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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Leading pro-life Democrat Nat Hentoff wrote a national editorial on Tuesday saying he had considered supporting Barack Obama for president. That was until he investigated Obama's record on abortion and found that the Illinois lawmaker essentially supported infanticide. "I was once strongly inclined to vote for Barack Obama for president (assuming he won his party's nomination)," Hentoff said in the column. "But then I learned Obama's voting record on abortion." Complete story at: http://www.lifenews.com/nat3903.html

As a solo pro-lifer over the years — among my wife, my friends and journalists I work with — I have been strengthened by knowing and learning from the late Henry Hyde on how to report on the degree to which this country can and is combating the culture of death — from abortion to assisted suicide and the "futility doctrine" in a growing number of hospitals that certain lives are not worth living any more. From 1975 to 2007, former U.S. Rep. Hyde, a force for life, was not only instrumental in limiting the number of abortions, he also...

Discussing your criteria for your nominations to the Supreme Court, all of you said you would not consider anyone who did not pledge to uphold Roe v. Wade. This "litmus test" means that all other possibilities, no matter how distinguished their records on constitutional issues, would be ignored. I ask all the Democratic candidates: Do you have any other "litmus tests" for the high court? On nominees' views on homosexual marriage? Federal taxpayers' funds for "good works" by religious organizations? How high should the "wall" between church and state be? At the Planned Parenthood meeting, Mr. Obama proposed an "updated...

The unassuming international champion of universal health care, Michael Moore, was asked (New York Sun, June 29) whether, while filming "Sicko," he inquired about the condition of Cuban journalist Normando Gonzalez, a political prisoner since 2003. He has contracted severe chronic illnesses while in a Castro gulag. Moore answered that he asked only about Cuba's health care system while he was there. Among other suffering prisoners in Cuban cells who would have added further dimension to "Sicko" are independent librarians, put away for more than 20-year sentences for the crime of giving Cubans access to books and other publications forbidden...

For years, I have been covering the Castro regime’s imprisonment — often for very long sentences — of what Amnesty International accurately calls “prisoners of conscience.” Among them are independent journalists, labor organizers, women’s rights supporters, authors and independent librarians. The latter are brave Cubans and women’s-rights supporters who make available books that their neighbors and other Cubans are not allowed to read in the state-controlled library system. Whatever direction a post-Fidel government takes, this punishment of free thought will continue. From kangaroo-court records I have seen, when independent librarians are sent to the gulags, certain confiscated books — and...

Overlooked in the wake of the midterm elections and the Supreme Court oral arguments on partial-birth abortion is a South Dakota abortion case in the federal courts that casts a sharp shaft of light on the national abortion debate. The case is not connected to partial-birth abortion or to a South Dakota ban on nearly all abortions in that state which was thumpingly defeated by the voters on Nov. 7. This case is about a South Dakota law that gets to the very core of the abortion controversy: When do we become human beings? The law would require that doctors...

Among the celebrities journeying to Connecticut to support Ned Lamont's campaign to unseat Sen. Joseph Lieberman (now running as an independent, having lost the Democratic primary to Lamont) is Michael Schiavo, known around the world as the husband who finally succeeded in having the feeding tube removed from his late wife, Terri Schiavo. Schiavo pointedly reminded Connecticut voters that Sen. Lieberman has supported the president and Congressional Republicans in passing emergency legislation involving federal courts in an attempt to save Terri Schiavo's life while he, Michael Schiavo, was respecting her wishes — which she could no longer communicate — to...

Among the celebrities journeying to Connecticut to support Ned Lamont's campaign to unseat Sen. Joseph Lieberman (now running as an independent, having lost the Democratic primary to Lamont) is Michael Schiavo, known around the world as the husband who finally succeeded in having the feeding tube removed from his late wife, Terri Schiavo. Schiavo pointedly reminded Connecticut voters that Sen. Lieberman has supported the president and Congressional Republicans in passing emergency legislation involving federal courts in an attempt to save Terri Schiavo's life while he, Michael Schiavo, was respecting her wishes — which she could no longer communicate — to...

A friend of mine told me of a recent conversation at his family's dinner table that keeps reverberating in my mind. His wife, a physician, also performs abortions. And their 9-year-old son -- hearing the words and curious about its meaning -- looked up from his plate and asked, "What is an abortion?" His mother tried carefully to describe it in simple terms. "But," said her son, "that means killing the baby." The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. "But," he said,...

