WLS-Ch. 7 morning news anchor Judy Hsu gave birth this morning to a baby boy as she and her husband rushed to the hospital on the inbound Eisenhower Expressway [in Chicago], the station reported.
"We were heading down the Eisenhower," Hsu said during the station's 11a. news broadcast. "At a pretty fast speed."
"I said, 'Do you need to pull over?' Judy said, 'I don't know!' " Tracy, her husband, said.
"I didn't know. I think I was in denial the whole time. I did not want to pull over on the side of the expressway. But the time came, and I knew the baby couldn't wait. I said, 'OK, I think we better pull over and call 911,' " Hsu said.
The couple's baby came into the world at about 3a near the Cicero Ave. exit. They named him Alexander James but - fittingly - his nickname will be "Ike."
As of this afternoon mother and baby were doing fine, according to the station.
Tracy helped his wife give birth in the front seat of the car. He said he remembered a news story about a woman who gave birth on the side of the road and her husband used his shoelaces to tie off the umbilical cord. Tracy tried that too and it worked.
Paramedics soon arrived and took them to the hospital.
"Can you believe it?" Hsu told the station. "It's so wild. It's stuff we read about in the news, and I never, ever thought would happen to me. It just went so fast. It was pretty incredible."
In a case echoing the tragic story of Britain's Sarah Capewell and son Jayden, a Mississippi mother says that her neonatologist refused to help her baby daughter survive because he believed she was too young, at 22 weeks 4 days gestation, to merit intervention.
Necie Franklin of Flowood, Mississippi, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that Dr. Kenny Robbins of River Oaks Hospital refused to treat daughter Jessa Mackenzie after she was born suddenly in May, because she was three days shy of 23 weeks gestation - at which point he would have considered treating her at the hospital's Level II neonatal intensive care unit.
Franklin said that Jessa gasped for breath twice while in her arms, but was told by nurses that it was "just a reaction" - leading her to believe the child had died. Only after Jessa had been taken away, says Franklin, did she learn that the child still had a heartbeat.
Franklin, who says she has lost a child to a premature birth before, said it "shocked" her when Robbins said he would not help Jessa breathe.
"I looked at him and said, so you're telling me you're not going to do anything for my daughter?" said Franklin. She says Robbins "simply flat out refused."
"He actually told me this - This is what stuck in my mind most of all for days afterwards - was that I would be torturing my child to do something, because she was so little," the mother recalled. "She weighed just over a pound - which there are children who weigh less than that, that actually make it."
"They took so long to bring her back to me that she had already passed away by the time they had brought her back to me," said Franklin. "I don't know how many times after she left my sight that she gasped for breath. And they didn't even put a respirator on her to make her a little more comfortable."
She says Jessa's heart beat for about an hour and a half before she died.
Lori Rushkin, Franklin's niece who was present during the ordeal, confirmed that Franklin and her family expressly pleaded for treatment for Jessa, to no avail.
"We all kept saying, 'Why not try? What's the harm in at least trying?'" Rushkin told LSN in a phone interview. "We said, 'Look: miracles happen every day, it's not up to you to determine when a child lives or dies, it's going to be in God's hands. If you try, and the child lives, then that's what she was meant to do.
"And that's when [Robbins] started talking about, 'Well, there's so many papers that have been written, and literature and books that you can go through, and see that a baby this young is not going to make it.'"
Rushkin said she and the other family members felt Robbins' attitude was "ridiculous."
"What was so bad about at least taking an hour out of his time and trying to do something for that baby?" she asked.
LSN's multiple attempts to reach Dr. Kenny Robbins for further information were not answered. However, Dr. Robbins did reply to Franklin's request for further information, saying that "resuscitation was not indicated" for Jessa. Only after 23 weeks would parents be allowed to choose whether to permit resuscitation, said Robbins, "because outcomes are very poor in this age range and even those who survive have a high risk of permanent complications."
Robbins said that the protocol used in Jessa's case was "a universally accepted one by neonatologists, it is in full compliance with Christian medical ethics," and that the literature he referenced was "produced by Catholic ethicists - and you can't get more strict and pro-life regarding the protection of the unborn and newly born than that."
However, Dr. Paul Byrne, M.D., the Director of Pediatrics and Neonatology at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, said he disagrees.
"There is no specific gestational age at which a baby cannot survive outside the uterus," Byrne told LSN. While a shorter gestational age and lower birth rate increase risk of mortality, Byrne said he has known of infants as young as 18 weeks' gestation to survive.
The limiting factor that determines whether the doctor could intervene to help the baby, according to Byrne, is related to whether the baby's trachea is large enough to allow a 2.5 millimeter tube to be inserted to aid breathing.
Byrne said that Robbins' use of the term "potentially viable" was "not the correct approach."
"The baby is living," said Byrne. "We can protect and preserve the life of the infant person. A doctor ought not to impose or hasten death."
Franklin said she felt prompted to share her story after hearing that a similar tragedy befell British mom Sarah Capewell. Capewell told media last month that her son Jayden was refused intervention at 21 weeks 5 days gestation, despite crying and staying alive on his own for two hours. In that case, doctors cited guidelines offered by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics as their reason for refusing treatment.
"Just because they have literature stating that the statistics are that these children don't usually survive - that's not God in the mix," said Franklin. "Because he can do anything, and that's what we were trying to tell the doctor."
"It needs to be brought to light that people are doing this, that doctors are doing this, ... and nobody is standing up and telling them, 'You shouldn't do this, you shouldn't play God,'" she said.
River Oaks Hosptial did not return LSN's request for comment.
