Marriage

 

Who would want to get married today?

by Robert Morrison

Nov. 29, 2013 (FRC) - With the mounting concerns over the “debacle” of ObamaCare, with Iran given permission to retain their nuclear program provided they “freeze” just certain portions of it, the world looks like a threatening place. So, who wouldwant to marry and bring children into such a world, beset by economic worries, dogged by environmental concerns and living as we do under what President Kennedy called “a nuclear sword of Damocles”?

Well, things didn’t seem a whole lot brighter in 1978. Thirty-five years ago, my fiancee and I prepared for our wedding in San Francisco. The weather that entire week was gray and menacing. So somber was the mood. Hundreds of bodies were being returned to the Bay Area from Jonestown where people had been forced to drink poison Kool-Aid. The aftermath of that suicide cult hung over the city like a pall. Then, too the day after we exchanged our vows in dear old St. Paulus Evangelical Lutheran Church, we began our honeymoon in an Alpine village in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. It was there we saw the news. San Francisco’s Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk had been assassinated.

The first good news we had from the outside world came on the third day of our getaway. We sat at a picnic table surrounded by snow-covered mountains and saw the newspaper headlines: “Pope on a Slope.” Pope John Paul IIhad been elected just six weeks earlier. There was great excitement around the world for this dynamic new leader on the world stage. Even as non-Catholics, we shared in the enthusiasm for the Polish Pope. Whoever heard of a Pope who skiied?

In the thirty-five years since that wedding day, we have had the usual portion of joys and sorrows. We have endured the loss of beloved parents and the death of a 16-year old cousin. We have had to cope with financial gains and losses. Was there something in those vows about for “not-so-richer or poorer”?

I had always been taught that a man should lay down his life for his wife. And I was prepared to do just that.

So imagine my surprise when I found my wife saving my life. I had just turned forty when I was stricken with a violent headache. It felt as if there were nine-inch nails being driven into my skull.
Rushed to the Emergency Room at Bethesda Naval Hospital, my wife, an officer in the Medical Service Corps, waited in the ER with our two small children for long hours for a diagnosis. Despite the lateness and the children crying in the summer’s heat, my wife pressed them to give me a spinal tap. The test results confirmed that I had viral meningitis.

Told there were no beds available for me at the hospital, my wife stubbornly refused to let me be taken to a local civilian hospital. She has often said that she wasn’t sure we had insurance for such treatment, but I know she did not want me taken to a place where she did not know the medical staff and their reputations. Emphatically, she told them she was a staff officer and knew there had to be a bed somewhere in the giant facility.

I awoke several days later in the Neuro Step-Down Unit. I was surrounded by dying patients. Naturally, I assumed I was one of them. It’s an experience you tend to remember.
Some time later, when I was out immediate danger, the navy doctors and my wife crowded around my hospital bed in their crisp, starched whites.

“He’ll have short-term memory lapses. He’ll be emotional. And irritable,” they told her. Not skipping a beat, my beloved shot back: “And the difference I am supposed to notice in him is what?” One of the best ways to cross that threshold back from death’s door, I submit, is a good laugh.
Throughout our marriage — when children and grandchildren came and when we were earnestly praying for their safety — we remembered the words of that Polish Pope when he was first brought out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s in Rome. I had not heard the words, but read them from the clickety-clack of a teletype machine as it printed its message on a roll of yellow paper. I was on board our Coast Guard cutter, in the middle of the Bering Sea, about as far away from Rome as you can get.
The Pope spoke to the City and to the World and said:

Be Not Afraid!

Those words sustained us in our marriage. After four hundred twenty months of marriage, those are words I would still share with today’s young people: Trust in God and trust in your love for each other. Go ahead boldly and be not afraid.
 
Reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council blog. 

Source: LifeSite News

Abortion Breast Cancer Link

 

‘Game changer’: study finds increased risk of breast cancer after abortion in Chinese women

by Peter Baklinski

TIANJIN, China, November 29, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-abortion advocates have relentlessly denied a link between abortion and breast cancer, but a new study has emerged from China that seems to show that such a link not only exists, but that the risk rises with each abortion a woman has.
Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, called the findings a “real game changer” for deniers of the so-called ABC link.

Incidences of breast cancer in China have increased at an “alarming rate” over the past two decades, corresponding with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy. 

 

The study, titled “A meta-analysis of the association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk among Chinese females” was published this week in Cancer Causes and Control, a peer-reviewed international cancer journal.

The research was conducted by Yubei Huang et al. from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital.
The researchers say they were initially puzzled by their findings, stating that Chinese women “historically” have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US.

They found, however, that incidences of breast cancer in China increased at an “alarming rate” over the past two decades, corresponding with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy.
The one-child policy is strictly enforced, and women who transgress the quota are often forced to abort. Over 336 million babies have been aborted in China since the 1980s.
“The marked change in breast cancer incidence was parallelled to the one-child-per-family policy,” the researchers stated.

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, said the research revals “yet another human rights violation in connection with China's One Child Policy.”
“So, the women of China have to endure the tremendous trauma of late term forced abortion, taking their babies from them, and then years later, breast cancer, taking their health and even their lives from them,” she told LifeSiteNews.com.
 
The researchers reached their conclusions after examining 36 studies that investigated the associations between abortion and breast cancer.
The overall risk of developing breast cancer among women having only one abortion increased by 44 percent.

Calling it the “dose-response relationship” researchers also found that the risk of breast cancer increased as the number of abortions increased. Two abortions increased the risk by 76 percent, three by 89 percent.
“In summary, the most important implication of this study is that IA was significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases,” concluded the researchers.
The researchers called their findings “consistent” with those of Dr. Brind, who found in a 1996 meta-analysis that women had a 30 percent greater chance of developing breast cancer after aborting their child.

“Not only does [the study] validate the earlier findings from 1996, but its findings are even stronger,” Brind told LifeSiteNews.com.

Brind said that pro-abortion advocates should be “very concerned” about the research since it shows how “millions upon millions” of women in Asia are negatively affected by what abortion’s most vocal proponents call a “safe” procedure.
He lamented, however, that “anything that challenges the ‘safe abortion’ mythology is to be challenged, denied, belittled, discredited, dumped on.”

The Chinese research follows on the heels of two similar studies earlier this year. One study published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine in May found a 6-fold greater risk of breast cancer among Indian women with a history of induced abortion when compared to the women with no such history. A similar study from Bangladesh published in the Journal of the Dhaka Medical College in April found that women with a history of induced abortion had a 20-fold increase in likelihood of developing breast cancer when compared to women with no such history.

In a report last month, Brind called the findings of the two studies “of the sort of magnitude that has typified the link between cigarettes and lung cancer.”

Source: LifeSite News

A Sad Story - Will Happen Here

 

Christian B&B owners lose Supreme Court appeal: forced to sell business after gay couple complains

by Hilary White

LONDON, November 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) –

 Peter and Hazelmary Bull, the Christian hoteliers fined for refusing a single room to two homosexual men in September 2008, have lost their appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court, with the court ruling that their company policy was “discriminatory.”

