The World and Everything in It — February 4, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Equal Rights Amendment is back with enough states to ratify. But the deadline has already passed.  And some say the ERA is dangerous for women and the unborn.

ADEN: There’s a fundamental right to access abortion through all nine months. That of course, is very dangerous to a life in the womb and to the mother.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also we’ll have the latest on the coronavirus. 

Plus our Classic Book of the Month. This month, a book written by a minister born into slavery in the 18th century.

AUDIO: It was the first time that Henson learned God wanted to give salvation to everyone. It was for everyone, regardless of your race and your wealth.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, February 4th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington has the news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iowa caucuses suffer delays amid “inconsistencies” » The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses did not go according to plan on Monday. 

When the clock struck midnight in the Hawkeye State, frustrated campaigns and volunteers huddled around television screens hoping for answers. 

The results were delayed after the Iowa Democratic Party “found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.” That according to spokeswoman Mandy McClure.

Still, the candidates projected optimism. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told supporters…

KLOBUCHAR: We know there’s delays, but we know one thing, we are punching above our weight! 

And South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg all but declared victory. 

BUTTIGIEG: We don’t know all the results, but we know, by the time all is said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation! 

Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney blamed technology issues in his county for the delays. He said relaying precinct reports using an app created for caucus organizers was—in his words—“a mess.” 

Precinct leaders were forced to phone in the results to state party headquarters, which in some cases was too busy to answer their calls.

Impeachment trial wraps up closing arguments » House Democrats and attorneys for President Trump made one final appeal on the Senate floor Monday as the impeachment trial draws to a close.

House impeachment manager Jason Crow told senators… 

CROW: What you decide on these articles will have lasting implications for the future of the presidency, not only for this president, but for all future presidents. Whether or not the office of the presidency of the United States of America is above the law, that is the question. 

But Trump attorney Patrick Philbin countered… 

PHILBIN: The House of Representatives also is not above the law in the way they conduct the impeachment proceedings, and bring a matter here before the Senate, because in very significant and important respects, they didn’t follow the law. 

Philbin charged that the House unlawfully launched its impeachment inquiry before bringing the matter to the House floor for a vote. 

But neither side is likely to win any converts before tomorrow’s vote on a final verdict. 

Senators began explaining how they plan to vote and why in a series of floor speeches Monday. Those speeches will likely continue until tomorrow’s vote. 

Al-Qaeda affiliate claims Pensacola base attack » Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the deadly December shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola. WORLD Radio’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, released a video claiming the attack. SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online terror messaging, reported the claim.

The shooter in the December 6th attack was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia. He opened fire inside a classroom and killed three people before a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him. 

The 18-minute video reportedly indicated the shooter had been in communication with AQAP. It included audio from top AQAP leader Qassim al-Rimi claiming “full responsibility” for the attack—calling the shooter a “courageous knight.”

Last week, a suspected U.S. drone strike destroyed a building housing al-Qaeda militants in eastern Yemen. Numerous reports suggested the drone strike killed al-Rimi. And President Trump retweeted several of those reports, seemingly confirming al-Rimi’s death. 

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

China opens 1,000-bed hospital to counter coronavirus » China on Monday opened a new hospital built in just 10 days. It was part of a series of new steps aimed at containing the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Medical teams from the People’s Liberation Army are arriving in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. They are relieving overwhelmed health workers and helping to staff the new 1,000-bed hospital.

Its prefabricated wards are equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and ventilation systems. A second hospital with 1,500 beds is due to open within days.

Chinese health officials have now reported 361 deaths and more than 17,000 confirmed cases. The World Health Organization said the number of cases will keep growing because tests are pending on thousands of suspected cases.

WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said Monday that to stop the virus, the world must work together. 

GHEBREYESUS: We can only stop it together. So the rule of the game is solidarity, solidarity, solidarity. But we see this missing in many corners, and that has to be addressed. 

Ghebreyesus has expressed concern that some countries are unable or unwilling to take all the steps necessary to stop the disease from spreading faster outside China.

