Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Human Dignity aqnd Bioethics


 

Defending human dignity as the foundation of bioethics


By Michael Cook |
humandignityEnglish barrister and medical ethicist Charles Foster has penned defence of “human dignity” as the foundation of bioethics in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He believes that it is more adequate than the reigning view that autonomy is its fundamental principle. In particular dignity does a far better job of explaining why body parts or patients in a vegetative state deserve respect.

Foster is well aware that the concept of dignity has weaknesses:
Dignity has a smug tendency to rest on its laurels. Its advocates have often responded to criticism of the use of dignity by philosophical name-calling—along the lines of “You don’t like dignity, and therefore you must be a Nazi/communist/utilitarian/shallow reductionist.” That’s not argument. It rightly produces derision from the dignity deniers. They tend to respond in kind, saying words to the effect of “You’re a credulous, theologically contaminated mystic.” And so it goes on. A lot of the literature on dignity is comprised of these sorts of exchanges. It is not amusing for long, and not productive at all.

However, autonomy is “hardly more satisfactory and less question-begging”. In particular, it fails to take into account the web of relationships in which we all exist.
What is dignity? “Dignity is objective human thriving. …Dignity is about being human well. A dignity-enhancing measure is a humanizing measure. There are things that are objectively humanizing and things that are not.” Good things include health and companionship; bad things include isolation and arsenic.

Even if human dignity sounds airy-fairy to those of a utilitarian cast of mind, Foster points out that it has already been enshrined in law in the European Convention on Human Rights:
Article 8(1) provides that “(1) everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” But this right is not absolute. …

It is now clear that Article 8 is the natural home of dignity. It is a rather tense home. The space is shared with autonomy, and there are sometimes silent, icy breakfasts and sometimes shouting matches. Also the landlords (the Strasbourg court) won’t leave the place alone. They are always redecorating and adding on extensions. But there is no danger of dignity being ousted. Indeed, it now holds, with autonomy, a perpetual joint tenancy. It used to have a bare license, and autonomy kept it in a shabby spare room. Dignity is here to stay, and its main address is Article 8.
Foster is clever debater and stylish writer (unlike most bioethicists). This is an essay which is well worth reading as a defence of an often maligned concept.
Editor’s note. This appeared at bioedge.org.
Source: NRLC News

Abortion in Mexico and...


 

Ipas Promotes Illegal Abortion Network in Mexico


Editor’s note. Ipas is an international abortion advocacy organization. This analysis appeared on the website of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI).
IPASWhile promoting access to abortion as a “reproductive right” at the United Nations and advocating for the elimination of pro-life laws, Ipas is also busy creating illegal abortion networks in Mexico. The work is based on an “accompaniment model” which pairs abortion seeking women with volunteers who guide a woman through the self-induced or do-it-yourself (DIY) abortion. It is the subject of the documentary “Accompaniment” by Ipas partner Las Libres.

According to the Ipas website, “Ipas partner Las Libres has produced a short documentary film detailing its successful ‘accompaniment model’ that pairs women seeking medical abortion with women committed to accompanying others on a volunteer basis throughout the process of a safe abortion.” (It is important to note that “safe” abortion in this context is illegal abortion or in Ipas terminology “outside the formal health system”.) Las Libres Executive Director Verónica Cruz stated, “…we were tired of hearing that abortion is almost always a negative experience for women.”
The network promoting the illegal destruction of children in the womb has been operating for a number of years in the Mexican state of Guanajuato where abortion is legally restricted and permitted only in the case of rape but where Ipas has trained volunteers on the use of abortion inducing pills for illegal DIY abortion. Volunteers accompany abortion-minded women to the pharmacy to buy the drug–usually Cytotec/Misoprostol–and tell her how to take the pills, calling or texting during the abortion process.

Las Libres’s goal for the network is to change the cultural view of abortion by showing “the other face of abortion, the positive experience, the accompanied experience, the exercise of the human right of women to decide, and the accompaniment of women by other women who have lived the accompaniment process … to see how after a safe abortion, accompanied, that woman, that couple or that family eliminates the stigma around abortion.”

The film is expected to be shared “widely via social media, public screenings, university classes, conferences, partner organizations, and through the various accompaniment networks that already exist across Mexico.” The intent is that the “film will help reduce the stigma surrounding abortion in Mexico and help viewers cultivate a new and more positive perspective on abortion.” The NGOs hope that abortion activists in other countries will create their own illegal abortion networks.
PNCI notes that according to the Pew Global Views on Morality Survey, 63% of people in Mexico believe having an abortion is morally unacceptable.
Source: NRLC News

Assisted Suicide


 

A compassionate society prevents suicide; it doesn’t promote it


By Paul Russell, Director, HOPE
World suicide prevention day3Here in Australia another World Suicide Prevention Day has passed uneventfully. Suicide Prevention Australia made some touching TV advertisements which made me cringe at the pain felt by those left behind. Their anguish is something we too often forget.

As Lifeline, the suicide prevention organisation, puts it, “Suicide loss can impact on physical and mental health. It’s important people bereaved by suicide are treated with compassion and support. They may experience: shock, numbness, denial; searching for reasons ‘why?’; guilt; anger/blame; despair; listlessness; stigma and shame; loneliness and disconnection; depression; thoughts of suicide themselves.”

This message does not seem to be getting through to the media, however. An Australian Senator, David Leyonhjelm, published a libertarian argument for assisted suicide in OnLine Opinion shortly before Suicide Prevention Day. “It is fine to promote the treatment of depression and palliative care,” he wrote. “But it is not acceptable to claim their availability removes the right to make a choice. If free people own their own lives, they must be free to end them if they wish.:
This is reckless. All suicides are regrettable; all suicides should be abhorred and we should seek to ensure that suicide prevention measures recognise this.

If we accept that suicide for the elderly or the ill is appropriate, we send a mixed message about the value of life. Diminishing the resistance to all forms of suicide by accepting, as Leyonhjelm suggests, that some lives are “no longer worth living” implies that some suicides are good. This can never be the case in a compassionate society.

In its latest report the World Health Organisation says that one suicide occurs every 40 seconds around the world, with the highest rate amongst people aged 70 and over. This should make us think. Are we going to discriminate against the aged and infirmed in terms of suicide prevention; are we going to allow the former Nazi slogan of “life not worthy of life” to skew our objectives of reducing the number of suicides?

Newspapers often include the phone numbers of helplines at the foot of articles about suicide for those for those who are troubled by suicidal thoughts.