Despite the fact that the couple proved that their policy applied equally to any unmarried couples, and not just homosexuals, all five judges ruled the Bulls’ policy to be a case of illegal discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and dismissed their appeal. Two of the judges said the discrimination was “indirect,” but unjustified.

The elderly couple said they were “deeply disappointed and saddened” at the decision that has “reinforced the notion that gay rights must trump everything else.”

They have said that they have been the victims of an ongoing hate campaign, including threats and abusive phone calls and emails, vandalism of their home and car. The Christian Institute reports that wheel nuts were removed from the couple’s car “and recently a dead rabbit was nailed to their fence”. The website of the business was recently hacked and replaced with pornography.

Mrs. Bull told the Christian Institute in September that they had no choice but to sell their business, having gone hungry and without heating last winter in their struggle to make mortgage payments.
“We’re just ordinary Christians who believe in the importance of marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” Mrs. Bull said in a statement after the verdict.

Peter and Hazelmary Bull following the Supreme Court ruling.

 
“Britain ought to be a country of freedom and tolerance, but it seems religious beliefs must play second fiddle to the new orthodoxy of political correctness,” she added. “Somehow, we have got to find a way of allowing different beliefs to coexist in our society.”

The Supreme Court deputy president, Lady Hale, said the Bulls are free to “manifest their religion” but by refusing to allow homosexual men to share a double bed in their establishment, they were breaking the law.
In what has been called the first national test case of the Equality Act’s Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR) for Christians who hold traditional sexual moral beliefs, the Bulls have lost in every court, starting with the Bristol Crown Court in January 2011.

Moreover, Judge Andrew Rutherford declared in the Bristol Crown Court ruling that in law there is no discernable difference between civil partnership and marriage, a ruling which later helped to pass the Conservative government’s “gay marriage” act.

The legal action has had a huge impact on the Bulls’ lives. In addition to being fined £3,600 for the “hurt and embarrassment” felt by the complainants, Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, the Bulls were ordered to pay the latter’s legal expenses.

The Bulls have failed in their efforts to find a way to continue their business enterprise while living their beliefs. The Government’s tourism board for England struck the Bulls’ B&B off their approved list of guesthouses and homosexualist groups and publications have enacted a boycott.

They tried to turn their guesthouse into a non-profit, Christian-only retreat centre, but have recently announced that their legal fight has been so costly they have no choice but to sell their home. They have operated their business for 25 years and have always made their policy known to guests.
Hazelmary Bull has described their situation as exemplifying the ongoing marginalization of Christianity in Britain. With these kinds of rulings, she said, it is clear that “some people are more equal than others.”

Mrs. Bull told the Christian Institute in September, that they came to the decision to sell as “a gradual process”. “We just noticed more and more that we couldn’t make the mortgage repayments” she said.
“Last winter was terrible. We were actually shivering and were hungry. We are coming towards next winter and dreading it. . In 2013, two people who worked all their lives at this have ended up cold and hungry. It’s not right.”

She described the loss of their home and business as being like a “death in the family”. “I never thought it would end like this. We are not facing the future with any real enthusiasm.”

Source: LifeSite News

Euthanasia

 

Aged Couple’s Joint Suicide Pushes Euthanasia

By Wesley J. Smith
Well, here we are again. The logic of euthanasia–that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering–gets taken to its logical conclusion of death-on-demand.
An elderly French couple, not wanting to ever be apart, killed themselves in a French hotel and left a pro euthanasia suicide note. From the The Local story:

“France has been moved in recent days by the suicide of Georgette and Bernard Cazes, a couple, both aged 86, who took their own lives together in a luxury Paris hotel on Friday. The couple, together since their teens, checked into the world-famous Hotel Lutetia on Thursday night and at some point in the night, they took medication designed to induce a painless death, according to Le Parisien…”

They left an angry suicide note about being denied euthanasia:

“’By what right can a person be forced into a cruel [situation], when they wish to end their life peacefully?’ asked the letter, parts of which were quoted in Le Parisien on Monday. ‘Isn’t my freedom only limited by the freedom of others? By what right can they prevent a person [from ending their life peacefully], when they’ve paid their taxes, have no debts to the state, have worked all their lives, and then done voluntary service?’

“Georgette, in particular, expressed her anger at being denied the ‘gentle death’ they sought, by France’s long-standing ban on euthanasia. Underlining the couple’s determination, their eldest son told Le Parisien on Monday that they had made their decision to die together ‘several decades ago.’ ‘They feared being separated or dependent, more than they feared death,’ he added.”

Belgium already has seen joint euthanasia killings of elderly couples who don’t want to live apart. Switzerland’s suicide clinics have also accommodated joint suicides of the elderly.
Also, to state the obvious, they succeeded in dying. The question is: Should efforts have been made to prevent their suicides if that had been possible? I say yes. Suicide prevention for all, facilitation for none.

But the couple’s note was perfectly logical. They understood the truth about euthanasia.
It’s time the rest of us did too and stop pretending that it is just a teensy, weensy change in morality and policy. It’s still not too late to say no to the culture of death.
Editor’s note. This appeared at nationalreview.com.

Source: NRLC News

Follow the Money Trail and See Where It Leads

Morning-After Pill “completely ineffective” for women over 176 pounds

by John Jansen

On Monday the liberal magazine Mother Jones reported:

The European manufacturer of an emergency contraceptive pill identical to Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, will warn women that the drug is completely ineffective for women who weigh more than 176 pounds and begins to lose effectiveness in women who weigh more than 165 pounds. [emphasis added]

The article also states:

Weight data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that, at 166 pounds, the average American woman is too heavy to use these pills effectively [emphasis added].

Add this to the ever-growing body of evidence that the increasing propagation of so-called “emergency contraception” (EC) has been an utterly failed strategy. (Indeed, this news comes just a few weeks after an article was published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management which found that increased access to EC has had no significant effect on unintended pregnancy or abortion rates—but that it may have led to a decrease in reports of rape.)

Shortly after this news broke, the nation’s largest abortion chain tweeted:

One suspects this tweet was written by Planned Parenthood’s lawyers.
Remember: the new finding is that Plan B (and other forms of EC) don’t work at all for women over 176 pounds, and all Planned Parenthood can say is that women should choose a “better option”? Seriously?

Note also that Planned Parenthood didn’t include a link to the Mother Jones article (or, for that matter, any other article) with more information. So much for being America’s “most trusted provider of reproductive health care.”
 
What remains to be seen now is whether Planned Parenthood will still give EC to women for whom it either won’t work or won’t likely work. Over the past decade, EC has become a major cash cow for them, and it’s hard to envision them hurting their own bottom line, especially considering how many of their clients would fall into one of these two categories.

A Staggering Increase in Planned Parenthood’s EC Numbers

In 2001, Planned Parenthood, distributed [PDF] 458,892 EC kits.  Their numbers continued to increase substantially each year, and in 2004 [PDF], Planned Parenthood distributed nearly one million EC kits.

