Artificial nutrition and hydration should normally be withdrawn, says doctor

An American doctor argues in the latest issue of the leading journal Bioethics that artificial nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn from all patients in a permanent vegetative state – unless there is clear evidence that they want to be kept alive.

Dr Catherine Constable, of New York University School of Medicine, studied bioethics at the Ethox Centre at Oxford University. She argues that the current presumption in favour of maintaining ANH is misguided. It is not in the interests of the patient nor, because of its cost, in the interest of society.

However, her argument is not based upon cost, but upon Peter Singer’s analysis of what it means to be a person. An individual in a PVS has no consciousness and therefore no interests. In this case, whether or not he or she is alive is irrelevant.

Furthermore, surveys have shown that most people would not like to live as Terri Schiavo did. Therefore, in the absence of a living will, “we have arguably committed a worse violation of autonomy by treating the [PVS] patient than if we had not treated him against his wishes.”

What about the remote, but real, chance of recovery from a permanent vegetative state? Isn’t that hope an reason for keeping people alive? No, says Dr Constable. Even if they recover, it will be all but impossible for them to return to normal life. Instead it will be “some state of middle consciousness; a life, quite possibly, worse than non-existence”.

Abortion was ALWAYS the prelude to the culture of death killing everyone they wanted dead.

Thread by me.

Ethicists give thumbs-up to infanticide

If abortion, why not infanticide? This leading question is often treated as a canard by supporters of abortion. However, it is seriously argued by two Italian utilitarians and published online in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics this week.

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva are associated respectively with Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia, and with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, in the UK.

They argue that both the fetus and the new-born infant are only potential persons without any interests. Therefore the interests of the persons involved with them are paramount until some indefinite time after birth. To emphasise the continuity between the two acts, they term it “after-birth abortion” rather than infanticide.

Their conclusions may shock but Guibilini and Minerva assert them very confidently. “We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.” This assertion highlights another aspect of their argument. Killing an infant after birth is not euthanasia either. In euthanasia, a doctor would be seeking the best interests of the person who dies. But in “after-birth abortion” it is the interests of people involved, not the baby.

To critical eyes, their argument will no doubt look like a slippery slope, as they are simply seeking to extend the logic of abortion to infanticide:

“If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.”

How long after birth is it “ethically permissible” to kill infants? Guibilini and Minerva leave that question up to neurologists and psychologists, but it takes at least a few weeks for the infant to become self-conscious. At that stage it moves from being a potential person to being a person, and infanticide would no longer be allowed.

What a wonderful idea!

Thread by Morgana.

‘Cookies for Life’: 10-year-old ex-Girl Scout raises thousands for pro-life with home-baked cookies

BOISE, Idaho, March 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When Grace Swanke, 10, found out that Girl Scouts is entangled with Planned Parenthood, not only did she decide to quit her troop, but as someone who loved to sell cookies, she decided to make and sell her own brand of cookie, but with a pro-life twist.

“The thing I enjoyed most about the girl scouts was selling cookies, and then I realized I could still sell cookies, I just had to bake them myself,” Grace told LifeSiteNews.

Several years ago, a significant number of Girl Scout councils nationwide admitted to partnering with Planned Parenthood (PP). When questioned about the affiliation on NBC’s “Today Show,” former Girl Scout CEO Kathy Cloninger admitted that Girl Scout Troops and Councils partnered with Planned Parenthood to provide “good” and “information-based” sex education. She never retracted this statement.

As recently as 2010, Girl Scouts was caught distributing an explicit PP sex guide at a Girl Scouts UN meeting. They also recently welcomed into their ranks boys who identify themselves as girls.

At first young Grace was going to call her project “Grace’s Cookies,” but when she decided that all money raised would go to fund an ultrasound machine for the local pro-life clinic, she knew she had to change the name. That’s when Cookies for Life was born.

“I find that what is so great about being pro-life is donating money to pro-life charities so women can see life. When women see life, women choose life,” said Grace.

