New Terri Dailies Theme...
Last month, as we remembered Terri's cruel execution, we also witnessed Baby Joseph and Rachel Nyirahabiyambere being saved from the wrath of the death panels.
Posted on 04/01/2011 5:32:31 AM PDT by wagglebee
I recently read an article in the London Free Press (March 22nd) about the highly publicized Joseph Maraachli situation titled, Baby Joseph Case Becomes Political Issue in U.S.
As the Executive Director the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, I was personally involved in helping Baby Joseph’s parents keep control of the medical treatment decisions that were being made for their son.
Joseph was diagnosed with a brain condition that doctors believe will eventually cause his untimely death. Joseph's parents, Moe and Sana, understood that their son’s case was terminal. Their only request was for a simple procedure to be performed that would enable Joseph to spend his remaining days at home.
However, attending physicians at the London Health Sciences Centre hospital in Ontario believed they knew what was in the best interest for Baby Joseph. Sadly, but not surprisingly, their decision was to remove Joseph's breathing machine so that he would die at the hospital.
Joseph's parents objected feeling their son deserved better. After much fanfare and wrangling, the one-year old was transferred to a SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis where the parent’s wishes for medical treatment are being respectfully considered.
Subsequent to the Baby Joseph case was the tragic situation of Ms. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere. An Alexandria Circuit Court ruled that Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's medically-assisted food and water was to be removed and that she should subsequently be dehydrated to death against her family's wishes.
An appointed guardian – a complete stranger to Ms. Nyirahabiyambere and her family – decided that she should be receiving only palliative care because she was "profoundly vegetative" and had no chance of recovery.
The family looked to the Catholic hospital (Georgetown University) for support. But much to their disbelief the hospital wiped their hands clean of Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's care. Apparently the case was too costly and she had no insurance. So therefore, this institution based on Catholic principles did nothing to stop the public guardian from carrying out Ms. Nyirahabiyambere dehydration death.
Fortunately, her family fought back and three weeks after Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's feeding tube was removed, a judge ordered that she be given food and water immediately while the legal issues were being weighed.
The cases of Baby Joseph and Rachel Nyirahabiyambere are not isolated situations. Indeed, this is the reason our family established Terri's Life & Hope Network. Following the brutal death of my sister, Terri Schiavo, we intend to keep issues like this at the forefront of thought when it comes to protecting the medically vulnerable. During this time, it has become abundantly clear that the basic right to receive life-sustaining medical care is being eroded more every day.
In fact, it has escalated to the point that physicians, attorneys, hospital administrators and others can make medical decisions that are completely contrary to an individual's wishes – even if this "medical treatment" involves basic and ordinary care such as food and water.
The people pulling the strings are commonly referred to as "ethics committees," people with unilateral power to make life and death decisions regardless of a patient's desires or those of his or her immediate family.
Leading experts on medical ethics like Wesley J. Smith and Rita Marker have been warning us about these committees long before my family has been helping other families fight against them.
Sadly, if you think you are protected from being denied food and water because you are in a Catholic hospital, you might want to think again. Many of the calls for help that we receive are from families that are up against Catholic hospitals and their so-called ethics committees. This is in spite of the fact that the denial of food and water from anyone is contrary to the fundamentals of Catholic teaching.
This is why I and others believe that a type of "death panel" already exists in the form of ethics committees that can subjectively make decisions to end lives.
Some, like Texas attorney Tom Malloy, may argue this point. According to this same March 22nd interview regarding the Baby Joseph case, Malloy (who has been a member on five ethics boards) said that all the dissent over last year's health care reform law and questions of how to treat vulnerable patients like Baby Joseph were simply "an all-out effort to defeat health reform." Malloy stated that decisions by ethics committees "have happened for years and they have nothing to do with Obama-care."
It is important to note that Malloy was instrumental in legislation to ensure that ethics committees have the last word over the removal of life-sustaining medical treatment and has admitted that "some" ethics boards "have ended the life of a patient, even children, over the objections of family."
Well, if these aren't a type of "death panel," then what will we be facing once the government controls our healthcare?
Consider attorney Thaddeus Pope, a professor at the University of Delaware School of Law, who confirmed Malloy's assertion regarding ethics boards. Professor Pope believes that if cases like Baby Joseph were to happen in states like Texas, it wouldn't even be newsworthy. "The mainstream media isn't even covering these [cases] anymore. It's not news." Pope added, "The idea is that it never happens in the U.S. – it happens all the time."
Terri's case, Baby Joseph and the situation involving Ms. Nyirahabiyambere are only a few of many tragic and controversial cases that have made it into the public spectrum for debate.
However, most people commenting on these situations have never been put in the position of having to fight the "system" in order to protect their loved ones – let alone care for someone with cognitive disabilities.
We chose to advocate for families like Baby Joseph's because our family knows firsthand how devastating it is to experience the needless and inhumane death of a vulnerable child or a loved one.
Though we don't believe people should be arbitrarily kept alive at all costs, cases like Baby Joseph's and Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's clearly illustrate how family and parents should maintain the right to make their own medical decisions.
Regardless, it is always gravely wrong to deny anyone our most basic care – food and water. When that simple right is stripped from a family member or from an individual and placed in the hands of a panel of strangers, nobody wins.
Certainly, no parent or family member should ever have to witness a child or loved one being deliberately put to death. Lawyers fight the causes, judges make the orders and medical staff members carry out the actions. They all return to their jobs and their daily lives while the parents and family members live with the devastation forever.
Or do they? Certainly not in the case of my father – who never recovered emotionally from his daughter’s barbaric death – those who succeeded in ending his daughter’s life, also ended his life as well.
Exactly, the death panels are already here and the culture of death is trying to increase their powers.
Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
I have a draft medical power of attorney that spells out clearly the desire to be provided food and water. It is assumed by the client that food and water and life saving machines will be provided unless rejected by a living will...not so.
As the this Catholic issue: Know that in the US, the Catholics are split between raving liberals who pick and choose cafeteria style which beliefs they espouse and those who are following the beliefs of the Catholic church. In my area, the not for profit group that does advance directives is run by a nun.
The purpose of palliative care is to make the individual more comfortable, and more functional if possible; it doesn't mean "kill her off." A cancer patient, for example, can receive palliative care even while undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation which are intended to cure the cancer, or considerably prolong the person's life.
Nothing to do with zer0deathcare? That is the veriest nonsense.
On top of its being satanic, it’s scary as all get out. It’s not a good time to be in [ahem] one’s 60s.
Threads by julieee and me.
Company Uses Fetal Cells From Abortions for Artificial Flavors
Washington, DC -- A pro-life group that monitors the use of cells from babies victimized by abortions is today bashing the biotech company Senomyx, which it says produces artificial flavor enhancers using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifenews.com ...
__________________________________________________
When Jack Kevorkian advocated harvesting organs from assisted suicide victims in his 1991 book Prescription Medicide, people were appalled. What could be more dangerous than giving depressed people with severe disabilities the idea that their deaths would have greater societal value than their lives? Then, when he actually acted on his beliefs, stripping the kidneys of Joseph Tushkowski, a quadriplegic ex police officer Kevorkian assisted in suicide, offering them at a press conference, “first come, first served,” people were stunned. Who could be so ghoulish? Article Link
However, Kevorkian’s macabre notion had turned a key in the deadbolt. The idea of coupling euthanasia with organ harvesting began to receive respectful consideration in medical and bioethics professional journals. Thus, the respected organ transplant ethicists, Robert M. Arnold and Stuart J. Youngner wrote a hypothetical scenario for consideration in a 1993 article published in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal:
A ventilator-dependent ALS patient could request that life support be removed at 5:00 p.m., but that at 9:a.m. the same day he be taken to the operating room, put under general anesthesia, and his kidneys, liver, and pancreas removed. Bleeding vessels would be tied off or cauterized. The patient’s heart would not be removed and would continue to beat throughout surgery, perfusing the other organs with warm, oxygen-and nutrient-rich blood until they were removed. The heart would stop, and the patient would be pronounced dead after the ventilator was removed at 5:00 p.m., according to plan, and long before the patient could die from renal, hepatic, or pancreatic failure.
Rather than being critical or appalled, the bioethicists validated the utilitarian potential:
If active euthanasia – e.g., lethal injection – and physician-assisted suicide are legally sanctioned, even more patients could couple organ donation with their planned deaths; we would not have to depend only upon persons attached to life support. This practice would yield not only more donors, but more types of organs as well, since the heart could now be removed from dying, not just dead, patients.
The writers even nodded to Kevorkian’s contribution to the debate:
The irresistible utilitarian appeal of organ transplantation has us hell-bent on increasing the donor pool…Are we headed for the utilitarian utopia espoused by Jack Kevorkian, where organ retrieval and scientific experimentation are options in every planned death, be it mercy killing or execution? If a look into such a future hurts our eyes, (or turns our stomachs) is our discomfort any different from what we would have experienced 30 years ago by looking into the future that is today?
Opponents of legalizing euthanasia—of which I am one—were well aware of these and other articles, which served to normalize the idea of coupling physician-prescribed death with organ procurement and transplantation. But, we knew of no cases where the deeds had actually been coupled. So we waited, fearing that the shoe would drop, but praying it would not.