In 2011 [PDF] (the last year for which data are available), they distributed over 1.4 million EC kits—a staggering increase of 210% over the number they distributed in the first year of this century.
And let’s not forget that it’s we the taxpayers who are often the ones footing the bill for the EC given out by Planned Parenthood.

Do you really think Planned Parenthood is going to allow such a huge chunk of their revenue stream to dry up?

Reprinted with permission from Pro-Life Action League

Source: LifeSite News

Danger Danger

 

NARAL urges pro-aborts to leave fake negative Yelp reviews for pro-life clinics

by Kirsten Andersen

Washington, D.C., November 26, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The nation’s most aggressive abortion advocacy group just finished up what they called “a week of action” aimed at shutting down pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that offer help and resources – but not abortions – to mothers facing unplanned pregnancies.

NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly the National Abortion Rights Action League) asked its supporters to spend the week of Nov. 11-18 doing everything possible to smear the reputation of crisis pregnancy centers, which they call “fake clinics” because they do not perform abortions.
“'Crisis pregnancy centers' (CPCs) are fake clinics set up by anti-choice organizations with a mission to deceive and shame women to deter them considering abortion,” said Ilyse Hogue, NARAL’s president, in a statement.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal accused CPCs of lying about the risks of abortion. “Fake clinics hurt women by giving them false information, such as abortion leading to breast cancer – which is simply not true,” Smeal claimed.
Both women urged NARAL’s supporters to “spread the word” about CPCs and their alleged “lies” about the risks of abortion by flooding user review website Yelp with negative reviews for CPCs – an action called “astroturfing” that actually violates some state laws.  (New York, for example, recently cracked down on the practice, forcing 19 offenders to pay more than $350,000 in fines for posting fake reviews aimed at bolstering or ruining businesses’ reputations online.)

The group also asked supporters to Tweet or post on Tumblr photos of themselves exposing the so-called “lies” of CPCs – including physical risks of the abortion procedure (including perforated bowels), the abortion-breast cancer link, links between cancer and birth control, and the failure of condoms to completely block STDs – and download a series of images to post on Facebook and other social media with the hashtag “#truthfail.”
 
While NARAL claimed crisis pregnancy centers’ information on the risks of abortion and contraceptives are “lies,” the group made no effort to verify any of the relatively outlandish claims made by its supporters on social media, like one woman who claimed she was told by a CPC that “college would be free” if she had a baby.
However, many of the statements the group highlighted as alleged falsehoods are actually scientifically verifiable facts.

Studies around the world have linked abortion to an increased risk of breast cancer, including in the United States, where National Cancer Institute researcher Dr. Louise Brinton and her colleagues acknowledged in 2009 that women who chose to end their pregnancies develop breast cancer at a 40 percent higher rate than those who give birth.  The same study found that oral contraceptive use roughly tripled the risk of certain breast cancers in women, especially aggressive cancers in very young women.

And the risks of surgical abortion have been well-documented both in medical literature and in the press. A late-term abortionist featured in a Salon profile once infamously said, “There are only two kinds of doctors who have never perforated a uterus, those that lie and those who don’t do abortions.”  Other injury risks include severed arteries, perforated bowels, and infections from improperly sterilized surgical equipment.

“NARAL and other pro-abortion organizations seem to want women to consume dangerous contraceptive drugs their entire lives, have as much risky sex as possible, and kill their unborn children if they ever become pregnant,” wrote Adam Cassandra of Human Life International, in response to a NARAL video attacking CPCs for “lying.” “[N]either science nor logic will interfere with their radical agenda.”

“CPCs offer a valuable service to women, but because the resources they provide contradict the pro-abortion narrative, they must be attacked,” added Cassandra. “That NARAL failed so miserably in their attempt to ‘expose’ CPCs but went ahead and publicized their failure anyway shows not only that their organization, but their ‘movement’ is truly desperate.”

Source4: LifeSite News

Assisted Suicide and Dilbert

 

Dilbert creator says he wishes assisted suicide opponents would ‘die a long, horrible death’

by Wesley J. Smith

The Dilbert cartoon brilliantly satirizes our dysfunctional work environments in which bosses are stupid and workers are demoralized or just plain nuts. The strip is one of my favorites. Imagine my dismay to learn that Scott Adams, Dilbert’s creator, says he literally “hates my [f-word] guts” and that he wishes me “to die a long and horrible death.”

Not only that, Adams wants 49% of my fellow citizens to die horrible deaths. Ditto members of the American Medical Association, disability rights activists from Not Dead Yet, and Ted Kennedy’s widow, Victoria. Also Ralph Nader, Bill Clinton, Pope Francis. Oh, and add in my wife, the San Francisco Chronicle political columnist, Debra J. Saunders.

Dilbert is one of my favorite comic strips. Imagine my dismay to learn that Scott Adams, Dilbert’s creator, says he literally “hates my [f-word] guts” and that he wishes me “to die a long and horrible death.”

 

Considering his words, he must be happy that my last hospice patient, Robert Salamenca, died slowly of ALS. He must revel in the slow death of John Paul II, who went into a long period of pronounced decline before expiring.

Adams doesn’t know me, nor I presume, any of the other people I mentioned.  But he hates us. Why? We are on record (or, in the case of the 49%, have been polled by Pew) as opposing doctor-assisted suicide, and that means nothing is too bad or painful to befall us.

You see his father was extremely ill, and Adams wanted to kill him–but can’t under the law. So, he hates us or “torturing” his father. From his blog, “I Hope My Father Dies Soon:”

Let me say this next part as clearly as I can. If you’re a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the future, I hate your [f-word] guts and I would like you to die a long, horrible death. I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out. I won’t do that, because I fear the consequences. But I’d enjoy it, because you mother[f-word] are responsible for torturing my father…

I’m okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. You and the government are accomplices in the torturing of my father, and there’s a good chance you’ll someday be accomplices in torturing me to death too.

Imagine, if a pro-life public figure ever said he hoped pro-choice politicians and activists died an agonizing death. Or one opposed to same sex marriage said something similar about marriage equality proponents…
 
Adams slips in a matter, which I have noticed in much advocacy for euthanasia and assisted suicide, that rarely gets much attention:

I know that many of my fellow citizens have legitimate concerns about doctor-assisted suicide. One can certainly imagine greedy heirs speeding up the demise of grandma to get the inheritance. That would be a strong argument if doctor-assisted suicide wasn’t already working elsewhere with little problems, or if good things in general (such as hospitals and the police) never came with their own risks.

In other words, Adams wants what he wants for his father, and doesn’t care who else gets hurt. By the way, there is no indication from Adams’ piece that his father, who has since died, asked to be made dead.
And anyone who has read my work over the last twenty years knows that euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are hardly “working elsewhere with little problems.” Adams either doesn’t care about the horrors that have been abundantly documented, or he is utterly ignorant but feels free to hate those with whom he disagrees anyway. Take your pick.
Adams concludes with this reaffirmation of his view:

I’m okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. You and the government are accomplices in the torturing of my father, and there’s a good chance you’ll someday be accomplices in torturing me to death too.