If we take Senator Leyonhjelm’s arguments seriously and legalise assisted suicide, should the editors add more advice? “If you think your suicidal thoughts are rational, phone Exit International. If you are old, sick or fear loneliness, ring this number for a doctor who will help you end it all.”
The only truly consistent approach to suicide is to seek to prevent it in all its forms. Anything less is a failure; a failure of imagination, commitment and of vulnerable people who deserve the protection of the law and the support of our society.

Paul Russell is director of HOPE: preventing euthanasia & assisted suicide. This appeared at www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/14775#sthash.VCbd85Sk.dpuf
Source: NRLC News

Alzheimer What to Do


 

Alzheimer’s: To Love and Care or Kill?


By Wesley J. Smith
elderlycouple35Sometimes I get emotional whiplash.
On one hand, we see very prominent bioethicists say that we should starve Alzheimer’s patients to death if they asked to be killed in an advance directive.

Compassion and Choices teaches oldsters how to commit suicide by self-starvation.
People like Peter Singer claim we should be allowed to lethally inject Alzheimer’s patients non-persons even if they never asked–despite having cared very well for his so afflicted mother.
Then, there is the story of the man who gave his beloved wife, dying of Alzheimer’s, his last breath. Literally. From the KFOR story:

An elderly couple, who had been together for more than 60 years, was found dead inside their home. Investigators say Dave Molter died trying to give his wife, Corrine, CPR; giving his wife his last breath.

Brandy Williams broke down, talking about losing a couple she called best friends. “Just wonderful people. I’ve never met anybody like that in my life,” said Williams.
Williams was the caregiver for Dave and Corrine Molter.

Corrine had advanced Alzheimer’s and Dave waited on her hand and foot. “Just being there and seeing it with my own eyes, it’s like true love like no other. It’s the kind you see in movies, not the kind you see in real life,” she said

We used to take Mr. Molter’s kind of devotion, if not for granted, at least as more of a general expectation.
Today, not so much: Far more media and societal attention–and validation–go to those who support their very ill loved ones in committing suicide. Indeed, sometimes I think the new ethic is to put the very sick out of our misery.
Change isn’t a synonym for progress.

Editor’s note. This appeared at nationalreview.com.

Source: NRLC News

Gosnell


 

Never forget Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” and the need to regulate abortion clinics


By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Abortionist Kermit Gosnell

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell

Remember Kermit Gosnell? The most notorious abortionist in Pennsylvania history is in prison serving three life sentences after being convicted of murdering three babies and being responsible for the death of Karnamaya Mongar, who died from an overdose of sedatives and narcotics administered by Gosnell’s untrained staff. He’s actually suspected of killing hundreds of infants, but charges could only be brought in a handful of cases, because he destroyed so many records.

Governor Tom Corbett moved swiftly after revelations about Gosnell’s heinous crimes came to light. The Governor ended decades-old policies…invoked by pro-abortion politicians…forbidding regular inspections of abortion centers. Corbett also signed into law an abortion center regulation law, ensuring that abortion facilities abide by the safety standards of outpatient surgery centers.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett

If Pennsylvania is saved from having to endure another Gosnell, it will largely be the result of the strong, decisive action taken by Tom Corbett.
Predictably, the abortion industry and its advocates have flooded cyberspace with ludicrous claims that Corbett’s policies are wrong for women. Actually, his proactive policies have been the means for protecting women from the Gosnells of the world. If Corbett hadn’t been in office, we might still have abortion facilities going uninspected–not for a year or two–but for 15 years or more, as was the case with Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society.

Planned Parenthood–the nation’s largest abortion operation–claims the abortion regulations were unnecessary. But that’s not what the grand jury in the Gosnell case thought. The panel–which was made up of people with various views on abortion–thought stricter regulations were absolutely essential for safeguarding women’s health and stopping future Gosnells.
Corbett has acted in the best interests of patient safety and women’s well-being. When it comes to Gosnell’s House of Horrors, let us keep in mind two simple words: Never forget.

Source:NRLC News

Life is Beautiful


 

New Zealand mother creates stunning photos of girl born without left hand to prove she can live normal, everyday childhood


By Dave Andrusko
Spring1
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography

For award-winning photographer Holly Spring, it was not until…
It was not until daughter Violet Spring was clinging to life in an Auckland Hospital that Mrs. Spring “realised just how incredibly important her daughter’s fragile life was to her,” explained Daniel Mils for the Daily Mail/Australia.
Spring2
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography

Born with just her right hand, Violet had surgery at ten weeks. But there were complications to correct Hirschprung’s disease, a debilitating bowel condition, and Violet “went blue in the face.” Mrs. Spring lives life a day at a time, knowing the condition could flare up again.
Spring3
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography


After that “close call,” she decided two things. To have “decent quality memories,” if something tragic should happen, and to show through her work “that the person she describes as her ‘muse’ and her ‘heart’ was capable of living a normal, everyday childhood.”
Spring4
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography

As you examine the photos attached to this post, it is easy to see why Mrs. Spring was awarded the 2014 New Zealand Portrait Creative Photographer of the Year for the 10 images she submitted of Violet. Her astonishing creativity is evident in every pose. (Everyone’s favorite seems to be Violet and the giraffe. Personally, I’m partial to Violet and her “companion” in the boat.)
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography
Of Violet, Mrs. Spring says, “She’s a very bright and fun-filled little girl.” Violet’s “got so much character and wonder about her and she’s extremely brave. She’s been through a lot but she really has inspired me to be a photographer.”

Mrs. Spring says her daughter loves the photos, which are mostly composites. “Spring first takes pictures of Violet, then adds unusual backgrounds that she shoots separately,” writes A. Pawlowski for Today Parents. “She loves the sea, so many of the photos feature a water theme. “
Mrs. Spring told Pawlowski that she hopes the photos inspire Violet as she grows.
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography
Courtesy Holly Spring Photography
“To me, they reached beyond her physical capabilities, beyond her age and onto a limitless future,” she said. “I see that in her every day and want to remind her of that through these portraits.”

Tip of the hat to lifenews.com

Source: NRLC News

Monday, March 30, 2015

New York and Abortion


 

New York State Assembly Passes Dangerous Expansion of Abortion in the Third Trimester

New York Assemblywoman Deborah Glick
New York Assemblywoman Deborah Glick

ALBANY – Today in a vote of 94-49 the New York State Assembly approved passage of AB 6221, the extreme stand-alone 10th point from the previously packaged 10-point Women’s Equality Act, which would expand third-trimester abortions and allow non-doctors to perform abortions.
Since 2013, abortion advocates had held the Women’s Equality Act hostage to this single dangerous bill, refusing to break the 10-point bill up. This session, however, the will of the voters was finally heard, and the stand-alone bills have been considered.