Liberty BeatThe Real John RobertsJustice O'Connor ruled Bush can't get 'a blank check' but her successor will give him one by Nat HentoffSeptember 2nd, 2005 3:05 PM With the nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr., President George W. Bush now stands on the verge of a lasting legacy as a president who changed the face of American law. . . . Bush is about to secure a consistent conservative majority on the Supreme Court that will likely sweep away a host of doctrines in areas ranging from abortion to affirmative action to presidential powers. Law professor Jonathan Turley, George...

While editorials across the nation agreed in chorus that at last, Terri Schiavo will rest in peace, the autopsy report declined such certainty:"It is the policy of this office that no case is ever closed and that all determinations are to be reconsidered upon receipt of credible, new information." Even if no new information surfaces, how Terri Schiavo was put to death is causing many Americans to confront their own death. Pat Anderson, for a long time the attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents, said the day Terri died of dehydration as ordered by the courts and her husband: "Euthanasia in...

Among the most deficient parts of the curricula in America's school systems is teaching students why they are Americans — how our government works, our system of justice, the history of the Constitution, and, indeed, U.S. history and what it's taken to maintain and protect our liberties. A chilling 2003 report from The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University of Maryland, revealed that in our high schools, "most formal civic education today comprises only a single course on government — compared to as many as three courses in civics, democracy, and government...

Devaluing lives By Nat Hentoff While the media focused on religious groups and pro-lifers (not all pro-lifers are religious) engaged in trying to save Terri Schiavo, largely ignored were many disability-rights organizations. Andrew J. Imparato, head of the largest of them, the American Association of People with Disabilities, emphasizes there are more than 56 million American children and adults with disabilities, and I would note that many of the rest of us may unexpectedly join their number. This past March, Mr. Imparato, speaking to CNN regarding Mrs. Schiavo's plight, said that he feared that "when we start devaluing the lives...

Yakima, Washington was the home away from the Supreme Court of William O. Douglas, the Court's premier defender of free speech. Embodying his legacy, a high-school student in Yakima has taken on the majority of the Harvard faculty for flunking President Lawrence Summers for his exercise of politically incorrect free speech. The article in the Yakima Herald-Republic (March 29) advised: You have right of free speech -- as long as it's politically correct.

SATURDAY, APRIL 09, 2005 12:00 AM Don't be so sure that Schiavo intervention hurt the GOP C onventional wisdom is clear: Washington's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case hurt the GOP big-time. A Time Magazine poll found that three-quarters of the public thought Congress was wrong to intervene after a hospice, under court order, pulled the disabled woman's feeding tube, while 70 percent disapproved of President Bush's role in the saga. Funny. A new Zogby International poll shows that, when asked questions that go to the heart of the Schiavo matter, the public is very much in sync with the...

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history. She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists. Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own...

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history. She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists. Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own...

The thickening storm clouds over the fierce dispute between the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the indignant Democratic presidential candidate can be pierced if John Kerry will release all of his records of service in the Vietnam War. Deep in a long front-page Washington Post article by Michael Dobbs, "Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete," there is a smoking gun. In the Aug. 22 piece, Dobbs largely gives credit to Kerry's version of one of the controversies - whether there was enemy fire on March 13, 1969, the day Kerry rescued James Rassmann from the water. But the smoking gun appears...

The is the first of two columns on the genocide in Darfur, in the west of Sudan: The news media can no longer be blamed for not bringing light to the world about the more than 30,000 black African Muslims murdered by the Arab Muslim Janjaweed in Darfur, Sudan. The world has also been told of nearly 2 million of the survivors having been removed from their homes, many huddled in remote camps where epidemic diseases add to the corpses. And there is no doubt that the government of Sudan arms and supports the Janjaweed. --SNIP-- Of course this is...

    Taking the need for congressional oversight seriously, Sens. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, and Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, have been urging the Justice Department to enable its inspector general, Glenn Fine, to release his report on the accusations of a fired FBI whistleblower who found evidence of a cover-up of FBI incompetence that imperils national security. The two senators finally achieved only partial success.     The dismissed accuser, Sibel Edmonds — a linguist and translator with expertise in Mideast languages — was hired by the FBI soon after September 11. As the Boston Globe reported July 5: "Sifting through old classified materials...

'Never again,' said secretary general Kofi Annan after Rwanda. Corpses are back.No one can say they didn't know. [The government of Sudan is] committing repeated war crimes and crimes against humanity. - Bertran Ramcharan, acting U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, addressing U.N. Security Council, The New York Times, May 8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If we turn away simply because the victims are African tribespeople who have the misfortune to speak no English, have no phones and live in one of the remotest parts of the globe, then shame on us. [That means shame on each of us, not just the media.]...

