Party of Death

This is Ramesh Ponnuru's new book. The title is provocative and a bit misleading. The "party of death" refers to those who support unfettered abortion access, assisted suicide, embryo-destructive research, and so on - politicians, activists, scholars, judges and medical types. Included in that Venn diagram is the Democratic Party, but to tell the truth, that is really not the focus, nor the primary "party of death" of which Ponnuru writes, although it gets its due attention, particularly in the chapters on abortion.

Ponnuru says that part of the reason he wrote the book is because there had not been a book on life issues published for the general reading public in twenty years, and with the advent of new issues, one was needed. It's a useful book, especially for people who may not be familiar with the issues, or who could use some education. Those who follow life issues closely won't find a great deal that's brand new here, but that's not the point. The value of the book is the way in which Ponnuru connects dots, rips the lid off lies and ambiguities, and asks simple, quite logical questions, as in, "Do pro-choice advocates really disagree with Peter Singer about infanticide?"

I think the most important aspect of this book for all of its readers is the way in which Ponnuru rather relentlessly hangs on to logic and refuses to accept the assumptions of conventional wisdom. The arguments of prolifers are frequently denigrated for having a religious dimension, but really, which argument is based on spiritual voodoo and which on reason? The view that there's some point, based on something that we can't quite commonly define, at which this growing human being somehow enters the human community and before which can be killed? Or the view that says, "Conception. Individual human life begins then. Protect that life from that point on."

Ponnuru does a great service in his chapter on abortion and American history. There's been much written on this since the infamous lie-filled brief filed in support of Casey, and even a couple of books, but it's quite useful to have, in one relatively compact space, the historians' contention that abortion wasn't a violation of common law in colonial America and that the move to criminalize abortion in the 19th century  was totally based on the desire to protect professional turf, picked apart, point by point. (A good book focusing on this latter point is The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion by Frederick N. Dyer.)

Ponnuru makes his way gracefully and clearly through all the cant, examining the contentions of those who support and work for abortion, assisted suicide and embryo-destructive research and asks, "What are they really saying?" "What motivates them?" "What are they not saying?"

It's not an overly political book - it's like the issues themselves, a combination of politics, culture, science, social concerns and questions, as well as ethics, of course.  It's an excellent introduction to the issues as they stand right now, asking the reader to simply try to see things as they are.

Comments

[Tony A]

Is this a serious book? Perhaps, but the blurb from Ann Coulter on the front page seems to say otherwise...

[Tom Harmon]

Wait, Tony. Are you actually admitting to judging a book by its cover?

[amy]

Tony:

Do I indicate it's not a serious book? Then why the question?

[George Lee]

Tom Harmon---You cracked me up with that line! Thanks.

Tony A--Are you going to try to pull that arrow out or push it through or what?

[sj]

It's about time someone came out of the closet on this and admitted that,actually, you can judge a book by its cover.

[anonymous seminarian]

Tony (quick-draw) A,

You always impress me with you ability to be the first poster. How do you do it? Really.

[James Englert]

Sounds like a very good book, but I do wonder about the choice of title. Before further investigation, the title makes you think the book is about the Democratic party, and that it's going to be a hatchet job. And sure it's deliberately provocative and maybe helpful in the way of provocation, but doesn't it close off a lot of people from being affected by the persuasive powers of the arguments? They just won't pick it up.

[Julia]

Couldn't make out the blurb by Ann Coulter on the cover at Amazon. What does it say?

We should send copies of this book to our respective pro-choice representatives. A logical and dispassionate argument might have consequences that marching has failed to do.

[Tony A]

Seems I stirred up a lot of stuff!

Amy-- I'm merely saying that it is being marketed as a serious book (and Ponnuru is typically a serious writer, more prone to introspection and moderation than most at National Review), but having an endorsement by someone like Coulter detracts from it. If somebody on the left wrote a book endorsed in a simailr fashion by Michael Moore or Louis Farrakhan, I would react in a similar manner.

