Portland Math Teacher Escorted Out by Police, Set to Be Fired for Anti Abortion Views, Opposing Planned Parenthood in Classroom
Bill Diss says his opposition to Planned Parenthood and abortion led to his removal from the classroom.
An Oregon public school teacher says he’s on the verge of being fired because of his outspoken views against Planned Parenthood and abortion.
Bill Diss, who taught at Benson High School in Portland for 11 years, was placed on paid leave March 19 and recommended for dismissal, the Oregonian reported. That day, the math teacher said he was given a few minutes to collect his things and was escorted from school premises by police, according to the Christian News Network.
Diss is a staunch Roman Catholic and blocked two Planned Parenthood workers from entering his classroom in September because, he said, they lacked proper identification.
Planned Parenthood is a partner in the Portland school district’s Teen Outreach Program, aimed at preventing teen pregnancy, and funded by a federal Department of Health and Human Services grant, according to the Oregonian.
“I think, deep down, it’s because of my views,” Diss told the newspaper. “And that it’s much more important for them to have Planned Parenthood in the schools than to have a really dedicated teacher who really teaches math well and goes the extra mile and does a whole bunch with the kids.”
Administrators removed a teacher from Portland’s Benson High on Tuesday. Bill Diss is on paid leave and said he is in danger of being fired. view full article
He was reprimanded for the incident and the workers were eventually allowed in to give a presentation aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy — though school district officials said Diss interrupted them.
In December, Diss helped organized a protest at a school board meeting against Planned Parenthood’s presence in the district, calling it “a chance to get healed so that filth doesn’t have to be handed to other people.”
Former students told KGW-TV Diss is known for sharing his anti-abortion views at school.
“He doesn’t do it a lot, but students do make fun of him for being against it and everything,” junior Ty’sha Harrell said. “When he does talk about it, he does have really good views and everything, sometimes he goes too deep into it. He brings religion into it.”
In one suspension letter provided to the Oregonian, school officials accused him of trying to block students from attending the Planned Parenthood program because of his religious beliefs and told them to “shut (their) mouths.”
“(Students) also quoted you as saying, ‘they would end up on 82nd (Avenue) and that they kill over a million babies every three years,’” the letter, addressed from school principal Carol Campbell and the human resources director, stated.
Diss told the newspaper there was a misunderstanding in the reference to 82nd Avenue, a known hub for prostitution, but admitted to talking about Planned Parenthood and his religious beliefs in class.
In a statement to KGW, the school district said it does not “discuss the nature of personnel issues and actions out of respect for the individual.”
“But I can tell you that we respect the rights of all employees to their own political, religious, social and other beliefs and affiliations and expect all employees to conduct themselves professionally in their work, most especially with students,” the statement said.
Source: OneNewsNow
An undercover investigation of the Southwest's largest so-called "women's clinic" has revealed that the purpose of this clinic is not to provide women's healthcare at all, but to sell women one product – abortion. In fact, abortion, is the only option given to women at the misnamed Southwestern Women's Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is abortion. Period.
So many times people criticize pro-life activists for focusing attention on local abortion clinics, citing the many other services such clinics provide. However, at Southwestern Women's Options, a clinic that specializes in lucrative third trimester abortions, there are no other services.
Here in Albuquerque, as we reach out to abortion-bound women outside of this late-term abortion clinic, women give us all kinds of reason as to why they are going inside. "I'm having an ectopic pregnancy removed," "I'm here for an IUD," "I'm getting birth control," "I'm here for a mammogram," "I'm here for a well woman exam," or "I am here for STD (sexually transmitted disease) testing" are the excuses we hear from women entering the clinic on an almost daily basis. Very few women actually admit to going in for an abortion to kill their child.
The heart of the abortion industry is ABORTION, not women's healthcare. Abortion clinics are businesses and many of them like SWO only offer abortions because that's where the money is. With all of the talk recently about protecting women's healthcare, we must ask ourselves, "What 'healthcare' services are we talking about?"
Project Defending Life and Operation Rescue, recently conducted an undercover investigation to find out exactly what services Southwestern Women's Options (SWO) actually provides women. When an undercover caller asked SWO if birth control could be obtained at the clinic the reply was, "Birth control is only available to our (abortion) patients."
When asked whether or not annual well women's exams like pap smears are offered, the answer again was, "No." When asked if they screen for sexually transmitted diseases, the answer once again was no.
