Slippery Slope

As we near the end of the Supreme Court's term, many Americans are awaiting a decision on health-care reform with anticipation or trepidation. By the end of the month, the court is expected to decide whether the reform law's requirement that individuals purchase health insurance is constitutional.   The principal argument of those in favor of the mandate is that individual decisions to purchase or not purchase health insurance substantially affect interstate commerce — to use the language the Supreme Court has used for nearly a century — and therefore fall within Congress' regulatory powers.

Whenever the hard choices of bioethics are debated, there are those who warn that a particular course of action will start society down a "slippery slope. " The usual presumption is that the normative values by which we live our lives stand like a forest at the top of the slope, preventing moral erosion, while the figurative gates of Auschwitz stand at the slope's bottom. The adherents of the slippery-slope theory argue that, once society steps onto the slope, it is difficult, if not impossible, to climb back up and prevent an ever faster ride to the bottom.

Did I miss something? Was America transported overnight to the Himalayas? Everywhere you look, bold signs warn that the nation is teetering on the edge of a slippery slope. Or so the fevered advocates tell us. They warn that if the nation takes this small step, or that one, it will slide pell-mell into chaos, degradation, tyranny or some other circle of the civic inferno. Every such slope, the partisans warn, is unfathomably steep and icy. Every tiny step down the slope is irrevocable and fatal: Let pharmacists refuse to dispense a contraceptive on moral grounds and soon they'll be refusing to sell you Advil if you voted for Kerry.

IN THE MATTER OF Melissa Rowland, the Utah woman who gave birth to a stillborn son after refusing to have a C-section, you can support the murder charge, or consider it an affront to justice, but can we all agree on one thing? That, truly, this woman is a loon? This has nothing to do with allegations of child abuse, or baby selling, or whatever else Rowland did with her messy life before gaining notoriety for murder by natural childbirth. It's because she said - allegedly - that the cut of the scalpel would "ruin" her life.

As a former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, who continues to agree with many of its positions, I am nonetheless considered a bewildering heretic by many of the ACLU's officers and members. They can't understand how I became pro-life. The lawyer for the ACLU's Reproductive Rights Division refers to me rather contemptuously as having been "born again. " Yet I remain an atheist. What changed me on the question of abortion were a number of handicapped infants who were killed by their parents and doctors because their "quality of life" was regarded as below standard.

Here's how ideologically constipated the debate over schools has become: New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg's call for a tiny and inoffensive voucher pilot program was considered too radical to include in the hollow education reform endorsed by the Senate. President Bush's own puny school-choice pilot was shouted out of the bill months ago. But Gregg's amendment was even meeker. It would have given interested local districts a mere $50 million to test a school-choice program of their own design, voluntarily.

LAST WEEK, we asked if it made sense, with the level of homicides and other violence on our streets, to let police stop and frisk people to uncover illegal weapons. Your responses: It's about time Crime has reached epidemic proportions, and it is definitely time for drastic measures. While individual rights are a major concern, the right to live in a safe environment is essential to one's well-being and peace of mind. Much effort has been put forth to address the problem, but at the core is a mentality that makes it OK to kill for minor infractions, and a prison sentence is considered a rite of passage.

When Los Angeles the other day became the first big city to limit citizens to one handgun purchase each month, it struck a blow not only against illegal gun traffickers but against the "slippery slope" rhetoric rampant in America's political culture. You hear it almost daily: "Yes," says zealot X or interest group Y, "the proposal at hand seems harmless enough. But the chain of further steps it will set in motion involves unambiguous evil. " The paranoia is bipartisan. A ban on "partial birth" abortion becomes tantamount to Roe v. Wade's repeal.

Talk about flirting with disaster. Casey Martin looked for a time yesterday as if he might well miss the cut. And then he looked as if he was literally walking into a situation in which he could break his fragile, famous leg. But Martin recovered from both brushes with catastrophe in style, first making like a mountain goat to reach his ball, then making like a grizzled tour veteran to salvage his round, before finishing Day Two of the...

All of us who have been speaking up for, and striving to protect, each precious human life are still in shock over the incredible decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held by an 8-3 vote that a state of Washington statute banning assisted suicide violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment "insofar as [it] prohibits physicians from prescribing life-ending medication for use by terminally ill, competent adults who wish to hasten their own deaths. " The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court abortion decisions started us as a nation down the "slippery slope" toward endangering all human life at every stage of development, and the angle and rate of descent have been increasing over the years as various courts continue to dismantle protections for God's great gift of created human life.