Clunk! That sound you just heard was the euthanasia/organ harvesting shoe slamming with great velocity into the hardwood floor. Writing in the journal Transplant International (Vol. 21, p. 915, 2008) several physicians reported that they had participated in the euthanasia and concomitant organ retrieval of a totally paralyzed woman:
This case of two separate requests, first euthanasia and second, organ donation after death, demonstrates that organ harvesting after euthanasia may be considered and accepted from ethical, legal and practical viewpoints in countries where euthanasia is legally accepted. This possibility may increase the number of transplantable organs and may also provide some comfort to the donor and his (her) family, considering that the termination of the patient’s life may somehow help other human beings in need for organ transplantation.
In other words, we did it, ergo, it is proper. Talk about ethical bootstrapping!
And now proponents of euthanasia/harvesting have taken to the road in Europe, arguing in particular for coupling the procedures on patients with neuro-muscular disabilities and diseases—because they can provide “high quality” organs. Article Link
Apologists for the euthanasia/organ harvest protocol defend the idea based on the procedural requirement that different medical teams be involved in the euthanasia and the organ harvesting. But that supposed protection is meaningless. Once a society decides that some of its members have a life of such low quality that it is acceptable for doctors to kill them, and once these patients—many of whom already feel like burdens—learn that they can save lives by their suicides, the seductive pull of asking for euthanasia/organ harvesting could reach gravitational strength. We have entered exceedingly dangerous territory, made the more treacherous by doctors and bioethicists validating the ideas that dead is better than disabled and approvingly recounting how patients can be viewed as a natural resource. If we are to avoid devolving into a Kevorkian-style society, we must resist the siren song of euthanasia/assisted suicide at all measures.
Thread by EternalVigilance.
Uploaded by orphanscrymusic on Mar 26, 2011
One day I was cooking dinner in my kitchen, and I felt a burden for the babies around the world that never have a chance to live their lives because of abortion. I prayed at that moment about how I could make a difference with the limited time and energy that I had, having four children of my own including a newborn. I felt compelled by the Lord to be a voice for these babies using my own voice...I sat at my piano and as I wept, these are the words and the music that flowed from that moment. I asked God to tell me what these babies would want to say if they had a voice..."You named me no one, but I wanted to be known."
Threads by me.
The pro-life organization responsible for recent videos showing Planned Parenthood offering abortions to alleged sex traffickers who prey on women finds the abortion business is misleading about mammograms.
As LifeNews.com reported in February, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards joined the talk show of pro-abortion activist Joy Behar and defended Planned Parenthood against legislation in Congress seeking to revoke its federal taxpayer funding.
“If this bill ever becomes law, millions of women in this country are going to lose their health care access, not to abortion services, to basic family planning – you know, mammograms,” she claimed.
LifeNews.com and pro-life blogger Jill Stanek followed up with phone calls to various Planned Parenthood centers and confirmed they do not do mammograms.
Today, Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
Live Action president Lila Rose says the new recordings further confirm Planned Parenthood’s corruption.
“Planned Parenthood is first and foremost an abortion business, but Planned Parenthood and its allies will say almost anything to try and cover up that fact and preserve its taxpayer funding,” she told LifeNews.com. “It’s not surprising that an organization found concealing statutory rape and helping child sex traffickers would misrepresent its own services so brazenly, playing on women’s fears in order to protect their tax dollars.”
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director in Texas, also condemned Planned Parenthood’s misleading statements on mammograms.
“For so long PP has touted that they are a provider of mammogram services,” she said. “This is just one of the lies that Planned Parenthood uses to draw people into their clinics. PP is not able to provide quality services on their own, so they are forced to lie to the public about services they don’t provide–and mammograms are just one of those services.”
Both Rose and Johnson call on Congress to revoke all taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood. In the last reported year, Planned Parenthood received $363 million in government money.
____________________________________________________
Now that an expose’ has revealed Planned Parenthood abortion centers do not do mammograms on site but merely refer women to legitimate medical centers that do, a key organization that funds it is facing questions.
After concerns earlier this year that Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards made false claims in defending its taxpayer funding that it provides mammorams for women, the organization Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
That information is now raising questions about the millions of dollars the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has given in grants to the abortion business, which it says is partly for mammograms.
Komen’s own figures show 20 of Komen’s 122 affiliates have made donations to Planned Parenthood and, last year, those contributions totaled $731,303. Komen spokesman John Hammarley also confirmed Komen affiliates contributed about $3.3 million to the abortion business from 2004-2009.
In a March 2011 statement about Planned Parenthood, Komen claims the grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business are meant to help women with breast health.
“Early screening through mammograms and education is critical to end the suffering from this disease: 98 percent of women treated for early stage breast cancer, before it spreads, are alive five years later. The widespread use of mammography and heightened public awareness of breast cancer both contribute to these favorable statistics,” Komen says. “And while Komen Affiliates provide funds to pay for screening, education and treatment programs in dozens of communities, in some areas, the only place that poor, uninsured or under-insured women can receive these services are through programs run by Planned Parenthood.”
With Planned Parenthood not offering mammograms for women, SusanAnne Hiller of the conservative website Big Journalism wonders why Komen is making the grants.
“Now that LiveAction has proved that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammography services to its clients, what is the money being used for, because clearly is not for mammography screenings?” Hiller wonders. “Education, treatment? Are these questions we can expect our mainstream media propagandists to divulge in their articles? Or will the discovery stop with these citizen investigators and go unreported by the networks?”
Hiller also notes that Planned Parenthood only provides breast exams of the self-exam type women can do on their own or with a trusted friend or family member at home.
“However, the Komen memo links mammography, screenings, education, and treatment of breast cancer as their list of reasons it contributes to PP. It’s perpetuated all across the media without validation,” she says. “The Komen Foundation needs to come clean on specifically what those PP contributions are designated and why they really continue to support Planned Parenthood.”
ACTION: Send your concerns to Komen at http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx
Thread by mandaladon.
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal editorial page caught this story about Britain's National Health Service.
"A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation--at her own hospital," London's Daily Mail reports:
Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.
But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.
Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust--the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.
He said: "I don't really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off."
It would be cruel to put this down to karma, so instead we'll just note that it can't possibly be true. After all, as New York Times star columnist Paul Krugman has observed, "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."
James really knows how to let Krugman have it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Thread by me.
Now that Baby Joseph Maraachli has had the tracheotomy his parents wanted him to have so he could breathe easier as he dies from a rare medical condition that will soon take his life, he will soon be transferred to a new hospital.
Doctors at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis performed the tracheotomy on March 21 and, in a follow-up statement, deemed the procedure “medically appropriate” after a thorough examination of the 14-month-old boy who a Canadian hospital refused to help.
“It is our hope that this procedure will allow Joseph and his family the gift of a few more months together and that Joseph may be more comfortable with a permanent tracheotomy,” the hospital said. “We ask that you keep Baby Joseph and his family in your prayers.”
The hospital also indicated Joseph suffers from Leigh Syndrome, a rare genetic neurometabolic disorder. Leigh’s disease, also known as Subacute Necrotizing Encephalomyelopathy (SNEM), is a rare neurometabolic disorder that affects the central nervous system and it is named for Denis Archibald Leigh, a British psychiatrist who first described the condition in 1951.
The condition typically affects infants between the age of three months and two years and mutations in the mitochondrial DNA or the nuclear DNA cause degradation of motor skills and eventually death. Crucial cells in the brain stem have mutated mtDNA and this causes a chronic lack of energy in the cells which adversely affects the central nervous system and inhibits motor functions. There is currently no cure for the disease and infants like Joseph rarely live longer than two or three years after the onset of the disease.
The Maraachli family now hopes to take Joseph home to die in peace and privacy.
But first, according to a National Catholic Register report, Joseph is expected to be moved soon to Ranken Jordan, a St. Louis pediatric specialty hospital, before heading home with his parents.
Shortly after the procedure, Joseph was baptized and his parents said they were pleased with the developments.
Moe Maraachli, Joseph’s father, commented: “It’s a miracle. My son now has freedom. I’m very happy. My wife and I will respect the second opinion from the hospital in St. Louis. We will accept it with all my heart because Joseph got his human right to get a chance to get a second opinion. When God wants to take his life He’ll take it and nobody can say ‘No’ to God.”
Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, talked about that and gave an update in an email to LifeNews.com, saying Joseph’s parents are pleased following the procedure.
Pavone said, “His parents are so happy that he received a fresh evaluation and second opinion, and they now feel that their baby has been given the proper kind of medical care.”
“Also, Baby Joseph was baptized just the other day, and Jerry Horn of our Priests for Life team is now his godfather,” he added.
“No matter how long Baby Joseph lives,” Pavone added, he thanked the “tens of thousands of pro-life activists who took a stand” allowing him to “receive the dignity and treatment he deserves as a human person. So even though we have no idea how much time we have won for Baby Joseph and his family, we have delivered a clear and powerful message to the world. That message is While there is such a thing as a worthless treatment, there’s no such thing as a worthless life.”
Pavone said the medical costs for the family are building up and could reach as much as between $100,000-$150,000 as a grand total.
Threads by me.
