Peter Singer also advocates "making it legal to kill disabled infants up to 28 days after birth as well as older 'non-persons with disabilities.'" Some quotes:

"[K]illing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

"No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time."

"Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all."

"During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments. By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct."

Sources: Princeton University
Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 175-217
The Sanctity of Life, Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct 2005

And then there's Ezekiel Emanuel's opinions on the lives of infants and young children, as well as individuals with disabilities, deserving less consideration than those of older children and adults (well, before they become elderly, anyway).

All of these people are entitled to their opinions and have the 1st amendment right to express their beliefs. But I find it disturbing that our President would surround himself with not one but several people who hold such views on the intrinsic value of children.

Then again, our President himself has expressed opinions against the notion of the sanctity of life.

To be fair, I do not doubt his devotion as a father to his own daughters. Certainly he loves them very much and wants only the best for them, as any father would.

And yet during the 2008 presidential campaign, he said that if his daughters made a "mistake," he wouldn't want them, "punished with a baby." He also argued against a bill that would have required medical care be provided to babies who survived botched abortions, claiming that such a law would "burden" doctors and women who had intended to abort their babies. The theme running through both of those statements is that he seems to see children, at least those not "wanted" by their parents for whatever reason, as "burdens" not worth protecting.

Does the president agree with the views of his advisors on the worth of children? I really don't know, and I certainly hope not. But if he doesn't, I can't help but ask - why has he chosen so many advisors with such views? And how might those views come to influence public policy in his administration?

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Does Congress not see that they are gradually being marginalized, their power taken and amassed within the executive branch via "czars"?

The whole concept of "czars," presidential appointees that are not under congressional authority but report solely to the president, needs to end. I realize it's been done before, for years actually, but never on the scale of what Obama has done. At last count he now has over 30 "czars," many of whom are duplicating (and likely replacing from a practical standpoint) official cabinet positions. Others are entirely new positions with new and far-reaching power, power not granted to them by Congress and not approved by Congress.

There is no vetting process (at least not one open to scrutiny by Congress or we the people) and no accountability other than to the president. Transparency anyone?

It's a blatant circumvention of the constitutional separation of powers and it needs to stop. To me, it appears to be not only unconstitutional but a clear attempt to consolidate power in the executive branch while marginalizing the power of Congress. As Senator Byrd said in a recent letter to Obama, "The accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances." Indeed.

Perhaps some in Congress are waking up to what's happening.

Taxpayers for Common Sense has a running list of the czars with additional detail on each one.

Here's the current list:

1. Afghanistan czar
2. AIDS czar
3. Border czar
4. CA Water czar
5. Car czar
6. Climate czar
7. Domestic violence czar
8. Drug czar
9. Economic czar
10. Energy czar
11. Faith-based czar
12. Great Lakes czar
13. Green jobs czar
14. Guantanamo closure czar
15. Health czar
16. Information czar
17. Intelligence czar
18. Mideast peace czar
19. Mideast policy czar
20. Pay czar
21. Regulatory czar
22. Science czar
23. Stimulus accountability czar
24. Sudan czar
25. TARP czar
26. TARP oversight czar
27. Technology czar
28. Terrorism czar (umm, shouldn't that be the man-caused disaster czar?)
29. Urban affairs czar
30. Weapons czar
31. WMD/Terrorism czar

and two not appointed yet:

32. Copyright czar
33. Cyberspace czar

33 and counting...

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Obama's so-called "science czar" John Holdren goes beyond environmental extremist notions that "responsible" citizens should limit their family sizes, into the realm of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.

Here are a few excerpts from a book that Holdren wrote with Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The book is called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment and although it was written in 1977, Zombietime notes that Holdren has never denounced the things he wrote at that time so it stands to reason that he still holds these beliefs:

"Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

Forced abortion?! Whatever happened to a woman's "right to choose"? Whatever happened to "my body, my choice"? Oh... well, as long as it's for the "greater good," right?

"One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption — especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. ... It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society."

Oh look! So women might be given some choices... have your baby forcibly taken by the government and given to someone else, get married, or we're back to forced abortion. Wow, how thoughtful of the totalitarian regime to offer some choices after all.

Then again, this guy has thought of everything. The whole notion of forced abortion doesn't necessarily have to happen if we have forced sterilization, right?

"The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births."

It just gets more and more disturbing. He thinks the government has the right to decide who can and who cannot have children. Anyone who gets pregnant outside of that "approval process" would be subject to having their child forcibly taken from them, or being forced to kill their own child. I can't even begin to tell you how outraged I am by this whole notion. And again, this is the person that president of the United States as appointed as his personal science advisor. As such, he is in a position to make recommendations to the president. And these are his beliefs when it comes to "reproductive health" as the liberals are calling it these days.

But wait, there's more... implanting and removing "sterilization capsules" could be costly and time-consuming. Isn't there a more cost-efficient way to force sterilization on the masses?

"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. ... To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock."

No mention of ethical or moral problems here, but extensive discussion on the logistical challenges. I mean, it's one thing to subject an entire population to involuntary sterilization (presumably without their knowledge or consent), but we wouldn't want to have any side-effects to livestock.

In the event that they decide to grant you permission to have children, such "rights" would be limited.

"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?"

Really?! Are you kidding me?! How is it anyone's concern other my husband, myself, and God how many children we bring into our family? Whatever happened to keeping government out of the bedroom?

Apparently anyone who is not on board with such suggestions is a... racist?

"Another related issue that seems to encourage a pronatalist attitude in many people is the question of the differential reproduction of social or ethnic groups. Many people seem to be possessed by fear that their group may be outbred by other groups... Obviously, if everyone tries to outbreed everyone else, the result will be catastrophe for all."

Hmm... now this strikes me as interesting. It would never occur to me to have children on the basis of making sure my "social or ethnic group" isn't "outbred" by another. The fact that it does occur to Holdren is telling. I mean, many of his ilk are already limiting their family size to two or less children for any number of reasons (and although they have absolutely NO right to force such choices on the rest of us they are well within their rights to determine what size family is best for them). But after I read his comments on that topic, I wonder if it is actually he and others who think like him who feel the need to limit the family size of others in order to keep from being "outbred" by others who don't share their ideology. After all, we wouldn't want to let "pronatalist attitudes" (translation: the notion that babies are good) become too common.

Sigh. As if all this isn't bad enough, Holdren doesn't just want the U.S. government making these decisions for us. He wants an international "planetary regime" to be in charge.

"The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits."

This man is frightening beyond words, and what he proposes is no less than a brutal totalitarian regime that has absolutely no place in a country that has for 200+ years been the beacon of freedom and liberty to the world. The fact that he has the president's ear and the ability to push for such policies is all the more cause for alarm.

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