Writing on behalf of his colleagues, Steve Brinn wrote a letter to the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer to express dismay over Haskell's move next door to their practice in Sharonville, Ohio.
"Imagine our shock and disbelief, when we learned that an abortion clinic was opening in the building 50-feet from our front door," Brinn said in his letter, which was published Nov. 27. "Why would a clinic performing abortions be so insensitive to a group practice treating children for 31 years?
"To have a group of OB/GYN doctors terminating fetuses just outside our door, to force our mothers and their babies drive through a common driveway, driving by the front of an abortion clinic, in order to park in our lot to have their babies cared for is an atrocity. We are here to prevent infant diseases, and they are here to end infant lives. We may not have the legal right to get them to move but we will do anything in our power to vocalize our personal disgust with their mission."
Haskell shut down his Cincinnati clinic and moved next door to Liberty Sharonville Pediatrics, according to LifeNews.com.
In the 1990s, Haskell became identified with a gruesome procedure that came to be known as "partial-birth abortion." He described it in a 1992 paper he presented at a seminar sponsored by the National Abortion Federation.
The procedure typically consisted of the delivery of an intact baby feet-first until only the head is left in the birth canal. The doctor pierced the base of the infant's skull with surgical scissors, then inserted a catheter into the opening and suctioned out the brain. The collapse of the skull provided for easier removal of the baby's head. This method typically was used during the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy.
The National Right to Life Committee obtained Haskell's paper in early 1993 and initiated a campaign to outlaw the procedure. After President Clinton twice vetoed legislation to ban the method, President Bush signed it into law in 2003. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law in 2007.
Contact: Tom Strode Source: Baptist Press
Publish Date: December 29, 2010
Obama Medicare chief Dr. Donald Berwick
"If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." -- Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol
Sarah Palin was right.
John Boehner -- make that Speaker-elect of the House John Boehner -- was right.
While Americans were busy celebrating with family and friends and presumably not paying attention to the news, the New York Times, in a story ironically dated Christmas Day -- a holiday celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace -- reported the following:
Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir
WASHINGTON -- When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over "death panels," Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.
In other words, the 2009 charge leveled by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the then-House Minority Leader Boehner that Obama fully intended to set up what Palin termed government "death panels" -- panels that Boehner said would set the government on the road to euthanasia -- is no longer a charge.
It's reality. By executive fiat -- in this case a new Medicare rule issued by Obama Medicare chief Dr. Donald Berwick.
Palin, who made the charge on her Facebook page on August 7, 2009 during the health care debates, came under a fusillade of scornful and demeaning political attacks from political opponents after pointedly saying this about the prospect of death panels:
And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Her famous sharp criticism was enough for the plan to be quickly dropped by Congress.
Now, with Americans absorbed in a festive holiday and ignoring Washington momentarily, the Obama administration has found a way to achieve its death panel goal anyway, as the Times now admits. Says the paper of the new Christmas death panel regulation that replaces medical science and voluntary private judgment with the inevitable pressure of politicized health care :
Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats' bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.
Which is another way of saying something else:
Governor Palin has been vindicated. Speaker Boehner has been vindicated.
And Palin's critics in particular now have more than holiday eggnog all over their faces. Obama's Dr. Berwick has re-ignited one of the most hotly controversial issues of the entire health care debate just as a conservative ascendancy prepares to take power in the next Congress. With no less than Boehner himself taking the gavel from Nancy Pelosi as the new Speaker of the House.
What does this new rule say and do, exactly?
It inserts the federal government in end-of-life planning, precisely as Palin said was Obama's intention. Not, as was true of its original legislative formulation, every five years. But annually. No one of any sense objects to an individual and doctor having end-of-life discussions about living wills and such whenever they wish. Only the Obama administration and its obsession for control wants the government to incentivize the issue so that doctors must raise it annually, a system that on its face pressures the most deeply vulnerable of Americans in the most Orwellian of terms to end their lives.
Control and pressure. Pressure and control. This is the only two-step philosophical/political dance liberals know. It is, as it were, primal. And the Berwick Medicare rule, constructed in secret and released on Christmas Day when it no one is looking, is a perfect example -- if hardly the only example -- of how the Obama Administration views its role. Control and pressure. Pressure… and control.
Versus the conservative concept (shorthand version) of liberty and freedom.
Says the Times of the Obama Administration's justification for its secretive move to mandate death panels by regulatory fiat:
In this case, the administration said research had shown the value of end-of-life planning.
Research? What research could possibly justify a government-sponsored annual attempt to pressure a poor, disabled, or elderly American into believing that they would be better off dead because they're costing society too much money?
British research. Says the Times:
"Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives," the administration said in the preamble to the Medicare regulation, quoting research published this year in the British Medical Journal."
You read that right.
British research is being cited in the preamble of this Medicare death panel rule as a justification for the new rule -- a stunning turn of events that will surely launch a firestorm over trying to remodel the American health care system after the hotly criticized British health care system. A system that makes no pretense of politically rationed health care.
Part of the furor launched over Palin's remarks was the discovery by millions of frightened Americans that Obama health care bureaucrats admired the British health care system -- where the government in fact rations health care on a political basis and decides who should live or die based on what is called the "QALY" -- Quality-Adjusted Life Year. This has been discussed previously in this space -- in fact just over a week before Governor Palin wrote her Facebook statement. It has also been discussed by health care consultant David Catron here where he explained how the QALY system worked.
In Catron's words: "A year of perfect health, for example, is given a value of 1.0 while a year of sub-optimum health is rated between 0 and 1. If you are confined to a wheelchair, a year of your life might be valued at half that of your ambulatory neighbor. If you are blind or deaf, you also score low. All that remains is to assign a specific dollar value to the QALY and, voilà, your life has a price tag."
Princeton's controversial Dr. Peter Singer, a liberal and big believer in the British health care system, happily related the British politicization of medical decisions in a New York Times Magazine article during all of this, an instance in which "Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence gave a preliminary recommendation that the National Health Service should not offer Sutent for advanced kidney cancer." Why? The government said it was too expensive and therefore simply denied the drug. This in turn led to a furious reaction even from stiff-upper-lip Brits with charges their government was "immoral" and willing to let patients die. Grudgingly, the drug was eventually approved. But not before one angry British woman, whose husband's life was at stake, angrily asked: "What price is life?"
As this is written the Obama Food and Drug Administration is now taking Americans down this same path, rejecting the breast cancer drug Avastin with what many are citing as unbelievable science -- but very believable political concerns that the drug is, in the bureaucrats' view, too expensive. Thereby inserting the judgment of political bureaucrats for medical science -- and the freedom of patients to order the drug. Here's this from the Heartland Institute:
According to Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, the FDA's decision is not based on the best outcome for patients but instead on the expense of Avastin, produced by Genentech, which can run as high as $90,000 per year for a single patient.