The family of Terri Schiavo, through their Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, will present a symposium on end-of-life issues before a special Mass to remember and honor the life of the disabled woman.
The mass, which will be held at Ave Maria University, a Florida-based Catholic college, will mark the anniversary of the death of the woman who rose to international attend when her husband sought and won permission from a court to take her life via a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death.
The symposium, entitled The Erosion of Medical Ethics, will be held on March 31 and Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and the director of the foundation bearing her name that tries to help disabled patients and their families, will be moderating the panel and also discuss how the removal of food and water to the cognitively disabled occurs daily in our society.
“With health care rationing on the rise, it is crucial to educate our future attorneys on the moral and legal understandings as it relates to basic healthcare needs such as food and water,” he said. “In the future, these are the very men and women who will be essential to protecting the rights of the cognitively disabled, the elderly and medically dependent.”
He told LifeNews.com, “It is our hope that upon graduation they will be part of our Network of lawyers who fight for the lives of our vulnerable brothers and sisters.”
Speakers include Brother Paul O’Donnell, Dr. Mark Mostert, Kristan Hawkins and Professor Richard Myers. They will discuss Catholic Church teaching as it relates to hydration and nutrition; historical prejudice to people with disabilities; health care and its potential effects on special needs patients; and the legal aspects of the Terri Schiavo case. The symposium is open to law students and faculty of Ave Maria School of Law.
Following the symposium Ave Maria University will host the “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory, located near Naples, Florida. The International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters (“Terri’s Day”) was established in 2007 and is observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri’s death. Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, will join again this year as the main celebrant for the event.
The purpose of this day is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the cognitively disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced. 40 Days for Life, a community-based campaign that over a period of 40 days attempts to transform individuals and communities to recognize the value and dignity of human life, will be observing “Terri’s Day” with prayer along with countless others who will be remembering Terri on this day.
The family is also sponsoring a fundraising concert in Ohio in June featuring the Beach Boys.
____________________________________________________
On the anniversary of her 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hands of her former husband, pro-life advocates are remembering Terri Schiavo and promising to help disabled patients like her.
“We honor Terri Schiavo today, by speaking at the Medical Ethics Symposium at Ave Maria School of Law. Her fight for Life reflects the importance of caring for those with special needs, especially with end of life decisions and prenatal diagnosis,” Hawkins said. “In both cases, pro-lifers need to stand for the most defenseless among us.”
“I have seen this with my own eyes when my son Gunner was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). During my second pregnancy with my son Bear, doctors told me that I should find out if he had CF in order to prevent me from having another child that would suffer with this condition,” Hawkins added.
She continued, “Bear, thankfully, was healthy, but the pressure that mothers face for prenatal diagnosis and aborting children with special needs is tremendous as 90% of Gunner’s peers that are diagnosed with CF in the womb are aborted. That’s an astounding statistic that calls us to action. We must stand for the most defenseless among us, those with special needs in hospitals as well as those in the womb.”
Meanwhile, the staff of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, a pro-life legal group that provided help for Terri’s family during the ordeal, say they “will never forget Terri, nor will we forget her family’s valiant efforts to save her life.”
“Life Legal was privileged to assist the Schindler family in the fight for Terri’s life and as the years go by we continue to receive calls from families in similar situations,” the group told LifeNews. “LLDF board member Brian Chavez Ochoa litigated one such case on behalf of Suzanne Emrich. Ochoa filed a petition that requested the court order nutrition and hydration restored to her cousin, Janet Rivera, who for nine days was denied food and fluids. The petition was granted, and Ms. Rivera’s life was saved.”
Some of the referrals Life Legal receives come from The Life and Hope Network, formerly the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, which Terri’s family continues to help other patients like her.
The pro-life legal group encouraged people to look ahead to potential problems by putting together legal papers to protect the medical care and treatment they want.
“It bears repeating that one of the lessons we learned from Terri’s case is that should you become incapacitated by illness or disability, the person who is your decision-maker could mean the difference between life and death,” the group said. “We encourage you to honor Terri’s memory by protecting yourself with a protective medical decision document.”
The National Right to Life Committee also remembered Terri, saying, “Six years ago today, Terri Schiavo died by court-ordered starvation & dehydration. Remember Terri and see what you can do.”
Following the symposium, Ave Maria University will host the “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory, located near Naples, FL, marking the sixth anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death.
The International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters (“Terri’s Day”) was established in 2007 and is observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri’s death.
The purpose of this day is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the cognitively disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced. 40 Days for Life, a community-based campaign that over a period of 40 days attempts to transform individuals and communities to recognize the value and dignity of human life, will be observing “Terri’s Day” with prayer along with countless others who will be remembering Terri on this day.
____________________________________________________
AVE MARIA, Florida, March 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On March 31, 2005, a Florida woman who was at the center of an intense nationwide controversy took her last breath, after thirteen days without food or water. A bouquet of flowers sat in a vase of water next to the bed where Terri Schiavo lay, forbidden under court order from receiving the water she needed to sustain her life.
Six years later, Terri’s family reverently recalled their loved one’s struggle to live, a struggle that became a measure of America’s conscience after attempts to overrule husband Michael Schiavo’s decision to withdraw her nutrition and hydration went as far as the United States Congress.
Although Terri’s story may have ended, Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and founder of the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, told LifeSiteNews.com that today - Terri’s Day - must call attention to the thousands of others who suffer silently in conditions similar to his sister’s.
“This was not an isolated case. What happened to Terri happens all the time in our country,” said Schindler. “There’s tens of thousands of others with the same type of cognitive disabilites that need our protection, our love and our compassion.”
Terri Schindler Schiavo suffered severe brain damage due to oxygen deprivation under mysterious circumstances in 1990. Her family members say that her husband Michael refused rehabilitation therapy for twelve years, which would have greatly improved her condition. Instead, Schiavo, who had moved in with another woman, fought Terri’s family to end her life by removing her feeding tube.
Despite drastic measures by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress and former President George W. Bush, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge George Greer ended the dispute by forbidding Terri from receiving food or water - whether through a feeding tube or by mouth.
Schindler, who attended a Catholic Mass in Terri’s memory at the oratory at Ave Maria University, said that today there lingers “apathy” and “an enormous amount of misinformation” both about Terri and others like her.
“Terri was not dying, people thought she had some kind of terminal illness ... there was no machines keeping her alive, she simply had a cognitive disability,” said Schindler. “The public just doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s easy to rationalize why we’re doing this to people like my sister.”
The family has been forced to fight not just apathy, but mockery as well: an episode of FOX cartoon show “Family Guy” in March 2010 satirized Terri’s death with a “musical” depicting the Florida woman hooked up to various machines and being referred to as a “vegetable.”
Last May, Michael Schiavo suddenly threatened to sue the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, known at the time as the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, for using his wife’s name and accused the group of mishandling donations, a claim the Schindlers denied.
Schindler said that, after responding by letter to Schiavo’s legal threat, the latter has given no response. “Our issue now is not Michael Schiavo, it’s helping others and trying to protect these people that are getting threatened every day,” he said.
Now, as one of the leading advocates for those with cognitive disabilities threatened with death by dehydration, Schindler says his painful inspiration is never far from his mind.
“There’s not a day that goes by we don’t think about Terri,” he said. “Having to watch a loved one die in such a horrible way - it’s something you never forget. You live with it every day.”
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
Bump!
Thread by topher.
April 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Myths about Planned Parenthood are spreading like grassfire. Thanks to a perfect storm of events, the abortion provider is scrambling to cauterize the biggest PR hit it has ever sustained. November’s election of an overwhelmingly pro-life Congress, revelation of numerous violations by its staff and repeated calls for its defunding by social and fiscal conservatives alike have put Planned Parenthood’s lifeblood on the line.
Planned Parenthood’s bottom line is numbers. And, with abortion as its primary money-maker, that means implementing a quota. I know this is true because I worked at one of their Texas clinics for 8 years, two as the clinic director.
Though 98 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services to pregnant women are abortion, Planned Parenthood and its political allies have sworn up and down that taxpayer dollars do not to pay for abortion. But of course they do. Planned Parenthood gets one-third of its entire budget from taxpayer funding and performed more than 650,000 abortions between 2008 and 2009. An abortion is expensive. Its cost includes pay for the doctor, supporting medical staff, their health benefits packages and malpractice insurance. As clinic director, I saw how money affiliate clinics receive from several sources is combined into one pot, not set aside for specific services.
Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions make up just 3 percent of its services is also a gimmick. That number is actually closer to 12 percent, but strategically skewed by unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to 20 “visits” per appointment (i.e., 12 packs of birth control equals 12 visits) and doing the opposite with abortion visits, bundling them together so that each appointment equals one visit. The resulting difference between family planning and abortion “visits” is striking.
But that’s not the only deception Planned Parenthood is spreading.
It also claims to help reduce the number of abortions. Not only is this not what Planned Parenthood actually accomplishes, but its goal couldn’t be more opposite. As a Planned Parenthood clinic manager, I was directed to double the number of abortions our clinic performed in order to drive up revenue. In keeping, Planned Parenthood headquarters recently issued a directive mandating that all of its affiliates provide abortions by 2013.