“Expanding cruel and brutal third-trimester abortions has long been a goal of the anti-life lobby who never met an abortion they didn’t like,” said Lori Kehoe, New York State Right to Life executive director. “With no regard for the fully developed unborn baby who is violently dismembered, or otherwise killed, the New York State Assembly once again put the abortion lobby above New York State women and their children.”

AB 6221, sponsored by Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, would change existing New York State law, which currently allows for abortion in the third trimester when the mother’s life is in danger, to allow abortion on-demand throughout all nine months. The law would be changed to allow abortion for any reason deemed “relevant to the well-being of the patient” including physical, emotional, psychological, and familial factors, and the mother’s age.

AB 6221 has no interest in the life of the living, developed, unborn human child, stripping away any protections the smallest members of our human family have.

“We now look once again to the Senate to hold the line in defense of the children which happens to also be in accordance with the will of the rest of the people,” added Kehoe. “It is ridiculous that in 2015, with all the technology at our disposal, we are still arguing whether or not an eight month old baby in the womb deserves protection. It is doubtful that our descendants will look kindly upon this period in our history, when we fought for the right to dismember babies weeks, days and even minutes before birth.”

New York State Right to Life will be discussing this and other attacks on members of the human family at our free-to-the-public Lobby for Life Day on April 29 at the Legislative Office Building in Albany.
Source: NRLC News

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Abortion and Planned Parenthood


 

Planned Parenthood and euphemism: how they describe abortion

By Sarah Terzo
Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org and is reprinted with permission.
suctionabortionwebPlanned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the United States. Their website presents information for women about abortion and related subjects . On Planned Parenthood’s site, they describe abortion procedures to women who are considering terminating their pregnancies:
An aspiration (or suction) abortion is performed in the first trimester. Planned Parenthood gives the following description of this procedure:
• A speculum will be inserted into your vagina.
• Your health care provider may inject a numbing medication into or near your cervix.
• The opening of your cervix may be stretched with dilators — a series of increasingly thick rods. Or you may have absorbent dilators inserted a day or a few hours before the procedure. They will absorb fluid and get bigger. This slowly stretches open your cervix. Medication may also be used with or without the dilators to help open your cervix….
• A tube is inserted through the cervix into the uterus.
• Either a hand-held suction device or a suction machine gently empties your uterus.
• Sometimes, an instrument called a curette is used to remove any remaining tissue that lines the uterus. It may also be used to check that the uterus is empty. When a curette is used, people often call the abortion a D&C — dilation and curettage.
The uterus gently emptied of tissue. What a simple, safe, easy procedure.

Planned Parenthood gives no information about the unborn baby that the abortion will destroy. The unborn baby’s heart begins to beat only three weeks after fertilization. He or she has brain waves and the beginning of arms and legs at 42 days. By four weeks, the embryo is moving. If the child is a girl, her ovaries begin to develop at seven weeks. The baby has also been observed hiccuping at this time. The uterus is identifiable by nine weeks if the baby is female. At eight weeks, the child has hands, feet, fingers and toes. When this baby is subjected to the violent power of an abortion suction machine, he or she is torn limb from limb, literally ripped apart.

Let’s take a look at the reality of the aspiration procedure as described by a person who witnessed it. A medical student who worked at Planned Parenthood gave the following description on her blog:
“Really it’s just inserting a vacuum device into the woman’s cervix and sucking out all the contents of the uterus. First the cervix is numbed up with some lidocaine and another drug that constricts blood vessels so that there’s less bleeding. Then her cervix is dilated (how much depends on how far along she is) with these metal rod-dy things. Then a plastic tube attached to the vacuum device is placed in her uterus, the vacuum is turned on, and then the tube is moved back and forth while rotating it to suck it all out. Then an ultrasound is done through the vagina to make sure the gestational sac is gone. Then we looked at what was sucked out after they wash out the blood and strain it. The first patient I saw was at 11 weeks and some days. I completely wasn’t expecting it, but there were fetal parts. Like hands. And legs. And kidneys. It was pretty shocking. But, of course, after the initial shock, I was fine. I was actually fascinated by it. Until I saw one with a face. Complete with eyeballs…It’s amazing to think that all of this can form within only a couple of weeks…”

Planned Parenthood withholds the fact that these “gentle” procedures “empty the womb” by tearing apart a developing baby. The baby is the invisible victim, with his or her death process hidden by euphemistic language. The reality of what abortion does is evident to all those present except the woman herself, who is shielded from seeing the remains of her aborted baby. Recently, a clinic worker described how her job was to make sure that the jar containing the baby’s parts was carefully hidden by a drape, presumably in case a recognizable piece of the baby was visible in the bloody remains.

D&E abortions are done in the second trimester. Planned Parenthood describes a D&E (dilation and evacuation) the following way:
• Your health care provider will examine you and check your uterus.
• You will get medication for pain. You may be offered sedation or IV medication to make you more comfortable.
• A speculum will be inserted into your vagina.
• Your cervix will be prepared for the procedure. You may be given medication or have absorbent dilators inserted a day or a few hours before the procedure. They will absorb fluid and grow bigger. This slowly stretches open your cervix.
• You will be given antibiotics to prevent infection.
• In later second-trimester procedures, you may also need a shot through your abdomen to make sure there is fetal demise before the procedure begins.
• Your health care provider will inject a numbing medication into or near your cervix.
• Medical instruments and a suction machine gently empty your uterus.”
An unborn baby has taste buds at 12 weeks. In one experiment, amniotic fluid was sweetened and the unborn babies were observed drinking more of it than usual. Also by three months, the baby responds to touch.
Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levantino describes a D&E abortion. He performed his abortions for years as part of his practice before his pro-life conversion:

“A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the Sopher clamp and grasping anything you can. At twenty weeks gestation, the uterus is thin and soft so be careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about 4 to 5 inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.

The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous material issue from the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face may come out and stare back at you.
Congratulations! You have just successfully performed a Suction D&E abortion. You just affirmed her right to choose. You just made $600 cash in fifteen minutes.”

Every day, countless men and women look at Planned Parenthood’s website and get Planned Parenthood’s version of what an abortion entails. These visitors get only a small part of the actual story, yet come away feeling that they know everything important that there is to know about abortion. Pro-lifers must seek to educate the public about the true horrific nature of abortion. For those of us fighting against abortion, the truth is on our side. Planned Parenthood is the one that is lying by omission. Pro-lifers are the ones who are telling the truth. We must work to make more people aware of the facts about abortion.