Liberty Beat by Nat Hentoff The Sudan Genocide Arab Muslims Are Viciously Killing and Raping Black Muslims. So Where Is the World? May 17th, 2004 2:15 PM The government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against three large African tribes in its Darfur region. . . . Some 1,000 people are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped . . . and Sudan's army is even bombing the survivors. - Nicholas Kristof, "Will We Say 'Never Again' Yet Again?" The New York Times, March 27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sudan was elected Tuesday [May 4] to serve a three-year term on...

<p>For two years, Federal District Court Judge Charles Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, has suffered continuous character assassination by Senate Democrats who have filibustered his nomination by President Bush to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is on that bench now only because of a temporary recess appointment.</p>

Liberty Beatby Nat HentoffMike Wallace, the RedeemerCBS's 60 Minutes takes the case, and judge Charles Pickering gets his reputation backApril 23rd, 2004 5:00 PM Mike Wallace and Charles Pickering(photo: 60 Minutes) n March 28, the 16.7 million viewers of CBS's 60 Minutes saw Mike Wallace engage in one of the most valuable acts of journalism. Too often, the multiplex media circulate character assassinations from politicians and other reckless sources without doing their own investigating to get the facts straight. Other journalists can be the last resort for the victims of the calumnies. In his report, "Judge Charles Pickering," Mike Wallace...

WASHINGTON - The world has moved on since the case of Terri Schiavo, whose husband sought to remove the feeding tube that kept her alive, briefly grabbed public attention last fall. But Terri's life remains at risk. Michael Schiavo, her parents, the state of Florida, and advocacy groups continue to fight over her future. Alas, she keeps losing where it matters most, in court. Terri collapsed in 1990, leaving her profoundly cognitively disabled. Her husband won a $1.3 million malpractice judgment that included money for her medical care, but subsequently refused to fund rehabilitative treatment for her. Along the way...

<p>Quiet as it's kept, the diminishing Democratic majority in Congress for the past quarter of a century equals the rate at which pro-life Democrats have been abandoning the party. This was the message given to Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), when he was visited on March 8 by members of Congress on the National Advisory Board of Democrats for Life of America. Among them were Reps. Bart Stupak of Michigan and James Oberstar of Minnesota.</p>

U.S. Reps. James Oberstar (Minnesota) and Bart Stupak (Michigan) - members of the Democrats for Life of America's National Advisory Board - met with Democratic National Committee head Terry McAuliffe, on March 4, to point out that the Democrats' majority in Congress diminished at almost the same rate pro-life voters left the party. These are the illuminating statistics - ignored by the media - that were presented to McAuliffe: In the 95th Congress (1977-78), Democrats had a 292-seat majority in the House, which included 125 pro-life Democrats. Now, as a minority, Democrats are down to 204 seats, with 28 pro-life...

In a February speech in Washington, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, often regarded as an eventual Oval Office candidate, voiced her concern about "some of the pullbacks in the rights" she said were given to Iraqi women under Saddam Hussein. Not even Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has attacked President Bush for engaging in a "senseless war in Iraq," has gone so far as to praise Hussein as a supporter of women's rights. Hillary Clinton did try to qualify her softening of the dictator's horrific image by noting that these women's rights were "on paper." However, she went on to give...

<p>At the Brookings Institution in Washington on Feb. 25, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton charged that, with Saddam Hussein gone, there have been "pullbacks" in the rights Iraqi women enjoyed under his rule. Not even such bellicose critics of the war as Sen. Ted Kennedy have claimed that the regime change has cost women in Iraq the leading defender of their rights.</p>

<p>At the Brookings Institution in Washington on Feb. 25, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton charged that, with Saddam Hussein gone, there have been "pullbacks" in the rights Iraqi women enjoyed under his rule. Not even such bellicose critics of the war as Sen. Ted Kennedy have claimed that the regime change has cost women in Iraq the leading defender of their rights.</p>

William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, has written a penetrating analysis of the relationship between global terrorism and the often blurred focus on human rights by Americans who profess to care about those rights. In Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights (Nation Books), Schulz reminds us that certain nations favored by members of the right or the left in this country are brutal to those who dissent against the state. "Amnesty International and other human rights defenders," he writes, "are called upon to set aside personal political predilection, doctrine, or ideology, and 'call them as...