And like many others, I think the title of the book is needlessly provocative. I doubt Ponnuru is including the death penalty brigade, the torture supporters, or those who are happy to invade a country based on phony evidence and ignore civilian casualties-- surely they are all member of the "party of death" to the same extent as the pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia crowd.

Tom Harmon-- excellent catch!

Anon Sem-- I do??

[Brian]

I am half way through the book and recommend it highly for people on both sides. I too was dissappointed with the endorsements including Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, two personalities who turn off more people than they attract. It gives pro-abortion folks an immediate reason to put the book down and never give it a second look. If they were to read it, they would realize the insanity that is Roe v. Wade and some amazing stories of dishonest historians who wrote an important brief related to Casey v. Planned Parenthood. They would also read criticism of Republicans and the best worded assessment regarding the tragic death of Terri Schiavo.

I recommend the book highly.

[Tom Harmon]

Tony,

You're right. As i udnerstand it, though, the publisher might not be as intersted in the kind of audience the book gets, so mcuh as the size of the audience. While COulter might turn the people off that the author wants to reach, she will probably sell more books in an absolute sense. If I were ponnuru, I'd feel a little ambivalent about COulter's blurb.

[Jay Anderson]

Good ol' Tony One-Note:

"... the death penalty brigade, the torture supporters, or those who are happy to invade a country based on phony evidence and ignore civilian casualties ..."

Do you have a macro or some program that automatically posts that comment whenever the word "abortion" appears?

[Jay Anderson]

Which isn't to say the issues you raise aren't legitimate concerns.

[Kevin Holtsberry]

Yes, the marketing is somewhat counter-productive in the sense raised above. But keep in mind this is Regnery and they are trying to sell books to conservatives. Hence the blurbs.

I think the title wasn't intentionally hyperbolic. If you read the book you understand where the term comes from. I really didn't think about it until this book, but everybody seems to associate party with political parties. Grammatically that is not the case and it is not the way Ponnuru is using it.

Here is what Ramesh had to say on that point recently:

But there is ample precedent for the use of the word “party” to refer to something other than, say, the Democratic National Committee. I use the word “party” the same way Hayek used it in the phrase “the party of life” (he wasn’t referring to the Tories), Rochelle Gurstein used the phrase “the party of reticence” and “the party of exposure” (she wasn’t talking about Rs and Ds), and the way the Nation has used the phrase “the war party” (it wasn't referring exclusively to Republicans).

more here.

Such are the trials of publishing these days.

[Rich Leonardi]

I doubt Ponnuru is including the death penalty brigade, the torture supporters, or those who are happy to invade a country based on phony evidence and ignore civilian casualties-- surely they are all member of the "party of death" to the same extent as the pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia crowd.

See entries under Phantom, Straw Man

[sj]

It may or may not be a straw man. Despite my extreme misgivings about paying for books that are blurbed by Coulter, I'm going to order it and see what principles Ponnoru sets forth for identifying the party of death and whether or not his identification might include those Tony describes.

[Bradford Short]

It really is amazing that every time a Catholic who votes Republican (like Ramesh) writes excellent stuff about abortion, automatically, Catholics who don't like Republicans have to come out and say: "If he doesn't complain about the death penalty in the book, he's a hypocrite."-or words to that effect.

This is simply a way to dodge the Catholic (who votes Republican)'s writings in my view. The fact is that abortion after quickening was a crime for centuries in England and America while we (and the Pope's government in Rome, btw) had the death penalty and used it often.

Then we spent the entire century from circa 1860 to circa 1960 having abortion criminalized *period* (for all nine months)...and we also had the death penalty here and in the U.K. during this time.

These societies, presumably, even if they were wrong to have the death penalty, knew something that Harry Blackmun made us forget in 1973. As Ramesh points out, there is at least SOMETHING to the distinction between innocent, and not innocent, life, even if it is not something enough to save the death penalty's being ethical (as Ramesh believes it does not).

In a like manner, we once knew what was wrong with abortion, and that was long before Iraq was seperate from the friggin Ottoman Empire, let alone there were U.S. troops in it and there might be "torture" happening there.

