Remembering Terri Schiavo: A Five-Year Anniversary Marked By Cruel Bigotry

March 31st will mark the five-year anniversary of the needless death of my sister, Terri Schiavo.

It is difficult to believe this much time has passed since that horrible event which will be forever seared into my memory.

I wish I could say things have changed for the better since my sister’s death or that people with cognitive disabilities are now better protected in response to the horror she had to endure.

Tragically, however, it seems the rights of the brain-injured, elderly and others are still being violated.

All one has to do is look at what happened just last week. On March 21st, Fox aired an episode of The Family Guy that featured a "sketch" called "Terri Schiavo: The Musical." I was astonished at the producer’s cruel bigotry directed towards my sister and all cognitively disabled people.

Sadly, although more offensive than what my family has seen in the past from the media since Terri died, the bald-faced ignorance expressed in that episode of The Family Guy was nothing new. In fact, all signs indicate that we have embarked on a very disturbing path.

There is no disputing that Terri’s life – and death – had an astonishing impact on our nation. Our family still receives letters, emails and phone calls almost every day from people who tell us how Terri’s story touched them in profound ways, particularly when they come to know the facts.

Indeed, it was because of my family’s experience trying to protect Terri that we realized how all persons with similar cognitive disabilities are completely vulnerable to state laws that currently make it “legal” to deny them the most basic care – food and water.

This horrifying realization was why we established Terri’s Foundation. In Terri’s name, my family now works to protect tens of thousands of people with similar brain-injuries from having their fundamental freedoms taken away by an aggressive anti-life movement hell-bent on portraying severely disabled and otherwise vulnerable human beings as nothing more than “useless eaters”.

If the amount of phone calls we receive is any indication, what happened to Terri has become common. I think most people have no idea how our individual rights to make decisions about basic care like food and water, antibiotics, etc., have been so dramatically eroded. This not only includes family members advocating for loved ones but also protecting oneself by medical directive.

We recently heard from a woman whose mother was being cared for at a hospice facility. The daughter was powerless to effectively advocate for her mother because she had no power of attorney.

Even though she was her mother’s next-of-kin, and despite the fact her mother was begging her for food, the daughter was not allowed to feed her. It had been determined the mother was no longer able to swallow. But the daughter said her mother was eating safely just prior to being sent to hospice and questioned whether she still could. The mother was not given a feeding tube, and died just a short time later.

Perhaps the “Death Panels” Sarah Palin spoke of sounded like bombastic language. Yet when Palin added this term into our nation’s debate on health care, I believe she did not realize that many hospitals and facilities already have something frighteningly similar. Ethics committees are making many life and death decisions about patients, including whether to withhold simple provisions.

In a seemingly clandestine way, these ethics committees – comprised of medical and legal professionals – are empowering facilities to make life and death decisions independent of the family or a person’s own wishes.

The chilling stories we receive make it clear few citizens have any idea how vulnerable they are when it comes to judgments left in the hands of these ethics committees and facilities. And with the federal government now controlling our health care, there is no reason not to believe that these types of committees won’t become nationalized. Particularly when a health care system has been sabotaged by cost factors and quality of life judgments.

When our office receives phone calls from people fighting for their loved ones, I cannot help but look back and reflect on the courage of many individuals and groups who advocated on behalf of my sister.

As time has passed, however, many of those people, organizations and politicians – even many of our own friends – have fallen silent. Many who once ardently supported Terri’s life no longer actively educate or advocate for vulnerable patients.

With each troubling phone call from a frantic family, I am reminded there are countless other Terris in desperate need of our voice. Terri’s Foundation has been successful helping to save some, but sadly so many others have fallen victim.

I understand our nation faces many challenges today that may threaten our very existence. But how can we claim to be a just and honorable society, deserving of any blessing at all, if we richly reward hateful bigots while refusing to protect our weakest citizens?

Moreover, how did the tremendous courage and kindness we saw when we were fighting for Terri’s life have faded? How can any of us abandon this issue when all signs are that things are getting worse?

There are still many who support our efforts, who recognize the erosion of the value and dignity of the medically weak and who believe in protecting the life and liberty of all human beings.

The problem is their voices are often drowned out by the din of the pro-death lobby that claims death is the only dignified answer to a complicated problem.

Meanwhile the pro-death movement has not fallen silent. Rather, it has grown more vocal. The issue for them did not die with Terri. Indeed, their success in killing her seems to have only bolstered their determination to gain wider acceptance among the American people.

There will always be people with needs, there will always be others who work tirelessly to help them, and there will always be those who turn the other way; or worse – sit behind their drawing tables, disseminating cruel bigotry and hatred toward the disabled and vulnerable.

Until we all recognize that our inherit worth doesn’t change because of life’s circumstances, illness, disability or other events, we will continue to rob our most vulnerable of their right to fairness, justice and the ability to guide their own course in life.

God's truth will ALWAYS be victorious in the end!

Thread by GonzoII.

More Abortion Workers Quit with Pro-Lifers' Help

Commentary by David Bereit, National Director, 40 Days for Life

May 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A few nights ago, I shared the stage at a pregnancy center banquet in San Antonio with Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood director who experienced a profound conversion and left the abortion industry during last fall's 40 Days for Life campaign.

As Abby shared the story of her conversion, I was again amazed at how God has transformed her life - through the prayers and efforts of faithful people. (To see a brand-new video of Abby sharing her story - and the impact of 40 Days for Life on her - click here.)

Abby is just one of 35 abortion workers who have quit their jobs at 40 Days for Life locations. We just received two more amazing reports ...