The young entrepreneur started her project last year with a number of baking sessions and raised almost $600 to benefit a Knights of Columbus ultrasound machine project in her area. Now on her second year of baking, Grace plans to aid the Stanton Healthcare Center, a medical pro-life women’s centre in Boise, by helping them to pay for their new location, right next door to Planned Parenthood. Her goal of raising $700 has already been surpassed by $900, for a total of $1600.

Cindy Anderson, youth minister at Our Lady of the Rosary and friend of Grace, told LifeSiteNews that she is “so proud of Grace” and that the young girl is “so totally an inspiration.” With Anderson’s help this year, Grace was able to make use of the Church’s facilities to make even more cookies.

“Grace is thrilled that she is able to sell cookies again and even more thrilled that this money is going to help save babies. Her face just lights up when you talk with her about it. You can’t help but to get involved because she is so excited about it,” said Anderson.

Word of Grace’s tasty cookies and pro-life convictions have begun to spread far and wide. Organizers for the upcoming Idaho Catholic Youth Convention have asked her to bake 2,800 cookies for the 1400 young people that are expected to attend the event and to share her convictions as a speaker at the conference. The money raised from this will also benefit the pro-life clinic.

Grace’s parents, Mary and John Swanke, believe that the Cookies for Life project has taken off because family, friends, and the local community have come together for a cause that everyone believes in and can get excited about.

“Words cannot say enough to thank everyone for all of their hard work! God is good, ALL THE TIME!” wrote Mrs. Swanke on the Cookies for Life Facebook page after a recent successful baking campaign.

As people have often heard Grace exclaim as she bakes and sells her cookies: “All it takes is a little ‘yes’ to God and amazing things can happen.”

Young people are becoming acutely aware how much of their generation was murdered.

Thread by rhema.

How Some Kids With A Van Are Changing The Pro-Life Movement

[ . . . ]

Here’s what happens: a woman is walking up to an abortion clinic. She is approached by Dave or Daryl or another member of Save the Storks.

“Hi, how are you? Would you like a free ultrasound?”

This is the approach. There is no dangling rosary, no graphic pamphlet, no doom-and-gloom. Just an offer of free help from a non-threatening, friendly, smiling young person.

And then there is the Stork bus. . . .

[ . . . ]

The Stork bus . . . is a bright, lovely blue on the outside, and the inside is clean and free of clutter, with a welcoming but no-nonsense clinical feel. There is a little couch for the mother to sit on and speak to a counselor, and a padded bench where she can lie comfortably.

The ultrasound machine pulls out from underneath the bench. It is operated only by a licensed sonographer whose work is frequently reviewed by an OB/Gyn. In the back there is a small private toilet for pregnancy testing. It isn’t the slightest bit cramped or unpleasant; these mothers get only the best. The completed bus with the ultrasound machine was paid for by private donations to the tune of about $140,000.

The Stork bus is by no means the first mobile ultrasound vehicle — it was Chris Slattery’s mobile sonogram bus that inspired Dave and Joe in the first place — but it may be the smallest, lightest, and most practical. It doesn’t require a permit or special permission to park. It will fit in a parking space or even at a meter.

It is an abortion clinic’s worst nightmare. . . . .

[ . . . ]

. . . . What is the battle cry of the pro-abortion movement? “Choice!” It is their mantra. What do you constantly hear from abortion advocates? “These desperate women feel like they are out of options.” Right here, on four wheels, parked in front of the clinic, is another choice — one they might not even know they have. Inside that bus is an image of their baby waiting to be seen. Connected to that bus is a support system — in short, options.

Dave and the team have high hopes, and they should. The approach is breathtakingly simple and, if early tests are any indication, profoundly effective.

As mentioned, the Storks take to the streets of Dallas on March 13. Meanwhile their website is up and running at SaveTheStorks.com with the purpose of raising money to take the program national. A Save the Storks bus is not cheap, and it takes people to run it. While Dave and his team get things off the ground in Dallas, Joe is in charge of building a national movement.

The thought of a Stork bus in every major city in America should bring a smile to your face. Every one of these buses represents hundreds of lives saved every year.