My wife interviewed Adams for a piece she wrote about his diatribe. He kept his word, telling her he hoped she died painfully. So too, Victoria Kennedy, as both women are “part of the bad buys.” Apparently, Adams believes that everything would be okay in the world if people who disagree with him would just die!
One final thought: Adams’ grief is no excuse for such vile and quasi-threatening advocacy. I have seen parents of murdered children with more grace than that. Our character expresses itself in times of extremis. Good grief.
Reprinted with permission from Human Exceptionalism.

Source: LifeSite News

Pro-Life Giving

 

How to give so that babies can live on “Giving Tuesday”

by Nancy Flanders

The United Nations Foundation, a strong pro-abortion foundation, has dubbed December 3 the first annual Giving Tuesday. In an effort to inspire people to give more than they get during the holidays, the United Nations Foundation has partnered with over 7,000 organizations, including Catholic Charities of Boston, to help create a more generous country. But if being generous with a foundation that supports and promotes abortion around the world isn’t on your holiday to-do list, here’s some ways you can give and help babies live.

Contact Your Local Pregnancy Center
Right in your area, there’s likely a pro-life pregnancy resource center in desperate need of donations over the holiday season. Helping women and babies doesn’t stop for a Christmas break. Contact your local center and ask what they need so that you can best help them.


Pray Outside a Local Abortion Clinic
If you’ve always wanted to stand and pray outside an abortion clinic, now is your chance. If you feel the calling to do so, contact your local right to life group and find out when and where they pray.

Donate to Pro-Life Groups
Most pro-life organization are non-profits and could use your support to further their impact. They don’t have the big bucks that Planned Parenthood and the United Nations have to spend on the abortion battle. Your donation can help them keep fighting to save babies, help women, and educate Americans.

Distribute Pro-Life Brochures
Pro-Life informational brochures are a great way to get the truth about abortion out to the general public. Right now, and for a limited time, you can get the Sharing the Pro-Life Message handbook free from Pro-Life Action League. And you can get more copies at bulk pricing. Or you could become a distributor of Live Action’s The Advocate.

Host a Party
It’s the time of year for parties, so why not host a holiday party and invite friends and family to bring an item or check to donate to a crisis pregnancy center or any other pro-life organization. It’s the perfect way to give rather than receive this holiday season.

There are plenty of ways you can give so that babies live this season. Whether it’s a donation of your money or your time, saving the life of even one child a priceless feeling

Source: LiveAction News

Pope Francis on Life

 

Pope Francis’ “The Joy of the Gospel” is a beautiful and thoughtful celebration of the Catholic Church’s love for unborn children and their mothers

By Dave Andrusko

Pope Francis

Pro-lifers will come away from Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) — Pope Francis’ 84-page Apostolic Exhortation released today– blessed by his breadth of his insight and depth of his compassion for mother and unborn child.
It is not surprising, of course, that Pope Francis affirmed the Catholic Church’s historically staunch pro-life position. But adding to the force of his presentation is Pope Francis’s plain-spoken explanation of why reason, faith, and internal consistency mean that this position could never be up for discussion.

Pope Francis writes

“Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, ‘every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual.’ Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question. I want to be completely honest in this regard. This is not something subject to alleged reforms or ‘modernizations.’ It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.”

Source: NRLC News

RU 486- Chemical Abortion

 

Pro-abortionists try to ease the way for introduction of RU-486 into Canada

By Dave Andrusko
Two pro-abortionists have published an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, arguing that Canadian women are not receiving the “best abortion option” for non-surgical abortions —RU-486.

Dr. Sheila Dunn and attorney Rebecca Cook “say Health Canada is currently studying an application to bring that option, a drug commonly known as RU-486, to the Canadian market,” according to Helen Branswell, writing in The Globe and Mail newspaper.

“We don’t ever know the reasons that people have for not bringing drugs into different countries,” Dunn told Branswell. “Some of them will be economic. And sometimes if it’s going to be really onerous to actually get drug approval and the economic margins are not going to be such that makes it worthwhile for someone to do that, that may be a deterrent.”

How are non-surgical abortions in Canada currently performed? According to Dunn, by use of the drug methotrexate, which she described to Branswell as “second rate.” (It’s traditionally used as a drug to fight cancer.)

But “second rate” hardly captures what Dunn then explained are methotrexate’s dangers.
“Methotrexate is prescribed off-label for abortions, meaning it is not intended for that purpose, Dunn said. Additionally, it must be administered by injection, takes longer to work than mifepristone, and is less reliable. Methotrexate can also cause serious birth defects if the abortion is unsuccessful, so women must be tracked and monitored by health professionals.”
All that is true, and more! But Dunn and Cook manage to miss everything that is wrong about RU-486, which is actually an extremely powerful two-drug combination: mifepristone, which kills the baby, and misoprostol, a prostaglandin that induces contractions to expel the dead baby.
For over twenty years National Right to Life has followed the history of RU-486’s securing approval in the United States and what has happened since. Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, NRLC’s Director of Education, is an expert.

Just last week he wrote a brilliant post, based on a new edition of a strong pro-abortion critique of RU-486 (“RU-486 Now Safe? Feminist researcher who opposed abortion pill in 1991 book still doesn’t think so,” http://nrlc.cc/1c75eR).

Far from taking anything back, writing in a ninety-page preface to a new edition of “RU486: Misconceptions, Myths and Morals” published earlier this year, Renate Klein is as convinced as ever that after seeing twenty plus years of RU-486 on the market “a down-to-earth rational best practice approach that truly respects women’s health and well being could not, in good faith, endorse this fraught abortion method.”

Indeed, speaking of “second rate,” Klein repeats here what she has published elsewhere–that she sees a ”RU 486/PG abortion as an unsafe, second-rate abortion method with significant problems”
Here are just a few of the dangers of this potent drug combination:

• The troubling tendency among researchers to catalogue a long list of serious “adverse reactions” (complications) and then go on nonetheless to declare the two-drug combination “safe and effective,” against their own evidence. As Dr. O’Bannon wrote, “One researcher Klein cites is Régine Sitruk-Ware. In a 2006 review of large postmarketing studies in the U.S. and France, Sitruk-Ware found 10% of women suffering from excessive bleeding, 1.4% requiring curettage to control bleeding, and 0.25% requiring blood transfusions. Though Klein says these sound like low percentages and cites another study that makes these look like underestimates, she points out that for the 1.5 million said to have undergone such abortions in the U.S., this would mean 150,000 women experiencing excessive bleeding, 21,000 requiring curettage, and 3,750 needing transfusions. These are hardly inconsequential numbers.”
•  
• In her updated book, Klein shares data from the April 30, 2011, “Postmarketing Events Summary” put out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That summary reported 2,207 adverse events, 14 U.S. deaths, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 256 infections, and 339 women requiring transfusions. Klein notes that only 1% to 10% of complications are typically reported to the FDA, meaning the numbers could be 10 or even 100 times higher.” And remember that this was as of early 2011! Klein says that because RU-486 increases women’s susceptibility to infection, “this means that RU-486 is a drug unsuited for abortion purposes.”
•  
• Abortion practitioners have aggressively pushed to have the woman take the prostaglandin at home. To Klein, the idea that a woman could simply take powerful medications, go home, and call the doctor if she started having problems was not just “nonsensical,” but dangerous. If something goes wrong during the surgical abortion and a woman begins to hemorrhage, she is already there at the clinic and can immediately receive medical treatment. However if she begins to hemorrhage at home, even if she recognizes it as such, she may be miles from any care [and maybe hundreds of miles if she gets her abortion pills via webcam].

