What !!!!!

 

Husband of woman who murdered six newborns blames drugs for not knowing his wife was pregnant and smothering their babies

By Dave Andrusko

Megan Huntsman (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

Last April NRL News Today reported that District Judge Darold McDade sentenced Megan Huntsman, the Utah mother who murdered six newborn babies over the course of a decade, to life in prison.

The babies were smothered over a span that began in January 1996 and ended at the end of December 2006. Police found the little bodies in the garage, stuffed in boxes with clothing and towels.
Rejecting the prosecution’s recommendation that the five-years-to-life prison sentences run concurrently—he said that was “not appropriate” for the crimes, according to Jessica Miller of The Salt Lake Tribune–Judge McDade ordered Huntsman, 40, to serve three of the counts consecutively, while the rest will run concurrently.

The primary question, obviously, was why she had killed her newborns. As we reported, Huntsman eventually attributed her murderous behavior to a combination of a methamphetamine and alcohol addiction, an abusive marriage, and her own depression.

But how could no one not know she was pregnant? Granted Darren West, her estranged husband, the father of all the dead babies, spent time in prison, but how could he not know?
The Associated Press obtained public records of the investigation, including transcripts of police interviews, and wrote a story today attempting to answer that question. The AP’s Brady McCombs reports

During a long interview with Pleasant Grove police Detective Dan Beckstrom, Huntsman reflected for a moment how her husband could have slept in the same bed with her every night and not known she was pregnant and why she didn’t tell him.

“I think my mind was just so out of it you know,” she said. “All I was focused on was the next fix.” …

She said during one birth, West was watching TV with his brother and sister-in-law when Huntsman told them she was going to take a bath and go to bed. Instead she gave birth, suffocating the baby.

That may explain why Huntsman didn’t tell him, but why didn’t West notice Huntsman was pregnant? From one intense police interview, according to McCombs, we learn

West acknowledged that he knew of a couple of Megan Huntsman’s pregnancies from 1996 to 2006, but said she told him she had miscarriages. West said he had no idea what his wife did with the fetuses or bodies.

That was, in part, caused by the fact that he spent most of the decade high nearly every day on cocaine, methamphetamines or marijuana before being sent to federal prison on meth charges, he said.

“I knew she was pregnant, but I was so messed up on freaking drugs I don’t know what was going on,” West said.

From the beginning, police were highly skeptical that West knew nothing. But he adamantly denied having any knowledge, including in the first interview in April 2014 that took place just hours after he discovered one of the babies’ bodies while cleaning out the garage. (West had just got out of prison.)

McCombs ends his story by quoting from the transcript:

“I can tell that you know about more than, than what you’re telling me,” Beckstrom said to West.

“I promise. I swear to God I never knew about all these pregnancies,” West said.

“What we want to do is we want to do what’s right, and we want to have closure for these children,” Beckstrom said. “We want to have closure for your kids that are alive, for these babies’ grandparents. I mean these babies were in a garage for years.”

“I never knew that, no I never knew that,” West said.

In the end, police never charged West.

“Obviously, the practical, reasonable thought would be how in the world could he not have known?” Utah County Deputy Attorney Jared Perkins told McCombs. “That, I think, was the cause for the initial suspicion… But in the end, there just turned out to be no evidence that would implicate him.”

Source: NRLC News

Buzz Talk on Assisted Suicide

 

Washington Post editorial recycles physician-assisted suicide talking points

By Dave Andrusko
I’ve read the Washington Post ever since my wife and I arrived in the D.C. metropolitan area in 1981. As these things go—what would/should you expect from a pillar of the “mainstream media”?—the editorial page can be and often is sober, fair-minded, and thoughtful.

That’s not the case with our issues, alas, as an editorial that ran Monday illustrated.
“A humane way to end life” pushes all the usual buttons, skips by all the inconvenient truths, and blurs all the important distinctions in the rush to reach the predetermined conclusion:

Death with dignity laws need to be carefully thought out, written and monitored. Oregon and the states that followed its example show that such care is possible. We hope the rest of the nation catches up with this humane option for life’s end.

For example, I understand the edit page is taking a position which necessarily includes giving opponents short-shrift. So I suppose it shouldn’t annoy me (although it does) that the three articles that are linked at the editorial milk the tragedy of the assisted suicide of Brittany Maynard for all it’s worth and offer the case for legalizing assisted suicide in nearby Maryland.
Opposition is summarized in one paragraph after which we are told that there is no—repeat NO—examples of physician-assisted suicide being abused. “The issue stirs strong emotions,” the Post concedes.

