Sexual abstinence -- numbers up, but funding down

Supporters for abstinence-based education are applauding a new report that sexual activity among teens is decreasing.

Nearly 70 percent of boys (68%) and girls (67%), ages 15-17, have never had sexual intercourse, according to a survey (2006-2008) released last week by the National Center for Health Statistics. In addition, 53 percent of boys and 58 percent of girls in the same age bracket have never had any type of sexual contact -- up from 46 percent of boys and 49 percent of girls in 2002. The new study also shows that more young adults are choosing abstinence.

"It looks like truth is beginning to win the day when it comes to teens and sex," responds Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association. "...I think [they] are beginning to learn that they need more than latex to protect themselves and they're choosing to wait -- [that's] very good news." And that data, she argues, renders "null and void" the typical claims by anti-abstinence advocacy groups that abstinence is unrealistic.

She tells OneNewsNow while trends are encouraging, she remains concerned. "...With Congress zeroing out all funds for community-based abstinence education programs, per the president's request, I think we have to ask the question: who is supporting young people and these good decisions?" she wonders.

"With 170 programs around the country no longer able to provide the skills and the encouragement to those young people, it's definitely time for us to take this data and make some policy corrections."

Benefit being lost

Toward that end, young people from across America are meeting today with House and Senate members on Capital Hill, sharing how abstinence education has made a difference in their lives and urging lawmakers to reinstate federal funding for abstinence education. Huber contends that members of Congress are sending the wrong message to students by not giving federal priority to abstinence education. (Listen to audio report)

"Are we encouraging them to engage in behaviors that are going to help them now and later? Or are we sending them messages that are detrimental on a number of different levels?" she asks. "...Right now we are using our federal dollars and our federal priorities in ways that are not helpful to them and, in fact, [are] counterproductive and harmful."

The students are on Capitol Hill to make their message personal, says the abstinence advocate. "Here in Washington it can often become just a bantering of talking points over policy initiatives," Huber acknowledges. "...What gets lost is the benefit of this program for young people. So they can put a real face and a real life story behind the need to change the priorities in the arena of sex education as a nation."

She says while Congress is looking to tighten its fiscal belt, an investment in abstinence education could reap great economic, social, and personal rewards.

Contact: Bill Bumpas

Source: OneNewsNow

Major pro-life bill progresses in U.S. House

Congressman Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) is the lead sponsor of H.R. 3, a bill titled the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." As a recent guest on American Family Radio's Focal Point, Smith said, “It is a government-wide, permanent ban on all government complicity, except for a couple of very small exceptions for abortion."

At present, Congress fights a battle every session on use of taxpayer dollars for abortion. H.R. 3 would ban federal money for that purpose, putting government out of the abortion-enabling business.

Smith added, "We also have a conscience clause and remedies so that men and women, whether they be in the healthcare profession or hospitals [or] insurance plans … if they are coerced into doing abortions or in any way facilitating, they have a remedy in court pursuant to our bill.”

The bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 23-14 and is heading to the House floor for consideration, where it is expected to pass. The difficulty in getting the measure into law is the Democratic-led Senate and the White House.

Contact: Charlie Butts

Source: OneNewsNow

Cord blood stem cells used to help cure girl of brain cancer in Spain

A four-year-old girl has become the first patient in Spain to recover from brain cancer after being treated with stem cells from her own umbilical cord blood.

The announcement of the girl's recovery came March 7 from the company Crio-Cord, a stem cell bank in Spain.

Alba was born healthy in 2007, but at age two she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. Her treatment consisted of extracting the majority of the tumor from her brain. She was then given chemotherapy to reduce and eventually eliminate the remainder of the tumor.

Alba's blood system was destroyed during the final round of chemo, thus requiring a transplant of cord blood stem cells.

The procedure was carried out in 2009 by Dr. Luis Madero of the Department of Oncology and Hematology at the Nino Jesus Hospital in Madrid.

Today, four year-old Alba is a healthy girl.

Periodic Reviews

Sixty days after the transplant, Alba was given new stem cells taken from her peripheral blood in order to accelerate the production of platelets. Fourteen months after the transplant, her blood system was completely restored, and she has since enjoyed a normal life.