Note: fetal development facts were taken from the Endowment for Human Development.
Source: NRLC News

Abortion


 

“The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have”

By Dave Andrusko
Editor’s note. Yesterday Sarah Terzo reprinted a portion of a column written in 2005 by former Washington Post reporter Patricia E. Bauer. It reminded me of a piece I had written about Bauer’s column which ran in the Post. Most of our readers will have seen neither Bauer’s Post column nor my thoughts.
Patricia E. Bauer
Patricia E. Bauer
While I happened to be waiting at the doctor’s office, a ton of friends and colleagues also forwarded me a story from this morning’s Washington Post: “The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have,” by Patricia Bauer. The subhead is a corker: “Prenatal testing is making your right to abort a disabled child more like ‘your duty’ to abort a disabled child.”
The column is tremendous on a number of fronts. To begin with, it’s written by a former Post reporter and bureau chief. What’s more, as several people mentioned in their correspondence, it is the second column in less than a month written by a current or former Post staffer to challenge the reigning pro-abortion dogmas.

By far the best course of action is to read the column in its entirety. For those of you who may not have a chance to read, “The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have,” let me highlight several important points Bauer makes.
Bauer is relentlessly honest–about how people see her child, Margaret, who was born with Down syndrome; about what those attitudes tell us about us; and about how she might have responded had she known in advance that her child would be born with Down syndrome.

#1. How people see her child.

Bauer writes about a prototypical blue-state California dinner party she attended not long ago. She’s seated next to the director of an Ivy League ethics program.
From his Mt. Olympia-esque position, he informs another guest that “he believes that prospective parents have a moral obligation to undergo prenatal testing and to terminate their pregnancy to avoid bringing forth a child with a disability, because it was immoral to subject a child to the kind of suffering he or she would have to endure.”
When Bauer tries to inject that Margaret doesn’t see her life as “unremitting human suffering,” Mr. Ivy League “smiled politely and turned to the lady on his left.”
But while no doubt our professor of ethics could dress up his discriminatory perspective in fancy rhetorical clothing, he is only giving a tonier justification for what is, alas, a pervasive view in our culture. Between 80% and 90% of babies diagnosed to have Down syndrome are aborted.
As Bauer writes, “Whenever I am out with Margaret, I’m conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion.”
I have noticed in passing something Bauer experiences routinely. People look at children with Down syndrome with a mixture of curiosity and disapproval but also alarm. “I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her cohort, and have found their lives to be not worth living.”

#2. What our reaction says about us.

Bauer is at her best when she writes about Down syndrome, abortion, and what she calls “the category of avoidable human suffering.” Her keenest insight is how young women can look at Bauer and Margaret and configure the situation in an all-purpose exculpatory way.
“Many young women, upon meeting us, have asked whether I had ‘the test,'” Bauer writes. “I interpret the question as a get-home-free card. If I say no, they figure, that means I’m a victim of circumstance, and therefore not implicitly repudiating the decision they may make to abort if they think there are disabilities involved. If yes, then it means I’m a right-wing antiabortion nut whose choices aren’t relevant to their lives.” She concludes. “Either way, they win.”

Children like Margaret are seen, Bauer writes, as “at best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society.” How does that affect Bauer? “That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.”
Of course, seeing children with imperfections as “mistakes” to be avoided at all cost is hardly confined to women alone. It is the prism through which many see. That is not a pretty picture.
Bauer points out the many ironies involved. For starters, “I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families.”

This attitude flourishes, even though “Today people with Down syndrome are living much longer and healthier lives than they did even 20 years ago,” she writes. “Buoyed by the educational reforms of the past quarter-century, they are increasingly finishing high school, living more independently and holding jobs.”
Yet children with disabilities are vanishing. The only difference between us and the ancient Romans is theirs was a low-tech solution: they abandoned the child. We don’t leave anything to chance. We use sophisticated technology to engage in search-and-destroy missions whose sole purpose is to extirpate imperfection.
But not to worry: We practice eugenics with a happy face. We breezily tell ourselves that everyone is “better off,” beginning with the kid, if the parents “start over”–that is to say, abort the “imperfect” child.

#3. What it says about Bauer.
Bauer does not paint herself as some paragon of virtue, morally superior to all the rest of us. In a sentence that speaks volumes, she writes, “If we might not have chosen to welcome her into our family, given the choice, then that is a statement more about our ignorance than about her inherent worth.”

Bauer asks how we can write off an entire group of people and if that attitude might change. “I’d like to think that it’s time to put that particular piece of baggage on the table and talk about it, but I’m not optimistic,” she writes. “People want what they want: a perfect baby, a perfect life. To which I say: Good luck. Or maybe, dream on.”
My wife and I and our four children have our fair share of obstacles to overcome, but nothing really serious. Thus I would never, ever piously talk about how facing immense difficulties is ennobling.
But it is also true that the older I get and the more I experience, the surer I am that the measure of who we are as human beings is what we can give to others, especially when that may require great sacrifice.

I have a sister who, along with her husband and other children, is raising an adult with severe mental disabilities. Their strength of character, deep loyalty, and utter commitment to one another humbles me every time we visit them. They would never pretend that their life is easy, but I suspect they feel toward their son exactly the way Bauer and her husband feel toward Margaret.
“Margaret is a person and a member of our family,” she writes. “She has my husband’s eyes, my hair and my mother-in-law’s sense of humor. We love and admire her because of who she is — feisty and zesty and full of life — not in spite of it. She enriches our lives.”

Source: NRLC News

Good Wife and Abortion


 

TV’s “The Good Wife” surprises with a refreshingly honest conversation about abortion

By Texas Right to Life
Editor’s note. We wrote about this episode of “The Good Wife” on Wednesday. Texas RTL has added additional dialogue from the show and a very shrewd analysis of the twist at the end of the debate between one of the leading characters in the show and a man identified initially only as R.D.
good wife98Hats-off to writers of the CBS primetime drama, The Good Wife.  The show’s protagonist, Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, is a lawyer.  In this episode, “Red Meat,” she is running for state’s attorney of Illinois.  The election takes place and a winner is announced, but we won’t spoil the outcome for fans who haven’t watched yet.  Meanwhile, lawyer Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), a Democrat and women’s lib proponent, is on a three-day hunting excursion with her uber-conservative, polar opposite husband, Kurt, a ballistics expert played by Gary Cole.

Kurt and Diane travel to Wyoming for the hunting trip, where they are joined by some of the wealthiest conservative men in the United States.  Liberal Diane is completely out of her element until she realizes she can “hunt clients” for her law firm among the wealthy and powerful men in attendance.  Initially Diane sets her sights on a tech guru, but commits a social faux pas and loses her chance to win him over.

Later, Diane finds herself in the blind with “R.D.,” Reese Dipple, a Pro-Life Republican.  R.D. knows that Diane is a Democrat, but jokes that Kurt must be conservative enough for the both of them.
“So what should we talk about?  Killing babies?” he asks.  “Sure, why the hell not?” replies Diane.  “We both have rifles.  Let’s see what comes of this.”

