It's insulting and inflammatory, they say, and in at least one respect incorrect. (They usually oppose capital punishment.)

So I wasn't surprised when irate Dems flooded me with e-mails a few weeks ago, after I mentioned that the party supported both liberal abortion rights and euthanasia as an end-of-life option.

The writers seemed to be much more offended by the euthanasia reference than about being labeled the party of abortion. It used to be that a fair number of rank-and-file Democrats were upset at a platform that put "a woman's right to choose" above fetal life. And, once upon a time, even some of the party's elite, like Ted Kennedy, Al Gore and Jesse Jackson, were pro-life.

But starting in the '70s with its in-your-face feminism and fortified by a slew of court victories like Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the party's attachment to abortion seemed to be a fait accompli, and it became standard practice to muzzle dissenting voices. To move up in the party, and be celebrated by it, you just could not be pro-life.

Most Democrats don't even bother to object anymore when people criticize the party for stonewalling attempts to protect the unborn. They believe public opinion is on their side, so they don't need to throw pro-lifers still in the fold even a meager bone. (And of the Democrats who don't agree with the party's take on abortion, most have learned not to Roe against the tide.)

But euthanasia is another kettle of fish. With abortion, you're dealing with questions of medical, legal and moral status that are still fuzzy in most people's minds. A fetus doesn't elicit the sympathy that a born human being does.

I mean, if Amnesty International is against you, lobbying to classify abortion as a "human right," you know you have a PR problem.

But euthanasia is different. Society is sharply divided on the issue, which still has less "nuance" than some activists (like the ones who fought for Terri Schiavo's "right to die") would have us believe. Granny, for all her infirm- ities, is a real live person.

But, taking a page from the book that led them to victory in Roe, supporters of "assisted suicide," "mercy-killing" and, my favorite euphemism, "death with dignity," are trying to frame the issue in terms of individual rights. As the Democratic governor of Washington said when campaigning successfully for his state's assisted-suicide law, "My life! My death! My control!"

And watch out when you start talking about individual rights. People immediately warm up to the idea that they "own" something and are damned if the government is going to deprive them of it.

Democrats don't have a market on the individual-rights game, of course. Republicans invoke it when talking about guns, land and taxes, while liberals generally believe that Uncle Sam has every "right" to step between a man and his .38 but has no business telling him he can't kill himself if he wants to.

There is obviously hypocrisy on both sides of the issue. But I opt for the side that believes that government should protect us against any tendency to accept the disposability of unborn life or the decreased value of the disabled or the terminally ill. Shockingly, not everyone agrees with me. And many of the ones who don't are having increasing success in influencing public opinion, just as they did with the "right" to abortion.

One particularly irate e-mailer demanded that I point out where in the Democratic platform the party calls euthanasia "an end of life option." He wanted facts, specific language, a PowerPoint presentation. (A lawyer, of course.)

When I replied that Ezekiel Emanuel, the top White House health adviser and brother of the president's chief of staff, has suggested that if rationing health care becomes a reality, we should give priority to those with a better chance of survival (as in Junior gets the kidney, not Gramps), my correspondent accused me of lying.

THAT APPEARS to be the general approach. Accuse the people who worry about a creeping culture of death and the disposability of life, of lying.

Go after the Sarah Palin bogeyman when she talks about death panels, but brush off the comments of Zeke Emanuel as if he never said them.

Who can blame them? Creeping acceptance worked with abortion, so maybe it's worth another shot.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.