I have met Dave and the gang. I have been on board the Stork bus. And I have never been more excited about a pro-life idea than I am about this one.

You probably are having the same reaction I did. You are probably thinking: “What can I do to help?”

First: spread the word. Use Facebook, Twitter, Twitbook, whatever, to share with people how awesome this is.

Second: go to SaveTheStorks.com now and volunteer. They need all kinds of stuff — bloggers, artists, counselors, you name it — all across the country to be part of their national team of Save the Storks volunteers. Whatever your talent is, Save the Storks can probably use it to help get Stork programs off and running across the country. You — yes, you! — can be a part of this movement from the ground up.

Third: donate if you can. Save your Starbucks money for a few days and buy a ridiculously cool Save the Storks T-shirt. Wear it and tell people about it. (I promise they’ll be curious.)

In just a few days, Dave, Daryl, and their remarkable bus hit the streets of Dallas, the city where abortion rights were born. As a native Dallasite, I hope what started here is ended here. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Save the Storks becomes a major factor in helping Dallas — and the country — see an end to abortion.

Obamacare will destroy our Republic if it isn't stopped.

Thread by NYer.

The HHS Mandate: Cardinal George and the Bishops Are Fighting the Last War (Excellent Analysis)

It is a well-known phenomenon that generals have a tendency to “Fight the Last War,” meaning that they tend to use the tactics that brought them victory in the last war they fought. The problem is that the enemy usually shows up with new weapons and new tactics. Either the generals adapt, or go down to defeat.

In the war over the HHS Mandate, it seems that the bishops have shown up with Cardinal O’Connor’s playbook from the 1980′s. It won’t work, and they had better grasp that reality today, and with all due urgency.

This past week, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago issued a letter to his faithful warning that the archdiocese will need to get out of the hospital and healthcare business, as well as education, social services, etc., if the Obama administration does not back down. Some excerpts:

Catholic hospitals, universities and social services have an institutional conscience, a conscience shaped by Catholic moral and social teaching. The HHS regulations now before our society will make it impossible for Catholic institutions to follow their conscience.

What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down.

The state is making itself into a church. The bishops didn’t begin this dismaying conflict nor choose its timing. We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack.

If you haven’t already purchased the Archdiocesan Directory for 2012, I would suggest you get one as a souvenir. On page L-3, there is a complete list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions in Cook and Lake counties. Each entry represents much sacrifice on the part of medical personnel, administrators and religious sponsors. Each name signifies the love of Christ to people of all classes and races and religions. Two Lents from now, unless something changes, that page will be blank.

There’s much more in the letter. Read it here.

Cardinal George’s tactic here was that of Cardinal O’Connor in the 1980′s, when Mayor Ed Koch passed Executive Order 50 that would have forced the Catholic Church to hire homosexuals in all of our institutions. From Wiki:

O’Connor actively opposed Executive Order 50, a mayoral order issued in 1980 by Mayor Ed Koch, which required all City contractors, including religious entities, to provide services on a non-discriminatory basis with respect to race, creed, age, sex, handicap, as well as “sexual orientation or affectational preference”.[25] After the Salvation Army received a warning from the City that its contracts for child care services would be canceled for refusing to comply with the executive order’s provisions regarding sexual orientation,[26] the Archdiocese of New York and Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish organization, threatened to cancel their contracts with the City if forced to comply.[26] O’Connor maintained that the executive order would cause the Church to appear to condone homosexual practices and lifestyle.[27][27] Writing in Catholic New York in January 1985, O’Connor characterized the order as “an exceedingly dangerous precedent [that would] invite unacceptable governmental intrusion into and excessive entanglement with the Church’s conducting of its own internal affairs.” Drawing the traditional Catholic distinction between homosexual “inclinations” and “behavior”, he stated that “we do not believe that homosexual behavior … should be elevated to a protected category.”[28]

The Church won its case in court, but O’Connor was willing to close our schools and child care agencies if we lost, forcing a city just inching back from bankruptcy to pick up the cost.

Different times.