Planned Parenthood is also spending a lot of money convincing its primary income providers – taxpayers – that its highest priority is women’s health and safety. Live Action and the Expose Planned Parenthood coalition released numerous undercover videos showing clinic staff aiding and abetting alleged sex traffickers in exploiting underage girls – some as young as 14.
After initially downplaying the first video as a scam, Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey came under so much pressure that it fired the office manager in the footage. New Jersey Attorney General Paula Dow quickly called for an investigation, but Planned Parenthood’s problems don’t end with firing one office manager. Later Live Action videos revealed an unbroken chain of similar problems in clinics up and down the East Coast.
Planned Parenthood has found other ways to increase revenue at the expense of women’s safety. Abortion consultations are now often done without a doctor in the room through online “telemedicine.” Abortion is a severely traumatic and potentially dangerous procedure. Even as Planned Parenthood’s 2008 Employee of the Year, I saw this aggressive push toward more “efficient” telemedicine as risky.
Another nuisance the organization is seeking to do away with is reporting sex abuse of minors. It has sued to overturn a child abuse reporting law applying to minors under 14 on the grounds that it violated a girl’s “constitutional right to privacy.” Planned Parenthood called the bill unnecessary given that its medical personnel are already obliged to report such matters and that filing additional reports would only “overload” the government. Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to bother the government with protecting minors.
It also can’t be bothered to enable women to make informed decisions. Planned Parenthood has adamantly opposed laws in nearly two dozen states that require clinic staff to show a woman a sonogram before an abortion. With all the supposed health services these clinics provide, why should they fear sonograms? Because they cut down on its biggest income source.
With the Continuing Resolution battle before us, we can, at very least, stop making taxpayers perpetuate a culture that puts profit margins before women’s safety. Congress has and must seize the opportunity to stop directing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to recipients who deliberately deceive the public and violate federal law.
I joined Planned Parenthood because I wanted to help poor women with real health care needs. I still do — that’s why I left. Planned Parenthood doesn’t care about women’s health care needs, it cares about abortion.
It’s time to defund Planned Parenthood of our tax dollars.
Thread by me.
April 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canadian Paediatric Society - bioethics committee, released a statement on April 1 concerning the withholding and withdrawing of artificial nutrition and hydration.
The statement is similar to the statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Both statements approve the withholding or withdrawing of nutrition and hydration (fluids and food) from infants who may not be dying.
The Canadian statement allows euthanasia by dehydration (slow euthanasia) of infants with cognitive or other disabilities based on a “quality of life” assessment and with consent.
I refer to this as euthanasia by dehydration because there is a clear difference between withholding or withdrawing fluids and food from a person who is actually dying and nearing death and a person who is not otherwise dying.
When a person is actually dying and nearing death, the death occurs from the medical condition. But when fluids and food are intentionally withheld or withdrawn from someone who has cognitive or other serious disabilities or conditions but is not otherwise dying, the cause of death is intentional dehydration.
Many leading bioethicists would like you to believe that there is no difference between killing and letting die, but in fact there is a big difference. When we allow the killing of a person, we are allowing an intentional action or omission to directly cause death. Letting someone die means that we are actually allowing natural death to occur.
Some bioethicists will refer to the “artificial” nature of providing fluids and food as the issue. This argument is false. We always receive fluids and food by some means, whether it be by a spoon, straw, bottle or mother’s milk, etc.
In a media release, the Canadian Paediatric Society stated:
ANH [artificial nutrition and hydration] refers to nutrition or hydration that is delivered by artificial means, such as via a feeding tube or intravenously. Legal and ethics experts say there is no difference between withholding or withdrawing ANH versus other therapies that sustain or prolong life. The CPS makes clear that any decision should be based solely on the benefit to the child, while considering the child’s overall plan of care.
“Food and drink evoke deep emotional and psychological responses, and are associated with nurturing,” said Dr. Tsai. “But artificial nutrition and hydration is not about providing food and fluids through normal means of eating and drinking. It should be viewed the same as any other medical intervention, such as ventilatory support.”
Sadly, there was another time in history when euthanasia by dehydration of newborns was accepted. Those deaths became the T4 euthanasia program that progressed to euthanasia by injection and then euthanasia by gassing.
No, not everyone is willing to turn a blind eye to intentionally dehydrating infants to death. These infants are vulnerable people because they have been born with disabilities. Many medical professionals view their lives as “life unworthy of life” and their parents are afraid and have been told that these children will live lives that are “wretched to the extreme.”
Thread by BykrBayb.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Grand Junction proclaimed Monday as National Health Care Decisions Day, urging all citizens to make their health care wishes known through advance care planning for managing a serious illness, or end-of-life care.
Living wills and advance directives are documents that spell out your wishes if you should become incapacitated due to a medical crisis.
Millions of people began filling out living wills and advance directives after the 1976 Supreme Court case of Karen Ann Quinlan, whose parents battled with hospital staff who sought to keep Quinlan alive through artificial means, even though she had lapsed into a vegetative state and doctors had determined she would never recover. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in the parents favor, who said they wanted Karen to die with “grace and dignity.”
People who make their wishes known in advance can avoid situations like Quinlan's, and that of another woman — Terri Schiavo — who suffered a cardiac arrest, that led to a vegetative state lasting 15 years before her mechanical life support system was removed.
The Mesa County Advance Care Planning Task Force, a group of local organizations, is offering “Medical Decision Making in Colorado” workshops on how to plan for end-of-life care, Thursday and Saturday, April 14 and 16. The sessions are free.
The sessions will include communicating end-of-life wishes to loved ones, and how to appoint a health care power of attorney. There will also be new information regarding living wills and other advance directive documents.
St. Mary's Hospital is hosting Thursday's session, and Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado will host the Saturday workshop. Light refreshments will be provided.
Limited seating is available and reservations are required by calling Western Colorado 2-1-1.
GO&DO
What: Advance Care Planning Session - hosted by St. Mary's Hospital and Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado
When and Where: April 14 - St. Mary's Saccomanno Education Center, 2635 7th St. April 16 - Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado, 3090 N. 12th St. Unit B, Room 102 Both sessions are 9-11 a.m.
Cost: Free
Info: Register before April 12 by calling Western Colorado 2-1-1
Two threads by me.
A SCOTTISH pro-euthanasia group’s involvement in the death of a pensioner—who ended her life despite not being terminally ill—was exposed this week in a case pro-life campaigners said showed the true nature of the pro-euthanasia agenda.
Nan Maitland, an active member of Glasgow-based Friends at the End (Fate), had campaigned for change in the law over doctor-assisted death for years before travelling to a Swiss suicide clinic and ending her life last month.
Controversial decision
The 84-year-old had long been living with arthritis, and in a letter to friends, said she chose to escape the ‘long period of decline, sometimes called ‘prolonged dwindling,’ that so many people unfortunately experience before they die.’
Two members of Fate—Liz Nichols and Dr Michael Irwin—accompanied Londoner Mrs Maitland on her final journey. In a goodbye message released by Fate, Mrs Maitland, who died on March 1, wrote: “By the time you read this, with the help of Fate and the good Swiss, I will have gone to sleep, never to wake. I have a great feeling of relief that I will have no further need to struggle through each day in dread of what further horrors may lie in wait.”
The mother-of-three was an occupational therapist and also founded a charity that offers accommodation to older people in exchange for help with household chores. She added: “Please be happy for me that I have been able to escape from this, for me, unbearable future.”
Shameful episode
Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of the pro-life Care Not Killing group said Nan Maitland’s death was a shameful episode.
“This case, involving an elderly woman with arthritis who was actively assisted by fellow campaigners to kill herself, yet again exposes the real agenda of the pro euthanasia lobby,” he said. “They claim that the law should be changed to help only those in the last days or weeks of a terminal illness, whilst actively pursuing much broader goals.
“All the talk about demonstrating how assisted suicide and euthanasia could be legalised with ‘safeguards’ is simply a front for an agenda of incremental extension. The true aim of those campaigning for a change in the law, as we have seen today, is to allow anyone who requests it, regardless of their age or health, to be helped to end their lives.”
He added that all the evidence shows that any change in the law would ‘place pressure on vulnerable people, especially those who are elderly, depressed or disabled, to end their lives so as not to be a burden on loved ones, carers, or the state.’
“This pressure will be much more acutely felt at a time of economic recession when health budgets are being cut and many families are feeling the financial pinch,” Dr Saunders said. “The current law, which has been debated on numerous occasions in parliament in recent years, is clear and ensures that the lives of vulnerable people are not exploited or abused. It provides a strong deterrent to abuse through the penalties that it holds in reserve. It does not need changing.”
Fate in Glasgow
Dr Libby Wilson founded Fate, which is based in Glasgow’s west end, in 2000. The group promotes end-of-life choices and campaigns for a change in the law relating to assisted suicide and euthanasia. In 2009 Dr Wilson was arrested by Surrey police after the suicide of 43-year-old Woking academic Cari Loder, who was terminally ill with multiple sclerosis. Questioned by police, Dr Wilson admitted advising Ms Loder on how to kill herself by administering helium.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that no charges would be brought against her, as it was not ‘in the public interest.’
_____________________________________________________
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
Thanks for the ping!
Thread by iowamark.