Mike Stack, 40 Days for Life leader in Southfield, Michigan, reports:

"A week or so ago we got word that the office manager at the Womancare Abortion facility where we have been holding the Southfield 40 Days for Life vigils quit her job.

"A few of the prayer warriors during the Spring campaign had befriended her and found out that she really didn't like working there but felt trapped and unable to find another job. One of the prayer warriors, Christine, arranged to get her resume and did a professional upgrade for her.

"We put the word out to our prayer warriors and a couple months later Casey found a new job and has happily quit working for the abortion facility."

Stack said he later learned that a man whose car had fallen into a ditch at the same clinic had run off with a pro-lifer's cell phone - but even that event, he said, had been "used" by God: Christine and the office manager had started up their conversation after both were drawn to the peculiar sight of the car in the ditch. "Praise God!" he said.

And here is the latest from one of the 40 Days for Life coordinators in a location that must remain anonymous for now:

"I just got word from an anonymous doctor friend of mine that an old school buddy of his quit the abortion clinic in our town, due to the peaceful 'local uprising over the past year' that made him feel 'bad' about what he was doing! He couldn't handle how gentle and nice we were to the women going in, and even to him, as he came out.

"It is truly a miracle that a soul so hardened has been touched by the peaceful and prayerful witness at the abortion mill! Peace, prayers and love works miracles -- the gentleness, honestly and love saves souls in the long run!"

Regardless of what is happening in the politicalarena or with the latest Supreme Court nomination, know that with God ALL things are possible - changing minds, touching hearts, saving lives, and impacting eternal souls.

Obamacare could make this nightmare the only permissible treatment.

Thread by me.

Assisted suicide is not the answer for the terminally ill

Revisionist history has been released to an impressionable public in the HBO Movie “You Don’t Know Jack.” Contrary to Al Pacino’s portrayal of Jack Kevorkian that makes him the compassionate defender of patients’ rights, physician-assisted suicide enters a world of potential mixed motives and moral chaos.

By any standard, assisted suicide (or active euthanasia) is quite different from simply allowing nature to take its unimpeded course. It is popularly called “mercy killing.” Both morally and practically, this is easily distinguishable from simply permitting the death of a hopelessly ill woman or man (i.e., passive euthanasia). It should be opposed by ethically sensitive people.

Physician-assisted suicide is in direct conflict with our tradition of upholding the sanctity of human life. Whether preserved in the Ten Commandments or the Hippocratic Oath, that tradition says we are to affirm, nurture and give aid to people in pain.

For active euthanasia and assisted suicide will communicate the message that persons who are terminally ill have a duty to get out of the way of the living.

For example, suppose a cancer patient for whom treatment has been ineffective tells his or her family, “I know I’m a terrible burden to you, and I wonder if I shouldn’t just end my own life!”

I can imagine two responses.

“What do you mean!” says one family. “You are central to our lives. We love you, and you could never be a burden to us!” That answer communicates a relationship that inspires a will to live for the patient.

“Perhaps we should think about that,” replies another family member. “You might suffer toward the end, and we’re not really rich enough to hire nurses so you can be cared for while we stay at our jobs.” With such openness to the idea of dying, what feelings are likely to go through the mind of that patient?

Studies show that treatment for depression moves the vast majority of sufferers to think of active euthanasia as unacceptable for themselves. The alternative to making suicide easier and more acceptable is effective palliative care — which includes treatment for depression as well as degenerative disease or injury — and loving concern from family and friends.

In the Netherlands, where active euthanasia by medical personnel has been practiced for some time now, the issue quickly ceased to be assistance to persons requesting it and initiated debates over euthanizing some who had not.

“I don’t care about the law,” Kevorkian once said. “I have never cared about anything but the welfare of the patient in front of me.” What a strange claim from a pathologist who has no experience in the clinical treatment of patients! But most of us do care about the law. We care about law grounded in serious ethical reflection that affirms human worth in ways that affirm people rather than eliminate them when they need us most. Our call is not to become gentle executioners. Instead, it is to provide effective and morally responsible care to the suffering.

Terri's Legacy continues to haunt the leftist culture of death.

Thread by me.

Bobby Schindler: Media Attacks Against Terri Schiavo, Schindler Family Continue Five Years Later

As you know, it's been over five years that we all lived through the barbarism of Terri's death. And since Terri died, our family has been astonished to the extent that her brain injury has been the focus of repeated mean-spirited media attacks. If that wasn't enough, the work of Terri's Foundation is now being included in these attacks!

In our last E-Newsletter we informed you about what happened on National television—within days of the anniversary of Terri's death—when an episode of Fox's The Family Guy program parodied Terri with a school play called, "Terri Schiavo: The Musical." (Click on "The Family Guy" icon to read about our continuing on-line petition.)

Recently, a local Florida TV Station smeared the Foundation with a baseless report claiming that we were profiting from our sister's tragedy. The reporter's key witness: Terri's estranged husband, Michael Schiavo.

If that wasn't bad enough, a National radio shock jock, in an act of gross insensitivity, has joined many of his media brethren, boasting that he's glad our Dad is dead, repeatedly making fun of Terri's brain-injury, and is accusing the Foundation of dishonest activity.

It has become painfully clear to us that the secular media has one objective: succeed in making Terri's Foundation go away.

Please know that despite these constant attacks our family and everyone with Terri's Foundation are committed to helping other families and their loved ones.

Terri's Foundation has given support to countless families, and has been actively involved in hundreds of cases, helping families protect their loved ones since Terri's death in 2005.

Indeed, we recognize every day how important your support is to the success of what we are doing. It is because of your generosity that we can continue our non-stop efforts, advocating for these families that are working tirelessly to ensure their loved ones receive proper care.