Back then, I was in my early 20′s. The bulk of voters were the Greatest Generation, then in their 50′s, and the generations who preceded them. In other words, most voters actually had education in civics, and most men came from a generation when military service was regarded as a rite of passage into manhood. They valued the Constitution, and a thug such as Barak Obama never would have made it past being a city councilman from a radical district. Back then, voters understood the need for fiscal responsibility and Ed Koch would have had his goose cooked if he threatened the fragile economic recovery of the city, or if he incurred a threat made good by Cardinal O’Connor.

Different times.

Today the bishops are in contention with a Democrat Party headed by a president who wants them to abandon the field in every sector: education, social services, healthcare…

Today the bishops are in contention with a Democrat Party headed by a president who have added ten trillion dollars of debt to the nation in two years. That they don’t care at all about fiscal responsibility is an understatement.

Today the bishops are in contention with a Democrat Party headed by a president who understand that the bulk of the voters who stood behind Cardinal O’Connor almost thirty years ago are dead. In their place are the Baby Boomers, the children and grandchildren of the Boomers who are largely ignorant of American History, civics, or the Constitution.

Today the bishops are in contention with a Democrat Party headed by a president who are catering to the pervasive narcissism and hedoniosm of a society that stands in shameful contrast with the Greatest Generation that backed O’Connor. That’s why the HHS mandate has a good chance of prevailing.

Cardinal George is no fool, and he understands what he’s up against with the Democrats and Obama:

The provision of health care should not demand “giving up” religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.

He’s right. However, the tactics need to change. We do not have a half-century to fight this one as we did the Cold War. We have until November. If Obama is reelected, we’ll lose our tax-exempt status and be stripped of all our agencies by a president who hates who we are and what we stand for. This is no longer a fight over a facet of Obamacare.

It never was, and the bishops need to awaken to that reality. This is a new Marxism, as Cardinal George alluded to. If Obama backs down and the bishops claim victory they will live to regret being duped in so monumental a manner. A Marxist has declared war on the only Church with enough institutional infrastructure to pose a threat to his party’s agenda.

The Catholic vision of human anthropology, who we are, is lived out in our healthcare and social services, and is inculcated through our educational institutions.

Obama gets that.

Cardinal George left out the fifth, and only viable option. The Church has had war declared on her by the government. She must now rally her faithful to vote out this wicked administration in November. She must coordinate strategy with all people of faith from other religions and Christian denominations. If she doesn’t, we lose everything. If she does, a new administration will not permit her to lose the tax-exempt status for having been forced into political organizing to fight an existential threat from the government. (And there are hundreds of videos of Democrat politicians campaigning in Protestant church pulpits).

The plan as laid out by Cardinal George is yesterday’s strategy. It worked for Cardinal O’Connor in a different age, with a different electorate. It’s time for our normally quiet and pastoral bishops to gird their loins.

This one’s for all the marbles.

Many of us knew seven years ago that Terri's murder was nothing more than a "dress rehearsal" for the next plank of the death mongers' agenda.

Thread by me.

Wesley J. Smith: When In Doubt, Choose Dehydration

Radical bioethics–and that constitutes much of the mainstream, in my view–continues to push for a wider death agenda. Last week, we discussed an article in the Journal of Bioethics that promoted the propriety of infanticide for even healthy babies if that best served the desires or needs of actual “people.” Today, let’s discuss an article just published in Bioethics urging a dehydrate-them-to-death default position for people diagnosed as persistently unconscious. From “Withdrawal of Artificial Nutrition and Hydration for Patients in a Permanent Vegetative State: Changing Tack,” by a medical resident at New York School of Medicine named Catherine Constable (Abstract only link available):

Several arguments are commonly offered in defense of continuing ANH for patients in PVS, where no preference is known. These include: (1) human life has intrinsic value; therefore, when in doubt as to a patient’s wishes, the ethically more sound position is to err on the side of preserving life; (2) if we withdraw life-sustaining care, we run the risk of violating a patient’s unknown but autonomous prior wish to be kept alive in PVS; therefore it is better to continue to provide care; (3) there is a chance of mistaken diagnosis; thus, we should continue to provide life-sustaining care. In addressing each point, I will argue either that the opposite is true, or, at least, that the argument can be neutralized.

