April 13, 2012

News Links for Friday the 13th

Planned Parenthood Clergy Group Calls for '40 Days of Prayer' for Abortion

     

"For an organization that claims to be about women's health, this Planned Parenthood prayer guide seems to focus exclusively on abortion." -- Mark Tooley, IRD President

A clergy committee of Planned Parenthood is calling for "40 days of prayer and contemplation" for abortion in a program mirroring the "40 Days for Life" campaign that opposes the practice. The Humboldt County Clergy for Choice, a committee of Six Rivers Planned Parenthood in Northern California, launched the gatherings to support "reproductive justice" March 18 through April 27.

Among the prayer points are "for the families we've chosen," celebration and thankfulness of abortion, abortion doctors, and for "a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility."

The Planned Parenthood "Clergy for Choice" group includes United Methodist, Episcopal, Reform Jewish and Unitarian Universalist clergy. The group plans an evening concluding the event at a local United Methodist church.

IRD President Mark Tooley commented:

 "For an organization that claims to be about women's health, this Planned Parenthood prayer guide seems to focus exclusively on abortion.

"How sad that clergy who are supposed to protect innocent life instead try to sanctify death.

"Some day churches will repent for their complicity in the culture of death. Until then, all persons of good will should robustly defend all innocents who cannot defend themselves."

Contact: Jeff Walton
Source: Institute on Religion and Democracy

The Difference Between Medical Ethics and Bioethics

     Mark Pickup
     Mark Pickup

My wonderful friend Mark Pickup has rerun an essay on his blog Human Life Matters by Dr. Dianne Irving on the history of bioethics.  Irving was present at the birth of the field, dissents strongly from the direction in which it went, and was very helpful to me in researching my own critique of the field, Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America.
 
Her essay is well worth reading. But I want to focus on one small point she made early on, a question I am often asked in my own work: What is the difference between "bioethics" and "medical ethics?"  From Irving's "Bioethics: How Did We Get Into This Mess?":
 
Like the word "Bioethics" itself, which formally dates only from the early 1970′s, the philosophical underpinnings of bioethics are completely different from those that underlie traditional medical ethics. Traditional medical ethics focuses on the physician's duty to the individual patient, whose life and welfare are always sacrosanct. The focus of bioethics is fundamentally utilitarian, centered, like other utilitarian disciplines, around maximizing total human happiness.
 
Such factors as the feelings and preferences of other people — the parents of a child with severe birth defects, the husband whose wife seems permanently comatose, or even the doctor who decides that an elderly Alzheimer's patient would be better off dead — along with the possible cost of treatment to society, can weigh in against and ultimately outbalance the afflicted person's needs. Good–bye, Hippocrates; hello, Peter Singer.

Actually, I think bioethics has splintered since Irving wrote the essay.  There were always dissenters from the mainstream utilitarian view.  Now, some of the radicals she describes are actually the old dinosaurs left behind by their even more radical intellectual progeny.
 
But the point to remember is that medical ethics is primarily patient oriented.  Bioethics is substantially–not totally–societal oriented. (But that's like being a little bit pregnant.) And we should always remember that the movement's best contribution (in my view) was individual-oriented, e.g., allowing people to say no to unwanted medical treatment even if it would likely result in death.  But that was primarily Paul Ramsey's The Patient as a Person and the hospice movement led by the late, great Dame Cecily Saunders, not the utilitarians. The problem today is that so many bioethicists believe in the non person human being.
 
Of course the big problem for a societal-focused bioethics rather than a patient-oriented medical ethics is that when the patient's welfare interferes with the perceived overarching benefit to society, the patient is in danger of getting it in the neck.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
 

April 12, 2012

National Right to Life Endorses Governor Mitt Romney

Right-to-Life Movement Focused on Defeating Barack Obama in November

     

Determined to secure a pro-life victory in the November election, which will decide the fate of unborn children for decades to come, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, today endorsed Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

"On pro-life issues, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama provide a stark contrast. As the country's most pro-abortion president, Barack Obama has pursued a radical pro-abortion agenda," said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. "It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney. For the sake of unborn children, the disabled, and the elderly, we must win."

