Bobby Schindler: Drinking the Pro-Death Kool-Aid

Lately, Americans have been quick to disparage other countries for their approach to life and death issues. In particular, many Americans have been outraged at the Netherlands’ policies regarding euthanasia, assisted suicide, infanticide and the killing of those with mental illnesses.

As Americans, we haven’t been entirely intellectually honest in addressing why these things have become so prevalent in Europe. After all, we would never allow that kind of immorality or degradation of human life. Not in this great nation. Right?

Americans had better look again and take the time to rethink their value systems. Because if you honestly believe such things don’t happen here, I’m afraid you may not be paying attention.

The simple fact is that many of us have been successfully conditioned to accept medical killing as a kind, appropriate and compassionate tactic. A great deal of it goes on quietly and out of the harsh light of public view. But, a growing number of families can tell you in no uncertain terms, it happens every single day in the United States.

Embracing death as a medical solution to human problems is nothing new. The attitude is one that has been promoted for decades. The slow but successful indoctrination of our mostly apathetic general public suggests that it is not only acceptable to kill disabled, elderly and vulnerable people, but that such acts are perfectly justifiable.

Only legal in three states, the number of those who have opted for physician assisted suicide may not be staggering. However, what is positively astounding is the very large number of people who, on a regular basis, fall victim to the practice of deliberately killing the cognitively disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill and countless others who are being starved and dehydrated to death.

With the entire world watching, my sister, Terri Schiavo died seven years ago on March 31, 2005 of a court-ordered dehydration – an agonizing death that lasted nearly two weeks. It may have been the first time most people were witness or even considered that this type of inhumane act could happen to an innocent individual. Sadly, Terri’s case wasn’t isolated – it continues and in every imaginable setting.

It seems clear that much of what is happening almost always includes the talk of money. Because health care has become so astronomically costly, bottom-line thinking and profit have started to outweigh the needs and desires of certain people who live at risk.

The very real result, in terms of attitudes and actions, is that more vulnerable American citizens are sitting squarely in the cross-hairs of what appears to be a very real antilife establishment. Such attitudes put each and every one of us at risk.

When a person reaches a certain age, or their physical capabilities become profoundly limited and no longer are able to do what an “able” person can do, what happens?

Working to shape public policy, bioethicists and proponents of choice in dying do their in work in very subtle ways – reaching for buzzwords that soothe the general public into thinking death is the appropriate medical solution to complicated human conditions.

Indeed, their attempts at shifting our societal attitudes towards life, health, disability and death have been tremendously successful. The marketing, packaging and selling of forced death as a solution has brought the United States equal with those countries with which we find fault. We, truly, are no better.

There are several dynamics at play and many people, who are experts in medical ethics, would probably outline the core issues in this way:

We re-defined basic care. In most states, the provision of food and water is statutorily defined as “medical treatment.” That enables health care providers and family members to deny this kind of basic care with the intent of causing death. This happens to people who are not dying, not stricken with illness and the elderly who unable to safely feed themselves.

We embraced ethics committees. According to a 2005 report by the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, the laws of 40 states allow doctors and hospital “ethics committees” to disregard advance directives when they call for treatment, food or fluids. Perhaps the term “death panels” doesn’t seem so funny anymore, does it?

We tolerated the Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) diagnosis. PVS was established in 1972 by physicians, and it is often used as a criterion to kill the cognitively disabled. This is precisely the diagnosis used in Terri’s case. Consider, if you will, how profoundly offensive it is to refer to anyone as a “vegetable”.

Clearly, this term is meant to condition you to think less of a disabled person. There is another problem. PVS is misdiagnosed upwards of 50% of the time, according to a number of published studies. Even though the diagnosis is largely unscientific, it can be a death warrant to a patient with profound cognitive disabilities.

We embraced a flawed personhood theory. Some bioethicists have defined human beings as human “non-persons,” based on their ability to interact in “meaningful” ways – a benchmark that is subjective in every way. If someone doesn’t meet this criterion, theirs is a life no longer worth living. Indeed, personhood theory is being taught to our future physicians and health care professionals in some of our most prominent universities. It’s a sad and odd to note that, in the final decade of his life, President Ronald Reagan became according to these bioethicists a human non-person because of his Alzheimer’s.

The final stroke? Verbal engineering. Putting words in our public discourse and vernacular—words that people will repeat without thought, words that are intended to be the means to an end. The concept is simple, efficient and it works. As an example of this, read an article by Wesley J. Smith and Rita Marker titled, “Words, Words, Words.” They explain how various words and phrases have had a profound impact on the public, numbing them into accepting things that they know are negative.

