The Right to Kill

Fights are breaking out around the continent over the right to kill. Just this week, Knight Ridder newspapers reported on two cases. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a court-appointed neutral guardian pulled the ventilator from a brain-damaged man after his divorced parents couldn't agree on whether he should go on living. In another Florida case, the fiancé of a woman who went into a coma after breast augmentation surgery is fighting with her parents, who want to remove life support. He wants a say in the decision.

Florida already has spooky laws giving the state power over everyday life. One eye-opener is the state's adoption notification act. It requires that mothers who want to give their kids up for adoption must first notify the father, and if the mother doesn't know who the father is, then she must place an ad in the newspaper saying what she's about to do. The National Post, in Toronto, detailed that law, saying, "It requires that they publish details of every sexual encounter that could have caused the pregnancy, along with names—if possible—and descriptions of the men, in the local newspaper where the incident took place, so any men who may be the father and want to contest the adoption can come forward." The names of the men are put in a registry maintained by the state government. Right-to-lifers say this is anti-life, since the women will choose abortions rather than go to all that embarrassing trouble.

Jeb's Law may have an impact on another case, that of a 22-year-old Orlando woman who was raped while under the care of the state's child-welfare authorities. Jeb intervened, requesting a guardian be appointed to represent the interests of the fetus, according to the World Net Daily website. "Given the facts of this case," the governor declared, "it is entirely appropriate that an advocate be appointed to represent the unborn child's best interests in all decisions."

Additional reporting: Ashley Glacel