The FDA claims its decision had nothing to do with Avastin's cost and was based solely on the drug's medical effectiveness," Pipes said. "This isn't believable. Every year about 40,000 American women die from breast cancer. Avastin is the last hope for many not to meet that fate. While the drug is costly, it often provides immense benefits to patients.
Somewhere an American woman with breast cancer is surely saying the same thing as her British counterpart: "What price is life?"
Singer had an answer. Really. Said the famous Bioethics professor: "Life as a whole has no meaning. Life began, as the best available theories tell us, in a chance combination of gasses; it then evolved through random mutation and natural selection. All this just happened; it did not happen to any overall purpose."
Thus, since life really has no overall purpose, the government should be in the business of using Medicare to pressure the poor, the disabled and the elderly that -- nudge, nudge -- isn't it time to bid the planet hasta la vista?
WHICH BRINGS US TO DR. DONALD BERWICK himself, the Obama administration's Medicare recess-appointed head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Dr. Berwick personally issued the Christmas Death Panel Rule, confirming in spades why he received a recess appointment from Obama. It was clear to Senate Democrats that Berwick's chances of surviving a Senate confirmation battle were iffy at best. Why? Precisely because Berwick was well on record as expressing his deep admiration -- make that lust -- for the British government run system, saying: "I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times."
So Obama waited until he could skip a Senate debate and vote entirely and just recess-appoint Berwick -- who in turn is doing exactly what his record suggested he would do.
Sure enough, the philosophy used by the British is precisely what Berwick used to describe the new Berwick Rule. Reported the Times of Berwick:
"Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault," Dr. Berwick has said. "In economic terms, it is waste. Several techniques, including advance directives and involvement of patients and families in decision-making, have been shown to reduce inappropriate care at the end of life, leading to both lower cost and more humane care."
So.
What do we have here?
• The death panels were written into the original version of ObamaCare.
• Governor Palin, speaking out in her famous Facebook post, pulled back the shroud surrounding this horrifying idea. Less noticed at the time -- but undoubtedly a headline grabber now -- Minority Leader Boehner agreed, citing alarm over government sponsored euthanasia. Said Boehner:
Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration" and other end of life treatments, and may place seniors in situations where they feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign. This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law.
Obama protested he had no intention of "pulling the plug on Grandma" -- but the idea, embodied in Section 1233 of the House version of the bill, was pulled from the final bill in part because of Palin's -- and Boehner's -- focused attention.
• Obama installs Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Medicare program as a recess appointment because Berwick's controversial enthusiastic embrace of the British health care system and its death panel procedures would have prevented his confirmation.
• On Christmas day 2010, the Times reports the death panel idea will become a Medicare rule on January 1, 2011 -- that would be four days from today. How? By fiat. As a government Medicare "rule" or "regulation" as put forth by the government agency now run by Dr. Berwick. The rule is justified because Berwick believes the government must "reduce inappropriate care at the end of life" A Berwick spokesman says the government should be saying to elderly patients, vulnerable patients, disabled patients -- patients like Sarah Palin's famous Down's syndrome son: "When the time comes, do you want us to use technology to try and delay your death?" Nudge.
• Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, a pro-life educational organization, says of the new rule: "The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking. Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life."
Oh yes. Did we mention no one was supposed to know about all of this?
Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the Oregon Democrat who wrote the original provision in the House version of ObamaCare that was unmasked by Sarah Palin, has put the word out to his allies. Says the Congressman's office in an e-mail to his allies:
While we are very happy with the result, we won't be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren't out of the woods yet. This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the "death panel" myth.
We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are "supporters" -- e-mails can too easily be forwarded…Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.
No wonder Blumenauer wants to keep this quiet.
Did you catch that word "us" in the sentence from Dr. Berwick's spokesperson?
Here's the sentence again:
When the time comes, do you want us to use technology to try and delay your death?
The word "us" refers not to a doctor and his patient. It refers to the government..
When Obama health care adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel was cited by longtime health care expert Betsy McCaughey as discussing the idea that patients with dementia should be denied treatment, Emanuel's defenders (he is also the brother of ex-Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel) floated a Time magazine story saying Emanuel "only mentioned dementia in a discussion of theoretical approaches, not an endorsement of a particular policy." Oblivious to the fact that that no less than the President himself expressed a version of the same sentiment (as has Berwick) when he went on national television to answer a woman's observation that at over a hundred her mother was very vital with a lot of spirit, and shouldn't that be taken into account in any government health care decision? Said Obama: "I don't think that we can make judgments based on peoples' spirit. That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules...."
Government rules. Like the rule just issued by Dr. Berwick.
A rule that effectively is now going to bully individuals -- doubtless many of them poor, disabled or elderly. Ironically creating a system where you will only escape Obama's government sponsored Big Chill if you are, say, a rich liberal.
In effect the administration is trying to bully Congress by making an end-run with a regulation because Congress said no to Section 1233.
The Heritage Foundation has accurately noted yesterday that, quite aside from the substance here -- the new Berwick death panel rule or the FCC's new net neutrality rules and so on -- the real issue is the Obama administration's clear intent to govern by executive fiat now that it has lost control of the House and, effectively, the Senate as well. Government-by-Obama fiat will be the subject of a furious struggle in the new Congress.
Says Heritage by way of focusing on a return to government by elected officials rather than a central government of rule-making un-elected bureaucrats:
"There is also the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to review and overrule regulations issued by government agencies."
Which is to say, the Berwick rule can be undone -- if the Congress orders it undone.
This episode is a reminder that Governor Palin took a lot of heat for bringing attention to this issue. No one expects her critics -- now proven wrong by Berwick -- to give her any credit for being right. Or for that matter to the new Speaker Boehner.
But the fact remains that Palin has shown leadership here -- one might call it presidential-style leadership -- in persisting with an issue that is now coming back to bite the American people in the form of a new Medicare rule on death panels -- reported of all days on Christmas day.
No wonder John Boehner will be Speaker of the House.
An advocate for life hopes lawmakers will respond to a group of pro-lifers when they head to Washington, DC, in the wake of the New Year.
Heartbeat International is planning to return to Washington with its "Babies Go to Congress" event, which will take place after the March for Life next month to highlight the importance of pregnancy crisis centers and to promote the right to life.
Norma Murakami of A Women's Care Center in Chino Hills, California, says pregnancy centers and the pro-life presence in the nation's capital always threaten the abortion industry.
Norma Murakami"They're open for business to help these girls, and women and men make decisions to keep their babies. Well, what that does is it really hurts the pocketbook of Planned Parenthood and family planning," she explains. "They know that; the abortion industry knows that."
When pro-life advocates meet with members of Congress on January 25, 2011, Murakami hopes she will be able to speak with pro-abortion legislators.
"It was proven this last election that there is a wave across the country. Really, people do not want abortion; they don't think it's okay," she reports. "The secular media would like us believe it's okay [and that] the country is for it."