So thank you for supporting us in this never ending fight against a growing culture that is relentlessly attacking our most vulnerable. With your assistance, we will continue to do what we can to protect the rights of the elderly, the chronically sick and people with profound cognitive brain injuries.

We can stand the Big Media attacks, but we need you to stand with us!

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

I think the British people will start seeing a lot more "collateral damage" as Britain's Big Murder launches their new TV campaign to kill babies.

Threads by julieee and me.

Woman Dies From Botched Abortion at Marie Stopes Clinic

London, England -- As the Marie Stopes International abortion business begins running abortion ads on television in England tonight, news surfaces that a woman in India died from a botched legal abortion at an MSI abortion center. She is one of several women to have died recently in India from failed abortions.

(Excerpt) Read more at LifeNews.com ...

__________________________________________________

Britain to See Abortion Ad on TV for First Time Tonight, Legal Challenge Looms

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British television viewers will see an ad promoting abortions for the first time on TV tonight on Channel 4. However, a pro-life legal group is hoping a last-minute legal action can stop the television ads for the Marie Stopes International abortion business.

The Committee of Advertising Practice and the Broadcast Committee on Advertising Practice allowed rules changes that paved the way for the new ads.

Without the television and radio commercials, MSI has relied on magazines, taxi and bus ads, and advertising through alternative newspapers.

The ad will run on Channel 4 after 10:00 p.m. but the Christian Legal Centre informed The Sun newspaper it hopes to block what it calls an advertisement for the "destruction of human life."

"Members of the public will be enraged that such adverts are allowed to be beamed into their living rooms, especially as early as 10.10pm, when very many teenagers are around," CLC director Andrea Minichiello-Williams told the newspaper.

"Over 200,000 abortions take place each year in the UK and the figures are not falling. So-called 'family planning' is a multimillion-pound industry and should not be aided by TV advertising," she said. "The notion that the destruction of human life can be advertised freely on TV as a service to the public is outrageous."

The television commercials asks if women "are late" -- in terms of whether they missed their last period -- and advises them to call a 24-hour abortion hotline.

Marie Stopes International chief executive Dana Hovig told the Sun that the abortion business received 350,000 calls last year and hopes to increase that number with the television spots.

"We hope the new Are you late? campaign will encourage people to talk about their choices, including abortion, more openly and honestly," she said.

Julia Acott, a counseling manager for CareConfidential, also opposes the ads.

"I do not think it is a good thing to have this aired openly and publicly," she stated.

Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for SPUC, a major pro-life organization, criticized the coming ads.

“Marie Stopes may claim to be a non-profit organization, but they have a financial interest in drumming up demand for abortion. Marie Stopes has a cavalier attitude to obeying legal restrictions regarding abortion, and has been implicated in illegal abortions overseas," he said.

"Neither Marie Stopes nor any similar organization should be allowed to advertise the killing of unborn children," he added.

“Allowing abortion to be advertised on TV will lead to more unborn babies being killed and to more women and girls suffering the after-effects of abortion. Abortion ads will trivialize abortion," Ozimic continued. "It is an insult to the hundreds of women hurt by abortion every day. Such ads are offensive and will mislead viewers about the reality of abortion."

The group points out that, technically, abortion is in English law a criminal offence and advertising of a criminal offence is not permitted. Also, English law also prohibits the advertising of restricted (i.e. on prescription) medical procedures, such as abortion.

"The Broadcasting Act 1990 requires that advertising is not offensive or harmful. Abortion is offensive to the countless women damaged by abortion; and lethally harmful to the hundreds of unborn children aborted every day," the SPUC official continued.

Last year 29,000 people signed a SPUC-organized paper petition to the prime minister against a proposal to allow abortion agencies to advertise on television and radio.

Related web sites:
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children - http://www.spuc.org

Of course they lie!

Thread by me.

Abortionist under Investigation for Forced Abortion Says he “Lies” to Patients

DETROIT, Michigan, May 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Michigan abortionist is under renewed scrutiny over comments he made over two years ago, in which he said that doctors have a license to “lie” to their patients.

The comments were made by Dr. Abraham Alberto Hodari to medical students at Wayne University. Hodari currently is facing a lawsuit for allegedly forcing a woman to submit to an abortion after she had changed her mind, killing the unborn baby that she had decided she wanted.

“My wife says we doctors have a license to lie, and it’s true, it’s absolutely true. Sometimes you need to lie to a patient about things that they want to do or no,” Hodari told a gathering at Wayne State University on November 9, 2007.

He said it was not so much the case today, saying that the reason is that women “are more educated, between CNN and the internet, the patients are more educated about what we do.”

He then added, “I have great satisfaction about what I do, and I never feel bad or worried about doing abortions.”

Hodari’s remarks have only added more ammunition to the lawsuit pending against him in Genessee County Circuit Court.

NBC25 reported on the comments and asked for an explanation from the abortionist. Hodari claimed that he was only referring to situations where the woman’s life would be in danger, and said that a doctor must “never” tell a patient “you’re going to die.”

“And in that respect, yes, we lie,” insisted Hodari.

However, the context of Hodari’s remarks, in which he mentioned how proud he was to be an abortionist, had nothing to do with telling women that they were dying.

Caitlin Bruce is one ex-client of Hodari, who claims he did exactly to her what he told the Wayne medical students: lied to her, and forced her to abort a baby she wanted. Bruce that Hodari and his assistant forcibly held her down to the operating table and "ripped the life out of me that day."

Bruce’s alleged forced abortion happened at Hodari’s Flint abortion center, the Feminine Health Care Clinic.

Tom R. Pabst, Bruce’s attorney, told NBC25 that Hodari violated Bruce’s right to back out of a medical procedure and the video will serve as evidence against him.