Most disturbingly when asked if an ectopic pregnancy can be seen on ultrasound at SWO, the answer was, "No." This fact alone is troublesome because these types of pregnancies can be life threatening.
In fact, the employee of SWO that we conversed with indicated that her ultrasound machine was so outdated that it was incapable of diagnosing an ectopic pregnancy. If a woman was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, she told us that their facility wasn't equipped to handle that kind of thing.
"That requires a surgical site to do that," she admitted, even though the abortions done at the clinic where she works do surgical abortions all day long. Was she admitting that her facility wasn't properly equipped to properly handle surgeries and the complications that might develop from them?
We think so, and have documentation to support it.
Project Defending Life has documented 14 abortion injuries since 2008 at SWO. The most recent abortion related injury occurred on March 1, 2013. Life-threatening complications suffered by these women range from hemorrhage, to incomplete abortions where baby body parts were not completely removed, to a ruptured uterus during a 35-week abortion.
To further show that money is a motivating factor behind the abortion industry, a previous undercover investigation of SWO revealed that late-term abortions on perfectly healthy babies and babies diagnosed with Down syndrome cost anywhere from 8-16 THOUSAND DOLLARS. In fact, the taxpayers of New Mexico foot the bill 100% for these abortions via Medicaid. In 2011 alone, New Mexico Medicaid paid for 1,786 abortions at a whopping cost of $1,127,557.26 to New Mexico taxpayers.
Healthcare is defined as "the field concerned with the maintenance or restoration of the health of the body or mind," however, abortion does neither. Abortion doesn't restore the health of the woman's body nor in our vast experience with post-abortive women, does abortion restore the mind.
In fact, the procedures employed during an abortion do just the opposite. For instance, the suction within the uterus during a first trimester aspiration abortion can be damaging to the uterine wall. The second trimester procedure requires that the pre-born child be pulled apart piece by piece with grasping instruments, which sometimes results in an internal organ being grabbed instead of the child. The third trimester procedure is essentially an early induced labor, after the pre-born child has been euthanized via a fetal heart attack. The drug combination and other aspects of this horrific practice bears many risks to the woman.
Abortion certainly doesn't heal the minds of women either; in fact many post abortive women testify that mentally they are in turmoil after their abortions for many years.
Abortion isn't healthcare. It provides no benefit to anyone, woman or child, except for the abortionists and their bank accounts. The New York Times recently published an article "The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking," that described the Nazi "care" centers that committed unspeakable atrocities on women, including abortions, which sound eerily similar to our modern day American women's health "care" clinics.
Should these types of clinics receive public money when they do not offer basic healthcare and in fact, have the potential of harming the health of unsuspecting women? We think not.
The lack of basic medical care provided to women at clinics like Southwestern Women's Options and the staggering number of documented abortion injuries, not just in Albuquerque, but nationwide, should motivate all of us to be even more diligent to offer help to abortion-vulnerable women, especially at the abortion clinics themselves, because it seems that the only ones who truly care about the health of women — body, mind, and soul – are those of us outside the walls of American abortion clinics.
By Tara Shaver
Source: Project Defending Life
Now that prenatal testing can so easily detect babies with physical and mental disabilities, more and more women are choosing to abort their children if something is wrong with them. For example, up to 92% of women whose tests show that they are carrying babies with Down syndrome abort.
Some women have successfully sued doctors for the “wrongful life” of babies who were born handicapped, claiming that their doctors should have detected the anomaly so they could abort. Perhaps this is one reason why many doctors urge their pregnant patients to undergo amniocentesis, a test which is not without the risk of miscarriage. Along with the pressure to undergo amniocentesis comes the pressure to abort if the amniocentesis – or other recommended prenatal testing – shows a problem.
Parents are Subjected to Eugenicist Views and Urged to Choose Abortion
According to one pro-choice author:
“Through the gradual introduction of new forms of technology and testing, the medical establishment and the public health sector have been developing subtle quality-of-life standards and not-so-subtle ways of discouraging the birth of those who do not measure up.” (1)
Another researcher writes:
“The mere existence of a [genetic] technology contains an implicit coercion to use it[.] … Sometimes the coercion is more than implicit.” (2)
Some doctors oppose even allowing women to give birth to their handicapped children. Bob Edwards, the scientist who presided over Great Britain’s first in vitro fertilization delivery, gave a speech at a fertility convention where he said:
“Soon it will be a sin if parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.” (3)
While it is impossible to know how many OBGYNs share this eugenicist and elitist view, a number of women have experienced pressure from doctors to abort their handicapped children.