"Maybe 50 percent of the graphic images of abortion victims that you'll find online are probably my photography." So says Monica Migliorino Miller, associate professor of theology at Madonna University in Orchard Lake, Mich., in a recent front-page interview with The New York Times.
The interview has made waves in the pro-life world, due in large part to the fact that, along with the interview, the Times ran a selection of Miller's graphic abortion photos in the online version of the story, becoming one of the only mainstream newspapers in the world to do so.
The story, written by Times journalist Damien Cave, came about after Cave encountered Miller while covering the murder of pro-life activist James Pouillon, who used to protest abortion by holding signs depicting photos of aborted babies. "Like many others," wrote Cave in the article, "I often wondered about the source of these images. Who took the pictures? Where did the fetuses come from?"
The answer is Monica Miller.
In a statement to pro-life supporters, Miller called the Times story a "coup," saying that it "is sure to generate much debate."
"Perhaps for the first time in the history of the pro-life movement a nationally recognized paper has (at last!) deliberately printed photos of actual abortion victims," she said.
"We need to pray that hearts will be changed," said Miller. "Our goal is to show and tell the truth about the injustice of abortion. I hope this story helps awaken hearts and minds."
The story is sure to frustrate the efforts of pro-abortion activists, many of whom have sought for years to discredit the abortion photos used by many pro-lifers by simply claiming that they are fake. But the Times' story leaves little room for that conclusion.
"We felt it was very important to make a record of the reality of abortion," Miller told Cave in the interview, speaking of her motivation in beginning to take the controversial photos.
The process of photography is difficult, she explained. The aborted infants are difficult to handle, and the formaldehyde solution acrid. She says she rented expensive lenses so that she could get within millimeters of the aborted babies. The result is that her photographs show very small details, revealing the fingers and toes of babies whose entire frames are no bigger than a cell phone.
In addition to the precision of the actual photography, when taking the photos Miller precisely documents each baby she photographs by date, location, and gestational age.
The aborted babies she photographs are often illegally thrown out by abortion mills, explained Miller. In 1988 Miller and others found that a pathology lab in Northbrook, Illinois was being used as a dumping ground for about ten to twelve different abortion mills. Between February and September of 1988, they removed roughly 4000 aborted babies from where the abortion clinics had shipped them. Many of them were later buried in a funeral ceremony presided over by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago.
To find the aborted babies Miller and her companions search through biohazardous waste, where they find the remains of the fetuses among bloody surgical papers, gloves, and surgical instruments. They also have found the medical records of woman who have gone to the abortion mills, records improperly disposed of by the abortion facility itself.
"We photograph those babies because we needed to show their humanity," said Miller in July 2008. "It should shock us. It should completely outrage us that this is happening. These are human beings we're talking about, thrown out in the trash."
Miller's latest photos have focused less on the gore of abortion and more on the fine details and features even the youngest aborted children have. "I want to show there's beauty and humanity in the unborn child," she said. "There should be a sense of pity."
Miller was deeply involved in the pro-life movement before she began to take her now-famous pictures. She was among the individuals and organizations against whom pro-abortion groups brought a lawsuit in the 80s, in which the pro-abortion groups attempted to have pro-lifers prosecuted under federal racketeering laws. The case concluded at the US Supreme Court in with an 8-1 decision in favor of the pro-life coalition.
"This slide show includes images that are very graphic." -- From "Behind the Scenes: Picturing Fetal Remains," by Damien Cave, which appeared on the New York Times website last Saturday.
To say that I was stunned last weekend when the New York Times ran (by Establishment Media standards) an even-handed portrait of pro-life protestors would hardly do justice to my amazement. That the Times proceeded to carry a second story, a kind of hybrid photo essay, in its "Lens: Photography, Video and Visual Journalism" section found on the Times' web page, set my jaw to dropping.
The two came together when Cave, as part of his story on pro-life protestors, attended the memorial service for James Pouillon, a veteran pro-lifer who was shot and killed as he sat outside an abortion clinic in Owosso, Michigan. Cave tells us "Mr. Pouillon was holding an anti-abortion sign at the time, with a baby on one side and an abortion on the other."
He explains, "I often wondered about the source of these images. Who took the pictures? Where did the fetuses come from?" Cave then tells us, "At his memorial service, I met Monica Migliorino Miller, who told me she had a lot to share about the use of abortion imagery."
The history of her involvement, and her evolving views on how best these photos might be used, can be found on the Times's web page. Cave's fascinating interview with the woman whose photographs of aborted babies have appeared all over the country "since the mid-1990s," and the four photos of aborted babies can be found at http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/behind-19/?scp=2&sq=damien%20cave&st=cse.
What is amazing for pro-lifers, of course, is that the topic was discussed at all and, even more breath-taking, that the Times would have the gumption to show photos of aborted babies on its website.
We see a mid-1980s photo described by Mrs. Migliorino Miller as "Unborn baby, 5 months' gestation, aborted with saline abortion technique"; "Foot--broken at the ankle," a 14-16 week-old baby killed by suction abortion in 2008; "Hand of baby aborted 16 weeks gestation by suction method" in 2009; and "The feet of unborn baby 6 months, prostaglandin abortion method" from the mid 1980s.
Almost as riveting was the heated give-and-take in the comment section which followed. You expected what you read in the first few (which were indicative of many), people whose hatred for pro-lifers is almost clinical. They need to distance themselves from the horror of what they saw, assuming they had the courage to look, and, I suspect, from their own involvement, at least in some cases.
So, they string together the usuals--that pro-lifers only care about "fetuses"; we hate women; what about "unwanted children?"; most abortions are done in the first trimester when the unborn have "flippers" [!]; we couldn't care less about babies after they are born; and, in general, mind your own business.
