With his most recent book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, Ramesh Ponnuru has documented the truth that we knew all to well. The Democratic Party, with help from the biased media and activist courts, has been hijacked by social liberals bent on thrusting their “progressive” agenda onto the American people. Ironically, as a result of the increasingly Jacobin Democratic Party, there are now far fewer living people on whom it can force its message.
Released on 24 April 2006, the book has a clear thesis. It contends that, with abortion as its metaphorical foot in the door, the Democratic Party (or at least the far-left radicals at its helm) is slowly attempting to water down the right that our Founding Fathers deemed “self-evident”—that of life itself. Before delving into the very real possibility that “progressive” radicals will one day usurp our very right to exist, Ponnuru traces the history of the disastrous Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, from which contemporary attempts to cheapen life derive their primary justification. The history of the decision and its consequences occupy much of the first section of Ponnuru’s book, with the realignment of partisan politics also clearly delineated.
Atrociously decided and frequently misunderstood, the Roe v. Wade case is unhinged with relative ease by Ponnuru, who employs only simple facts and logic. Ponnuru sears into the belief that Roe v. Wade was a moderate approach to the abortion issue. Many people, including well-respected journalist Gregg Easterbrook, are utterly ignorant about “what Roe wrought.” They have been duped into believing that Roe made a clear distinction between the three trimesters—namely, that Roe allowedunrestricted abortion in the first, regulated it somewhat in the second, and proscribed it in the third. No such distinction actually exists.
In reality, Roe made all abortions, at any time during the pregnancy, completely legal and unrestricted. This is a result of the “health” exception to the Roe decision, which allowed an abortion to take place in the later stages of a pregnancy so long as the woman’s health was at stake. A decision reached the same day by the (Harry) Blackmun Court, Doe v. Bolton (1973), declared that such exceptions included any factor related to “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age,” therefore eliminating any possibility of a ban by the actual people themselves (10).
Ponnuru summarizes the entire situation quite nicely: “How could anyone ever be prosecuted for violating a ban on late-term abortion under this rule? The ‘attending physician’—in real life, very often an abortionist with a financial stake in the decision—can always say that in his medical judgment, the abortion was necessary to preserve the woman’s emotional ‘health,’ especially considered in light of her ‘familial’ situation. “ (10)
After adeptly identifying just how radical a decision Roe was, and how it was clearly out of touch with the wishes of the majority of Americans, Ponnuru cuts into the politicians that cowardly exchanged principle for dreams of greater power. Needless to say, the gang of the most notable cravens is limited to Democrats. On the list of pro-life defectors are: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), former Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL), former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MS), former Vice President Al Gore, former President Bill Clinton, former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and even the lead jackal himself, Sen. Ted Kennedy (DMA). All nine cowards, under varying circumstances, defected from their principles when they mounted bids for higher office.
Ponnuru offers an incredibly accurate truth—one soon to be regarded as an indispensable aphorism for partisan politics—when he asserts, “The Democratic party, in short, was once home to quite a few pro-lifers….It was the party of the little guy. Yet somehow it turned its back on the littlest guy of all” (23).
After examining just how far-reaching an effect the abortion issue has had on the contemporary polarization of the liberal and conservative contingents of the population, Ponnuru traces, in the second section of his book, the influence it has had on other life concerns in America. First, Ponnuru offers a concise and soundly-reasoned argument against euthanasia, oftenreferencing these two truths—first, all humans, regardless of how “inconvenient” they may be, are inalienably entitled to life; second, simple food and water are not extraordinary medical means for maintaining a human life.
Second, Ponnuru targets the issue of embryo-destructive stem-cell research. With Ron Reagan as the leader of the ignorant, a compelling case is made for the ban of said research. Reagan employs many fallacies, according to Ponnuru, chief of which is his belief that the inalienable right to life is “theology.” Only adding to his foolishness, Reagan states that embryos are not entitled to life because they are not fully-developed human beings. Writes Ponnuru, “This is the old argument that embryos aren’t human because they don’t look like us” (152). We fought the Civil War because of that same belief.
The last chapter of the book’s second section is its most disturbing part. In it, Ponnuru reveals the modern day Lucifer—a philosopher by the name of Peter Singer. This man sincerely believes that infanticide is not only permissible at times, but even sometimes morally obligatory! (Ponnuru demonstrates how such a belief could be formed, noting that if one is to accept abortion as permissible, it is hard to argue against infanticide.) Ponnuru references Singer as writing:
In thinking about [infanticide], we should put aside feelings based on the small, helpless, and—sometimes—cute appearance of human infants. . . . If we can put aside these emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants. (175)
Most would expect to find such a deviant shacking up with an animal somewhere—as he sees nothing wrong with human-animal sexual relations—but Princeton University deemed him worthy of a chairmanship at their Center for Human Values. To most, he is the academic version of Dr. Kevorkian. But to Princeton, and to most other universities, he is “progressive” (probably including Br . . . well, I will not offer further comment).
Ponnuru concludes his book with a look at how such immoral ideologies have come to be widely accepted in America and what can be done to combat them. Examining the nation’s leftist newspapers and media networks, Ponnuru comments on how prolifers are demonized as misogynist, religiously-fundamentalist radicals. In other words, people who value all human life equally are characterized as archaic and anti-progressive by many of the nation’s news outlets. The overuse of “restrictive” instead of “protective” in describing antiabortion legislation is just one example of the leftist onslaught.
Ponnuru closes with a look to the future, namely, how America can end the murder in which we are all complicit. He points to the necessity for a more proactive pro-life movement in the Democratic Party. However, this will be quite a momentous task, as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2003, Terry McAuliffe, would not even allow a link on the DNC website to the website of Democrats for Life of America. The DNC included 261 links to other organizations, presumably because they were more “progressive.” According to Ponnuru, only when the Democratic Party disowns the radically social liberal element of its party, which has currently risen to the helm, will it ever have the possibility of regaining the support of the American majority. There is also another, more devious strategy, which the Democratic Party could adopt—one about which Ponnuru has nightmares. To find out, well, you will just have to buy the book.
Ponnuru’s only noticeable flaw is his failure to completely confront the issue of the death penalty. He briefly addresses it by stating his own views on the matter (he is opposed), but then he quickly flees from the topic. The reason is obvious: many people who are pro-life on all of the issues raised in his book also favor the death penalty for convicted murderers. To some, there is no contradiction because there is a marked difference between innocent babies and guilty adults. Ponnuru, however, fails to address this matter fully. Pragmatic concerns—that is, the desire to not alienate those who are against abortion like he is, but who are in favor of capital punishment—are certainly part of his reason to gloss over the heated topic.
At the end of the day, though, The Party of Death is a masterpiece of logic and perspicacity. It should be read by all—prochoicers and pro-lifers alike. In doing so, this nation may one day return to its better self, a nation which values all life as sacred and of intrinsic value. The Party of Death succeeds in all that it sets out to do, most importantly in its attempt to show just why the assault on the right to life is not merely a religious issue, but also a human issue on which we all should agree.
