Eye on Innovation, Design and Technology

The Conflict between Cultures in the Netherlands

While the conflict between the U.S. and Iraq has crowded the headlines for the past few years, another event that is creating conflict between western society and Muslims has been ignored: The lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants in Europe.  C. Caldwell documents the problems currently ocurring in the Netherlands due to years of a policy that encouraged segregated societies and a lack of emphasis in shared values such as history, law and language.

This is why the murder of one Dutch filmmaker 911 days after the assassination of Fortuyn is described by people in Holland as having had the same effect on their country as the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 in the World Trade Center towers. Dutch people have the sense that, for the first time in centuries, the thread that connects them to the world of Geert Mak's father, and that world to the world of Erasmus and Spinoza and Rembrandt and William the Silent, is in danger of being snipped. Part of it is the size and the speed of the recent non-European immigration. The Netherlands, with a population of 16 million, has about 2 million foreign-born. By some estimates, a quarter of them do not speak Dutch.

Already in the 1990s, there were reports of American-style shootouts in schools, one involving two Turkish students in the town of Veghel. This past October, newspaper readers were riveted by the running saga of a quiet married couple who had been hounded out of the previously livable Amsterdam neighborhood of Diamantbuurt by gangs of Muslim youths. There were incidents of wild rejoicing across Holland in the wake of the September 11 attacks, notably in the eastern city of Ede. The weekly magazine Contrast took a poll showing that just under half the Muslims in the Netherlands were in "complete sympathy" with the September 11 attacks.

Baby Rumaisa and the Implications on Viability

There has been a lot of publicity regarding the survival of the smallest size baby (8.6 ounces) ever recorded in the U.S.  What has received less publicity is the following

(The baby) developed pre-eclampsia, a disorder characterized by high blood pressure and other problems, during pregnancy. The condition affected Rumaisa in the womb and her mother's health, prompting a Caesarean section at 25 weeks and 6 days. Normal gestation is 40 weeks.

The publicity of events like this has staggering implications for the pro-abortion groups in regards to their support of the procedures known as "late term abortion" and "partial birth abortion", because it brings attention to one of the most unpublicized facts about the abortion dilemma:  That medical science has redefined the concept of "viability", which is crucial to the definition of a human being, but the practice of the procedure has remained static in regards to the time period when is still legal to have an abortion.  The Supreme Court defined that abortions can be carried out as long as the fetus is not viable.

In Colautti v. Franklin (1979), a challenge to a Pennsylvania law, the Court reaffirmed the principles established in Roe and Danforth and elaborated on its views concerning viability: "Because this point [viability] may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability—be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor—as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus."

The Court thus upheld the lower court in saying that it is the professional responsibility of the physician to determine whether the fetus has the capacity for "meaningful life, not merely temporary survival."

advances had "no bearing on the validity of Roe's central holding" that viability marks the point when the state's interest in the fetus becomes compelling. And, it added, "the soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 or 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity may be somehow enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact."

Thus, the Supreme Court made it clear that the determination of viability, which depends on a variety of individual factors, must be left to the professional judgment of the individual physician. Provisions that establish a specific age—usually 20 or 24 weeks—after which abortion is prohibited (and, presumably, the fetus is considered de facto viable) are unconstitutional and unenforceable.

It is estimated that between 3000 and 4000 third trimester (after  26 weeks) abortions occur in the U.S.  every year.  There is no data on how many occur between 20 and 26 weeks.   John Hopkins has some data on the survival rates under 26 weeks

A 1993 study at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore reviewed the outcome of 142 infants born at 22 to 25 weeks’ gestation. The study concluded that no infants born at 22 weeks gestation survived. With intensive resuscitation, 15% of those born at 23 weeks and 56% born at 24 weeks survived. It was found that the more immature the infant, the higher the incidence of neonatal complications.⁴⁶

Thus, if over 50% of the babies can survive after 24 weeks, yet abortions are still being carried out past 26 weeks, it is time that the practice of abortion is brought back to reflect the current advances in medical science and the new concept of viability.

Tony Blair and the Significance of Iraq's Elections

As usual, the eloquent Tony Blair outlines the significance of Iraq's elections in the most effective way to date

But what I felt more than anything else was this - the danger that people feel here is coming from terrorists and insurgents who are trying to destroy the possibility of this country becoming a democracy.

Now where do we stand in that fight? We stand on the side of the democrats against the terrorists. And so when people say to me, well look at the difficulties, look at the challenges - I say well what's the source of that challenge - the source of that challenge is a wicked, destructive attempt to stop this man, this lady, all these people from Iraq, who want to decide their own future in a democratic way, having that opportunity.

And where should the rest of the world stand? To say, well that's your problem, go and look after it, or you're better off with Saddam Hussein running the country - as if the only choice they should have in the world is a choice between a brutal dictator killing hundreds of thousands of people or terrorists and insurgents.

There is another choice for Iraq - the choice is democracy, the choice is freedom - and our job is to help them get there because that's what they want. Sometimes when I see some of the reporting of what's happening in Iraq in the rest of the world, I just feel that people should understand how precious what has been created here is.

Genetic Engineering shows promise and controversy

Genetic Engineering remains a subject of controversy.  W. Saletan described the recent conference from the Genetics and Public Policy center, provocately called "Babies by Design". 

Your doctor doesn't want that, because a genetic change that's helpful in one part of your body might be harmful in another. As the conference proceeds, we learn how to dress up this problem in the bloodless language of science. We hear about "insertional mutagenesis" and "aberrant activation of oncogenes." We hear of kids who got leukemia from gene therapy. Oops.

However, the potential is there for significant benefits. 

The conversation moves around the table. Gregory Stock, a biotech apostle from UCLA, predicts that within 10 to 20 years, human eggs will be screened for personality traits. Beyond that, he looks forward to artificial chromosomes.

But significant controversial issues remain

I sympathize with Schatten until he opens the subsequent panel discussion by envisioning with excitement a world divided between "reproductive embryos" and "therapeutic embryos." The latter would be mined for stem cells, he explains. What about the humanity of embryos consigned to research? Schatten says he and other stem cell investigators "don't believe those are human subjects."

The issue of using human embryos for research will continue to be a significant roadblock to progress.   

Majority of Iraqis Optimistic about Elections

A. Chrenkoff reports on the positive view of Iraqis about the upcoming elections

The latest poll of 5,000 people in and around Baghdad suggests that an overwhelming majority are prepared to make a clean break with the past and pursue democracy--now.

While attacks continue, Iraqis are even more determined to move forward with a Democratic form of government.

One car bomb in Karbala. Another in Najaf . More than sixty dead. The following reaction seems typical:

"I swear to God, even if they burn all the elections centers, we will still go and vote," said Ali Waili, a 29-year-old taxi driver .

When taking these events in context of the recent success of elections in Afghanistan, it is possible to see a positive outlook for the stabilization of the middle east.