When a society supports strong families led by one man and one woman, it has benefits for the economy as well, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said Monday during a visit to the University of Iowa.
Marriage between a man and a woman is a foundation block for a strong America, but marriage has been under attack, Bachmann, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said. She also noted the financial implications of pregnancies to unwed mothers, through welfare and other government spending.
“Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism,” Bachmann said to loud cheers from the crowd of about 200. “You can’t separate” the two.
Bachmann’s visit Monday was part of the presidential lecture series sponsored by Iowa conservative group The Family Leader. The lecture series has brought several prominent national politicians to Iowa City in recent weeks.
She talked of the “three-legged stool” needed to hold up American society: upholding life, marriage and strong family life; promoting a strong economy and job creation; and national security. Bachmann said she was a strong opponent of U.S. involvement in Libya, a situation she calls a “big mistake.”
“He has no idea what our military goal is in Libya,” she said of President Barack Obama.
But the greatest threat to national security is not Iran or Libya, it’s the national debt, Bachmann said. She rallied against Obama’s health care overhaul, which she said will cost more than anyone imagines and provide people less care, and said she was disappointed with the federal budget plan released last week, which she believes doesn’t go far enough to cut government spending.
There were some vocal protesters who repeatedly shouted questions during a portion of Bachmann’s speech. When she took questions after the speech, Bachmann invited one of the protesters to ask the first question. The pair were asked to leave the ballroom a few minutes later. One of the protesters asked Bachmann “how much oil do you want?”
Bachmann, who lived in Waterloo until she was 12, responded that she wants a lot more than the United States has now, but she wants it to come from U.S. oil fields instead of from the Middle East. The United States could be the most energy-rich country in the world if it accessed its oil, its natural gas and developed more wind and solar energy, she said.
“We could supply our own energy cheaper and be an exporter,” she said.
Coralville resident Randy Crawford said after the speech he thinks Bachmann has a lot of common sense about the U.S. tax system and about societal stability, such as her opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
“It’s what we need a lot more of,” Crawford said. “She’s head and shoulders above Obama.”
Thread by me.
Terri Schiavo was subjected to a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death by her former husband who refused to provide her with proper medical care and rehabilitative treatment.
Not wanting to see other patients endure the same ordeal, the foundation Terri’s family started to help disabled people receive proper care announced today it is supporting the New Beginnings Community Center of Medford, New York that will help people in similar situations.
The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network told LifeNews that New Beginnings is a state-of-the-art outpatient rehabilitative facility for Veteran’s, Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors and other cognitively and physically disabled persons. It is designed to provide rehabilitation, management and recovery services in an exceptional, stimulating and safe environment.
The center reached out to the family to dedicate the building to the memory of Terri and her family agreed to do so.
Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and the director of the foundation, told LifeNews.com: “We are truly blessed by the vision of New Beginnings Community Center. We believe that this grand opening will set an example for health care facilities across the country to begin to fully understand that just because someone experiences a cognitive disability, and their physical appearance may change, their human dignity does not.
“We are dedicating New Beginnings Community Center in Terri Schindler Schiavo’s memory,” Allyson Scerri, New Beginnings Founder and President, added.. “This is our way of honoring Terri’s memory, her battle for proper treatment as a cognitively disabled person, and all others who did not have the chance for rehabilitation.”
One of the goals at the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network is to partner with care centers that provide assistance for brain injured individuals and support for their families.
Suzanne Vitadamo, another foundation director who is Terri’s sister, said, “This is a very special event for our family and our network. We are delighted to know that New Beginnings will be a great resource and safe haven for those that have experienced a brain injury. The underlying message is that there always remains hope for these patients and their families.”
“We remain optimistic that this will be the first of many extended health care facilities to embrace a ‘safe haven’ concept of care which will not deny any treatment or therapy to the cognitively disabled and traumatic brain injury survivors,” Vitadamo added.
The family of Terri Schiavo will be participating in this special dedication, at the grand opening on Sunday, April 17. To learn more about New Beginnings Community Center, visit their website www.nbli.org.
Thread by Rennes Templar.
A pro-life advocate in Kansas is battling to fight growing epidemic of abortion among blacks.
Reports indicate abortion is the leading cause of death within the African-American community in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), since 1973 -- the year of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade -- 13 million African-American lives have been lost to abortion.
Peggy Elliott Ministries was honored with a $2,500 grant at the recent Servant Awards celebration in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Peggy Elliott, ministry founder and president, says it is time for the genocide to stop.
"Between abortion and black-on-black crime, as a people group we're exterminating ourselves. We're not loving our children in the womb or outside of the womb," she shares. "So I have to do whatever it is that I can do to help save babies' lives and to make an impact on our culture.
"We've become a culture of death -- and I want to be one of those used by God to move us from a culture of death to a culture of life."
Currently in Congress, every member of the Congressional Black Caucus identifies himself or herself as "pro-choice." Elliott laments that fact.
"Less than two percent of the African-American population is involved actively in the pro-life movement," she notes. "So any of the babies who have been saved -- our babies -- have been because there's been people who aren't concerned about the color. So [while] I say thank you to that...I also say it's time for my culture to wake up and to become involved."
We have more babies die from [Sudden Infant Death Syndrome] -- there's something wrong," says the ministry leader. I believe the something that's wrong is we've moved away from our first love, which is Jesus Christ."
(Excerpt) Read more at onenewsnow.com ...
Thread by me.
Simon Fitzmaurice with his wife and children
DUBLIN, April 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a powerful op-ed in today’s Irish Times, an Irish man with degenerative motor neurone disease (MND) has revealed how he was heavily pressured by the medical community to refuse the ventilator that is keeping him alive.
After having been admitted to intensive care for pneumonia, a common complication for paralyzed patients, Simon Fitzmaurice began receiving assisted breathing and a feeding tube. Shortly after being admitted, Fitzmaurice said, a doctor came in and told him it was rare and expensive for patients to have a ventilator at home.
According to Fitzmaurice the doctor told him, with his wife and mother present, “That it is time for me to make the hard choice. He tells me that there have only been two cases of invasive home ventilation, but in both cases the people were extremely wealthy.”
“He looks at me. ‘This is it now for you. It is time for you to make the hard choice, Simon.’ My mother and my wife are now holding each other, sobbing.”
But Fitzmaurice’s instinctive reaction was for life: “While he is looking at me, my life force, my soul, the part of me that feels like every part, is unequivocal. I want to live. It infuses my whole body to such an extent that I feel no fear in the face of this man.”
Two days after this encounter, he wrote, he and his family were informed that the home ventilator he needed was covered by Ireland’s national health insurer, the Health Services Executive (HSE), and that the home care package needed to run the machine could be covered by the HSE and his family.
Fitzmaurice recounts that was later asked by a neurologist why he wanted to live, even though he had a degenerative disease that would eventually kill him. His answer: “Love for my wife. Love for my children. My friends, my family. Love for life in general. My love is undimmed, unbowed, unbroken. I want to live. Is that wrong?”
“Motor neurone disease is a killer. But so is life,” continued Fitzmaurice. “Everybody dies. But just because you die, just because you will die at some point in the future, does that mean you should kill yourself now? For me, they were asking me to take my own life. Or to endorse euthanasia. I refused.”
Experts say that Fitzmaurice’s experience is not uncommon and that incidents like these are becoming a trend in medical practice – a trend that has become nearly universal in developed countries, especially those with nationalized, government funded health care.
“Sadly, his story is all too common,” said Alex Schadenberg, head of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
Schadenberg said that philosophical trends away from traditional medical ethics, combined with massive tax-funded health care systems, have given rise to a new utilitarian-based ethical paradigm in treatment decision making.
Under this paradigm, called bioethics, Schadenberg said, “value judgments and negative attitudes toward people with degenerative conditions have led to imposing death on people who are vulnerable.”
Hospital bioethics committees now routinely decide to withdraw treatment that could save lives, based on the principle of “patient autonomy” that holds it is in the patient’s “best interests” to be “allowed to die,” often by the withholding of food and water.
These decisions are increasingly being taken without the consent, and sometimes actively against the will, of the patient and his family. In some countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands, the new ethical system has led to legalized euthanasia and widespread abuse of the legal “safeguards” surrounding it.
Recent studies out of Belgium have shown that 32 percent of all legal euthanasia deaths are committed without request or consent by patients or families and only 47.2 percent of all euthanasia deaths are reported. In the Netherlands, the number is 550 deaths without request or consent each year and at least 20 per cent of all euthanasia deaths unreported.
Schadenberg said, “Everyone needs to be aware, society is already imposing death on vulnerable people and if euthanasia or assisted suicide becomes legal then it will simply be done in a quicker and quiet manner.”
As for Fitzmaurice, he writes: “I do not speak for all people with motor neurone disease. I only speak for myself. Perhaps others would question whether or not to ventilate. But I believe in being given the choice, not encouraged to follow the status quo.”
“I am not a tragedy,” he said. “I neither want nor need pity. I am full of hope. The word hope and MND do not go together in this country. Hope is not about looking for a cure to a disease. Hope is a way of living. We often think we are entitled to a long and fruitful Coca-Cola life. But life is a privilege, not a right. I feel privileged to be alive. That’s hope.”
Thread by me.