"Whether it's a sexual advance or a medical procedure, if she says, ‘No, stop,’ that's the end of it," Pabst told the local news station.

"What he’s saying is that he knows what’s better for your body than you do, and he’s going to go ahead and do what he thinks is best for a woman’s body, not the woman. To me he’s got it flipped."

Bruce's story aligns with testimonies from other women who have described similar horror stories of coerced abortions at Hodari's hands. A report by Operation Rescue shows Hodari has a record of 49 documented lawsuits over a span of decades.

Hodari's practice has also been implicated in the deaths of at least four women from abortion-related complications. In June 2009, the Disciplinary Subcommittee of Michigan's Board of Medicine fined Hodari $10,000 for negligence in connection with the botched abortion death of Regina Johnson.

Numerous complaints have been filed against the abortionist for improper disposal of human remains and abortion records found in Hodari's dumpster. Hodari received a sentence of six months' probation on one such count in February.

In November, Hodari put his abortion clinics on the market along with his collection of expensive classic cars and hastily filed for divorce from his wife of 29 years. Local activists told Operation Rescue that it appeared that he was attempting to liquidate his assets so he could flee the country, possibly to his former home in Argentina.

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Abortionist Hodari Officially Under Investigation for Forced Abortions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10020106.html

Alleged Forced Abortion Victim Says Abortionist "Ripped the Life" Out of Her
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09112412.html

Forced Abortion, Rape Victim Comes Forward After Abortionist Given Slap on the Wrist
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021102.html

Surprise, surprise, Zero found another person who believes in rationing.

Thread by me.

Obama Nominee to Head Medicare, Medicaid Post Favors British Rationing

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama has appointed another nominee for an influential government position who will upset pro-life advocates. But, this time, the nominee poses concerns not on abortion but on end-of-life issues like euthanasia, and rationing of health care.

Obama selected Dr. Donald Berwick to become the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the office that oversees government health care programs.

Berwick is an outspoken admirer of the British National Health Service and its rationing arm, the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE). Other critics have predicted since the earliest days of the Obama administration that NICE-style health care was coming.

That includes Wesley J. Smith, who has frequently condemned the approach.

During a 2008 speech to British physicians, Berwick said “I am romantic about the National Health Service. I love it," and calling it “generous, hopeful, confident, joyous, and just.”

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote more about the problems with Berwick in an opinion column at the Daily Caller.

Recalling that opponents of the government-run health care bill were blasted for bringing up "death panels," Tanner writes: "But if President Obama wanted to keep a lid on that particular controversy, he just selected about the worst possible nominee."

In his comments lauding the British health care system, Tanner says "Berwick was referring to a British health care system where 750,000 patients are awaiting admission to NHS hospitals."

" The government’s official target for diagnostic testing was a wait of no more than 18 weeks by 2008. The reality doesn't come close. The latest estimates suggest that for most specialties, only 30 to 50 percent of patients are treated within 18 weeks. For trauma and orthopedics patients, the figure is only 20 percent," he writes.

"Overall, more than half of British patients wait more than 18 weeks for care. Every year, 50,000 surgeries are canceled because patients become too sick on the waiting list to proceed,' he continues.

"The one thing the NHS is good at is saving money. After all, it is far cheaper to let the sick die than to provide care," Tanner adds.

NICE is at the forefront of the rationing in the British health care system.

"It acts as a comparative-effectiveness tool for NHS, comparing various treatments and determining whether the benefits the patient receives, such as prolonged life, are cost-efficient for the government," Tanner explains. "NICE, however, is not simply a government agency that helps bureaucrats decide if one treatment is better than another. With the creation of NICE, the U.K. government has effectively put a dollar amount to how much a citizen’s life is worth."

Tanner points out that Berwick has already admitted health care rationing is coming.

“It’s not a question of whether we will ration care,” the Obama nominee said in a magazine interview for Biotechnology Healthcare, “It is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

Tanner concludes: "Recent reports suggest that the recently passed health care bill will be far more expensive than originally projected. As it becomes apparent that that ObamaCare is unsustainable, the calls for controlling its costs through rationing will grow louder. With Donald Berwick running the government’s health care efforts, those voices will have a ready ear."

This is an abomination!

Thread by narses.

Dr. Grossman: a Catholic Funded Abortionist in Colorado's Four Corners

Dr. Richard Grossman M.D. is the only abortionist in over 200 miles, and he's not shy about publicly touting his grisly profession.

Every Wednesday of every week, Dr. Grossman kills children at the Durango Planned Parenthood. He charges a sliding scale based on the age of the child. For killing a child of 5-11 weeks he charges $425, 12-13 weeks $515, 14-15 weeks $780, and 16-17 weeks costs $880.

Pictures of what each of these children look like after they are aborted at these different stages of development can be seen here.

I first learned of Dr. Grossman, on Wednesday, Novemeber 18, 2009. I was participating in a vigil outside the abortuary that was organized by Life Guard of La Plata, a Catholic non-profit organization that helps mothers in crisis pregnancies. During this vigil, pro-lifers told me about Dr. Grossman.

I already knew what abortionists do, and I was saddened to see approximately six young ladies escorted in to participate in the killing of their children. What I wasn't ready for was to learn what Dr. Grossman did on the other days when he wasn't killing children.

Dr. Grossman worked, and still works at a Catholic hospital, Mercy Regional Medical Center, as a staff physician with full medical privileges!

Here is a man that kills children once a week, and he is employed by a hospital that is supposed to share my belief that what he does is murder? What in the world was going on? I immediately fired off an email to my Bishops.