One women who found out she was pregnant with a baby with Down syndrome recounted her obstetrician saying, “It could just be hanging off you, drooling,” while encouraging her to abort. (4)
Another writer recounted the following:
“A woman I know was told by her obstetrician that her fetus had Down syndrome. The doctor ordered her to abort, she refused. … Another woman was similarly coerced. Her doctor told her that her baby would be more like a fish than a human and would only be as smart as a baboon.” (5)
The article this quote appears in talks about a study that found that 99% of individuals with Down syndrome report being happy with their lives.
Parents Are Pressured to Make Fast Decisions While Their Children Become Victims of Prejudice and Discrimination
Women who are pregnant with disabled babies are often pressured to make a decision quickly. This may be partly because some abortion providers believe that abortion becomes more dangerous the later in pregnancy it is performed. One abortionist claims that the risk of abortion complications increases 20% for each week of pregnancy that passes (6).
Abortions for reasons of fetal anomaly are usually late-term abortions because amniocentesis can be performed only in the second trimester, and most disabilities are not discerned until midway through pregnancy. This is why many women who are carrying disabled babies have abortions in the late second or third trimester. (This may change with the advent of blood testing that can detect some abnormalities.)
One study found that parents of babies aborted due to disability or “fetal anomaly” suffer depression and loss. Those who conducted the study said:
“Despite the shock and grief they may experience upon hearing the news of a fetal anomaly, the pregnant woman and her partner are usually urged to make the decision to terminate quickly. Behind the urgency is the physician’s desire to avoid complications of ‘late’ terminations of pregnancy. Because of the delays involved in amniocentesis, abortions may occur in the second and even third trimester pregnancy. In health care settings, the issue of such late abortions has raised ethical and legal questions. In one early study, most of the terminations occurred within 72 hours of the woman receiving the news of the abnormality. This hardly allows time for the couple to become informed about parenting children born with that anomaly and thus considering carrying through with the pregnancy.” (7)
Rayna Rapp, who aborted a baby who was found to be handicapped, conducted interviews with women who aborted due to their children’s disabilities. She said of her research:
“New developments in reproductive technologies assist in the quest for the perfect baby not only by genetically creating ‘better’ children but also by detecting and eliminating fetuses deemed abnormal and defective. In a world where babies are bred for desired characteristics, having a healthy, normal baby becomes nothing less than a duty. While it may appear that medicine simply offers procedure such as diagnostic ultrasound, fetal electrocardiography, and amniocentesis as options for those who desire them, the fear of producing a child that falls outside the boundary of ‘normal’ compels many women to seek premonitory information regarding the status of the fetus. As one of [Rayna Rapp's] interviewees explained regarding her tests, ‘if he was gonna be slow, if he wasn’t gonna have a shot at being President, that’s not the baby we wanted.’“(8)
Rapp reveals that simple prejudice against the disabled is a factor in driving couples to abort their babies.
Parents Suffer from a Lack of Accurate Information
Along with prejudice against the disabled and pressure from doctors to abort, another factor driving these abortions is that couples who face a disabled baby are often given limited, one-sided information. Their doctors may overemphasize the suffering that handicapped children go through or present the worst-case scenario. This may be because the doctor fears being sued or because the doctor has his or her own prejudices towards disabled people. According to one woman who aborted her disabled baby and later regretted it:
“We had only one isolated piece of information, not a whole crystal ball. How were we to know what would be best? …
“A person reeling from shock, numbed by a sudden catastrophe, cannot think.” (9)
In pressuring couples to make a decision quickly, doctors deny them the opportunity to come to terms with the fact that their baby will most likely have a disability. When couples are given biased information and pressured to make a quick decision, they may not have the wherewithal or opportunity to do a great deal of research on their own. They may not have the opportunity, for example, to thoroughly research the disability and talk to parents of children with disabilities. Many times, these parents would encourage them to carry their pregnancy to term. In reality, many women who have their babies with disabilities are glad they did not abort.