But to find in the New York Times the eloquence--and the number--of the pro-life responses was startling.
They debunked each of these threadbare pro-abortion rationalizations. One of my favorites is, "An 8 week old fetus does not have flippers or a tail. It looks like a tiny human."
Perhaps most revealing is that the pro-life respondents refused to be pigeonholed. As one writer put it, "What does it matter liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, religious or secular?
These are human beings and what the abortionists do to these babies would not be allowed to happen to dogs."
Which helped put the e-mail from the self-described "classic, left-clinging liberal in all ways but the abortion issue" in context. Her eyes had been opened when, many years ago, she took a friend to a clinic to have an abortion.
"Although these photos are horrific they do speak a truth, a truth that so many pro-choice types refuse to admit," she wrote.
And then there was that most telling voice, the voice of sad experience. "I was once fooled into killing my child," wrote one woman. "It ate my heart out from within until I found help and healing. Now a part of the pro-life movement, and still a single woman, I have had the great privileged of adopting 2 children whom the pro-abortion movement would have preferred to see dead."
Finally there was the woman who wrote about her involvement many years ago in the pro-abortion movement which was, I gather, a reflection of her liberal views. "I haven't changed in my political principles and values, but there has certainly been one change: I am now against abortion, and now -- for the first time -- speaking out against the violence of dismembering our children."
She concluded with this remarkable statement: "Do not tell me that my own two babies expelled from my womb are something subhuman or sub-personal. It is I who failed the test of being 'human' or 'personal' when I aborted them…"
Please take a few minutes and click here. I would also encourage you to write the Times to thank the paper for its courage.
NEWS SHORTS FOR WEDNESDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
Increased contraceptive use has led to fewer abortions worldwide, but deaths from unsafe abortion remain a severe problem, killing 70,000 women a year, a research institute reported Tuesday in a major global survey.
More than half the deaths, about 38,000, are in sub-Saharan Africa, which was singled out as the region with by far the lowest rates of contraceptive use and the highest rates of unintended pregnancies.
The report, three years in the making, was compiled by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights and is a leading source of data on abortion-related trends. Researchers examined data from individual countries and multinational organizations. Click here for the full article.
Health care talks slip back behind closed doors Wednesday as Senate leaders start trying to merge two very different bills into a new version that can get the 60 votes needed to guarantee its passage.
All eyes are on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has said he wants to complete the wedding quickly and get historic health care overhaul legislation onto the floor the week after next.
Both bills were written by Democrats, but that's not going to make it easier for Reid. They share a common goal, which is to provide all Americans with access to affordable health insurance, but they differ on how to accomplish it. Click here for the full article.
Bishop Emeritus Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington died early on Thursday. A diocesan spokesman said that the 77-year-old Saltarelli died from bone cancer.
Bishop Saltarelli had stood against pro-abortion politicians during his 12 years as Bishop of Wilmington, before his retirement last year. In his Statement on Catholics in Public Life, issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Saltarelli compared the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade to their decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; he said that both "have a comparable corrosive effect on public life, politics and society."
He continued: "No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.' Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.'" Click here for the full article.
During his remarks at the Synod of Bishops of Africa taking place at the Vatican, the Director of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), Jacques Diouf, rejected the myth that the increase in hunger is directly related to the increase in world population.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer at the FAO, Archbishop Renato Volante, said Diouf made his remarks in response to a question posed to him by the synod fathers.
Signs in English pointed to the pro-abortion views President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Zapatero share. Signs in Spanish included one proclaiming that Zapatero's mother chose life.
As President Barack Obama met with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on Tuesday, pro-life activists gathered on Capitol Hill to condemn both leaders’ pro-abortion policies, including Zapatero’s support for a Spanish law awaiting approval by Parliament that would make abortion available on demand to women 16 and older.
“What we are trying to do here is get the people to realize that there are alternatives to abortion, which is being promoted by Zapatero,” Walter Hintz of Madrid told CNSNews.com at the demonstration. Click here for the full article.
The Senate Finance Committee moved Tuesday toward a milestone vote on sweeping health care legislation that would fulfill Obama's top domestic priority. Its ultimate fate remained far from certain. With Democrats holding a 13-9 majority on the committee, the outcome of Tuesday's vote, expected after several hours of discussion by senators, was not in doubt. The big question mark was whether moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine would become the first Republican to support a health overhaul bill. The legislation that passed the other House and Senate committees did so without a single Republican vote.
Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago has said he will sign a new ordinance passed by the City Council at the behest of Planned Parenthood. The ordinance prevents pro-lifers from coming within 8 feet of a woman entering an abortion facility without her permission, for an area extending fifty feet around the building.
Mayor Daley said that the ordinance would "try to make sure nobody is harassed." He said that he did not want people to "harass and scream and yell" at those entering abortion facilities. "There has to be some civility left in our society," he explained.
Mayor Daley, who says he is Catholic, explained that he separates his religion from his politics: "My religion is very personal. ... Religion does not play a part when I make a decision on behalf of the people of Chicago. It is a decision I have to make as a mayor, not as a Catholic. ... That is separate for me."
If Mayor Daley signs this ordinance, he will be reversing a position that he explicitly affirmed years ago. In 1996, Daley ridiculed a proposal that also would have given women entering abortion mills an 8-foot buffer zone between them and anyone attempting to counsel them. He said that it would require "measuring tapes ... You'd get into arguments."
Another bizarre happening at the Northern Illinois Women's Center in Rockford, Illinois was reported last week, with one area pro-lifer saying that a policeman confiscated his large sign portraying an image of Jesus - though the same officer declined to remove an obscene image of Christ perched in the abortion facility's window.