Murakami says she is privileged to represent California, and she hopes the state will change its mind on the issue of abortion.
Contact: Becky Yeh Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 28, 2010
The Washington Board of Pharmacy says it won't provide conscience protections for pharmacies or pharmacists after all.
With the threat of lawsuits, the board had begun moving in the direction of providing the protections for pharmacists who, for religious reasons, do not want to deal with contraceptives or the "morning-after" pill. Now, Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington tells OneNewsNow the board has stopped the rule-making process.
Joseph Backholm (Family Policy Institute of Washington)"It was a lawsuit against the state on behalf of several pharmacists that will now likely move forward," Backholm explains. "It had been suspended once it looked like the Board of Pharmacy was going to provide a right of referral. And now they are not going to do so -- and there's a possibility that that lawsuit moves ahead."
In addition, says the family advocate, proponents of conscience protections might approach the legislature or seek an initiative to put it on a future ballot. Backholm emphasizes, however, that the issue is not about abortion, but about freedom.
"Every business owner should believe that they have the right to decide what they want to sell and at what price they want to sell it," he argues. "And the government doesn't get to come in and tell them: 'Well no, we really like this product and we want to make sure that the people in your area can buy this at a given price, and so we're going to make you do it or else you don't get to be in business' -- which is what they're telling pharmacists right now."
He adds that the state is essentially saying business owners cannot run their businesses according to their consciences, but according to that of the government.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 28, 2010
As we approach the end of 2010, it seems only natural to reflect back on why we do what we do. These reflections are important not only for us veterans of the struggle to protect the unborn but also for newcomers, fresh to the fray.
If you read blogs--which almost everyone does nowadays--it's not uncommon to run across back and forths on what we call the "pro-life basics." What's fascinating is that while some of the lyrics change, the music never changes.
When they get warmed up pro-abortionists love to argue the secular equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They affect a position of scholarly inquiry, a kind of academic disinterestedness, to leave the impression they are merely in the pursuit of truth. That's why they ask question after question, thinking that if you can't answer every one to THEIR satisfaction, they have carried the field.
But, of course, most of the inquiries reek of insincerity. And, more important, they often confuse questions of fact with questions of moral judgment.
To take only one example, when human egg and sperm unite we have a new member of the species Homo sapiens. That is simple biological fact. Whether you protect that new member--whether you decide to fence him or her inside or outside the community--is a matter of moral and ethical judgment. (PS When sperm and egg unite, you do NOT have a "fertilized egg.")
I read an interesting exchange from ten days ago in which one pro-lifer patiently went through a series of inquiries and--to my mind--successfully answered all of them. But the most interesting thing he had to say came at the end:
"It's worth noting that my viewpoints are mundane moral opinions derived from several millennia of Judeo-Christian morality and until a century and a half ago these moral principles were held by the vast majority of people in the West. That educated people like [the person he was responding to] are surprised and confused by mere affirmation of the moral framework of Western Civilization is a commentary on the times in which we live."
One other thought. At each NRLC convention two long-time members of the staff of NRLC conduct a workshop (always overflowing with attendees) titled.
"When They Say, You Say." One observer summarized the single most important point made this way:
"It was based on the principle that communication is 60 percent how you look – whether you're smiling, your body language – 30 percent how you say something, and only 10 percent the actual words you use."
This not going against what I wrote in the first ten paragraphs of this blog. What I am saying is that you can have the best arguments in the world--and we do--and still fall short if your audience (be it a single person of thousands) finds you stiff, seemingly uncaring, and/or acting as if this life-and-death topic is an intellectual or academic exercise.
Fortunately, for us, this is not a problem. We care passionately--about both mother and child--which is the key reason people will listen to what we have to say even if they are initially not predisposed to listening to us.
Contact: Dave Andrusko Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 27, 2010
The bureaucracy promulgated a rule paying doctors for end of life counseling. The original Obamacare legislation had provisions in this regard, which were taken out in order to pass the final bill. I was going to comment on it here at SHS, but The Corner asked my views, so I did it there. From my post:
When I learned that the federal bureaucracy had promulgated a rule compensating physicians for the time they spend counseling patients on end-of-life health-care decisions, I wasn't surprised. A similar provision was dropped from the Obamacare bill, but anyone who understands the profoundly bureaucratic nature of contemporary government knew that that was not necessarily the end of it. The 2,700-page law is destined — if it is not rolled way back or repealed — to generate over 100,000 pages of enabling regulations. In such a milieu, that which can't be obtained legislatively, can often be gotten through the bureaucratic back door. In fact, as I've noted elsewhere, one commission created by the law, the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board, can even enact laws over the president's veto.
Paying doctors to have this conversation is not alarming so long as it is voluntary and not coercive. But the original bill had real problems in this regard:
The original policy became controversial out of the reasonable fear that in the drive to cut costs, the "counseling" could become "pressure" to refuse care. The assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices, for example, bragged that it helped author the legislative provision — which would also have permitted outside experts to be delegated the counseling task. I am convinced that Compassion and Choices hopes to become the Planned Parenthood of death, and being paid by the government to counsel on end-of-life decisions would be a big step in that direction. Then there was a political struggle to ensure that the funded counseling was "voluntary," which was not clear in the original legislation but is explicit in the new regulation. This may sound like a far-fetched concern, but medical coercion and persuasion regarding death decisions is not unknown in health care. For example, responding to studies showing that genetic counselors often push the abortion option for women whose unborn children test positive for genetic anomalies such as Down syndrome or dwarfism…
Finally, there was the "death panel" accusation:
The end-of-life-counseling provisions in the original bill first became controversial because they were mistakenly thought to be mandatory, sparking Sarah Palin's political thunder-stroke accusation of "death panels," a charge Obamacare has still not shaken. The counseling requirement would not have established death panels per se, although, as Palin later noted, the many cost/benefit boards in Obamacare could be used as vehicles for health-care rationing — which if authorized to deny life-sustaining or -extending treatment to save money, could indeed qualify as death panels. But that is a subject for another day.
Many "form" advance directives make it easy to refuse treatment, but harder to ask for it. That too is a problem for discussion on another day.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: December 27, 2010
Margaret Forrester
The rationale used to suspend mental health worker Margaret Forrester was that she was "distributing materials some people may find offensive," seven words lifted from Britain's National Health Service (NHS). The "materials" was a booklet titled "Forsaken--Women From Taunton Talk About Abortion," which is composed of the stories of five women who experienced post-abortion syndrome. The material was informally shared with a colleague last month, not patients, according to the Daily Telegraph.
After a preliminary disciplinary hearing, Miss Forrester told reporters, "The big question they kept asking me was, would I do it again? But I don't think I've done anything wrong, personally or professionally. What I did was not unethical or unprofessional."
She added, "It is about my right to freedom of expression, and freedom of religious belief. There is an authoritarian management at work here, which is encroaching on very basic freedoms. It is a kangaroo court."
