CHILD MURDERED: By filing two counts of murder against Scott Peterson instead of one, Stanislaus Co. (Calif.) prosecutors recognized the humanity not only of Peterson's wife, Laci, but also of his unborn child. According to the National Right to Life Committee, "Twenty-six states have enacted laws that recognize unborn victims of at least some violent crime, during some or all of the period of pre-natal development. (As recently as 2002, two states, Nebraska and Idaho, enacted comprehensive unborn victim laws.)" Pro-lifers in Congress favor the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (S 146), which would make the punishment for harming an unborn child "the same as the punishment provided for that conduct under federal law had that injury or death occurred to the unborn child's mother" (actual bill language). The bill exempts abortion.
AIDS' CAUSE: Typically, the media have explained Africa's explosion of HIV cases by ascribing it to heterosexual transmission, even though the virus is rarely spread that way in the West. The Population Research Institute (PRI) has another theory: "HIV/AIDS in Africa is the product of poor medical care, especially in 'sexual and reproductive health' (abortion, sterilization, and contraception) programs," wrote PRI President Steve Mosher April 22. Some "studies posit that unsafe injections and other medical exposures to contaminated blood may account for two-thirds or more of the new cases of HIV/AIDS. In this new view, heterosexual sex is, at most, responsible for one-third of the spread of HIV in Africa. . . . Among the procedures that may have directly contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa are the reuse of injection equipment and multi-dose vials of injectable contraceptives such as Depo-Provera, or other medications used for STD treatment and antenatal care. Other family planning procedures that may serve as vectors for nonsexual transmission are Norplant implantation and abortion. . . ."
WOMEN IN COMBAT: American female POWs may be brave, wrote Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness in the Washington Times April 17, but the Clinton Administration's rule changes that put women closer to the front lines were undesired. "The views of enlisted women, who outnumber female officers by more than five to one, differ from those who aspire to flag rank. A 1998 General Accounting Office report, quoting a Rand study, found that only 10% of female privates and corporals agreed that 'Women should be treated exactly like men and serve in the combat arms just like men,'" she wrote. "Many people, including the family of [former POW] Spec. [Shoshana] Johnson, thought that their daughters, sisters, and nieces could serve their country without undue exposure to close combat. But in 1994, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin quietly abolished the Defense Department's 'Risk Rule,' which spared women in support units from assignments close to the front line. . . . The controversial rule changes were billed as career enhancers, even though military women have been promoted for decades at rates equal to or faster than men."
OIL-FOR-MONEY: The United Nations' "oil for food" program has dealt with over $100 billion in contracts, and it charges 2.2% on every barrel of oil it handles. That has added up to more than $1 billion in fees. "According to staff members, the program's bank accounts over the past year have held balances upward of $12 billion," wrote Claudia Rosett in the New York Times on April 18. "With all that money pouring straight from Iraq's oil taps-thus obviating the need to wring donations from member countries-the oil-for-food program has evolved into a bonanza of jobs and commercial clout. Before the war it employed some 1,000 international workers and 3,000 Iraqis." Rosett noted that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan approved sports equipment, boats, and TV equipment for Iraq under the secretive "relief" program in the past year.
HEZBOLLAH V. AMERICA: Bolstering the justification for the Bush Administration's hard-line tactics against Syria, the Syria-supported terrorist group Hezbollah called for action against American targets in the Middle East. "The people of the region will receive [America] with rifles, blood, arms, martyrdom and martyrdom operations," said Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech before the Iraq war began, reported the Los Angeles Times April 17. "In the past, when the Marines were in Beirut, we screamed 'Death to America!' Today, when the region is being filled with hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, 'Death to America!' was, is and will stay our slogan." Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing over 200.