The mother of a five-year-old girl with a cleft lip and palate wrote this letter to the editor:
“I was horrified to read that many couples now opt for abortion rather than risk having a baby with such a minor physical imperfection. My daughter is not some abnormal freak[.] … She can, and does, lead a happy, fulfilled life[.] … What sort of society do we live in when a minor facial deformity, correctable by surgery, is viewed as so abnormal as to merit abortion?” (10)
When radio show host Dr. Laura broadcast a call from a woman who aborted her baby with Down syndrome at 20 weeks, parents of handicapped children wrote her letters to express their disapproval. One man, the father of a baby with Down syndrome, said the following:
“Today, the 28th of March, I was listening to talk to one of your callers. She recently had terminated the life of her child in her 20th week of pregnancy and I believe the child’s 20th week of life.
“The child’s life was ended when it was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. This really struck a nerve and infuriated me, as I and my wife have the honor of being parents to our 22 month son, Conner, with Down Syndrome, that along with our other 2 children (a daughter 8 and a son 5) the joy and light of our life. This person that ended the child’s life has no idea of the joy or divine love that these special people possess. It is hard for me to understand the callousness that she had about thinking that the child was a mistake of nature and it was okay to terminate its life. I would almost dare say that it is our limited understanding of these special people that is the problem.
“I have often looked into Conner’s eyes and have felt a true divine, Godlike love shining forth. I will be honest and say that our life has not been changed by Conner. Unlike our other two children that walked before they were one and talked by two and developed in what we understand as ‘normal’. Conner has yet to walk on his own, but he does possess the ability to brighten the darkest days we have faced.
“I would hate to think of life without Conner, he is the light in our families’ lives. Our other children think the world of him and I feel are gaining a greater understanding and acceptance of ‘ALL’ people, unlike the caller today. She has missed a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow.”
These are the voices that parents considering aborting their children with handicaps need to hear. In pressuring these couples to abort quickly and giving them one-sided information, doctors encourage these parents to have abortions which they may later come to regret. The opportunity to bring a special and unique child into the world is taken away from these parents, and the ultimate gift of life is taken away from their children.
Sources:
1. Elizabeth Kristol. “Picture Perfect: the Politics of Prenatal Testing” First Things 32 (April 1993): 22 Quoted in Paige Comstock Cunningham, Esq. “The Supreme Court and the creation of the two-dimensional woman.” Erika Bachiochi. The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion” (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2004)
2. Lori Andrews, “Future Perfect: Confronting Decisions about Genetics” (New York: Columbia University press, 2001), 63
3. Sunday Times (London) July 4, 1999 as reported in American Feminist, winter 1999 – 2000
4. Jonathan Finer “Study: Negativity Often Tied to Down Syndrome Diagnoses” Washington Post, April 29, 2005 A3 Quoted in Ramesh Ponnuru “The Party of Death” (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006)166
5. Rebecca Taylor “99% of Adults With Down Syndrome Report Being Happy in Life” LifeNews.com 10/6/11 (http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/06/99-of-adults-with-down-syndrome-report-being-happy-in-life/)
6. Dr. Henry Morgentaler, abortionist: press conference. Statement read at a joint press conference with the Manitoba Coalition for Reproductive Choice in Winnipeg, Friday, June 23, 2000
7. Donnai P, Charles N, Harris R. “Attitudes of Patients after ‘Genetic’ Termination of Pregnancy” British Medical Journal 1981; 282: 621 – 622, P622 in Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles. Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence Second Edition (Toronto, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2003) 159
8. Rayna Rapp “Moral Pioneers: Women, Men, and Fetuses on a Frontier Of Reproductive Technology,” and Hoffman et al., Embryos, Ethics and Women’s Rights, 110, from Kathy Rudy. Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: Moral Diversity in the Abortion Debate (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1996) 11
9. “Brown, Judy” (pseudonym) The Choice. Journal of the American Medical Association 1989, 262:2735
10. Susan Kitching, London Sunday Times, February 11, 1990
Editor’s note. This first appeared at liveactionnews.org.
By Sarah Terzo
Source: NRL News
I recently discovered a mobile app on my Smartphone created by the people at WebMD, a website run by doctors that gives medical and health information. It is still another example of how technology is rendering standard pro-abortion arguments utterly obsolete.
The app is called “WebMD Pregnancy,” and it is described as “a free pregnancy app…that delivers trusted health information to expectant moms as well as fun features and tools. Whenever. Wherever. Online or offline.”
The app provides information based on individual pregnancy schedules including doctor-reviewed articles, videos, informative slide shows, and a calendar to keep track of your baby’s development and upcoming doctor’s appropriates.
Being a WebMD product, it also comes with features to help keep mother and baby healthy. There are check lists of things to ask your doctor throughout the different stages of pregnancy, appointment reminders, and a space to record things your doctor said or suggested to you at your appointments.
