David McElroy

If abortion is just simple choice, why is killing babies for gender bad?

By David McElroy · March 24, 2012

Let’s see if I have this straight. If a woman wants to “terminate her pregnancy,” it’s completely her choice. It’s nobody’s business what she decides about this, because it’s her body. Period. No exceptions. That’s the dogma of the modern feminist world. Right?

But everything suddenly changes when the mother is using abortion in order to kill a baby because she wants the other sex instead. In fact, it’s illegal in many places, including Great Britain, where a newspaper claimed recently that the practice is widespread in abortion clinics after it sent undercover reporters into clinics.

Is there any way to reconcile these startling inconsistencies? We’re told that abortion isn’t killing a baby. It’s not really murder, they say. But if a woman wants a son instead of a daughter — and she makes her choice to kill the baby daughter — those same activists tell us she’s done something monstrous. Why?

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FRIDAY FUNNIES

By David McElroy · March 23, 2012

Everyone was excited when God agreed to be a contestant on Jeopardy, but the show lost a lot of suspense after people realized He knew everything. Norman wasn’t happy with this turn of events.

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Child-like play leads to escape from world, but then thoughts of faith

By David McElroy · March 23, 2012

I had a great time Wednesday night playing with a smart and gregarious 4-year-old in the checkout line at Target. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, both because it makes me smile and because it makes me wonder why so many adults lose the child-like qualities that make real play so joyful.

It was a long line for a number of people. There was a problem with the register, so we were stuck for a couple of minutes. The woman in front of me had two little girls with her, and the girls went to the wall beyond the checkout line to wait. Then the oldest of the two called out to her mother, “Mom, the ice here costs $1.99.”

The mother smiled and agreed with her that that’s what the sign said. She told me the girl had been learning how to read and understand prices.

“That’s not a lot of money, is it?” the girl asked in our general direction.

The mother was busy talking to the cashier by then, so I responded by telling her that it would be a lot of money for a piece of gum, but it would not be much money for a car. We talked about the relative value of money and prices, and she seemed to understand a lot more than I would expect for her age.

Sarah is 4. Her mother homeschools her older brother and teaches quite a bit to Sarah that surprised me. By the time we finished our brief discussion of money, she came and showed me letters on the magazines in the checkout line.

“Letters work different from numbers,” she told me confidently, apparently in the belief that no one had ever taught me this. She then started showing me a game she had invented involving matching certain letters with other letters on other magazine covers. I’m not entirely sure I understood the rules of her game, because she was laughing too much as she tried to explain. She might have been making it up as she went, for all I know.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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