I received an email from a reader today asking about the current status of Baby Joseph. The last I heard, he had the tracheotomy about a month ago. I decided to check, and here is what I found. From the story:
The child known as Baby Joseph remains at a St. Louis hospital, more than three weeks after receiving a tracheotomy to connect him to a portable breathing machine in an effort to extend his life. Joseph Maraachli has Leigh syndrome, a progressive neurological disorder. He came to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center from Canada, where doctors believed the tracheotomy was futile. He will eventually transfer to Ranken Jordan pediatric hospital in suburban St. Louis before going home. A spokeswoman for Cardinal Glennon told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Joseph is in good condition and the extended stay has nothing to do with any surgical complications.
This surgery was clearly not medically futile, it seems to me. The only reason the Canadian hospital refused it, would be the doctors/bioethicists/administration considered the life he is living as futile, or at least, not worth the money to sustain. But that kind of quality of life judgmentalism should be looked upon as any other form of discrimination. And in any event, whether a life is worth living should not be a doctor’s call.
Thanks for the ping!
“This surgery was clearly not medically futile, it seems to me.”
No it was not futile. The purpose of healthcare is to extend our lives, and/or make us more comfortable.
Please, if you have a family member who is ill and needs hospitalization, make sure there is always another person there, day and night, to supervise.
Threads by BykrBayb and me.
Baby Joseph with his father Moe Maraachli
early this morning as they head home to Windsor, Canada.
WINDSOR, Ontario, April 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Baby Joseph and his family arrived in Windsor, Ontario on a medical transport flight from St. Louis, Missouri this morning. He is now at the family home, according to Brother Paul O’Donnell.
On behalf of Baby Joseph’s family, Brother O’Donnell told LifeSiteNews that that their son was weaned off ventilator support 12 days ago and has been successfully breathing on his own since then.
Baby Joseph, who has been at the center of an international right-to-life debate over the past few months, has defied critics by responding so well to treatment. After the Ontario hospital treating Joseph’s progressive and terminal neurological disease threatened to remove his life support against his parents’ wishes earlier this year, pro-life groups rallied to Joseph’s cause.
With the financial support and assistance of Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life, Joseph was taken to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri where doctors performed the tracheotomy that Joseph’s parents had been requesting all along.
Sixteen-month-old Baby Joseph received a successful tracheotomy on March 21, responding well to the procedure, which gave him increased mobility and comfort while providing a stable, secure airway. With the tracheotomy, which created an opening into Joseph’s windpipe through an incision in his neck, Joseph’s airway has been kept free from secretions that would have caused him to choke.
Dr. Robert Wilmott, Chief of Pediatrics for SSM Cardinal Glennon and Saint Louis University School of Medicine, said Joseph has been breathing so well on his own there will be no need to take him to a local rehabilitation hospital and he can be transported to Ontario.
“Joseph has been breathing on his own, without the aid of a mechanical ventilator, for more than a week,” Wilmott said. “By providing him with this common palliative procedure, we’ve given Joseph the chance to go home and be with his family after spending so much of his young life in the hospital.”
Meanwhile, Joseph’s parents and 7-year-old brother, who have spent more than a month in St. Louis, have expressed their extreme gratitude to all who have made it possible to save the life of their son.
“So many people from the United States and Canada and all around the world have reached out, sent letters and called my family to let us know they were praying for us and thinking about us,” Joseph’s father Moe Maraachli said. “This has really helped our family through this hard time, to know there is so much kindness in the world.”
“We are so grateful for the amazing care and compassion we have received from the doctors, nurses and staff of Cardinal Glennon. Our family also wants to thank the team at Windsor Regional Hospital for reaching out to our family and Dr. Wilmott and making the transfer back home a reality.”
Commending the staff at Cardinal Glennon, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said Joseph has defied so many critics.
“Our mission to save Baby Joseph and help his family was never based on any prediction of the future, but rather on the value of his life here and now. Our critics, on the other hand, looking into the crystal ball that ‘right to die’ advocates seem to always think they have, claimed our intervention was futile because Joseph would only end up having a machine do his breathing for him,” said Fr. Pavone.
“We don’t have to answer their criticism; Joseph is doing that for us, with every breath he takes,” continued Fr. Pavone. “Baby Joseph’s victory over the culture of death is especially powerful now, as we prepare for Easter, a time when Christians everywhere celebrate Jesus’ victory over death.”
“Priests for Life is happy and humbled to have played a small part in making this joyous day possible. We ask everyone to join us as we continue to pray for Baby Joseph and his family.”
__________________________________________
WINDSOR, Ont. — Baby Joseph napping at home in his crib on Easter Sunday is all the proof his father needs that his Ontario doctors were wrong.
Only months ago, the fate of 15-month-old Joseph Maraachli was a question mark. Doctors at London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ont., sought to take the infant off life support as he battled a progressive neurological disease.
But on Sunday, the round-cheeked baby was home in Windsor, resting in a cradle packed with plush toys. Now and then he opened his eyes or wriggled a little, or moved his arms beneath father Moe Maraachli's occasional touches and kisses.
When Maraachli held out a finger at one point, Joseph's own stubby fingers curled around it.
He's breathing without a ventilator, Maraachli said, after surgery in St. Louis — the airway-opening tracheotomy his family sought but couldn't get in Canada as they battled to bring Joseph home to die.
"I feel victorious," Maraachli said, smiling broadly as he stood by Joseph's crib. "I feel I won and my baby's alive."
But he's also been left with questions about why he and wife Sana Nader had to go to the U.S. for help.
"That's what makes me mad," he said. "Why I have to travel to St. Louis?
"I trust my medical system. We have a perfect medical system in Ontario."
But the doctors in London, he said, let him down.
He's not angry at the hospital itself, Maraachli said. But he said he feels he's owed an explanation for the decision to refuse Joseph the tracheotomy.
He isn't sure how long Joseph will live. And he declined to to guess how much time he and his son have left.
"That's by God and by him," Maraachli said, his tone calm and positive. "I never think about that and I don't think about this day."
Joseph's progressive neurological disease was identified in the U.S. as Leigh syndrome. He was originally rushed to the hospital in October while the family was on the way back from Toronto.
When doctors at London Health Sciences Centre sought to take him off life support, his parents refused to give their consent. They wanted him to die peacefully at home. But the hospital refused to give Joseph a tracheotomy, calling the procedure futile and invasive.
Flocks of supporters, many of them high-profile pro-life groups from the U.S., came to the family's aid, and Joseph was ultimately moved to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis. There, he underwent the tracheotomy his parents sought.
The operation will allow Joseph to spend his last days at home, without the need for a mechanical ventilator. And indeed, said Maraachli, Joseph is breathing without one.
Battling the system, he said, was the most emotionally painful part of the journey.
The Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario, an independent body created to handle issues under legislation including the Health Care Consent Act, sided with the London hospital. A court appeal by the family failed.
For Maraachli, it seemed like no one was listening to him.
"All these people fighting me. I feel like I'm fighting justice. I'm fighting doctors, I'm fighting the hospital, I'm fighting the medical system. I'm alone."
As the growing controversy around Joseph saw the family divided by travel, Maraachli said it hurt all the more. He said it was hard on Joseph's brother, six-year-old Ali.
"I fight too much because I feel like I'm losing my family," the father said. "I feel like my family's upside down. I feel like (I'm) not (a) good father."
Faith, he said, kept him going.
"I have good faith in my heart and my wife is the same like me, so our faith made us very strong," he said.
Buoying him all the more was the outpouring of support from people across Canada and the U.S. A Facebook group entitled "Save Baby Joseph" had about 15,300 people Sunday. Various pro-life groups in both countries got involved, including U.S.-based Priests for Life, which provided a private flight to St. Louis for Joseph and paid for all his medical care.
Maraachli said if he named all the people he wanted to thank, he'd be talking for hours. The support, he said, gave him a huge boost as he fought to let his son die at home.
"I feel like I'm the hero," he said to describe how the support helped him. "I feel like I'm Superman."
Asked if he ever feared not finding a hospital that would take Joseph, Maraachli didn't want to talk about it. "I wasn't afraid," he said. "I always have a plan B."
As Joseph roused from his rest Sunday, his older brother Ali was quick to act. The beaming six-year-old clambered up into his younger brother's crib, a storybook in hand, ready to read to him — and to give him a little kiss.
Ali has become a part of Joseph's care, too. Maraachli said he's taught him to be something of a nurse. An actual nurse does watch Joseph at night.
He's responsive to his family, Maraachli said. He said Joseph knows when he's being held by his father.
Now, he said, things are returning to normal for the Maraachli family. He said even after the tracheotomy, Joseph's daily routine isn't that different from a normal baby's.
"My life is normal," the father said. "It's back, not upside down, but I still need the answer why."
__________________________________________
Baby Joseph is home, and apparently not as unconscious as the London hospital representative stated. From the story:
Baby Joseph napping at home in his crib on Easter Sunday is all the proof his father needs that his Ontario doctors were wrong. Only months ago, the fate of 15-month-old Joseph Maraachli was a question mark. Doctors at London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ont., sought to take the infant off life support as he battled a progressive neurological disease. But on Sunday, the round-cheeked baby was home in Windsor, resting in a cradle packed with plush toys. Now and then he opened his eyes or wriggled a little, or moved his arms beneath father Moe Maraachli’s occasional touches and kisses. When Maraachli held out a finger at one point, Joseph’s own stubby fingers curled around it.