Despite repeated entreaties to my Bishops, I have not learned of any action being taken to end this scandalous situation. I have since learned that local pro-life activists (Catholic and Protestant) have been trying to get the Catholic church to step in and stop Dr. Grossman for at least three years!

It should be noted, that while I realize that it is scandalous to point out this ongoing situation within the Catholic church, it is a much more egregious scandal to let it continue unaddressed.

Dr. Grossman would not be able to financially maintain himself on what he earns killing children one day a week. Does this not make Mercy Hospital in Durango and the Catholic Church a material facilitator to the killing? In effect, the Catholic Church, Mercy Hospital, and the Catholic Health Initiatives (based in Denver) are subsidizing abortion services in the Four Corners area.

If that were not bad enough, and it is, Dr. Grossman openly promotes eugenics in his regular column for the local Durango newspaper, the Durango Herald in a column entitled Population Matters.

It seems that the Catholic church is not capable of putting a stop to Dr. Grossman's evil audacity. The reason, according to local activists, is that the hospital and the church fear federal employement discrimination lawsuits. There is, however, a valid basis to believe that this Catholic hospital would be within its right to fire a murderer such as Dr. Grossman, although it is more likely that the church would lose a lawsuit from Dr. Grossman.

When it comes down to it what makes a church like the Catholic church great is its claim to be the repository of the Truth, not the health of its bank accounts.

In an age when the Catholic church is sued on an almost daily basis, wouldn't it be refreshing if the church were sued for preventing child killing at its hospitals instead of for allowing children to be molested.

I for one would welcome the fight. In the meantime I will be helping activists in the Durango area protest, not only at the abortuary, but at the Catholic hospital that makes it possible for Dr. Grossman to kill children and still make a good living

If the culture of death has its way we will all be targets.

Thread by me.

"Organ Donation Euthanasia": A Dangerous Proposal

Should we adopt euthanasia to maximize our supply of available organs for transplantation?

For several decades transplant medicine has suffered from a critical shortfall in the supply of organs needed for patients with organ failure. As a result thousands of patients die each year on waiting lists. Presently there are over 100,000 patients awaiting donor organs in the U.S.; in 2007 alone, 18 patients per day died waiting for deceased donor organs. The problem has given rise to significant milestones in end-of-life medicine. For example, the shift in the 1960s from diagnosing human death in terms of the cessation of heart and lung function (cardio-pulmonary death) to neurological criteria (whole brain death) was motivated by a desire to preserve more transplantable organs. Another idea that’s been debated over the years is “organ conscription.” This very month, lawmakers in New York introduced an “opt out” organ conscription bill that would presume that all patients are organ donors unless they explicitly opt out on their driver’s license. [1] Those of us whose organs are more or less healthy may not appreciate the distress that patients and their families feel knowing that their lives could be saved if only their names reach the top of the wait list.

The most recent contribution to this ongoing conversation was recently published in the prestigious journal Bioethics. [2] Two medical ethicists from Oxford University, Julian Savulescu (you might recall his name from my recent piece on “Transhumanism”) and Dominic Wilkinson, argue that euthanasia should be used to maximize the number and quality of organs for transplantation. Patients should be allowed to designate on their end-of-life documents their desire to donate their organs through a process that the authors call Organ Donation Euthanasia or ODE. They carefully qualify the criteria for ODE eligibility: patients must be in intensive care and dependent on life support; they must have planned for the withdrawal of life support if their prognosis is poor; their condition is such that they will die anyway within a short time of the removal of life support; and they must explicitly consent to ODE. If these conditions are met, doctors may put them under general anesthesia and harvest their organs. But intentionally removing vital organs from a living patient, especially the heart, will ordinarily kill the patient. So the procedure is euthanasia. The authors identify four benefits to be gained by introducing ODE into transplant medicine: 1) patient autonomy is maximized; 2) patients are provided the widest possible scope to donate their organs; 3) the supply of viable organs for transplantation is significantly increased; and 4) patients are less likely to suffer (because of the general anesthesia) than they would be through the ordinary withdrawal of life support.

The authors assess these benefits in the light of the concept of a “Pareto improvement,” a principle used in economics to determine whether we have strong reasons to prefer some alternative. The principle—which the authors call “one of the most basic principles of rationality”—states that some proposed alternative constitutes a Pareto improvement if as a result of its implementation at least one person is better off while no person is left worse off. It follows that if some state of affairs constitutes a Pareto improvement, then we have strong reasons to adopt that alternative.

Savulescu and Wilkinson confidently assert that ODE for eligible patients constitutes a Pareto improvement. It is superior to the current practice of removing life support, waiting until patients die, and then harvesting their organs (called donation after cardiac death, or DCD); both in the case of DCD and ODE a patient dies, but with ODE “more lives are able to be saved” because more useful organs can be harvested from a living human being than from a corpse.

I went into their complicated concept of a Pareto improvement so you (our readers) might appreciate the next thing the authors say in their essay. It illustrates with startling clarity the deficiency of the utilitarian reasoning they use to justify ODE. They say: “ODE might not be regarded as a Pareto improvement if the killing of the patient were regarded as a moral harm or a rights violation. However, it is difficult to see why a patient is morally harmed or has their rights violated if they are actively killed, compared with a state of affairs where they die as a result of treatment withdrawal, assuming that they have consented to either.” For our authors, and for utilitarians generally, moral harm is calculated exclusively as a function of measurable outcomes. If death promises to follow upon each of two alternatives, and one alternative promises in addition to death some measurable benefit, then—presuming informed consent in relation to both—that alternative presumptively is rationally superior. After all D + B (where D equals guaranteed and consented-to death and B some measurable benefit) must be superior to D alone.