Mitt Romney has taken a strong pro-life position and is committed to implementing policies to protect the unborn, the medically dependent and disabled, and the elderly.  Romney opposes abortion and has called the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, "a big mistake." Romney has expressed his support of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.  

 Romney has also stated he believes the Obama health care law should be repealed. The Obama health care law would open the door to federal subsidies for abortion coverage and rationing of lifesaving medical care. He has also stated that, if elected, he would reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which prevents federal dollars from going to organizations that perform or promote abortion overseas.

 In comparison, since taking office in January 2009, President Obama has been an outspoken advocate for abortion and has unceasingly worked to expand funding of and access to abortion.  He rescinded the Mexico City Policy, threatened to veto the entire federal spending bill – forcing a government shutdown – rather than accept a provision cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. Obama also threatened to veto the Protect Life Act, which would repeal the abortion-expanding provisions of his health care law, and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would permanently prohibit any federal program from funding elective abortion.
 Additionally, President Obama championed the so-called Affordable Care Act while opposing pro-life amendments in the Senate. As enacted, the law will result in federal funding of health plans that pay for elective abortion, and will lead to large-scale rationing of lifesaving medical treatments.

"We are extremely gratified that every candidate who has run for the Republican nomination for president took a pro-life position and kept the life issues at the forefront of the race,"Tobias added. "We look forward to Mitt Romney's election as our next pro-life president on November 6th."

Source: National Right to Life PAC


U.N. for 10 year old children's 'reproductive rights'

     

A spokesman for the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) says the United Nations might bypass parents and recognize "sexual and reproductive health and rights" for 10-year-old children.

International law does not currently recognize a "right" to sexual and reproductive health, especially in the case of minors. But Timothy Herrmann of C-FAM says the United Nations Commission on Population and Development is hosting a conference where a recently released draft document will be negotiated.

 "It speaks of youth being defined as ten to 24 years old. Now, the issue is that within the document, and pretty much the entire document, it speaks about sexual and reproductive health, as well as rights of youth," Herrmann reports. "And speaking about that in the context of ten-year-old children is obviously quite controversial."

He points out that organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation exclude parents, suggesting ten-year-old children should be able to decide and receive education on the subject on their own.

 "This is something that's been endorsed by the United Nations in various places -- particularly the UNFPA (U.N. Population Fund), as well as UNICEF (U.N. Children's Fund), and also UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) -- who have spoken quite a bit about the sexual education of minors and encouraging them to kind of explore that area themselves without, obviously again, parental guidance," Herrmann notes.

 He laments that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon even agreed in a recent statement that "young people, as much as all people, share the human right to health, including sexual and reproductive health."

 C-FAM and other groups have pledged to be at the U.N. working against the document.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow

Illinois and Alabama find out more inspections = fewer unsafe abortuaries

      

With the shutter of a Rockford, Illinois, abortuary that hadn't been inspected in more than a decade, the Illinois Department of Public Health is "quietly" looking into other clinics. So far, one closed shop before it was even inspected.

Dimensions Medical Center, an abortion facility in Des Plaines, was one of seven under the same owner, Vinod Goyal. It abruptly closed for business before the state inspectors even showed up to the facility, which had not been inspected since 2001. Pro-life Action League sought and received information on it through a Freedom of Information Act request following reports of Kermit Gosnell's "House of Horrors" in Philadelphia in early 2011. Spokesman John Jansen tells OneNewsNow one of the recorded problems at the clinic.

"We know that there was a non-functioning emergency generator, which is absolutely appalling," he reports. "We have no idea how long this was non-functioning. I mean, it could have been months, could've been years for all we know." That could pose obvious danger for anyone in surgery under anesthetic, he explains.

