You know, it's possible to disagree with Ann Coulter without engaging in gross misogyny.  

I do disagree with Coulter about Romney, but I personally believe this post is beneath the dignity of Ricochet. 

"There's nothing inherently immoral about the use of contraception.  Make your own life choices on whatever basis you wish.  Leave others to make theirs, without imposing your religious views."  

The difference between you and I is that I don't want anyone to impose their religious or atheist views upon others through the courts, while you heartily approve of using the courts to impose your views.  

Sorry, Brian, if you faint at the sight of a nativity scene.  I can deal with a lamb, a donkey and an infant.  

Brian, you're probably a nice guy.  But your militant atheism is just...tedious.

You're right, Brian.  Let's continue to slavishly follow the theory of a 19th Century amateur naturalist, part-time taxidermist and failed medical student.  

After all, nothing has come along in the intervening century and a half that could possibly contradict the towering Darwin.  

Aside from dis-interring a 60-day old story, what is your point?

In business, everybody knows that when you dispose of old computers, you wipe the hard drives.  So what?

The children on the list have to be placed there by their doctors

Children are not placed on the list by their doctors, they are placed on the list by UNOS - the United Network for Organ Sharing, which determines eligibility.

It is not my solution to bar Down Syndrome children from the list, it is UNOS'.

And with all due respect, I'll trust their judgment rather than yours - or mine, for that matter.

And, by the way, the heart does not go to the patient "...at the top of the list..".  It goes to the most compatible patient.

Are we through here?

Well, Mama Toad, welcome to the thread.  

But nothing you've said is really relevant to my original post.  

but there are fewer things more disgusting than a utilitarian argument for the quality of life -- being a short-hand for choosing which people we won't keep alive, if we don't kill them outright. I should hope for better from you.

170 kids on the list; 130 hearts.  Someone has to decide.  

So, in the interest of "fairness", you'd have doctors squander, say, 50 of those hearts on kids whose prognosis is negative?  Really?  

My wife's SUV has proximity-warning radar and a rear-view camera, complete with software that shows her what track she's currently on.  Nifty stuff.

Her problem isn't parking, it's backing out of a parking space: when she's sipping on her Starbucks and talking on her Blue-tooth, she goes into sensory overload.  She's backed into 3 moving vehicles in the past two years. 

This reminds me of militant nuns who complain that they cannot be priests.

Look, if you object to the tenets of your church, find another church.

Of course, Down Syndrome is not symptomatic of a lifestyle. Do any other non-voluntary conditions exclude one from the waiting lists? I assume many conditions affect the heart.

It depends upon the organ.  In general, people with compromised immune systems or infections such as Hepatitis C are not good candidates.  

With Down Children, the real problem is that they often have so many underlying conditions other than low IQ that a prognosis for an extended, healthy life is already low, without even adding in the stressful effects of a heart transplant (hardly a walk in the park) and the administration of immuno-suppressant drugs.  

Oh, well. Its a good thing no kooky doctor running for President would want to hold those doctors criminally responsible for performing an abortion, compare abortion to the holocaust, or call abortion murder.

I know it's hard to stick to the topic.  But do try.

Anyway, Katie O, we're off track.  Show that woman's article to the medical professionals in your life and ask them if it's credible.  

Meanwhile, let's talk about the heart of my post, not the ravings of one bereaved and angry mother.

Pfft to the race card. 

It's nothing about the race card.  It just speaks to her nasty, vengeful character. 

I should take your word for this because....?

Because the term "mentally retarded" was long ago dropped out of the medical lexicon in favor of "developmentally disabled".  The idea that a doctor at one of America's leading children's hospitals would not only commit the words "mentally retarded" to paper, but highlight them is ludicrous. 

And that quote from the doctor that, "I have been warned about you. About how involved you and your family are with Amelia"?  That's just utterly incredible.  

the United States as the place with the only hope left of escaping a uniform government mandate. 

In the case of pediatric heart transplants, it's not a uniform government mandate, it's the consensus of the medical transplant community.  

Conservatives are always demanding that we leave medical decisions up to doctors and patients.  The doctors have made their decision: the patients who will receive one of the limited number of hearts will be those most likely to thrive, not those least likely.

As for David Crosby - and Steve Jobs - well, we're a celebrity-obsessed culture, so what?