Bioethics class visits neonatal facility (Culture of Death Alert!)

Princetonian ^ | November 15, 2004 | Elyse Graham

[NYer]

    Inside the neonatal intensive care unit of a Metuchen hospital, a jungle of machines surrounded a two-hour old baby gasping shallowly. Tubes from one machine sent a steady stream of air pressure down her nasal passages, preventing her tiny airways from collapsing. Intravenous pumps and catheter tubes entered through her belly button, delivering nutrients to her bloodstream and energy pulses to her heart. A screen nearby showed continuous readings of her cardiac function, respiration and oxygen saturation level.

    Around her at Saint Peters University Hospital on Friday were 13 Princeton students, members of bioethics professor Peter Singer's "Ethical Choices" freshman seminar.

    Singer had brought his students to the ward to show them the living faces of a medical debate featured prominently in his scholarship and his seminar: whether it is ethical to end an infant's life when medical data predict she has a low chance of surviving.

    The students, excited as they entered the hospital, turned somber as they walked through the ward. Other infants were similarly surrounded by life support machines, and the philosophical debates previously held in class had become a stunning reality.

    "Everyone came in very bouncy and energetic, and I thought, 'Wow, these people have no idea what they're getting into,'" said Jennifer Calise, a young mother cradling her one-year-old daughter, a former ward patient who had come for a checkup. "Now they all look a little shell-shocked."

    Born 14 weeks premature, the 2-hour-old infant the class had come upon had a slim chance of surviving, let alone growing up without mental and physical impairments. Because of these defects, Singer argues the infant's parents should be able to decide whether to shut off her life-support machines and end her life. That claim, based on a belief that a young baby is not self-aware, has generated widespread controversy across the world.

    Division of Neonatal Medicine Director Dr. Mark Hiatt had led the class to this tiny red infant. Up close, the class could see her small forehead muscles contracted, eyes squeezed shut. As she breathed, her abdomen sucked in and out ferociously.

    "This is one of the smallest babies we've ever had," Hiatt said. At nine inches and 365 grams, she could easily fit in the palm of an adult's hand. (A baby in the 50th percentile of births would weigh 960 grams.)

    Though he said the infant's fate was dependent on "literally minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour" reevaluations, Hiatt maintained that she was fully human and rejected Singer's view of what makes a baby's life worthy of continuance.

    "This is a child. Somebody's daughter," Hiatt said. "Hopefully she'll be with us for many weeks and eventually go home with her mother and father."

    But the presence of Singer and his class made things less clear.

    "Is it ethical to keep a baby alive without the chances of it being healthy and able to go to public school, whether a special school or not, or whether it would hurt the baby and everyone involved?" Courtney Mazo '08 said on the bus ride to the hospital. "Who makes the decisions to keep going with care, and what do you do if the parents and doctors conflict? And when is it better to refuse care instead of doing everything you can?"

    But, she noted, with medical advances, premature infants can live longer. Other questions — such as cost of treatment and quality of life — nevertheless remain.

    Hiatt described his struggles with the issue for the class. Once, he said, a family asked him to withhold care for their premature baby because of financial reasons. The father was in graduate school and had a young family already. Hiatt asked them to seek another hospital.

    "We [at St. Peter's] don't want to do all this aggressive, heroic intervention unless there's a good possibility that this will be an intact, healthy child," he said. "[But] I could never do anything to terminate a [healthy] life. I became a doctor for the opposite reason."

    Hiatt said he would not allow a baby to die by any means except withdrawing care, called passive euthanasia.

    "As a society, I don't think we want our doctors to [perform active euthanasia, where the doctor directly ends someone's life]," he added. "I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do it. . . . I'm not an executioner."

    Not all students, however, accepted Hiatt's reasoning.

    In discussion on the bus ride home, class member Nic Poulos '08 called Hiatt's distinction between active and passive euthanasia "semantics."

    "He's enabling the child's death, period," Poulos said. "He didn't say, 'Yes, [my position is] based on guilt, but he did say, 'No, I couldn't do that.'"

