http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051302305.htmlMoral Scales in the Senate
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How much do seven members of the U.S. Senate weigh?
Eyeing them -- Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, Saxby Chambliss, David Vitter, Jim Bunning, Richard Burr -- I'd guess they probably come in at about 1,300 pounds. These are the Republicans who have signed a hold letter, preventing action on the reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
For all of conservatism's evident virtues, it can have one furtive, seedy vice: A justified suspicion of government can degenerate into an anti-government ideology -- rigid, stingy and indifferent to human suffering. Conservative concerns on family planning and abstinence in the PEPFAR reauthorization are not imaginary, but they could be resolved through good-faith negotiations, as they were in the House of Representatives. A generalized hostility toward AIDS prevention, however, is destructive. Given that there are about 2.5 new HIV infections for every person starting on AIDS drugs, there is no way to control the pandemic through treatment alone. And because treatment is less expensive than it used to be, PEPFAR is meeting its treatment goal for less money. The 55 percent treatment floor would force the program to waste money in pursuit of an arbitrary, nonsensical spending target -- the worst kind of congressional earmark.
Each of the Coburn Seven counts himself pro-life. If a bill came to the Senate floor that would save millions of unborn children, one assumes that pro-life members would push to improve it, accept a few necessary compromises and then enthusiastically support the legislation.
It is difficult to imagine why pro-life legislation involving millions of Africans should be viewed differently.