Rush Limbaugh announces cancer diagnosis » Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. WORLD Radio’s Anna Johansen has that story. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: Addressing listeners on his program Monday, Limbaugh said he will take some days off for further medical tests and to determine treatment.

He said he’d been experiencing shortness of breath that he initially thought might be heart-related, but turned out to be a pulmonary malignancy.

Limbaugh started his first national radio show in 1988 from New York. He later relocated to Palm Beach, Florida. His show soon became the top-rated syndicated radio show in the country. 

On Monday, Limbaugh said he intends to continue working as much as possible. He also said he has focused more “intensely” in the past two weeks on what he called his “deeply personal relationship” with God.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Anna Johansen.

COVINGTON: I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the effort to contain the coronavirus.

Plus, Les Sillars on the link between assisted suicide and organ donation.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, the 4th of February, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up, containing the coronavirus.

As you’ve just heard, China has adopted unprecedented measures to try to contain it. Other countries have followed suit, including the United States.

All U.S. flights from China will reroute to airports with screening centers. Anyone coming from the part of China where the virus originated could face a mandatory two-week quarantine.

REICHARD: Australia, Japan, and most European nations have also adopted strict quarantine measures. Despite these efforts, new cases continue to pop up around the world.

Joining us now to talk about this new global health threat is Charles Horton. He’s a physician and a graduate of the WORLD Journalism Institute’s mid-career course, as am I! 

Good morning, Dr. Horton!

CHARLES HORTON, GUEST: Good morning!

REICHARD: Well, I’d like to start with the worldwide reaction to the virus. As we’ve already noted, the efforts to contain it really are unprecedented. And yet we deal with a much more common deadly virus every winter: the flu. The government says about 34,000 people died from the flu last year just in the United States alone. Why are health officials so worried about the coronavirus, and from a medical perspective, is that concern warranted?

HORTON: Right now there are still a lot of questions without good answers, and one of the biggest is exactly how the virus goes from person to person—in other words, just how contagious is this? There’s a cluster of cases in Germany that shows that it is possible for it to be transmitted before people develop symptoms, although the World Health Organization is now saying that this isn’t the main way it gets transmitted. And that might make sense too, given what we know about the woman thought to have started that cluster of cases. It doesn’t seem like anyone else around the woman on the flight to Germany, or who stayed at her hotel, or what-have-you, got sick. She had to have eaten somewhere, and it doesn’t seem anybody got sick that way either. She wasn’t diagnosed with the virus until she returned to China, but she did manage to infect people in Germany she spent the most time with.

REICHARD: Well, that seems a bit contradictory, doesn’t it? 

HORTON: It does because on the one hand, we know she was contagious prior to showing symptoms. But on the other hand, we have a group of people who got infected and another group of people who would have had to be around her who didn’t get infected. So this is a big challenge for the WHO and for the virologists: exactly what radius did one have to be within, exactly what length of contact did one need with this lady to fall ill. They’re now talking about a six-foot radius that folks who are outside of that radius probably wouldn’t have had enough exposure to get sick.

REICHARD: What does this mean for authorities trying to contain the coronavirus outside of China?

HORTON: Outside of China, you of course have one more big variable, which is freedom of movement. There was a fellow in Japan who decided he just didn’t feel like being in quarantine, and the government ended up explaining to the press that that was technically his choice. One does hope he isn’t infecting anybody right now. Thankfully when someone tried that in the group that’s quarantined in California, they did say, “No. Back to quarantine with you.”

Then the other reason, of course, is we don’t yet have a vaccine or much knowledge about what drugs would work against this. With the flu, there is a vaccine and there are drugs that are known to be helpful. Remember we talked about xofluza a while back.

And, third, we don’t yet know what percentage of cases with this bug actually get seriously ill. Knowledge is power. We’re still scrambling for knowledge.

REICHARD: You know, the situation now is reminiscent of two other diseases that prompted worldwide panic. That was Ebola and Zika. In both of those cases, the threat turned out to be not as bad as experts feared. Could we be looking at a similar situation here? Or is there something about the coronavirus itself that makes it different?

