Conscience Clause

A native Philipino, 28 yrs. ago, survived a 7.8 earthquake in the Phillipines. She was in her high school, at the time, and the building collapsed. She became fascinated, as doctors and nurses, pulled her friends from the rubble and turned her playground into a mini-emergency room. She saw her friends die. What impressed her was the professionalism, of the medical personel, that saved many lives. This has stayed with her the rest of her life.   This person is Cathy DeCarlo. Today Cathy is a nurse in New York; and she comes from a close-knit Catholic family, faithful to the Church. Cathy started her career in nursing in Manila. She worked alongside many Americans, who brought their technology and expertise, to the Phillipines. She began to realize, many more lives could be saved with the equipment and expertise, that Americans brought to Manilla in the Phillipines.   In 2001, Cathy moved to New York City, and within 3 years, she began working as a surgical nurse at Manhatten's prestigious Mt. Sinai Medical Center. From the beginning, Cathy says, "The people at Mt. Sinai saw potential in me. I did everything. Now I'm proficient in all surgeries. Not all nurses are fortunate enough to have this experience."   Cathy further states, "I don't think you go into medicine to make money. You go in, first and foremost, because you care about people. You give your whole life to the service. It's a vocation, a calling."     Cathy filled out official forms, prior to her hiring stating, because of her faith, she would not assist with any abortion procedures. "From the very start, I told them I don't do abortions, because every life is sacred from conception, and every child is made in the image of God."  However on Sunday May 24, 2009, Cathy came on duty at 7:00AM and she was told she was scheduled at 8:00AM for a DNC, the common procedure for miscarriages, at which Cathy often assisted. As she began her work, she recognized some of the instruments, as the kind they use in abortion. She looked at the paper-work, called the resident on duty and confirmed, that the surgeon would be dismembering and killing a 22 week preborn child.   She told the resident, she didn't do abortions and asked that the patient be sent to another operating room, until another nurse could be found to assist the surgeon. This was the critical point - unless her managers authorized a substitute, they would compel Cathy to see the surgery through, once she came in contact with the patient.   She called the nursing supervisor, to remind her that she had permission from the hospital, not to participate in abortions. The supervisor said she'd have to contact her supervisor, and she told Cathy, that she herself would have to make arrangements, for another nurse to take her place. Cathy was shocked and dismayed, when minutes later, the supervisor called back to say, she would have to assist with the abortion. Cathy reminded her again, of her agreement with the hospital, and that the procedure was not life threatening and could take place anytime over the next few hours.   The case was not labeled an emergency,and no medications required for emergency patients were listed. But, the supervisor and doctor continued to call it an emergency, and if Cathy refused to assist, in what the hospital termed a life and death procedure, she would be charged with insubordination and abandoning her patient. Her career would be over. Cathy's managers were allowing no substitutes for this procedure. When the woman arrived in the operating room, contact was established, and because Cathy is a professional, she made certain the patient had no idea her nurse had any problem about helping abort the child in her womb.      After the procedure, Cathy spent many days and nights on the computer, affirming what she already knew; that a preborn baby can feel pain at 18 weeks. Knowing her personal position and beliefs, she felt she'd been lied to and betrayed. Her supervisor had forced her to go against the innermost convictions of her soul. The hospital, that had promised to honor her religious beliefs, had chosen to violate them. Cathy has filed formal complaint with her supervisor and nurses' union. Her managers refused to let her bring an attorney, when discussing her case, in trying to resolve the issue. Cathy is now being represented by the Allied Defense Fund. She continues to work at Mt.Sinai, while the suit is progressing. However, Cathy states, "Even now, to feel this pain after so many months - some say it's abnormal, but I think it's normal, nurses have come to me, telling me, that the didn't know they could refuse to do an abortion."     When the Obama Health Care Plan is fully implemented, no health care professional will be safe.

We're Sliding Down A Slope

Oxford bioethicists Julian Savulescu - for whome virtually anything goes- writing with Dominic Wilkinson argues, that euthanasia coupled with organ harvesting, would be a splendid way to obtain more livers, kidneys and hearts. This article was published in Bioethics titled "Should We Allow Organ Donation Euthanasia?"

 

Wesley J Smith has a theory, "If you are a bioethicist - the more brutal your ideas, the more denigrating of human exceptionalism you become, the more crassly utilitarian direction in which your advocacy flows - the more prestigious the university that will give you a tenure chair and a big salary, and the more likely you are to get the big grants. "Think Peter Singer and personhood theory/infanticide/Great Ape Project in Princeton and, as here, Julian Savulescu and Oxford. "Interestingly, both are Australian, so perhaps a pleasing accent is part of the mix. "In any even the article only supports my theory, but proves another point I often make - if you want to see what is going to go wrong in society tomorrow, just read the professional journals' articles published today."