The pair’s abortion debate begins around the 22:45 mark of the episode.
Diane: The Supreme Court has upheld a woman’s right to choose since 1973.
R.D.: Ah, the great wise body.
Diane: And they’ve done so repeatedly – and with Scalia and Alito on the Court.
R.D.: And once upon a time, the Court also upheld Dread Scott.
Diane: Oh, God, do you realize every other Western democracy mocks us for having this debate?
R.D. interrupts her, by quoting the Latin verse of the Hippocratic Oathin which a physician swears not to supply mothers with the means to commit abortion:
R.D.: Simili autem modo neque mulieri pessum abortivum concedam…
Diane: Oh, so now we drag out the Latin.  The original Hippocratic Oath orders physicians to swear by Apollo.  Are we to do that now?
R.D.: A woman who knows her Latin; I’m impressed.
Diane: Yes.  A woman who should have the right to choose.  Notice the word!
R.D.: You ever seen a five-month-old fetus?
Diane: No, have you ever seen a woman dead from a backstreet abortion?
R.D.: Yup, but I have seen a five-month-old fetus.  But I also know that science gives that fetus 20-30% survival rate at five months.  All right?  In other words, at the same moment any woman in America—
Diane: —and the world—
R.D.: —and the world can get an abortion, science gives that infant a 30% chance of survival.
Diane: So what?  Abortion is murder?
R.D.: At six months, survival rate goes up to 50%
Diane: So you would put women in jail?  Come on, you would imprison them?
R.D.: I’m not saying that.
Diane: Yes you are!  What is the option?
R.D.: Admit the facts!  Don’t look away from the aborted fetus.  Look at it!  Why is it not a baby?  And why are we kitschifying these babies?
Diane: Good word.
R.D.: Thank you – kitschifiying babies and turning them into these cute little Raphael cherubs at the same time we’re aborting 1.2 million of them a year?
Diane: Because it’s legal.  And because you still haven’t answered the question: what are the options?
R.D.: I don’t need an option.  It’s not up to me to have an option.
Diane: Because you’re a man!
R.D.: Come on, that’s beneath you.
Diane: No it’s not, because I just said it.  And you still haven’t answered.
R.D.: Look, bottom line: I like people.  I like you.  I mean, you seem smart, I think.  I don’t know why that next fetus wouldn’t turn into you – or me!  And what will be lost to the world if it were to be aborted?

The two characters’ next scene opens with both peering through rifle scopes at their deer target.  Diane has never hunted before and is apprehensive to pull the trigger when instructed by R.D. to do so.

“Right there, you see it?” asks R.D.  “Yes,” says Diane.  R.D. tells her to take a shot.  But, perhaps fully imbibing what she is about to do, Diane says, “I can’t.  Not like this.”
R.D. offers encouragement: “Come on.  It’s a pest.  Deer are a hazard that carry ticks.  They’re overpopulating.  If you don’t take a shot, I will.”  Diane hesitates.  “It’s just grazing.  It’s not doing anything,” she protests.  “Would you do it if it were charging you?” asks R.D.  He makes a noise to send the deer running.  “There you go, it’s on the move.  Take it down, take it down! If you don’t, I will!”  Finally, Diane shoots the deer, and has a wild look in her eye, as if bewildered by the experience.

The twist was brilliant.  R.D. and Diane essentially switch places on their prior abortion debate, and Diane – so callously supportive of abortion “because it’s legal” cannot shoot the deer because: “It’s just grazing.  It’s not doing anything.”

Does a sonogram image of a preborn child, playfully kicking and sucking his thumb, come to mind for anyone else?  He, too, is not “doing anything” to merit being killed.  And then R.D. assumes the role of the figurative abortion lobby, which argues that preborn children are parasites, hazards, and overpopulating the earth.
Watch the full episode, “Red Meat,” here.
Source: NRLC News

Down Syndrome


 

Mother of child with Down syndrome speaks out

Editor’s note. This appeared in ClinicQuotes.
McdonaldsDSadWhen tests reveal that preborn babies have Down syndrome, the majority of women decide to abort. Here are the reflections of one woman who has a child with Down syndrome:

Whenever I am out with Margaret, I’m conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don’t know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent… Margaret does not view her life as unremitting human suffering (although she is angry that I haven’t bought her an iPod).
She’s consumed with more important things, like the performance of the Boston Red Sox in the playoffs and the dance she’s going to this weekend. Oh sure, she wishes she could learn faster and have better math skills. So do I. But it doesn’t ruin our day, much less our lives. It’s the negative social attitudes that cause us to suffer.

Patricia E. Bauer “Selective Abortion Is Immoral” in Lucinda Almond The Abortion Controversy (New York: Greenhaven Press, 2007) 25-26
Source: NRLC News

Great News for Unborn


 

Pro-abortion Senator Reid announces he will not run in 2016

By Dave Andrusko
Pro-abortion Harry Reid (D-Nv.)
Pro-abortion Harry Reid (D-Nv.)

Not a bad way to start the day. Pro-abortion Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) announces that he will not seek another term—that the 75-year-old will hang up his spikes after the 2016 election.

I use the baseball metaphor because it is one Reid employed this morning. He dreamed of patrolling center field, he said, “But the joy I’ve gotten with the work that I’ve done for the people of the state of Nevada has been just as fulfilling as if I had played center field at Yankee Stadium.”
I am old enough to remember the old Yankee Stadium. The dimensions were mammoth, nowhere greater than in center field where it was 500 feet to straightaway center. Sportswriters referred to it whimsically as “death valley,” the place where fly balls went to die.
Well, when Reid was Senate Majority Leader, pro-life legislation, like baseballs hit to center in the old Yankee stadium, invariably wound up in death valley. One such example was the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives 228-196 on June 18, 2013, but never got a vote in the Senate.

No how, no way under Reid’s watch was the Senate ever going to hold a hearing, let alone vote, on such a bill. Why? For the same reason Reid smothered so many bills: he didn’t want his fellow Democrats to have to vote on a bill that the American people supported but Reid and his pro-abortion Democratic colleagues did not.

Even more so with the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Reid did not want to hear anything about the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks fetal age. (See www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetalpain and also www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.)

The last thing Reid wanted was for the Senate to hear the science behind the findings in the bill, as was the case at a May 23, 2013,  House subcommittee hearing.
There will be plenty of time to talk about possible leadership successors with his caucus and about which candidates, Democrats and Republicans, will slug it out in 2016.  Suffice it to end with this.
The abortion lobby had no more reliable (and often crafty) ally than Reid, although the news media often misidentified him as an abortion foe.

