A study published this week in the journal Pediatrics says ten percent of teens who said they were abstinent also tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease. But an advocate for abstinence says the sex-education curricula in most schools could be blamed for those numbers.
Of the 964 teens who tested positive for an STD, 118 claimed they had not had sexual intercourse in the last 12 months, and 60 said they had never had intercourse in their lives. The study, based on its findings, recommends that all teens receiving clinical services -- regardless if they self-report as being sexually abstinent -- be tested for prevalent STDs such as gonorrhea and chlamydia.
Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association tells OneNewsNow that 75 percent of young people in America are receiving explicit contraceptive-centered education that defines "abstinence" subjectively. She believes that could be one of the reasons why teens who say they are abstinent have an STD.
Valerie Huber"Because in these curricula [teens] are given free rein to define abstinence in any way, including whatever doesn't cause a pregnancy or however they want to define it," she explains. "And we know that there are a lot of behaviors that put them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases."
Huber says the abstinence programs that her organization promotes are very clear about what constitutes safe and unsafe behavior.
"[When we talk about abstinence] we're talking about avoiding all of the activities that put a young person at risk," says the abstinence advocate. "So if they receive the skills and the motivation to truly remain abstinent [as an abstinence program defines it], they have absolutely zero-percent chance of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease."
It is "crazy," she adds, that some would try to redefine abstinence.
Contact: Bill Bumpas Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: January 4, 2011
Healthcare professionals are awaiting the outcome of the Obama administration's effort to void conscience protections.
Conscience protections allow medical professionals to refuse to provide abortions, handle abortion-causing drugs, or participate in euthanasia. Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association (CMA), reports that the regulations that back up current law were written during the Bush administration, but that the Obama administration has filed documents admitting its hopes of repealing those protections.
"We just recently received word that [sometime] in February, they're likely going to overturn those regulations. That's a great concern to every person in this country because it could literally drive Christian healthcare professionals out of medicine," Dr. Stevens warns.
Meanwhile, such a decision would also affect consumers as Christian patients might no longer be able to choose doctors of faith. The CMA chief executive officer believes that would be a mistake because many people prefer medical personnel who share their worldviews.
"So we're very concerned. We and 50 other organizations are trying to fight this tooth and nail because this right to practice your religion is guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and it would be a tragedy for our country that would not only affect healthcare professionals, but ultimately affect everyone in this country," he suggests.
Without conscience regulations, Stevens concludes there would be discrimination in education and employment. He points out, however, that such bias is already taking place because the Obama administration is not enforcing the current rules.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: January 4, 2011
This article was in the Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin and by the head of the school's Stem Cell Advisory Board, William Sahlman, who is also a big time professor at the the Harvard Business School. He is reacting to a federal court's ruling that President Obama's embryonic stem cell funding policy is illegal under existing federal law–but his larger target is the democratic process in science funding.
Despite all that education, Sahlman conflates losing funding in ESCR, with the Feds outlawing research altogether. From his piece "Chaotic Funding Derails Research:"
Now imagine you are a postdoc in a lab and are working on a project to use human embryonic stem cells to cure diabetes by creating new beta cells in the pancreas. This is difficult work that is high risk but high reward. You have come to grips with the many ethical considerations in working with stem cells derived from embryos that were created during IVF procedures and were destined to be destroyed before the donors agreed they could be used for research. You have begun to get traction in your career, and have been a prominent coauthor on several articles in well-respected journals. When you read the news that your research is now illegal, you are horrified.
But the court didn't make the research illegal–any more than Bush "banned" embryonic stem cell research with his modest funding restrictions. Nor did the court rule that existing research done with illegal funding had to be destroyed. It just said no more federal funding. (Funding continues as the case is appealed.)
But here's the thing: Our hypothetical researcher knew that ESCR was ethically contentious when deciding to enter the field. Who could not know it after all the yelling over the last twelve years? And the researcher would have known that there are strong forces seeking to limit or eliminate federal funding. The same is true of human cloning research, which–unlike ESCR–many are trying to legally ban–like Germany has, for example, and the UN General Assembly has urged all member nations to do. (In 2005, the UN adopted a non-binding declaration that prohibits "all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life".) Similarly, animal researchers must also know that the animal rights movement is seeking to prevent their work. I disagree with that strongly, but a researcher going into the field should enter therein with with eyes wide open.
Sahlman's bigger gripe is with the democratic messiness of government funding, again using our hypothetical ESC researcher as an example:
You have no viable research projects under way. It will take well over a year to begin a new research stream, and there is a low probability you will get funded in a new area. You may be fired. In short, your career is in danger of total meltdown. That is the real cost of our randomized model of research support in the United States, in which a change in administration or a court ruling can outlaw work that was previously supported by the government. Funding can be canceled with the stroke of a pen…
Unpredictability inflicts a heavy cost on scientific progress, whether in domains like stem-cell research or in searching for safe alternative fuels. It damages the United States' competitive position because great projects won't be completed here, and more importantly, great people won't do the kind of work that is necessary to make progress on our most intractable challenges. Society pays a high price for randomization of research support — a fact that, sadly, is not recognized by the public, the media, or politicians.