Years ago National Review ran a story on its *cover* as the conservative case against the death penalty. People like Andy McCarthy-who says some clearly wrong things about proper interrogation methods-did not ever respond to this cover story by saying: "You can't write that until you pledge oppostion to assisted suicide, abortion...etc." Conservatives at NR heard that case out on its own merits. It'd be nice if, for once, the Catholic anti-Republicans/anti-conservatives would extend Ramesh the same courtesy. But I won't hold my breath.

And, as to the statements made about Ramesh's Chapter 9-they are entirely correct, but they leave out this: Ramesh basically already published that chapter hitory lite in modern American abortion law as the main story for an October 1995 issue of National Review, entitled "Aborting History"-which itself was a condenced version of his summa cum laude thesis at Princeton that he had written a couple of years before.

I've read more than 1/4 of all the National Review that has ever been published. I still think that "Aborting History" the best article ever written for NR, or for any other magazine in my lifetime.

People are foolish to consider not buying this book, and I say that with still having five chapters left to read.

[Rich Leonardi]

It may or may not be a straw man.

It's a straw man; "Premature expostulation" Tony hasn't read the book.

[Jimmy Huck]

"Tony hasn't read the book."

Why, Rich, that's very interesting. I thought one didn't have to read a book to be able to know its contents and to comment upon it intelligently. At least that's the line on the DVC. I guess anyone who hasn't read the DVC (or seen the movie, for that matter) but renders such harsh judgment upon it is also setting up straw men and engaging in "Premature Expostulation."

[Rich Leonardi]

Jimmy,

Curious that you found this phrase worthy of comment. On second thought, given your domestic situation I suppose not.

[Andrea Harris]

"Which isn't to say the issues you raise aren't legitimate concerns."

Oh, stop throwing him a bone. Ann Coulter may not be the sort of "nice" woman that we're all supposed to prefer in our lady writers, and her brand of attack-writing isn't to everyone's taste (especially, I have observed, when it comes from a woman), but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a serious point of view.

[Adam]

Charity reigns here today as always, I see.

[Jimmy Huck]

"Curious that you found this phrase worthy of comment. On second thought, given your domestic situation I suppose not."

Rich - Now you've really got me curious. Which phrase? Which domestic situation?

[Donald R. McClarey]

I look forward to reading this book. The title is incomplete however. It should have been The Party of Death and Taxes.

[Naaman]

Amy, good review! I also read The Party of Death, and I thought it was excellent. (I even wrote a review of my own, if anyone cares to visit.)

The "Party of Death" (or PoD for short) that Ramesh is describing is linked together by its willingness to define certain human beings as "unpersons". In this respect, the PoD is quite Orwellian. Unborn children are unpersons, embryoes with their oh-so-precious stem cells are unpersons, and disabled people at the end of life are unpersons. Of course, as soon as we have declared you to be an unperson, we can kill you without any further thought on the matter. Why not? You're not a person, after all... This is the commonality that ties the PoD together, and this is the argument that Ramesh makes.

If you understand Ramesh's argument, it becomes very clear why war, "torture", and the death penalty are not addressed in the book. Although war & capital punishment certainly cause death, and torture (real torture, anyway) is certainly a violation of human rights, these things are not motivated or excused by the pernicious doctrine of personhood. They're evil, but they're a different kind of evil. Therefore, they belong in a different book.

[Jimmy Huck]

Naaman - Then why didn't Ponnuru title his book the Party of the Pernicious Doctrine of Personhood, instead of the Party of Death? If the book is about a culture of "culture" of death to which many are party, then one would assume that Ponnuru would also talk about all of those things in our culture that devalue life. By the way, if you ever read how some "pro-life" folk talk about terrorists, people on death row, and other social undesirables, you might just see how even the "pernicious doctrine of personhood" is very much at work in these "death" issues. For many of these folk, their belief in the "unpersonhood" of these human beings is clearly on display. For, really, how can any person sensitive to the inherent value of life accept the killing of another human being without somehow finding a way to "de-personhood" him?