The Northern Illinois Women's Center is notorious as the site of routine abuses against the community of pro-lifers who keep vigil there and for the grotesque and often blasphemous displays in the windows of the building.
Veteran Rockford pro-life witness Kevin Rilott told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) last week that the latest incident occurred Wednesday morning as he stood on public property in front of the abortion mill with a large image of Christ. According to Rilott, the confrontation began when the abortuary's security officer ordered Rilott to move.
"I have stood here for over ten years, so I kept praying," said Rilott.
Rilott says the security officer then came out and spoke with a police officer, who approached Rilott to tell him to hold the Christ sign that was propped up about two feet away. When Rilott declined, he says the police officer ordered him to turn off his video camera before calling a supervisor. The supervisor arrived within minutes to confiscate the Christ image, saying the sign was "unattended."
Rilott notes that one week earlier, when asked by pro-lifers to enforce removal of an obscene image of Christ in the abortion center's window under Rockford's ordinance against "offensive use of property," the same supervisor denied that the image was offensive.
"All of the violations, threats, vandalism, intimidation, and attacks of the abortion facility in the past few years and we are not aware of one time the abortion facility has been held accountable," said Rilott. "But in Rockford a simple picture of Jesus gets arrested and thrown in the back of a squad car."
As of Monday afternoon, the sign was still in police custody.
Rilott recalled that in August 2007, while being assaulted by an abortion supporter, it took a police officer 20 minutes to respond to his 911 calls. And then, in a more recent incident, when pro-lifer Eric Nelson was being verbally assaulted in a racial tirade by pro-abortion local Keith Sterkerson, who had a pitbull in tow at the time, police responded after over an hour.
"It would be funny if it wasn't so sad," commented Rockford pro-lifer George Lambert.
"In Rockford they arrest a picture of Jesus because it symbolizes truth and life. It's interesting that the picture of Jesus giving a double fisted f*** you sign is still proudly displayed in the clinic window," he added.
"We have gone from the blasphemous to the ridiculous," said pro-lifer Donna Modica. "It seems the only signs and pictures protected by free speech are the ones mocking God."
Student wears 'Abortion is not health care' slogan to Obama school speech
A Christian middle-school student is suing his school district after a principal ordered him to remove a T-shirt bearing the message "Abortion is not health care" on the day of President Obama's speech to schoolchildren.
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court against the West Shore School District in Lewisberry, Pa., Oct. 5 on behalf of a male, Christian middle-school student identified as E.B.
The boy's parents, identified as the Boyers, said they were concerned about the president's speech and the national health-care debate, including reported funding of abortion within proposed legislation.
"[T]he Boyers, like many others, felt that President Obama was bypassing them and speaking directly to their children without their permission," the complaint states. "… Like many others, the Boyers struggled with whether they should send their children to school on that day. E.B. attended school and decided to voice his religious viewpoint as it relates to the issue of abortion."
The boy wore the T-shirt to his classes at Crossroads Middle School and said he received no complaints until his fifth-period teacher ordered him to go to the principal's office to determine whether the shirt was "appropriate."
E.B. claims he was immediately told to remove his shirt "because it might insult somebody." Crossroads Middle School (photo: ADF)
ADF is challenging the following policies enforced by Crossroads Middle School and the West Shore School District:
* "'Policy 220: Student Expression,' prohibits speech which 'seeks[s] to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination, sect, or point of view' and that which contain[s] material otherwise deemed harmful to impressionable students.'"
* "'Policy 221: Dress and Grooming' prohibits 'clothing which creates a hostile educational environment or evidences discriminatory bias or animus' or displays 'inappropriate words.'"
"These are highly unconstitutional policies that demonstrate that there's a widespread need for schools to be educated about the First Amendment," ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman said in a statement. "Under the current wording, a student could actually be prevented from saying that his beliefs are true. The policies also allow officials unrestricted discretion in determining what speech violates the policies. In this case, they clearly singled out this student's pro-life speech and illegitimately censored it."
According to the lawsuit, the school's "draconian censorship of plaintiff's religious and political speech, and the policies on which that censorship was based, violate First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."
The complaint states that E.B. wishes to wear T-shirts expressing his Christian faith and political views because he "desires to reach out to his peers and to offer them advice, assistance, and education" and to "discuss relevant issues facing students at school, including faith and religion, personal responsibility, sexual abstinence, keeping children in the event of pregnancy, just to name a few."
ADF's lawsuit argues, "Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate."
"Pro-life students shouldn't be censored for their views," Cortman said. "It's clearly unconstitutional for school officials to prohibit a student's message on the grounds that someone might not like it. The school routinely allows students to wear a wide variety of messages on their shirts without any concerns, but this student has been singled out even though his shirt caused no disruption and is clearly within the bounds of constitutionally guaranteed free speech."
Some of the nation's largest multiracial, multiethnic, and multigenerational faith-based and policy organizations, representing more than 30 million people, went on record to voice opposition to any healthcare bill that funds abortion, violates conscience, rations care, or limits freedom.
Representing the unified position of the organizations signing on to the statement of principles, Mathew Staver commented: "We believe social justice includes healthcare reform that lowers the cost, increases quality, and expands choice at the greatest convenience, without moving private health decisions from the doctor's office to Washington bureaucrats. Individual liberties trump government-imposed obligations. We believe that individuals, communities, and doctors in the free market make better health decisions than government mandates. We believe in incentives, not coercion."