Sorry, this not a scientocracy. The people's views–and the law–matter in federal scientific funding, just as they do in other important societal endeavors. Moreover, just because a scientist wants to do it, doesn't mean the taxpayers have to pick up the bill, or indeed, that it should be allowed legally. Dictatorships can pour all the resources into favored science projects that the government wants. But this is how free societies work. No blank checks.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke Publish Date: January 3, 2011
![]( "State")
I read a piece in the Washington Post by Norm Ornstein last week, in which he thinks he cleverly hoisted conservatives on the death panel petard. Arizona–as we have discussed–and now Indiana Medicaid, refused treatments (in the latter's case because, the state claimed, it is experimental). But Ornstein misses the real message of these treatment refusals. But I didn't.
First, I point out that Oregon has had death panels for years. From my The Corner post:
In Oregon, Medicaid has a list of over 700 procedures, and will cover only the number permitted by their budget, usually in the low- to mid-600s. All those procedures on the wrong side of the line are not paid for by Medicaid. The point of Oregon's experiment was to expand coverage at the expense of cutting off the sickest people. For example, double organ transplants have been refused. That hasn't worked, but the state has kept its rationing scheme anyway. As a consequence, many poor Oregonians have, over the years, been denied potentially life-extending treatments. In 2008, two late-stage cancer patients were denied chemotherapy that could have extended their lives by Medicaid — but were offered payment for their assisted suicides!
I then tie the knot:
What is the common thread that connects the death panels in these three states? Medicaid is a single-payer system in which budgets are limited. When the money runs out, people's options shrink. See also, the U.K.'s NHS and, increasingly, Canada's national health-care system, in which life-extending chemotherapy has also been restricted in some places.
Many Obamacare supporters see the ACA is a necessary step to the ultimate goal, a federal single-payer system. But those who are attracted to this option should learn from Indiana, Arizona, and Oregon: Government can get away with treatment restrictions that would never be countenanced within a market-based system in which regulators would be on the side of the patients, rather than the government funder. In other words, if you like death panels — as Norm Ornstein points out, although he probably missed his own message — single payer is the way to get them.
This all seems pretty undeniable to me.
Contact: Wesley J. Smith Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: January 3, 2011
Iowa is considering a proposal to keep late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart out of the state.
Carhart has announced plans to open shops in Iowa, Indiana, and Maryland so he can perform late-term abortions in those states. That move came after Nebraska passed a fetal pain bill prohibiting them, forcing him to relocate from Omaha.
Iowa State Representative Matt Windschitl (R) says the Nebraska bill put into law the medical fact that babies can feel pain at 20 weeks, perhaps sooner.
"Myself and many of my colleagues in the Iowa House and the Iowa Senate do not want Dr. Carhart bringing his practice in here to Iowa," he explains, "and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we keep him out of our state because we believe that our constituents overwhelmingly support a ban on late-term abortions in the state of Iowa."
Windschitl plans to sponsor a bill that will incorporate some parts of the Nebraska bill along with "a few other aspects tied into it."
"We want to make sure that as we're crafting this legislation that it is the strongest legislation possible to ban late-term abortions, but also that will stand up under judicial scrutiny if it is challenged in court," says Windschitl.
The lawmaker adds that considering the makeup of the legislature and a Republican governor who has signed late-term abortion bans in the past, the Iowa bill will be the best approach to take to gain passage.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: January 2, 2011
Operation Rescue has named as its pro-life person of the year for 2010 a mother who lost her daughter in a botched abortion.
The pro-life advocacy group feels the recipient of its 2010 Pro-Life Person of the Year Malachi Award is perfectly described by the award's name -- Malachi, which means "my messenger" or "my angel."
"Mrs. Eileen Smith, who tirelessly pursued an abortionist who killed her daughter, Laura Hope Smith, to the point where he was incarcerated and had to pay over $2 million in a fine back to the family," is who Operation Rescue has chosen, according to President Troy Newman. "So we are proud of her and proud to award her this year's Malachi Award on behalf of the babies."
Newman believes the abortionist might have gone unprosecuted had Smith not persevered and "made sure that justice would be served in this case." Though he admits the sentence was not as stiff as the pro-life group had wanted, he believes "the shockwaves of this sentence on Rapin Osathanondh, the abortionist, have reverberated throughout the abortion industry, and people are going to think twice before they butcher the next woman."
Among previous winners of the award are Jim Pouillon, who was gunned down in a peaceful pro-life demonstration in 2009, and Lila Rose of Live Action Films for her undercover probes of Planned Parenthood.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: January 3, 2011
As in years past, 2010 saw pro-lifers persevere as they waged war against the culture of death.