Forrester, 39, faces another hearing in January "when, she has been warned, she could be sacked from her job as a psychological wellbeing practitioner for Central North West London Mental Health Trust," according to the Telegraph.
"'The fact that you cannot have an informal discussion with a colleague in the interests of patient care seems unbelievable,' she told the Newspaper. 'I think it is likely that I will be fired.'"
Forrester shared the information because she said she felt the NHS did not give enough information about potential risks associated with abortion. She has worked for the NHS for six years.
"The case is the latest example of Christians who have faced disciplinary action from employers after expressing religious views," the Daily Mail reported.
She told the Mail, "My pro-life views do come from my Christian belief, but a lot of people have a religion. It's not a criminal offence." Forrrester added, "It's in the patient's best interest."
A few days after sharing the booklet, Forrester said she was summoned by her manager and told she was being sent home on 'special leave with full pay' while the trust investigated the incident," the Mail reported. Although ordered to stay away from any NHS site, she said she was later told to go back to work--that she hadn't been suspended.
But Forrester told the Mail she was "put on other duties, which she found 'bullying and offensive', adding: 'I felt physically sickened by their bullying. It shouldn't happen in 21st century Britain.'"
Forrester "eventually signed off on sick leave, and has not been back to the health centre since," according to the Mail.
Contact: Dave Andrusko Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 23, 2010
According to Entertainment Weekly, MTV's December 28 abortion reality show "will tackle all sides of the issue."
This apparently means the pro-life perspective will simply get tackled.
The new website, 16 and Loved, sponsored by the pro-abortion group Exhale, states MTV collaborated with it for the program:
16 & Loved is a campaign to give our public support to the 3 young women who told their abortion story on the MTV special – "No Easy Decision" – created for the popular series "16 & Pregnant."…
16 & Loved is brought to you by Exhale, a nonprofit organization which provides the 1st and only national, multilingual after-abortion talkline. We partnered with MTV on the special….
What's more, the "No Easy Decision" website links only to pro-abortion groups (including The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and, of course, Planned Parenthood) and false and dangerous contraceptive propaganda….
Actually, according to Guttmacher, the pregnancy failure rate of condoms is 17.4%, never mind the failure rate for STDs, some of those deadly.
What's more, pro-abort blog Jezebel reports:
They've also gotten feminist bloggers like Jessica Valenti, Lynn Harris, and Steph Herold (disclosure: all friends of the site and this writer) to live-blog or tweet the show. There will also be a Women's Media Center watch-in.
16 and Loved's Facebook page inadvertently shows how pro-lifers can attempt to balance the spin:
Follow the conversation live on Twitter with the hashtags #16andloved, #WMCwatchin, and #provoice.
Pro-life tweeters can use those same hashtags as well.
Pro-lifers should also contact MTV to express disapproval that pro-life groups were not also contacted to "partner" on this show, if MTV were truly interested in balance. While MTV makes it difficult to email complaints (perhaps someone will have better luck finding an email address), it does host a community forum at which pro-lifers can certainly express themselves.
And while the pro-abortion side focuses on showing approval and love to a teen who has aborted, the pro-life message is to love both the teen and her baby. It does not have to be either-or.
Contact: Jill Stanek Source: JillStanek.com Publish Date: December 27, 2010
Pro-lifers crashed the "holiday" parties of NARAL and DC Abortion Fund to deliver the message that you cannot murder innocent babies in the womb and celebrate Christmas without making a complete mockery of the Christ Child. These are the very same people who would kill the baby Jesus, given some of Mary's circumstances.
Christ said: "Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers, you have done to ME."
Is it YouTube's policy to prevent free speech? YouTube allows some of the most disgusting videos, but these two videos were pulled because "content violated YouTube's Terms of Service" and because the apparently violated "YouTube's policy on shocking and disgusting content."
See both videos:
NARAL Disruption and DC Abortion Fund Disruption:
Statement of Gary Boisclair, Insurrecta Nex DC Chapter
"The people at NARAL and DC Abortion Fund have celebrated their selfish, deceptive, wicked ideas and called it a holiday party. We at Insurrecta Nex love them too much to fail to tell them the truth.
"These enemies of life and of God's law will have no rest until they repent. We will not cease to publicize the fact that they are murdering babies. People who are determined to support the murder of the most defenseless must listen to the Voice of Truth, the Baby born in Bethlehem."
Statement of Andrew Beacham, Insurrecta Nex DC Chapter
"YouTube has consistently discriminated against the Pro-Life message and objective Truth by censoring Pro-Life videos submitted to their website, including three of our recent submissions. YouTube allows obscene, perverse, and graphic videos to remain on their website, but not our videos which are educational, a documentation of history and newsworthy.
"The D.C. Abortion Fund and LOYL (League Of Young Leaders), NARAL's young professionals group, both threw 'holiday parties' that were fundraisers and were open to the public. Both groups have public pages...and public event pages on Facebook. If anyone wants to see who is supporting, raising money, or attending these events they only need to look the events page up on each groups' Facebook page.
"Dear YouTube, There is no violation of privacy when they make their face and views public. Murder is murder and it does not matter if it happens in public or in private. We will all know who you are eventually. Remember Nuremburg?"
Statement of David Lewis, Insurrecta Nex DC Chapter
"I wanted to let them know that being involved directly or indirectly with the murder of children is a sin against Almighty God and man. What I did was an act of mercy to the people involved financially or otherwise with child killing.
"I am shocked in the cowardice of YouTube. The fact that they would leave pornography and other garbage untouched and would pull our video down is a mockery of truth and justice."
Contact: Catherine Veritas Publish Date: December 23, 2010
The Kansas Board of Healing Arts is planning to hold disciplinary hearings for an abortionist in May.
The hearings for Kristin Neuhaus have been delayed from the original scheduled dates of December 20 and January 11. The disciplinary hearing will be conducted in a trial-like format.
"Kristin Neuhaus was an abortionist who was disciplined because she forced an abortion on a girl several years ago, so that forced her to close her own abortion clinic," Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullinger tells of the abortionist's history.
Ann Kristin NeuhausSo with her own business shut down, Neuhaus went to work for late-term abortionist George Tiller of Wichita, who, according to state law, needed another doctor to sign off on late-term abortions to provide medical confirmation that a need existed for the procedure. But Operation Rescue contends that Neuhaus broke the stringent state law in her illegal financial affiliation with Tiller.
"It's more of the same with her, more of what she's been previously disciplined for -- not making adequate patient interviews, not taking adequate patient histories, not doing enough to come to the diagnosis that she came to [and] not recording the diagnosis," Sullinger explains.