Staver continued, "We oppose funding for abortion. Abortion is not healthcare. We support the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Life, no matter how young, is not expendable and, no matter how ill or aged, is not to be weighed on a cost-benefit scale. We support conscience laws protecting hospitals and healthcare providers from coerced participation in abortion. We oppose government policies pressuring people to forgo or limit treatment because of age or illness. We oppose rationed healthcare due to age, illness or based on a government agency's determination of 'quality' or 'value' of life. President Obama said, 'under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.' But Congress has voted 30 times against amendments that would ban abortion funding. Every proposed bill funds abortion, including the so-called Baucus bill from the Senate Finance Committee. This is unacceptable. We will not support any bill that funds abortion."
Staver continued, "We support health insurance that is affordable and portable. We support legal reform to stop frivolous lawsuits that drive up healthcare costs, while affording the injured appropriate compensation. We support portability, allowing people to take their healthcare with them so it is not tied to employment. We support options to purchase health insurance across state lines. We support competition; coverage of pre-existing conditions; wellness care and prevention incentives; tax relief that provides a dollar-for-dollar deduction for every dollar spent on premiums or other medical or prescription costs; and a dollar-for-dollar tax deduction with no limit from gross income for every dollar contributed to nonprofit organizations providing healthcare for free or at reduced cost to the needy."
Staver concluded, "We support freedom and the dignity of the individual. We oppose federalization of the healthcare industry that would create a maze of bureaucracy which will impede and delay critical care and decrease the quality of healthcare. We oppose a single-payer, government-run insurance program or the so-called public option. It is time to start over with a truly nonpartisan approach to healthcare." Click here for a list of some of the organizations supporting these principles.
When 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., applied to Oregon's state-run health plan for help with his chemotherapy, bureaucrats sent him back a letter. The letter stated that the state would not cover his chemotherapy but would pay for the cost of an assisted suicide.
The incident revealed an important truth about government health bureaucrats: they are not always compassionate, but they are good at math.
Sen. Max Baucus
The latest U.S. Senate healthcare reform proposal, by Montana Democrat Sen. Max Baucus, recently raised a ruckus by calling for reducing Medicare payments "by five percent if an aggregation of the physician's resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization."
Grading on such a curve, physicians who provide the least care win. When the government calls the shots in medicine, cost can replace care as the measure of effectiveness.
That's why some U.S. legislators have triggered protests by proposing to have government bureaucrats virtually barge into the physician's exam room by funding the counseling of patients about end-of-life considerations. Concerns grew even more when the assisted suicide group Compassion & Choices bragged of helping to shape the counseling clause.
"America's Affordable Health Choices Act" (HR 3200) in Section 1233 directs government funds to pay healthcare professionals to give patients "an explanation of orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar orders, which shall include--the reasons why the development of such an order is beneficial to the individual and the individual's family…"
Note that the one-sided "counseling" includes no information about why such an order might not be beneficial to the individual.
Of course, counseling by impartial experts and determining written guidelines for end-of-life decisions can be helpful, especially when the patient also secures a personal proxy whose devotion to her welfare is unquestioned. Yet while advance directives may be used to specify the continuance of or quality of care, in actual practice they tend to emphasize limitations on care. Advance directives also offer no guarantee that a healthcare institution will actually follow the patient's wishes in a healthcare crisis.
In a paper aptly titled, "The Limited Wisdom of Advance Directives," the President's Council on Bioethics noted, "Advance directives cannot be understood in the abstract, separate from the specific context in which they emerged or the legal and public policy environment in which they now operate." [http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/taking_care/chapter2.html]
The context of the end-of-life "counseling" program of HR 3200 is the bill's explicitly stated purpose--to "reduce the growth in health care spending." As health bureaucrats in assisted suicide states like Oregon and Washington have quickly discovered, premature deaths are cheaper than care.
Even absent legal assisted suicide, government bureaucrats can save money simply by convincing patients to accept a denial of care, and to put it in writing through an advance directive.
The context of state-sponsored chats with patients about their expensive end-of-life care also includes President Obama's revealing call for "a very difficult democratic conversation" about "those toward the end of their lives [who] are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here." (Click here for report) In fact, according to a story in USA Today, "Estimates show that about 27% of Medicare's annual $327 billion budget goes to care for patients in their final year of life."
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
The counseling context is also found in the writing of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and brother of the President's chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
With just 41 percent of Americans supporting President Obama's healthcare reform plan, the President and his Congressional allies would like us all to forget such revealing statements and simply heed their reassuring sales pitch.
The vast majority of American patients who want to keep the government out of their private conversations with their physicians simply aren't buying it.
Jonathan Imbody serves as Vice President for Government Relations for the Christian Medical Association, the largest faith-based association of physicians.
In the movie Jurassic Park, scientists used genetics to bring dinosaurs back to life. The death and destruction that results from this attempt to play God are a clear warning about where human hubris can lead.
Apparently, the message wasn’t clear enough—not even to those who worked on the movie.
Paleontologist Jack Horner, who was the technical advisor on the Jurassic Park films, has a book out entitled How to Build a Dinosaur. Horner wants to build his “dinosaur” differently from the people in the movie: Instead of wasting resources looking for intact dinosaur DNA in amber or other fossils, “he wants to hatch a dinosaur straight from a chicken egg.” And he’s serious.
The theory goes that modern animals, like birds, share genes with their “distant ancestors” that have been “switched off.” That’s why, according to Horner and others, birds don’t look much like their dinosaur ancestors.
Their goal is to turn these genes back on and produce what they’re calling a “chickenosaurus,” a bird with “clawed hands, teeth, a long, [dinosaur-like] tail and ancestral plumage.”
An obvious objection is that they are not really “building a dinosaur”—they are creating a freakish bird whose relationship to dinosaurs depends on the validity of contemporary theories about long-extinct animals and their modern descendants.