Some opponents, including the Catholic Church, cite religious or moral grounds, seeing any form of assisted dying as anathema to teachings that life is never to be taken. Some physicians believe the practice violates their oath only to heal, and some disability rights activists fear that they will be vulnerable to abuses. Others warn of a slippery slope to euthanasia.

Of course, the Post leads with the Catholic Church, the better to hint that opponents can be dismissed because they base their opposition on “religious” grounds. But there is a reason that the tsunami of initiatives that have swept in following Ms. Maynard’s death has not overcome resistance in any number of states which the Post barely acknowledges.
Staving off physician-assisted suicide is a result of a broad-based coalition whose most important players are the Disability Rights activists and virtually all the state medical organizations. Their importance cannot be overstated.

What about the blithe assurance that Oregon’s state data shows that “there have been no reports of coerced or wrongly qualified assisted deaths”? Talking about not seeing the forest for the trees.
As NRLC’s Jennifer Popik, JD, eloquently explained yesterday:

(1)There is nothing in existing Oregon, Washington, or Vermont law that requires doctors to refer patients for evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist to screen for depression or mental illness. There is also no such requirement in any current proposal in any state.

(2) The doctors can make a referral, but nearly never do.

(3) According to state-issued reports in Oregon, we know that people receive lethal prescriptions and long outlive their prognosis. Further, the law has been made to apply to people whom no one would think of as terminally ill such as diabetics, those with HIV, or those with hepatitis simply because they would die without treatment in six months—even though with treatment they could live much longer, even indefinitely.

(4) These laws rely on doctors to self-report. However, there is no penalty if they do not report statistics and complications. Furthermore, doctors are not held to the ordinary standard of medical malpractice in implementing the “safeguards,” but a far lower one, the death certificate is actually falsified so that it lists some other condition, not suicide, as the cause of death.

If I were a proponent of physician-assisted suicide, I would appreciate the Post’s approval. Not just because it supports my position but because it breathes fresh life into the stale death-promoting myths of Compassion and Choices, formerly (and more candidly) known as the Hemlock Society.
We will continue to show the real face of physician-assisted suicide, including its underlying ethos that drives its crusade: that anyone for any reason at virtually any age must have the “right” to “self-determination”—the right to be “assisted” to die.

Source: NRLC News

Abortion Drone

 

“Abortion Drone” scheduled for Launch June 27

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education & Research
Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it’s an abortion drone, launched by the same folks who brought you the “abortion ship,” abortion hotlines where you can learn how to self-abort, and the “I need an abortion” website where you can order abortifacients: “Women on Waves.”
Before going further, I must emphasize that although the following might sound as if it is a figment of my imagination—how could this possible be true, you might ask– the following is actually in the works, according to multiple media outlets.
The plan is to have a drone carrying abortion pills launch from Frankfurt, Germany, cross the border and deliver mifepristone (RU-486) and a prostaglandin (misoprostol) to women in Slubice, Poland, where abortion laws are highly protective.
The main group responsible for this latest misuse of technology is (who else?) Women on Waves. Women on Waves insists that these chemical abortifacients can be taken “without medical supervision” for pregnancies of less than nine weeks.
Whether this latest venture is merely another in a long line of publicity stunts or is actually supposed to become some new delivery system will become obvious with time. Women on Waves and their partners have already announced that the drone will leave Frankfurt Saturday, June 27 at 11am and said that the press will be allowed to ask questions once the drone lands. But they say that the landing location will be announced Friday evening.
One expects that Polish authorities are aware of the planning, though Women on Waves says that given the weight of the drone (about eleven pounds), the way it is being flown (not through commercial airspace) , and the fact that it is not being used for any commercial purposes, no authorization is required for the flight under Polish or German law.
Gomperts is joined by local activists groups who are part of the campaign to overturn Poland’s abortion laws and policies. Her website identifies Cocia Basia, a “Berlin based abortion support group for Polish women,” Warsaw based Fundacij Feminteka, the 8th of March women’s rights informal collective “Porozumienie kobiet 8 marca” and a group called “Berlin-Irish Pro-Choice Solidarity.”
Why Poland and who is next? According to The Telegraph, “Gomperts said Poland was chosen because of the lack of awareness around their abortion laws, but if the mission is a success, it could also be deployed to Ireland, where women can only have abortions if their lives are at serious risk.”
LATEST IN A LONG LINE
As NRL News Today has reported previously, Women on Waves is the group founded by former Greenpeace activist Rebecca Gomperts in 1999. Their first big public splash was when Gomperts anchored her “abortion ship” in international waters just off the coast of Ireland 2001. They offered to ferry women to the boat where they could have abortions using the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol.
From there the boat went on to Poland, Portugal, Spain, Ecuador, Morocco, wherever Gomperts and her group wanted to draw media attention to countries where abortions were not allowed and unborn children were legally protected.