 

In the article, the authors say "If we believe that we should not remove organs from patients who are still alive, even where they have consented to this, and would otherwise die anyway, then one alternative would be to euthanize the donor and retrieve organs, after cardiac death had been declared. "This would already be a theoretical option in countries where euthanasia is permitted. Organ donation after cardiac euthanasia has been described in a patient in Belgium. Organ donors could be given large doses of sedative, and cardioplegic agents (to stop the heart). Again, this would reduce the risk of patient suffering after withdrawal of life sustaining treatment, and make organ donation possible for some patients, who would otherwise not be able to donate."

 

Wow! A slipper slope indeed. I wonder when it will come to the United States. After all, euthanasia is legal in 4 states.

 

 

A Few Favorites

Sex and Manipulation

Sex and the City is not only a movie, but a long time running television series. One writer is sick about how preteen and teen girls are being used an manipulated by the fake friends that write and publish teen media. Rebecca Hagelin writes, that the May issue of Seventeen magazine is probably the sickest of all the issues, complete with an extra dose of duplicity and hypocrisy.

 

On the cover of Seventeen is featured the "star" one of the most trash television programs for teenagers today - "The Secret Life Of The American Teenager" a program filled with teen sex. One has to ask why is he featured? We all know the answer, because money talks. Teenage girls will buy the magazine to find out why starlet Shailene Woodley isn't the girl you think she is. The article gushes about how 18 yr. old Shai and her boyfriend pack their bags and move to New York, where they shack up. In the same edition, another article discusses how television shows, like the Secret Life Of The American Teenager, can trick girls into "getting pregnant".

 

The magazine pretends to criticize such programs. However, it has an underlying agenda. It portrays hooking up as normal behavior; runs ads that tells girls how to get guys to touch their legs, and frequently promotes lesbianism.

 

Our young people are immersed in a culture that glorifies reckless illicit sexual behavior. The television programs, every book they read, advertisements, magazines and drug companies tell our kids they want to care for them, while in essence they are using them as pawns for profit, at the expense of their bodies, minds and souls. Perhaps our young people need to know that there will be consequences to their actions and that mother nature never forgives.  

 

Where are the parents? It's time that adults confront Seventeen magazine and the trashy shows like Gossip Girls and the Secret Life Of The American Teenager, pick up the magazine Glamour and Cosmopolitan and see that their daughters and friends are being abused by the media.

 

Hagelin, in her article, says "The message that is being drilled into their psyches is painfully obvious: Forget about your intelligence, your goodness, your kindness, your grace or your moral integrity - the way to get ahead in the world, is by using your sexual power."

 

Parents, it's time to let your daughters know, they're being manipulated. Your daughters deserve better.

Money Talks

Neil Diamond had it right, money does talk. It talks in the abortion industry also. One new study says the tentacles of legalized abortion are reaching deep into the American culture, due to the motives of profit, or to put it bluntly, the bottom line.

 

Vicki Evans, Respect Life coordinator for the Archdiocese of San Francisco's Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, is the author of the study. "Commercial Markets Created by Abortion: Profiting From the Fetal Distribution Chain."  Evans told  the Catholic San Francisco newspaper for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, that she wanted to use her training as a certified public accountant to "follow the money" between the abortion industry and commercial enterprise.

 

"I wanted to come up with a body of knowledge that nobody else had thought of before," she told Catholic San Francisco. "In following the money and seeing who gets paid for what and how much they get paid, and how unregulated these areas are, I found a lot of facts that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed or wouldn't have thought to look for."

 

Her 72 page study wanted to find out how "special interests" or "commercial cause" was driving the abortion industry and keeping it free from transparency and regulation. Evans wrote, "Putting aside the ideological question for the moment, it appears that abortion-related businesses, silently springing up and maturing over the past forty years, could now be influencing the abortion debate."  

 

Her findings show, that between the fiscal years of 2003 and 2008, the abortion industry, comprising 1,787 abortion providers in the United States in 2005, grew from an $810 million dollar business to $1.038 billion dollar industry. During that time, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's abortion market share increased from 245,092 abortions ($88.2 million in 2003) to 305,310 abortions ($122.1 million in 2007). By the year 2008, PPFA had taken a whopping 25 percent of the abortion market, more than doubling its' market share since 1997, which at that time was 12 percent.

 

Evans also noted, "When abortion became legal in the United States, no one anticipated that it would give rise to a tremendous market in fetal parts, tissues and cells. "When morality is excluded from a civil society, the weak and vulnerable are easily exploited for the benefit of the strong and powerful."

 

So, Money Talks, but it don't walk ... only into the pockets of predators.     

Our new video: Another Conversion

The UN is at it Again

A gaggle of gangs, with more letters than Dr Seuss's alphabet, are conspiring with the United Nations Population Fund, to host the "first ever" briefings on "reproductive rights" (code word for abortion) for the committee responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights ( ICESCR ). This gaggle includes the Center for Reproductive Rights ( CRR ) and Amnesty International ( AI ).