Truly, the desensitization in our culture has become so intense that those who compare the dehumanization of disabled people to the atrocities in Germany prior to the Holocaust are now labeled fanatics. Yet, the very same people that were eliminated in Nazi Germany–the cognitively disabled–are being eliminated now for the very same reasons. They are seen as inferior. Burdens. Not quite complete humans.

Obviously, there is more than just culture-jamming that goes into this insidious movement. But it has become apparent to me that the death culture is not only winning, it’s gaining broad support.

Clearly, the reasons are out there for one and all to see. Health, life and longevity have become direct threats to profitability and the bottom line. That's why I fear those behind this death movement will not only continue, but it will intensify.

Even if you and I think it’s horrible, even if you believe that starving and dehydrating vulnerable people to death is abhorrent and even though we see some politicians wringing their hands over what is happening to people at risk, the question that still remains is simply this: What is being done to stop it?

Is anybody really serious about saving lives? Or, did we obediently buy the sales pitch?

Zero's evil knows no boundaries.

Thread by NYer.

Obama: Funding Planned Parenthood is important for my daughters

PORTLAND, Oregon, July 25, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Barack Obama again invoked his daughters as reasons to support the abortion industry in a campaign stop in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday.

“Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood,” the president told nearly 1,000 donors at the Oregon Convention Center. “I think that is a bad idea. I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices. We’re not going backwards; we’re going forwards.”

The reference echoes a comment he made in 2008 on the campaign trail. “I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

In yesterday’s remarks, the president applied the same phrase he used of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider, to his health care law. “The Supreme Court has spoken. We are now implementing it,” he said. “Thirty million people will have health insurance that didn’t have it before. Women will have control of their health care choices.” The comment drew a boisterous ovation.

Critics of ObamaCare have long warned the health care law will provide for federal funding of abortions.

His reference to his daughters came just after the president criticized Mitt Romney for not supporting his repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He had previously cited his daughters’ advice for his decision to support same-sex “marriage.”

President Obama later drew another contrast with Romney, saying, “I believe in bottom-up economics.” He pledged to continue “investing in clean energy and making sure that solar panels and wind turbines are built here in the United States of America.”

At several points he punctuated the speech, which highlighted his support of a number of left-of-center positions, with the phrase, “We’re not going backwards; we’re going forwards.”

During the speech, he said he would be outspent.

The 37-minute speech came before two additional fundraisers: A $5,000-a-plate fundraiser with 200 donors and a $38,500-a-plate fundraiser with 20 donors.

The speech contained a notable reference, as the president cited the Declaration of Independence’s guarantee that “we were endowed with certain inalienable rights by our Creator, life and liberty and this pursuit of happiness.” He has a history of omitting the words “by our Creator” in past speeches.

Obama’s comments on abortion begin at 31:38.

Video at above link.

Big Murder dismisses these deaths as collateral damage.

Thread by rhema.

Planned Parenthood Waited Five Hours Before Sending Abortion Victim to ER

New documents a local CBS television station obtained in the case of a young African-American woman killed in a fatal botched legal abortion show Planned Parenthood waited over five hours before sending the woman to a local hospital for emergency care.

Steve Miller of the CBS news affiliate WBBM has released a new report showing documents released in the botched abortion death of Tonya Reaves that alarmingly shows Planned Parenthood delayed summoning emergency care for the dying woman for five and a half hours after the abortion failed.

At 11:00 a.m. on Friday, Reaves received a second-trimester dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion at Planned Parenthood, located at 18 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago. Following the abortion, Reaves began bleeding heavily and it continued at Planned Parenthood for five and a half hours before a Fire Department ambulance finally took her to Northwestern Memorial Hospital at 4:30 p.m., according to Miller.

Then, once the young woman arrived at the hospital, the reports make it appear emergency personnel had to start from scratch to figure out the extent of Reaves injuries.

“Then at 5:30 p.m., doctors performed an ultrasound, and another dilation and evacuation procedure – basically, another abortion – this time at Northwestern,” Miller reports. “But after that, there were then more problems, and pain. That warranted a new ultrasound, and a perforation was discovered. At 10:12 p.m., Reaves was taken back to surgery – and “an uncontrollable bleed was discovered,” documents say.”

Responding to the report, Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation, said, “It is clear that Planned Parenthood botched the procedure that resulted in uncontrolled bleeding then failed to treat the hemorrhage while Reaves was at their clinic, allowing her to bleed for over five hours before finally calling for help.”