Brigham not above the law
Steven Chase Brigham had been operating abortion clinics in three states even though he had lost or surrendered his license in several of them. In October, New Jersey was still pondering whether to revoke his license. That state's attorney general suggested Brigham committed multiple actions in the context of alleged acts of dishonesty and deception.
Operation Rescue's Cheryl Sullinger told OneNewsNow that Brigham would start late-term abortions in New Jersey where he was licensed, but complete them in Maryland where he had no license.
"Mr. Brigham seems to think that he is above the law and that the laws of the state of New Jersey, and any other state for that matter, don't apply to him," the activist shared.
Sullinger believes the attorney general and medical board were not buying Brigham's denial of guilt. "They think this guy is basically lying to the board and to everybody else about the legality of his business and what actually goes on there, and so a person like that can't be trusted to practice medicine in any state," she contended.
Pro-life groups are hopeful the new state attorney will prosecute Brigham and try to send him to prison. Meanwhile, a total of four abortionists in the state, three of them who worked for Brigham, have lost their medical licenses.
Abortion's cancer link reaffirmed
Study after study is showing a definite link between abortion and breast cancer, yet leading cancer organizations refuse to recognize it. Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer told OneNewsNow the latest study again shows a link.
"This is a study that came out of Northeast China, and they examined reproductive factors that were associated with different subtypes of breast cancer," Malec explained. "And they found that women who have abortions increase their risk of developing breast cancer later on in life by a statistically significant 17 percent."
Yet most women are not aware of it because they are not informed, she added. The pro-lifer indicated China is a good source for research since women there experience three to five abortions because of that country's one-child policy and forced abortions.
Another abortion clinic caught on camera
Student led Live Action continued to conduct eye-opening undercover probes of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in 2010. One of them was in Indianapolis, according to Live Action founder Lila Rose.
"What we found here at this clinic in Indianapolis is pretty disturbing," Rose commented. "Our investigative actor [is] asking basic questions about the development of her unborn child, about the risks of abortion, and she is being given fabricated information, false information in an attempt to convince her to choose abortion."
Indiana has a woman's right to know law which requires abortion clinics to give women accurate information -- and Rose said the actions violate state law. In addition, Live Action investigations of Planned Parenthood in several states revealed clinics provide abortions to underage girls, reporting it to neither parents nor police to enforce statutory rape charges.
FDA approves abortion pill, ignores reality
In late 2010, the Food and Drug Administration approved ellaOne, the latest Plan B or "morning-after" pill designed to end a pregnancy within five days of intimacy. Pharmacist Mike Koelzer of Pharmacists for Life International told OneNewsNow the Plan B drug is an abortifacient.
"This one is even further down that road of being a drug that prevents the uterus from accepting a new life," he contended. "It makes the uterus inhospitable, which then causes that new life to be sloughed off, causing a very early abortion."
There has been no consideration from the FDA for doctors and pharmacists who object to the drug. The Obama administration promised to develop fair conscience protections for the medical field, but so far has not delivered on it.
Euthanasia weighs evenly on U.S. morality scale
A Gallup poll released during the year shows an even split among Americans over the issue of doctor-assisted suicide. But Rita Marker of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide says it actually shows a shift of Americans no longer supporting the idea -- which she argued means the public is becoming more educated.
"Two years ago, 51 percent found it to be morally acceptable. It's gone down five percentage points," she reported. "The same way in 2008: 44 percent thought it was wrong; now 46 percent think it's wrong. So since 2003, it has not been this much of a drop."
Realizing the divide among Americans on pro-life issues, advocates are working to change the hearts and minds by insisting that issues be framed properly.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 31, 2010
The January issue of the journal Contraception contains results of a 10-yr study "to acquire information about the use of contraceptive methods in order to reduce the number of elective abortions," reads the abstract.
The results were unsurprising, "yet another example of the counter-intuitive effect of more contraception," wrote Christina at Real Choice. What was laughable was the researchers' conclusion. Read on….
STUDY DESIGN: Since 1997, representative samples of Spanish women of childbearing potential (15-49 years) have been surveyed by the Daphne Team every 2 years to gather data of contraceptive methods used.
RESULTS: During the study period, 1997 to 2007, the overall use of contraceptive methods increased from 49.1% to 79.9%. The most commonly used method was the condom (an increase from 21% to 38.8%), followed by the pill (an increase from 14.2% to 20.3%). Female sterilization and IUDs decreased slightly and were used by less than 5% of women in 2007. The elective abortion rate increased from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1000 women.
CONCLUSIONS: The factors responsible for the increased rate of elective abortion need further investigation.
As Suzanne at Big Blue Wave noted:
So in the ten year period that contraception use increased by about 60%, the abortion rate doubled. In other words, even with an increase in contraception use, there weren't fewer unwanted pregnancies, there were more.