Love. Comfort. Touch. These are important to every baby.
Joseph’s father wants answers:
“I feel victorious,” Maraachli said, smiling broadly as he stood by Joseph’s crib. “I feel I won and my baby’s alive.” But he’s also been left with questions about why he and wife Sana Nader had to go to the U.S. for help. “That’s what makes me mad,” he said. “Why I have to travel to St. Louis?”
That’s a good and important question. Joseph clearly was not on the verge of death when the hospitals wanted him off life support and refused a tracheotomy. The tracheotomy obviously provided him great benefit, and in fact, is apparently a normal palliative procedure in cases such as this. Indeed, he’s off of machines and home where he can die peacefully in his own time.
So, why was Joseph and the family treated so badly? Why did the family have to go the USA to obtain proper care for their baby? Will Canada Medicare pay for the procedure that so clearly should have been provided to Joseph in his home hospital?
Don’t expect answers to come readily. I have noticed that when a case goes against what the futilitarians predicted, they generally hide behind closed doors–until the next time they boldly assert that wanted, efficacious treatment for a dying or profoundly disabled patient is “inappropriate.” That shouldn’t be allowed to happen. The Canadian authorities should investigate.
Perhaps a good place to start to right the wrong would be a sincere apology from Joseph’s doctors and the hospital administration to the family.
Threads by bruinbirdman, BenLurkin and me.
Elderly people in the Netherlands are so fearful of being killed by doctors that they carry cards saying they do not want euthanasia, according to a campaigner who says allowing assistant suicide in Britain would put the vulnerable at risk.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, a researcher with the pressure group Not Dead Yet, claimed that relaxing the law in this country would threaten old and disabled people as it would allow “moral judgments” that their lives were not worth living.
He said it is “nonsensical” to say that we all have a right to die, when what is really being sought is the right to a premature death that is not sought by all in society.
But a former professor of geriatric medicine, Raymond Tallis, also writing online in the BMJ, argues that countries which have legalised assisted dying have neither seen trust in medics eroded nor the procedure imposed on vulnerable people.
The debate comes amid an increasingly high-profile campaign in Britain to decriminalise assisted suicide. A court victory last year forced the Director of Public Prosecutions to admit that individuals would not be prosecuted for helping terminally ill loved ones die in most cases, and in recent months a series of public figures including Ian McEwan, Chris Broad and Sir Terry Pratchett have spoken out in favour of the law being relaxed still further.
But charities and groups supporting disabled people and the elderly fear that any change in the law would leave them feeling under pressure to end their lives.
In an article published on BMJ.com on Friday, Mr Fitzpatrick wrote: “Disabled people, like others, and often with more reason, need to feel safe. Thus eroding what may already be a shaky sense of safety in medical care poses a further threat to disabled people’s wellbeing, continuing care, and
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
______________________________________________
She is a 91-year-old grandmother, who is not known for knitting afghans and scarves, but she does lovingly fashion hoods that kill.
Charlotte started making and selling these suicide kits out of her cozy Southern California home after watching her husband die a slow and painful death from colon cancer. She blames doctors for keeping him alive.
“It was terrible to treat people that way… To make them suffer to the bitter end,” Charlotte said.
Charlotte, who sells her controversial kits for $60, demonstrated how they work in front of our cameras.
“To die with this helium just takes you a couple of minutes and [you] die peacefully,” said Charlotte, who only wanted to be identified by her first name.
A loophole in California law makes selling these kits legal...
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
______________________________________________
A right-to-die pressure group provoked outrage yesterday over plans to sponsor the UK's first helpline aimed at speeding the terminally ill towards 'a good death'.
The free phone line, to be set up by a charity called Compassion in Dying, will 'promote greater patient choice and control where possible'.
The charity is an offshoot of euthanasia campaign Dignity in Dying and is led by the right-to-die group's chief executive Sarah Wootton, a former sex equality and abortion campaigner.
Its plan to provide the desperately sick with advice on how to end their lives sparked protests from anti-euthanasia activists, who said the helpline would be used to shorten lives.
The charity says it exists to exploit 'existing end-of-life rights' and will pass on information to callers.
However, it comes against a background of growing tolerance of assisted suicide by prosecution authorities, increasing political pressure for the legalisation of assisted dying, and a rising toll of Britons travelling to the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland to end their lives.
The charity said the helpline would be 'dedicated to supporting patients, loved ones and carers through the dying process, promoting greater patient choice and control where possible'.
Elspeth Chowdharay-Best of the pressure group Alert said: 'Dignity in Dying used to call itself the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.
'The aim of the helpline exercise is to shorten people's lives.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thread by me.
Rome, Italy, Apr 30, 2011 / 05:03 am (CNA).- A proposal to allow premature or sick newborn babies to die even when their life would be deemed worth living by medical staff has been condemned by a leading member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Doctor Carlo Bellieni says the suggestion being made by the Oxford-based physician James Wilkinson is both “flawed” and “an erroneous way of considering life.”
Dr. Wilkinson outlines his controversial argument in the American Journal of Bioethics. “The prevailing official view is that treatment may be withdrawn only if the burdens in an infant’s future life outweigh the benefits. ... I conclude that it is justifiable in some circumstances for parents and doctors to decide to allow an infant to die even though the infant’s life would be worth living,” Dr. Wilkinson wrote.
But as Dr. Bellieni explained to CNA, such a suggestion makes for bad ethics and poor patient care. “Firstly, babies are not the property of their parents. Secondly, at birth parents are often stressed and full of pain and suffering. The mother has the pain of childbirth. The father has the shock and stress of being faced with a very premature baby. When you’re in such pain and stress, you’re not really free to make clear-minded decisions that are so important for your offspring.”
Most importantly, Dr. Bellieni said, “the decision about life should only be taken on an objective basis and in the interest of the patient, not in the interests of a third party.”
Dr. Bellieni, who is a Director of the Neonatal Intensive Therapy Unit at Siena University Hospital, is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of neonatal care. In addition to being a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, he is also the Secretary of the Bioethics Committee of the Italian Pediatrics Society.
Although the Italian neonatalogist said he doesn’t know whether hospitals in the Western world are actually practicing Dr. Wilkinson’s radical approach, he pointed towards recent research in Canada suggesting that newborn babies are now receiving less guarantees of treatment than adults. “It’s a very sad scenario. I believe that babies should receive more care than other patients but many philosophers now believe that newborns are not persons and so they actually are receiving fewer guarantees than older people.”
“Even when burdens do seem to be high, for example in the case of severe disability, this is not a sufficient reason to withhold life-saving treatments. After all, a disabled baby has a full right to life too,” Dr. Bellieni stressed.
“Dr. Wilkinson claims that the prevailing clinical view is contrary to this. If that is the case then it’s very worrying indeed and we cannot possibly accept such a viewpoint as ethical.”
Dr. Brian Kopp is one of the organizers for this conference, thread by him.
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
Thanks for the ping!
Gee, Baby Joseph doesn’t look ill. Was Canada’s medical system lying about his current status? The kid looks fine.
Threads by me.
NEW YORK, May 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kassi Underwood’s life after abortion is one that no one would envy.
But in an op-ed for the New York Daily News on Monday, Underwood, a writer based in New York, explained how she still refuses to judge abortion despite enduring immense grief after having ended the life of her baby.
In the piece, entitled “Get your politics off my grief after abortion,” Underwood notes that groups such as the American Psychological Association have claimed that post-abortion syndrome does not exist - but this has not stopped her from feeling acutely the loss of her missing baby.
In an account that echoes the documented grief of countless other post-abortive women, such as those at Silent No More Awareness, Underwood says that three years after her abortion she began to have nightmares about babies, and missed her “potential child” while awake. “It was bewildering that I could feel so mournful about a decision that was supposed to buttress the architecture of my identity,” wrote Underwood.
“It felt traitorous to admit that, far from thinking I had expelled a ‘blob of cells,’ I now wondered who that person I aborted would have been.”
Underwood indicated that the experience of immediate “relief” following the abortion procedure promised by pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute’s analysis of the post-abortive experience was not as simple as might appear to the uninitiated.
“It was the kind of relief I have felt after losing someone to a prolonged battle with cancer: grateful the suffering had ended, but sorry my loved one had to go,” she noted.
Seeking refuge in the pro-choice movement offered little help for Underwood: “Emotions, I learned, could be regarded as a chink in the pro-choice armor,” she said. The writer also complained of a political angle at a Catholic Rachel’s Vineyard retreat she eventually attended, accusing directors of turning retreatants into “political instruments” by urging them to tell Congress how abortion had hurt them.
Underwood says she eventually settled in a movement that encourages women to speak about abortion, but without judging whether the procedure is morally right or wrong.
“Here’s a right I’d march for: the right to wail myself to sleep, to yearn for my long gone baby, yet to know that I needed to delay parenthood,” Underwood concluded. “Transcending heartache is possible as long as I keep my story unabridged - and out of the political sphere.”
