From the WSJ and James Taranto's Best of the Web Today:
"In the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, one Hal Herzog, a "biological psychologist," weighs in on the Terri Schiavo case:
'Terri Schiavo's body died Thursday morning. The moral, social and legal issues raised by her case, however, will live on. In recent weeks, there has been considerable discussion of the ethical nuances of persistent vegetative states in the pages of the Citizen-Times. Most commentators, however, have ignored the troubling inescapable financial consequences of severe irreversible brain damage to affected families and to taxpayers.
Here are the facts. According to a 2002 report in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, the frequency of persistent vegetative state in the United States is 64 to 140 per million people. Thus, somewhere between 538 and 1,176 North Carolinians are probably afflicted with this condition. At a cost of about $80,000 a year per person, this translates to an annual financial burden to the North Carolina health-care system of $43 million to $94 million--enough to hire between 1,500 and 3,500 additional public school teachers.'
Does Herzog really mean to suggest that some people should be killed in order to expand the membership of the teachers unions? What in the world is happening to American liberalism? (Hat tip: blogger Marc Ruscoe.) "
Marc Ruscoe was a former columnist for the Asheville Citizen-Times representing my,er, I mean the right side of many issues. I miss his column and now the AC-T has more lefty writers than ever, not even a pretense at "fair and balanced." Ruscoe's new blog is here.
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