Dr. Madero called her case unique in Spain. “The use of stem cells to regenerate the blood system is an extended treatment for this form of cancer,” he said. What makes her case unique, he added, “is that for the first time in our country, the stem cells came from a patient’s own umbilical cord, preserved from birth.

“In recent years, transplants of cord blood stem cells have become increasingly common. In the case of siblings, these stem cells are the best therapeutic option that exists,” he said.

“Our best investment”

Alba’s father, Santiago, who is a computer engineer, and her mother, Teresa, a literature professor, agreed that keeping the blood from Alba’s umbilical cord was the “best investment” they ever made.

Santiago said he had previously seen a report “on the treatment for Parkinson’s using stem cells … and was sympathetic to the idea of using stem cells to treat degenerative diseases.”

“Keeping the umbilical cord is a wager for the future, a life insurance policy that you don’t know if you will need but that could save a life,” Teresa added.

The head of Crio-Cord, Guillermo Munoz, also said he was pleased at the results of the therapy. He noted that the organization was “proud to have participated in Alba’s healing process.”

Cases like these confirm “that umbilical cord blood is an excellent source of stem cells. Being the youngest cells of their kind in the human body, they have great potential to cure,” Munoz explained

Source: CNA/Europa Press

Guttmacher: 54% of Women Who Aborted in 2008 Were Using Contraception

As Family Research Council has previously reported increasing access to contraception does not decrease the number of abortions. In fact, studies show quite the opposite.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its allies are banging the “family planning decreases the abortion rate” drum on Capitol Hill these days. However the Guttmacher Institute, previously PPFA’s own research arm, reports that over half the number women who had an abortion in 2008 –54%– were using a form of contraception during the month they got pregnant.

In the words of Kristin Powers, who blogged on this story earlier today, “what is truly astonishing about the Guttmacher statistics is that they are completely unchanged from a decade ago.”

She is correct. This is not new. Family Research Council wrote on this very topic in our Top Ten Myths of Abortion piece a few years ago,

“In the United States, a decrease in contraceptive use in recent years correlates to a decrease in the number of abortions. From 1995 to 2002, the rate of contraceptive use decreased from 64 percent to 62 percent,43 while the number of abortions fell from 1,359,400 to 1,293,000.” “Contraceptive Use,” Facts in Brief, The Alan Guttmacher Institute (March, 2005). These numbers represent use among all women age 15-44, and thus, because many women in this age group would not be sexually active, the rate of use among sexually active women would be higher.

There is more. A study recently published in Contraception conducted in Spain from 1997-2007 showed as contraceptive use increased from a rate of 49.1 to 79.9%, simultaneously the elective abortion rate increased from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1000 women.

“[R]esarch here and abroad shows that increasing access to contraception is not a solution to the problem of soaring abortion rates. In fact, it makes the problem worse. In Sweden, for example, an increase in affordable access to contraception and the presence of free contraceptive counseling have resulted in a substantial increase in the teen abortion rate. The abortion rate has climbed from 17 abortions per thousand teens in 1995 to 22.5 abortions per thousand teens in 2001.(Edgardh, K., et al., “Adolescent Sexual Health in Sweden,” Sexual Transmitted Infections 78 (2002): 352-6)

According to Professor Peter Arcidiacono of Duke University, increasing teenagers’ access to contraception “may actually increase long run pregnancy rates even though short run pregnancy rates fall. On the other hand, policies that decrease access to contraception, and hence sexual activity, are likely to lower pregnancy rates in the long run.” Peter Arcidiacono, et al., “Habit Persistence and Teen Sex: Could Increased Contraception Have Unintended Consequences for Teen Pregnancies?” (Oct. 3, 2005), Working Paper, p. 29.

