Whether it's pro-life philosophy, activism or legislation, whether it's about a current topic or a situation pro-lifers face in their own lives and work, this is the place where we'll talk about it! Please forward any comments to me, Judie Brown. Thank you!
PALLIATIVE CARE’S MERCILESS TWIST Posted: Thursday July 30, 2009 at 4:59 pm EST by Judie Brown
There’s never been an idea that couldn’t become a millstone around someone’s neck. That’s just the way it works due to man’s condition as a mere mortal who has, admitted or not, many flaws in his character. We all have the condition; some simply use it in inhumane ways.
Such is the case with the push to incorporate palliative care into national healthcare reform. What is palliative care? To get a correct response, given the current anti-life climate, we visited the Life Tree web site for an accurate explanation:
Originally billed as "symptom management at the end of life," palliative care is now aggressively marketed as everything from pain relief for the public, to a cost-saving tool for hospitals, nursing homes and insurance companies.
Many pro-life advocates had hoped that palliative care would prove to be the ultimate antidote to the assisted suicide movement. The theory was sound: if patients are offered adequate pain and symptom relief, they will not request assisted suicide as a means to alleviate discomfort. Traditional palliative care—symptom relief when death is imminent—might have accomplished that mission.
However, over the past ten years, palliative care training and certification has been gradually co-opted by the very same right-to-die advocates that palliative care was meant to counter.
A good example would be Diane Meier, M.D., director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), who was invited to the Obama White House on June 18 for a healthcare reform stakeholder meeting. The meeting was focused on healthcare reform in the context of prevention and costs. According to the CAPC, “Meier told the panel that preventing the wrong care can help save the health system money that can be used to pay for wellness and prevention.”
The CAPC sent out an action alert out yesterday, telling its constituents,
What is important for health care reform and for the ninety million Americans living with serious illness is that care is focused on quality of life, management of the symptoms that accompany serious and chronic disease and facilitation of care that reflects patient goals and values.
The problem with the terms in this single paragraph, taken from a much longer e-mail alert, is that elasticity and subjectivity set the parameters for phrases such as “quality of life,” “patient goals and values” and the ever-evolving meaning of “management of the symptoms.” Such terms can mean one thing if money is not a problem for the healthcare provider and another if value judgments defining who lives and who dies are in play.
As a matter of fact, in the CAPC-supported Senate Bill 1150, entitled Advance Planning and Compassionate CareActof 2009, we find this definition of palliative care:
The term ‘palliative care' means interdisciplinary care for individuals with a life-threatening illness or injury relating to pain and symptom management and psychological, social, and spiritual needs and that seeks to improve the quality of life for the individual and the individual's family.
A government that condones killing preborn children really should not be using a word like “compassion” in the first place. Moving on past the fluffy, feel-good terms, it is important to have a clear understanding of the goals of people in government and in the death industry. Such knowledge is of great urgency as this nation faces the possibility of dramatic changes in the way health care is addressed, particularly for those who are ill, disabled or dying. As we have come to learn recently, far too many in policy-making positions are increasingly committed to saving money by shortening lives. One of their favorite mantras is their supposed concern for a patient’s “quality of life.”
Quality of life is a term representing a utilitarian evaluation of who should live and who should die. It’s a sliding scale of values based on opinions and personal value judgments. When decisions about one’s QOL are being made by the wrong people, comparing the estimated life expectancy of someone who is ill with the cost involved in caring for that person can become the final arbiter. This can have the same effect as directly killing a patient through an overt act of euthanasia.
But ethicist Louise Mitchell exposes this brand of specious thinking:
Some people are too old, some are handicapped. Where do we draw the line? How do we decide that you should be euthanized but not your neighbor? Who is to decide that a person seventy-five years old is too old but someone sixty-five years old is not? That Down's syndrome is okay but cerebral palsy is not? Every human being has imperfections of varying degrees and severities. That is why we have doctors and dentists and even medical insurance. These imperfections are overcome every day. We naturally expect them: we naturally believe we can overcome them: and we do overcome them. The choice we make here is not between death and a handicap or old age. Yet, euthanasia makes a choice in quality of life, saying this quality deserves continuance and this does not.
There is deception in this choice. Death does not improve life or the quality of life: it ends life completely and irrevocably. Euthanasia is not making a choice between suffering, handicaps, and age, or death. The choice is between life and death, between a lower quality of life and the killing of an innocent person, between a good that is always good no matter the circumstances and an evil that is evil no matter what the circumstances.
The CAPC’s use of the term “patient goals and values” is another example of the application of subjective opinions that could be employed to hasten death, rather than relieve the patient who is suffering but certainly not dying. At the end of the day, such terms are easily twisted when the wrong decision makers are empowered. This is what has become so troubling about the healthcare discussions on Capitol Hill.
Who should be making these decisions? Does it really make sense to rely on the United States Congress to tell us, through legislative fiat, what type of treatment can be provided and/or who can be treated and at what age treatment should be denied?
Margaret Sommerville, director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, makes a salient point in this regard:
The proper goal of medicine and physicians is to kill the pain. It is explicitly not their role to kill the patient with the pain—to become society's executioners—which is what euthanasia entails, no matter how merciful or compassionate our reasons.
While Sommerville is absolutely correct, the problem with state or federal mandates regulating such treatment is that physicians will not be making the final judgment; federal guidelines will.
When Dame Cicely Saunders founded the hospice movement in 1959, it is safe to assume she had no idea how her vision to aid the dying would encounter so many twists and deadly turns. In her early years, she once wrote,
You matter because you are you.
You matter to the last moment of your life,
and we will do all we can,
not only to help you die peacefully,
but also to live until you die.
Hopefully, many Americans will wrestle with the idea of government programs determining who will live or die. Hopefully, each American will let his or her elected officials know that it is never the proper role of government to sanction killing at any time during a human being’s life. No matter how the words are parsed, nuanced or twisted,
[a] man, even if seriously sick or prevented in the exercise of its higher functions, is and will be always a man ... [he] will never become a "vegetable" or an "animal." The intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being does not change depending on their circumstances.
Help me be a better person. I try to express, in as gentle terms as possible, that I want my Dad's 'Cremains' to be treated with dignity by simply following the Church's guidlines on burial, and my Mom and siblings would proffit spiritually by allowing this to happen?
. The first response I get, whether from the faithful Catholic Funeral Director, or from my kind Pastor, is fear and caution; meaning, while they agree nominally with the guidelines, it is more important to not be 'Dogmatic' or, in the funeral director's advice, "people do what they want and I can't force them". How can I possibly be kinder so they don't fear solidarity with the one who wants to do the right thing rather than the criticism of the world? It's not that I anticipate a strong opposition from family, I just want some minimal, kindly support. Timothy Brophy | July 31, 2009
Hi Judy,
Help me be a better person. I try to express, in as gentle terms as possible, that I want my Dad's 'Cremains' to be treated with dignity by simply following the Church's guidlines on burial, and my Mom and siblings would proffit spiritually by allowing this to happen?