The pro-life spokeswoman notes 11 documented cases in which Neuhaus helped kill viable babies who should have been protected by law. The four-day hearing is now set for May 3.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 27, 2010
Christian author and pro-life apologist Randy Alcorn has responded to this December 14 Associated Press story:
An Aberdeen [Washington] doctor who admitted misconduct with an abortion will keep his license under an agreement with WA regulators…
Dr. John Eiland will pay a $3,000 fine, attend ethics training and be on probation for 3 years. He's an obstetrician and gynecologist with the Grays Harbor Women's Clinic.
The state Health Dept. accused him in February of having an improper relationship with a co-worker in 2006 when he worked at Providence Centralia Hospital. Investigators said he performed an abortion on the woman when she became pregnant. He failed to refer her to another doctor or keep records of her treatment.
Alcorn's enlightening response, on Facebook:
Here is the true story of a licensed physician who kills babies for a living. He has an adulterous relationship with a hospital employee. (What a surprise that a child-killer would act unethically). Then when she becomes pregnant, he performs an abortion on her. He did all this undercover, not keeping records of her treatment because it would have incriminated him. (Imagine a professional child-killer killing his own child to cover up his sins. What a shock!)
Dr. Eiland was found guilty of all this by the state Health Dept. And what is his punishment? Being dismembered like the thousands he has killed? Imprisonment? Loss of his medical license? No. A small fine equal to what he makes in an hour killing children. Plus, he will be on probation 3 years and have to attend "ethics training." This means he can go right on killing other people's children and being well paid to do so.
Is this not a hideous irony? First, why should anyone be surprised that a man who kills children for a living would have a sexually inappropriate relationship with a co-worker and try to cover it up by murdering his own child? This is a man who has spent his life accumulating substantial wealth by murdering other people's children. He does this not occasionally, but daily.
And what message does the WA State Health Dept. send when he is caught doing this? That his biggest crime was this: failing to keep records of his child-killing and failing to refer the killing of his child to be done by one of his colleagues. (It would have been perfectly fine for him to kill one of their children in exchange for them killing one of his, as long as proper records were kept.)
The ultimate irony is the way the authorities attempt to take the moral high ground. The man will be given "ethics training." The way the health department has deemed best to deal with a licensed child-killer is not to eliminate child killing. It is not to take away his license to kill children. It is to send him to an ethics class so that in the future he can kill children without being unethical.
Whom shall we send next to an ethics class? Serial killers? If it seems offensive to even say such a thing, what is an abortionist if not a serial killer? Does the fact that society declares it legal for him to kill children, and the fact that he is well paid by others to do so, in any way change the humanity of the child he is killing, or the moral repugnance of what he is doing in the sight of a holy God?
Shame on the medical profession for calling cold-blooded killers "physicians." Shame on America for arrogantly regarding ourselves as a civilized nation while we endorse the killing of our children. And shame on all Christians who look the other way and pretend babies aren't dying. And shame on all those, including Christians, who year after year go right on supporting political figures who continue to advocate the killing of innocent unborn children.
God help us. We deserve only his judgment, but may he be merciful to us. And may we use what time we have left to repent.
Contact: Jill Stanek Source: JillStanek.com Publish Date: December 27, 2010
NRLC President Dr. Wanda Franz
When I had my first baby forty years ago, I was told that he could not feel or "register" pain like adults. When he was a few days old, I had to hold him in order for the medical personnel to "stick" his heel repeatedly with a razor-blade-like instrument in order to draw blood. It was obvious to me that he felt this procedure as a painful stimulus.
What were the signs that told me he felt pain? First of all, he screamed loudly. As the procedure was repeated, he tried to pull his foot away, and the technician had to hold on tightly to the little foot. Finally, he turned very red and sweated profusely. When the procedure was over, I fed him and he fell asleep for an extended period.
Meanwhile, I was being told by the doctors that he felt no pain. How could the medical personnel have seen what I saw, yet still claim that newborn babies do not feel pain? They always implied that mothers were too emotionally-involved to be able to evaluate, with scientific accuracy, what we were seeing.
Although I was a mother, I was also a developmental psychologist; and I had learned something about doing evaluations on newborn babies. Eventually, the doctors got the scientific evidence they needed to be able to see what I was seeing.
The problem with recognizing pain is to understand how pain works. Pain is what one feels as a result of some kind of event from outside being monitored by the body. The nervous system brings the stimulus into the body to the brain where it is registered, that is, felt. We can't see that part of the event. What we see is the response to the pain. However, the response of the body to the pain is managed by different nervous pathways than those used for experiencing the pain.
The ability of the individual to respond to the pain is affected by many different things. A person may be sick, under the effect of medications, or distracted by other events, which can limit the ability to respond. A very important factor in the response to pain is the developmental maturity of the individual. Babies have, what developmental psychologists call, a "limited behavioral repertoire." That is, babies can cry and pull away, but they can't speak and express their anger at being hurt. Babies can't do the things that adults can do to demonstrate that they are in pain.
In other words, all of us, including the doctors taking blood from my baby, rely on the behavioral response of the person to determine whether or not they think that person is in pain. It is easy to mis-read the cues the person is giving us. The baby's behavior alone wasn't enough to give the doctors the idea that the baby was really hurting.
Since I had my experience with my first baby, we have learned a lot more about pain, and we have new ways of assessing its presence or absence. For example, we now know that pain causes stress hormones to be released into a person's bloodstream. It is possible to measure how much pain a person is feeling by measuring the amount of hormones in the person's blood.
That is the same stress response that causes a person in pain to turn red and sweat, just as my baby did. There is no question that those symptoms are further signs that he was in pain. I had assumed that, while it was certainly unpleasant, that it would pass and be forgotten leaving no negative side-effects. However, research suggests that the effects of experiencing pain in infancy can be more negative than one would have expected.
Contact: Dr. Wanda Franz Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 22, 2010
Planned Parenthood Federation of America's government funding keeps mounting.
Its recently released report for the 2008-09 year showed the country's leading abortion provider received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts. That compares with $349.6 million in such funding received during 2007-08. The figures are based on a financial year that goes from July to June.
Planned Parenthood's total revenue in 2008-09 was $1.1 billion, according to the report. Its revenue from the previous year was $1.04 billion.
Planned Parenthood affiliates performed 324,008 abortions in 2008, the latest year for which statistics have been reported by the organization. That was an increase of nearly 19,000 abortions from the previous year.
Pro-life legislators are expected to make a renewed effort in the next session of Congress to pass a bill that would withhold Title X funds from PPFA and other abortion providers. Title X is the federal government's family planning program.
"It is morally wrong to end an unborn human life by abortion. It is also morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use those funds to promote abortion," Rep. Mike Pence, R.-Ind., said in a written statement Dec. 18. Pence is the sponsor of the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act.
"Planned Parenthood's own report shows that the largest abortion provider in America is being bankrolled by American taxpayers," Pence said. "With a nearly 10 percent unemployment rate, there is simply no reason during these tough economic times why taxpayers' hard-earned money should fund the activities of abortion providers and equip them with the resources they need to end innocent human life."