Contact: Jeanne Monahan

Source: FRC Blog

Teenager Forced Off Life Support Survives to Tell the Tale

This would have been a bigger story in the USA where patients still have the right to fight these things. In New Zealand, doctors forced a badly injured teenager–Kimberly McNeill, center in the photo at left–off of life support. But contrary to their certainty, she didn’t die. From the story:

A teenage girl whose life support was switched off by a New Zealand hospital against her family’s wishes defied the odds to recover and returned home this week — walking and talking. Doctors forecasted that Kimberly McNeill, 18, would never recover from her severe injuries and 15 days after being transferred to Auckland City Hospital, authorities turned off the life support machine, the New Zealand Herald reported Sunday. Defying the odds, she pulled through and this week, two months after the wreck, which nearly claimed her life, returned to her parents’ home in Napier, on New Zealand’s North Island, to continue her rehabilitation, Hawkes Bay Today reported.

Note the short time given for the girl to recover! It reminds me of the Haleigh Poutre case in Massachusetts. She’d be dead now if doctors had had their way in a timely fashion. She was only saved because the death bureaucratic necessities gave her time to wake up.

This is a warning. Doctors don’t know everything. Hospitals are not always right. Futile care theory not only violates patient autonomy, but it could abandon some–not many, but some–to death when they might otherwise have lived. And don’t say, “Well, these girl lived, so what’s the harm?” The harm is that was no thanks to the futilitarians. Indeed, Kimberly’s life was surely put at greater jeopardy by the futile care imposition, not the other way around.

More details here.

Planned Parenthood reaches gruesome milestone: 5 million abortions

When on February 23 American Life League spotted and reported on Planned Parenthood’s 2009 annual report, showing it had committed 332,278 that year, ALL also reported that PP had reached a gruesome milestone:

“The records show that Planned Parenthood has committed 5,320,095 surgical and medical abortions from 1970 through the end of 2009,” [Jim] Sedlak [VP of ALL] continued. “We estimate that the income from abortion accounts for 40% of its annual clinic income.”

I asked Jim for his figures. He responded:

Jill –

From our beginning, we have collected PP Annual Reports and other PP documents in an effort to get every statistic we can about the organization. The data that you seek is 40 years worth of documentation in our files….

The numbers of abortions that we know about, by year, are:

YEAR	PP ABORTIONS
1934
1941
1955
1956	0
1957	0
1958	0
1959	0
1960	0
1961	0
1962	0
1963	0
1964	0
1965	0
1966	0
1967	0
1968	0
1969	0
1970	100
1971	500
1972	1,000
1973	5,000
1974	10,000
1975	20,000
1976	40,000
1977	58,660
1978	70,000
1979	67,000
1980	60,000
1981	79,997
1982	80,000
1983	85,242
1984	88,824
1985	91,065
1986	98,638
1987	104,411
1988	111,189
1989	122,191
1990	129,155
1991	132,314
1992	130,844
1993	134,277
1994	133,289
1995	139,899
1996	153,367
1997	165,174
1998	168,509
1999	182,792
2000	197,070
2001	213,026
2002	230,630
2003	244,628
2004	255,015
2005	264,943
2006	289,750
2007	305,310
2008	324,008
2009	332,278
2010
TOTAL	5,320,095

It’s interesting that when you view the stats on the PP Peptobus above, the “2,500,000 Birth Control Patients” is not photoshopped; those numbers were put there by PP. Bryan Kemper added “5,000,000 Babies Slaughtered,” which PP wants to avoid publicizing, of course.

Plan B Linked to Greater Risk for Heart Disease

This week there have been a number of media outlets reporting on a link between taking over-the-counter contraceptives (Plan B) and an increased risk for heart disease. The bottom line is that too much estrogen in a woman’s body is harmful for her heart. In particular, young women and girls are reportedly suffering from these heart problems.

Here are quotes from one such story out of India:

“A vascular disease called deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is on the rise and doctors say it has a lot to do with the increase in sales of over-the-counter contraceptive pills.”

“Any amount of estrogen that is not required by the female body is harmful for her. The pills tend to increase the hormone level, resulting in pain and swelling caused by blood clot formation in the veins,” explained Nutan Agrawal, professor of gynaecology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). ”

“The reason that the problem of DVT and contraceptives is serious is that we are seeing a lot of young girls in their 20s coming up with cases of the disease,” points out Parakh, who said he gets over 15 cases of DVT in a month.