. The first response I get, whether from the faithful Catholic Funeral Director, or from my kind Pastor, is fear and caution; meaning, while they agree nominally with the guidelines, it is more important to not be 'Dogmatic' or, in the funeral director's advice, "people do what they want and I can't force them". How can I possibly be kinder so they don't fear solidarity with the one who wants to do the right thing rather than the criticism of the world? It's not that I anticipate a strong opposition from family, I just want some minimal, kindly support. Timothy Brophy | July 31, 2009
Hi Judy,
My mother, thankfully, asked me to help her get a "living Will", since I have been promoting the Loving Will for several years now. My object is to protect her, and others from the death Culture, while hers is to protect her from unnecessary and extroardinary means to prolong her life. Bottom line, I could perhaps more easily 'sell' this to her if I could insert a phrase or two to reassure her. Can you either suggest a phrase or help to emphasis an existing one to accomplish this?
Public or Private answer is Okay Timothy Brophy | July 31, 2009
I am appalled at the Catholic Health Assoc. & St. Vincent de Paul for taking part in trying to pass the "Obama health care." They, along w/the college of Notre Dame should be stripped from the official Catholic Directory since they do not believe in the commandments of God that govern our Roman Catholic faith! espe marie villasenor | July 31, 2009
Thank you for reminding us of the dignity of life which is a gift from our Creator. We must honor and care for each other with the deepest love, understanding the wonder of life, seeing in each other's eyes, the life that mirrors our own.
Our daily work is to love, and to keep on loving, and never to stop caring for each other, till a natural death occurs in its own timing.
The imposition of death, the intending of death, is the complete opposite of caring. It entails assuming that the patient's life is no longer worth living, that there is no value at all in it. What an arrogant coldness this is! contrasted with what an overriding, all-embracing love.
Can one doubt which way our Lord would guide us to act? Hospice was intended to be a mission of that love, never to hasten death. Now, in many cases, it is hastening death for a majority of patients who come in.
What I know is that to love is to care, and to care impels one to act with care. Acting with care, means to do the things that the arrogant and cold would never do: to feed, to quench the thirst, to bathe, to convey to the patient that he or she is wanted, appreciated, loved.
The push for so-called reform is really a push to ration care and to make a quantum leap downward into the depths of the culture of death, where patients are told they are not going to be treated and therefore, that they are going to die because it is too expensive to care.
However, these same elite decision-makers have no problem with the massive amounts of Medicare fraud bilking the US treasury every year. They have no problem with huge sums of money disappearing into unknown hands.
The role of physicians, nurses and other health care workers must always be to care, never to kill. Forcing health care workers to kill, and that is what this is about, is the same as poisoning a tree, the fruit will never bring health, only illness and death. When patients can not trust their own health care providers, they have no one at all who can save them. Ron Panzer, President Hospice Patients Alliance | July 31, 2009
Dear Timothy
I am not certain why you are experiencing resistance to your request that the simple Catholic guidelines for respecting the remains of a loved one be abided by but it is perhaps the case that these people have never reallly read what the Church teaches. Sometimes when people are unfamiliar with something as basic as what you are asking, they resist be of service.
I suggest you sit down with them and have a conversation about how THEY would wish to be respected at the time when the Lord calls them home, and then suggest that you want nothing less for your Dad.
Judie Brown Judie Brown | August 1, 2009
Dear Timothy
It is at times like these that we have to smile, stand our ground and remind those with whom we are dealing that our first obligation is to God. Following Christ, with love and charity, is not always easy as He told us in the scriptures, but at the end of the day, He will be the judge, not the funeral director.
Judie Brown Judie Brown | August 5, 2009
Timothy
The phrase you are looking for is right out of Catholic teaching:
Nothing need be done if it is causing the patient undue discomfort or if the body is rejecting the recommended treatment.
For a reference in Catholic documents, I suggest the Vatican Declaration on Euthanasia which is on line at http://www.wf-f.org/declarationoneuthanasia.html
Please read SECTION IV, and share it with your mother.
BLOOD-DRENCHED ‘COMMON GROUND’ Posted: Wednesday July 29, 2009 at 4:43 pm EST by Judie Brown
Common ground: a basis of mutual interest or agreement
The current talk about “common ground” continues to concern me. These days, it pertains to several events that are separate and yet quite similar. The first is a piece of Capitol Hill legislation known as the Ryan-DeLauro bill, titled Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act (HR 3312). What first caught my eye about this piece of legislation is that it is being celebrated by abortion supporters as a milestone, with commentator Sarah Posner reporting,
These two legislators [Ryan and DeLauro], who disagree on the question of whether abortion should be legal, worked with the centrist think tank Third Way’s culture program to find common ground among supporters of reproductive rights and opponents of legal abortion. The result, though, is pretty much what NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, and other reproductive health advocates have been arguing for years: prevent unintended pregnancies through comprehensive sex education and birth control, and support economically struggling women and their families.
It is clear that this legislative proposal is somewhat appealing to those who might claim they are pro-life for political purposes, but are not truly dedicated to protecting preborn children as persons. I suggest that this is so because Third Way is an organization that describes itself as “the leading think tank of the moderate wing of the progressive movement” and says, “We work with elected officials, candidates, and advocates to develop and advance the next generation of moderate policy ideas.”
While I am not sure exactly what it means to be in the “moderate wing of the progressive movement,” my gut reaction is not favorable. The good news about Ryan-DeLauro is that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is opposing it. In a well-articulated statement, the USCCB pro-life office’s Susan Wills aptly labeled Ryan-DeLauro as “the Planned Parenthood Economic Stimulus Package of 2009.” At least on this bit of “common ground,” the bishops have chosen to remove their shovels.
But on other “common-ground” fronts, the news about the Catholic response is not as pleasing. For example, the USCCB is supporting the Pregnant Women Support Act (HR 2035). This bill, which some say could be supported by the White House, is described as a measure that would “reduce the abortion rate.” Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, has appealed to Congress to support the bill, which he claims “will provide many kinds of life-affirming support for pregnant women and their unborn children.” In a letter sent to every member of Congress, Cardinal Rigali states,
First, the fact that over a million abortions take place every year in this country is a tragedy, and we should at least take steps to reduce abortions. Second, no woman should ever have to undergo an abortion because she feels she has no other choice, or because alternatives were unavailable or not made known to her. An abortion performed under such social and economic duress meets no one's standard for “freedom of choice."
In his letter, Cardinal Rigali said that the bill “provides an authentic common ground, an approach that people can embrace regardless of their position on other issues.” While this sounds reasonable, we decided to see what the actual legislation states in relation to abortion, its availability and its identity as a surgical option for expectant mothers. What we found was not exactly compatible with Catholic teaching.