“Even if she does go to an emergency room, because the symptoms of an afebrile infection (one occurring without the usual fever) or a ruptured ectopic pregnancy are quite similar to the ordinary pain, cramping, and bleeding of a chemical abortion, even a doctor could miss them,” Dr. O’Bannon writes. “Given that similarity, the doctor could examine her, prescribe some additional pain pills, and send her home, just like he did Holly Patterson, failing to treat her infection until it was too late.”
These are just a handful of reasons why chemical abortions are dangerous in their own right and even more so if employed as part of a “webcam” abortion where the abortionist is NEVER in the same room as the pregnant woman.

Two other quick but important points. First, Dunn and Cook promote the ridiculously misleading description of an RU-486 abortion as one that “essentially induces a miscarriage.” It’s an abortion, pure and simple, but one that is not only dangerous but can be unbelievably painful (see “Two stories from New York Magazine unintentionally reinforce the pro-life case against abortion”).
Second, a two-sentence aside in Branswell’s story: “There were clinical trials of the drug in Canada early in the last decade. But one was stopped after a woman who received the drug died of a bacterial infection.”

Yes, exactly!
We can only hope that Canada is wiser than we were and keeps RU-486 out of our neighbor to the North.

Soure: NRLC News

Supremes Will Hear 2 Cases on Religious Freedom

 

Supreme Court agrees to hear to two lawsuits against Obama Mandate

By Dave Andrusko

Photo Credit: AP

As widely anticipated, the Supreme Court this morning agreed to hear two lawsuits challenging the HHS mandate which compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.
Plaintiffs had prevailed in one case—Hobby Lobby—and lost in a second– Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. There are other similar cases but the justices did not announce whether they will hear them at this time.

This represents the first legal challenge to ObamaCare to reach the Supreme Court since it upheld the law’s “individual mandate” 17 months ago. Early speculation is that oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius will be held in March with a possible ruling by late June.

Because there was a split among circuit courts and because the Obama Administration in September asked the Justices to hear the Hobby Lobby case, it was widely assumed the justices would hear at least some of the lawsuits against the mandate. (The HHS mandate are regulations adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services under a provision of ObamaCare, formally known as the “Affordable Care Act.”)

The core arguments raised are that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.
“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said David Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO. “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

“This is a major step for the Greens and their family businesses in an important fight for Americans’ religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby. “The cases will decide ‘who gets to exercise religion — it’s really that simple,’ Duncan told POLITICO. ‘The idea that the protection of religious liberty is confined to only certain pursuits … from our perspective, that’s disturbing.’”

In July, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton granted the company a preliminary injunction against the HHS mandate. Prior to that the full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, which employs more than 13,000 full-time workers.
As noted yesterday, Adam Liptak (writing for the New York Times) explained how the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals applied “the First Amendment logic of [the 2010 case of] Citizens United” in ruling for Hobby Lobby.

“’We see no reason the Supreme Court would recognize constitutional protection for a corporation’s political expression but not its religious expression,’ Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich wrote for the majority.

The potential penalties for non-compliance with the mandates are staggering. “[L]arger for-profit corporations must comply or face fines of $100 per day per employee, which could total $475 million a year in Hobby Lobby’s case,” CNN reported today. “An alternative — dropping employee health insurance altogether — would cost $26 million in annual penalties

Source: NRLC News

Beautiful Story

 

“As if he was telling us ‘I’m okay!!! Don’t give up on me!,’” the incredible story of a baby born at 25 weeks who is doing fine

 

By Dave Andrusko

Ward Miles in his 10th day of life.

It was purely a coincidence. No sooner had I finished writing about the sad, sad story of Ariel Levy’s miscarriage at 19 weeks than I ran across “One Miraculous Year In The Life Of A Baby Born Too Soon,” the amazing story of how little Ward Miles, born at 25 weeks, survived incredible odds and is now a thriving 16-month-old toddler.

The setting for the story that appeared on Huffington Post was the surprise video Ben Miller made for his wife, Lyndsey Miller, on her 32nd birthday. “I had tricked her into thinking I was working on other projects late into the night,” her husband Ben told the Huffington Post. “I called her back to my office and as soon as she saw Ward on the screen she knew I had been working on something for her and she started crying.”

Making it more perfect is that her birthday coincided with the one-year-anniversary of the day Ward came home from the hospital.

And Ward had really been up against it. Lyndsey, only 25 weeks along, experienced cramps. Turns out she was in labor and four hours after her doctor sent her to the hospital, Ward was born.
It was not until ten days passed that doctors did their first brain scan, according to the Huffington Post’s Farah L. Miller. There are four grades—with four being the worst. Ward scored 2 on one side of his brain and four on the other.

“We were devastated,” Ben told Miller. “The bleeds could lead to severe problems down the road. And we couldn’t do anything to fix it. The doctors couldn’t do anything to fix it. It was a horrible feeling. All we could do was pray.”

One can only imagine just how devastated the couple was. Yet the very night they received the terrible news, Ben wrote this in his journal.

“At the 6:00 care time, we were holding his hand, looking at him, talking to him. His CPAP mask was off, and his feeding tube was out as well. He was feeling good since he didn’t have any of that on. While we were watching him, he turned his little head towards us, and then opened his eyes. We know he can’t see at this stage, but the fact that he opened them, and opened them so wide we had not seen before. He stared right at us. He held our gaze. Just looked right at us. Didn’t blink. I had enough time to get a photo of it. After a little while he shut his little eyes and turned his head back to the ceiling. I will never forget that moment. I feel as if he was telling us ‘I’m okay!!! Don’t give up on me!”

Miller’s story concludes with an update on Ward, now 16 months, and his considerable progress. Although he’s just learning to crawl, he’s been trying to walk for months. “He has some words, including “dog” and “Mc” (the name of one of the family dogs), though he is still working on “puppy” and “Samson” (their other pet),” Miller writes. The story ends delightfully:

“Ben jokes that Lyndsey has now watched the video so many times, she might make up half of its hits on Vimeo. But with over 250,000 views, and those numbers climbing, it’s more likely that he has done something amazing for the world beyond their little family.

“As one NICU nurse wrote of the film on Tumblr: ‘This is why I do what I do.’

“Bravo, Ben. Happy Birthday, Lyndsey. We’re cheering for you, Ward.”

You can watch Ben’s surprise video at www.youtube.com.


