Fast Takes: Euthanasia always expands, Schumer’s meddling costs Americans and more

Foreign desk: Euthanasia Always Expands

Every nation that’s legalized euthanasia has seen “attempts to expand the eligibility of the law,” many “successful,” warns Adam James Pollock at UnHerd. The Dutch law 23 years ago allowed it “provided the patient was a newborn baby or over the age of 12”; now the Netherlands has followed Belgium in OK’ing child-killing, and reports its first under-12 . . . beneficiary? Canada is discussing “the euthanasia of newborn babies” with “deformities” and “medical syndromes.” Britain’s recent assisted-suicide bill would limit “eligibility to adults who are deemed to be terminally ill” with six months or less to live, but UK advocates already want more, because “life expectancy in and of itself says nothing.” Beware: Any vote for some euthanasia “is inevitably a vote to open the door” to expansion. Avoid “slippery slope” up-front, “before it is too late.”

Tech beat: Schumer’s Meddling Costs Americans

The “acute memory chip shortage” now pushing up prices across many industries is “another example of America’s permitting and industrial policy dysfunction,” grumbles The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. “While the world’s three dominant memory chipmakers — Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix — are working to expand production, America’s permitting morass makes that harder.” Add in the “political misallocation of capital” thanks to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s 2022, which led Micron to plan an upstate factory whose “site wasn’t ideal.” New York’s “laborious environmental reviews” have already delayed construction two years; in response, “Micron has accelerated construction of a manufacturing fab in Boise, Idaho.” For now, Americans are paying more for “Schumer’s political meddling.”

Eye on education: Big Easy’s Charter Miracle

After Katrina smashed New Orleans in 2005, “the city rebuilt its school system and became the nation’s first nearly all-charter, all-choice district,” notes Paul G. Vallas at City Journal. The stunning results put “Louisiana near the top nationally for [education] growth between 2022 and 2025: second in reading improvement, third in math, and the only state to exceed its pre-pandemic performance in both subjects,” despite per-pupil spending below most other states. “The city thus rebukes the familiar claim that bad results mainly reflect inadequate funding.” In the all-choice system, “families were no longer trapped” in a “failing neighborhood school,” allowing the city to “gut” its central staffing. New Orleans “demonstrates that children benefit most when adults lose the power to preserve failure,” while “student outcomes improve — even in a poor city, even after catastrophe, and even without additional funding.”

Crime beat: Philly DA’s Push To Spring Killers

Per Pennsylvania’s Democratic-controlled Supreme Court, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner “has not only been serving as the city’s prosecutor but effectively as its top public defender,” reports Jonathan Turley at The Hill. The court has “denounced” him for his “mendacious filings” to undermine murder and other criminal cases, while his eagerness to see convictions overturned “facilitates injustice.” In one case, “judges disbarred his supervisor for repeatedly lying” about one bid to overturn a conviction. Yoikes: When the courts rule that Krasner has interfered “with the legal system,” he just “turns court sanctions into a badge of honor with voters who distrust” cops and criminal justice itself.

Lean right: It’s Dems Who Lack Pride in America

At the recent “anti-Trump bash ‘Rise Up, Sing Out,’ ” Robert De Niro whined, “Loving our country is starting to sound like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser” thanks to “Donald Trump and his sycophant Congress,” marvels USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques. In fact, the “dramatic decline” in American pride is “being driven by Democrats” no matter who runs Washington. Polls show Republicans’ pride in the country has averaged “90% since 2001,” while Dems “have been sliding since then,” down to 36%, though pride in America “should transcend whatever politicians inhabit the swampland of Washington.” De Niro finished by saying he wants to love his country again, but “he should have never stopped.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board