It isn’t clear whether Women on Waves ever did an actual abortion on the abortion ship, but they were successful in drumming up massive publicity, to the point where they were the subject of an award-winning documentary “Vessel” produced in 2014.
Gomperts’s group switched tactics in 2009, turning to launching abortion “hotlines” in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Pakistan, Venezuela, Morocco, Bangladesh, Kenya, Indonesia, Malawi, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Poland, and Uruguay. Women who call these hotlines are told how to obtain misoprostol, already available in many countries as an anti-ulcer drug, and use the drug to abort their babies.

For a number of years, one of Women on Waves related groups, Women on Web, has run the “I need an abortion” website where women from countries where abortion is illegal can answer a series of medical questions that are supposed to amount to a consultation (though it doesn’t really seem matter what answer you give – the website will let you keep going) and be referred to a “licensed doctor” who will “provide you with abortion pills” that will be shipped to your address.
You are asked to make a “donation” of between 70-90 euros at the end of the consultation before the pills are shipped, and you are asked to electronically certify that you will not hold them responsible if you have any problems (you are advised to go to the nearest hospital with a trusted friend if you do, but they tell you that “You do not have to tell the medical staff that you tried to induce an abortion; you can tell them that you had a spontaneous miscarriage.”)

Beyond being an attention grabbing ploy, Gomperts’ move is simply an extension of the abortion industry’s efforts to reduce physician involvement and make abortion less dependent on the dwindling supply of willing abortionists. Chemical abortions were the first move, reducing the need for qualified surgeons, then there were the web-cam abortions where a woman’s only contact with the abortionist was through a computer terminal.

At least with the web-cams, she had to travel to some store front clinic and meet with someone who could at a minimum check her blood pressure and take her vitals. Now, however, if the new technology takes off, even that minimal encounter could become a thing of the past. All she has to do is order her pills and wait for a drone to fly the package to her front door.
Even the most sensible caution has been thrown to the wind for the sake of the cause.

Source: NRLC News

Opening Door to Accepting Euthanasia

 

Nevada DA Shrugs at Gun Euthanasia

By Wesley J. Smith

DA Jason Woodbury

This is the kind of thing that opens the door to people accepting euthanasia murder as a legitimate action.
A man shot his wife in the hospital because she was despondent over becoming paralyzed in an accident.
Yet, despite shooting a gun to kill someone in a hospital, the District Attorney [DA] has dismissed all charges.
From the Reno Gazette-Journal story:

In an interview, [DA Jason] Woodbury said his ultimate goal was to achieve a “just result.” “I didn’t view there being any component of evil to his act of killing,” Woodbury said. “We can talk about judgment, and morally whether it was a right or wrong decision, but I didn’t view any aspect of it as evil. That’s truly the component you need to have in a murder case is an evil motive and we didn’t have that.”

A lot of crimes don’t have “evil” intent, but are nonetheless prosecuted. Moreover, people despondent over becoming paralyzed often recover their emotional health if given time and proper care.
DA Woodbury lamely says he is not allowing assisted suicide:

Woodbury also said his decision to seek a dismissal should not be interpreted to mean assisted suicide is acceptable. Rather, the facts of this specific case justified the decision, he said.

Baloney. That is precisely what he is doing–whether he intends to or not! The DA could have filed a different charge based on the killer’s mental state, or accepted a plea bargain to a lesser charge, based on the killer’s age and other factors.

To do nothing about a blatant homicide devalues the lives of paralyzed people and sends a loud message that homicides of the elderly, sick, and disabled to relieve suffering are of less serious societal concern than the killings of other citizens.
But it does show that euthanasia is not really a “medical act” if it is okay for a husband to carry out such a killing with a gun.

Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s blog.

Source: NRLC News

Texas and Supreme Court

 

Will Supreme Court agree to hear challenge to Texas’ pro-life H.B. 2?