Source: NRLC News

Religious Freedom and HHS Mandate

 

Obama Mandate suffers another defeat as judge upholds right of religious freedom

By Dave Andrusko

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik

Earlier this week, we wrote about the Obama Administration’s dismal track record in court, defending its HHS mandate which compels employers to provide health coverage for drugs and procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.

Today it suffered another serious setback in a case brought against the mandate by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Diocese of Erie, and several affiliated nonprofit groups when U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab granted their request for an injunction.
“Without the injunction,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Rich Lord, “the insurance administrators for the organizations — though not the dioceses themselves — would have had to start providing the coverage Jan. 1.”

“I was relieved, obviously, because the issue that we had been dealing with in this lawsuit is the protection of religious freedom,” said Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “This is an absolutely critical decision. If it has to go to the Supreme Court, I’m moving with it all the way.”

Without the injunction these organizations faced massive fines. “We knew there would be at least a $2 million hit annually if there wasn’t some protection from the court,” said Susan Rauscher, executive director of Catholic Charities. “We’re happy that we can do business as usual.”
On the other side was Obama’s Department of Justice, which argued that not all the people these Catholic organizations serve are Catholic, nor are all the organization’s employees. Lord summarized the judge’s decision in three succinct paragraphs:

“Judge Schwab, though, adopted the diocesan argument that no distinction could be drawn between the charitable arms of the church and its houses of worship.

“The judge wrote in his 65-page opinion that he was ruling on whether ‘the Government will be permitted to sever the Catholic Church into two parts (i.e., worship and faith, and ‘good works’) — in other words, whether the Government will be successful in restricting the Right to the Free Exercise of Religion as set forth in the First Amendment to a Right to Worship only.’

“The judge wrote that he ‘is constrained to understand why religious employers such as Catholic Charities and Prince of Peace Center — which were born from the same religious faith, and premised upon the same religious tenets and principles, and operate as extensions and embodiments of the Church, but are not subsidiaries of a parent corporation — would not be treated the same as the Church itself with respect to the free exercise of that religion.’”

Bishop Zubik said, “What the judge essentially said in his decision was that faith without works is dead.”

Lord began his story by noting that the preliminary decision “could set the tone in a legal fight of national scope.”

Source: NRLC News

Heartbreaking Story

 

The fragility of life: a heart-breaking account of a baby lost to miscarriage

By Dave Andrusko
It is the end of the week and the day is rapidly getting away from me. I want to make sure that if I get to no other story today, I tell you about “THANKSGIVING IN MONGOLIA: Adventure and heartbreak at the edge of the earth,” by Ariel Levy which appeared in this week’s New Yorker.

It is Ms. Levy’s deeply sorrowful account of her miscarriage while on assignment in, of all places, Mongolia. Over the decades I have read many stories of wanted babies lost, despite all that the mother could do. And, like anyone with a huge extended family, there have been many miscarriages in the Andrusko/Castle clan. But perhaps because our daughter-in-law recently delivered out second grandchild safely, this essay really hit home

Tragically, Levy blames herself for flying thousands of miles while in her 19th week, although her doctor assures her that had nothing to do with the loss of her baby boy. (The doctor told her she had a placental abruption, a very rare condition and that her miscarriage could have happened any place. Levy lost her baby in her hotel room.)

While there are a few asides that are hardly PG, I would strongly encourage you to read her narrative. While it is very difficult to read, there are whole sections that remind us just how developed, how amazingly beautiful the unborn child actually is and how profoundly we grieve when a child is lost.
What follows is an extensive quote, which begins just after she writes of tremendous pain so frightful it drops her to her knees:

“I felt an unholy storm move through my body, and after that there is a brief lapse in my recollection; either I blacked out from the pain or I have blotted out the memory. And then there was another person on the floor in front of me, moving his arms and legs, alive. I heard myself say out loud, ‘This can’t be good.’ But it looked good. My baby was as pretty as a seashell.

“He was translucent and pink and very, very small, but he was flawless. His lovely lips were opening and closing, opening and closing, swallowing the new world. For a length of time I cannot delineate, I sat there, awestruck, transfixed. Every finger, every toenail, the golden shadow of his eyebrows coming in, the elegance of his shoulders—all of it was miraculous, astonishing. I held him up to my face, his head and shoulders filling my hand, his legs dangling almost to my elbow. I tried to think of something maternal I could do to convey to him that I was, in fact, his mother, and that I had the situation completely under control. I kissed his forehead and his skin felt like a silky frog’s on my mouth.

“I was vaguely aware that there was an enormous volume of blood rushing out of me, and eventually that seemed interesting, too. I looked back and forth between my offspring and the lake of blood consuming the bathroom floor and I wondered what to do about the umbilical cord connecting those two things. It was surprisingly thick and ghostly white, a twisted human rope. I felt sure that it needed to be severed—that’s always the first thing that happens in the movies. I was afraid that if I didn’t cut that cord my baby would somehow suffocate. I didn’t have scissors. I yanked it out of myself with one swift, violent tug.

“In my hand, his skin started to turn a soft shade of purple. I bled my way across the room to my phone and dialled the number for Cox’s doctor. I told the voice that answered that I had given birth in the Blue Sky Hotel and that I had been pregnant for nineteen weeks. The voice said that the baby would not live. ‘He’s alive now,’ I said, looking at the person in my left hand. The voice said that he understood, but that it wouldn’t last, and that he would send an ambulance for us right away. I told him that if there was no chance the baby would make it I might as well take a cab. He said that that was not a good idea.

“Before I put down my phone, I took a picture of my son. I worried that if I didn’t I would never believe he had existed.”

She tells us that she cried all the time in the beginning (“It seemed to me that grief was leaking out of me from every orifice”) and still does, although “just” once a day.
People try to say the right thing—sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But Levy wants them (and us) to know this loss was of a somebody, not an abstraction or a “potential person.”
She writes, “I had given birth, however briefly, to another human being, and it seemed crucial that people understand this. Often, after I told them, I tried to get them to look at the picture of the baby on my phone.”

By everything she wrote Levy’s healing will be very slow, very gradual. Perhaps this is because she was older when she became pregnant, having not really thought that parenthood was necessarily for her. Although she never says it in so many words, Levy likely believes this was her only chance to bear a child.
Say a prayer for her and all the other mothers who have lost babies to a miscarriage.

Source: NRLC News

No Doctor/ No Policy/ No Truth

 

President’s assurance that you can keep your own doctor goes the way of the equally misleading notion that you can keep your health insurance policy

 

By Dave Andrusko
To its credit, Gallup picked up on a sentence in a story in POLITICO and ran with it. Specifically, according to POLITICO, “The president didn’t say ‘Obamacare’ once during his nearly hour-long news conference last week, while he referred to the ‘Affordable Care Act’ a dozen times.”
Frank Newport, the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, writes today (In Polling Matters) that

“It is likely that White House strategists developed the new approach — perhaps based on internal polling — under the assumption that the more formal name ‘Affordable Care Act’ would help in the current toxic environment of the negative publicity associated with the troubled rollout of the healthcare exchanges. Additionally, The White House may think that, at this juncture, it is best not to directly reinforce Obama’s association with the law.”