But the biggest problem with what Horner and others are doing isn’t scientific—it’s moral. Even if we can bring back long-extinct animals, which is by no means a given, the question remains, “Should we?”
Horner misses the point when he assures readers that the “chickenosaurus” wouldn’t be dangerous—and if stuffed and roasted it would “taste like chicken.”
The danger isn’t from Tyrannosauruses loose in San Diego—it’s from people wielding “God-like” powers. What should worry us is not scientists wielding this power over chickens, but over human beings.
We would be trying to “resurrect,” as the media invariably puts it, dinosaurs or other species to amuse ourselves or make some point. For instance, the “chickenosaurus” is intended as a “conversation piece” in a “public debate about evolution.”
I’m all for such a debate, but that is a dangerous prop to use. If scientists succeed, as Horner puts it, in “rewinding evolution” by manipulating the DNA of animals, are humans next? Why not?
While genetics holds great promise, that promise is coupled with a temptation to play God. Never forget that the field started out as eugenics, the attempt to “improve” the human race by weeding out the unfit. What author Edwin Black calls “newgenics” still sees human beings as a work in progress in need of substantial tweaking.
There is already much talk about “controlling our evolution.” What’s not talked about nearly as much is who decides what should be switched on and what should be switched off. Evolution, if it were true, we are told, doesn’t play favorites—but man certainly does. What in recent human history makes anybody think that isn’t a recipe for great evil?
Except that in the real world, the monsters won’t have clawed hands.Chuck Colson
The UK’s Liverpool Care Pathway has apparently killed its first (reported) victim. The Pathway treats dying patients as members of a category instead of as individuals. Rather than give patients the individualized treatment their respective symptoms and conditions warrant, the Pathway sedates patients thought to be near death, and withholds food and fluids until death. About 16.5% of deaths in the UK are now, apparently, via the Pathway, a far higher percentage than hospice professionals tell me require sedation to control symptoms.
Yesterday, I reported on a case in which a woman misdiagnosed as dying, was spared dehydration only due to the persistence of her daughter. I asked at the time, how many other such cases there are? We now know of at least one–only the ending wasn’t happy. A man misdiagnosed with recurrent cancer was apparently sedated and dehydrated to death. From the story:
A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial ‘death pathway’. Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year-old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers. He died within two weeks. But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back, and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection. To his family’s horror, they were told he could have recovered if he’d been given the correct treatment.
Today, after being given an £18,000 pay-out over her ordeal, his widow Pat branded his treatment ‘barbaric’ and accused the doctors of manslaughter.
If the charges are true, at the very least this is negligent homicide! What does the hospice have to say?
Mrs Jones believes her husband was treated under the Liverpool Care Pathway, but insiders said it was only implemented after he died to help provide comfort to his wife and daughters.
What? A care plan was implemented after he died? That makes zero sense. There needs to be an urgent criminal investigation to find out what’s what.
The bigger question is whether the Pathway will be curtailed so that the lives of other patients are not endangered or cut off from being lived to the last drop by being treated via checklist as members of a category. I doubt it. In the UK–where the NHS is melting down and utilitarian bioethicists have been handed tremendous control over the ethics of care–I am beginning to suspect that the very sick, disabled, and elderly are looked upon as burdens that society can no longer afford.
NEWS SHORTS FOR TUESDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
Senate Finance Committee member Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, talks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
President Barack Obama's plan to remake the nation's health care system is about to take its biggest step yet toward becoming reality.
The pivotal Senate Finance Committee was poised to approve sweeping legislation Tuesday requiring nearly all Americans to purchase insurance and ushering in a host of other changes to the nation's $2.5 trillion medical system. Click here for the full article.
In 1972, when Chief Justice Warren Burger appointed Harry Blackmun to write the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade it was at first rejected. Blackmun at first argued that a woman had a right to do whatever she pleased with her own body. This argument was rejected by Burger because it did not apply to drugs, public nudity, suicide attempts, and so on. It was too unsophisticated an argument for such a difficult case. Blackmun filed for a reargument and waited for Nixon to fill two vacancies on the nine member court (Roe was originally decided with seven). In October, the court heard rearguments with new appointees Powell and Rehnquist. This time Justice Stewart asked Sarah Weddington if it was critical to her case to say that the 14th amendment did not protect the fetus as a "person." Click here for the full article.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (AP Photo)
One day after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops vowed to “vigorously” oppose the health care bill under consideration in Congress if it is not amended to explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortions, the White House for the second time in a week said the bishops are wrong to assert that the bill permits funding of abortion.
White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNSNews.com the bishops do not understand the existing law restricting federal funding of abortion. Click here for the video.
Sandy Springs police have arrested abortionist Daniel E. McBrayer, 58, on charges of punching a woman in the face during an afternoon "road rage" incident last Monday.
Regina Ordaz says that McBrayer got out of his car at the intersection of Roswell and Abernathy roads, walked up to her car as she was stopped at a red light, and struck her in the face. Click here for the full article.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., left, and the committee's ranking Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, center, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during the committee's hearing on health care reform on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (CNSNews.com) – “Pretty much everything’s been said, and now it’s time to get the job done,” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Tuesday as the Senate Finance Committee prepared to vote on the fifth and final Democratic health care bill to emerge on Capitol Hill.
The “Baucus bill” is expected to easily pass the committee, given the Democrats’ 13-10 advantage. With the possible exception of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), all committee Republicans will vote against the bill. Click here for the full article.
