A fundamental flaw in Dr. Keyes's thinking?

Let me state at the outset that I highly respect Dr. Keyes, his historical knowledge, his influence and abilities, his generally superior moral positions, which my regular readers already know. Anyway...

I was reading Dr. Keyes's latest Loyal to Liberty entry earlier today when I ran across this line,

Dr. Keyes wrote:

...bereft of the choices that today allow many to determine for themselves the moment at which they surrender with dignity to the inevitable prospect of their mortality.

which didn't set real well with me. Allow me to attempt an explanation:

Okay, death is inevitable. We agree on that. And to die with dignity is certainly better than dying in an undignified way. This (a 'dignified' death) must be one of the primary goals of every living human being for himself and his loved-ones (it probably extends beyond his loved-ones, but let's establish that limitation for our purposes here).

Well, I acknowledge that insofar as any human being has legitimate control or authority (or "choice") over human life (and death), it is the individual whose life is in question, and extends no further. But I think there's a fundamental flaw in that sort of thinking, a flaw that ultimately leads, or has led, to the dire situation we're in now. No human being, in my humble opinion, possesses any kind of power over human life, including his own. As he did not give himself life, he cannot, on his own whim, "decide" when, and/or, under what particular circumstances to give it up, 'dignified' or not. Ultimately he has no control over it anyway, he just thinks he does. Which is an indication of his underlying lack of faith in the giver of life, The Sovereign God of the Universe.

Anyway, I thought it might make for an insteresting discussion, both here and at Loyal to Liberty. I decided to bring it here for my own purposes, which are altogether self-interested. So sue me.

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Sarah Palin, Down's Syndrome, and Traditionalism

(Note: Be sure to read Nora's excellent comments to this entry where she lays out a few of her own theories on why modern women advocate abortion, and why men do nothing about it. Also that feminism is more responsible for our decline than all the other destructive isms.)

With all that's been said across the traditionalist blogosphere about Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's running mate, one point of view is particularly bothersome.

Over at VA's some of the (presumably "Traditionalist") commenters to her entry The Shameless Left are saying that it's a woman's choice (you know, "a woman's right to choose" applied selectively) whether or not to allow a Down's baby to live. Commenter Rollory even goes so far as to assert that based on the fact that the parents of Down's children "created" the child, then they should have power over such baby's life. This, my friends, is the antithesis of traditionalist American conservatism. I have to wonder from whence these people (originally) hail.

I for one hope beyond hope that Mrs. Palin never considered it her choice to terminate her pregnancy. As mere human beings who have no power to "create" life, we definately have no power to extinguish it on a presumed right of choice. A human baby is not a physical structure that we've "created" with our own hands, for goodness sakes! If you want to exercise your choice to destroy such a structure, none of the rest of us has any say in the matter. But engaging in sexual intercourse is not the same thing as creating life. If you believe it is then your worldview is definitely not traditionalist.

This idea about the sacredness of life is one of the fundamentals of genuine traditionalism.

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