 "We also know from the documentation that he submitted to the state that there were significant problems with the sewer system; this place was prone to flooding from the septic system," Jansen notes. "The place was a dump. I mean, it's pretty clear that this place was not a safe facility. It was not a sanitary facility."

 Even so, abortions were being done there on a regular basis. Shutting down prior to inspections helped the owner avoid paying fines. But the pro-lifer is pleased that the state is increasing its inspections because it means unsafe abortion clinics are closing down. However, Jansen points out that because of state law, none of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Illinois are required to undergo inspections at all.

Meanwhile, state health officials in Alabama have shut down a Birmingham abortion clinic that local pro-lifers filed a complaint against earlier this year. (Listen to audio report) On January 21, two women were rushed by ambulance from the New Woman All Women clinic to hospitals after abortions. So, Charismatic Episcopal Church for Life called for an inspection, which was done.

 "[In] the 76-page report that was pretty much based on the investigation that the health department did concerning these two injuries … they ended up finding numerous deficiencies with this clinic," spokesman Terry Gensemer reports.

For example, repeat violations were found during previous inspections, and one infraction involved the administration of medications resulting in the hospitalization of at least three women. Also, inexperienced employees with no documentation of training were working at the clinic, and some of the equipment's inspections were out of date.

 "There were signed documents saying that the registered nurse supervisor, who is supposed to be supervising the other nurses, signed the sheet saying that she was there at the clinic, which was a falsified document," the pro-lifer details. "The health department takes those things very seriously." Also, doctor notations on reports were illegible.

Following the January 21 incident, the clinic let pro-lifers know that Ivan Diamond, a prominent OB/GYN from Atlanta who had been "sneaking" over to Birmingham to perform abortions, would no longer be terminating pregnancies in Alabama.

 The state has ordered the clinic to surrender its license by May 18.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow

April 6, 2012

News Links for April 6th

New Study Shows Effectiveness of Abstinence Education

      
 
A recently released study shows that when sexual-risk avoidance messages are reinforced in classrooms, teens will delay beginning sexual activity.
 
The study, conducted by Choosing the Best Journey, followed two groups of high school freshmen over the course of one academic year, during which one group received eight sexual-risk avoidance messages in the classroom. At the end of the year, those students proved to be 1.5 times more likely to delay sexual activity than their peers.
 
When the sexual-risk avoidance message was not repeated, the researchers found, its effects tended to be neutralized by all the other sexual messages teens are bombarded with by the media.
 
Conducting the research in the classroom — where most sex-education lessons take place — set the study apart from other abstinence-education and contraceptive-centered research, said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.
 
"Schools that are eager to implement a sex-education strategy that helps their students avoid all the risks of teens ex should take this study seriously," she said. "Officials who are crafting sex-education policies at the state and federal levels should also take the results seriously."
 
The Obama administration is seeking to eliminate funding for abstinence-centered education in the FY 2013 budget.

Contact: Karla Dial
Source: CitizenLink

Motherhood as ‘Lost Productivity’

     

The controversy over the federal birth control regulations imposed on religious institutions quickly engulfed the White House earlier this year, but one of the more remarkable attempts to explain it all didn't come from there. It came from three U.S. senators, and I'm still aghast at what they said.
 
The furor, of course, is over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decree that religious employers pay for services deemed immoral to them. In this case, it is contraceptives and potential abortion-inducing drugs. But the conflagration roared out of control over a larger question: Can the government dictate to any person which religious doctrine he or she may honor and which doctrine is forbidden?
 
Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, all Democrats, stated that companies failing to provide this "preventive" coverage in their health insurance plans actually incur higher costs because of what the senators explained as "lost productivity."
 
Now just think about that for a moment.  How does a female employee lose "productivity" when she doesn't take birth control pills or potential abortion-inducing drugs? She puts herself in mortal danger of becoming — wait for it — a mother. The senators equated motherhood with "lost productivity."
 
Of course motherhood is not the only form of higher cost incurred by companies that don't provide contraception and possible abortifacient coverage. The other "problem" is that children are born — children who must also then be covered by an employee's health insurance. So in their very helpful explanation, the senators concluded that motherhood equals lost productivity and that children are defined only as "higher costs."
 