“Agrawal cautioned on how over-the-counter contraceptive drugs have dominated birth control measures for the teen population: “Because of the availability of drugs with retailers, these contraceptives have become the quick fix to abortions in a very short span of time. There is certainly a need for awareness among young girls about sexual health.”

Sadly, Teva Pharmaceuticals recently began the FDA process to make Plan B available OTC for girls of any age; currently it is OTC for those 17 and older. Especially with this new information about the link between Plan B and heart disease, I can’t help but wonder if once again young women’s health is being sacrificed on the altar of a liberal, pro-abortion agenda.

Contact: Jeanne Monahan

Source: FRC Blog

Planned Parenthood reaches gruesome milestone: 5 million abortions

When on February 23 American Life League spotted and reported on Planned Parenthood’s 2009 annual report, showing it had committed 332,278 that year, ALL also reported that PP had reached a gruesome milestone:

“The records show that Planned Parenthood has committed 5,320,095 surgical and medical abortions from 1970 through the end of 2009,” [Jim] Sedlak [VP of ALL] continued. “We estimate that the income from abortion accounts for 40% of its annual clinic income.”

I asked Jim for his figures. He responded:

Jill –

From our beginning, we have collected PP Annual Reports and other PP documents in an effort to get every statistic we can about the organization. The data that you seek is 40 years worth of documentation in our files….

The numbers of abortions that we know about, by year, are:

YEAR	PP ABORTIONS
1934
1941
1955
1956	0
1957	0
1958	0
1959	0
1960	0
1961	0
1962	0
1963	0
1964	0
1965	0
1966	0
1967	0
1968	0
1969	0
1970	100
1971	500
1972	1,000
1973	5,000
1974	10,000
1975	20,000
1976	40,000
1977	58,660
1978	70,000
1979	67,000
1980	60,000
1981	79,997
1982	80,000
1983	85,242
1984	88,824
1985	91,065
1986	98,638
1987	104,411
1988	111,189
1989	122,191
1990	129,155
1991	132,314
1992	130,844
1993	134,277
1994	133,289
1995	139,899
1996	153,367
1997	165,174
1998	168,509
1999	182,792
2000	197,070
2001	213,026
2002	230,630
2003	244,628
2004	255,015
2005	264,943
2006	289,750
2007	305,310
2008	324,008
2009	332,278
2010
TOTAL	5,320,095

It’s interesting that when you view the stats on the PP Peptobus above, the “2,500,000 Birth Control Patients” is not photoshopped; those numbers were put there by PP. Bryan Kemper added “5,000,000 Babies Slaughtered,” which PP wants to avoid publicizing, of course.

Illinois Sexually-abused Minor Gitls could find help with passage of HB 2093

An Illinois bill requiring staffers and assistants at any facility providing abortions to act as mandated reporters in reporting suspected sexual abuse on minor girls is scheduled to be heard next Tuesday in the House Agriculture and Conservative Committee. HB 2093 focuses on protecting minor girls who may be victims of statutory rape or sexual abuse.

LifeNews.com reports that the legislation, sponsored by Downstate Rep. David Reis (R-) and co-sponsored by pro-choice State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), was opposed by Illinois Choice Action Team, which has since removed its opposition. In an email to supporters, LifeNews.com reports ICAT wrote about their position shift:

“In response to comments, feedback, and our own concerns regarding bill 2093, we at the Illinois Choice Action Team have removed our name from the Reproductive Health and Access Act coalition of opposing organizations for Illinois House bill 2093. We understand the bill context however, when it comes to the issue of reporting child abuse we would rather any case seen be reported and so we are withdrawing our name.”

But others in the coalition such as Planned Parenthood and ACLU remain firmly opposed to requiring abortion clinic staff to report suspected sexual abuse or statutory rape. Such requirements they say, would overload the Department of Child and Family Services' duties.

LifeNews.com reports that the ACLU's executive director thinks HB 2093 is part of a "radical agenda."