Any person with common sense could cue the researchers that the more casual sex one has, the greater likelihood there will be of pregnancy, contraception use notwithstanding.
Contraceptive use only provides a false sense of security. As most recently evidenced on the MTV abortion special, minor girls and young women are too immature or irresponsible to handle contraception properly, for starters. Men aren't so good at it either, since even as the pro-abort group Guttmacher notes, the failure rate of condoms is a whopping 17.4%.
Contact: Jill Stanek Source: JillStanek.com Publish Date: January 3, 2011
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is signaling its intention to dominate the national sex education agenda.
Specifically, Planned Parenthood's Web site announced the group is preparing to launch a nationwide "social change initiative" to end the "stigma and shame about sex" in American culture.
The project aims to teach parents and caregivers how to educate children about sex -- from birth. And it recommends telling teenagers about masturbation, oral sex and "where to go for help to prepare to be sexually active."
The "Real Life. Real Talk" initiative began as a pilot program in communities in Maine, New York, Connecticut, and Arizona between 2004 and 2008, according to a report about the initiative that is for sale on the project's Web site.
Now Planned Parenthood is preparing to launch the program nationwide, with funding from donors and private groups, including The Ford Foundation.
"Real Life. Real Talk" is based on the belief that reducing the shame and stigma attached to sex also reduces a barrier to sexual and reproductive health services, eventually reducing the rates of sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and unintended pregnancies.
The initiative is geared to parents and caregivers of children aged 8 to 18. In the four pilot states, parents were invited to attend workshops where they received Planned Parenthood's guide to "Sex Ed for Parents, Real Life. Real Talk." The events were held at different community venues, including schools, churches, social services facilities and libraries.
The "Real Life. Real Talk" guide, offered in English and Spanish, is tailored to specific groups of parents and caregivers, including grandparents raising their grandchildren, "queer parents," and parents of children in elementary school."
A "Parent Tips" section of the "Real Life. Real Talk" Web site says children are never too young to learn about sex. It states, in part:
"A child's sexuality, sexual feelings, and sexual attitudes develop from the moment of Birth -- even before a child can speak. In fact, children start learning about sexuality through observation of family interaction and surroundings. When you don't talk with your children about sexuality, you may give them the message that there is something wrong with sexuality and that it is not a topic you're willing to discuss."
"You can begin teaching your young child the basics of sexuality — anatomy, reproduction, sexual orientation, personal safety, feelings, relationships — as well as your own values," reads the document. "As children grow and mature, they will be more interested in details about pregnancy and birth, the changes of puberty, etc."
Another section, entitled "Conversation Starters," tells parents to be "factual" and to "clear up slang" when answering questions. It offers examples of children's questions, including slang for female masturbation and oral sex.
One talk-to-your-child tip includes the following bulleted item: "Take your child to the drugstore and point out the pads, tampons, condoms, etc. Take your teen to a clinic for contraception and exams, or let your teen know where to go for help to prepare to be sexually active."
The Web site's "Teen Reality" tab includes videos, including a "Don't Dance with Death" video written by high school students in McAllen, Texas. It features a "witch" giving young girls a potion and a condom before they go to a high school dance. One of the girls then gives the condom to the boy with whom she is dancing.
The report on "Real Life. Real Talk" says the initiative will be marketed nationwide through TV public service announcements, print ads, radio, posters, bus shelters and other promotional materials such as T-shirts.
According to its annual report for Fiscal Year 2008-2009, Planned Parenthood's income from government grants and contracts totaled $363.2 million, up for $349.6 million for the previous fiscal year.
Contact: Penny Starr Source: CNSNews.com Publish Date: December 29, 2010
The Christmas day story in the New York Times continues to send shockwaves.
Unbeknownst to no one except a select group of supporters, tucked in a 692-page Medicare fee schedule was language to pay for "end-of-life" counseling.
When the Times' Robert Pear wrote about the Medicare regulation, defenders of the Obama Administration immediately went into overdrive to protest the regulation's innocent intention.
For example, a story in yesterday's POLITICO insists the counseling is "voluntary" and that there is (at this point) no "script," altogether missing the objections of organizations such as NRLC.
For starters, the Obama Administration is trying to accomplish by administrative measures what it couldn't accomplish (because it was taken out) in the final ObamaCare law. There is a reason such "counseling" was omitted: the public was properly enraged.
For another, the final statutory version of ObamaCare authorizes Medicare coverage of a yearly "wellness visit." But under the new regulation, which had gone undetected, as of January 1, the annual visit will now cover "voluntary advance care planning" to discuss end-of-life treatment which critics worry may include authorization to withhold lifesaving medical treatment, food and fluids.
A major reason critics were alarmed at the original House proposal (Section 1233) is that they feared it meant that efforts would be made to cut down on health care costs by convincing elderly people to forego expensive treatment.