__________________________________________________
May 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I never had the honor of talking to Dr. Bernard Nathanson. But someone told me once that he asked Dr. Nathanson about his remorse after performing thousands of abortions. Many of us that have once been in the abortion industry are frequently criticized for our public “lack of remorse.” Dr. Nathanson explained to this man that if he actually allowed himself to feel the depth of his remorse, he wouldn’t be able to live with the pain. I would say that is pretty accurate for most of us who have once lived and walked in those hallways of evil. I’m not sure my heart would take the pain if I really allowed myself to feel what I had done.
Have you ever watched one of those crime shows where they interview a prisoner who murdered someone? I recently saw one about a man who had killed a young woman. He had since become a Christian while in prison and the remorse for the life he had taken was so evident. He could hardly even talk about her. It was difficult for him to maintain his composure. Well, imagine that type of remorse times thousands and thousands. We were serial killers of the worst kind … we killed children.
Then one day, after years of living in foolishness and evil, we turn it around. We swallow our pride and admit we were wrong. We lose our friends, we are called names, we start over … but we know it is worth it. It is not easy, but it is right. We repent from our sin and we feel a sense of peace and joy that has never been in our heart before … but there is brokenness, too … and a stinging feeling of remorse that won’t leave. I remember wondering if the brokenness and remorse would ever lessen. Would it ever leave? It doesn’t. It is a constant reminder of who you were and what you have done. But now, I am thankful for the reminder … it keeps me focused, passionate, and most of all, praying.
For some of us, we go on to have normal 9-5 jobs and live our lives in the privacy of family and friends. Some of us live our lives in the public. I know I am called to work full time in the fight. I didn’t know that at first, but God revealed that to me in a pretty big way … thanks to Planned Parenthood’s media release. For those of us whose conversions are public, many look at us as heroes. But we are not … I am not. How could we be? We look around us and see people who have been fighting in this movement for years; they are heroes. We are criminals. We deserve punishment, not awards. We deserve to be cast out, not accepted. We don’t deserve forgiveness, but we seem to get it anyway.
Every day of my life I think about the women I took from. I took away their motherhood, I devalued them, I broke their confidence, I betrayed them. How I wish I could look into every one of their faces and tell them how sorry I am. If I could restore some of what I took from them, I would give my life to make it happen. I wish I could be there to wipe their tears when they mourn for their lost child. To know that you committed a terrible wrong that you can’t make right is one of the most desperate feelings in the world. And as desperate as I feel, I can’t make those wishes come true. But I do my best everyday to make it up to those women and their children. I failed them once, but I won’t do it again. I know they haven’t forgotten their children, and I haven’t either.
For the lives I have taken, ‘I’m sorry’ just seems hollow to even say. How do you apologize for killing thousands of children and wounding thousands of families? I’m not sure I have an answer. But I am sorry. I am sorry to the women I coerced into abortion. I am sorry to every woman who has ever had an abortion; you may never hear those words from the person who performed your abortion, but I want you to hear it from me on behalf of that doctor or clinic worker. I am sorry they betrayed you. I am sorry they broke your spirit and your trust. I am sorry they hurt you. I am sorry they didn’t have the courage to stand up for you and what you really deserved…a chance to be a mother to your child. We abused and disrespected you in the worst possible way. I am sorry. So many people probably disappointed you…your friends, your family, your church community, your coworkers, maybe others. I apologize on behalf of them, as well. I am guilty of selling abortion to my family, friends, coworkers, and even people I worship with. We should have stood up for you and your child. I am so sorry we let you down in the worst possible way. You deserved better than what we gave you.
The extent of my remorse, sorrow and grief runs very deep. I could never even begin to share it all with you on a blog. I’m not even sure I am aware of how deep it runs. But it is there … reminding me of the life I once had and how hard I must now work.
I am only able to handle the pain of my past with the help of Christ. I couldn’t do any of this without His grace and His steady hand guiding me every day. He has never given me more than I can bear. I have never felt overwhelmed. I see His love and compassion for me every day. It is the most amazing feeling of peace and wholeness. I don’t have to wonder if He’s with me … I know He is guiding my every step.
I am a BIG sinner. I am far from a perfect pro-lifer. I would say I am a mediocre Christian. I am definitely not the best wife and no one has nominated me for “Mother of the Year.” I always fail at having a perfect day, but I keep trying. I guess I want you to know that I am working so hard to make things right. I can’t take away the pain I have caused. But I can promise to dedicate my life and my heart to this movement. I won’t ever give up on these children. My heart is here and it is healing.
Reprinted from AbbyJohnson.org
Thread by Diago.
"will cover the entire lawn of Planned Parenthood with white sheets, a longtime symbol of the KKK"
In a press conference held on Saturday, Christian Defense Coalition Director Rev. Patrick Mahoney — the anti-abortion activist behind last month’s KKK-invoking rally in front of House Speaker Rep. John Boehner’s office — announced that he is starting a national campaign called “Defund ‘Klanned’ Parenthood.” #
A press release circulated by Mahoney last week says the group will also stage a protest outside a Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C., and “as part of their public witness against the racist roots of Planned Parenthood, they will cover the entire lawn of Planned Parenthood with white sheets, a longtime symbol of the KKK.” #
Pro-choice groups, such as NARAL, have called rhetoric that links race to abortion rates “racist.” #
Ironically, Mahoney said in a statement that the anti-abortion movement should work to have Congress defund Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood’s “roots are racist, bigoted and extremist”: #
We are launching ‘Defund ‘Klanned’ Parenthood’ to expose the reality that Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, was a racist who supported the agenda of the Ku Klux Klan, spoke at their events and wanted to reduce the number of African-Americans. #
Our tax dollars should be given to groups that have embraced human rights, equality and justice for all. They should not be given to organizations founded by racists who embraced the agenda and philosophy of the KKK. #
This push among in the anti-abortion movement linking race to abortion rates is seeing a rise in popularity. #
Anti-abortion messaging on billboards aimed at the black community, which state that “the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb,” have been seen all over the country and have even made their way to Florida. The movement now includes influential anti-abortion groups, like the Family Research Council. #
Just last week, a Florida representative made reference to this movement during debate over the “Parental Notification for Abortion” bill on the house floor. State Rep. John Julien, D-North Miami Beach, urged the legislature to acknowledge that “abortion is a genocide of the unborn.”
Thread by me.
Thread by markomalley.
Charges have finally been dropped against 88 pro-life advocates who engaged in protests on the Notre Dame campus when pro-abortion President Barack Obama came to town for a controversial graduation speech.
The 88 pro-lifers peacefully assembled against the Catholic university’s decision to honor the vehemently pro-abortion president. They were arrested and subject to various charges that remained despite the help of the Thomas More Society, a national pro-life legal group.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifenews.com ...
Thread by me.
Suicide drugs could be available over the counter in chemists if assisted suicide is legalised, two of Britain’s top legal and medical experts have warned.
Weakening the law could open the way for nurses and pharmacists to prescribe drugs to help people kill themselves, according to a report by Lord Carlile QC and Baroness Finlay.
The report, commissioned by think-tank Living and Dying Well, also warned that legalising assisted suicide could lead to state agencies being set up to decide whether or not people should be helped to die.
Doctor shopping
Lord Carlile, the Government-appointed independent assessor of terror legislation, and Baroness Finlay, Professor of Palliative Care at Cardiff University, are co-chairs of Living and Dying Well.
The report cautions that assisted suicide rules currently being pushed by campaigners would lead to “doctor shopping”, where patients wanting to die or facing pressure to die would go from doctor to doctor in a bid to find one willing to help.
It also warns that if doctors were given legal powers to provide drugs to help patients die, such powers would also be extended to nurses and pharmacists.
Warning
“There is no reason why, if assisted dying were ever to be legalised, lethal drugs could not be prescribed by a physician, nurse or pharmacist, acting outside the parameters of health care.”
The report states that prescriptions might be written by those “under contract to an official assessment agency”.
It warned: “Embedding ‘assisted dying’ in health care could easily encourage patients who are less than wholehearted about the project to suppose that it is like any other medical treatment, that it is being offered for their good and that, notwithstanding any reservations they may feel about it, it is probably for the best – otherwise why would any doctor agree to proceed with it?”
Vulnerable
In October a report from a leading think-tank warned that the weakest members of society will be most at risk if the law on assisted suicide is changed.
Cristina Odone’s report for the Centre for Policy Studies cautioned that such a change could lead some of society’s most defenceless members to feel that they have an obligation to end their lives.
The report cautioned: “As assisted suicide becomes embedded in our culture, investing resources in caring for these vulnerable groups will be seen as a waste: they’ll be gone."
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
God knows I love the Schindler family.
Their daughter and sister was judicially murdered because Terri was excluded from the protections of our Constitution which demand that the life of all innocent persons be protected by the laws.
But I must confess that I’m none to happy with Bobby for supporting a bill in Ohio that does the exact same thing to an entire class of unborn children.
Th so-called “heartbeat” bill.
The first principle of this free republic is equality, and our Constitution demands the equal protection of the laws for all persons.
Bills that don’t provide that are immoral and unconstitutional.
Remind him of that.
And that by endorsing this bill he is acting EXACTLY like Judge Greer acted towards his sister.
Harsh, I know. But true.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.