    Singer played his usual Socratic role in the discussion, speaking up only to inject questions or ask for clarification. When pressed, he agreed with Poulos.

    "I don't think there's a distinction between deciding to withdraw life and deciding to actively end it," Singer said. "[Hiatt] also has an attitude that you should try to save every life you can, regardless of circumstances. In the case of the grad student [who asked Hiatt to withdraw care from his baby] . . . it's still a human life, but it's a life that's barely begun. I would have been prepared to agree with the parents."

    Singer's has stirred much controversy with these views, with some groups labeling him a "baby-killer." Singer responds by saying that societies throughout history have used selective infanticide for the greater good.

    Singer also refuses to equate killing newborns with killing adults, saying newborns are not self-aware and therefore different from adult humans and animals worthy of protection.

    Some of Singer's students disagree with these views.

    Mazo, whose mother works as a neonatologist, said experience tells her it's "better for families" to make the most of even a brief time together.

    Such a time was all too brief for Calise, whom Hiatt introduced to the class as someone "who's been under the anvil."

    Calise was forced to confront the viability-of-life issue abruptly in February 2003, when her water broke early and doctors told her the fetus had a low chance of surviving. When Calise gave birth to her first child several days later, the newborn's prognosis was not good.

    "What we call viability is 24 weeks," said Dr. Denise Hassinger, who oversees Calise's care. "[Calise's first baby] came out at 23 weeks. And she could move, she could breathe and everything, but it was 23 weeks. So is it a person, is it not a person? There's a lot of legal and ethical issues involved."

    Calise had instructed the doctors to resuscitate the baby if it showed any chance of survival, but its premature birth, and a severe prenatal infection, suggested little use in trying to keep the baby alive. The baby, named Simone, died after support was withdrawn.

    "[My husband and I] have seen the miracle babies, and everyday we ask ourselves, did we do the right thing?" Calise said.

    Calise gave birth again in September 2003 to a baby named Ava. Though her second baby was also premature at 25 weeks, it was relatively healthy otherwise and doctors started care immediately. Calise proudly showed the class her cheerful, healthy daughter.

    When Hiatt encouraged students to ask Calise questions, they were hesitant. "I could see with the students, everyone was thinking 'Oh my God, is she going to have a nervous breakdown if I say her first child wasn't a person?'" Calise said later.

    After about 30 seconds, the first question came from Faruk Colakoglu '08.

    "Are [underdeveloped babies] children?" he asked.

    "What makes them a child?" Calise replied. "I mean, is it the fact that they breathe, or is there something else that tells you there's a life?"

[NYer]

First there was abortion, then partial-birth abortion—which is essentially infanticide—and now full-blown infanticide.

[NYer]

Princeton “bioethics” professor Peter Singer

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).
EV John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)


Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[NYer]

the first question came from Faruk Colakoglu '08. "Are [underdeveloped babies] children?" he asked.

Class of '08 - a freshman in an Ivy League College and he doesn't "know" whether underdeveloped babies are children!

Pathetic!

[ClearCase_guy]

At multiple points in this article, the students feel sadness or trepidation in dealing with these sick children. Yet (some of the students) can rationalize their way to depersonalizing the children. Nope. Their emotions are correct. They feel sad and hopeless because they see sick children suffering. They know that this is what they see. Yet they try to "get past that" and talk about "ethical decisions" in which the children are either not human or not really living at all. Fools.

[DBeers]

I did not catch it -is this Peter Singer a 'Catholic'?

[GBA]

I tend to agree with you: their initial reactions and emotions are valid. Philosophy tends to give them the means to rationalize away those emotions and see the situation without the emotions that make us human. To be overly emotional wouldn't be helpful and to be without emotion wouldn't be human. Being able to decide with both one's head and heart should be the result of a philosphy class, imho.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Singer also refuses to equate killing newborns with killing adults, saying newborns are not self-aware and therefore different from adult humans and animals worthy of protection.