[With] no indictment; no jury; . . . no examination of the witnesses; no counsel for defense; all is darkness, silence, mystery, and suspicion. —Congressman Edward Livington, New York, 1798, in opposition to President John Adams's denial of due process to noncitizens. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The proposition is this: that in a time of war the commander of an armed force . . . has the power . . . to suspend all civil rights and their remedies, and subject citizens . . . to the rule of his will. . . . If true, republican government is a failure, and there...

When I read some of those descriptions [of me in the press] I get scared of me. —Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.S. News & World Report, January 26, 2004 In January of 2003, I, hardly known as a conservative or Bush admirer, was invited by David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, to appear at its annual Conservative Political Action Conference. It was the first time a Voice writer had been asked to speak at this center of conservative activism. Joining me at the panel on civil liberties, the Constitution, and the Bush-Ashcroft Patriot Act was Bob Barr, an...

'What Does Hentoff Know of the Real Cuba?'The Cuban people are the freest people on Earth.—Ignacio González Planas, Cuban minister of information and communications, Juventud Rebelde, January 18 Years ago, at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, I asked the revolutionary Cuban icon Che Guevara, who professed not to understand English, "Can you conceive of any time in the future when there will be free elections in Cuba?" Not waiting for the translator, Guevara laughed heartily at my simplemindedness. "In Cuba?" He said, and moved on. All these years, there have been men and women in Fidel Castro's prisons...

The Abandoned Librarians Castro's Judges Burn Books 'Lacking Usefulness' January 29th, 2004 1:30 PM Carla Hayden, president of the American Library Association: "committed to intellectual freedom," with certain exceptions (Hilary Schwab Photography) s I've been reporting in this column, there has been a fierce civil war within the American Library Association as to whether that body—the largest organization of librarians in the world—will help free the 10 librarians locked up in Fidel Castro's gulag for the next 20 or more years for making available to Cubans such subversive documents as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and George...

A bitter, months-long dispute within the American Library Association — the largest nation-based organization of librarians in the world — continues as to whether to demand that Fidel Castro release 10 imprisoned independent librarians found guilty of making available to Cubans copies of George Orwell's 1984 and the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights. Along with 65 other Cuban dissenters, the ''subversive'' librarians were sentenced to 20 or more years in Castro's gulag. Some urgently need medical attention, which they're not receiving. At the ALA's annual midwinter meeting this month in San Diego, Karen Schneider, a member of the ALA's...

First Amendment Treats for the Rich The Media Blew This One Big-Time [The] Supreme Court . . . upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law . . . is cause for celebration. —New York Times lead editorial, "A Campaign Finance Triumph," December 11 [The] decision will do far more to restrict political speech than to curtail the influence of money on politics. —Anthony Romero, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union, The New York Sun, December 11 [The law] cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government. Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting,...

In previous columns on the media's often belated and fragmentary coverage of the Bush-Ashcroft-Mueller-Rumsfeld war on the Bill of Rights, I've noted a weakening of the journalistic standard of following up on vital stories. Caught on the treadmill of the 24-hour news cycle, much of television, radio, and even the print press, tells us more about Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson than about the administration's expanding plans to shred our privacy, along with many other liberties, in the sanctified name of national security. The exceptions among journalists include Bill Moyers, whose weekly program, Now, on PBS (channel 13 in New...

Jewish boys in Gagny, France, cover their skullcaps with baseball caps. Girls bury their Star of David necklaces under their sweaters. And, as the New York Times further reported, their school has been ''scorched by fire and fear.'' This epidemic of anti-Semitism is hardly confined to the middle-class Paris suburb. Writing in the introduction for a new book by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, renowned Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel asks: ''Was Hannah Arendt (author of Eichmann in Jerusalem) right when she predicted that of the 20th century's social diseases, anti-Semitism would survive, reaching beyond time and geography,...

<p>In the Supreme Court's allegedly purifying 5 to 4 decision in McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission, political campaign financing dissenter Justice Antonin Scalia said the new statute "cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government." Off the court, also dissenting, Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), noted: "The decision will do far more to restrict political speech than to curtail the influence of money on politics."</p>

In the July 2003 issue of The Progressive, a monthly magazine for which I write, there was an ad: "Anti-War, Social Justice and Human Rights Advocates Oppose Repression in Cuba." The signers were a number of prominent, persistent critics of Bush, Ashcroft, and others in the government. Among them: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Matt Rothschild (editor of The Progressive), the late Edward Said, and Cornel West. They oppose the Bush embargo and other economic sanctions on Cuba, but they condemn: "The arrests of scores of opponents of the Cuban government for their nonviolent political activities, and the shockingly long prison...