Among other things, the Pregnant Women Support Act sets out to make sure that any woman who is seeking an abortion is first provided with adequate information about her pregnancy. If she proceeds to abort her child, that is her choice.
Section 501 (“Disclosure of information on abortion services”) stipulates that “health facilities that perform abortions… shall obtain informed consent from the pregnant woman seeking to have the abortion. Informed consent shall exist only after a woman has voluntarily completed or opted not to complete pre-abortion counseling sessions.”
This legislation accepts as a fait accompli the Supreme Court decisions on abortion. It implicitly tolerates the idea of aborting a child because this action is protected by law. This is what common ground has always been about when applied to a thorny matter such as murdering a child prior to birth. So why is the USCCB applauding and supporting such a measure?
Bear in mind that the very same USCCB will not endorse political initiatives for protecting the personhood of the preborn child. Many bishops have done little or nothing to educate their flocks on the Catholic Church’s bedrock teaching on the humanity of the preborn and the fact that abortion is an act of murder. Perhaps it is more comfortable to be publicly accepted as reasonable than it is to demand an end to the slaughter.
The Catholic common-ground game appears to reach all the way to the Vatican. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor of Inside the Vaticanmagazine, recently wrote an opinion piece in which he made a few troubling statements. For example, in writing about his good friend Gian Maria Vian, the controversial editor of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Moynihan tells us,
A month before President Obama's scheduled visit to see the Pope on July 10, Vian published an editorial that took a positive view of Obama's first 100 days.
Conservative Catholics in the United States and elsewhere were appalled that, despite Obama's moves to provide greater access to abortion and stem-cell research, the paper was not denouncing Obama. There were calls for Vian to resign.
When I spoke with Vian a few days ago, I asked him about this controversy. He told me that he still has the "full support" of the Vatican's Secretariat of State. (In fact, Vian is a personal friend of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's secretary of state.)
What can explain Vian's position -- and, by implication, the position of the Secretariat of State, and, perhaps, of the Pope himself?
Vian told me that the "big picture" needs to be kept in mind, that the Holy See's agenda, while always and unswervingly pro-life, nevertheless includes many other issues, such as social justice, disarmament, the Middle East and Cuba.
Vian's position illustrates the considerable differences between the European and American viewpoints on many critical issues of our time. The Europeans (like Vian) focus on points of agreement, and the Americans (like Vian's critics) focus on points of disagreement.
I do think Vian -- and even the Secretariat of State -- may be "naïve" about Obama and his intentions.
But I also believe that Americans can become so intent on one grave moral injustice (abortion and the manipulation of human embryos, both of which are always profoundly wrong) that they can ignore other areas of possible agreement.
What in the world is this man thinking? The “big picture” has a fundamental principle, and that is that each human being has innate dignity bestowed on him by God Himself. Therefore, putting an end to abortion is the “big picture”!
Moynihan discusses the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and President Obama, opining that because the Holy Father handed Obama a copy of Dignitas Personae, there is that one hopeful “possibility of reaching Obama with a reasoned argument in defense of life.”
When one can relegate the act of abortion to being “one grave moral injustice” among other matters where agreement is possible, the Machiavellian nature of any common-ground proposal becomes obvious. The very idea of seeking "common ground" on which the forces of evil can agree with the forces of good is counterfeit to the core. The pro-life movement does not exist to be all-inclusive on many “issues” and “points of agreement.” It exists to end the murder.
Moynihan knows as well as I do that Obama is not backing down on abortion. Regardless of the global issues on which two heads of state can agree, the pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth. His teaching authority comes from Christ, not from political strategists and certainly not from accommodating evil. The same can be said for each of those men ordained into the priesthood of the Catholic Church, including every single Catholic bishop.
Abortion is not merely one among many so-called issues; it is a human tragedy that is being ignored, accepted and otherwise minimized for the sake of political opportunism. In my many years as a Catholic, I have never heard a sermon on my obligation to placate the world and appease elected officials. What I have heard is that crimes against humanity, such as the horror of abortion, are atrocities before God that can never, ever be condoned, accepted or otherwise embraced.
Perhaps it is time for Catholics, including the bureaucrats at the USCCB, to individually reflect on what is going on and stop hoeing so-called common ground—a ground that is seeping with the blood of dead preborn babies.
And so, what does it buy the bishops to "be publicly accepted as reasonable than it is to demand an end to the slaughter.", with the Culture of Death defining 'reasonable'? It would seem imperative of the bishops to convert the status quo to it being reasonable to allow human beings to live. David Volk | July 30, 2009
SYNCHRONIZED STEALTH: OBAMA’S ‘DEPARTMENT OF DEATH WITH DIGNITY’! Posted: Tuesday July 28, 2009 at 2:25 pm EST by Judie Brown
The current debate over health care is one of those scenarios that might play well in a science-fiction thriller, but must not be allowed to play out on the backs and over the dead bodies of the uninformed. The intent to create a nationalized health-care system appears more and more like a behind-the-scenes project based on government control over who lives and who dies. I might even suggest that nationalized health care’s real purpose is to keep feeding the vultures who prey off the culture of death, instead of keeping Americans healthy.
The problem is what is not occurring right now in the public debate. In other words, what remains unstated has many of us extremely concerned. Obama’s so-called health-care plan, if implemented, could be the most egregious assault on the dignity of the human person since the Supreme Court’s dreadful Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions of 1973. Here are a few specifics.
Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Dr. McCaughey has written extensively on the dangers of the Obama health-care proposal and its many ramifications. What she has found in the draft now circulating in the House of Representatives is alarming, but apparently interests only a few of those who should be warning the public about it. And their target audience should be those who are approaching age 65 and, of course, those who are elderly and needing care. This target audience is going to become the walking target of Obama’s health-care “reform.”
Dr. McCaughey’s detailed research is available on the Defend Your Health Care web site. There you will find explanations of several chilling aspects of the various Obama health-care proposals floating around, including the following excerpt from “Assault on Seniors,” published in the Wall Street Journal:
The House bill shifts resources from specialty medicine to primary care based on the misconception that Americans overuse specialist care and drive up costs in the process (pp. 660-686). In fact, heart-disease patients treated by generalists instead of specialists are often misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly. They are readmitted to the hospital more frequently, and die sooner.
“Study after study shows that cardiologists adhere to guidelines better than primary care doctors,” according to Jeffrey Moses, a heart specialist at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Adds Jeffrey Borer, chairman of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center: “Seldom do generalists have the knowledge to identify the symptoms of aortic valve disease, even though more than 10% of people over 75 have it. After valve surgery, patients who were too short of breath to walk can resume a normal life into their 80s or 90s.”
While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, the state is denying some cancer patients care that could extend their lives and is offering them physician-assisted suicide instead.