To test that out, Gallup tried four different ways of describing ObamaCare/Affordable Care Act. While no way of describing it secured majority support [!], “Only mentioning the Affordable Care Act yields the highest support (45%), while only mentioning Obamacare yields the lowest support (38%).” In other words merely mentioning the President’s name diminishes support. Thus avoiding “ObamaCare” in favor of the “Affordable Care Act” is (in Newport’s opinion) part of “a branding strategy.”
But that’s only part of today’s round of bad news for the President.
Everyone who followed the debate over ObamaCare knew that it was patently untrue (contrary to what the President kept promising) that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” That this was not true has been proven by the events of the last month.
But the second biggest myth (not counting the counter-intuitive notion that overall costs would not go up) was that you and I could keep our own doctors. (And, yes, this was this morning’s discussion point over coffee at the Andrusko household.) Here’s how the Washington Post began its account today:

“As Americans have begun shopping for health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated hospitals.

“The Obama administration made it a priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed to.

“The decisions have provoked a backlash. In one closely watched case, Seattle Children’s Hospital has filed suit against Washington’s insurance commissioner after a number of insurers kept it out of their provider networks. ‘It is unprecedented in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Children’s,’ said Sandy Melzer, senior vice president.

“The result, some argue, is a two-tiered system of health care: Many of the people who buy health plans on the exchanges have fewer hospitals and doctors to choose from than those with coverage through their employers.

“A number of the nation’s top hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis — are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.”

And that doesn’t even address a very grim truth for physicians:

“Many doctors are disturbed that they’ll be paid less – often a lot less – to care for the millions of patients who are projected to buy coverage through the health law’s new insurance marketplaces.”

Also when we talked the other day about President Obama’s 37% approval ratings, I neglected to mention what John Nolte did today:

“A fascinating number in Wednesday’s CBS poll is that only 7% of the American public want ObamaCare ‘kept in place.’ A full 93% either believe that changes are needed to the law (48%) or want a full repeal (43%).”

One other item—the cover of TIME magazine, dated December 2. The design is of a broken pill (“Obama/Care”) with the headline, “Broken Promise—What it means for this Presidency” followed by subhead, “Plus what it means for your Health Care.”

TIME’s Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs proceeds to wrap the President’s knuckles a good one, questioning what is the fate of his second term with this albatross (my word) around his neck.

Source: NRLC News

RU 486//RU Crazy

 

RU-486 Now Safe? Feminist researcher who opposed abortion pill in 1991 book still doesn’t think so — Part One of two

 

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL-ETF Director of Education & Research
It caused a bit of a stir in 1991 when three “pro-choice” feminists came out with a book warning of the dangers of the chemical abortifacient RU-486. “RU486: Misconception, Myths and Morals,” written by Renate Klein, a biologist and social scientist from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, Janice Raymond, a professor of women’s studies from the University of Amherst (Massachusetts), and Lynette Dumble, a member of the University of Melbourne’s Department of Surgery, won awards and received some momentary coverage in the press. But ultimately, the pro-abortion establishment pushed back and plowed ahead, ignoring the warnings.

Approved in the U.S., the chemical abortion method is now legally on the market in at least 50 countries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approved RU-486 in September of 2000, says that 1.5 million women had used the drug as of April 2011. In Europe, one international group promoting chemical abortifacients says that as of 2009, RU486 had already been used by two million (womenonweb.org, accessed 11/19/13, at www.womenonweb.org/en/page/561/is-a-medical-abortion-dangerous).
The notorious chemical abortion method is, of course, actually a two-drug combination. RU-486 (known as mifepristone) blocks the hormone that creates and sustains the safe, nurturing environment in the womb where the young baby grows. Misoprostol, the prostaglandin given a day or so later, initiates powerful uterine contractions to dislodge the now starved child.
Over the past several years, there have been modifications of dosages, the addition of antibiotics to some regimens, new warnings have been added to the label.
Does any of this satisfy Renate Klein, one of the original feminist critics?
Hardly.

Writing in a ninety-page preface to a new edition of RU486: Misconceptions, Myths and Morals published earlier this year, far from taking anything back, after seeing twenty plus years of RU-486 on the market, Klein is as convinced as ever that “a down-to-earth rational best practice approach that truly respects women’s health and well being could not, in good faith, endorse this fraught abortion method.”

Klein repeats here what she has published elsewhere–that she sees a ”RU 486/PG abortion as an unsafe, second-rate abortion method with significant problems”
Unapologetically “pro-choice,” Klein explicitly favors surgical abortion as a safer, easier option. But her honest, clear eyed appraisal of chemical methods and the significant risks they pose for women is rare among those who champion abortion as essential to women’s rights.

Ignoring their own evidence
In the new preface, Klein notes a troubling tendency among researchers to catalogue a long list of serious “adverse reactions” (or complications) and then to go on to declare the two-drug combination “safe and effective,” against their own evidence.
One researcher Klein cites is Régine Sitruk-Ware. In a 2006 review of large postmarketing studies in the U.S. and France, Sitruk-Ware found 10% of women suffering from excessive bleeding, 1.4% requiring curettage to control bleeding, and 0.25% requiring blood transfusions.

Though Klein says these sound like low percentages and cites another study that makes these look like underestimates, she points out that for the 1.5 million said to have undergone such abortions in the U.S., this would mean 150,000 women experiencing excessive bleeding, 21,000 requiring curettage, and 3,750 needing transfusions. These are hardly inconsequential numbers.

Sitruk-Ware said, according to Klein, that “Women living in areas where no medical facilities are available should not be included in the medical [chemical] protocol of TOP [termination of pregnancy] unless referrals, and possible transportation are available for emergencies.” Obviously, this is not a statement you heard quoted a lot by the pro-abortionists or their allies in the media during discussions over the Texas law that requires abortionists to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.

Sitruk-Ware also notes the higher risk of infection, potentially serious drug interaction issues, special risks for asthma sufferers, and risk of “malformations” to the “fetus” should the pregnancy continue. Yet then, Klein notes, Sitruk-Ware, like so many chemical abortion researchers before and after her, goes on to declare that the safety and the efficacy of the method has been confirmed.
While Sitruk-Ware does issue some cautions, Klein says her warnings never show up in the mainstream promotional literature for the drugs.

Significant Complications
While “study after study” shows a high rate of adverse effects, Klein says that these are ignored or downplayed in most popular discussions of the drug.

Recounting information that may be familiar to regular readers of National Right to Life News Today, Klein shares data from the April 30, 2011, “Postmarketing Events Summary” put out by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That summary reported 2,207 adverse events, 14 U.S. deaths, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 256 infections, and 339 women requiring transfusions. Klein notes that only 1% to 10% of complications are typically reported to the FDA, meaning the numbers could be 10 or even 100 times higher.” And remember that this was as only of early 2011.