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee relentlessly charge that Janice R. Brown — a California Supreme Court justice nominated to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals — is an extreme conservative, "starkly outside the mainstream," (Dianne Feinstein, California) and "clearly to the right of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas," (Charles Schumer, New York). Confirmed by the committee on a party-line vote, she faces a Democratic filibuster on the Senate floor. I hardly agree, to say the least, with all of Brown's judicial opinions; but the fiercely partisan Democrats on the Judiciary Committee slide by her dissents and majority...

There is a new dimension in the fierce battle over whether Terri Schiavo's life is worth saving. A federally funded investigation has begun into certain medical judgments made by her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, including decisions in recent months. But more important is whether the inquiry will discover what actually caused Terri Schiavo's alleged cardiac arrest in 1990, which is said to be the reason her brain was deprived of oxygen, resulting in her condition for the past 13 years. The degree to which this investigation is widely reported by the media may help determine whether Terri Schiavo lives...

Will There Be an Investigation in Time?There is a new dimension in the fierce battle over whether Terri Schiavo's life is worth saving. A federally funded investigation has begun into certain medical judgments made by her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, including decisions in recent months. But more important is whether the inquiry will discover what actually caused Terri Schiavo's alleged cardiac arrest in 1990, which is said to be the reason her brain was deprived of oxygen, resulting in her condition for the past 13 years. The degree to which this investigation is widely reported by the media may...

The ACLU Supports a 'Constitutional' Death by StarvationWe don't have full understanding of brain damage and consciousness . . . every patient is different . . . every patient's pattern of brain damage is different. —Dr. Ross Bullock, Reynolds professor of neurosurgery at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, Newsday, October 26 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have covered highly visible, dramatic "right to die" cases—including those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan—for more than 25 years. Each time, most of the media, mirroring one another, have been shoddy and inaccurate. The reporting on the fierce battle for the life of 39-year-old Terri...

<p>The right-to-die — or right-to-life — case of Terri Schiavo has ignited an essential national debate on who has the authority to decide on the "quality of life" and whether life continues. Although brain-injured, Mrs. Schiavo is neither brain-dead nor terminal. And not all neurologists agree she's in "a persistent vegetative state." But her husband, Michael Schiavo, ordered her feeding tube removed Oct. 15.</p>

A Judge's Life: The Final Reckoning 'Look at the Justice System From a Black Perspective' William Moody, an African-American drug defendant, was arrested in 2000, seven years after his indictment. Authorities could not find him because he was living in New York, holding a steady job and supporting his family. Upon learning about Moody's apparent turnaround, [District Judge] Pickering delayed his sentencing a year, allowing his continued good behavior to be used as a basis for punishment with no prison time. —Bill Rankin, staff writer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 9, 2003. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I write this final column on Charles Pickering because,...

'You Have Committed a Despicable Act,' Said Sentencing Judge Pickering When George W. Bush renominated Mississippi Federal District Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Democratic attack machine on the Senate Judiciary Committee, People for the American Way, and other liberal watchdogs of the judiciary went after Pickering again—just as the Republican artillery pursued some of Bill Clinton's nominees. As before, the most insistent charge against Pickering was that, presiding over a cross-burning case in Mississippi as a district judge, he had gone way out of his way to get a lighter sentence than the federal...

Renominating Judge Pickering—especially in the wake of the Trent Lott affair—is a thumb in the eye of the black community. —New York senator Charles Schumer, National Review Online, October 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judge Pickering's record of working with both races and working for racial reconciliation in past and present years is beyond what many whites . . . in positions of leadership have done in our state. —Phillip West, chairman of the Mississippi legislative black caucus, in The Hill, October 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said that the history of liberty is the history of due process—fundamental fairness...

Last week, in the newest chapter of the biggest civil liberties story this country has seen in years, scientist Steven Hatfill announced his long-awaited lawsuit against the federal government, naming Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Department of Justice, the FBI, FBI supervisory special agent Van Harp (who has led the anthrax investigation), et al. The DOJ/FBI terror campaign against Dr. Hatfill, who was a government scientist, and a leading authority on the Marburg and Ebola viruses, and on how to respond to chemical and biological attacks, has been underway for over 14 months. After the FBI botched the investigation of...