Colleen Connell, the executive director of the pro-abortion legal group, said, “The voters of Illinois do not endorse this radical agenda.” She went on to condemn the statutory rape reporting bill saying it would “add unnecessary governmental regulations on reproductive health care providers and women seeking to terminate a pregnancy.”

HB 2093 has a good chance of making it to the Illinois House floor threaded through the Agriculture and Conservation Committee. Of the 15 committee members, 12 or so have prolife voting records, including 5 Democrats and all Republicans.

State Rep. Monique Davis' sponsorship will be helpful in influencing the prominent Black Democratic Caucus on a House floor vote, and with the prolife downstate Democrats as well as the new crop of prolife conservative Republicans, there's reason to believe HB 2093 can pass the House.

The Senate will be another challenge.

Ask Congress to Put Pro-Life Policies into Law

 The U.S. House of Representatives is one step closer to voting on a bill that would convert several pro-life policies — also known as riders — into law.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 23-14 today in favor of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which was introduced by Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., and has close to 210 co-sponsors.

H.R. 3 would prohibit taxpayer funding for abortion in all federal programs; currently a patchwork of such policies must be approved annually. The bill also would codify conscience protections for health care workers who object to abortion and other actions.

Committee member Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said: "While there are strong views on both sides of this issue, one thing is clear: The federal funding of abortion will lead to more abortions."

Douglas Johnston, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, called H.R. 3 "a clear, comprehensive, uniform policy to prevent federal subsidies for abortion."

"Anyone who advocates 'abortion reduction' — a goal to which even President Obama has given lip service — should embrace the Smith-Lipinski bill," he wrote.

The legislation eventually will reach the Senate. Until then, life advocates are calling on senators to put pro-life provisions into the current spending resolutions.

"One of the easiest ways to save money would be to stop sending it to abortion sellers," said Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at CitizenLink.

TAKE ACTION
Please urge your representative to support H.R. 3.

The capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

Contact: Jennifer Mesko
Source: CitizenLink

Illinois Federation for Right to Life

2600 State Street, Suite E

Alton, IL  62002

Phone: 618-466-4122

Fax: 618-466-4134

Web: www.ifrl.org

E-mail: mail@ifrl.org

Abstinence supporters urged to call reps

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, is urging supporters of the abstinence message to contact their elected representatives as federal budgets for this year and next are debated in Washington.

The message, she said, can be simple.

"Basically, just say that they support the reestablishment of a stand-alone funding stream for community-based abstinence education. The reason that the stand-alone funding stream is so critical is some might argue that the current structure for funding teen pregnancy prevention would permit abstinence education programs to be funded," Huber told Baptist Press.

"But the political reality is, first of all, there's no priority on abstinence education in that funding stream and, secondly, there is no historical precedent that the administration is going to give any real emphasis to abstinence education unless there is a separate program specifically for the risk avoidance abstinence message."

President Obama and congressional leadership zeroed out funding for abstinence education in the 2010 federal budget, opting instead to create a "teen pregnancy prevention initiative," which promotes the use of condoms and other contraceptives among the nation's teenagers. By not restoring abstinence education to the 2011 federal budget, contraceptive-centered sex education remains the priority for the federal government.

Huber said she is hopeful that a new priority on risk avoidance or abstinence education could be reestablished in the 2012 budget and perhaps still in 2011.

"I actually think that our prospects are pretty positive in that regard. There seems to be, particularly in the House, a general support for the skills and the messages that are part of the abstinence message. I think there's also a recognition that there needs to be an amendment to the current policy on sex education," Huber said.

That can happen in a couple of ways. Rep. Joe Pitts, R.-Pa., chairs the health subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is the authorizing committee for this funding.

Pitts is "historically supportive of abstinence education," Huber said, "and our recent conversations with his office indicate that his support has not abated one bit. We are encouraging and looking forward to him taking leadership in pressing for a reestablishment of priority for abstinence education.

"Obviously, your readers, if they reside in districts where members of the Energy and Commerce Committee serve, then calls right now to those members would be in order," Huber told Baptist Press.

Also, if readers have members of Congress who serve on the House Committee on Appropriations, they should make their opinions known while the 2012 budget is under consideration.