What is perhaps most interesting about Dr. McCaughey, who earned her doctorate in constitutional history, is that those who favor Obama’s health-care reform are vilifying her right and left. Though we know that this is how advocates of death and disrespect for human dignity operate, it is nevertheless disturbing. She has been called a liar, a spinner of tall tales and other terms of endearment, but the information she is providing is readily available from unbiased sources, such as the text of the health-care “reform” bill itself.
Though many claim Obama's massive bill is needed, few have actually read it. National Review blogger Jack Fowler actually took the time to present a portion of it in a post titled “Doctor Kevorkian, Call Your Office.” In the bill’s “Advance Care Planning Consultation” section, we read the following:
Such consultation shall include the following:
`(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to.
`(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses.
`(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.
`(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline, the advance care planning clearinghouses, and State legal service organizations (including those funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965).
`(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.
I could quote much more of this very lengthy section, but the gist is already quite obvious. Why would the government’s health-“CARE” bill include such detailed guidelines for discussion of end-of-life matters, unless it aims to ensure that the elderly and infirm are ready to bite the bullet, even if God is not ready to call them home? It does not take a rocket scientist to question why a “health-care” plan should include such a strong emphasis on not preserving their lives.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, which works closely with the USCCB, have addressed health-care “reform” proposals without noting the gruesome specter of euthanasia that pervades the legislative proposals currently on the table. For example, a recent NCHLA alert makes the following statement:
On July 17, Bishop William Murphy, Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, sent a letter to Congress saying: “The USCCB looks forward to working with you to reform health care successfully in a manner that offers accessible, affordable and quality health care that protects and respects the life and dignity of all people from conception until natural death.” Abortion must not be included as part of a national health care benefit.
While it is laudable that the U.S. bishops and their collaborators are crying out for an elimination of abortion funding from the so-called health-care reform proposals, why are they not pointing out the potential for euthanasia as well? Is the plan’s emphasis on ending the lives of the elderly not just as abhorrent as its intent to require Americans to pay for an ever increasing number of abortions? If the answer is yes, then why aren’t the bishops educating Catholics nationwide on the threat these bills pose for people of all ages, from creation until death?
The USCCB stated the following in a document entitled “Making Health Care Reform ‘Abortion Neutral’: What is the Legal Status Quo on Abortion?”:
Health care reform whose goal is to advance health coverage, not advance an agenda on abortion, will take care to be abortion neutral. It will preserve current policies that bar use of taxpayer funds, respect conscience rights, and generally encourage childbirth over abortion; it will not mandate abortion as part of any “basic” or minimum benefit package.
This statement alone is mind-boggling! The USCCB sounds complacent about the fact that the nation is going to have abortion on demand, but by golly, it is upset about health-care “reform” requiring us to pay for it!
In addition, we have found that various diocesan “respect life” offices across America are taking their lead from the July 17 letter issued by Bishop William Murphy, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, which advocates four principles for health-care reform:
• a truly universal health policy with respect for human life and dignity;
• access for all with a special concern for the poor and inclusion of legal Immigrants;
• pursuing the common good and preserving pluralism including freedom of conscience and variety of options; and
• restraining costs and applying them equitably across the spectrum of payers.
Once again, there is no mention of the encouragement of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide that the Obama plan entails.
I find it laudable beyond words that the USCCB, the participants in the recent Stop the Abortion Mandate webcast and commentators such as Star Parker have articulated a huge number of Americans’ absolute disdain for considering the aborting of a child as “health care.” However, there must be equally strong opposition to prevent Obama’s “Department of Death with Dignity” from becoming a reality. Let’s restore respect for human dignity across the full spectrum of a person’s life!
You can encourage the USCCB, NCHLA, similar organizations, national news commentators and media outlets to focus on respect for human dignity at all stages of life, by expressing absolute rejection of all forms of euthanasia—and abortion—in any health-care bills.
News commentators and media outlets are easily located via the internet. The information below is provided to assist you in contacting pro-life organizations.
National Committee for a Human Life Amendment
1500 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 24
Washington, D.C. 20005
202-393-0703 www.nchla.org
God Bless you Judy!
The USCCB fail us AGAIN.
Thank you for this article. I am forwarding to my confused Catholic friends and to the Catholics who know it so they can forward.
Thank you,
Liz
Elizabeth Daly Sato | July 28, 2009
I heard an AARP spokesperson being interviewed on NPR, reassuring the elderly that the proposed every-five-year consult for Medicare recipients was benign, rather than the consult-to-die sessions that we suspect. If AARP does not concern itself with the beginning of life, then they could convince themselves that the folks at the other end of the spectrum are not at risk. This absolute trust in the health care profession and our present administration seems naive, since both include active killing of human beings (abortion) as a part of health care. David Volk | July 30, 2009
David
AARP has been in the hip pocket of the pro-euthanasia movement for years and years. They are publicly deceptive; always have been.
Judie Judie Brown | July 31, 2009
So, what is the motivation for AARP to support euthanasia? It would seem diametrically opposed for an organization representing older people to support killing off those older people. David Volk | August 3, 2009
David
I have been aware of the AARP's role in supporting so-called Death with Dignity or "compassion in dying" since the early 1980s. What is their motivation: it's the "loving" thing to allow people to control how they die! That is their argument, not mine!
‘OBAMACARE’: FAST TRACK TO ECONOMIC SUICIDE Posted: Monday July 27, 2009 at 3:28 pm EST by Judie Brown
By Dennis M. Howard
Economic conservatives are worried about the runaway tax-and-spend potential of President Obama’s health-care initiative. They are worried that “before this thing is through, it could cost us $1.6 trillion and still not solve the health-care problem.”
But that’s not even half of the real story.
What they’re overlooking is the hidden cost of federal funding of abortion as part of an “essential benefits package” that will be imposed on everyone unless it is explicitly excluded from the legislation. Right now, the Democrats are opposed to such an exclusion.
If the health-care bill passes without this exclusion, taxpayers will be forced to pay for other people’s abortions whether they like it or not. And the $1.6 trillion the eco-conservatives are worried about will only be the tip of a very large iceberg.
That’s because abortion has a huge hidden economic cost. It’s the loss in gross domestic product (GDP) represented by all those babies who never had a chance to grow up to become the future workers, consumers, taxpayers and parents the nation needs to sustain future economic growth.
This is something the younger generation better start worrying about. People under 40 will still be paying taxes 30 to 50 years from now, so they will take the biggest hit from this phenomenon. And because their numbers have already been depleted by abortion, that means even fewer shoulders on which to rest a much bigger burden.
We’ve already had more than 51.7 million abortions since 1970. That’s a whopping 30.6 percent of our current under-40 population. If we had a war that took that kind of toll, we would have run up the white flag decades ago. The pro-aborts just don’t give up that easily.
What they don’t want to admit is that people are our country’s most important renewable resource. Ever since Roe v. Wade, we’ve been depleting that resource with abandon.