The irony is that the conclusion of the POLITICO story eagerly talks about the cost-containment potential of the new change. After including assurances that the Medicare regulation "is not about rationing care or saving money, it's about making sure patients understand what options are available before there is a health care crisis," the reader is immediately told "this benefit might save money for the Medicare program over time" by an unidentified Senate aide.
"'If people take advantage of it, it could save billions for taxpayers,' the aide said, by respecting the wishes of people who realize that Medicare coverage is available for end-of-life counseling, as well as for hospice and palliative care."
Contact: Dave Andrusko Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 29, 2010
It is reported that Costa Rica is under pressure to legalise in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Amidst all the challenges faced by the pro-life movement, we must continue to work openly and courageously for a ban on all IVF procedures. Opposing IVF does not imply denying babies, conceived by IVF, their humanity. However, it's vital to oppose IVF as a way of conceiving children since it turns human beings into commodities to be brought to birth or discarded at will. Since the birth to the first IVF child over thirty years ago, in the UK well over two million embryos have been discarded, or frozen, or selectively aborted, or miscarried or used in destructive experiments.
IVF amounts to the manufacture of human beings. The practice of IVF assumes that our offspring may be produced in the laboratory, and that the role of the natural mother, in safeguarding with her own body the welfare of the embryo from conception, may legitimately be transferred to other people.
As Dr John Fleming, SPUC's consultant on bioethics, puts it:
"There is no such thing as a form of IVF which respects life. Human life is disrespected in the embryos and in their parents by virtue of the process itself, namely the gestation of a human being outside of his natural environment."
Do read Fr Fleming's review for SPUC of Dignitas Personae, the 2008 Instruction on certain bioethical questions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Also, do order a copy of Fr Fleming's book on the same Instruction.
The use of IVF and related technologies have been condemned by the Catholic Church as contrary to the natural moral law. Catholic teaching on the matter is crystal clear. As Dignitas Personae explains (14):
"The fact that the process of in vitro fertilization very frequently involves the deliberate destruction of embryos was already noted in the Instruction Donum vitae. There were some who maintained that this was due to techniques which were still somewhat imperfect. Subsequent experience has shown, however, that all techniques of in vitro fertilization proceed as if the human embryo were simply a mass of cells to be used, selected and discarded."
"The moral relevance of the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and between the goods of marriage, as well as the unity of the human being and the dignity of his origin, demand that the procreation of a human person be brought about as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between spouses." (Instruction Donum Vitae, on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)
In both IVF and condom use, sexual activity is separated from procreation. As I have argued many times, the acceptance of the separation of sexual activity from procreation underpins today's anti-life and anti-family culture. Either directly or indirectly, that separation and its acceptance underpins abortion, abortifacient birth control, destructive embryo research, abusive parenting of children and the promotion of homosexuality. As the late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught (Evangelium Vitae, 1995, para.97) it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.
Contact: John Smeaton
Source: SPUC
Publish Date: December 30, 2010
![Markai Durham, she faces a huge decision when she becomes pregnant for the second time on MTV's]()
Markai Durham, she faces a huge decision when she
becomes pregnant for the second time on MTV's
"No Easy Decision"
MTV's "No Easy Decision," while hardly without flaw, made for riveting television last night. As I watched Markai Durham and her boyfriend, James, contemplate their three "options"--adoption, have the baby, or abort--I already knew (as did all the viewers) that their decision had been to end the six-week-old unborn child's life.
Markai and her baby Za'Caria
But as a portrait of anguish and mixed emotions and the short-term logic and rationalizations you would expect from young people, it'd be hard to top. I would strongly recommend you watch the half-hour-long program at http://www.mtv.com/videos/no-easy-decision-special/1654990/playlist.jhtml.
The special is a spinoff of the network's 16 and pregnant which, evidently, has never discussed the reasoning that culminated in an abortion. This episode is especially powerful in that the audience is familiar with the couple who were featured in the second season of 16 and pregnant. They already have one child--Za'karia--and Markai had become pregnant less than a year after Za'karia's birth.
"I'm pregnant again," she says," I don't know what I'm going to do." (All the quotes I include are close to the exact phraseology, some are exact.)
Markai clearly is torn. Nobody puts abortion "first," she says, "nobody with a heart, at least." But she has graduated from high school and has aspirations to go to college.
When she informs her mother (whose support she obviously desperately wants) that she is pregnant, her mother says that "my heart is broken." But she also says that the odds that Markai will start college are less with two babies. To her credit Markai responds that the odds were against her finishing high school with one baby.
James keeps telling her he doesn't want Za'karia to suffer or have to "sacrifice" because of their mistakes. And although she doesn't use the word, Markai internalizes that it would be selfish not to abort. That this is for Za'karia's sake. (But she also says that she could not have aborted had she not already had Za'karia.)