Mayor Richard Daley said today he will sign a new ordinance aimed at keeping anti-abortion activists away from patients entering clinics. Daley said the ordinance will “try to make sure nobody is harassed.” The mayor said protesters can express their opinions but “should not harass and scream and yell” at people going into medical facilities. “There has to be some civility left in our society," he said. When a reporter noted that some aldermen voted against the measure, citing their religious beliefs, Daley, who is Catholic, said, “My religion is very personal.” The mayor's decision to sign instead of veto the abortion protester ordinance comes as his office today said it would halt a telephone survey it was conducting on the controversial ordinance. Click here for the full article.
Also... Daley's office pulls plug on abortion protest survey
Mayor Richard Daley's office is abruptly halting a telephone survey it was conducting on a controversial, newly approved City Council ordinance intended to rein in anti-abortion protesters, a top aide said today.
The city had set up a phone line allowing callers to say whether they are for or against the new ordinance, which was approved by aldermen Wednesday and creates eight-foot "bubble zones" around people near medical offices. Source: Chicago Tribune
Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) speaks to students on steps of Capitol. (Congressional photo)
Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, told CNSNews.com that Democrats who oppose government funding of abortion will try to block the health care reform bill from coming to a vote on the House floor unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) allows a floor vote on an amendment to explicitly prohibit abortion funding in the bill.
Stupak was responding to a question from CNSNews.com about White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's contention at Friday's press briefing that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were mistaken in their belief that the Hyde Amendment, which bars abortion funding in each year's Health and Human Services Appropriation, would not apply to the new programs created and funded through the health care bill.
What Stupak wants to do is attach the language of the Hyde Amendment to the health-care bill itself so that abortion funding is permanently and explicitly barred in the federally funded health insurance plans.
"There are many of us Democrats in the House who are philosophically, legally, and morally opposed to public funding for abortions," Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement. "We want the chance to offer our amendment, the Hyde Amendment, on the floor of the House."
"If our amendment is not made in order we will try to shut down the rule, preventing the health care bill from coming to the floor for a vote," Stupack stated. "If the Speaker believes that abortion funding is not in the bill then she should let me have my amendment, because if anything it would just be redundant."
If the rule that would govern debate on the health care bill and stipulate which proposed amendments are eligible for votes on the House floor is defeated by a vote of the House, the health care bill itself would die.
Stupak told Fox News last month he believed he had enough voted lined up to defeat the rule if Speaker Pelosi does not agree to allow a vote on an amendment to explicitly bar abortion funding through the bill.
Stupak (D-Mich.) is co-sponsoring the amendment with Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). It says: "No funds authorized under this Act (or an amendment by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except" in the cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.
The House health care bill as it now stands provides subsidies for people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level to buy government-approved health insurance plans or a government-run "public option" insurance plan in a health insurance "exchange." The secretary of health and human services is required under the bill to ensure that at least one plan in this exchange covers abortions. The secretary may also allow the public option plan to cover abortions.
On the eve of one of the most important votes on health care reform to date, a coalition of pro-life groups has released a new video urging Americans to join an online protest of taxpayer funded abortions at IAM71.org. (View video.)
On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on its version of health care reform legislation that experts say would allow for the public funding for abortions. If successful, it would be the first step toward forcing the American people to fund abortions through a national health care system even though such funding is opposed by 71% of the people, according to a recent Zogby Poll.
"Nearly three quarters of Americans oppose this ill-advised legislation that would force us to violate our consciences by funding abortions with our tax dollars," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who leads the growing coalition of sponsors of the protest which include, the Christian Defense Coalition, Rock for Life, Pro-life Unity, Jill Stanek, the Survivors, and others.
"Even though 71% is a huge majority, most people feel like no one is listening to their deeply held convictions on this matter. The online protest at IAM71.org gives these disenfranchised Americans the opportunity to make their voices heard by Congress in a unique way. We are using the power of the Internet to affect change in our government."
The video, now available on YouTube.com, urges Americans to upload photos of themselves with the number 71 to the IAM71.org website, which will be sent to each member of Congress.
"We are encouraging those who participate to spread the word using e-mail and their social networking sites," said Newman. "We are also urging them to take their protest to the next level by contacting their Senators and Representatives, protesting at their home offices, and writing letters to their local newspapers in opposition to Obama's scheme to force Americans to pay for abortions."
"Public pressure is an effective tool. We pray that the Senators will listen to the 71% of American people, and defeat any bill that does not specifically ban the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions."
Many hospitals and nursing homes in the UK have adopted something called the Liverpool Care Pathway, in which dying patients are sedated–whether or not they need it to control unrelievable pain, apparently–and then denied food and water until death.
Currently about 16.5 percent of deaths in the UK occur while sedated–which is far more than the hospice experts I have talked with have told me is necessary to actually alleviate suffering. Indeed, they tell me sedation is rarely necessary in hospice practice If that is true, and I intend to do some more research on this, the Pathway misuses the legitimate treatment of palliative sedation, and mutates it in some cases into a method of causing death, known as terminal sedation. This means that sedation is sometimes administered, not because the individual patient actually needs the procedure, but because he or she has been reduced to a category member, and that’s how members of the category are treated.
That’s a prescription for disaster. And now, a woman was almost dehydrated to death after being put mistakenly on the Pathway. >From the story:
AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened. Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.
Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.
Why are we surprised? The Pathway is a blunt intstrument, and the uniqueness of each case is lost in the drugs sedating effects. Even though its authors believed they had created a nuanced protocol, that is never how these things are actually applied in clinical practice. Eventually, such “pathways” threaten to transform medicine into a paint-by-the numbers technocracy.
And look at what it took to save Hazel from dehydration:
Fenton was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. Although Ball acknowledged that her mother was very ill she was astonished when a junior doctor told her she was going to be placed on the plan to “make her more comfortable” in her last days. Ball insisted that her mother was not dying but her objections were ignored. A nurse even approached her to say: “What do you want done with your mother’s body?” On January 19, Fenton’s 80th birthday, Ball says her mother was feeling better and chatting to her family, but it took another four days to persuade doctors to give her artificial feeding.