“There can be no doubt that this delay contributed to her death,” Newman argues. “The injury and the untreated hemorrhage happened at Planned Parenthood and they are solely responsible for it.”

Newman, in a press statement to LifeNews, quotes Dr. James C. Anderson, M.D., a 30-year veteran emergency room doctor who said abortion clinics never informed him about their patients’ conditions.

“I have always had to evaluate the situation, come to my own conclusions, and initiate what I thought was appropriate treatment. This definitely created some time delays that were not in the patient’s best interest,” stated Dr. Anderson. “These delays can have life-threatening implications when dealing with hemorrhage or infection.”

Newman says the lack of information proved fatal for Tonya Reaves.

“Planned Parenthood butchered Tonya Reaves, delayed her access to emergency care, then left the emergency room doctors to figure out what happened to her. By the time they discovered the true extent of her injuries, it was too late to save her life,” said Newman. “Planned Parenthood is trying to minimize their responsibility for Reaves completely avoidable death that appears to have resulted from a combination of their negligence, delay – possibly for the purpose of cover-up – and lack of communication with emergency providers. That abortion clinic is dangerous and should be closed. The abortionist should not be allowed to continue to inflict harm on women and should have his medical license revoked.”

Newman concluded: “We again call on President Obama to stop protecting Planned Parenthood and halt all Federal funding to the abortion giant in order to prevent other women from suffering Tonya Reaves’ fate.”

Reaves’ family has obtained an attorney who is looking into a potential civil lawsuit against Planned Parenthood on the family’s behalf.

Most of us realized years ago that Terri's murder was simply a "dress rehearsal" for the culture of death's ultimate agenda.

Thread by Dr. Brian Kopp.

Dehydrate dementia patients to death to save money: British Medical Journal editorial

July 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The courts should not interfere with doctors who want to dehydrate to death incapacitated patients who are a drain on scarce financial resources, according to an editorial in this week’s edition of the prestigious British Medical Journal.

Raanan Gillon, emeritus professor of medical ethics and former chairman of the Institute of Medical Ethics governing body, wrote that a ruling last year by the High Court against dehydrating an incapacitated patient to death was “profoundly disturbing” because it took the life and death decision-making power out of the hands of doctors and required that the principle of the “sanctity of life” take precedence over other considerations.

The judgment, he said, “threaten[s] to skew the delivery of severely resource-limited healthcare services towards providing non-beneficial or minimally beneficial life prolonging treatments including artificial nutrition and hydration to thousands of severely demented patients whose families and friends believe they would not have wanted such treatment”.

He complained that the ruling required that, under the “stringent” Mental Capacity Act, in order to remove “life prolonging treatment” like a feeding and hydration tube, the patient himself must have left a legally binding “advance decision” in writing, and that previous casual or unrecorded statements to relatives were not sufficient grounds.

The editorial, titled, “Sanctity of life law has gone too far,” said that unless it is overturned, the court ruling “will gradually and detrimentally distort healthcare provision, healthcare values, and common sense.”

Its logical implication, Gillon wrote, is that “doctors should no longer decide, in consultation with those who know their incapacitated patients, whether life prolonging treatment including artificial nutrition and hydration will be in their patients’ best interests.”

Furthermore, he said, the ruling logically means that those patients in “a higher than minimal state of consciousness must be similarly protected”.

The court ruling in question was that in the M Case, in which the family of a 52-year-old woman who was found to be in a “minimally conscious state” and who was “otherwise clinically stable,” were petitioning the court to have her feeding and hydration tube removed. The Court of Protection ruled that all patients in such a state must be referred individually to the Court of Protection if “life prolonging treatment” by artificial nutrition and hydration is to be withheld or withdrawn.

Mr. Justice Baker said in the September 2011 decision, “The factor which does carry substantial weight, in my judgment, is the preservation of life. Although not an absolute rule, the law regards the preservation of life as a fundamental principle.”

Justice Baker wrote that the courts should not “attach significant weight” to the patient’s previous statements unless they had been expressed in a way that could stand up to legal scrutiny. As in the case of Terri Schiavo in the U.S., M’s family had argued that her alleged previous statements indicated that she would not want to be dependent on such care.

Baker responded to this by ruling, “[Given] the importance of the sanctity of life, and the fatal consequences of withdrawing treatment, and the absence of an advance decision that complied with the requirements previously specified by the common law and now under statute, it would in my judgment be wrong to attach significant weight to those statements made prior to her collapse.”

Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said that the ideology being espoused by Gillon and the British Medical Journal is indistinguishable from the materialist utilitarian ethic that led to the elimination of the “unfit” by eugenicists in the early 20th century, including in pre-World War II Germany.

“What is particularly disturbing about Professor Gillon’s opinions is that he is judging certain disabled people as having lives unworthy of life, balancing those lives against the needs of other patients and seeking to justify killing the disabled on the grounds of rationing,” Ozimic told LifeSiteNews.com.

“Such a utilitarian calculus is in substance no difference to the calculus made during World War II by the German authorities: that the disabled should die so that wounded soldiers could live. In any case, assisted food and fluids are basic nursing care, not futile medical treatments.”

As shocking as such pronouncements are to the general public, the idea that disabled patients should be euthanized, either directly or by the removal of food and hydration, is actually a mainstream of thought among many of the western world’s medical ethicists. Gillon himself is a major voice in the field as a former editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics and the author of the 1985 book “Philosophical Medical Ethics”.

Classical medical ethics, that held as paramount the principle “Do no harm,” has in large part been set aside in favor of the new utilitarian-based Bioethics, a formal or “normative” branch of ethical philosophy that seeks “the greatest good for the greatest number” according to the “principles” of “justice, beneficence and autonomy”.

And the left continues to deny plans for death panels.

Thread by me.

Death panels on steroids

If you want to see what direction health care is going, just read the July 12 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Of course, reading a medical journal isn’t on most people’s “to do” lists. Even medical professionals who do read journal articles rarely do so to gain insight into the latest shifts in the cultural or political winds.

That’s a mistake. These days, radical trial balloons are often launched from such “venerable” publications — which is especially disturbing because the imprimatur of the medical intelligentsia provides respectability to ideas that otherwise would be dismissed out of hand. The mere fact that an idea appears in what The New York Times describes as “perhaps the most influential medical publication in the world,” places that concept firmly within the realm of respectable debate.

Which brings us back to the NEJM.

On its pages, the NEJM has long featured articles favoring euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as health care rationing. Indeed, two of its former editors, Dr. Arnold Relman and Dr. Marcia Angell, are vocal advocates of eliminating the private health system and replacing it with a single-payer, government-controlled health system. And both are among the 14 subscribing petitioners on a doctor-prescribed suicide initiative that will appear on the November 2012 ballot in Massachusetts.

Angell is so enamored with the concept of assisted suicide that, in a 2004 article, she decried the fact that too few people were availing themselves of Oregon’s doctor-prescribed suicide law. She expressed concern that the law was too restrictive.

Now, the NEJM has given a platform for Dr. Lisa Lehmann, director of the Center for Bioethics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and researcher Julian Prokopetz to lay out a proposal for facilitating what they call “assisted dying.” In their article, “Redefining Physicians’ Role in Assisted Dying,” the authors address what they see as a real problem: There aren’t enough doctors willing to participate in assisted suicide.

As the authors state, “Many medical professionals are uncomfortable with the idea of physicians playing an active role in ending patient’s lives.” Furthermore, they explain that the American Medical Association and various state medical groups oppose legalization.

It should be noted that when Washington and Oregon changed their laws to permit assisted suicide, they did not make all assisted suicide legal. For example, one’s mechanic, plumber, attorney, professor, or spouse is not given the authority to assist suicide. Essentially, what was made legal in those states — and what is funded by state and private insurance — is one type of assisted suicide: doctor-prescribed suicide.

It is the necessity of a doctor who will prescribe the deadly dose which presents a stumbling block that Lehmann and Prokopetz seek to address. As they explain, “We believe there is a compelling case for legalizing assisted dying, but assisted dying need not be physician-assisted.”

And how do they suggest that this hurdle between diagnosis and prescription be overcome?

Simple.

Take the doctor out of doctor-prescribed suicide by setting up a government-facilitated process that will make it easier for patients to cross the River Styx. As they explain:

We envision the development of a central state or federal mechanism to confirm the authenticity and eligibility of patients’ requests, dispense medication, and monitor demand and use. Such a mechanism would obviate physician involvement beyond usual care.

They see this as a way of overcoming the reluctance of most doctors to assist in suicide, while they remain oblivious (or indifferent) to protecting the lives of vulnerable patients.

As they accurately explain, under Oregon’s and Washington’s laws, the patient’s doctor confirms the prognosis, explains alternatives for treatment and care to the patient, and then writes the lethal suicide prescription. In their plan, the doctor would bow out of the process before writing the prescription: “Prognosis and treatment options are part of standard clinical discussions, so if a physician certifies that information in writing, patients could conceivable go to an independent authority to obtain the prescription.” At that point, the patient could simply go to a suicide-prescribing clinic. “Patients could also provide an independent authority with their medical record as proof of their prognosis.”