"Since all of this will initiate in the House, that's where we'll start our efforts. That's not to diminish the importance of the Senate, but it needs to start in the House," Huber said. "In terms of the 2011 budget ... there's nothing really that can be done on the House side.

"However, this is going to transfer over to the Senate momentarily and the Senate needs to pick this up. The 2011 budget also has no funds at all for abstinence education, and this is an opportunity for the Senate Appropriations Committee, particularly Sen. [Thad] Cochran's office, who is a Republican leader on that committee, to press to insert a priority on abstinence education. It's not too late for us to see something happen on the Senate side in relation to 2011."

A study released Feb. 14 found that 61 percent of teenagers would like to be virgins when they marry, and 63 percent said they would regain their virginity if possible.

The research, conducted by the youth ministry OneHope late last year, showed that 69 percent of teenagers watch MTV on a weekly basis, but 80 percent cite parents as having a lot/some influence over their thoughts and actions, followed by teachers and friends.

Also, 82 percent of respondents said they believe God intended marriage to last a lifetime, and 64 percent said religion is somewhat or very important to them. Thirty-four percent of the teenagers said they spend less than 15 minutes a week talking with their fathers about things that matter.

Huber said the findings are not unlike what she has seen in previous surveys in that most teenagers who are sexually experienced wish they had waited.

"I think those results are reflected in this survey. The second significant survey result related to teen sex is that most teens support abstinence and value remaining abstinent as a priority," she said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regularly conducts a youth risk behavior survey and finds that in terms of behavior, teens are trending in the direction of abstinent behavior and continue to support this as the healthiest choice.

"Obviously, not as many teens as we'd like, but I think it's a promising sign," Huber said.

As she spoke to Baptist Press from Capitol Hill, where she was seeking to renew a priority on abstinence education, Huber emphasized the need for congressional representatives to hear from their constituents.

"It's important that they register their support now, frequently and until a decision is made simply because there are a lot of policy issues being debated and it's easy for this issue to get lost in the mix of debate unless readers continue to bring it in front of their members of Congress," she said.

"Even supportive members of Congress can forget about this if constituents don't continue to remind them of the importance of this for our nation's youth."

The capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

Contact: Erin Roach
Source: Baptist Press

Illinois Federation for Right to Life

2600 State Street, Suite E

Alton, IL  62002

Phone: 618-466-4122

Fax: 618-466-4134

Web: www.ifrl.org

E-mail: mail@ifrl.org

Baby Joseph Futile Care Case Has Emotional Non Futile Care Wrinkle

I am going to, perhaps, take a different approach to this dispute than some of my very good friends.  A baby in Canada, known as Baby Joseph, has an incurable neurological disease that will result in his eventual death.  The hospital wants to unilaterally remove him from life support because they claim he is unconscious and will not get better.  The parents object, and claim he does respond.  (To me, it doesn't matter–the ethical issues are the same.)  I think that they are right, the hospital should not be able to unilaterally impose an end to life-sustaining treatment based on subjective quality of life judgments or financial concerns.  That is futile care theory, in which the treatment isn't being removed because it won't work, but because it is working, e.g., maintaining life.  In such cases, it is actually the life that is seen as futile, not the treatment.

But that isn't the part of the story I want to focus on.  If the hospital is allowed to refuse continued life support, the parents have requested that the hospital perform a tracheotomy so they can put the baby on a ventilator and take him home to die.  The doctors are refusing because, they claim, of the burden on family and child.  From the story:

If he is beyond hope, they want him to be able to receive a tracheotomy, where he can be transferred home and die in the care of family instead of in a hospital. Experts say even if the family is granted this request, caring for a child in this condition is an arduous task. Dr. David Casarett, director of research and evaluation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wissahickon Hospice, says patients at home with tracheotomies need monitoring to make sure the airway is clear of secretions, the skin is clean and dry and someone can make sure the incision at the tracheotomy site does not get infected. "A child's care would be much more complex if a home ventilator is required, since the parents would need to manage the ventilator with the help of a nurse and respiratory therapist," he said.