“Reid is one of the pro-abortion movement’s strongest assets in Congress,” Douglas Johnson, NRLC’s legislative director, has said. “He has employed the full powers of his leadership offices to do the bidding of abortion lobby on all of the issues most important to them.”
Reid “votes with the pro-life side only on less important matters or when the issue is already decided and his vote does not matter,” Johnson added.

Reid was a demagogue’s demagogue and in love with the idea of limiting free speech, i.e., criticism of incumbents. Particularly irritating was that the more unpleasant his assault on opponents, the more injured the tone he adopted if they dared to respond.
Fellow pro-abortion Democrat President Barack Obama said today the Senate “will not be same” without Reid.
For that we can only say “amen.”
Source: NRLC News

Friday, March 27, 2015

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing


 

Kevorkian’s True Goal was Human Vivisection

By Wesley J. Smith
Jack Kevorkian
Jack Kevorkian

The revisionism about Jack Kevorkian and his purposes will not stop–and it can’t be allowed to stand. The truth about K and what he was really after–his true motives–is too important, because it not only shows the seductive nihilism of our present day that a ghoul like him could become widely admired, but how hard the media work to tell the story they want to tell rather than report facts in front of their very eyes.
Time is the latest journalistic sinner, with a piece looking back at the magazine’s historical stories. From, “Why Dr. Death Wanted to be Tried for Murder,” by Jennifer Latson:
Kevorkian was prepared to go to prison if it meant raising awareness of what he considered to be our nation’s backward, oppressive euthanasia laws… Part of what made Kevorkian such a prominent public figure was his zany personality, coupled with a dramatic flair that “brought a certain approachability to a grim subject,” as TIME wrote in Kevorkian’s 2011 obituary.

“ZANY?” The man was truly disturbed! And his goal wasn’t to alleviate suffering. He wasn’t compassionate, but coldly clinical and utilitarian. His victims were merely the many means to attain his ultimate end.
Here’s the truth: While I think he got addicted to the attention that came his way–and hanging out with A-list celebrities–once he started spouting about compassion and suffering as his justification, he always harbored deeply personal and obsessively selfish reasons for trying to shatter our laws against euthanasia.
Nor did he keep his true motives a secret–he described them openly and with sickening candor in his book Prescription Medicide. At the time of his death, the National Catholic Register asked me to reflect on his life. From my “Remembering the Real Jack Kevorkian:”

With Kevorkian’s death, it is important to stop that revisionism before it advances any further. Doing so is in keeping with the pride Kevorkian took in the shock he created by stating his views bluntly. And that is precisely what I propose to do; allow Kevorkian to speak for himself, unvarnished and without compromise. (All quotes below are from Kevorkian’s book “Prescription Medicide.”)
I list his goals in more detail in the piece, quoting Kevorkian–but for the sake of space, here’s a nutshell summary:
1. He favored death on demand–he invented categories of people who should have access to euthanasia.
2. He only saw his assisted suicide campaign as a distasteful “professional obligation:”
3. He wanted to use euthanasia as a means of harvesting organs. Indeed, he tore the kidneys out of one of his victims and offered them “first come, first served,” at a press conference.
4. His ultimate purpose was to gain access to people who wanted to be euthanized so he could conduct experiments on them while they were still alive and under sedation.
5. Before his assisted suicide campaign, he tried to gain access to condemned prisoners upon which to experiment. It was only when he was kicked out of every prison that he turned his attention to the sick.
6. He didn’t turn to active euthanasia because he cared about the patients, he turned to lethal injections because it was the method that would be required for him to be able to pick his way through living human bodies!

Kevorkian never recanted these views. To the contrary: He methodically pursued his ghoulish purposes step-by-step for eight years; first, gaining a quasi-license to assist suicides after several juries refused to convict him; then, taking the kidneys from the body of one of his cases and offering them for transplant; to actively lethally injecting Youk.
Euthanasia, as opposed to assisted suicide, is necessary to allow experimentation before the death, since the “subject” would have to be anesthetized.

It ended there — with prison. But one shudders to think what would have happened if that last jury, like the several before it, had decided to let Kevorkian continue being Kevorkian.
In summary, Kevorkian was never about the “patients.” It was always and exclusively aimed at gaining Kevorkian access to carrying out his twisted pathologies.
It’s all there, in his book. He never recanted a word he wrote and the methodical method to his madness is clear for anyone to discern.

The clueless and biased media never tell Kevorkian’s real story, which is odd. The truth about Jack Kevorkian is much more interesting and worthy of journalistic pursuit than the phony feel-good revisionist nonsense that saps Kevorkian of his true self and reinvents him as a harmless and zany Muppet.
Editor’s note. This appeared at nationalreview.com
Source: NRLC News

Abortion is Killing


 