It's ok to murder human infants, but it's not okay to kill an animal.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

I also think that part of it is that they feel intimidated by Singer and want to please him. After all, he is THE Peter Singer. (If you could hear me say that, you would hear the scorn in my voice.) It's a shame that they are willing to give up their humanity for a grade.

[Restorer]

In discussion on the bus ride home, class member Nic Poulos '08 called Hiatt's distinction between active and passive euthanasia "semantics."

This is accurate, depending on your definition of "withdrawal of care." I consider not putting a person on intensive life support equipment to be a moral, though tragic, choice in some circumstances.

However, withdrawal of care is often used to mean not giving food or water. In my opinion, this is just plain murder, except that most murderers are decent enough to not kill their victims very, very slowly.

If you are going to kill a baby, at least have the common humanity to do it in a human way. You can go to jail for an extended period for starving a puppy to death.

[Bikers4Bush]

If I had walked in to find ghouls like that around my now 6 year old niece who was born very premature there'd have been a war.

[NYer]

I did not catch it -is this Peter Singer a 'Catholic'?

Not to the best of my knowledge. Just wanted to post his 'mug shot' for all to see. He's been pursuing this path of 'post birth' abortion, for several years now. Didn't realize that he was on the teaching staff at Rutgers.

[NYer]

Ping! (this may interest your list)

[AnAmericanMother]

I am ashamed and embarassed that my alma mater has given this ghoul a professorship and a bully pulpit to preach his gospel of death.

[ClearCase_guy]

Philip K. Dick had a wonderful short story (The Pre-persons) in which the yardstick of "self-awareness" had morphed into "understanding of higher math (algebra)".

If a child were well-behaved, it was safe, of course. But disobedient children could be turned in by their parents. They'd be given a math test, and if they didn't do well, they would be "eliminated".

Eventually, a High School Math Teacher climbs into the Child Collection Van and professes that he doesn't really understand algebra that well and asks them what they will do about it.

The point: all such yardsticks are arbitrary and wrong. Human life is sacred, and it is not hard to identify "human life". Only evil people pretend that it's an intellectual challenge.

[Osage Orange]

bttt...for later reading.

[madprof98]

Singer's has stirred much controversy with these views, with some groups labeling him a "baby-killer."

You mean, just because he wants to see babies killed . . . they're calling him NAMES! That is just so mean! Why, it's hate speech, pure and simple.

[NYer]

It's ok to murder human infants, but it's not okay to kill an animal.

Just did a quick Google search on him ... oh brother! From The International Vegetarian Union web site ...

Peter Singer is now a Professor at Princeton University, USA. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Animal Liberation, which can be considered the Bible of the animal rights movement. Recently, he has been instrumental in the formation of the The Great Ape Project, which seeks to extend personhood and legal rights to the Geat Apes.

FULL TEXT

[NYer]

If I had walked in to find ghouls like that around my now 6 year old niece who was born very premature there'd have been a war.

Imagine your niece, as a college student, attending his class! Hope she develops a strong right arm swing!

[kittymyrib]

Are there Christian medical schools whose graduating doctors would not murder "the least of these"? I don't want any of these moral midgets treating me or my family.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

I often avoid reading things like that because I become so frustrated and angry. I sit and ask myself "How can people think like this?" over and over again and I can never find an answer. The only thing that can explain it is that they have no sense of right and wrong at all.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

The point: all such yardsticks are arbitrary and wrong. Human life is sacred, and it is not hard to identify "human life". Only evil people pretend that it's an intellectual challenge.

Well said.

And I would like to read the story that you mentioned.

[vpintheak]

This is what you get at these supposed intellectual bastions of learning. Everything is relative and there are no moral limits. It is sickening, sickening, sickening. Lord have mercy on us all.

[jocon307]

"If I had walked in to find ghouls like that around my now 6 year old niece who was born very premature there'd have been a war."

Thank you! My niece was in intensive care for a couple of days after she was born, long story, not important. But my point is you had to wash your hands, you could only go in two people at a time, you were instructed, verbally and via signs to only "look at your own baby". I guess they don't want the kids getting over stimulated by people waving and cooing at them.