Could this work?

Yes, without question.

Many states already permit nurse-practitioners to prescribe barbiturates (the same drugs prescribed in intentionally lethal amounts for suicide in Washington and Oregon). Removing the requirement that the prescription for suicide be doctor-prescribed would certainly be possible.

While there might be initial objections to leaving the doctor out a crucial step in the process, it should be noted that state-issued annual reports in both Washington and Oregon indicate that reported assisted-suicide cases do not involve the close doctor-patient relationship that advocates of the practice promised would occur.

For example, in Oregon, the length of time for the doctor-patient relationship before writing the lethal prescription has been under one week in some reported cases. Even in cases where the patient has been in the care of the prescribing doctor, once the prescription is written, the doctor may have no further contact with the patient. Prescribing doctors have been present at the time of the patients’ death from the prescribed overdose in fewer than seven percent of reported cases.

Details of how the newly proposed system would work were revealed by Dr. Lehmann in an interview with ABC News. She explained that doctors would only be responsible for making the diagnosis of a terminal illness. Then, the patient should be able to pick up the lethal drugs from a government-authorized, all-purpose location where a government bureaucrat would determine the patient’s eligibility for a death prescription.

In addition to soothing the sensibilities — and deadening the consciences — of doctors, moving physicians into the background would have another effect. It would increase the number of assisted suicides.

Let’s consider this for a moment. Do we really think that a government that is constantly looking for ways to contain health care costs will be likely to deny death eligibility? Do we think that government death-control officials will do the right thing — or the cheap thing?

Take this proposal, coupled with government-run health care, and you have “death panels on steroids.”

Like we said, if you want to see what direction things are going in health care, just read the professional journals.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

Nothing is more important to Obama than killing babies.

Thread by NYer.

New Audio Surfaces of Obama Defending Infanticide in Illinois

That President Barack Obama was the only member of the Illinois legislature to not support a bill to provide medical care for newborns who survived failed late-term abortions is one of the key reasons pro-life voters will never support him.

Now, Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack has uncovered new audio of Obama, as a state legislator in Illinois in 2003, defending his position. Obama essentially argues that there is no need for the law because he trusts abortion practitioners to provide medical care for the baby they unsuccessfully tried to kill in an abortion.

The transcript of the video McCormack unearthed follows:

OBAMA: I just want to be clear because I think this was the source of the objections of the Medical Society. As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child – however way you want to describe it – is now outside the mother’s womb and the doctor continues to think that its nonviable but there’s, lets say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just out limp and dead, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved. Is that correct?

OBAMA: Let me just go to the bill, very quickly. Essentially, I think, as — as this emerged during debate and during committee, the only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor, the attending physician, who has made an assessment that this is a nonviable fetus and that, lets say for the purposes of the mother’s health, is being — that — that labor is being induced, that that physician (a) is going to make the wrong assessment and (b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, or she made an error, and, in fact, that that physician, of his own accord or her own accord, would not try to exercise the sort of medical measures and practices that would be involved in saving that child. Now, if — if you think that there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense, but I — I suspect and my impression is, is that the Medical Society suspects as well that doctors feel that they would be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations and that, essentially, adding a — an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion. Now, if that’s the case – and –and I know that some of us feel very strongly one way or another on that issue – that’s fine, but I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if these children are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after. Thank you, Mr. President.”

Yesterday, McCormack uncovered an old video from 2003, when President Barack Obama was running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, in which he defends his position favoring late-term abortions.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama was so supportive of late-term abortions, he resisted efforts to protect unborn children born alive after failed abortion procedures.

When Obama opposed a bill to stop infanticide as a member of the Illinois legislature, he said he did so because it reportedly contained language that would have contravened the Roe v. Wade decision. However, documents uncovered during the 2008 election show Obama has misrepresented his position.

Obama, as a member of the Illinois Senate, opposed a state version of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, a measure that would make sure babies who survive abortions are given proper medical care.

It also protected babies who were “aborted” through a purposeful premature birth and left to die afterwards.

On the federal level, pro-abortion groups withdrew their opposition to the bill after a section was added making sure it did not affect the status of legal abortions in the United States. Ultimately, the bill was approved on a unanimous voice vote with even leading pro-abortion lawmakers like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry backing it.