The hidden cost of those 51.5 million abortions has already reached an estimated $35 trillion in lost GDP. Assuming a 33-percent tax rate, that’s enough to pay off our entire current national debt with enough left over to fund a vibrant economy.
If all those kids had lived, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.
Looking forward, the picture isn’t any brighter ... especially if we keep subsidizing abortion. That’s exactly what the Democrats propose to do by sending you the bill for other people’s abortions.
GDP per capita is now about $45,000 per year, and – until the current slump – it was compounding at a rate of four percent per year. It is a measure that includes everyone from the cradle to the grave. But every baby we abort is one less contributor to GDP – not just for today, but for a lifetime.
Every child we abort today will cost us about $23 million in future GDP over a lifetime. And the bonus is that babies don’t compete for jobs with the rest of us for their first 20 years. But they create jobs for everybody else – doctors, nurses, teachers, homebuilders, toymakers, retailers – you name it.
If there ever was a major job killer, it is the baby-killing industry.
Yet all those nuts we send to Congress continue to subsidize Planned Parenthood to the tune of $326 million a year. That’s about $1,000 for every abortion Planned Parenthood performs. Now Congress want to compound that by making you pay again ... and again ... and again.
So, unless abortion is explicitly excluded from Obama’s health-care plan, get ready for even higher taxes. Whether it’s your abortion or someone else’s, you’re going to get the bill.
Planned Parenthood estimates that the number of abortions will rise by 20–35 percent if the Obama health-care bill passes. That will take abortions back to levels not seen since the mid-1980s. And that means even bigger losses in future GDP.
Thanks to the magic of compounding, by 2040 to 2050, we’re already looking at cumulative GDP losses of $335–500 trillion dollars just from abortion. Add another 20–35 percent to that, and we’re talking about really big money.
That’s why I call “Obamacare” a fast track to national suicide. It is far more significant than anything else that threatens us this side of eternal damnation.
In his book Obamanomics, John Talbott lists "25 Greatest Threats to our Prosperity” and their potential costs. (Abortion oddly is not one of them!) High on his list are “World Poverty" ($100 trillion), "Global Warming" ($60 trillion), "Globalization’s Nasty Side Effects" ($60 trillion) ... all the way down to “Terrorism" ($5 trillion).
His terrorism tab is laughable. We’ve already exceeded it. And nearly all of the others are based on numbers conjured up in someone’s imagination.
My estimates, on the other hand, are based on hard-rock numbers. GDP per capita is a measure that is used universally throughout the world. Indeed, my estimates are more conservative than those employed by government agencies in the cost/benefit analyses they use to plan their spending.
But try telling that to some politician who firmly believes that abortion is some kind of free lunch. Sure, it looks “free” to a guy who wants to avoid the responsibility of paying 21 years of child support, but the baby’s only crime is wanting to call him “Daddy” for the rest of his life.
For the rest of us, it adds up to more of what we have been experiencing for the last 35 years: declining personal incomes, a shrinking economy, lost jobs, rising taxes, and less freedom as the Nanny State takes over more and more of our personal lives.
In short, abortion is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.
But you have a choice. If you want bigger tax bills, a grimmer future for your children and grandchildren, and more government encroachment on your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, just go back to sleep and forget you ever read this.
But if you are ready to fight this, come join us at We the People Speak, our new non-partisan educational campaign to restore common sense to American politics. Or join us on Facebook. Contact your representatives by calling the U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202.224.3121. And urge them to explicitly exclude funding for abortion from any health-care bill.
Dennis Howard is president of the Movement for a Better America, an ALL Associate group dedicated to pro-life marketing communications and education. This commentary was originally published on http://www.movementforabetteramerica.org and is reprinted here with his kind permission. Dennis is a veteran journalist and market researcher who began researching abortion's economic impact in 1992. In 1994, based on long-term demographic trends, he began forecasting the current economic crisis. His forecasts have proven correct, starting in 2000 and continuing until 2010 and beyond. Dennis frequently speaks and gives interviews on this topic. Contact information: http://www.movementforabetteramerica.org; mbaforlife@gmail.com; Media calls – 973-895-7367/ 973-796-8338 (cell)
SEX: GOOD, BABIES: BAD Posted: Friday July 24, 2009 at 12:07 pm EST by Judie Brown
By Kortney Blythe
This mindset seems to be common in the pro-death camp.
Take, for instance, this quote by Elisabeth Garber-Paul in an article on the rise in sexual activity during this economic recession: “So join the rest of America in this exciting new trend. Save money, stay in, have sex—just don’t make a baby.”
That’s right, Elisabeth, throw respect for yourself out the window and spit in the face of God by removing one of his intentions for intercourse. More babies will just make the economy worse, right? Wrong. In fact, one of the reasons we are even in this recession is because of the plummeting birthrate. There simply aren’t enough people to replace the retiring population in the workplace and pay for Social Security, or to stimulate the economy.
Not that you’ll hear about that from the anti-human, overpopulation zealots. But do your research. Watch Demographic Winter and Demographic Bomb, two documentaries which debunk the overpopulation myth and ask a very important question: Is it possible we have been failed by the very ideas we thought could save us?
It goes without saying that abortion advocates think saving sex for marriage is ludicrous and archaic. Just check out the title of a book just released by radical feminist Jessica Valenti: The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women.
In an interview on the rabidly pro-abortion RH Reality Check web site, Valenti purports that teaching and honoring purity is just as dangerous as the media’s “pressure on sexuality and the hypersexualization of women.” Oh, really? So, protecting young people from the heartbreak and emptiness of premarital sex, not to mention a load of sexually transmitted diseases, is akin to the objectification of women, the result of which has been a generation of depressed, confused girls with eating disorders?
She goes on to say, “The purity myth is so embedded in our culture and our psyches… You don’t have to be forcing your daughter to take a virginity pledge in order for the fiction of virginity to affect your life.” Really? Then why does every Hollywood film end (or begin) with a couple jumping into bed together? If it’s so “embedded” in our culture, then why are abortion, STD and teen pregnancy rates so high? (I’m not going to even legitimize her term “fiction of virginity” with a response).
As if that isn’t enough, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a new program is paying high school girls to not get pregnant. That’s right. For every day they stay baby-free, $1 is deposited into an account to be used for college. According to a local TV news report, the group was founded by Hazel Brown, “a maternity nurse who thought too many teens were having babies.”
Ms. Brown, how about seeing the root of the problem? Too many teens are having premarital sex. The problem is not the presence of a baby, but the actions of his mother and father, which resulted in his existence.
The three goals of this program, called College Bound Sisters, are for the girls to “avoid pregnancy, graduate from high school and enroll in college,” Brown said. Oh, what lofty goals we have for our young people!