There are even more personal features to the app including a journal to record the events of your pregnancy and social sharing apps to keep your close ones informed on you and your baby’s progress.
WebMD even features a follow-up app called WebMD Baby to help you continue keeping your little one healthy.
“WebMD Pregnancy” is built for an age where unborn babies can have their very own Facebook pages, and where being pregnant can mean remembering to incessantly email friends and family members with every new development.
As a mobile app that not only refers to the unborn from the first moments of its life as a “baby,” but also treats this baby as a patient as a living human being who requires care, I see this as yet another example of how technology threatens to leave the pro-abortion argument in the dust.
Source: NRL News
RE: Pro-life amendments to budget resolution
Dear Senator:
During consideration of the budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 8), amendments may be offered that will allow you to express your support for three crucial pro-life measures, as described below. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to vote to advance these amendments, and intends to include the roll calls (which will occur during the “vote-a-rama”) in the NRLC scorecard of key pro-life votes of the 113th Congress.
The amendments are:
-- Amendment No. 252 by Senator Lee, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The District Council of the District of Columbia, using delegated congressional authority, has repealed the entire abortion law, making abortion legal for any reason until the moment of birth in the nation’s capital. There is substantial scientific evidence that an unborn child will experience great pain while being aborted by 20 weeks after fertilization (about the beginning of the sixth month), if not earlier; the referenced legislation would make abortion after that point unlawful in the federal district, unless the mother’s life is endangered. The bill is similar to legislation that has been enacted in eight states since 2010.
-- Amendment No. 292 by Senator Rubio, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact S. 369, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). Parental notification or parental consent laws, consistent with existing Supreme Court case law, are in effect in more than half the states. However, these laws are often circumvented -- activity that is actively encouraged by abortion clinics’ out-of-state advertising in non-notification states, highlighting the avoidance of parental notification as a selling point. The CIANA requires an abortionist, before performing an abortion on a minor from a different state, to notify one parent in the home state. However, this federal notification requirement would not apply if any one of the following five conditions exists: (1) the minor is accompanied by a parent; (2) the abortionist is already required to notify a parent under his own state's law, and he complies with that requirement; (3) the minor has already received authorization from a judge in her home state (“judicial bypass”), where the home-state law provides for such judicial authorization; (4) the minor declares that she is the victim of “sexual abuse, neglect, or physical abuse by a parent,” in which case the abortionist will not notify a parent, but will instead notify the appropriate state agency in the home state; or (5) in a case in which the minor’s life is in danger, in which case the notification will occur after the fact.
-- Amendment No. 332 by Senator Vitter, expressing the sense of the Senate that the Congress should enact S. 138, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), which would ban the use of abortion for sex selection. PRENDA would make it an offense, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to knowingly do any one of the following four things: (1) perform an abortion “knowing that such abortion is sought based on the sex or gender of the child”; (2) use “force or threat of force . . . for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection abortion”; (3) solicit or accept funds to perform a sex-selection abortion; or (4) transport a woman into the U.S. or across state lines for this purpose. The bill explicitly provides, “A woman upon whom a sex-selection abortion is performed may not be prosecuted or held civilly liable for any violation of this section, or for a conspiracy to violate this section.” The bill also explicitly provides that healthcare providers do not have any “affirmative duty to inquire as to the motivation for the abortion, absent the healthcare provider having knowledge or information that the abortion is being sought based on the sex or gender of the child.”
NRLC respectfully urges you to vote to set aside any procedural obstacles and to adopt these amendments, and intends to include the roll calls in our scorecard for the 113th Congress.
Sincerely,
Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director
Susan T. Muskett, J.D.
Senior Legislative Counsel
Source: National Right to Life Committee
The International Day of the Unborn Child is to be celebrated by all citizens on Monday, March 25, 2013. It is a day to recall the remarkable journey of life each member of the human family has taken in our commonality as human beings and our uniqueness as individuals.
Initiated by Pope John Paul II to coincide with and to honor the Feast of the Annunciation, the March 25 event has grown into a day of celebration and remembrance for all unborn human beings. It is a time to celebrate human dignity and the amazing world of the developing child yet to be born. It is also a day to remember the millions of unborn children whose lives have been ended by the violence of abortion.