By Dave Andrusko
When you get to June in Washington, DC, there is inevitably excitement in the air. Typically, the Supreme Court is about to hand down decisions in controversial cases and then decide which controversial cases it will take up next fall.
Right now, all eyes are fixed on the High Court’s take on a facet of ObamaCare, which could come down by next Monday.

But will the High Court decide later this month to take up a law passed in a number of states: what pro-lifers believe it the commonsensical requirement that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of medical emergencies and that abortion clinics meet the requirements of ambulatory surgical centers?

Last Friday the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined a request by Texas abortion clinics to issue a stay on a decision by a three-judge panel that upheld the bulk of Texas’ historic H.B. 2. The law is scheduled to take effect on July 1.
Attorneys for abortion clinics in Texas then filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.
Besides the inherent significance of the Supreme Court hearing any abortion case, why would this one be important?

For one thing, 16 states have protective laws requiring that abortionists have admitting privileged in a nearby hospital while 22 states have laws mandating that abortion clinics be treated like ASCs.
Second, the justices may—or may not—wish to revisit was it means by an “undue burden” on a woman’s “right” to abortion, first articulated in the 1992 Casey decision.
Third, if the High Court does take the case, a decision could come down a year from now, squarely in the middle of the 2016 presidential contest.

Source: NRLC News

Assisted Suicide in the U.S.

 

Maine Defeats Dangerous Suicide Bill as California Proposal Moves Forward

By Jennifer Popik, JD, Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics
While California’s Senate has voted in favor of a dangerous doctor-prescribed suicide bill and the state Assembly is preparing to consider it in committee hearings, Maine has become the most recent state to defeat similar legislation. This comes amid a wave of assisting suicide laws that have been introduced all across the U.S.

The Maine Senate defeated assisting suicide bill LD 1270 by a vote of 18 – 17 after the House had approved the measure with a 76-70 vote. Despite this exceptionally close vote, the bill cannot be brought up again until 2017 because Maine has a two-year legislative session.
A diverse and large assortment of groups including disability rights groups, medical groups, the state medical society, and right to life groups worked hard raising the red flag regarding the many dangers this kind of legislation poses.
Compassion and Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society) is the main national euthanasia activist organization behind these bills. It has a large infusion of money, and is hard at work promoting laws that allow people to request lethal prescriptions from doctors. These laws begin with so-called safeguards that the organization eventually intends to move away from. More on this can be found in an article titled, “The Disturbing End Game of Organization Pushing Assisting Suicide”
Now that we are at or nearing the end of many state legislative sessions, there is good news, bad news, and some misleading news.

Good News
Most of the bills introduced to legalize assisting suicide (in over half of the states) have fallen one by one, thanks to hard work from disability rights groups, virtually every state medical society, right to life groups, and others. Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut were the most recent states to retire these bills- again relying a broad base of opposition. Over half of states has seen bills this term, and only a small handful are still active (California and DC among the most imminent).
Further, the deadly practice is still only legal in small handful of states (three have laws on the books, and Montana courts have found nothing in its law to prohibit the practice). In New Mexico, a court decision overturning that state’s decade-old protective law is currently being appealed.

The Bad News
While state after state is rejecting this dangerous legislation, the California Senate has cleared the bill and it has now moved on to the state’s lower house. In fact, the Assembly will commence the first of several hearings in the Health Committee on June 23. If you are a California resident, there are several things that can be done now to help turn the tide against assisting suicide in your state.
1. Send a personal email to Governor Jerry Brown and your State Assembly member. 2. Call your State Assembly member at 916.319.20, then your Assembly District number which can be found at: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov 3. If at all possible, attend the June 23 hearing in person.
Whether you live in California or another state that may be considering this legislation, it is key to let your legislators know that killing the patient must never be condoned as a reasonable solution to human problems.

Importantly, in the states where this is law, the law is being misrepresented and abused.
First, there is nothing in existing Oregon, Washington, or Vermont law that requires doctors to refer patients for evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist to screen for depression or mental illness. There is also no such requirement in any current proposal in any state.
The doctors can make a referral, but nearly never do. In fact, according to the Oregon’s official state reports, in 17 years of legalized doctor-prescribed suicide, a mere 5.5% of death candidates have been referred for psychological evaluation.

