Viewpoints: Concern Over NIH Budget Cuts; Abortion And The Supreme Court Again Are Front And Center
A selection of opinions on health care from around the nation.
The New York Times:
Why Trump’s N.I.H. Cuts Should Worry Us
Last week I was in London to participate in a scientific symposium. During coffee breaks, many British colleagues asked me and other American visitors to explain the bewildering news that President Trump had announced his intention to cut the budget for the National Institutes of Health by 18.3 percent, about $5.8 billion. (Harold Varmus, 3/22)
The New York Times:
Gorsuch, Abortion And The Concept Of Personhood
Judge Neil M. Gorsuch has written little about abortion, and we do not know whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established abortion as a fundamental right. But he has expressed a position on two related subjects, assisted suicide and euthanasia. In his Oxford dissertation and a later book, he defended the inviolability of human life. He rejected the role of states in granting the terminally ill a right to die and offered a legal framework that could be applied to abortion. (Corey Brettschneider, 3/21)
The Kansas City Star:
Hobby Lobby Case Affirms That The Law Protects Religious Beliefs, Even Unpopular Ones
Democratic senators questioning Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch appear quite preoccupied with how often he has ruled for “the little guy.” That seems an odd way to measure the independence and acuity of a judge; presumably, little guys can be wrong now and again. But in his opinion in the controversial Hobby Lobby case, Gorsuch did rule for the little guy. And in doing so, he has given us some clues about the kind of justice he would be. (Melinda Henneberger, 3/21)
The Kansas City Star:
If Faith Trumps Secular Statutes In Hobby Lobby Case, Then No Law Is Safe
First things first: Neil Gorsuch is qualified to be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and he should be confirmed by the Senate. That said, even qualified judges can make bad decisions. And Gorsuch and others on the federal appeals bench were deeply wrong when they decided Americans can opt out of laws for religious reasons. (Dave Helling, 3/21)
Chicago Tribune:
Why Tomi Lahren Will Get 'Right' On Abortion
Lahren, the 24-year-old conservative internet provocateur, angered many of her followers Friday when she said this during an interview on ABC's "The View": "I'm pro-choice and here's why. I'm a constitutional — you know, someone that loves the Constitution. I am someone that's for limited government. And so I can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government but I think that the government should decide what women do with their bodies. I can sit here and say that, as a Republican, and I can say, you know what, I'm for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well." This did not go over well with her bosses at The Blaze, a conservative media site founded by Glenn Beck. (Eric Zorn, 3/21)
Los Angeles Times:
An L.A. Doctor Races To Cure Deadly Diseases And Worries About Trump Plan To Cut NIH Funding
Michael Yeaman’s lab on the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center campus in Torrance is loaded with bacteria, and it’s been that way for a quarter of a century. Yeaman is a bug detective. To be more technical, he’s a medical science investigator. You should not talk to him if you’re a hypochondriac, because you’ll crawl into a bubble and zip it shut. (Steve Lopez, 3/22)
Morning Consult:
Fentanyl: The Next Wave of the Opioid Crisis
We’re in the midst of a rampant opioid epidemic that has surged in three successive waves. The first involved prescription opioids. The second saw increased usage of heroin as many of those addicted to prescription opioids sought a different source of pain relief, for various reasons. The third wave has been fentanyl. The drug that killed Prince has been linked to a soaring amount of overdoses and deaths across the country. (Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), 3/21)
WBUR:
In Pausing Human Research On Zika, Medical Ethicists Acknowledge A Dark Past
This was the proposal: Deliberately infect a small group of consenting adults with the Zika virus to learn about the disease and speed up the search for a vaccine... What might go wrong and what might go right with such an experiment? Perhaps no institution can handle those questions better than the National Institutes of Health. (Paul McLean, 3/21)