Abortionists agree – abortion is killing

By Sarah Terzo
abortionstopsheart“A fetus isn’t a baby.” “A woman has a right to choose.” These are often the most common statements a pro-lifer hears when discussing abortion with pro-choice people. “It isn’t a baby until it’s born.” “Abortion isn’t killing.” The rank-and-file of the pro-choice movement usually deny that an unborn baby is a human being with a right to life. Occasionally you will find someone who argues that the fetus is a baby, but the woman has a right to abort him or her anyway – but usually you’ll hear pro-choice people denying the humanity of the unborn.
One word that’s always avoided is pro-choice publications is “baby.” “Fetus” or “product of conception” or “tissue” is how the aborted baby is described. It isn’t a life, they say.
But the people who know the most about abortion are the clinic workers and doctors who perform them. And many of them have come out saying things that would make even the most hardcore pro-choicers cringe.
In one article in the American Medical News that was probably never meant for pro-life eyes, abortion providers from around the country discussed the emotional difficulties of performing abortions. One doctor said:
I have angry feelings at myself for feeling good about grasping the calvaria [head], for feeling good about doing a technically good procedure that destroys a fetus, kills a baby. (1)
Baby? Perhaps this doctor didn’t get the memo. Pro-choice activists know never to refer to the “fetus” as a baby. You won’t hear NARAL Pro-Choice America or the National Organization for Women using the term “baby” to describe a child being aborted.
Another abortion doctor uses honest terms to describe his job:
A late termination is actually not very nice and there is no way of getting away from it, I don’t feel I am doing it for any other reason than for the best of both the mother and the baby. (2)
Again the word “baby.” Could it be that these abortionists are fully aware that the “fetuses” they are aborting are in fact living babies?
If there is any doubt that at least some abortion providers know that abortion is killing a baby, it is put to rest by British abortionist Judith Arcana:
It is morally and ethically wrong to do abortions without acknowledging what it means to do them. I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening. (3)
This straightforward admission must have caused some consternation to pro-choice activists who read Arcana’s article. Few are willing to admit to the reality of abortion.
One unnamed abortionist said the following in a book that profiled doctors from different fields:
Nobody wants to perform abortions after ten weeks because by then you see the features of the baby, hands, feet. It’s really barbaric. Abortions are very draining, exhausting, and heartrending. There are a lot of tears. … I do them because I take the attitude that women are going to terminate babies and deserve the same kind of treatment as women who carry babies … I’ve done a couple thousand, and it turned into a significant financial boon, but I also feel I’ve provided an important service. The only way I can do an abortion is to consider only the woman as my patient and block out the baby[.] (4)
In this short paragraph, the doctor mentions the word “baby” four times.
It is clear that many abortion providers know that they are ending life. They see the babies kicking and moving on the ultrasound screen and then see them later, in pieces, in the back room of the clinic.
Clinic counselor Tim Shuck, who worked at the Lovejoy abortion clinic until his death from AIDS, said the following to a writer who was chronicling the daily workings of the clinic:
I have never denied that human life begins at conception. If I have a complaint about our society, it’s that we don’t deal with death and dying. Do we believe human beings have a right to make decisions about death and dying? Yes we do, and those decisions are made every day in every hospital. (5)
The author who quoted Shuck never revealed whether or not Shuck told the women he counseled that life begins at conception.
Another clinic worker said the following:
I see more of murder the further along they get. Although inside me I know it’s murder from the beginning… (6)
In an article in the Dallas Morning News, abortion clinic administrator Charlotte Taft made the following statement:
We were hiding … some pieces of the truth about abortion that were threatening. [Abortion] is a kind of killing, and most women seeking abortion know that. (7)
This was a little too much honesty for Planned Parenthood – after Taft came out with this statement, they stopped referring patients to her clinic. Eventually, she resigned.
Reporter Leonard Stern spoke to Joan Wright, the owner of a clinic in Ottawa. She explained how she and her fellow workers were fighting to force pro-lifers to take down a banner that announced, “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” and gave a phone number for women considering abortion to call for help. Stern confronted her with pro-lifers’ allegations that her clinic gave deceptive counseling to women. From the article:
She said. “Good grief! They accuse us of pretending we’re not doing what we’re doing? I’m in the business of death!” (8)
This is probably the most honest and frank admission by an abortion provider that you are likely to hear.
In his essay “Why I Am an Abortion Provider,” Dr. William F. Harrison says the following: “No one, neither the patient receiving the abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at any time, unaware that they are ending a life.”
In reality, the fact that abortion ends a life is often hidden from women. The baby is described as “products of conception” or “tissue.” The abortion “empties out the uterus.” The facts of fetal development are glossed over or outright distorted. The woman is facing a life-changing, irrevocable decision at a vulnerable time in her life, and she is susceptible to being deceived.
Look at the way one abortion clinic (Summit Medical Center) describes an abortion on its website.
You will first lay [sic] on an exam table like you would’ve for regular gynecological exam. Most patients will then receive IV sedation/twilight anesthesia… Patients opting for twilight anesthesia are mildly awake, but should feel no more than slight (if any) discomfort, and usually have little or no memory of the procedure afterwards.… Just as with a Pap smear, the doctor will use a speculum to hold the vaginal walls open, and then begin the procedure of using a series of dilation instruments to open the cervix. The contents of the uterus are then removed with a gentle vacuum aspirator.
Here are more examples of abortionists and clinic workers who acknowledge that abortion is killing:
The owner of one abortion clinic, identified only as “Michelle” in a book by James D. Slack, said the following:
I’ve thought through this issue, to do it as long as I have, and I have to sleep well at night… Is it life? Clearly it’s life. Does it deserve protection? My answer is “no.” The bottom line, you have two competing interests: the mother and the baby (or the embryo or the fertilized egg). And sometime during that nine month gestation, a woman’s rights are going to digress. At that point, I guess, rights can be ascribed to the fetus. (9)

This clinic owner has no problem calling an embryo a baby. She merely considers the baby’s life unimportant. There is no doubt that she knows exactly what is happening at her clinic.
Abortionist Don Sloan, explaining the morality of abortion to his teenage niece in an essay that appeared in an anthology on abortion, said the following:
Is abortion murder? All killing isn’t murder. A cop shoots a teenager who appeared to be going for a gun, and we call it justifiable homicide – a tragedy for all concerned, but not murder. And then there’s war… (10)

In this case, the abortionist (Sloan has been practicing for over thirty years and has done over 20,000 abortions) admits that abortion is killing but claims that it is not murder. He equates abortion with self-defense and war. But is the unborn baby sleeping in her mother’s womb really an aggressor? Except in very rare cases, a woman’s life is not endangered by a pregnancy. And unless the pregnancy is a result of rape (which is a factor in only 1% of all abortions) the woman’s own actions (along with those of the baby’s father) resulted in the baby developing where he or she is. The baby may be unwanted, but she is not truly an intruder if the woman’s own actions are responsible for her presence in the womb. An unborn baby is not a teenager with a gun or an enemy soldier on a battlefield; she is an innocent and helpless member of the human race.
Abortionist Dr. Neville Sender said the following in a newspaper article:
We know that it is killing, but the states permit killing under certain circumstances. (11)
The clinic where Sender worked later came under scrutiny for throwing the bodies of aborted babies in the trash.
Abortionist Dr. Curtis Boyd, who performs abortions up to 24 weeks: “Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.” You can see a video of him saying it here.
Another abortionist, who remained anonymous, said:
It [the fetus] is a form of life[.] … This has to be killing[.] … The question then becomes, ‘Is this kind of killing justifiable?’ In my own mind, it is justifiable, but only with the informed consent of the mother. (12)
Another abortionist admits that abortion is killing but also tries to justify it by saying the babies he kills would have difficult lives if they were allowed to be born:

I have the utmost respect for life; I appreciate that life starts early in the womb, but also believe that I’m ending it for good reasons.
Often I’m saving the woman or I’m improving the lives of other children in the family. I also believe that women have a life they have to consider. If a woman is working full-time, has one child already and is barely getting by, having another child that would financially push her to go on public assistance, yes that is going to lessen the quality of her life. And it’s also an issue for the child, if it would not have had a good life. Life is hard enough when you’re wanted and everything’s prepared. So yes, I end life, but even when it’s hard, it’s for a good reason. (13)
Are these good reasons to kill a child?