According to state-issued reports in Oregon, we know that people receive lethal prescriptions and long outlive their prognosis. Further, the law has been made to apply to people whom no one would think of as terminally ill such as diabetics, those with HIV, or those with hepatitis simply because they would die without treatment in six months—even though with treatment they could live much longer, even indefinitely. Assisting suicide legalization has led people to give up on treatment and unnecessarily lose years of their lives. And recently, an older woman with no terminal illness living under the most recently enacted Vermont law was given assisted suicide as an option.
While abuses ranging from a patient with dementia receiving a lethal dose, to numerous non-terminally ill people getting prescriptions, to pressure from the state health plans to use the cheaper suicide option in place of life-saving treatment have been documented and exposed, the real depth of abuses is difficult to know.
These laws rely on doctors to self-report. However, there is no penalty if they do not report statistics and complications. Furthermore, doctors are not held to the ordinary standard of medical malpractice in implementing the “safeguards,” but a far lower one. Under Oregon law, the death certificate is actually falsified so that it lists some other condition, not suicide, as the cause of death.
And much to the dismay of many families who found this out too late, the law does not require families to be notified of a patient’s suicidal intent. These laws open a Pandora’s Box, and do nothing to prevent people from improper treatment and improper pain management at the end of their life. You can find more about these abuses here.
Misleading News
Finally, there is the misconception that these laws have big public support. A Gallup poll released May 27, 2015, at first blush indicates more Americans support physician-assisted suicide now than ever. Based on favorable wording, the poll found 68 percent of Americans believe physicians should be allowed to assist in a suicide. This was an increase of 10 percentage points from the same polling in the previous year.
However, on the eve o
f a very hotly contested ballot initiative question from the 2012 high-turnout presidential election in Massachusetts, voters ultimately rejected legalizing doctor-prescribed suicide despite similar polling margins. At the time, according to a University of Massachusetts poll, 65% of the registered voters said they would vote yes on the so-called “Death with Dignity” initiative. This matched a poll conducted by the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire that found 68% of likely voters would vote yes.

However, the trend is and has been that people turn against these laws they formerly believed they might support once the public and legislators are alerted to 1) the dangerousness of these laws to vulnerable groups, 2) the failure of these laws to address palliative care, and 3) the pressures that have been put on patients to “choose” this inexpensive suicide option.

It is more important now than ever to look for and stop the spread of these dangerous laws in your state. Chances are, some sort of legislation may be moving in your state; even if no longer a threat this year, the groundwork is likely being laid to promote it in the future. California and DC are the most immediate targets, but there are many others that will ultimately be in the crosshairs.
Killing the patient must never be condoned as a reasonable solution to human problems!

Source: NRLC News

Euthanasia

 

Belgian Death Doctor Wins Humanist Award

By Wesley J. Smith

Dr. Wim Distelmans

I keep saying that humanism has metastasized into anti-humanism.
Case in point, the notorious euthanasia death doctor William Distelmans–an oncologist–killed the healthy but depressed Godelieva De Troyer because she wanted to die. The first her son Tom Mortier heard of the deadly endeavor was when the hospital called and curtly told him to pick up her body.
One would think that even euthanasia supporters would oppose death doctors killing patients with conditions outside their medical specialties. But then, treatment isn’t the point of euthanasia. Killing is, which is why supporters of Jack Kevorkian shrugged at his killing “patients,” even though he was a pathologist who hadn’t treated living people for decades.

Now, the Belgian Liberal Humanism Society has given this killer its Liberal Humanist Prize. From the announcement

(Google translation): This prize is awarded every two years by the Liberal-Humanist Association to “an eminent humanist who has demonstrated in his life and work of a genuine and sustained liberal humanist engagement.”

De Troyer wasn’t Distelmans’ only liberal humanist engagement.” Among his other humanist triumphs, the killing of a transgendered person upset at the outcome of sex change surgery and deaf twins who were losing their eyesight. What next? The Euthanasia of the Year Award?
#insanity
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s blog.

Source: NRLC News

Obama

 

President Obama: Reaping what he sowed

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Too bad the increasingly irrelevant Obama administration can’t just play out the string. Instead President Obama’s penchant for lecturing us mere mortals is ramping up, not ratcheting down.
Too bad as well that in the interest of “even-handedness,” columnists such as the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza can’t out-and-out admit that President Obama is primarily responsible for poisoning the well; it is his behavior, attitude, and sense of superiority that explains why cooperation with Republicans was almost impossible.