Their argument that ODE causes no moral harm to patients—and by implication to anyone else—is weak, even by utilitarian standards. Does not the doctor who kills his patient harm himself? Forbidding practitioners under any circumstance to kill their patients imposes a salutary restraint upon everyone involved in the delivery of health care. It says that human life is a unique good whose respect deserves every possible safeguard. Is not the erosion of one’s respect for the inviolability of the good of life a serious harm? Isn’t it likely that having consented to the killing of patients for the sake of promised benefits, a practitioner will begin to prefer Organ Donation Euthanasia to donation governed by the traditional dead donor rule? And will not the profession generally begin to favor euthanasia as the ‘optimal alternative’ for maximizing the acquisition of organs? Does not acceptance of ODE violate the time-honored principle of medical ethics, “Do No Harm?” Who can calculate the long-term harm to the medical profession and to patients as our community’s collective inhibition against doctors killing patients is relaxed ‘in this one case’? And as our community grows comfortable with ODE, will not this erode our moral inhibitions against other forms of euthanasia? Pareto improvements soon will be discovered in the simple killing of patients at their autonomous requests. The authors have already told us they believe that maximizing patient autonomy by permitting them to choose ODE is itself a great good. The ODE patient then, according to the authors’ own “rational principle,” is better off for having his autonomous will respected than if his request is denied; and his death, since it followed from patient autonomy, could hardly be seen to leave him worse off.

Will not harms also come to families and communities as conflicts arise between patients who desire ODE and spouses, children, siblings and in-laws who reasonably judge that killing, even for a good end, is wrong? Will not violence be done to the moral sensibilities of, say, a child, as her parent’s euthanasia is forced upon her? How should the community respond? “Get over it, honey. Can’t you see that assisted-suicide in this case is okay!” Do not our authors consider the cultural divisiveness that their proposal will certainly precipitate a harm at least worth acknowledging? The tectonic shift that took place in the West’s ethical sensibilities when abortion become legal has inflicted an irreconcilable division on our community. In the U.S., States are blue or red according to whether or not the region supports killing the unborn, and the moral identity of our political parties are largely defined by their abortion platform. Killing for organs will be just one more knife slicing deeper into this cultural divide. Moreover, the Catholic Church runs over 270 hospitals in the US, a considerable percent of the overall medical care in the country. Those hospitals will refuse to honor an advanced directive that orders ODE. This means that the Savulescu proposal promises to precipitate profound dysfunction in the delivery of health care, at least in the US. Finally, for the hundreds of millions of persons who believe that the norm against killing is backed not only by reason, but by divine sanction, there is to consider also the grave spiritual harm to the patient, the patient’s killer, and all who wrongfully support the killing.

The authors’ judgment that no one will be morally harmed by introducing euthanasia into transplant medicine is profoundly naïve. The erosion of the moral sensibilities against killing of doctors, the medical profession and the wider community; the deepening division sown into the fabric of our community; the dysfunction introduced into the delivery of healthcare, all testify against their proposal.

The fact that a reputable journal such as Bioethics would feature an article promoting ODE illustrates how deeply our moral sensibilities against killing have already eroded. They eroded as a result of past proposals to make ‘exceptions’ to the norm against killing in the delivery of health care. Travelling further down this same road by sanctioning ODE may profit us in the short run by gaining us a few extra organs to transplant; but the moral cost to our community will be very dear indeed.
_______________

Notes
[1] See discussion in the New York Times from May 2, 2010; http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/should-laws-encourage-organ-donation/

[2] See their essay “Should We Allow Organ Donation Euthanasia?” at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123413671/main.html,ftx_abs?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Big Murder is about to make infanticide even more dangerous.

Thread by me.

Former Planned Parenthood Director: Stop New, Risky Telemed Abortion Process

LifeNews.com Note: Abby Johnson of College Station, Texas, is a former clinic director in the Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas affiliate. After a conversion experience from witnessing an abortion procedure by ultrasound, she resigned and now works in the pro-life movement.

Abortion is a risky business. It’s risky for the unborn child, of course. But there’s also risk for the woman who undergoes the procedure, and that fact is often ignored by those who promote — and profit from — abortion.

Those risks could increase substantially under a new scheme Planned Parenthood has developed for expanding abortion to areas that are not served by its current network of surgical abortion facilities. And Planned Parenthood is certain to downplay these risks because abortion is the organization’s biggest moneymaker.

I worked for eight years at Planned Parenthood, and I know that medical abortions — abortions done through the abortion pill, RU-486 — are far from risk-free. This pill is used through nine weeks of pregnancy to abort a child without surgery.

According to RU-486’s own website, at least six women in the United States have died in the past five years from using the abortion pill. Because the abortion pill can cause severe side effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has developed regulations for its use. One of the rules is that the pill can be administered only by a doctor.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartlands (Greater Iowa) dispenses RU-486 to hundreds, if not thousands, of women every year. However, this affiliate has previously been unable to distribute the abortion pill at its rural clinics, some of which are as much as 120 miles from a hospital or emergency care facility, because there is no doctor available.

Their answer is “telemedicine,” where a doctor at a remote location conducts patient consultations over the Internet. This scheme completely bypasses the foundational in-person, doctor-patient relationship that is necessary for real health care.

Planned Parenthood stands to make enormous profits if this type of “telemed” abortion is successful.

This method is not being done in other parts of the country – yet. But Planned Parenthood intends to expand the use of this procedure.

Two years ago, I went to a National Abortion Federation meeting and listened to a nurse from Planned Parenthood of the Heartland brag about the new telemed abortion method. He said it would revolutionize the way medical abortions were conducted, starting in Iowa and then expanding throughout the nation.