Teenagers rise to the expectations that are set for them. If all we ask is that they avoid pregnancy (and we’ll even pay them for that!), what are we teaching girls about sex, relationships, the value of children or personal responsibility, for that matter?
Instead of urging purity and self-control, and demonstrating the joys of a quiver full of children (Psalm 127:3-5) within marriage, this program bribes young girls. If those same girls were taught basic biblical morality, they wouldn’t be having sex, and thus, there would be no chance of pregnancy.
The message of this program in a nutshell: Go ahead and sin against God by having damaging premarital sex, but just make sure you avoid one of the outcomes: babies.
If only young people knew the joy and blessings they are missing out on when they use sex for purely physical and selfish reasons! Then, and only then, they would cherish chastity as it should be cherished.
To my single friends reading this, please flee from this deadly mentality of me-first, pleasure-seeking sex without consequences. Seek righteousness, pursue holiness and practice chastity.
“But understand this: There will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Kortney Blythe is the chapter and street teams coordinator for American Life League’s Rock for Life project, which brings the human personhood message to youth through music, education and human rights activism. This commentary originally appeared in the July 2, 2009 issue of the RFL Report.
I just finished reading what you said about Jessica Valenti and I can't believe what I read! Virginity is bad? Please, who is it hurting by remaining a virgin? Whats wrong with remaining a virgin until marriage? People like that make me sick and are more then harming young people! elisabeth | July 24, 2009
Judie, after 25+ years of blind Christian faith, I have to say and admit from personal study, personal experience and personal loss...is that ANY and ALL religions are outdated, violent and promote hatred. If you don't believe me, just watch your own video on Bill Maher. You could have chosen to speak out against what he said, but for you to want or him to be fired for exercising his free speech right that was given to him in agreement in the Secular Constitution, you need to look in the mirror.
But, I am sure in this world of "Controversy Sells" I seriously doubt that you will see my point.
Religion poisons everything Judie, period.
Craig Fine | July 27, 2009
Thank you for this important information. We desperately need the intervention of God if we are to stop President Obama's stealthcare plan. I think we are missing the root, though, and that is rampant disobedience to natural and divine law regarding human sexuality, especially through our use of contraception, all contraception, and especially abortifacient contraception. Staggering number of children are aborted without proper attention even from pro-life organizations. I am personally passionate because I unwittingly aborted one child by using the IUD and possibly others and also by the Pill. Thanks for what you are doing in that regard, Judie. Juliana Davis | July 28, 2009
Dear Craig,
You take a very negative view of something very positive and good. Freedom of speech should never translate into hateful, deceptive rhetoric about any human being, including the Holy Father. Maher was wrong, and that is it in a nutshell.
Faith in God brightens everything as one's love for God grows; blind religions, such as secular humanism and the like, poison everything. Think about it.
CHURCH TEACHING AND HUMAN REPRODUCTION Posted: Thursday July 23, 2009 at 4:52 pm EST by Judie Brown
By John B. Shea, M.D., FRCP(C)
Contraception:
The Catholic Church teaches that “the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally excluded … is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or the woman.” This teaching prohibits contraception by means of the condom, intrauterine device, vasectomy, tubal ligation and chemical contraception by the use of oral contraceptives, morning-after pills, or the administration of contraceptives by injection or in a skin patch. The reason for this prohibition is that contraception breaks the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act.
Contraception greatly dishonors marriage, the greatness of which is beautifully described by Dietrich von Hildebrand. “No natural human good has been exalted so high in the New Testament. No other good has been chosen to become one of the Seven Sacraments. No other has been endowed with the honor of participating in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. … The wonderful, divinely appointed relationship between the mysterious procreation of a new human being, and this most intimate communion of love … illuminates the grandeur and solemnity of this union … Thus it is that in order to preserve the reverent attitude of the spouses toward the mystery of this union, this general connection between procreation and the communion of love must always be maintained.”
History has clearly demonstrated how prescient Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) was when he predicted that the practice of contraception would cause the man to lose respect for the woman, considering her a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment. The gigantic increase in the incidence of abortion and of sexually transmitted infections bears witness to the promiscuity that followed the legalization and wide availability of chemical contraceptives. The pope also warned of the danger that public authorities which take no heed of moral exigencies would try to solve problems of the community by means illicit for married couples. Witness the worldwide promotion of contraception and abortion fostered by the United Nations today, and also the mandatory one-child policy of the government of China.
Paul VI, in Humanae vitae, stated that “if, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate births without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.” Pius XII taught that unless some serious circumstances arise, spouses are obliged to have children. However, he also teaches that it is moral for the spouses to limit their family size or even to refrain from having children altogether, if they have sufficiently serious reasons. He stated that “there are serious motives, such as those often mentioned in the so-called medical, eugenic, economic, and social ‘indications,’ that can except for a long time, perhaps even during the whole duration of the marriage, from the positive and obligatory carrying out of the act.”
The 1965 Vatican document The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) teaches that “among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decisions, courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large number of children.” It also states that it is the duty of the parents, and of them alone, to decide on the number and spacing of children, and that they should take “into consideration their own good and the good of their children already born or yet to come, and ability to read the signs of the times and of their own situation, on the material and spiritual level, and finally, an estimation of the good of the family, of society, and of the Church.”
The morally acceptable way for spacing the birth of children is called “Natural Family Planning.” One of the best methods is the Hilgers system. The effectiveness rates of this method for avoiding pregnancy have been shown to be 99.5 to 98.8 at the twelfth month of use. This compares favorably to the pill, of which Planned Parenthood’s web site states, “Of 100 women who use the Pill, only 8 will become pregnant during the first year of typical use.”
Relevant medical facts
Some chemical “contraceptives” abort all of the time. All of them abort some of the time. They do this by preventing implantation of an embryo in the uterus. Elites in the medical profession try to justify their use of the word “contraceptive” by stating that there is no embryo before implantation. This statement is false. The science of human embryology demonstrated, over 100 years ago, that a new individual human being comes into existence when the single-cell zygote is formed, either by fertilization or by cloning. Using the oral contraceptive pill before the first child is born causes a 40-percent increase in the risk of breast cancer. Taken for four or more years before the first child is born increases that risk to 72 percent. The OCP also increases the risk of cancer of the cervix of the uterus and of the liver.
The condom does not provide complete protection from the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infection.
Artificial reproductive technologies:
A human being can be brought into existence by the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm. This can be achieved by sexual intercourse or in the laboratory by in vitro fertilization. Reproduction of a human being can also be achieved by cloning. There are many different methods of cloning that include nuclear transfer, embryo splitting, etc.
The Church teaches that IVF and human cloning are morally forbidden. Why? IVF between husband and wife is condemned because it is illicit in itself, and in opposition to the dignity of procreation and the conjugal union. IVF in which the sperm or ovum of a third person is used is also condemned because, in addition, it violates the reciprocal commitment of spouses and shows a grave lack of regard for that essential property of marriage which is unity. It also deprives the child of her or his filial relationship with parental origins, can hinder the maturing of personal identity, can damage personal relationships within the family and has repercussions on civil society.