Contact: Tom Strode Source: Baptist Press
Publish Date: December 22, 2010
Clinic escorts for the Summit Women's Abortion Center
A Detroit pro-life counselor is taking exception to a court ruling against him.
According to Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, the court ruling that requires Chris Coatney to stay at least 100 feet away from the Summit Women's Center in Detroit stems from an incident in which the abortion clinic manager followed the pro-lifer to a service station before she sought a protective order and lied in her testimony as she claimed Coatney was the one who stalked her.
Tom Brejcha (TMS)"The transcript shows that the abortion clinic proprietor actually said under oath... 'Judge, he has these signs. And you can't see; he might, for all I know, have been holding a gun underneath one of the signs,'" the attorney reports.
But though the claims are "absolutely outrageous" and "purely hypothetical," the court went along with what Brejcha contends is a lie.
"This is not a man who uses guns," the Thomas More Society attorney assures. "He uses his religious faith in his zeal for the gospel to try and persuade people to do the right thing and save their babies' lives."
Meanwhile, Coatney says he has video evidence that shows the clinic workers were stalking him, so Brejcha's group is looking into legal avenues to challenge the court's current ruling.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 23, 2010
Oregon may be about to pass a law that puts a patient's end of life desires into a computer registry. From the story:
Oregon is making it easier for the seriously ill to voluntarily make their wishes known about end-of-life care by creating an electronic database that first responders can quickly check during a medical emergency. At least two other states—West Virginia and New York—are developing similar systems, which are an outgrowth of signed paper forms. Known as physician orders for life-sustaining treatment, or Polst, the forms are supposed to direct all health-care providers about the type of care a patient wants to receive.
Paper-based systems are in use or in development in 33 states. Many people put the papers on their refrigerators or some other prominent location in their homes. But paper forms are sometimes overlooked or lost. The electronic systems aim to make the information in these forms—such as whether a patient wants a feeding tube or even to be taken to a hospital at all—more readily available to an emergency worker, through a phone call or the Internet.
I have no problem with this in theory and under restricted conditions such as hospice. But we must be careful. I think there should be a complete exclusion from suspected suicides from this plan. In other words, no emergency response or medical team should be required to stand back and allow a person attempting suicide to die–whether or not part of a legalized assisted suicide regimen–otherwise they become complicit in the death. Indeed, no one should have the right to force another to participate in their self destruction.
Think that would never happen? It already has in the UK. Even though she could have been saved, Kerrie Woolteron was allowed to die by doctors after she drank anti freeze. Why? When the ambulance brought her to the ER, she had a note pinned to her clothes stating she didn't want to be treated. And so, even though she was mentally disturbed and had many suicide attempts on her record, the doctors just stood back and watched her die painfully over a 24 hour period. Disgraceful–and approved by the Coroner's Inquest.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: December 22, 2010
Euthanasia is in the air. We see stories of disabled people in the UK being assisted in suicide. and the prosecutors look the other way. The Dutch are debating whether the elderly "tired of life" should allowed access to assisted suicide. The Swiss Supreme Court declared assisted suicide for the mentally ill. Dutch and Belgian doctors–and in Belgium, nurses–commit euthanasia without request or consent. And yet, when a Finnish nurse murders elderly patients, we can't imagine what her motive could be? From the story:
Aino Nykopp-Koski, 60, killed the patients, aged between 70 and 91, with drugs they had not been prescribed, including sedatives and opiates. The murders took place at various hospitals, care homes and patients' homes between 2004 and 2009, the Helsinki court heard. Media reported that the court had not been able to determine any motive for the crimes.
I am not asserting a direct connection between euthanasia practice and advocacy and these crimes. Yet, it is certainly worth noting that the exact same thing happens in Belgium and the Netherlands–sick and debilitated patients killed by medical personnel who have not asked for euthanasia–and the authorities yawn. Robert Latimer murdered his daughter Tracy in Canada because she had cerebral palsy, and received good poll numbers and general applause. Jack Kevorkian has been portrayed by Al Pacino and gets $50-,000 a speech! Stories of "death with dignity" proliferate in the media and in popular culture, giving the impression that bumping off the suffering is compassionate.
If this were a right wing terror bombing, angry critics would point (and have pointed) to far less explicit advocacy as an obvious potential cause of unleashing the perpetrator's inner demons. I daresay, the general atmosphere that has been created around taking life as a legitimate answer for the suffering of patients should at least be considered as providing a misguided justification in the disturbed murderer's mind. I mean, look around!
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: December 23, 2010
My initial interpretation of the December 20 news that Planned Parenthood will now require all its affiliates to commit abortions was that it would require all clinics to commit them.
A pro-abort tweeted in response to my post, "doesn't mean all CLINICS. affiliate = regional grouping."
The Daily Caller today confirmed this. I'm skipping PP's rhetoric in my excerpt, but be sure to read its PR spin at the link.
When contacted by The Daily Caller, Lisa David, senior vice president of Health Services Support for PP, said that the organization is implementing a broad "new patient services initiative."…
[S]aid David in a statement. "To meet the needs of our patients, PP affiliates will now offer a unified set of core preventive services."…
She went on to say that abortion services will be offered in at least one clinic per affiliate. However, a waiver may be obtained in the case of "unique local circumstances."…
[A] spokesperson for the Family Research Council… told TheDC… "This is about… bringing in more money…. [T]hey try to create a public image where everything focuses on STD's, family planning, etc, but abortion is a profitable endeavor."
Right now, PP has 817 health clinics throughout the U.S. 173 of those already perform surgical abortions, and 131 perform chemical abortions. The PP network is made up of 87 locally-government regional centers, which then oversee hundreds of other clinics.
What's going on is PP wants to stop outsourcing abortions and keep them all in-house.
The plan also dovetails nicely with PP's burgeoning webcam (telemed) abortion business. The new scheme will allow each affiliate to have an RU486 hub, requiring only 1 abortionist, from whence the chemical abortion cocktail is dispensed via computer screen to all other clinics in the affiliate.
Contact: Jill Stanek Source: JillStanek.com Publish Date: December 23, 2010
Choice, privacy, reproductive freedom. Bodily autonomy. Rape, incest. Teen pregnancy, economic hardship. Back-alley abortions. Overpopulation. Crime and child abuse.
These are some of the things people talk about when they discuss the ethics of abortion. But none of them is relevant to deciding whether abortion is morally right or wrong. Author and speaker Greg Koukl uses a helpful illustration.
"Imagine that your child walks up when your back is turned and asks, 'Daddy [or Mommy], can I kill this?' What is the first thing you must find out before you can answer him? You can never answer the question 'Can I kill this?' unless you've answered a prior question: What is it? [A cockroach? Sure. His baby sister? Hold on a minute!] This is the key question.
"Abortion involves killing and discarding something that's alive," Koukl continues. "Whether it's right or not to take the life of any living thing depends entirely upon what it is."