HORTON: God willing, the possibility that this is not going to be a major worldwide still does exist. But, Ebola and Zika are not the best comparisons. And, actually, for opposite reasons. 

With Zika, unless you were pregnant, it was a really minor illness. Actually, minor enough that many people who had it didn’t know that they had it at all. They just tested positive for exposure later on. Whereas Ebola was so severe that anyone who caught it did not go on with daily life and infect other people. These patients either ended up in the hospital or they just died and the main risks were to the healthcare teams. 

Zika also had to have—the fancy term is a vector—the mosquitos that carried it. Which meant that it had a huge weakness. You didn’t have to know much about virology to keep Zika from spreading, you just have to know how to kill bugs. Here, coronavirus spreads more like a cold. Being around a person who has it is apparently enough to catch it. And, again, at least some people who get it are able to go out and be around other people while they’re contagious. 

REICHARD: And a very important question is: are there treatments for coronavirus?

HORTON: The $64,000 question! There is a concerted effort to figure out what works and to share information. I am very encouraged to see research platforms—that normally charge for access—establishing online centers where people can post and read research free of charge. New England Journal of Medicine. The Lancet. These are the big names. 

I was just reading an article by an Egyptian researcher using this very high-end molecular modeling to suggest avenues for drug research. I’ve never seen that level of cooperation before. 

But to answer your question, right now the primary treatments for now are supportive. Oxygen, fluids, mechanical ventilation in severe cases. And I’m sure reports are going to start filtering in with the help of these platforms about how patients responded to other things where doctors had access to them and decided to give them a try.

REICHARD: Charles Horton is a WORLD Radio correspondent and physician based in Pennsylvania. Thanks for joining us today!

HORTON: Anytime!

MARY REICHARD: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the battle over the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment.

NICK EICHER: ERA is a proposed constitutional amendment whose stated aim is to prevent sex discrimination. 

Congress first passed it in 1972 and eventually gave states 10 years to get it ratified. Article V of the Constitution requires that to amend it, three-quarters of the states must ratify. That’s 38 states. 

But only 35 agreed to ratify ERA. And five of those quickly reversed course.

REICHARD: So the amendment died and the deadline to ratify it passed. 

But some states have been reintroducing ERA in hopes that that would restart the ratification process. Three years ago, Nevada approved a ratification measure, making it state number 36, followed by Illinois a year later, state number 37.

Last week, Virginia voted in favor of ratification, so the required number of states, 38, is now met—ironically,  38 years past the deadline.  

WORLD Radio’s Sarah Schweinsberg reports.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Cheers erupted in the Democratic-controlled Virginia legislature when state lawmakers approved the Equal Rights Amendment. 

SOUND: For the women of Virginia and the women of America, the resolution has finally passed. [Cheering]

For ERA supporters, the vote marked the end of a decades-long battle to add the amendment to the Constitution. 

But critics say the Virginia vote doesn’t change anything. The original deadline set by Congress to ratify the amendment has passed and the amendment failed. Period. Critics also argue Congress can’t retroactively eliminate the deadline. Denise Harle is an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom. 

HARLE: There is absolutely no example or case ever of an amendment being ratified after it expired without the requisite number of states adopting it.

Back in December, attorneys general from Alabama, South Dakota, and Louisiana anticipated that Virginia would approve the ERA. So they sued to block its eventual addition to the Constitution. 

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice agrees with those states. Last month, in a 38-page opinion, it said ERA supporters would need to start over to add the amendment to the Constitution. 

States supporting the ERA fired back. Last week, the attorneys general of Virginia, Illinois, and Nevada sued to force the amendment’s approval. They argue Article Five of the Constitution does not give Congress the power to impose ratification time limits. 

Carol Jenkins is the co-president of the ERA coalition. In a November interview with C-Span, she said today’s ERA ratification is on solid legal ground. 