IVF is neither, in fact, achieved nor positively willed as an expression and fruit of a specific act of conjugal union. The human embryo is treated as a product of technology and not as a gift of God. In its use and in the use of many other techniques of genetic engineering, a human person is objectively deprived of his or her proper perfection. Such fertilization establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the person. This domination is contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. Therefore, IVF and cloning are morally unacceptable.
Relevant medical facts
• Few children conceived by IVF are ever born. In each cycle, six to eight embryos are conceived. At most, two are implanted. The rest are either disposed of immediately or are frozen, and eventually, most die. Only 25 percent of those conceived are implanted, and of them, only 20 percent are born. Therefore, only five percent of IVF embryos are born alive. The Australian bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini calculates that the chance of saving a given frozen human embryo by implantation is less than two percent.
• Birth defects associated with assisted reproductive technologies: 4.9–7.2-fold increase in malignant tumor of the retina; five percent incidence of Beckwith–Wiedemann Syndrome (large tongue, predisposition to cancer); in Brazil, incidence of cancer increased 117 times; cerebral palsy increased 1.4–1.7 times; fourfold increase in developmental delay; premature birth increased 5.6 times; low birthrate increased 9.8 times and heart deformity increased four times.
• To achieve IVF, a woman is given hormones to stimulate the development of many ova at the same time. This may cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and breathing difficulty. In rare cases, blood clots, kidney or lung disease may occur and may be life-threatening.
• Dr. Thomas Hilgers’ FertilityCare System: Dr. Hilgers’ Natural Procreative Technology is a method of care that involves precise diagnosis of the hormonal caused of infertility, and its appropriate treatment. It is also morally acceptable as a way to help an infertile woman to conceive, and is two to three times more successful than IVF, at a fraction of the cost. One study on women who had previous failed IVF, showed a success rate of 36.2 percent. The Hilgers system has been shown to be up to 80-percent successful in helping women to have a successful pregnancy after they have suffered repeated miscarriages. It cuts the rate of premature birth in half, thus helping to reduce the incidence of brain damage. For more information, about the Hilgers System for avoiding or achieving pregnancy, contact the Marguerite Bourgeoys Family Centre Fertility Care Program; 688 Coxwell Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4C 3B7, Canada; phone 416-365-2868; e-mail fertilitycare@sympatico.ca
Dr. John B. Shea is a retired diagnostic radiologist and a fellow of the Royal College of Canada. This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Catholic Insight magazine and is reprinted here with its kind permission. For more information on the availability of the FertilityCare System in the U.S. and Canada, visit www.fertilitycare.org; call 402-390-6600; or write to FertilityCare Centers of America, 6901 Mercy Rd., Omaha, NE 68106.
CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE’S DEMISE—IS IT IMMINENT? Posted: Wednesday July 22, 2009 at 3:28 pm EST by Judie Brown
There was a time when institutions bearing a Catholic identity, such as hospitals and clinics, would never have agreed to even the slightest hint of deviating from the Catholic Church’s teachings. That was, I am sad to say, a very long time ago.
Today, there appears to be a slow deterioration in the Catholic identity of Catholic health-care institutions. I started to become aware of this over 10 years ago, when the Peoria Protocol first came to my attention. For those unfamiliar with it, the Peoria Protocol, first developed in 1995, was put in place at Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois. The Protocol defines permissible approaches to medical care following a sexual assault. Following are two of its four possible courses of action:
* The woman is determined to be past the early post-ovulatory phase of her cycle if the LH urine test is negative and her progesterone level is greater than or equal to 6 ng/mL. In this situation, the timing of the sexual assault could not have coincided with the presence of an ovum. Hence, it is morally permissible to administer an emergency contraceptive for the victim's psychological benefit.
* Finally, the woman is determined to be in the late post-ovulatory phase if the LH urine test is negative, her progesterone level is less than 6 ng/mL, and she anticipates menstruation in less than seven days. Here, too, it is morally permissible to administer a contraceptive medication.
These two statements, while approved by many Catholic medical ethicists, represent a fundamental moral problem. If the Catholic Church does not condone the use of contraception as medical treatment in any case other than a situation involving a serious medical condition and in which the female abstains from sexual relations during such treatment, how can it be permissible to administer a powerful chemical compound that is known to abort, when there is no serious medical condition and alternative therapies exist? Neither of the above scenarios described in the Peoria Protocol provide a 100-percent guarantee that a child has not been conceived. Moreover, these statements are nuanced and do not provide adequate safeguards to protect the child, should his conception have occurred as a result of the rape.
One has to wonder why a Catholic hospital would even consider this treatment option. Saint Francis Medical Center is also involved in dispensing oral contraceptives. The news media reports that its involvement in the distribution of birth control pills is the direct result of a “middle ground” decision:
[W]hen OSF Saint Francis began hiring primary care physicians in the 1990s as part of OSF Medical Group, many of the physicians wanted to prescribe oral contraceptives. Much anguished discussion ensued, said Joseph Piccione, corporate ethicist for OSF Healthcare System.
Yet a middle ground was found. No contraception of any kind would be distributed within the four walls of the hospital itself, Piccione said.
Regardless of walls, there is no Catholic doctrine that would sanction an arm’s-length agreement that the birth control pill can be dispensed under the aegis of the Church.
Then there’s the California case involving known abortionists serving as staff physicians for Catholic hospitals. When Wynette Sills first brought this to our attention earlier this year, we investigated, only to find—to our dismay—that, in fact, the situation is as she originally described it. As Bud Reeves reports,
We want our readers to know that we are continuing with our investigation as well as with our direct action activities regarding Mercy San Juan Hospital (MSJH) and Catholic Healthcare West’s (CHW) practice of allowing identified abortion doctors to practice at MSJH and even be promoted on their webpage. CHW originally excused their promotion and use of three identified abortion doctors as a matter of an insurance requirement. Following my (Bud) efforts to get clarification from Mr. Gardner, last week he sent me a one sentence email which now claims that federal law requires CHW hospitals to allow the abortion doctors to practice in their hospitals. I wrote back to Mr. Gardner and asking him for a meeting or at least giving us the citations for the laws he refers to. So far nothing but silence from Mr. Gardner. Keep this in prayer.
It is probably no accident that about a year ago, Catholic Healthcare West entered into an alliance with human cloning practitioner Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. While it is reported that Catholic Healthcare West will be conducting clinical trials of adult stem cell treatment for heart disease, this alliance raises serious ethical questions, due to the fact that “ACT has previously promoted research that contradicts Catholic principles regarding respect for the rights of the human embryo.”