As does everyone, her friend, Chambray, tells her she will support Markai's decision, whatever it may be. But after saying how hard it would be (to have another baby), she gently inquires about whether Markai can go through with an abortion and tries to help her think through her tentative decision to abort.
There's "lots of stuff we don't know," she tells Markai.
Looking for answers, Markai calls an abortion clinic where she inquires about abortion methods. She's told there is "medication" (chemical) abortion where the "pregnancy tissue [is] expelled"; and surgical abortion--"gentle suction to remove pregnancy." But what Markai really wants to know is how she will feel afterwards, indeed who she will be.
Pause. The "counselor" tells her women experience many different emotions.
By this time Markai is crying.
There are many powerful moments in the documentary and follow-up interview with the couple and with two women who had also aborted, two and six years ago, respectively. On camera with Markai both of the women affirm their decisions, indeed try to turn the "option" into an exercise in responsible parenting. But both are crying, one from the first moment we see her on camera.
In real life, doubtless Markai was angry many times with James. But the exchange in their car after the abortion (and later at dinner) captures much of the underlying dynamics.
She explains how the abortion clinic "counselor" had advised her that the road to making yourself depressed is to think of "ten fingers and ten toes with a forehead." Instead think of it as a "little ball of cells."
When James refers to the now dead baby as a "thing," they get into a quarrel about whether he had ever called the baby a baby (he denies it adamantly). Markai angrily tells him, "You just don't get it."
"A 'thing' could turn out just like that"--pointing at their daughter. "A bunch of cells can be her." Later she says quietly, "You hurt my feelings when you called it a thing."
(James, not exactly a paragon of sensitivity, she excuses. He "just didn't want to get attached" and later provided "a shoulder to cry on," which she greatly appreciated.)
In the in-studio segment, the host, Dr. Drew Pinksy, tells the audience that most women two years after the abortion feel like they made "the right decision."
When asked by Pinsky how she feels, Markai responds, "I have mixed emotions," that she is still confused.
But Pinsky will not allow her to sincerely have her own response, assuring her, "I know it feels confused but that's normal."
Three snippets to conclude our look at "No Easy Decision." When talking with her friend Chambray, Markai remarked that another close friend had asked about adoption, an alternative she instantly says it is "not an option" for her. "If I feel that baby kick inside of me," Markai says, "…I'm in love with this baby already and this baby's doing nothing but making me sick."
In the in-studio interview, when Pinsky asks how she felt after the abortion, Markai said the next day she felt "normal," a response that was followed by a sniff.
Perhaps the best indication of how she felt, beyond the tears and the assurances that this was done for Za'karia is what she told James the day after the abortion. "I think God wouldn't give me something I couldn't handle."
Contact: Dave Andrusko Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 29, 2010
TRUTH revealed: ABORTION HURTS WOMEN
I am speaking to you today because ABORTION HURTS WOMEN. It's taken me over 34 years to be healed, strong and brave enough to share my story.
In 1973, as a 22-year-old, naïve and unsuspecting college girl, a long way from home. I hung out with nice, but amoral people who drank alcohol and were involved in pre-marital sex. I went along with the crowd and the consequences were my getting pregnant, although I didn't know it at the time. I was too proud and independent to ask my family for help. I ended up at a "free" Planned Parenthood clinic (PP). They did a test and told me it was "positive." PP told me "it" was "only a blob of tissue" which could easily be removed for $200 (cash).
Physical Cost of Abortion
When I arrived for the "procedure," the man entered the room and said something about giving me a shot and that I would hear a sound like a vacuum. He did NOT tell me about the horrible cramping and pain I would experience. I was awake through the procedure and experienced excruciating pain. I was crying and did not understand what was happening. I'll never forget the pain and the noises coming from the tubes going out of my body. Everything went silent. The "doctor" turned away as he said I could rest a few minutes and leave by the back door. Immediately after the abortion, I felt nauseous, had sharp pains, experienced a lot of bleeding and weakness-too sick to sit. I was traumatized. This was my first gynecological experience. To this day I have trouble going to see a gynecologist.
The Cost of Infertility
During the following months, I STILL experienced severe pain and bleeding. I did not trust Planned Parenthood, so I went to a doctor who told me what the "procedure" was…an abortion! He also told me that PP had put an IUD inside me WITHOUT my knowledge or consent! I felt violated, betrayed and angry! I demanded the IUD to be removed, which was very painful. The doctor said the tissue damage and scarring in my uterine lining from the abortion and IUD may cause me to be childless. Planned Parenthood's abortionist killed my only child and I am childless.
