Peter Singer’s op-ed reminded me of this recent piece in the Boston Globe on stem-cell research which changes the subject–to affordable housing. It’s akin to the folks who e-mail me and say about abortion, or, goodness, infant euthanasia–”but you don’t care about them after they’re born.” It seems to me that, in this case, infant euthanasia is an issue. Abortion is an issue. Infant mortality is an issue. Affordable housing is an issue. Education is an issue. And because you’re expending time on one doesn’t mean a) you’re uninterested in the other or b) there’s not someone at the same time expending energy on the other.

That infant euthanasia is being discussed on the pages of The New England Journal of Medicine, it seems to me, is an issue. And that we know that it is underreported in some first-world nations is an issue. It’s not going to be the only issue discussed forevermore, nor should it be, but to ignore a pretty big milestone in NEJM would be wrong, too.