…The real issue is the moral status of the unborn entity who is killed by abortion. Is the unborn a human being (a scientific question)? If so, how should we treat him or her (a moral question)?
The pro-life argument, in brief, runs as follows. From conception the unborn is a distinct, living and whole (though immature) human organism--a member of the species Homo sapiens at a very early stage of his or her development. We know this from the science of embryology.
Morally, no relevant difference exists between human beings before and after birth. Unborn humans differ from older humans (like newborns) in size, level of development, location and degree of dependency, but none of those differences are significant in a way that would justify killing the former.
Rather, human beings have moral value and a right to life by virtue of the kind of thing they are, not because of acquired characteristics or abilities that some human beings have and others do not, and which we may gain or lose throughout our lifetimes.
It follows that all human beings, including the unborn, are equal in having basic dignity and a right not to be unjustly killed. So elective abortion is wrong.
How do pro-choice advocates respond? Usually with the kind of question-begging rhetoric discussed above. Always clarify the issue--the moral status of the unborn--and use science and simple moral reasoning (above) to point them to the truth: Abortion unjustly takes the lives of innocent human beings, and it should not be permitted.
Editor's note. The previous are excerpts from an article that appeared in the December 2010 issue of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life News.
Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 21, 2010
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked its regulatory approval of the drug Avastin to treat late stage, metastatic breast cancer. Each year, the practicing oncologists chosen by 17,500 American women to save them from their life-threatening, heavily progressed cancer prescribe Avastin to treat them.
The FDA explained that it was revoking approval of the drug for that use because it decided that the drug does not provide "a sufficient benefit in slowing disease progression to outweigh the significant risk to patients." Risk? The drug is prescribed for women who are otherwise going to die from cancer unless the drug saves them at least for a time. The far greater risk to these women is from the FDA, not the drug.
As The Wall Street Journal said last Friday in response to the FDA's explanation:
Ponder that [word] "sufficient." The agency is substituting its own judgment about clinical meaningfulness for those of practicing oncologists and terminally ill cancer patients.
That FDA judgment was determined last summer by an internal agency panel of 13 experts, only two of whom were breast cancer oncologists, and none of whom were breast cancer patients.
Death Sentence for Mrs. Turnage?
Contrast the FDA's elitist, authoritarian, Ruling Class explanation for its bureaucratic dictat with the real world experience of Mrs. Turnage, whose story was told in a New York Post commentary on December 15 entitled "Don't Kill the Drug That Saved My Mom," by her son Josh Turnage. Josh explained:
In June 2006, my mom was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy, reconstruction and six months of chemo…. Then just 44, she had "triple negative breast cancer," a rare and particularly lethal form of the disease.
As Josh observed, traditional therapies typically do not work against the disease that threatened to kill his mother at that early age. As a result,
A year after the initial diagnosis, the doctor told our family that the cancer had gone metastatic, or Stage IV, and had spread to her right lung. Such news is typically a death sentence.
But her doctor urged her to try a new experimental drug called Avastin, just approved by the FDA for breast cancer. Josh explained the results:
We got a miracle. After four months of Avastin treatment in combination with chemo, the cancer effectively vanished -- the doctors literally couldn't find any trace of the disease in her body.
In January, 2009, Mrs. Turnage's chosen doctors decided she could terminate her chemotherapy treatments and just continue with exclusive use of Avastin. Today, nearly two years later, she's still cancer-free.
Mrs. Turnage is a "super responder" to Avastin, one of a minority of patients receiving the treatment for whom the drug is powerfully effective. Tumors shrink for about half of patients receiving Avastin. On average, patients taking the drug with chemotherapy experience twice as many days or months with no progression of their tumors as those not taking the drug. That means they live longer, on average a few months longer, with their families and friends. Whether that and the chance for much greater success as for Mrs. Turnage is worth it is for patients to decide, with the advice of their doctors, not government bureaucrats.
As Josh rightly says, "We're talking about Stage IV cancer; the FDA should let patients and doctors decide if a medicine's benefits are worth the risks." That has been the tradition of freedom in America.
Josh explains the message from the FDA's decision to his mother, and to the American people:
By denying approval for this drug, the FDA is basically telling my mother and my family that her life just isn't worth the price. They're robbing her of a chance to celebrate her 30th wedding anniversary with my dad, or to see my little sister who is in kindergarten graduate from high school…. Avastin has given my mom priceless time -- time to spend with me, my siblings, my father and all her other family and friends. No woman should ever be denied that opportunity by our government."
Bloodthirsty Progressives
The Susan G. Komen Foundation opposed the FDA's action. So did the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, a cancer patients' advocacy organization. The U.S. National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 top cancer centers that issues medical guidelines based clinical evidence, also supports the continued availability of Avastin for breast cancer. Even in Europe, where health care rationing is prevalent, the European Medicines Agency, which is the FDA for the European Union, ruled last week that Avastin would continue to be available for breast cancer treatment there.
To no avail. In America, the FDA has spoken. Those super responders to Avastin like Mrs. Turnage, if not Mrs. Turnage herself, must die, the sooner the better.
As Sally Pipes wrote at Forbes.com last week, "Government drug rationing isn't going to stop at Avastin." The FDA decision is a straw in the wind, indicating an ominous turn in American medicine, if doctors, patients, and the American people do not fight back. What is needed is not a stop gap solution applying only to Avastin. The FDA must be fundamentally reformed, as specified below.
Avastin works by cutting off the blood supply to tumors, causing them to wither and die. It is still in use for the treatment of kidney, colon, lung, and brain cancers. Because of that, doctors can still legally prescribe Avastin even for breast cancer "off label," which means for a use not approved by the FDA. But the treatment costs $88,000 a year. The FDA didn't say so, but that cost is the real reason for its action.
The FDA's decision means that Medicare and Medicaid will likely refuse to pay for the drug for breast cancer. These government programs do not pay for costly medicines where not FDA approved. This in turn provides the legal foundation for private insurance companies to now refuse payment for the treatment as well. They are not legally obligated to pay for costly therapies denied FDA approval and rejected by Medicare and Medicaid. Otherwise, they could be forced to pay for dances by Indian Medicine Men to cure cancer.
Ignorant liberals running your mouths about insurance company rationing, take note of how this works. No insurance company has the power to weigh costs against benefits, and tell you that your health if not your life is not worth the money. But the government has now arrogated to itself the power to do precisely that. That is the meaning of the Avastin decision.
When a third party, not the patient with his doctor's advice, weighs your health and life in the balance like this, I call it Fascism. It is a perfect analogue to Nazi practices, and we are not going to accept that in America. The American people need to go to war now against the FDA.
But the FDA decision is just one symptom of that more ominous, fundamental turn in American medicine mentioned above. The decision reflects a new fashion rising among America's Ruling Class, the imperious "judgment" that the latest, most advanced medical care for America's most seriously ill is too costly and not worth it.