Another abortionist puts it more plainly:
Abortion is killing the fetus. … Human life, in and of itself, is not sacred. Human life, per se, is not inviolate. (14)
This doctor has foregone excuses and accepted the belief that human life is not sacred or worthy of protection. He has no need for justifications. He knows he is killing – and he doesn’t care.
After talking extensively to one abortionist, author Nancy Dey writes:
Dr. Ed Jones (pseudonym) says it’s always in the back of his mind that he is terminating a life. (15)
Another abortionist, Dr. Harrison, simply said, “I am destroying a life” (16). This doctor has performed over 20,000 abortions.

Dr. William Rashbaum performed thousands of abortions before his death in 2005. He revealed to an interviewer that he was haunted by a recurring nightmare of an unborn baby hanging on to the uterine wall with its tiny fingernails, fighting to stay inside. When asked how he dealt with this dream, he said, “Learned to live with it. Like people in concentration camps.”
The interviewer then asked if he really meant that metaphor:
I think it’s apt – destruction of life. Look! I’m a person, I’m entitled to my feelings. And my feelings are who gave me or anybody the right to terminate a pregnancy? I’m entitled to that feeling, but I also have no right communicating to the patient who desperately wants that abortion. I don’t get paid for my feelings. I get paid for my skills… I’ll be frank. I began to do abortions in large numbers at the time of my divorce when I needed money. But I also believe in the woman’s right to control their biological destiny. I spent a lot of years learning to deliver babies. Sure, it sometimes hurts to end life instead of bringing it into the world. (17)
Rashbaum knew that abortion takes a life, but he never mentioned this to the women who were coming in for abortions. One can only wonder about the psychological strain of equating oneself with a Nazi, with knowing that you end babies’ lives for a living.
Pro-choice writer Miriam Claire interviewed several abortion providers for a book she wrote. One of them, Dr. Bertram Wainer, said the following:
My whole professional training was to prolong life, to nurture and protect it. Abortion is clearly at odds with that ethos … [yet] I have never refused to perform an abortion because of any personal conflict[.] (18)
There are other examples of abortionists and clinic workers who admitted that abortion ends lives. Magda Denes, a pro-choice author, interviewed a number of doctors and clinic workers in her book In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital. Every doctor she interviewed, and many of the clinic workers, admitted at some point during the interviews that they regarded abortion as murder. One doctor said:
It [abortion] goes against all things which are natural. It’s a termination of a life, however you look at it. (18)
There are similar quotes throughout the book.
There is no way to know for whether or not these doctors and clinic administrators are representative of all abortion providers. But it is clear that many, if not most, abortion providers know that they kill. It is also clear that the average pro-choice person, who argues in support of allowing these men and women to continue practicing, has no awareness of the truth that so many abortion providers know – that abortion kills babies.
1. Diane M. Gianelli, “Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts,” American Medical News, July 12, 1993
2. ABC.net: Religion and Ethics: 12-28-2005. Quoted by Life Dynamics
3. Judith Arcana “Feminist Politics and Abortion in the US” Pro-Choice
Forum (Psychology and Reproductive Choice) Sponsored by The Society for the Psychology of Women.
http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/psy_al8.php
4. John Pekkanen. M.D.: Doctors Talk About Themselves (Delcorte Press: New York, 1988)  90-91
5. Peter Korn. Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic (The Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 1996) p 94
6. James Tunstead Burtechaell, C.S.C. Rachel Weeping: the Case against
Abortion (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982) 135 – 136
7. “Abortion rights activist resigns as clinic director; Taft cites differences with Routh Street owner” Dallas Morning News 2/2/1995
8. Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000
9. James D Slack Abortion, Execution, and the Consequences of Taking Life (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009) 49
10. Tamara L. Roleff. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: San Diego 1997) 25
11. John Powell, S.J. Abortion: The Silent Holocaust (Argus Communications: Allen, Tx) 1981, p 66
12. Democrat & Chronicle 7/5/92
13. Cheryl Alkon “Confessions of an Abortion Doctor” Boston Magazine December 2004
14. Abortionist “Dr. Smith” (Pseudonym) . Leo Wang “The Abortionist”
Berkeley Medical Journal Spring 1995
15. Nancy Dey Abortion: Debating the Issue (Enslow Publishers: Springfield, IL 1995)  49
16. Nat Hentoff “An Abortionist’s World: How to Rationalize
Inhumanity” The Washington Times Febuary 6, 2006. Citing Stephanie Simon “Offering Abortion, Rebirth” Los Angeles Times November 29, 2005
17. Norma Rosen “Between Guilt and Gratification: Abortion Doctors
Reveal Their Feelings,” New York Times Magazine April 17, 1977 p 73, 74, 78
18. Miriam Claire The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Issue. (Insight Books: New York) 1995, p 30
19. Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital (Basic Books, Inc.: New York 1976)147
Editor’s note. This first appeared at http://liveactionnews.org/abortionists-agree-abortion-is-killing/
Source: NRLC News

Assisted Suicide


 

Why Disability Rights Groups Oppose Assisted Suicide

The disability rights community is one of the most vocal opponents of assisted suicide

By Micaiah Bilger, Education Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
DianeColeman
Diane Coleman of “Not Dead Yet”

Many news outlets stereotype opponents of assisted suicide as merely religious; but we who fight to protect people against the threat of assisted suicide come from diverse backgrounds.
It was refreshing to see the news website The Daily Beast acknowledge that in a recent article, “Why Disability Advocates Say No to Doctor-Assisted Death.”
Many disability rights groups say assisted suicide presents a dangerous double standard about the value of people’s lives.

Reporter Elizabeth Picciuto presented the following situation:
Suppose a good friend of yours says that she wants to kill herself. You, and most people close to her, would probably try to help her so she did not feel that suicide was a viable option. Suicide prevention would be the goal of the medical profession, of family and friends. Not, however, in the case of someone seeking physician-assisted death.

“The difference is your health or disability status. Then suddenly suicide is a rational decision,” Diane Coleman, president and CEO of Not Dead Yet, a disability-rights group that advocates against assisted suicide and euthanasia, told The Daily Beast. “We think equal rights should also mean equal rights to suicide prevention.”

Samantha Crane, director of public policy for the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, said the emphasis should be on offering better care, not death, to people who are suffering.
“People believe that opposition to physician-assisted suicide is a belief that it’s noble to suffer, or that people shouldn’t have the ability to control their care when they are seriously ill,” Crane told Picciuto. “That is not the basis of our beliefs. Our goal is to make everyone happier, and to make sure that they have quality lives and help them have access to everything they need so that they do not want to die.”

The full article is worth reading, although the reporter’s bias does come through on certain points.
This past winter in Pennsylvania, two bills have been proposed to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide.
Editor’s note. This appeared at paprolife.us.
Source: NRLC News