This is a consequence of surrendering care approaches to cost/benefit/best care bureaucratic panels. It becomes an excuse to merely write people off, particularly in a utilitarian environment where “quality of life” may determine the way the patient’s life is perceived by caregivers.
How many Hazel Fosters have died by dehydration who might have lived, or who could have spent their last days–pain controlled but awake and aware–surrounded by family? There is no way to know.
Mayor's Telephone System Overloaded with Negative Response
Within hours after a Chicago ordinance muzzling abortion mill sidewalk counseling passed the City Council Wednesday, hundreds and perhaps thousands of pro-lifers began pushing back against the ordinance, flooding the city government with phone calls against what they call an egregious violation of free speech rights.
Mayor Richard Daley's office has received so many calls over the controversial measure that attempts to reach the mayor by telephone are being immediately transferred to an automated system registering callers' approval or disapproval on the bill.
The Disorderly Conduct Ordinance amendment, introduced by Chicago Alderman Vi Daley on September 9, prohibits pro-life protesters within 50 feet of an abortion mill from approaching within 8 feet of visitors without their consent. Violators of the new law, to go into effect November 17, could be fined up to $500.
The move was greeted heartily by Planned Parenthood of Illinois, who personally lobbied in its favor, saying it balanced "the need to protect patient and staff safety while preserving the freedom of speech."
But pro-life Chicagoans say it would put an effective end to the visible 40 Days for Life campaign in the city. Even the ACLU - known for championing the "right" to abortion over the rights of the unborn - weighed in against the bill as a clear threat to First Amendment rights.
"Eight feet is a very large buffer for a city like Chicago," said Eric Scheidler of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League
Scheidler told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that the ordinance "will actually be devastating to sidewalk counselling in the city" because of the high level of congestion, and sidewalks too narrow to abide by the law "without being driven out of any kind of opportunity to witness to the value of life."
Sources within the city government confirmed that "the phones have been ringing off the hook" with calls opposing to the ordinance, according to Scheidler.
"They even had to set up an automated system, so that's a pretty good sign that people are really calling in," he said. He also noted that, judging by the crowd that rallied before the City Council Wednesday, "an overwhelming majority" of the feedback was in opposition to the ordinance.
Scheidler noted that the bill's wording was dangerously vague, as it failed to specify what constituted enough "consent" from a visitor to allow a pro-lifer to approach without paying the penalty.
"It would have a tremendously chilling effect not only in its practical application," he said, "but in the fear that it raises amongst pro-life witnesses: that they may be breaching this confusing law - a fifty foot zone within which there is an 8 foot zone - and it may cause people to stay away simply out of fear."
He said the Pro-Life Action league planned to continue fighting against the ordinance with a legal brief to the mayor pointing out its unconstitutionality, amid other efforts. While Daley does not need to sign the law, Scheidler said Daley has the power to veto the bill by executive order even after it goes into effect.
Mayor Daley has yet to respond to the outpouring of opposition.
Stand True, Christ-Centered Pro-life, will hold its sixth annual Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Last year students from over 4,700 campuses in 25 countries participated in the event, and Stand True expects even more this year. Last year Stand True heard back from participants about 58 girls who canceled their abortions on the day of the event due to the efforts of the students. These students stand in solidarity with each other to bring attention to the holocaust that is killing almost 4,000 babies every day in the United States alone.
"The students are speaking loud and clear; they want an end to legalized child-killing" said Bryan Kemper, President of Stand True Ministries. "We are getting thousands of e-mails, comments and internet messages from students thanking us for giving them a peaceful way to stand up and be counted."
Here are just a couple of the comments we have received from the students:
"I got one girl to not get an abortion because I took a ZERO in class for this and she started crying. She pulled me into the bathroom and told me she was pregnant and was going to have an abortion and she said because of how much this meant to me she didn't! We both sat in the bathroom and cried for a few min. and she put the baby up for adoption!"
"She's about a month or so pregnant. I have her for a couple of my classes. She kept glancing at my shirt all day and she took a flier. But she didn't say anything. Then today in 6th I was getting up and she came up to me. And in front of the whole classroom she began weeping and fell into my arms. She said she didn't want to have an abortion anymore. She said she wanted to receive Christ right there."
Students will not only remain silent but will also wear red armbands and/or red duct tape on their mouths, and distribute educational flyers to anyone who asks why they are silent. Many home-schooled students will also participate in the event by visiting local malls and other public areas to distribute flyers.
Participating students are instructed to be respectful to teachers and other officials and to speak with them when required.
"Thousands of American babies are permanently silenced every day by the violent act of abortion," said Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director of Students for Life. "This is a day for pro-life students to honor those children as they stay silent as an act of solidarity with these innocent victims."
"This is a way for us to challenge students of all ages to be bold advocates for the almost 4,000 pre-born who are murdered every day in our country," said Timmerie Millington of Survivors. "They have an opportunity to stand with their fellow classmates and an obligation to be a voice for the voiceless. By standing in united solidarity across the world, students everywhere can identify with the preborn children, and our silence will proclaim 'stop killing our generation!' We can and must be warriors for the preborn!"
Over the past few years many schools have tried to stop students from participating and have tried to quash their First Amendment rights. Every year, attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund defend these students and file lawsuits to protect their rights.
There is no cost to participate in the event. Flyers are available for download in PDF format at www.silentday.org. Students can also follow the event on twitter at www.twitter.com/prolifeday
Legal help for students involved is available from the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org or 1-800-TELL-ADF).
