Word: weaken
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While most Catholic spokesmen have rallied behind the Quinlans, at least one Protestant, surprisingly, has come out against any court ruling in their favor. Ethicist Thomas C. Oden of New Jersey's Drew University is concerned mainly about establishing a precedent that could weaken the legal barriers against all kinds of euthanasia. That concern is discounted, however, by fellow Methodist Paul Ramsey of Princeton University, author of The Patient as Person (Yale University Press). Says Ramsey: "Everybody has reason to fear the onset of euthanasia, but it doesn't seem to me that a carefully drawn court opinion...
...enlightened founding fathers were still united in their belief that human beings were accountable in this life or in one to come. The decline of the popular belief in hell, among other things, has done much to weaken this belief today. The founders and shapers developed a process for nurturing moral concern. Perhaps because they had to, they listened to each other. They reasoned and debated. Today banners, bumper stickers and megaphones often supplant argument. "Abortion is murder." "A woman's body is hers to do with what she wants." These are slogans and conclusions, not hypotheses, shouted...
Meyer said the effect of the city's default could be to weaken these institutions' capacity to provide loans necessary for economic growth throughout the country...
...most serious threats to the nation's growing business recovery has been the possibility of a continuing rise in interest rates that would discourage borrowing by businessmen and consumers, weaken the stock market and abort a barely begun revival of the housing industry. Last week, however, a consensus formed among experts that a three-month upswing in credit costs is ending, and that interest rates are expected to hold steady, or even inch down. For example, James J. O'Leary, vice chairman of New York's United States Trust Co., now predicts that the bank prime rate...
...face of the man can become a lingering fear in millions. A small retreat from the world's anger can send ripples through every free society. It takes time to sort out what is courageous or merely foolish in the large acts of policy. Human hesitancy may instantly weaken a man's ability to lead...