In 1993, El Salvador became the first country to officially celebrate a “Day of the Right to Be Born.” Subsequently other countries have begun official celebrations for the unborn, including Argentina with “Day of the Unborn” in 1998, Chile with “Day of the Conceived and Unborn” in 1999, and also in 1999, Guatemala’s “National Day of the Unborn.” Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay are all nations that now celebrate a day for the unborn child.
Intl Day Unborn Child 3 grafix smWhile many nations celebrate the unalienable worth and value of every unborn child, we must raise our voices against the current U.S. administration’s unrelenting war on the innocent unborn child. Since President Obama’s election in 2008, the U.S. administration’s policy of advocating the destruction of unborn children has come in all forms, from taxpayer funding of abortion and embryo-killing research, to funding efforts abroad to rid other countries of their pro-life constitutions. Never before in the history of the world has an unborn child faced such a great struggle just to be born.
It is important in 2013 to recall how much we have learned about the intricate world of the unborn child and humanity itself. Current developments include intrauterine surgery, ultrasound, neo-natal intensive care, fetal heart monitoring and much more. We also know now that the unborn child has the ability to feel pain.
Source: NRL News
The Planned Parenthood abortion clinic that has experienced four botched abortion emergencies in less than five weeks and where a pro-life grandmother was attacked earlier this week, is recruiting medical students for abortion training.
"It is appalling to think that abortionists at this Planned Parenthood with the recent rash of medical emergencies would be teaching others to do abortions that they don't seem competent to do themselves," said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.
The Planned Parenthood training program is seeking first through fourth year medical students and residents, who must absorb the cost of program participation themselves. The advertisement for their program, which appears on the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals web site, indicates that the troubled Wilmington abortion clinic trains 15 new abortionists per year.
"Given the recent safety concerns at this Planned Parenthood facility, it is shocking to think of the shoddy training that must be going on there. We don't need more abortionists out there maiming women with substandard practices," said Newman.
Applicants are urged to contact Dr. Eric Schaff, a Planned Parenthood abortionist who has a history of disciplinary action. In August, 2005, Schaff was issued a reprimand and ordered to pay $5,000 for falsifying medical records in New York. Since his discipline there, Schaff has moved on to ply is grisly trade in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Schaff is an outspoken advocate of abortions and feels "empowered" by doing them.
Botched abortions so far this year at the Wilmington Planned Parenthood where Schaff works include:
February 8: Records of the 911 call reveals that a patient suffered respiratory distress and had to be bagged to keep her from dying. She required emergency transport to a hospital emergency room. (View Video)
February 16: 911 records indicate that a patient suffered heavy, uncontrolled bleeding requiring emergency transport to a hospital emergency room. (View Video)
March 8: A patient suffered an incomplete abortion that required hospitalization and emergency surgery five days later. Fetal parts were detected that included a recognizable leg and foot.
March 13: A patient, covered in blankets and sheets from head to toe, was transported by ambulance to a local hospital while a pro-life sidewalk counselor was attacked for attempting to document the incident. It is unknown if the patient survived.
"This clinic needs to be closed in the interest of public safety, and we are in the process of filing complaints to make sure that happen," said Newman.
The Financial Times has been doing excellent reporting related to Chinese demographics problems. Of particular interest is China’s aging population which has been brought about in large measure to its zero-growth population policies that have been in place since the 1970s. The most important aspect of these policies is the “one-child policy” which mandates forced abortions and sterilizations.
In a front-page article in the FT’s weekend edition Simon Rabinovitch, a reporter in the paper’s Beijing bureau, presented population data obtained from the Chinese health ministry:
China’s one-child policy has been the subject of a heated debate about its economic consequences as the population ages. Forced abortions and sterilizations have also been criticized by human rights campaigners such as Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who sought refuge at the US embassy in Beijing last year.
China first introduced measures to limit the size of the population in 1971, encouraging couples to have fewer children. The one-child rule, with exceptions for ethnic minorities and some rural families, was implemented at the end of the decade.
Since 1971, doctors have performed 336 MILLION abortions and 196 MILLION sterilizations, the data reveal. They have also inserted 403 MILLION intrauterine devices, a normal birth control procedure in the west but one that local officials often force on women in China.
The magnitude of these figures is staggering. By comparison, at present there are 315 million people living in the United States. Rabinovitch does not really tell where the data came from within the Chinese government, but these are pretty specific numbers that make sense. In short, we are talking about a maximum of 336 million Chinese who would be under the age of 42 – the peak working years.
