Abortion and self-starvation advocate Diane Rehm to retire from NPR in 2016
By Dave Andrusko
Diane Rehm
My first encounter (once removed) with
NPR’s Diane Rehm was in (yikes!) 1981. I sat outside the studio of the local
NPR affiliate,
WAMU,
while my wife debated two pro-abortionists and (of course) Rehm. Since
there were only three aligned against Lisa, it wasn’t a fair fight.
So a story in the
Washington Post today that the 79-year-old
Rehm will retire next year caught my eye, for this and many other reasons.
I had already heard Rehm’s laughable pretense at objectivity before
Lisa calmly debunked the usual malarkey about pro-lifers. Since that
time I have listened to Rehm, but infrequently because her show airs
locally when I am at work.
Suffice it to say it is true that she is a big shot around here–a “
NPR Talk-Show Legend,” as the
Post
headline puts it. But to pretend that Rehm maintains “ a nonpartisan
orientation,” as Paul Fahri does, is simply Fahri’s own biases showing
through.
As
NRL News Today readers may remember, Rehm got in a teeny,
tiny bit of trouble earlier this year. Her advocacy of assisted suicide
was so blatant Rehm was (sort of) forced to scale back.
Which is one of the reasons she will leaving next year (but–surprise,
surprise, not likely until after the presidential election). Fahri
writes
“Among other things, she wants to
advocate on behalf of aid in dying for the terminally ill, a cause she
has been obliged to avoid espousing on the air. John [her late husband]
so wanted to die on his own terms,” she said. “It made me feel like I
had to speak out for the right to die.”
Let’s look a little closer at what happened in March. It’s of ongoing
importance because the full-throated support of celebrities such as
Rehm is key to the physician-assisted suicide movement’s strategy.
John Rehm had Parkinson’s and he died in 2014 by self-starvation–
with his wife’s help. Thus it came as no surprise that Diane Rehm would
be working closely with Compassion & Choices, formerly (and more
accurately) known as the Hemlock Society.
Wesley Smith has pointed out many times, Compassion and Choices “
promotes VSED [Voluntary Stop Eating and Drinking] on its website. It has even published a booklet about suicide by starvation for those who are not terminally ill.”
It all came to a preliminary head for Rehm after a
glowing, one-sided story appeared in the
Washington Post written by Michael Rosenwald.The key paragraphs in Rosenwald’s story were
Now 78 and pondering how to
manage her own death, Rehm is working with Compassion & Choices, an
end-of-life organization run by Barbara Coombs Lee, a key figure in
Oregon’s passage of an assisted-suicide law and a previous guest on the
show. Rehm will appear on the cover of the group’s magazine this month,
and she is telling John’s story at a series of small fundraising dinners
with wealthy donors financing the right-to-die campaign.
If asked, she said she would testify before Congress.
Writing over at
Newsbusters,
Tim Graham asked
How many hosts on taxpayer-funded
talk shows will be testifying on a hot-button issue like euthanasia
before Congress? How can anyone expect her to offer fairness when this
issue comes to her own program? No one can imagine an NPR star
testifying against abortion or against assisted suicide.
They’re far too “progressive” for that.
Rehm told the Post she
knows that as a journalist, she must be careful. “As strongly as I feel,
I don’t want to use the program to proselytize my feelings,” she said.
“But I do want to have more and more discussion about it because I feel
it’s so important.”
Which appears to have caught the attention of the
NPR Ombudsman. After Elizabeth Jensen questioned Rehm’s very public involvement, we read the following headline in the
Post in another story written by Rosenwald: “
Following criticism, NPR host Diane Rehm scales back efforts in right-to-die debate.”
We’ll talk about how much “scaling back” in a moment. Let’s first look at what Jensen
had to say in her statement.
Jensen makes clear that to most people, Rehm and
WAMU and
NPR (National Public Radio) are pretty much one and the same.
But, in fact, as Jensen explained,
She is an employee of WAMU, not NPR. NPR distributes her show and allows WAMU to associate the NPR brand with it, but doesn’t “own” or produce it. Listeners, however, can’t be expected to know the difference and many don’t.
So at the time Jensen wrote her Ombudsman column, they were thrashing out the whys and the wherefores of how
NPR’s code of ethics would (or wouldn’t) apply to the “
NPR Talk-Show Legend.”
Adding her two cents, Jensen concluded
My own view is that Rehm’s
participation as a celebrity guest of sorts at fundraising dinners for
an organization that does extensive political lobbying, as compelling as
her personal story is and as careful as she is being, is a step too far
for someone associated with NPR. Rehm does not believe she has
crossed any line, but my view is she should be counseled against future
participation in fund-raising events for the organization.
So how much did Rehm “scale back” her public advocacy? As I say I don’t listen enough to know.
But at the time (March 9, 2015), Rosenwald wrote, “Rehm agreed to
stop attending the dinners — except for two this month she was already
scheduled to appear at and are sold out. She plans to continue helping
the organization, but on a ‘case-by-case basis’ and in consultation with
her station manager.”
But
Most importantly for her, Rehm said, wasn’t backing away from being a right-to-die proponent.
“This should be a right for me and should have been a right for my husband,” she said.
A joint statement from NPR and WAMU
said Rehm will continue to host shows on the topic and that she “will
remind the audience about her personal experience and be transparent
about her affiliation with any organization focused on the issue.”
“As a talk show host, Diane Rehm
is free to express her own opinions alongside people who have different
views,” the statement said. “This is one of the things her listeners
expect, and it allows for empathy, and a lively exchange of ideas.”
So Rehm wouldn’t be the star attention at Compassion & Choices
banquets but would do her thing on a “case by case” basis in
“consultation with her station manager.”
And, once she retires, even that fig-leaf will not be necessary.
Source: NRLC News
The
quest to “normalize” abortion could never be–and was never intended to
be–merely an attempt to take abortion “out of the shadows.” Nor was
it/could it ever be just a campaign to say that snuffing out your
defenseless kid is a kind of sick rite of passage, although there’s
plenty of that.
Lisa’s parents with four of their daughters in China (Photo Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
Lisa’s parents with their five daughters in China (Photo Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
Lisa, at right, pictured with two of her siblings (Photo Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
Lisa growing up with her three youngest siblings (Photo Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
Lisa’s parents, pictured with their grandson and three youngest children (Photo Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
A
pro-choice researcher wrote about how the term “baby” is dreaded in
abortion clinics. Feminist author Wendy Simonds interviewed abortion
industry workers for her book Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic.
Houston, Texas–
December 10, 2015: Yesterday, the attorneys representing Evelyn Kelly
contested Methodist Hospital’s application for custodial guardianship of
Evelyn’s adult son, Chris Dunn. Chris is currently fighting for his
life in Houston Methodist Hospital.
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