Klein notes that several of these deaths involved the rare bacteria Clostridium sordellii, which prompted a joint investigation by the FDA and Centers for Disease Control in May of 2006. Experts presented evidence that RU 486 might suppress immunity [1], but the conference ultimately came to no official conclusion on the reason behind the sudden rash of incidents specifically among the population of chemically aborting women and RU-486 remained on the market.
The FDA made it sound as if pregnancy itself [!] was the culprit and simply let stand special warnings added to the label in November of 2004.

Klein says that because RU-486 increases women’s susceptibility to infection, “this means that RU-486 is a drug unsuited for abortion purposes.”

A drug safety information update issued by the FDA in July of 2011 tells patients to contact a health practitioner right away if they “develop stomach pain or discomfort, or have weakness, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea with or without fever, more than 24 hours after taking misoprostol” (the second drug in the process) as it could be an indicator of infection.

Klein says “this advice comes close to being nonsensical,” given the pain, diarrhea, vomiting and cramping that normally accompany these abortions, along with the heavy bleeding. If patients took that advice, Klein guesses that “close to 100%” would be contacting the abortionist, who she expects would simply give the woman reassurance.

Editor’s note. On Friday we will pick up Dr. O’Bannon’s research where he discusses Klein’s observations on the deaths of two women who had ingested the two-drugs that make up RU-486 regimen and another significant side effect of the method that hasn’t been addressed much in the literature.

[1] In the 1991 edition of their book, Klein and her co-authors had warned about similar issues with the accompanying prostaglandin.

Source: NRLC News

Suicide and Hollywood

 

It’s a Wonderful (Day to Take Your) Life?

by Ben Johnson

Once again, Hollywood has delivered what no one asked for. This time, it’s a sequel to the heartwarming holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. The 1946 Frank Capra masterpiece, about an angel-in-training convincing a suicidal Jimmy Stewart that every life matters, could only be described as “pro-life.”

The remake will deliver a much different message. Variety reports:

Karolyn Grimes, who played George Bailey’s daughter Zuzu in the original, will return for the sequel as an angel who shows Bailey’s unlikable grandson (also named George Bailey) how much better off the world would have been had he never been born.

This less-than-heartwarming update is set to be released during the holidays in 2015.
The original film ended by persuading George Bailey not to commit suicide. How will this version end? It’s a Wonderful Day to Take Your Life??

And just what kind of an “angel” tells people the world would be better off if they were dead?

With massive unemployment, ObamaCare-fueled insurance premium hikes, and strained budgets threatening to make Christmas a lean time for families across the country, the last thing Americans need is another reason to commit suicide.

Admitted, this is a preliminary description, and the film might have some heartwarming ending. Theoretically, Bailey could see the errors of his ways and reform himself, Ebeneezer Scrooge-style. But we already have A Christmas Carol. So, why make this film?
“This project allows us the opportunity to play a historical role in the next-generation of one of the greatest movies of all time,” the film’s financier, Allen J. Schwalb, told Entertainment Weekly. “Our new film will continue the classic story of George Bailey and his family for an entirely new generation of moviegoers.”

No, reruns of the original film continue its story for a new generation. An unwanted, twisted sequel contradicts and ruins that story.

Looking over Schwalb’s track record as a film financier, a pattern emerges: He has brought to life some unforgettable and moving original films like Rain Man, The Right Stuff, The Killing Fields,[1] Heartbreak Ridge, and The Color Purple – even underappreciated or quirky films like Irreconcilable Differences (a poignant film showing the evils of adultery, materialism, and divorce, starring a young Drew Barrymore) and Better Off Dead. (“I was just wondering how you’d feel if I took out Beth?”)
But he has a weakness: he finances the worst sequels in a series. With a few exceptions (notably Sudden Impact), his are inevitably the must-skip stinkers of the franchise: Poltergeist III, Superman III and IV, Rocky V, and the third installment of George Burns’ Oh God series, Oh God! You Devil!

 [2]
George Bailey’s suicide would be the Star Wars Holiday Special of remakes.
Allen, buddy, let me use an example you might remember. In Irreconcilable Differences, Ryan O’Neal ruins his career by making Atlanta, a musical version of Gone with the Wind.[3] It bombs because, y’know, people don’t want an ironic spin on classics.
Sometimes life imitates art.
Instead of tampering with perfection, why not make a movie about an intelligent but emotionally detached doctor with a hoarding complex who gradually devolves from helping inner-city drug addicts to pumping drugs into black neighborhoods and serially murdering black babies? You can call it The Kermit Gosnell Story.
I’d love to pitch it to you. Let’s do lunch.
Cross-posted on TheRightsWriter.com.

ENDNOTES:
1. An act of thoughtcrime for which alone he should be thanked.
2. Of course, a few years ago, Hollywood considered remaking Oh God! with Ellen DeGeneres playing God. But that’s another story….
3. Sharon Stone dropping a wounded soldier as she bursts into song is the most memorable scene in the film.

Source: LifeSite News

Euthanasia

 

Australian euthanasia advocate Nitschke opens Internet suicide clinic

by Wesley J. Smith

Australia’s Philip Nitschke is Jack Kevorkian, squared, but without our late ghoul’s willingness to put his own freedom on the line for his beliefs.

How noxious is Nitschke? Just read Kathryn Jean Lopez’s interview with him from more than ten years ago, in which he said that suicide pills should be sold in supermarkets and available to “troubled teens.”

Philip Nitschke

Now, he is set to open an Internet suicide clinic. From the International Business News story:

With Independent MP Bob Such’s Ending Life with Dignity bill creating such a huge discussion in parliament, it’s only timely that Australia’s first euthanasia clinic should also be discussed. Dr Philip Nitschke, voluntary euthanasia campaigner and Exit International director, confirmed that by November 24 the clinic and laboratory will be open.

However, he is quick to clarify that the clinic will not be a place for people to die. It will offer virtual internet consultations, productive and concrete advice about euthanasia, information, and distribute nitrogen kits. There will of course be some amount of education on the topic to be supplied by the facility.
“Testing drugs to give people accurate information about what will happen if they are consumed is an important medical service and entirely consistent with the principals of harm minimization,” Dr Nitschke added.

I have always been amazed at how obsessed with “technique” and death “testing” these people are. And how are death methods tested? On animals? On people? Funny, the media seems very uncurious about that.
What can we learn here? Euthanasia/assisted suicide are not medical. Kevorkian used carbon monoxide. Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry and Final Exit Network promote helium as a killer. Nitschke promotes nitrogen.
Should these poisonous gases be covered by health insurance or available by prescription? Should these suicide fanatics be arrested for practicing medicine without a license?  Please.
 
One lonely, death-obsessed, nihilistic nut, you say? Wrong. He epitomizes the more candid wing of the euthanasia movement. Others are just as radical–at least implicitly–just more well tailored and politic in their messaging. Indeed, Nitschke isn’t scorned by his co-believers, but embraced–often a star speaker at international euthanasia conferences around the world.

Reprinted with permission from Human Exceptionalism. 

Source: LifeSite News