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................Chinese blogger seeking right to die
A young woman with muscular dystrophy is the center of an ethical debate in China. She has used her blog to ask the National People's Congress to legalize her right to die.
There is no right-to-life movement in China like the one that sought to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive two years ago.
"China's atheism education, people's practical mind-set and poverty all add up to a willingness to accept euthanasia," said Zhang Zanning, a professor of medical law. More on A4.
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Tsk.
Citing the Iraq war as the "real wallop" and detecting "a perfect storm in the political season," Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis, a Michigan-based Catholic traditional-values group, told The Washington Times that the 2006 election was "a real shot across the bow for social conservatives and the Republican Party." Mrs. Wetzstein catalogued the cascading events that contributed to the electoral rout: the Katrina relief debacle; the perception of overreaching in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case; scandals involving prominent Christian leaders Ralph Reed and the Rev. Ted Haggard and numerous Republican representatives (including Mark Foley's sex scandal with former congressional pages); and a book by the former deputy director of the White House's faith-based initiative office charging that President Bush's policies were more sop than strategy.
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