I cannot beleive that any hospital let a big gang of strangers like this into a neonatal unit, regardless of their reason for being there.

I'd sue that hospital into bankruptcy if it were my child involved.

[jill1]

My daughter was born 12 weeks premature at the hospital in this article (St. Peters). She is now 4 years old and perfect, I am grateful to the doctors and staff at St. Peters and thank God every day for the excellent care we received. It's worth pointing out that this is a Catholic hospital and they will not perform any procedures that are contrary to Catholic doctrine.

[Ulysses]

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far. far away...

My wife, who was six-and-a-half months pregnant, was rushed to the hospital due to some unexpected difficulties.

A nurse asked me this question: "Do you want to take your wife or your baby home?" In an obvious state of shock, I answered, "Preferably both!" She glumly responded that neither one might be going home.

Long story short...emergency C-section, our son weighed a little more than a pound, and had very serious breathing issues. Into the neo-natal unit he went. The doctor's prognosis: "He probably won't survive through the night."

When he did make it through the first night, the prognosis was: "Your son, in all likelihood, will be blind and/or severely mentally retarded."

Almost three months later, we finally took him home from the hospital. Today, eighteen-plus years later, he's a freshman in college and is one of the brightest young men I know (Dad-bragging notwithstanding!). Every day he is a reminder to me of the precious value of every single life, even those that might be "given up on" when things don't look rosy. Every day I think about those totally dedicated neo-natal staffers who would not give up, even in difficult circumstances. And every day, I thank God for the lessons we learned because our son was not "given up on."

Sorry for the long, emotional soliloquy. I just can't believe the thrust of this article...

[Mamzelle]

Peter Singer is a Jew, not a Catholic... link

[Coleus]

Singer's name ends in "er" so I am presuming he was born into the Jewish faith; however, judging by his writings today I would characterize him as a Marxist and atheist.

[redgolum]

God Blessing ping

[NYer]

Congratulations, Dad, on holding your ground and not caving in! Sounds like you and your wife also did an outstanding job raising your son ... Kudos!

Sorry for the long, emotional soliloquy. I just can't believe the thrust of this article...

Believe it!! And, trust me, there are others who will jump onto this bandwagon for one very good reason - stem cells. The perfect donor candidate is the late term abortee. These neonatal babies would make excellent organ donors as well ... oh brave new world.

Thanks for the comments.

[NYer]

It's worth pointing out that this is a Catholic hospital and they will not perform any procedures that are contrary to Catholic doctrine.

Thank you for pointing that out. It is also a good reminder to any and all of the need to research hospital policies before you get sick and are rushed to the emergency room.

It is also a good policy to keep a card in your wallet with the name and, preferably, cell phone number of your parish priest or minister. Nowadays, hospitals no longer keep track of a patient's religious beliefs. If I am in a serious accident, the last face I want to see is that of a priest annointing me with holy chrism.

[Coleus]

Utilitarianism:  Hey, let's kill the babies, they may grow up and have some medical problems which won't guarantee our happiness and the happiness of the community around us; they may need special care and be a burden on the community.   He will be a burden to his parents, family, school and community,  requiring just too much work, time, money and effort so it's better for the "good" , "welfare" and "happiness" for the community. Human equality and God's natural and moral law does not apply here.  More people will  benefit if these darn inconvenient  premature children are killed.

Moral Relativism:  God's moral and natural laws just don't apply here and we all agree that it's ok to kill premature and sick children.   The community declares that it's moral to kill pre-mature babies since we are a society of self-centered pagans, Satanists, socialists, atheists, Marxists who just don't believe God, His laws or His word.