JENKINS: We were told by our legal scholars that it does indeed count. 

Jenkins also argued the ERA is necessary to put women on equal legal footing in all 50 states and that the Me Too Movement has made clear that women are not yet fully protected in American society.

JENKINS: What we see after #MeToo and all the progress women have made, can we truly say that as a country we are not willing to give women equal rights? 

But critics say women’s rights are already fully protected in state and federal law. ADF’s Denise Harle says federal law already includes protections against unfair termination, as well as Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act, Title Nine in the Education Amendments, and, of course, the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.   

HARLE: It’s not clear to me what hole it could possibly even be fixing.

Harle and other critics point out that the ERA’s vague language would actually backfire for women. The text of the amendment never uses the word “woman” or “female.” It simply says “the law shall not be denied or abridged…on account of sex.” 

HARLE: If we can’t make a distinction based on sex,  instead of protecting women, it’s pretty clear that it could easily be used to strip women of some of the protections we have now.

Pro-abortion supporters have also latched onto the ERA as a way of enshrining abortion in the Constitution. 

Steven Aden is the chief legal counsel at Americans United For Life. He notes pregnancy, of course, only affects women. Under ERA reasoning, abortion must be accessible to make women the same as men. 

ADEN: When and if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, they still have an avenue to claim that, uh, there’s a fundamental right to access abortion through all nine months in the Constitution. That of course, is very dangerous to a life in the womb and to the mothers that carry them.

Victoria Cobb is the president of the Family Foundation of Virginia. She says she and other ERA critics believe their legal case will eventually prevail. But just because the law seems clear doesn’t mean the courts won’t issue a surprise. 

COBB: We know courts are what courts are and there are times where courts have made wrong decisions. So we are still sounding the alarm about the dangerous effects of the equal rights amendment should something go awry in the legal process.

For now, the competing lawsuits will play out in the district courts, but most legal analysts expect the ERA debate will eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

NICK EICHER: Have you ever seen Antiques Roadshow on PBS?

If you haven’t, it’s basically this: People who have things they think are valuable bring them to the show, and at the show appraisers tell what it’s worth, market value.

Reaction is the point of the show: Sometimes people are disappointed. Other times, they’re blown away, as in the case of David, a man who brought an old Rolex with him. 

David’s an Air Force veteran who paid just $350 back when he was still in the service.

DAVID: I ordered in November of 1974 through the base exchange.

When the order came in, David felt it was just too nice to wear, so he kept it in a safe-deposit box.

DAVID: It stayed there for 30 or 40 years. I only took it out like two or three times to look at it, and that was about the extent of it before I brought it here.

Inflation alone would quadruple the value, to about $1,400. But the appraiser told him the watch was something really special. It was like one that actor Paul Newman once wore in a movie. That one went for $200,000. Now at this point, David’s keeping his cool.

But when he learned his Rolex had a tiny inscription that made it twice what the movie star watch was worth, well, that’s when David literally hit the dirt.

ROADSHOW: [Laughs] You okay?

But there’s even more: Because this watch is in pristine condition with original paperwork, the old Rolex could fetch up to $700,000!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Tuesday, February 4th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Well, it’s time for our Classic Book of the Month. For that we welcome back WORLD book reviewer Emily Whitten.

Hey, Emily! Thanks for joining us.

EMILY WHITTEN, BOOK REVIEWER: My pleasure, Mary.

REICHARD: What have you got for us today?

WHITTEN: How ‘bout one of the most famous men in America in the 19th century?

REICHARD: Sounds good!

WHITTEN: This writer met with an American president. He had two interviews with the Queen of England, and his autobiography went through four editions during his lifetime. His name is Josiah Henson. And I’m guessing, Mary, that like me before I did this research, you may not have heard of him before.

REICHARD: I have not!

WHITTEN: If you had lived in the 1850s, the book you would most likely have in your home would be—well, Mary, what would you say?

REICHARD: The best selling book of all time. The Bible?