Why the need for a default dehydration medical “ethic?” Saving medical resources, a belief that dehydration is a “neutral” act, and a disagreement that human life has intrinsic value.

In typical bioethics style, Constable then puts in a hedge:

[F]amilies or other surrogates, who should be educated about the condition, should ultimately be given the last word. To advocate the termination of life-sustaining treatment against the directive of a grieving family would be to cast the medical profession in a somewhat more threatening light than most of us would want. Families of these patients in fact deserve our sincere regard during a period in which no one can be said to suffer more than them.

But most cases involve family decision making now. So, this would allow us to eliminate the homeless unconscious and a few other categories. But the real push here seems to me to be make families believe dehydration is right:

Yet we should discontinue the practice of putting families in the position of having to justify a decision to withdraw ANH by making assertions about what the patient would have wanted. Where there is no advance directive, the family should instead be encouraged to consider whatever factors that they deem useful…Surrogates are not typically eager to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from their loved-ones. To put the onus on a family to justify the decision to withdraw ANH is to effectively treat them as would-be executioners who need to be checked. If the withdrawal of care in this situation was indeed an act that required moral justification, one might defend a need for such safeguards. However, I have argued here that the onus is rather on those who would continue (excepting the family) to justify the decision. In the case of PVS, when in doubt as to a patient’s wishes, it is better to discontinue life-sustaining treatment.

But if it is true that families now have to justify choosing to dehydrate, this radical shift toward a duty to die would put the family in the position of having to justify the continuance of food and fluids in the face of nay-saying doctors, bioethicists, and the public policy of society. Families often already face such pressure. Imagine if they had to justify continued life!

By the way, Constable studied ethics at Oxford. No wonder.

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

We have always known the truth that Obama intends to force us to all pay for abortion.

Thread by me.

Obama Admin Finalizes Rules: $1 Abortions in ObamaCare

It’s official. The concern pro-life organizations had about the ObamaCare legislation funding abortions has been confirmed, as the Obama administration has issued the final rules on abortion funding governing the controversial health care law.

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government — approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule regarding establishment of the state health care exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

As a knowledgeable pro-life source on Capitol Hill informed LifeNews, as authorized by Obamacare, “the final rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion” and the change to longstanding law prohibiting virtually all direct taxpayer funding of abortions (the Hyde Amendment) is accomplished through an accounting arrangement described in the Affordable Care Act and reiterated in the final rule issued today.

“To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer,” the pro-life source informed LifeNews. “The enrollee will make two payments, $1 per month for abortion and another payment for the rest of the services covered. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment. Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to pay directly subsidize abortions.”

The pro-life advocate told LifeNews that the final HHS rule mentions, but does not address concerns about abortion coverage in “multi-state” plans administered by the Federal Government’s Office of Personal Management (OPM).

“There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act to prevent some OPM (government administered) plans from covering elective abortion, and questions remain about whether OPM multi-state plans will include elective abortion,” the pro-life source said. “If such plans do include abortion, there are concerns that the abortion coverage will even be offered in states that have prohibited abortion coverage in their state exchanges.”

The final rule indicates “Specific standards for multi-state plans will be described in future rulemaking published by OPM…”

Set to go into effect in 2014, the unconstitutional provisions found in Section 1303 of the Obamacare Act compel enrollees in certain health plans to pay a separate abortion premium from their own pocket, without the ability to decline abortion coverage based on religious or moral objection.

That provision was the subject of a legal document Bioethics Defense Fund’s Dorinda C. Bordlee, lead counsel for the group, submitted to the Supreme Court in February.

“This violates the Free Exercise Clause because religious exemptions are made for groups such as the Amish who morally object to purchasing any insurance, but no exemptions are made for Americans who have religious or moral objections to abortion,” Bordlee said.