The great virtue of American medicine is that it provides to the broad public, rather than just to the rich as in some enclaves around the world, the latest, most technologically and scientifically advanced health care on the planet for the most sick. Those suffering from cancer and heart disease, seniors suffering from the infirmities of advancing age, premature babies born smaller than your hand, are consequently rescued from premature death and incapacitating suffering far more than anywhere else on earth.
It should be no surprise that most health care spending is actually spent on the sick. That is what health care is for. But that is a big revelation to bloodthirsty progressives in the Ruling Class. In their emerging view, so much could be saved if we would just cut off the costly health care for the sickest and most vulnerable, and they would just fulfill their social responsibility by dying a cheap natural death that would not so burden the glorious Welfare State.
But what else could we better spend our money on but our health and our very lives and those of our loved ones? The progressives in the Ruling Class have their own dark answer to that question.
The rising anti-health care fashion is fueled by the realization of those in the know with access to the levers of power that they can buy far more votes spending all that money elsewhere than on health care for the sickest and most vulnerable. Those suffering from cancer and heart disease are too weak and sick to be relentless, effective political advocates. They may well be dead before they can even vote in the next election. Far more votes can be bought spending that money on younger, healthy voters who will be around a long time to work on, contribute to, and support campaigns and the progressives' Ruling Class political machine. Maybe spend it on more welfare for young families, or on more corporate subsidies for the endless "Green Energy" funding drain.
I call it the political logic of socialized medicine. This is why we see rationing in every other country where the government and politics have taken over the health care system. Of course, there are many "useful idiots" just caught up in the latest fashion swirl who have no clue as to the deeper political logic. But it is that political logic that is driving the suicide train that will deprive America of the central health care component of its high standard of living, unless we derail it.
Do Not Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls
The rising, anti-health care fashion of the Progressives and the Ruling Class is at the heart of Obamacare, which otherwise seems so perverse in relentlessly attacking the ability of the health care system to serve the sickest and most vulnerable. That is reflected most obviously in the legislation's insufficiently heralded, draconian cuts to Medicare.
When I compared the year by year data from the 2010 Annual Medicare Report with the 2009 Annual Medicare Report, even I was shocked by the draconian effect of Obamacare policies. For the first 20 years of full implementation of Obamacare, 2014 to 2033, Medicare is cut by $5 trillion! This involves mostly cuts in the payments to doctors and hospitals providing health care to seniors under Medicare. The Administration has already claimed political credit for the positive financial effects of these cuts. But if these Obamacare policies are not reversed, no doubt seniors will no longer be getting the health care under Medicare that has been so effective in extending their lives and functional capabilities. Even before these cuts, two thirds of hospitals were already losing money on Medicare patients,
The Wall Street Journal indicated in last week's Avastin editorial what is coming,
In September, the FDA and Medicare proposed a "parallel review" process that will allow the two agencies to coordinate market and reimbursement approval. Medicare is also increasingly opening "national coverage determination" reviews that allow a government board to decide if a therapy is "reasonable and necessary."
In other words, still more death panels for seniors.
Conservatives have been far too reluctant to criticize the unworkable Medicare cuts because they know that fundamental reform of Medicare is necessary to sharply reduce the program's dramatic runaway costs. But denying payment to doctors and hospitals for the health care they provide to seniors is no way to reform Medicare. That would not only suddenly leave seniors without the health care they have been promised, and have come to rely on as a result. It would suddenly leave doctors, clinics, specialists, and hospitals with uneconomic practices for seniors that they entered in good faith on the promise of payment from the government. This is like trying to balance the family budget by deciding not to pay the bills, for services the family expects to continue to consume. Or trying to achieve budget savings in national defense by not paying the manufacturers of the Air Force's planes, the Navy's ships, the Army's tanks and artillery, and the bullets, bombs and guns.
Ryan's Rescue
Far more responsible and carefully crafted are the Medicare reforms of newly minted House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan in his Ryan Roadmap, which conservatives should be supporting and advocating even more ardently. Those reforms would turn all of Medicare into Medicare Advantage, granting seniors vouchers they could use to purchase the private health insurance of their choice. As the above discussion shows, those private insurers would not have the power to ration and deny health care for seniors on the grounds that their health and their lives are not worth the money, which is what is now developing in Medicare.
The growth in payments for these health insurance vouchers is slowed so that seniors may have to pay some more for their coverage over time than under the current bankrupt Medicare system. But funds are provided to protect lower income seniors from these added costs. CBO scores these reforms as achieving full solvency for Medicare, without rationing and denying health care for seniors. This is a big winner politically as well as economically as compared to the Obamacare fiasco. This is what more conservatives need to realize.
Further, fundamental, FDA reform is also now essential, to protect all Americans from the Ruling Class bureaucrats. The FDA's legal mandate must be changed so that it determines only whether a drug is safe in considering approval, not whether it is effective as well, as required by current law. Whether it is effective can and should be determined by the patient's chosen doctors, not government bureaucrats. This should become a major cause among conservatives, to blow back the Ruling Class.
Finally, I can't tell for sure from Josh Turnage's article whether his mother is still receiving Avastin treatments to keep her cancer from returning. But if it does return, and she is denied the treatment, and she dies from the disease, then I would expect the Attorney General of her state to open an inquest into her death.
Contact: Peter Ferrara Source: The American Spectator
Publish Date: December 22, 2010
Judge Jody Luebbers
An Ohio judge has ruled a Planned Parenthood affiliate violated a state law involving an under-age girl in another example of misconduct uncovered among the abortion giant's centers.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers ruled Dec. 7 that Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio broke the state's informed consent law when its doctor failed to meet with a 14-year-old girl at least 24 hours before performing an abortion on her. The decision came even before the case goes to trial Feb. 7.
"The health and safety of young girls is more important than Planned Parenthood's desire to perform an abortion," said Brian Hurley, an Alliance Defense Fund-affiliated lawyer who is representing the girl's parents in the case.
The parents -- who, along with their daughter, remain unnamed at Luebbers' order -- filed suit on behalf of their daughter when they learned Planned Parenthood performed an abortion on her after she was brought to the clinic by her soccer coach, who was the father of the unborn child. John Haller, 22 at the time, served three years in prison for sexual battery.
The Planned Parenthood clinic failed to notify civil authorities, a requirement in cases of statutory rape. The clinic also failed to inform the parents of the abortion or the sexual relationship, according to Alliance Defense Fund.
This is the latest in a pattern uncovered at some Planned Parenthood clinics. Hidden-camera investigations since 2008 by Live Action, a pro-life organization led by college students, have caught Planned Parenthood employees in Alabama, Arizona, California, Indiana and Tennessee seeking to cover up alleged child sexual abuse.
Affiliates of Planned Parenthood Federation of America performed 324,008 abortions in 2008, the latest year for which statistics have been reported by the organization.
Contact: Tom Strode Source: BP
Publish Date: December 21, 2010