Reading the first few paragraphs of his column today (“Obama’s Hard Lessons”), you wouldn’t have a clue that Obama bore any responsibility for what Cillizza calls the “broken” system in Washington.
And then, suddenly, a backhanded suggestion/acknowledgement that the man the Washington Post has carried oceans of water for might bear more than his fair share of blame.
The “hook” for the story is a man who sent a letter of complaint to Obama that the President talked about last week at a California fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. Cillizza doesn’t give the specifics but here’s what the AP wrote about what Mr. Obama said:

I get letters, people say, you are an idiot — (laughter) — and here’s what you didn’t do, and here’s the program that is terrible, and all kinds of stuff. But this gentleman, he said, I voted for you twice but I’m deeply disappointed. And it went on and on, chronicling all the things that hadn’t gotten done.

Instead Cillizza focuses on that Mr. Obama said. Guess what? Saying he too is frustrated, Mr. Obama assumes the blame for nothing.

“Folks [a category which does not include him] are more interested in scoring political points than getting things done,” adding for emphasis (now in full blame-shifting mode) hey, he never promised to unilaterally change the ‘mess in Washington.’

“And as mightily as I have struggled against that, I told him, you’re right. It still is broken. But I reminded him that when I ran in 2008, I, in fact, did not say I would fix it; I said we could fix it. I didn’t say, ‘Yes, I can’; I said — what? . . . ‘Yes, we can.’ ”

Then, probably unbidden, candor makes an appearance in Cillizza’s column. He is honest enough to concede “Obama’s framing of his inability to change Washington is, not surprisingly, cast in the best possible light for him.”
Why….yes!
As for the malarkey (my word) that Obama was practically Mr. Modest, Cillizza notes

“That’s a bit of revisionist history given the way he talked about his candidacy in 2008. …Implicit — and sometimes explicit — in Obama’s pitch to the American public was the idea that he was uniquely able to solve the unsolvable problems that had vexed Washington through Democratic and Republican presidents alike.”

There were two bases for this uniqueness, according to Cillizza: Obama’s multicultural background and “Obama’s entire life — particularly his relatively short time in office” which

was proof that he could unite un-unitable coalitions and, not for nothing, persuade people far outside of the Democratic base to support him. (He carried Indiana, for Pete’s sake!)

A somewhat more objective assessment would be that Obama was that figurative empty vessel into which people poured whatever it required in order to convince themselves that a man with no executive experience and a legislative career, during which most of the time he was campaigning for higher office, should be our next president.

One last note. The Supreme Court will soon be ruling on a facet of ObamaCare. Cillizza writes of this “overhaul of the nation’s health-care system” that

Everything else in his presidency flowed from that decision. While he did (eventually) do what so many presidents before him had failed at, the cost of getting health care done was enormous, both in terms of the down-ballot losses it inflicted on his party and the distrust it drove — not created but drove — with Republicans.

Health care proved to Republicans that Obama wasn’t really a uniter. And it proved to Obama that Republicans would never, ever work with him on honest terms. The rest is history.

Remember: Obama rammed ObamaCare through without a single Republican vote, a victory made possible by a variety of questionable strategies including a bogus promise to “fix” a problem that he never intended to address, nor did.
Cillizza concludes, in essence, enough blame to go around.
A better answer? Mr. Obama reaped what he sowed.

Source: NRLC News

ACLU and Death by Starvation

Years After Terri Schiavo Was Starved to Death, the ACLU Still Trashes Efforts to Save Her

  Bobby Schindler 

Now that former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, has officially announced his candidacy for president, many of the same people and groups who maligned him for trying to protect my sister, Terri Schiavo, from being starved and dehydrated to death, are once again doing the same.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of those organizations.
Responding to Governor Bush’s announcement, the ACLU felt it was necessary to remind us of their position when in 2003, Governor Bush intervened trying to help Terri.
“He (Gov. Bush) attempted to use the machinery of state government and then, through a special law enacted by Congress and signed by President George Bush, the machinery of the federal government and federal courts to intrude into an intensely private family tragedy.”

Terri was an innocent disabled woman sentenced to death by Florida Circuit Court Judge, George Greer. Contrary to what the ACLU wants you to believe, it was only after Terri’s estranged husband, Michael Schiavo, petitioned the court for permission to deny his wife her food and water that this “intensely private family tragedy” became an “intensely public family tragedy”.
For those who do not remember, Terri was 26 years of age when she collapsed – while home alone with Michael Schiavo – experiencing what is still an unexplained brain injury. As a consequence of her collapse and subsequent brain injury, Terri had difficulty swallowing and therefore needed a feeding tube to receive food and water.