“President Obama’s healthcare overhaul includes an ‘abortion premium mandate’ that blatantly violates the conscience rights and First Amendment religious rights of millions of Americans,” AUL president Charmaine Yoest said. “Nowhere in the Constitution does it require Americans to violate their beliefs and pay for abortions.”

ADF Senior Counsel Steven Aden says Americans should not be compelled to pay for other people’s elective abortions.

“No one should be forced to violate their conscience by paying for abortions, but that’s precisely what ObamaCare does,” he explained. “ObamaCare requires that employees enrolled in certain health plans pay a separate insurance premium specifically to pay for other people’s elective abortions and offers no opt-out for religious or moral reasons. Such a mandate cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”

BDF president and general counsel Nikolas Nikas said the individual mandate not only forces individuals into private purchases, it also effectively mandates personal payments for surgical abortion coverage, without exemption for individual’s religious or moral objections.

He told LifeNews in an email, “Like a Russian nesting doll, the individual mandate has nestled within it a hidden, but equally unconstitutional scheme that effectively imposes an ‘abortion premium mandate’ that violates the free exercise rights of millions of Americans who have religious objections to abortion.”

The selfishness of this is revolting.

Thread by Morgana.

After IVF we became pregnant with triplets, but my wife wanted two of the babies aborted

March 14, 2012 (AmericanThinker.com) - My soul carries a new scar. The pain is fresh and keen, and I know that while time might see the pain fade, I will never fully recover from what I’ve seen, and done. For I have failed, intentionally and knowingly, in the first duty of a parent: protecting the lives of two of my children.

My wife and I wanted children; alas, we needed IVF treatment to realize this dream. Several cycles and multiple embryo implantations later, we welcomed our blessing from G-d, who is the light of our lives.

Recently, we tried for another.

“It never rains, but it pours,” said the fertility doctor—of the three embryos that were implanted, all three took. We were faced with the news of triplets. I was shocked, knowing the burden that would entail, but since G-d gave us three, I was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to help, manage, and provide.

My wife? Something snapped. She insisted that we do a “selective reduction” from three to one, or else she would have a full abortion. She was adamant. She would not carry three. She would not carry two.

I was presented with a Coventry-esque decision: save one, or save none. I chose the former, though I tried on several occasions to convince her to at least keep twins. I failed.

We were told, point-blank, by the doctor who would do the procedure that they would inject potassium chloride into the placenta to stop the hearts. We were told, point-blank, that it was painless. Even then, I knew I was being lied to, but given the choice presented, I agreed anyway. My mantra became “Save one, or save none.”

Before the procedure, my wife’s eyes teared up; she asked the doctor over and over if they would feel pain, and was assured they would not. I asked again if my wife was sure about this because once done, it could not be undone. She said she was sure, but her tears and her looking away from the screen, deliberately, and her wanting me to not look either, told me the truth: she knew as well that this was wrong. I wanted to insist that she look, but I think that her mind—already fractured by the news of triplets—would have snapped permanently had she seen the images onscreen. And to save the one, and for the sake of the one we already had, I needed my wife sane.

My wife didn’t look, but I had to. I had to know what would happen to my children. I had to know how they would die.

Each retreated, pushing away, as the needle entered the amniotic sac. They did not inject into the placenta, but directly into each child’s torso. Each one crumpled as the needle pierced the body. I saw the heart stop in the first, and mine almost did, too. The other’s heart fought, but ten minutes later they looked again, and it too had ceased.

The doctors had the gall to call the potassium chloride, the chemical that stopped children’s hearts, “medicine.” I wanted to ask what they were trying cure—life? But bitter words would not undo what had happened. I swallowed anything I might have said.

I know they felt pain. I know they felt panic. And I know this was murder. I take cold comfort in knowing that as far as we can tell, the survivor is still fine, and in knowing that this decision did not come from me; I would have taken the chance on triplets, even with all the work and effort it would have required. I pray that this one child will come to term, will be born into this world alive and healthy, and I know he or she will have all our love.