Emotional Cost of Abortion
At this point, I hated myself. I made bad decisions for my life. Nightmares filled my life. I became a workaholic and a near alcoholic. About three years after the abortion, I suffered from low self-esteem, physical pain and many other symptoms including panic attacks, short-term memory loss, debilitating fatigue, isolation and suicidal depression. I thought I was going crazy! I saw a psychiatrist. He told me I wasn't crazy, but that I was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The hell and reality of remembering the abortion started in the early 1990's and continued until March 2008. Abortion cost me my womanhood.
The Cost to Women's Lives
Thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I am now forgiven and set free and active in helping other women to NOT make the same mistake I made! The most important thing about abortion that I think people need to know is that abortion is not the answer to problems. Abortion creates problems. Women need to SEE and HEAR THE TRUTH ABOUT the destruction of ABORTION and how it kills their unborn children. Women need love. Abortion destroyed what made me a woman. Abortion wreaks havoc on women's lives - it is NOT a safety net, but a HEALTH HAZARD!
Conclusion
I regret my abortion. Women deserve better than lies – they need Truth. With God's help, I'll defend TRUTH. I choose both the woman and her baby whose heart is beating at four weeks! I AM SILENT NO MORE. Thanks be to God - there is help and hope for hurting post-abortive men, women, and families through His Grace and Mercy.
Click here for more stories like Darlene's.
Contact: Darlene Wood-Harvey Source: Priests for Life
Yesterday (December 28th) in Milwaukee municipal court, the Thomas More Society entered a not guilty plea on behalf of a pro-life sidewalk counselor arrested and charged with disorderly conduct as he stood and took video outside a local abortion clinic. James Marcou, a veteran sidewalk counselor, was charged in August after two clinic escorts at the Affiliated Women's Heath Center claimed he was being disorderly and getting in their way outside the clinic.
"James Marcou has been doing life-saving work for years in Milwaukee without incident, and the only crime here has been committed by those who would outlaw and penalize his peaceable saving of so many human lives," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society. "We will fight this case as far as we have to in order to get simple justice for those bearing peaceful pro-life witness in Milwaukee."
According to Marcou, he was standing outside the Affiliated Women's Health Center in Milwaukee this past August and making a video record of peaceable sidewalk counseling and pro-life presence on the public sidewalk. One of the "clinic escorts" at the Health Center began attempting to block his view, moving back and forth as Marcou stepped from one side to the other in an effort to get a clear view of what he was taping. When the escort persisted in doing this, Marcou went to step around to the right of him, whereupon the escort suddenly lurched to the side, bumping Marcou into the brick wall of the building next to the sidewalk. Marcou threw back his head and brought up his arm to guard his body and the video camera from the man's impact. A female clinic escort also yelled loudly at Marcou, accusing him of getting in "people's faces." The police were called and interviewed the escorts inside the clinic, but did not ask any of the pro-lifers for their side of the story, according to Marcou.
"The citizens of Milwaukee deserve better from their police department and city prosecutors," said Brejcha. "This case is premised on a brazen perversion of the truth and so far constitutes an outrageous affront to the very notion of justice."
Marcou has pled not guilty and the case will be transferred to the circuit court from the municipal court.
Contact: Stephanie Lewis Source: Thomas More Society Publish Date: December 28, 2010
Medicare regulations have revived discussion of the "death panels" that were loudly opposed during the healthcare reform debate earlier this year.
Matt StaverMat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law, points out that during the congressional debate on ObamaCare, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin labeled the "end-of-life" counseling sessions as death panels.
"And rightly so," says Staver, "because what would ultimately happen [under the reform bill] is elderly patients would be pressured to...forgo end-of-life treatment as a result of the rationing that's built into the ObamaCare system."
The provision was stripped from "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" during debate because of public outrage, but will go into effect as a Medicare regulation January 1. It will pay physicians for annual end-of-life counseling sessions with their patients.
Elderly man"What this ultimately means is that elderly people will be pressured by their physicians, who are getting financial incentives to give these end-of-life counseling services to these individuals," the attorney explains.
With government-run healthcare, Staver contends there will be increased bureaucracy and higher costs -- resulting in rationing of healthcare for the elderly and seriously ill. He is encouraging Congress to take action next month to kill the regulation.
Liberty Counsel has filed one of several lawsuits designed to defeat ObamaCare. Staver is confident that will be accomplished.
Contact: Charlie Butts Source: OneNewsNow Publish Date: December 29, 2010
"I believe the decision [the 1992 case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood] was like planting a bunch of seeds, and we're just starting to see the shoots popping out of the ground," said Roger Evans, who is in charge of litigation for Planned Parenthood of America. "
-- From "Tests of 'Roe' more frequent since justices upheld late-term abortion ban in '07," a story in today's Washington Post written by Robert Barnes.
Courtesy of the Internet, you can click here to read Barnes's 1,905-word-long article in its entirety. Since you are no doubt busy, let me highlight a few of the key points.
Barnes' "hook" is Nebraska's historic "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." In effect, he works backwards in order to explain how and why Nebraska was able earlier this year to enact this first-in-the-nation law on a vote of 44 to 5.