This thinking is rooted in the early feminism of the 1970s, when such quaint customs as bearing children and donning the mantle of motherhood was deemed to be the wrong course for women. That such a tired explanation is trotted out anew to explain the mandated coverage in health insurance plans is yet one more example of the philosophy which now guides the federal government.
 
But what is new and different is the vigorous opposition to this insurance mandate, led by the Catholic Church hierarchy (and quickly joined by numerous evangelical leaders, including Focus on the Family President Jim Daly). In recent years, quietly and consistently, the Vatican has been promoting and placing bishops who carefully adhere to church doctrine, and who are unafraid to write and speak powerfully in its defense.
 
Leading the bishops is Timothy Dolan, newly installed as the head of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, and also newly elevated by Rome to the rank of Cardinal. The White House consulted with Dolan prior to the release of the health insurance mandate, but Dolan's advice went unheeded. Not only did Dolan announce his opposition, he asked that all American bishops have parish priests read letters of protest at weekly Masses. Seldom have we seen such a muscular response to a government policy from the Catholic Church, and there are no signs that the protest will abate, unless the administration reverses itself (and at this writing that didn't seem likely).
 
Abortion advocates hope that this controversy will blow over since so many Americans have no objection to contraception; however, they miss a central point of our Bill of Rights. Religious freedom is guaranteed to all — not just to religious institutions or those holding popular opinions about religious matters. No, the right to religious freedom is guaranteed to each individual's conscience. That is the essence of the First Amendment, and it does not matter how many or how few adhere to the religious doctrine.
 
And one more thing. Whatever happened to "If you like your present health insurance plan you can keep it?"

Contact: Tom Minnery
Source: CitizenLink

Abortion transport bill moves forward in House

    

A bill that would criminalize transporting a minor across state lines in certain situations with the intent of obtaining an abortion has advanced in the House of Representatives.

With a 20-13 party-line vote, the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee passed March 27 the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). Now CIANA will move from the committee to the full House.

CIANA would do two things. It would:

-- ban a person from transporting a minor from a state that has parental notification laws to one that does not, for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.

-- make abortion providers in neighboring states without notification laws notify parents 24 hours before performing an abortion procedure on their underage daughter.

"CIANA is a very reasonable measure," Rep. Trent Franks, R.-Ariz., said before the committee vote.

"I think the reasonable thing to do is to err on the side of life," Rep. Steve Chabot, R.-Ohio, said to the other committee members.

Even though the bill sounded reasonable to Republicans, Democrats offered 14 amendments attempting to change CIANA. The amendments mostly tried to add to the number of people the minor may confide in, such as grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles or members of the clergy who could help the minor without breaking the law. In the end, the committee rejected every amendment.

"Are we going to make those people criminals -- the grandmother, an older sister, an older brother -- who try and help the situation because they know that the minor is pregnant and if they go to the parents they will react violently, abusively or in some way?" Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D.-N.Y., said.

Franks responded to the amendments by offering the example of an organ donor. "If someone took your daughter, your 14-year-old daughter, across state lines to donate a kidney, a noble thing, but they did not ask your permission about it, that should outrage" the Democrats on the other side of the aisle and parents, he said.

Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land wrote March 26 to the committee's chairman and ranking member, urging passage of CIANA.

"We find it unconscionable that minors are allowed to evade their home state's parental involvement laws," said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "Further, we are greatly alarmed that in many cases parents, who are responsible for protecting and providing for their children, are not even notified that their underage daughters will receive an abortion."

The history of the bill, which has continued to be reintroduced since 1998, shows that it normally passes the House but not the Senate. The lone exception came when a conference committee was held in 2006 to consider two versions of the legislation that were approved by the chambers, but the panel could not agree on a version for final passage. The bill has never made it through the entire process to the president's desk.

Contact: Mark Norton
Source: Baptist Press
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