But that emotional scar will ache my whole life. I see my child’s smile every night and anticipate a new one in some months…but I think of the two smiles I will never see. Every day, returning from work, I hear “Hi Daddy!” and know there are two voices and two giggles that I will never hear. I play with and cuddle my child, looking forward to the same with the second…but I know there are two sets of hands that will never touch mine, two sets of toes that will never be counted, two hugs that will forever be absent from my arms.

I pray to G-d every day to take those two innocents to Him, to welcome them, and I ask them every day for forgiveness. As I will every day for the rest of my life. I don’t know what accommodation my wife will make mentally and spiritually. That is her business, and a burden her conscience must bear.

But let nobody fool you. It is not painless for the child, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Abortion is not an excision of a featureless bunch of cells; it is infanticide. We have revived the practice of child sacrifice to the new deities of casual sex and convenience. We rationalize the reality of murder by altering our perspective of the nascent life through euphemisms like “fetus” or descriptions of “a clump of cells”...just like the Nazis convinced themselves that the people screaming as they were shot or gassed were “Untermenchen,” subhuman, and therefore guiltlessly exterminated.

This is how every perpetrator of genocide has always rationalized his or her actions. By doing likewise, we condemn our own souls

I wept in joy, a few years ago, when I saw my first child’s heartbeat on the screen. And I weep in agony now at the memory of two of my children’s heartbeats being stilled. “Save one, or save none” has been eclipsed by “Out, out, damned spot!” as I wonder how I can redeem myself.

If, by baring this scar for others to see, I can prevent an abortion, perhaps that will help to balance the scales for when I face G-d’s justice and I finally meet those two children—who I hope will forgive me for my failure.

An abortioninst who admits how they really feel.

Thread by me.

“Pro-Choice” Activist: “I Love Abortion,” “Don’t Want it Rare”

A pro-abortion activist writing at one of the leading pro-abortion web sites is admitting what many the pro-life movement has always known but what leading defenders of abortion refuse to admit. Until now.

Jessica DelBalzo, an activist writer from Flemington, New Jersey who has written for numerous progressive web sites, puts her extreme pro-abortion views on display at RH Reality Check, where she candidly admits in a headline, “I Love Abortion: Implying Otherwise Accomplishes Nothing for Women’s Rights.”

“I love abortion. I don’t accept it. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion,” DelBalzo declares.

The pro-abortion activist categorically opposes even the “safe, legal and rare” mantra that pro-abortion politicians like Bill Clinton have used to appear to be more moderate or mainstream on abortion and that even former NARAL president Kate Michelman used to make her organizations position appear less polemic.

As Delbalzo writes, “And I bristle every time a fellow activist uses a trendy catch-phrase or rallying cry meant to placate pro-lifers. The first of these, “Make abortion safe, legal, and rare!” has been used for decades as a call for abortion rights.”

“Safe and legal are concepts I fully support, but rare is something I cannot abide. I understand the theoretical mindset: it is better for a woman to prevent an unwanted pregnancy than to bear the physical and financial burden of an abortion. While my own abortion involved very little pain and a minimal financial expense, one which my ex-boyfriend was willing to share with me, even I can admit that using condoms or the pill is preferable to eight weeks of nausea and weight gain,” she writes. “However, there is no need to suggest that abortion be rare. To say so implies a value judgement, promoting the idea that abortion is somehow distasteful or immoral and should be avoided. Even with affordable, accessible birth control, there will be user errors, condoms that break, moments of spontaneity. The best contraceptive access in the world won’t change the fact that we are merely human and imperfect in our routines.”

She also admits: “Similarly, I’ve heard reproductive rights activists claim that “no one likes abortion,” in an attempt to find common ground with anti-choicers. While it may be true that no one likes the physical act of having an abortion (any more than she may like her yearly mammogram, life-saving chemotherapy, or temporarily uncomfortable dental surgery), a great many women like abortion itself.”

With CNN and Gallup polls showing a majority of Americans want all or most abortions made illegal, this puts the pro-abortion activist in a tiny minority of Americans who want abortion legal throughout pregnancy for any reason without apology.

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