Last week, at an event in Cedar Rapids, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards spoke glowingly of the telemed abortions and indicated hopes to roll out the system nationwide over the next five years.

Even when I was a 2008 Planned Parenthood “employee of the year,” I thought this system sounded risky.

Since many of Planned Parenthood’s facilities in Iowa are in rural areas, it’s downright scary to think of what could happen to any woman who suffers complications from RU-486.

The Iowa Board of Medicine and the FDA must take immediate action to ensure that the dangerous telemed abortions are stopped. Iowans should demand that their elected officials take swift action to strip all taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood.

Hopefully the Black community in Georgia will actually get the message.

Thread by markomalley.

Georgia pro-life groups launch ‘Black and Unwanted’ billboard campaign

Atlanta, Ga., Jun 4, 2010 / 03:17 am (CNA).- A pro-life billboard campaign called “Black and Unwanted” has been launched in Georgia to increase awareness of the “devastating” impact of abortion on Georgia’s black community and to highlight the need for more adoptions.

The new campaign is co-sponsored by Georgia Right to Life and the Radiance Foundation.

The billboard shows a teary-eyed young black child’s face on a dark black background. The words “Black & Unwanted” run across the top of the billboard while the website address TooManyAborted.com is displayed at its base.

Over 60 billboards have been placed in Augusta, Macon and Savannah, Georgia Right to Life reports. The pro-life group says that Georgia is among the leading states in the number of reported abortions performed on black women, with 18,901 in 2008 alone.

"This project is going to continue as long as women are being lied to and the killing of black children is seen as our 'best' way to end poverty,” explained Catherine Davis, Director of Minority Outreach for Georgia Right to Life. “Women need to know all their options and expose the lies that Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers have been spreading for years."

"Our children are our heritage, our strength and the abortion community has reduced our legacy to the status of a parasite, something to be eliminated rather than cherished,” she continued, predicting that the campaign will begin to restore value to black children in Georgia and the U.S. as a whole.

The billboard was created by Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of the Radiance Foundation. He said the emphasis of the campaign on black Americans and abortion is that Centers for Disease Control figures show African-Americans have abortions at three times the rate of white women and twice the rate of all other races combined.

"Abortion is being used as birth control and increasingly encouraged by groups like Planned Parenthood,” he commented.

According to Bomberger, in 2008 Planned Parenthood “aborted 65 children for every 1 client they referred for adoption; that's 305,310 abortions to 4,912 adoption referrals."

The website of the campaign, www.TooManyAborted.com, provides more information as well as professionally made videos.

The way these people rationalize murder is beyond the pale.

Thread by me.

Gary Coleman's Wife Mentions Terri Schiavo in Comments About Pulling Plug

Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Gary Coleman's ex-wife said in a new interview that she pulled the plug on the actor last week because she didn't want him ending up like Terri Schiavo. The comments have sparked an outcry from pro-life advocates, who are also upset by continued mainstream media misreporting on Terri.

Shannon Price told TMZ in a video interview the day after Coleman's death,
"[The doctors] said even if they did take a chunk out of his brain, he would not be the same. He would be basically like Muhammed Ali."

"Be in my situation. I mean, look what happened with Terri Schiavo. I always think of her case, always, when it comes to this. Gary was gone," Price added. "And he would have died sooner or later anyway from that."

She told TMZ, "I don't want people to be so hard on me, thinking I had to pull the plug too early. He wouldn't have made it anyway. His heart would have just given out. I don't want people to sit there and think I'm a b----, and that I didn't care about him."

After citing Price's quotes to TMZ, the New York Daily News "reported" that "Schiavo, of Florida, languished in a coma for years before her husband won a drawn-out court battle to pull the plug."

But pro-life blogger Jill Stanek says that's not true, because Terri was never on life support -- she merely had assistance eating and drinking.

"For the gazillionth time, Terri Schiavo was not brain dead when a FL judge ordered her dehydrated and starved to death in 2005," Stanek said.

She added, "Oxygen deprivation left Terri mentally disabled, but she was responsive, particularly to family. There was no correlation between Terri's condition and actor Gary Coleman's apparently unresponsive condition, although even that is unclear."

"In this story we have a ready example demonstrating how the media always has and continues to get Terri's condition wrong," Stanek responded, saying the Daily News story is "absolutely false."

"We also see demonstrated how one should be very careful about who one decides to hand over a power of attorney," Stanek adds about Price's decision.

Dr. Mark Mostert and Wesley J. Smith give is a glimpse into the horror that accompanies legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Two threads by me.

Dr. Mark Mostert: Dignitas - Kill Them All

The Swiss death clinic, Dignitas, is in the news again.

You’ll recall that Dignitas has gained notoriety as a fee-for-service killing venue for those who wish to die via assisted suicide. Dignitas has been most exposed by high-profile visits from UK citizens who travelled to the clinic to die because in the UK assisted suicide is illegal, and allows for the prosecution (at least on paper) of those who help people kill themselves.

However, there’s a very ugly underbelly to all the spin that Dignitas is a haven of care and a celebration of human autonomy.

There have been reports of dingy and dirty surroundings, less than dignified treatment of those who come to be killed both before and after they die, and the nagging fact that this is all offered at a rather exorbitant fee.

It gets worse. Several months ago hundreds of urns with the cremated remains of Dignitas’ victims were discovered dumped in Lake Geneva. This matter is currently under investigation.

Dignitas is again in the news, and I’m not sure why this latest issue so surprises the media, because Dignitas is doing exactly what it has always said it was doing: Helping anyone who wants to to kick the bucket.