Source: FRC Blog
A federal district court judge has ruled that a Missouri conscience-protection measure is invalid because it conflicts with the HHS mandate.
Missouri’s legislature, overriding the governor’s veto, had passed a law allowing employers not to provide insurance covering contraceptives if “the use or provision of such contraceptives is contrary to the [employer’s] moral, ethical or religious beliefs or tenets.” The law also allowed individual employees to opt out of insurance that covers contraceptives.
The Missouri statute, however, required insurers to “allow enrollees in a health benefit plan that excludes coverage for contraceptives . . . to purchase a health benefit plan that includes coverage for contraceptives" if the enrollees requested it.
Judge Audrey Fleissig, an Obama appointee, said she took “no position on the merits of the conflicting laws,” but merely ruled that the federal health-insurance law and its accompanying mandate took precedence over the state law.
Source: Catholic World News
Editors Note: This first appeared at lifesitenews.com and is reprinted with permission. As was noted in the story, March 18 was Trisomy 18 Awareness Day.
Sheryl and Scott Crosier suffered four miscarriages before learning that Scott had an inverted X chromosome, a condition which causes girls to be miscarried. Two miscarriages later, in September 2010, the couple was thrilled to discover that they were pregnant again, and this time with a boy. They would now be able to offer their two other sons, Samuel, 7, and Shawn, 5, another playmate.
"Obviously we were overjoyed, but we were scared at the thought of losing another child," said Sheryl in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com.
But after an ultrasound revealed a cleft lip and clenched fists, markers that not all was well with the unborn baby boy, doctors began pushing the parents to undergo amniocentesis. The pro-life parents refused the test, knowing that they would be fine with whatever child God was to give them.
"We wanted our child, special needs and all," Sheryl said. The parents also refused the test because of the risk of miscarriage caused by the invasive procedure.
The doctors were concerned that the Crosiers' son may have Trisomy 18, a condition affecting about one in every 6,000 newborns, in which the baby has three copies of chromosome 18 in every cell of the body, rather than the normal two. The extra bit of genetic material causes serious physical and mental problems for the developing baby. Half of infants with this condition do not survive beyond the first week of life.
But even without confirmation from the test, doctors nevertheless peddled abortion to the parents as a way of dealing with the unborn boy's apparent health issues. In fact, from the moment of the ultrasound onward, the parents were shocked and dismayed to discover how their team of medical professionals largely turned its back on their unborn son because of his perceived medical condition.
Discrimination in the name of health
On September 6, 2010, doctors told Sheryl that she must be induced early because of her unstable blood pressure and because the baby was experiencing growth restrictions. Looking over her medical records later however, Sheryl learned the true reason for her early induction. On her chart doctors had written: "Induction for fetal anomalies."
During the labor, the parents accidentally learned through a nurse that if their son had been positively diagnosed with Trisomy 18, doctors would not have monitored the baby's heart rate for signs of stress during the labor, nor would the doctors have permitted a C-section to save the baby's life. The parents were thankful that they had not undergone the test when a C-section was required to save the little boy.
Simon was born September 7, 2010, weighing four pounds, three ounces. "We heard his first cry as he entered our world," said Sheryl. "He was small. He had a bilateral cleft lip. But to us, he was absolutely perfect."
A blood test three days after his birth confirmed that Simon had full Trisomy 18. From that moment onwards, doctors let the parents know that Simon was "incompatible with life" and began to ignore his needs.
Not only did it seem to the parents that doctors expected the boy to die quickly, but it seemed that they actually wanted to expedite his demise. Sheryl was pumping breast milk, but doctors would not allow it to be given to Simon. Instead, they gave him little drops of sucrose to calm him. But a nurse went to bat for the parents, getting doctors to allow the boy to be fed through an NG-Tube.
Looking at medical records later, Sheryl was shocked to read the doctors' words approving the insertion of the nasal feeding tube: "For comfort feeds only." The parents also discovered later in Simon's records a "Do Not Resuscitate" order by doctors that they had never signed or consented to.
The doctors had at first given Simon medication to help blood flow between two of the major arteries connected to his heart. But after confirming the Trisomy 18 diagnosis, they simply took Simon off the medication. One heart doctor expressed his amazement to the parents that Simon did not succumb to his bad heart condition once he was taken off the medication. Time and time again, the parents heard doctors say to them that this or that treatment was not for Simon. The doctors' constant refrain of "incompatible with life" branded itself on the hearts of the disconsolate parents.