However, Terri was not brain dead, nor was she in a coma or in the need of any machines to help keep her alive. Terri was not dying and could have quite possibly lived a normal life span with her brain injury. In fact, Terri was, at times, able to communicate, which is evidenced by the videos of her responding to commands, and the notes in her medical files that she was beginning to form words when receiving rehabilitation just after her collapse. Sadly, it was Michael Schiavo (Terri’s appointed guardian) who decided to stop all of the therapy that was improving her condition. Nonetheless, from the beginning, our family’s only position was to bring Terri home and care for her just as she was.

Tragically, the court ruled in Michael Schiavo’s favor and his request to end her life. In response, our family (as I believe any family would) was put in the position of doing everything in our power to try and stop this tragedy from happening. This included reaching out to Governor Bush, asking for his help.

Ironically, if Terri would have been a death row inmate, the ACLU’s position regarding her court ordered death would have been very different.
Indeed, take note of the ACLU’s statement when it comes to death penalty cases:
“The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings – especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.”
As Governor, it was Governor Bush’s duty to try and protect Terri, one of his constituents, and fight against any violation of the constitution – Terri’s cruel and unusual punishment (death by dehydration and starvation); in addition, guarantee Terri’s due process of law (Terri never had an attorney representing her. In fact, incredibly enough, Judge Greer acted as her default guardian. A clear conflict of interest).
The truth is, if Terri’s case was a death penalty case, the pressure on Governor Bush to stop her death would have been beyond anything our family was doing, or Governor Bush, for that matter. Not to mention the unyielding support we would have received from the ACLU.
Certainly, if the ACLU had the integrity to admit its hypocrisy and fight for the rights of our disabled, it would stay very busy, because what happened to Terri happens every single day, not just in the United States, but globally.

For example, take the recent case of Vincent Lambert.
Lambert experienced a profound brain injury seven years ago after a motorcycle accident. His wife and some siblings agree with a doctor’s recommendation that his life should end. But Lambert’s parents and other siblings say he is showing progress and needs better care. On June 5, a court ruled that the decision to stop intravenously feeding Lambert did not violate European laws.
Unless this court ruling is overturned, Lambert will undergo the same slow, agonizing and cruel death as Terri, a process that could take as long as two-weeks, as it did in Terri’s situation.
No matter what argument you want to raise in an attempt to defend the killing of our medically vulnerable, it’s simply attempting to rationalize something that can never be rationalized.
Think about it, we rightly send to prison anyone who tortures an animal by starving them to death, and we scream “cruel and unusual punishment” for lethally injecting someone who committed a heinous act on another human being(s). But an innocent disabled person? They can’t be killed fast enough, as it’s perfectly legal in all 50 states to deliberately starve and dehydrate them to death. Stand in the way of it happening, and get ready to be viciously attacked.

So let the ACLU continue to spew its hypocrisy, condemning Governor Bush or anyone who courageously stands for those who have no voice against the growing voice and agenda of evil in this world. Because anyone who has any sense of morality or decency and understands what it means to treat someone with love and true compassion, sees this for what it is.

 

Source: LifeSite News

Euthanasia

 

Dutch Pediatricians Want to Euthanize Children

By Wesley J. Smith
There is no limit to the culture of death once it is fully off the leash.
Dutch law allows euthanasia for children age 12 and over. But now a prominent pediatrician wants the age limits erased.

From the AFP story:

Terminally ill children in unbearable suffering should be given the right to die, the Dutch Paediatricians Association said on Friday, urging the suppression of the current 12-year age limit. “We feel that an arbitrary age limit such as 12 should be changed and that each child’s ability to ask to die should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” said Eduard Verhagen, paediatrics professor at Groningen University who is on the association’s ethics commission.

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! And don’t think the “terminal illness” restriction would last two weeks.
Dutch law does not require that people be dying to be euthanized.
It should be noted that [Eduard] Verhagen–who co-authored the Groningen Protocol–commits infanticide. (The GP is a bureaucratic protocol under which doctors kill newborn babies born with disabilities and terminal illnesses.)

Think that will never happen? It’s already the law in Belgium.
As I said, there is no limit to the culture of death once it is fully off the leash.
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.

Source: NRLC News