On Atheistic Communism, DIVINI REDEMPTORIS, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM MARCH 19, 1937

74. This means that all diligence should be exercised by States to prevent within their territories the ravages of an anti-God campaign which shakes society to its very foundations. For there can be no authority on earth unless the authority of the Divine Majesty be recognized; no oath will bind which is not sworn in the Name of the Living God. We repeat what We have said with frequent insistence in the past, especially in Our Encyclical Caritate Christi: "How can any contract be maintained, and what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience when all faith in God and all fear of God have vanished? Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself."[46]

CARITATE CHRISTI COMPULSI

24. But We, on the other hand, Venerable Brethren, in virtue of Our pastoral office, must bear aloft these names and these ideas, and preserve them in their true meaning, in their genuine dignity, and still more in their practical and necessary application to Christian life. To this We are urged by the very defense of God and Religion, which We sustain, since penance is of its nature a recognition and a re-establishment of the moral order in the world which is founded on the eternal law, that is on the living God. He who makes satisfaction to God for sin, recognizes thereby the sanctity of the highest principles of morality, their internal binding power, the need of a sanction against their violation. Certainly one of the most dangerous errors of our age is the claim to separate morality from religion, thus removing all solid basis for any legislation. This intellectual error might perhaps have passed unnoticed and appeared less dangerous when it was confined to a few, and belief in God was still the common heritage of mankind, and was tacitly presumed even in the case of those who no longer professed it openly. But today, when atheism is spreading through the masses of the people, the practical consequences of such an error become dreadfully tangible, and realities of the saddest kind make their appearance in the world. In place of moral laws, which disappear together with the loss of faith in God, brute force is imposed, trampling on every right. Old time fidelity and honesty of conduct and mutual intercourse extolled so much even by the orators and poets of paganism, now give place to speculations in one's own affairs as in those of others without reference to conscience. In fact, how can any contract be maintained, and what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience, when all faith in God and all fear of God has vanished? Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself.

Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

[Coleus]

Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself. >>

The popes read the writing on the walls and tried to warn people of all faiths about the turning events in our society with which we now have to contend: euthanasia and the Terri schiavo case, abortion, infanticide, the homosexual agenda and our schools turning into temples of the secular humanists.

[little jeremiah]

Bookmark to read later...

I feel a rant coming on.

>:-[

[Cogadh na Sith]

Singer responds by saying that societies throughout history have used selective infanticide for the greater good.

Some societies also launched pogroms against Jews 'for the greater good'.....

It doesn't really make it right, does it?

[floriduh voter]

bttt

Eventually, judicial tyranny will lead to the end of civilization. It always does.

Check out www.theempirejournal.com re: judicial tyrannist Judge George Greer. (four stories re: Terri on this New York web site.)

[floriduh voter]

Linking TERRI NOVEMBER DAILY THREAD HERE. She's going to celebrate her 41st birthday on December 3rd at Hospice Woodside in Pinellas County, FL.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1264875/posts?page=430

[cgk]

But, she noted, with medical advances, premature infants can live longer. Other questions — such as cost of treatment and quality of life — nevertheless remain.

Those are the same questions that are not being properly addressed in the stem cell discussions.

[cgk]

Pro-life/pro-baby ping...

Is it a human child or not?

[NYer]

Thank you for posting this absolutely beautiful reminder! May God bless you abundantly!

[MHGinTN]

Singer not withstanding, it would be well to remember that the unborn child is able to learn in the second trimester of his or her lifetime begun in the womb. Singer is but a foretaste of the abomination of desolation. He would say he serves no master, but his life and message is antithetical to a culture of life for he would be god, and his religion would be power over the lives of others vulnerable to his whim.

The following was sent to me years a go, from a person concerned for the little ones. It is a true story, BTW.

Smell Of Rain: The story of Danae comforted on God's chest

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. 'I don't think she's going to make it', he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one".

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live-and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.

David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements. Diana remembers 'I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen.' I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!" As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure.

But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw,' the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Danae went home from the hospital--just as her mother had predicted.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more-but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.

As always, Danae was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?"

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."

Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?"

Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain.

Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

[Hi Heels]

Ummm.... Daughter. 25 weeks gestation. 2.4 pounds. 10 1/2 inches long. Currently an A student, freshman in high school, Silver Star Girl Scout and Red Belt in Karate. 5'5" tall, wickedly tan California Blonde who does indeed surf, bicycle, trampoline, swim, help run an dog rescue team, teach Sunday school.....

She can probably whoop that professor with one gorgeous fist tucked behind her back.

[B4Ranch]

which we now have to contend: euthanasia and the Terri schiavo case, abortion, infanticide, the homosexual agenda and our schools turning into temples of the secular humanists.


This is much more than someone who's daily chores are placing their children under governmental care...public schools, driving in traffic where 50% of the others are uninsured, working at a job they consider stressful, fixing dinner for the kids and then trying to decide what is the best program to relax in front of on the TV, can handle mentally.

That's why we have this 'there's nothing I can do attitude' amongst the population.

[Unknown Freeper]

HiHeels, Congratulations on your success.

Jill, we, too, are graduates of St. Peter's NICU.

NYer, the staff at St. Peter's asked us about our religious beliefs. Dr. Hiatt and the rest of the staff at this NICU are miracle workers. He was very professional as he personally explained our situation and everything that could happen, good or bad. My daughter was three months early and did fit (with room to spare) in the palm of my hand. It takes very special people to do what they do. I will be grateful forever.

We went through all of the emotions one can imagine. We watched all of the equipment, hoping that it would help her come through.

Six years later, my daughter is an A student, plays piano, is in karate and amazes everyone with how mature she is for her age and how much she loves to learn. An experience such as what some of us here have lived through changes everyone involved.

I know that someone said that this class should not have been in there. I think that everyone should be able to see what goes on in a NICU (of course, making sure they bring no added health problems to the babies.) The experience would change the minds of those who think that a baby is only a baby at forty weeks.

[Brad's Gramma]

God bless you, Unknown...incredible people, aren't they?

I'm SO HAPPY to read of your praise report!!!

Six years old......wow!! How wonderful our Lord is!!

[Unknown Freeper]

Was anyone else bothered that the writer of this article refers to Calise's babies as "it?" The babies were either a boy or a girl. If the author did not know, she could have asked.

[Coleus]

Peter Singer threads on the FR

[NYer]

Thank you both for sharing your beautiful stories!

Was anyone else bothered that the writer of this article refers to Calise's babies as "it?" The babies were either a boy or a girl. If the author did not know, she could have asked.

If you scroll up a few threads to post 17, you will find some additional information on Prof. Singer. He is a vegetarian who believes that apes should be extended personhood and legal rights. Perhaps in the mind of this mindless prof. baby apes are categorized as boys and girls. Human infants, apparently are not entitled to the same dignified status.

Last night, a woman I once admired for all the work she does with a particular dog breed rescue, went into a rant during a telephone conversation. In my life, I have never heard anyone scream more vociferously as she, as she lashed into those who would impose their religious morals and deny a woman the right to choose. I asked her how she, as a purported Christian, could justify shoving a pair of scissors into the skull of an infant, in the birth canal, and suck out his/her brains. What I should have asked her was how she would feel if someone attempted a similar procedure on her favorite breed of dog.

There are those in society who have shifted their pro-life arguments to animals, abandoning those 'created in the image and likeness of God".

[John Locke]

Perhaps time to post this:

"Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death, that is, the disposition and manner of our death; what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have out of this world, whether prepared or sudden, whether violent or natural, whether in our perfect senses or shaken and disordered by sickness, there is no condemnation to be argued out of that, no judgment to be made upon that, for, howsoever they die, precious in his sight is the death of his saints, and with him are the issues of death; the ways of our departing out of this life are in his hands. And so in this sense of the words, this exitus mortis, the issues of death, is liberatio in morte, a deliverance in death; not that God will deliver us from dying, but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death, of what kind soever our passage be."

John Donne, of course. You can read the whole sermon here.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Aquinasfan]

But the presence of Singer and his class made things less clear.

You don't reason with ghouls like this. You drive them out of the hospital with a baseball bat. God help us.