When Obama was running for the U.S. Senate in 2004, his opponent criticized him for supporting infanticide by voting against the Illinois version of the bill. Obama countered this charge by claiming that he had opposed the state bill because it lacked the neutrality clause found in the federal version.

As the Chicago Tribune reported on October 4, 2004, “Obama said that had he been in the U.S. Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, even though he voted against a state version of the proposal.”

During Obama’s 2008 run for President, he repeated those claims.

Documents obtained by the National Right to Life Committee showed Obama’s claim that he would have voted for the bill had it been Roe-neutral is a false argument.

According to the documents from the Illinois legislature, Obama, as the chairman of the Illinois state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting concerning neutrality language that was an exact duplicate of the clause in the federal bill.

During the March 2003 committee, Obama voted in support of adding the neutrality clause, but then led his colleagues on the panel in voting down the anti-infanticide bill on a 6-4 vote.

“Barack Obama, as chairman of an Illinois state Senate committee, voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion,” NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson told LifeNews.com at the time.

Johnson said Obama did so “even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language, copied from a federal bill passed by Congress without objection in 2002, explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion.”

“Obama’s legislative actions in 2003 — denying effective protection even to babies born alive during abortions — were contrary to the position taken on the same language by even the most liberal members of Congress,” Johnson continued.

“The bill Obama killed was virtually identical to the federal bill that even NARAL ultimately did not oppose,” he concluded.

Audio: Obama argues against Born Alive legislation in IL state senate

The idea of executing the children of rapists is barbaric.

Thread by NYer.

‘Which one was conceived in Rape?’: the viral image that deflated pro-abortion rhetoric

27 August, 12 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The fuzzy grayscale ultrasound images of the two unborn babies are practically identical. But the jarring question above the images makes everyone take a second look: “Which of these two human beings was conceived in rape?”

The viewer is compelled to say: “I can’t tell, they both look the same.” And that’s exactly the point.

Whether a baby is conceived in the terrible circumstance of rape or in the happy circumstance of a loving spousal embrace, the fact remains that both are human beings. Both, if given a chance, will flourish by being loved, and both will requite that love in due season.

But that is not the answer abortion advocates ever want anyone to give when discussing rape and abortion.

Since LifeSiteNews posted the image, created by Abolish Human Abortion, to its “We Can End Abortion” Facebook page last week, it has been shared 4774 times and received 4,344 likes and 526 comments. Many of those comments attack the very core of one of the commonest arguments used to justify abortion - namely that abortion is necessary in cases of rape.

Brittany recounted how her friend who was raped decided to keep the child, adding that her friend now has a “beautiful 16-year-old daughter named Hope.”

Nora mentioned that her best friend was the “child of a rape” adding that she is the “neatest person I know, very caring and funny.”

Yoana told about her friend who was raped at the age of 14. “She was heartbroken, scared, and pregnant. She never thought about abortion. She said, ‘a baby had the right to live’. Even though it was hard, she had family and friends to support her. She took therapy classes. She became herself again after her child was born. Now her baby is 10 years of age. She has no hard feelings, nor does she wish that she had never had her daughter. She loves her.”

These commenters hit upon the one truth that abortion advocates know they cannot argue against, namely that the baby conceived in rape is really no different from you or me.

A woman named Yas put it best: “To be honest my daughter is the result of rape, but to me I look at her as a gift from God.”

Isn’t that the truth? Every child is a gift, no matter how he or she came to be. Every child has something special that they can give to the world, no matter who the child’s father was.

A woman named Nicole was glad that someone convinced her mother to think of her as a gift, not merely as a product of rape to be dealt with by abortion.

“I want to just take a minute and tell you my story,” she wrote. “I was the result of a rape, and because someone talked my biological mom into not aborting, I am alive and I now have a little bundle of joy of my own. And just so you know, if my daughter ever got raped, I would tell her that that baby is a miracle…”

Men and women who were conceived in rape are the ones who see the huge flaw in the rape argument for abortion. They unflinchingly point out, ‘Why should the innocent child conceived in rape receive the death penalty for the crime of the father?’ Some even suggest that the rapist should be the one punished in this way, not the unborn baby.

No one understands the flaw in the rape-abortion argument better than Rebecca Kiessling, who at 18 learned that she was conceived in a brutal rape by a serial rapist who held her mother at knife-point.

“Please understand that whenever you identify yourself as being ‘pro-choice,’ or whenever you make that exception for rape,” she writes in her testimony, “what that really translates into is you being able to stand before me, look me in the eye, and say to me, ‘I think your mother should have been able to abort you.’”