WHITTEN: Right. Second to the Bible, you’d most likely own Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was translated into around 60 languages and made Stowe the best-selling American writer of the 19th century. Josiah Henson’s autobiography served as one of the most important sources for that novel. Henson provided inspiration for a number of characters, including Uncle Tom. Here is former Maryland Congressman Al Wynn speaking at the 2016 Josiah Henson Leadership Conference:

WYNN: “Paraphrasing it from the Bible, without vision, the people perish. Josiah Henson definitely had vision. In the time of slavery, a lot of people were fairly complacent. Not Josiah Henson. He saw freedom not just for himself but also for his family and, as a result, escaped with his family to Canada.”

Henson went on to rescue over a hundred slaves on the underground railroad. He founded a settlement for freed slaves, and he launched Canada’s first trade school for them as well. 

REICHARD: I guess he did have vision! It’s a shame I don’t know more about this man already.

WHITTEN: There’s a frustrating reason for that. In Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom is a Christ figure who gives his life to protect two female slaves. The novel does have racial blindspots, for sure, but Stowe tried to portray slaves as worthy of respect. Unfortunately, she didn’t copyright her story, and other writers created their own plays and musicals using her characters. Here’s Stowe biographer Nancy Koester:

KOESTER: “In common parlance today, an Uncle Tom is a traitor. A lot of that stereotype came from the so called Tom shows, the Uncle Tom plays that were put on after Harriet’s book was published. Some of those plays quickly reverted to racial stereotypes by having white actors with black face playing black people and using really racist stereotypes of the time. She didn’t support that. She had no control over that, and she received no profits from that…”

So, Mary, because Henson claimed to be the real life Uncle Tom, people today sometimes assume he’s like the racist stereotype. But that’s far from the truth. If you want to read about a strong, loving, principled Christian leader who poured his life into lifting others up and fighting injustice, you want to read Josiah Henson’s story. It’s really inspiring.

REICHARD: What would you say makes his story so inspiring,  particularly?

WHITTEN: He just overcame so much. For instance, early in life, his father was beaten and sold away for trying to protect Henson’s mother. Here’s the audiobook excerpt read by Rodney Louis Tompkins:

TOMPKINS: “…though it was all a mystery to me at the age of three or four years, it was explained at a later period. And I understood he had been suffering the cruel penalty of the Maryland law for beating a white man. His right ear had been cut off close to his head, and he received a hundred lashes on his back. He had beaten the overseer for a brutal assault on my mother and this was his punishment.”

That was just one of the brutal, unfair things he would experience as a slave.

REICHARD: Absolutely horrendous. 

WHITTEN: Yes it was. Henson learned to overcome that kind of evil in part during a camp meeting he attended at the age of 18. Here’s historian Jamie Kuhns speaking to a gathering near Henson’s home in Maryland in 20-19:

KUHNS: “If you were enslaved back then, if you attended church, and often slave people had to attend the same church their master went to. They would hear sermons about obedience and loyalty to their master. Instead, at the camp meeting that he went to, he heard about salvation. It was the first time that Henson learned God wanted to give salvation to everyone. It wasn’t just reserved for the planter class. It was for everyone, regardless of your race and your wealth. And that really spoke to him.”

Henson soon began preaching to other slaves. Later, he would earn enough money as a preacher in his free time to buy his own freedom. Sadly, corrupt owners took the money and kept him and his family enslaved. At that point, he felt he had the moral right to escape. Soon, he and his family began the long trip to Canada.

REICHARD: I guess that would be on the underground railroad?

WHITTEN: Yes, that’s right. And his writing provides an important primary source about that. Work on underground railroad tended to be pretty secretive. I will also say, some of the scenes in the book are a little raw. He writes in a straight-forward way. And I think Henson’s clarity and forthrightness actually give the book more lasting value for audiences today.

REICHARD: Emily, I know in many places it was illegal for slaves to learn to read and write. I believe Henson’s contemporary, Frederick Douglas, got in trouble about that several times. I’m curious as to how Henson came to write his autobiography?