"It is as if they were not treating him as a human being," Sheryl said. "When you hear those words 'incompatible with life' it's so dehumanizing. After his diagnosis, never were aggressive treatment options ever considered, all because of one extra chromosome on number 18."
Every step of the way the parents contended with the medical system for the life of their son. While some hearts were changed in the process, many of the healthcare professionals dealing with Simon remained calloused towards the little boy and his needs.
"While going through this, we kept our faith and our hope and we just kept on fighting for our little boy. We wanted the doctors to look at our precious son as if he didn't have that label. We wanted them to treat Simon with their God given talent as a physician and leave the rest in God's hand," Sheryl said.
Sheryl remembers that it was during this time that Simon was teaching his own parents the meaning of the words 'parent' and 'love'. "My son taught me about compassion, about unconditional love. He taught me to trust in the Lord."
Simon's big brothers adored the newest member of the family. As time went on, they loved how Simon's cleft lip made his smile bigger and more endearing. The family spent as much time as they could holding him close in the kangaroo style, singing to him, and reading to him. They loved him for who he was, problems and all. And they knew that Simon returned their love, in his own unique way.
The parents fought valiantly for the life of their son in the hospital for three months. Then, on December 3, 2010, Simon passed away.
Sheryl recounted that at the moment of Simon's passing, she told him that it was "ok for him to go to Jesus."
The family was devastated by the loss of their son. The discrimination that they had experienced from the medical professionals who were not able to see the beautiful, cherished, and precious boy beyond his syndrome weighed heavily on the parents' hearts. The family never wavered in their conviction that Simon had been truly sent from God and that he had a "divine purpose" on earth, just like every other person. They knew that part of his purpose was to effect change in their own hearts. They now saw that their own hearts had changed for the better because of Simon having entered their lives.
They say they now understood the meaning of the words of Jesus in the Bible (Matt 25:40): "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." They learned that 'quality of life' is not the determining factor for a life worth living. Most importantly, they realized that because of Simon, they had learned the meaning of unconditional love.
"'Quality of life' is measure by love, and a family's love does not count chromosomes," said Sheryl. "This kind of love is an indescribable love that only God can give."
The Crosier's experience of learning the meaning of love from Simon is not unique. A group of pediatricians who recently surveyed 332 couples with Trisomy 13 and 18 children found that despite their severe disabilities, 97 percent of them described their child as a "happy child" and reported that these children "enriched their lives," irrespective of the length of their lives.
The Crosiers believe that every family would be blessed to have a Trisomy baby, who could teach them to learn to value people for who they are, not for what they can do. Sheryl will tell anyone who will listen: "God didn't bless us with a syndrome, he blessed us with a son."
John Paul II once wrote: "Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it." Sheryl said that it is the giving and receiving of this kind of love that truly measures 'quality of life' for any baby with a poor diagnosis. She said if such babies have love, then it doesn't matter what is wrong with them, for they have what is most important in life.
Remembering Simon
Sheryl and Scott, who are now 44 and 47, have made it their mission to raise awareness about how Trisomy babies are largely discriminated against by medical professionals. "They just look at our kids as if they have no value," she said. "Our hope is that they will learn to look at them as children of God, as children created by the hand of God, as children that have meaning and purpose."
Sheryl wrote a book about her experience titled "I'm not a Syndrome: My name is Simon." She has become fearless in telling her son's story at medical conferences, nursing schools, faith-based communities, and on radio shows. She hopes that Simon's story will empower parents to become strong advocates for their children when medical professionals are more than willing to neglect and abandon them over health issues.
"Any time I can be a voice for our kids I will," she said. "Our kids are not disposable, they are not defects."
Bishop Emeritus Robert Hermann of St. Louis endorsed Sheryl's book saying that it "celebrates both the pain and joy of love."
"These parents have received the light of wisdom to realize that they are experiencing the kingdom of heaven within them when they take care of this child. Simon is a blessing to all he encounters. I am blessed to know him," he wrote.
Sheryl and Scott say that they will be forever grateful for Simon teaching them that all life has dignity and value, that no one is disposable, and that no one is a defect.
"The Lord created each and every one of us, and knitted us in our mother's womb for a purpose, no matter how short that life is," said Sheryl.
If you or someone you know need a support group for caring for a baby diagnosed with Trisomy 18 or 13, please visit Support Organization for Trisomy (SOFT).
Source NRLC NEWS