“That’s a pretty powerful statement,” she says. “I would never say anything like that to someone. I would never say to someone, ‘If I had my way, you’d be dead right now.’”

“No — this is the ruthless reality of that position, and I can tell you that it hurts and it’s mean.”

Research shows that in cases of sexual assault in which a child is conceived, the welfare of a mother and her child are never at odds. It turns out that what is good for the child is actually what is best for the mother. Numerous testimonies by raped women who have chosen life for their child, which have been collected by the Elliot Institute (http://afterabortion.org/), suggest that the raped woman’s loving affirmation for her child is the one thing that really brings her healing and restores her sense of self-worth.

One woman named Anna, after comparing the ultrasound images of the two unborn babies, commented how her own child conceived in rape affected her life.

“I was raped when I was 13. The beautiful baby girl that God gave me from that has helped to heal me more than anything else on this planet could have. To that baby you are still a whole person. You are not broken or damaged. You are their everything! My baby girl is 17 now, and she is absolutely amazing! I cannot imagine life without her.”

These commenters have hit upon a fundamental truth that transcends biological reality, namely that a baby in the womb, no matter how it got there, is a human being who deserves life. It matters not who the father is. Each unborn child, conceived in rape or not, is a unique and unrepeatable human life destined for greatness.

Julie Makimaa, who was conceived in rape and now works to defend the right to life of all children in the womb, said it best: “It doesn’t matter how I began. What matters is who I will become.”

Groups that follow in the footsteps of the Nazis shouldn't be surprised when comparisons are made.

Thread by me.

Anger at 'Nazi slur' on right to die lobby

The claims will be discussed in Edinburgh this week at what is billed as the first gathering in Europe of campaigners against assisted suicide.

Care Not Killing – an alliance largely of religious groups – has been accused of "cheapening" the issue by opening its conference, the European Symposium on euthanasia and assisted suicide, with a talk entitled Lessons from Nazism.

Dr Andrew Fergusson, a former GP who is chairman of the advisory group for Care Not Killing, admitted the opening theme of the event would be "controversial". He said the comparison stemmed from a judgment in the Nuremberg Trials which said Nazi doctors believed in the existence of a "life unworthy to be lived".

The organisers of the conference have described the event as a "rallying of the troops" ahead of "major battles" in 2013.

Parkinson's sufferer Margo MacDonald MSP denounced Care Not Killing for drawing parallels with Nazism. She is to make a fresh attempt to introduce legislation to permit assisted suicide in Scotland – the details of which will be unveiled in the next few weeks – after a previous attempt failed.

Last night, Tony Nicklinson's widow, Jane, also attacked Care Not Killing. Nicklinson, 58, a victim of "locked-in" syndrome, came to public attention when he lost a legal bid for doctors to end his life. He died from pneumonia two weeks ago after refusing food and fluids following his failed High Court case.

Jane Nicklinson said of Care Not Killing's agenda: "I think it is totally ridiculous and total nonsense. How you can compare [the right to die campaign] to a Nazi death camp I will never know.

"It is scaremongering, pure and simple – half the things they say are nonsense. They will say something like that and then people who don't know much about it will think, 'We can't have that'. It is irresponsible – they are not giving people the true facts."

Around 75 people from countries including Canada, the US, Australia and the Netherlands are expected at the European Symposium on euthanasia and assisted suicide which runs from Thursday to Saturday in Edinburgh.

Explaining why the Nazi parallel had been drawn, Care Not Killing's Fergusson said: "Kids in schools in Germany in the 1930s were doing sums about what it cost to keep a mental defective alive and how many textbooks you could buy for healthy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan children for that money. It was that whole idea of some lives aren't equal to others and we stand against that."

Fergusson was keen to point out he was not suggesting those in Scotland in favour of euthanasia are Nazis.

He said: "We are not going to dwell on it [at the conference] – it really winds up the other side if they sort of hear the echo of the jackboot in what we are saying.

"I know that so-called right-to-die societies will protest it is not about a life unworthy to be lived, it is about personal choice – that is the philosophical debate between us."

Polls in the UK have suggested 80% support introduction of right-to-die legislation. But Fergusson says "biased media reporting focused on tragedy" has influenced these results.

He said the conference aimed to share information and "rally the troops" amid the two consultations on bills from MacDonald and in England from Lord Falconer, and the outrage prompted by the Nicklinson case.

"I think we can confidently say nothing is going to happen before the end of 2012 significantly, but we are gearing up for some big battles in 2013," he added.