The core of Barnes' narrative is unassailable. Pro-lifers read Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the 2007 Gonzales v. Carhart decision and concluded that The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (Nebraska's law) could pass muster, as well.
In upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortions, Kennedy looked at the joint opinion in the 1992 case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood and concluded that "it is evident a premise central to its conclusion" that "the government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life"--a premise that would be "repudiated," he wrote, if the Court affirmed the lower court's judgment that the law was unconstitutional.
"The justices have not revisited the issue of abortion since [2007]," Barnes writes, "but the decision has emboldened state legislators to pass an increasing number and variety of restrictions in hopes that a changed court will uphold them."
Indeed, pro-lifers, always ready and willing to offer the Justices food for thought, have picked up the pace in the state legislatures. One of the subsequent fruits of pro-lifers' labor is Nebraska's potentially agenda-shifting "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."
As demonstrated by the emphasis of NRLC's State Legislative Strategy Conference held earlier this month, it is quite true, as Barnes writes, that pro-lifers are using Nebraska's law as a model for legislation in other states. NRLC's Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch played a key role in drawing up the bill which was introduced by Nebraska Speaker Mike Flood and she is the source and resource that state legislators and NRLC state affiliates are turning to for guidance.
So why is Nebraska's law so significant? Why does it so unnerve pro-abortionists? The law seeks to establish that the state has a "compelling interest" not just in the child who is "viable" (an ever-shifting benchmark), but also in protecting the life of the child who is "pain-capable," as well. Much medical evidence establishes that point at no later than 20 weeks.
Barnes writes that "Kennedy's [2007] ruling was shot through with references to government's interest in protecting the unborn and in making sure women knew the consequences of their actions. …One outgrowth of the decision's expansive language" is an even greater emphasis on ensuring that women can give an informed consent to a life-and-death decision.
And pro-lifers are placing initiatives in the legislative hopper to enact or beef up informed consent law, such as ensuring that ultrasounds are available to women contemplating abortion. But there's more.
At the State Legislative Strategy Conference, NRLC talked about laws to prevent public funds from being used to subsidize health insurance that covers abortion as permitted by the ObamaCare; and (at the other hand of the life spectrum) fighting the increasingly common practice by which so-called ethics committee in health care facilities authorize denial of lifesaving medical care---including food and fluids--against the will of the patient or his or her surrogates.
We read in the Barnes' story once again pro-abortion suggestions that their failure to challenge the Nebraska law in court doesn't mean they won't. "Some abortion rights supporters say privately that a challenge might come if another state adopts Nebraska's model, as seems likely," Barnes writes.
Okay. If that's the only reason they took a pass (after strongly hinting they couldn't wait to take the law into court), let's be sure we pass similar legislation this session in a dozen different states.
Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life Publish Date: December 28, 2010
Loaded for bear, pro-lifers are preparing legislation to thwart Planned Parenthood's latest initiative to increase its bottom line and the number of abortions--so-called "web-cam abortions."
In use only in Iowa currently, it's a plan to reach "clients" in the hinterlands. The abortionist is not actually in the same room with the woman. He communicates by means of a video conferencing system, electronically opening a drawer from which the woman takes out the two drugs that make up the "RU-486" chemical abortion regime: misoprostol and mifepristone.
Nebraska is one of those states which is reacting pro-actively. According to the World-Herald newspaper, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland has aborted more than 2,000 women in Iowa since the summer of 2008 using the web-cam chemical abortion technique. Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland operates abortion clinics in Iowa and Nebraska.
"The proposal would bar Nebraska doctors from prescribing and dispensing abortion-inducing drugs via the Internet," according to Martha Stoddard of the World-Herald.
And pro-life Nebraskans are not waiting until web-cam abortions are practiced in their state. "The abortion industry keeps coming up with new ways to kill unborn children, and this is one of them," said Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska RTL. "What happens in Iowa, I kid you not, is headed for Nebraska."
As is traditional, in response PPFA tried to evade the issue by equating killing with healing. Kyle Carlson, legal director for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, told Stoddard that restrictions on the use of web-cam abortions "could hurt the growing use of Internet video hookups in medicine. 'To make an argument that telemedicine is unsafe because the physician is not present is not an attack on abortion, it's an attack on telemedicine,' he said."
Nonsense, says Dr. Randall K. O'Bannon, NRLC Director of Education.
"There is a fundamental difference between a situation in which a person is dealing with some serious illness or health risk in an emergency situation and has no immediate access to a doctor versus one [a woman seeking an abortion] in which there is no underlying health issue and the procedure is entirely elective," he said. "If one is trying to save a life and there is no doctor available, telemedicine is a risk worth taking. For elective, and certainly for dangerous, procedures, it is an entirely different issue."
Contact: Dave Andrusko Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 28, 2010
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