 

If you can get through the letters, you might get to the point. The point is this; the term "reproductive rights" never before has been included in any binding UN Treaty. The CRR briefing with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultureal Rights ( CESCR ) co-sponsored by the United Nations Family Planning Agency ( UNFPA ) will address maternal mortality "as a human rights issue". CRR bills this meeting as part of its' "ongoing advocacy" with the UN Committee "as it develops its' new general comment on sexual and reproductive health rights."

 

In a C-FAM paper "rights by stealth" the authors explain that general comments "are the treaty body members own interpretations of the articles of the convention" and that "once created, they serve as the committee's official interpretations. This, in spite of the fact that the states never agreed to any abortion provisions, a new general recommendation on reproductive rights and sexual and reproductive health signals, that the committee will seek to expand the treaty beyond the boundaries set by those, who carefully negotiated the language.

 

Iraq, on behalf of the Arab group, led the successful opposition to general comment 20, and noted at the time, that it was "of paramount importance to make it clear that international agreements should not be strangely interpreted." This is why we need allies and alliances.

 

 

The Supremes

Stop in the name of love, the Supreme's sang. Stop in the name of Life, is the song American needs to be singing , as President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan, and it is hoped that the Senate will not consent. It came as no surprise, that at 9:00AM DC time, President Obama announced his choice for the Supreme Court. 

 

Elena Kagan topped his short list several weeks ago.  Ms. Kagan is not a judge, but has a long history as Dean of Harvard Law School. That alone ought to make unborn babies quake in their mother's womb.

 

President Obama is on record, saying he wanted a Supreme Court candidate, who interprets the Constitution as protecting individual rights. Wow! What a choice!

 

As Dean of Harvard Law School, she banned military recruiters from the campus. She defied the Solomon Amendment, which is an important law passed by Congress, and signed by no other than Bill Clinton. This amendment requires the withholding of federal funds from any school, that excludes the military from their campus. Kagan even signed a legal brief, that claimed the Solomon Amendment was unconstitutional. Thankfully, the Supreme Court rejected that argument, 8 to 0.

 

Elena Kagan is adamantly pro-abortion. She is the US Solicitor General and an ardent abortion supporter. She has repeatedly and publicly, criticized the federal regulations, that prohibit recipients of Title 10 family planning funds from counseling on, or referring women for abortions. Her argument is that the regulations amount to the subsidization of anti-abortion speech.

 

Elena Kagan is 50 yrs. old. She will , if appointed, certainly be on the court for 25 or more years. A confirmation to the Supreme Court is a life-time appointment. That means, her policies and beliefs, will be the law of the land for a long time to come. This will change the moral course our country may take.

 

President Obama is the most pro-abortion this country has ever elected. Do you think his choice for Supreme Court does not share his political ideals; not only in abortion, but in the socialization of our country.

 

Americans United for Life, Dr. Yoest commented, "Elena Kagan has strong ties to abortion advocacy organizations, and expressed admiration for activist judges who have worked to advance social policy, rather than to impartially the law. Americans United for Life will oppose President Obama's attempt to reshape the court as an activist, pro-abortion institution, through which unelected judges will work to impose an out-of-the-mainstream social agenda upon the American people." We couldn't say it any better ourselves at Lake County Right to Life.   

Child Vaccine Refusal Increase In US

The percentage of parents who refused or delayed vaccinations for their children, has "increased significantly from 22% to 39%," according to a study presented Tuesday at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Vancouver. Philip Smith, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and his colleagues, analyzed data from the 2008 National Immunization Survey, which asked parents if they had delayed or refused a vaccine, and if so, why.

 

The results revealed that 31% of parents with 24 - 35 month-old children had intentionally delayed administration of vaccines to their children in 2008, and 12% had intentionally refused vaccinating their children altogether.

 

Some concerns expressed by parents, who refused or delayed immunizations for their children, regarded the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. They also did not believe, that the specific diseases which the vaccines were designed for, were all that much of a health concern. Furthermore they were much less likely to feel comfortable with their child's immunization provider.

 

Some reasons given by parents for refusing or delaying a vaccine were:

• Child was ill (44 % of parents)
• Believed too many shots were recommended (27%)
• Had questions about the effectiveness of vaccines (26%)
• Were concerned about autism (25%)
• Were worried about the side-effects or the safety of the vaccines (24%)

The vaccines included in the study were diptheria, tetanus, accellular pertussis vaccine, polio, measles-mumps-rubella, Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis B and varicella.  

 

Parents in Canadian provinces, where child vaccination is mandatory, may choose to secure an exemption, with a notarized documentation of religious, philosophical or medical reasons.

 

 

 

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