Sunday 2 August 2009

Kathy Shaidle is a Prevaricator.

But then you already knew that, right?

Two headlines - the first from CNSNews.com and the second from Shaidle.

Obama’s Science Czar Said a Born Baby ‘Will Ultimately Develop Into a Human Being’

FOX: Science “Czar” believes babies “will ultimately develop into human beings” only after birth.

Then she provides her NewsRealblog readers with the 'money' quote.

"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."

In Holdren’s defense, such views were not entirely out of the mainstream in the 1970s, when leftist pro-abortion activists routinely described fetuses as mere “blobs of tissue,” and technology such as the prenatal ultrasound had yet to be developed.

Wrong, Kathy. According to the History of Ultrasound, a team of specialists presented and published their first obstetric scans at an internationally attended Ultrasonics Symposium in the US in 1962. Gynecologists in Canada have used echography as a diagnostic tool for high-risk pregnancies since the 1970s. Doesn't it make you wonder what else she gets wrong, or baldly lies about to put her point across?

Also, the "view" that Shaidle cites, is selective and deliberately misleading when detached from its context. Here is the full quote, from CNSNews:
"To a biologist the question of when life begins for a human child is almost meaningless, since life is continuous and has been since it first began on Earth several billion years ago," wrote the Ehrlichs and Holdren. "The precursors of the egg and sperm cells that create the next generation have been present in the parents from the time they were embryos themselves. To most biologists, an embryo (unborn child during the first two or three months of development) or a fetus is no more a complete human being than a blueprint is a building. 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. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect."
Shaidle claims that Holdren has a "history" of promoting the kind of radical environmentalism that privileges the planet over people and has done little since his appointment to distance himself from past controversial statements.

Putting aside the fact that Shaidle twisted information to support her attack on Holdren, isn't the rest of her opinion piece a classic example of the narcissistic views that childless, dessicated, rightwing harridans like Shaidle and Ann Coulter - individuals who truly don't give a damn what happens to humanity and to the planet in 10, 30 or 50 years from now - regularly spew?

2 comments:

Lindsay Stewart said...

Oh come on now. Kathy herself was once a born baby, she's obviously done a pretty good bit of feeding and she sure doesn't resemble a human being though she is a blob of tissue.

Unknown said...

But Kathy Shaidle never developed into a "real" human being

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