The latest flap involves Dignitas’ providing a suicide kit to a 39 year-old Spanish man with severe psychological problems. From London's Daily Mail:

Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas is under investigation over claims that it ignored a patient's distressed mental condition to give him drugs to end his own life. . . . But now details have emerged of a patient who was allegedly given a DIY suicide kit prescribed by a Zurich gynaeologist despite suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. . . . But a Dignitas report on the 39-year-old Spanish man's mental state was a few lines that barely covered half a page of A4 paper, say local media reports on the death.

Oops.

Or maybe not.

Here’s why: All the chatter about “transparency,” policies to “protect,” rigid controls to ensure that no “mistakes” are made is all smoke and mirrors on the way to the only goal the pro-death crowd have always wanted: Assisted suicide and euthanasia on demand and available for anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Don’t take my word for it, take those of Dignitas’ owner Minelli:

'Every person in Europe has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill.'

Chilling.

__________________________________________________

Legalizing Euthanasia in Belgium Unleashes Nurses to Do Doctor-Ordered Non Voluntary Killing

Belgium has followed the Netherlands in jumping off a vertical moral cliff by embracing legalized euthanasia. The awful consequences that I predicted are now coming to pass; a steady increase in the number of cases, inadequate reporting, and a large percentage of non voluntary euthanasia deaths. Thus, I am anything but surprised by the study I analyze below, which echoes an earlier one reported here at SHS, that nearly as many Belgian euthanasia killings are non voluntary as of those that are voluntary (the concept of “voluntary” in this context being highly problematic, but let’s not deal with that here).

Why might that be? Euthanasia consciousness rests on two intellectual pillers–that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, and radical individualism in which we all own our bodies and have the absolute right to do what we wish with it, including make it dead. But interestingly, the latter idea–often reduced to that most effective of all soundbites, “choice”–turns out to be far less robust than the acceptance of active killing as a proper method of ending suffering. In other words, once a society accepts killing as the answer to suffering, the request element becomes increasingly less important as doctors assume they are doing what is best for the patient by extinguishing their lives.

This has been the case in the Netherlands for for decades. Amazingly, the phenomenon of “terminations without request or consent” is even worse in Flanders, Belgium. In the present survey of nurses, not only were nearly as many patients euthanized without no request–120 in this survey–as those who asked to die–128 in this survey–but often doctors have nurses do the dirty work–and they aren’t supposed to engage in euthanasia at all. From a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (download the PDF to see whole article):

Second, we wonder why nurses more often administered the life-ending drugs in cases without an explicit patient request than in cases of euthanasia. Perhaps nurses took a more active role out of concern for frailer patients who could no longer communicate, or for very old patients because physicians are more reluctant to give assistance in dying when dealing with these patients.30 Further, in cases of euthanasia, communication between the physician and the patient is common.
When the patient can no longer communicate, nurses are, by the nature of their work, more directly confronted with the patient’s suffering and may therefore wish to take a more active role in life-ending acts. We also have to consider that the administration of life-ending drugs without the patient’s explicit request may have included situations of terminal sedation or an increase in pain alleviation, in which the delegation by physicians to nurses to administer the drugs is considered common practice. Finally, although about half of the nurses’ reports indicated that there was no explicit request from the patient, it should be stated that the physicians and nurses probably acted according to the patient’s wishes.

Not if they weren’t asked! This goes beyond terminal non judgmentalism to actively justifying illegal acts, and proves that once the euthanasia monster is let out of its cage, the “guidelines” and “safeguards” become less protective than wet tissue paper, not only in the country where euthanasia occurs, but among professional studies of the practices.

And catch this bland conclusion:

By administering life-ending drugs at the physician’s request in some cases of euthanasia, and even more so in cases without an explicit request from the patient, the nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession. Future research should closely monitor and examine the involvement of nurses in these practices nationally and internationally to allow comparisons between countries with and without euthanasia legislation.

Talk about missing the obvious point. Here’s the proper summary: “This study shows that euthanasia poisons everything it touches. Legal guidelines don’t protect vulnerable patients from abuse once euthanasia is legalized. Moreover, nurses are particularly susceptible to being caught up in acts that are illegal when doctors, who many not wish to take the final life-ending act themselves, order them to carry out the termination. We also note that this study demonstrates that once killing becomes part of the medical armamentarium, it leads directly to patient abuse and medical criminality. This study highlights a reason why legalizing euthanasia is bad ethics and ever worse public policy.”

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.

More Abortion Workers Quit with Pro-Lifers' Help

Assisted suicide is not the answer for the terminally ill

Bobby Schindler: Media Attacks Against Terri Schiavo, Schindler Family Continue Five Years Later

Woman Dies From Botched Abortion at Marie Stopes Clinic

Britain to See Abortion Ad on TV for First Time Tonight, Legal Challenge Looms

Abortionist under Investigation for Forced Abortion Says he “Lies” to Patients

Obama Nominee to Head Medicare, Medicaid Post Favors British Rationing

Reid Leads Senate Tribute Of Notorious Baby-shredder

Dr. Grossman: a Catholic Funded Abortionist in Colorado's Four Corners

"Organ Donation Euthanasia": A Dangerous Proposal

Former Planned Parenthood Director: Stop New, Risky Telemed Abortion Process

Georgia pro-life groups launch ‘Black and Unwanted’ billboard campaign

The incredible moment a deaf baby hears his mother's voice for the very first time

Gary Coleman's Wife Mentions Terri Schiavo in Comments About Pulling Plug

Dr. Mark Mostert: Dignitas - Kill Them All

Legalizing Euthanasia in Belgium Unleashes Nurses to Do Doctor-Ordered Non Voluntary Killing