WHITTEN: Henson did not learn to read and write as a slave, though he did learn later on. So when he decided to write his story, the Boston Anti-Slavery Society provided someone he could dictate his story to. And keep in mind, Henson served as both a plantation manager and a preacher. In both those roles he developed excellent communication skills. I suspect that’s why the book reads so smoothly.

REICHARD: Thanks for this recommendation today, Emily. 

WHITTEN: You’re very welcome, Mary. Happy reading!

MARY REICHARD: Today is Tuesday, February 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Recently, we ran a report on problems with organizations that procure organs from people who have died. These are known as OPOs, organ procurement organizations. Clearly, OPOs do much good and organ transplant saves lives. 

And yet there’s another side to this issue. WORLD reported on a Canadian OPO that targets patients who die by physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.

WORLD Radio’s Les Sillars says this is what you get when the demand for organs gets ahead of ethics.

LES SILLARS, COMMENTATOR: Canada legalized assisted suicide in 2016. Now less than four years later, the Ontario government has hired Trillium Gift of Life Network to approach patients approved for assisted suicide. The idea is to pitch them on donating their organs. 

The Ottawa Citizen newspaper described how in the last two years the number of organ donations from people whose death doctors—quote-unquote—“aided” has doubled to 113.

This development is troubling but predictable. Disabled, elderly, and vulnerable Canadians might wonder how committed their doctors are to keeping them alive. 

Here’s the history:

The first successful transplant from a dead donor was in 1962. It was a kidney. The big question was whether the recipient’s body would accept or reject the organ. 

New drugs and techniques gradually improved success rates, but there was another problem. Most organs deteriorate soon after the supply of blood and oxygen stops. And transplant teams were rarely on hand the moment someone died. 

But the life support machines arrived in the 1970s. They kept the hearts and lungs of patients with severe brain damage pumping until the organs could be extracted.

So the question became: How do you determine when a person on life support is truly dead? That used to be straightforward. “Cardiac death” is when the heart stops. Patients turn cold and stiff. But people on ventilators can stay warm and breathing for months, even years.

So in 1968 an ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School offered a “brain death” definition: the irreversible loss of brain function. It allows doctors to end life support and remove vital organs without violating the self-explanatory “dead donor rule.” The legal and medical communities gradually accepted brain death over the next few decades.

But usable organs were still in short supply in the 1990s, so doctors embraced “donation after cardiac death.” When the prognosis is poor enough, the patient’s family and doctors agree to shut off life support. Even if the patient is not brain dead. Doctors wait a bit for the heart to stop beating. Then they take the organs.

In the mid-2000s, some in the medical community objected. Clearly, they said, doctors were just gerrymandering the definition of death to convince the public that they didn’t kill people for their organs.

But critics weren’t saying that because human life is sacred and the nature of “brain death” is unclear doctors should be more cautious. No, that would reduce the number of available organs. Those critics thought that doctors should just ditch the dead donor rule in favor of consent, from either the patient or the family. Mostly dead, plus consent. That should be enough.

We’re almost there. The dead donor rule still applies in theory, but doctors skate right up to the line. Now some states and countries have added doctor-assisted suicide. Throw in the fact that procurement companies rake in billions a year, and what could go wrong?

A Trillium spokesman said there’ll be no pressure on vulnerable people. Of course not. No one will mention “death with dignity” or “leaving a legacy,” or the lives that could be saved. All that will be understood.

In the U.S., according to one physician in a USA Today column, doctors have already begun discussing taking organs from live patients. If that happens, the dead donor rule will not just be irrelevant. It’ll be reversed.

I don’t question the value of organ donation. I’m a donor. But there has got to be a limit. Left to itself, the medical community will just keep on making “progress.”

For WORLD Radio, I’m Les Sillars.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow, we’ll take stock of the Democratic presidential field now that the first voters have had their say. WORLD’s Jamie Dean will join us for Washington Wednesday.

And, we’ll take you to a Christian school in Minnesota where some mysterious whiteboard drawings have started showing up.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Go now in grace and peace.

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