DAVOS, Switzerland - Be optimistic, and invest more in hiring and training young people, instead of complaining about their lack of skills. That was, in short, the message from two Philadelphia academics who came to the World Economic Forum here last week. Peter Cappelli and Katherine Klein were part of a delegation from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School that came to this ski resort. They advised the world's most influential business leaders - the CEOs of Citibank, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and Goldman Sachs, to name just a few - on how to achieve economic growth and job creation.

Size matters says two New Jersey men who sued Subway, the sandwich franchise that advertises "footlong" sandwiches. The two men - from Burlington and Ocean Counties - measured their footlongs after seeing allegations from others that the sandwiches are falling short. They sued on Tuesday following a national debate in the social media about the size of the footlongs. Subway issued a statement on Wednesday saying officials had not received a copy of the lawsuit and it does not comment on pending litigation.

LONDON - The rivalry with those varmints north of the border was finally on. The U.S. against Canada: Yuengling vs. Molson, states vs. provinces, the Red, White, and Blue vs. the Great White North. That was the feeling Monday night, as the Americans and Canadians waged a soccer war for the ages. It was physical, it was intense, it was emotional. It took a goal by Alex Morgan in injury time of overtime for the U.S. women to advance to the gold-medal game. Just 14 hours later, it was time for Round 2: the United States and Canada in the quarterfinals of the Olympic women's basketball tournament.

As we near the end of the Supreme Court's term, many Americans are awaiting a decision on health-care reform with anticipation or trepidation. By the end of the month, the court is expected to decide whether the reform law's requirement that individuals purchase health insurance is constitutional.   The principal argument of those in favor of the mandate is that individual decisions to purchase or not purchase health insurance substantially affect interstate commerce — to use the language the Supreme Court has used for nearly a century — and therefore fall within Congress' regulatory powers.

Question: I have a dilemma related to my ex-hus- band. We've been divorced a year, separated two. We were together more than five years. We were both very hurt by the breakup, but ultimately it was my decision to leave. There was no infidelity, no abuse. It was complicated but not vicious. Since the divorce, we've talked only to work out tax/financial issues, since we have no children together. It was always amicable, but awkward. This summer, my good friend from college is getting married to my ex's oldest friend (they actually introduced us)

ON A TRANQUIL, tree-lined street in Ocean City, a woman with a sunny smile soaked the blue and pink hydrangeas in front of her bungalow one recent summer morning. Startled at first by a reporter, her warmth returned when she spoke of her deep roots in "America's Greatest Family Resort," the generations that had come and gone right there on Asbury Avenue over the past century. When asked about the dark sign nailed to the porch of her peach-colored cottage, though - the one that read "Don't Change Ocean City" with a little crossed-out beer bottle on it - storm clouds arrived.

ED BARKOWITZ   THERE ISN'T a team in the Eastern Conference that the Flyers can't beat. And, as they showed in their struggles against lowly Atlanta, there isn't a team they can't lose to, either. The inconsistency is maddening, but this team undoubtedly responds when it must. The most significant response will need to come from rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who was yanked in the regular-season finale. Nobody in the East has been better than Buffalo recently, so this won't be a quick, first-round walk like last season, when the Flyers disposed of New Jersey in five.

I am sorry to see that the issue of alcohol has been brought up again in Ocean City ("Shore BYOB battle brewing," Saturday). The argument that business there is hurting because alcohol is not available is hogwash. Have you noticed the crowds on the boardwalk and the long lines at restaurants? I realize that the restaurateurs are only asking that customers be permitted to bring wine or beer into their establishments, but that is one slippery slope. If this passes, next there will be a proposal to allow bars and liquor stores.

BRAVO FOR someone standing up for civil and human rights in the face of a thinly veiled attempt at blackmail and extortion to which our City Council seems willing to acquiesce. The Scouts are using "court costs" like some 30 pieces of silver in exchange for the value of our anti-discrimination laws. Mel Heifetz is my neighbor and friend, and I'm proud of what he did with his offer to buy the Scout HQ - standing up for what's right not what's expedient. The city's "solution" is tantamount to giving in to blackmail by the Scouts who were using the city's having to pay the cost of litigation as a weapon to subvert legally enacted civil and human rights defined under the city charter, the very laws the mayor and City Council are sworn to uphold.

  Can Kolb compete? Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb gets another start, this time against an 0-4 team and without subbing out for Michael Vick. He needs to show the potential that made him the anointed starter in Week 1.   Tough enough? The defense got embarrassed against the run Sunday and was called out by its coach during the week. Does the front seven show the toughness that defensive coordinator Sean McDermott is looking for?   Not so special The Redskins' first score last week was set up by a 53-yard punt return.