Yesterday Independent MSP MacDonald accused Care Not Killing of "cheapening" the issue: "This is improper behaviour on their part," she said. "If they want to have a conference on Nazism and particular aspects of that creed, then I suggest to them that they separate it from a conference about assisted dying, because the two have nothing in common. They have cheapened their campaign."

MACDONALD'S previous End of Life Assistance Bill – which would have let people with progressive degenerative conditions as well terminal illness seek a doctor's help to die – was rejected by MSPs in 2010, by 85 votes against 16.

She launched a fresh consultation on the issue in January, aimed at clarifying how much a doctor could help a patient.

The results of this are expected to be published in two to three weeks. MacDonald will then need signatures from 18 MSPs to take a private member's bill forward in the Scottish Parliament.

She said she was confident it would win support and believes it could be introduced before Christmas.

"It is such an important bill and it has become more important as I think there is a greater chance of it passing," she said. "Therefore it's very important it is a good, robust bill and it's well drafted, so we are not rushing at it."

Meanwhile, Labour peer Lord Falconer has committed to tabling assisted dying legislation as a private member's bill in the House of Lords next year. Last year he headed a year-long commission into the issue, which concluded a choice to end their own lives could be safely offered to some people with terminal illnesses, if stringent safeguards were observed.

A consultation on Falconer's draft Assisted Dying Bill launched by the all-party parliamentary group on choice at the end of life, and pro-assisted suicide group Dignity in Dying, is currently being carried out.

Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon was among those who voted against MacDonald's bill two years ago. She said she had been concerned the legislation was not robust enough, for example in protecting elderly people from being pressured by relatives into ending their lives.

She said: "I would be coming to the new bill looking for my concerns to be addressed and I have an open mind on it. I am not totally against it – with the Tony Nicklinson case, nobody could fail to be moved by his request.

"The Conservatives have got an absolutely free vote on this issue. I know some of my colleagues are in favour, some are vehemently against.

"If I am given the assurance as much as possible that it cannot be abused then I may consider voting for it."

Labour MSP Michael McMahon, convener of the Parliament's cross-party group on palliative care, also voted against the bill in 2010, but said he would not change his stance.

He argued there was still a long way to go in developing care and pain relief for dying patients and introducing assisted suicide would halt this progress.

"It has an impact on the medical professions, it has an impact on families, it has an impact on the relationship between GPs and other patients," he said. "There are real concerns about the unknowns in terms of the relationship between the public and the medical profession."

The political landscape has changed significantly since the introduction of MacDonald's last bill, with 46 new MSPs after the Holyrood election.

Some representatives of the medical profession are also opposed to the introduction of assisted suicide legislation.

In a response to MacDonald's consultation, GPs' group BMA Scotland said it was concerned it "could alter the ethos within which medical care is provided".

The Church of Scotland and Catholic Church are vociferously opposed to the legislation. And disability group Scope has expressed concerns over assumptions that disabled people's lives "aren't worth living".

Its chief executive, Richard Hawkes, said: "The current law is designed to protect disabled people against these assumptions leading to anything worse – such as pressure to commit suicide.

"Many disabled people tell us that even though they might consider, in extreme circumstances, ending their lives, this is outweighed by a real concern about the consequences of any weakening of these safeguards. These concerns can get lost amid the din of high-profile advocates of legalising assisted suicide."

Raymond Tallis, former professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester and chairman of the group Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, turned angrily on Care Not Killing for making comparisons with Nazism.

"The idea that lining up thousands of people to shoot them is the same thing as acceding to someone's settled wish to die when they are terminally ill and mentally competent indicates how morally blunting it can be when you have religious beliefs."

DR Libby Wilson, medical adviser to the Scottish right-to-die support group Friends at the End, said: "It is incredible that in 2012 we are still debating whether people can be allowed to end their suffering if they feel it is intolerable. To me it is exactly like looking back on the middle of the last century when consenting sex between adults of the same sex was a crime and when abortion was illegal.

"Most of the opposition comes from people who are faith-based. They are perfectly entitled to their own views, but why should their beliefs govern what other people who don't have the same beliefs do?"

Dignity in Dying chairman Sir Graeme Catto, emeritus professor of medicine at Aberdeen University and a former president of the General Medical Council, believes legislation will come.

"It is one of the last major liberal policies and it is going to come in, because the public want it and in a sense need it," he said. "Why should they not have a choice at the end of life?"

He added: "Nazis didn't actually ask the victims if they wanted to be put into gas chambers or euthanased. Our view is that this is led by the individual – the individual asks for this, not the state or anybody else."

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

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