Peds drama.

We switched pediatricians again last month. Without going into the drama, let's just say the doctor we chose wasn't who we thought he was.
So I called up Dr. Eugene Diamond.

"I don't care how far I have to drive. I don't care what you charge. Will you be our pediatrician?" I asked him.
We made an appointment for June. Deo gratias.

Yesterday, Dr. Diamond's book came in the mail. (I ordered it a couple of weeks back.)

Some highlights I found as I skimmed it yesterday:

Wilson falls into the trap of suggesting that the courts will not allow us to protect the unborn child unless we declare it "a person" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. As Professor Ely of Yale Law School has pointed out, however, the issue of personhood is totally irrelevant. The law extends protection to many entities which are not "persons." The law protects animals, for example, who have never been declared persons. A man in Chicago was put in jail for throwing a kitten, which had scratched him, off a second floor landing. Dog fights and cat fights are illegal in every state. It is pedantic to suggest that we are immobilized in protecting what is arguably a human being and incontrovertibly a potential person, merely because of what resides in the penumbras of constitutional interpretation.

-"Middle Ground" on Abortion, Chapter 14

Most states recognize that an unborn child has rights under the law. A mother may sue for support of her unborn child or may hold a defendant liable for injuries sustained by her unborn child as a result of accident or assault. An unborn child may share in an inheritance or workmen's compensation benefits. A pregnant woman convicted of a capital crime may not be executed until after her baby is born. The Constitution, in the Fifth Amendment, provides that no person shell be deprived of life without due process of law. It is certainly a matter of pause for the medical profession to decide whether two doctors in agreement or even a "abortion committee" constitutes due process.

It seems ironic that when we have established a National Institute of Child Health, which specifically directs its attention to child development from the time of conception, and while tens of millions are being spent by various national foundations to improve the lot of the unborn, that we should see in this day a movement for the more liberal "fetal indications" for abortion.

Therefore, if you ask me to speak for the fetus, then speak for him I shall. I shall speak for him intact or deformed. I speak for him wanted or unwanted. Yes, and I speak for him be he illegitimate or high-born. I am for life and the preservation of life. I believe that any human life is of infinite value and that this value is not significantly diminished by physical or mental defect or the circumstances of that life's beginning. I believe that this regard for the quantity as well as the quality of life is a cornerstone of Western culture. I believe our patients are served best by a medical ethic which also holds this principle sacred.

Who Speaks for the Fetus, Chapter 12