This is a very hard thing, and I see both sides to this aspect of the case.  But the request for a tracheotomy raises different ethical issues than requesting that life support be maintained in hospital–although the one flow directly from the other. In my view, refusing the tracheotomy surgery is not a futile care imposition, since the surgery is not primarily intended to maintain the baby's life, but rather is an elective procedure, to allow the parents to bring him home to die. That is a completely understandable, nay, laudable, desire on their part, but it presents a different wrinkle to the situation than the usual futile care dispute.  And let me emphasize: It wouldn't be an issue if the hospital weren't trying to force the baby off life support.

But the medical team has a point too.  A tracheotomy is surgery. It requires anesthesia and can cause suffering.  Once the ventilator was hooked up, if it wasn't maintained properly, it could cause a very difficult time for the baby.  So the question becomes whether the hospital/doctors, by refusing to perform the requested surgery, are fulfilling their ethical duty to do no harm to their patient.  I am not a medical expert, and so don't know the answer from that perspective.  But it is a legitimate argument and a question for real concern.

Lawyers say bad facts make bad law.  In this case, if a judge ordered the hospital/doctors to do the surgery, some would see it as a ruling that permitted patients to demand any treatment they wanted, regardless of the harm it could cause–which would undermine medical professionalism.  But if the judge refused the request, some would misconstrue the ruling to say that it meant doctors have the final say on what treatments are or are not provided–which would open the door to futile care impositions and health care rationing.

As I said, the tracheotomy issue is distinct from continuing the life support in the hospital issue.  So, I don't want to be misinterpreted.  All things being equal, all would want the baby to be allowed to go home.  But things are rarely equal.   That's why this case requires nuanced analysis and discussion that distinguishes the tracheotomy issue from the continuing life-sustaining treatment in hospital issue.  I suspect the parents are on stronger legal ground in the latter than the former.

My pal Alex Schadenberg is trying to raise funds for their legal defense.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith

Illinois Federation for Right to Life

2600 State Street, Suite E

Alton, IL  62002

Phone: 618-466-4122

Fax: 618-466-4134

Web: www.ifrl.org

E-mail: mail@ifrl.org

Jane Russell rejected the celebrity world's support for abortion

Jane Russell, the Hollywood film star of the 1940s and 50s, has died aged 89. Best-known for her beauty, her opposition to abortion is also widely noted in today's obituaries. As a 19-year old, she resorted to an illegal abortion, which almost killed her and which left her infertile. She's pictured (right) with Marilyn Monroe (whom it is claimed was also left infertile by abortion). Rather than conclude from the experience that abortion should be legalised, she rejected abortion, saying:

"People should never, ever have an abortion. Don't talk to me about it being a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body. The choice is between life and death."
She started an organisation called WAIF (World Adoption International Fund) to help people adopt unwanted children from overseas, and adopted three children herself.

Her family has asked that, instead of flowers, mourners send donations to her local pro-life crisis pregnancy centre.

Jane Russell is not the only celebrity to have stuck out her neck by making comments in support of unborn children or the dignity of motherhood, for example:

•Charlton Heston, a contemporary of Jane Russell, gave the introduction to Eclipse of Reason (1986), the second of the late Dr Bernard Nathanson's documentaries on the reality of abortion

•Jennifer O'Neill, a Hollywood actress from the 1970s onwards, now speaks out about her abortion experience on behalf of the Silent No More campaign, supported in the UK by SPUC.

•Justin Bieber, the 17 year-old pop star, last month said that he doesn't "believe in abortion" because "It's like killing a baby". He has been attacked for being "too young" to have opinions on abortion!

•Natalie Portman, who won best actress in this week's Oscars, has been attacked for describing her motherhood as "the most important role of my life". She also described pregnancy as "a miracle" giving meaning and importance amidst superficiality.

So let's pray that more people in the entertainment industry will be encouraged to speak out in support of life and family and not discouraged by attacks from the culture of death.
--
Illinois Federation for Right to Life

2600 State Street, Suite E

Alton, IL  62002

Phone: 618-466-4122

Fax: 618-466-4134

Web: www.ifrl.org

E-mail: mail@ifrl.org