The problematic nature of such agreements, arrangements and alliances is not by any means limited to Illinois and California. It is a nationwide epidemic, rooted in the age-old dilemma of choosing between God and money. This becomes very clear when revisiting the complexities of the Boston archdiocese’s Caritas Christi mess. You may recall that American Life League was quick to commend Cardinal Sean O’Malley when the archdiocese made this announcement on June 26:
Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers.
But, within days, we received a telephone call informing us that the agreement had actually not been cancelled. Carol McKinley reported this on her blog, which has thus far not been refuted: “Nobody (including other bishops and cardinals) is able to get details out of the cardinal about what it is he has approved. I think our Catholic pro-life force deserves to know what the actual arrangement is.”
But we do have an inkling when we consider the statement Cardinal O’Malley made, as quoted in the Boston Globe: “By withdrawing from the joint venture and serving the poor as a provider... upholding Catholic moral teaching at all times, they are able to carry forward the critical mission of Catholic health care.’’ The newspaper’s analysis: “Because Caritas will no longer be a joint owner of the insurance venture, the archdiocese is hoping that there will no longer be any question that Caritas will not financially profit from abortions, sterilizations, or other services provided by non-Catholic hospitals.”
A Caritas spokeswoman told the Globe, “This is the right way to move the distraction of the debate of ownership and allow us to be a provider.’’ Here is noted Catholic commentator Phil Lawler’s response: “A debate over involvement in killing unborn babies is a ‘distraction’ from the business of saving lives. A debate over mutilating people to make them infertile is a ‘distraction’ from the distinctive mission of Catholic health care.”
So we are left to wonder if all this means is that Caritas Christi is no longer a an official business partner of abortion providers, but still connected with them in some way. Does it mean that Catholic hospitals will continue to refer for abortion, use the morning-after pill to treat rape victims and so forth? Nobody knows!
As I write this, similar problems are developing in New Hampshire, where the pressure is on Catholic hospitals to bend to the will of the state. New Hampshire Right to Life has prepared a set of three videos dealing with the challenges they face at this time. As was the case in Massachusetts, the cause of concern is a merger.
Wisconsin’s Catholic hospitals are also under the gun. Just last year, they were forced to dispense emergency contraception and did not sue, or in any other way, act to protect their Catholic identity. So what will happen now?
Well, the answer, which is frightening to say the least, may be contained in a short commentary written by Catholic Health Association’s president and CEO, Sister Carol Keehan, DC, who attended the March 5 Obama White House Health Reform Summit. She tells us,
President Obama also was clear that we will have to spend more money in the immediate future to build the infrastructure to lower health care costs in order to achieve the kind of savings and affordability in the future. He pointed out that this is politically one of the hardest kinds of decisions to make.
It occurs to me that the various pressure tactics already being used by state governments to pressure Catholic hospitals into doing the unthinkable are but one way to tighten the noose as “Obama-care” becomes a reality, if, in fact, it does. What also occurs to me is that our bishops must speak with a unified voice, without any dissent and without any bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. They must set forth authentically Catholic medical ethics as the only medical ethics that will be followed in a Catholic setting—with or without mergers, alliances or “common-ground” shenanigans. Until that happens, Catholic health care, as we once knew it, will continue to deteriorate and, at some point, will crumble.
I honesty cannot belive that a woman would consider rape to be a gift from God. Maybe you, julie, need to get out in the real world for a while. You will be not be winning anyone's heart and mind by acting like a fanitic joell | July 22, 2009
It must be that bishops are unable, or unwilling, to teach Catholic beliefs, and so instead appease the culture.
For example, the Peoria Protocol "administer an emergency contraceptive for the victim's psychological benefit" when no physical purpose exists.
And OSF allowing employee physicians to prescribe oral contraceptives because they the doctors wanted to. Teaching employee physician the truth as set forth in Humanae Vitae would have fulfilled the Bishop's and OSF's responsibility, instead!
If Catholic teachers and institutions are not going to stand up and answer the challenges in the hard cases, then what do they understand Catholicism to mean? When do people get the teaching? When does the light shine? When does the Light shine?
If bishops want to restrict themselves to espousing pious practices - which the secular culture may ridicule but nonetheless tolerate, and avoid teaching us how to address the difficult decisions in our lives, then they lead us towards sentimental religiosity and away from truth and heroic living. David Volk | July 22, 2009
Catholic health care has been sliding down the moral slippery slope ever since it permitted replacement of the demoniacal possession theory of disease with heretical scientific theories of disease. Arium | July 22, 2009
The Massachusetts law requiring that emergency contraception be provided at hospitals to rape victims went into effect in late 2005. There is no exception for Catholic hospitals and none are known to have refused to comply with the law. One of the ways the medication works is by preventing the implantation of a newly conceived human being in its mother's uterus. This is an abortion. Governor Romney vetoed the legislation, and the Catholic hierarchy made no effort to round up the votes (one-third from either house of the legislature) needed to sustain the veto. Never mind that about 70 percent of the members were Catholic! Apparently diocesan leaders decided it would not be worthwhile to risk antagonizing the heavily Democratic legislature by working to sustain a Republican governor's veto. Charles O. Coudert | July 22, 2009
One has to know Peoria's local politics to really understand what is happening at OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center regarding Catholics and contraception. What has happened is quite complex and not transparent.
OSF hired Catholic ethicist Joe Piccione in the early 90s and made him OSF Corporate Ethicist. According to the Peoria Journal Star articles from that time, one of Mr. Piccione's main goals was to work with the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and make ethical loopholes which would allow OSF to be in the contraceptive business. The rationale was to help OSF stay competitive in the Peoria medical marketplace.
OSF's Mr. Piccione and Bishop John Myers along with other leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria were able to contrive a policy which allowed OSF physicians to write for contraceptives ('limited private practice'). At the same time, OSF HealthPlans insurance provided a wide array of oral contraceptives and sterilization methods.
These policies were implemented, as explained to me by Mr. Piccione, using ethical firewalls to separate the evil act (contraception) from OSF. The ???limited private practice??? policy and third party payers supposedly provide the firewalls.
However, when interviewed by the Peoria Journal Star 15 years ago, Mr. Piccione, stated that OSF and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria would have dirty hands with the implementation of this contraceptive policy.
And just recently, OSF purchased Carle Clinic in Bloomington, Illinois. Carle Clinic representatives have told me that their physicians will soon become OSF employees and will write prescriptions for oral contraceptives in this newly purchased OSF facility.
Unfortunately, these Peoria policies and practices continue today and are in opposition to the fundamental teachings of Humanae Vitae. However, as clearly described in Judie's commentary, the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center are not alone in succumbing to the forces of the medical marketplace.
John A. Carroll, MD
Peoria, Illinois John A. Carroll, M.D. | July 23, 2009
Joell,
Nobody suggested that sexual assault is a gift from God, but a child who is conceived in a tragic situation like this is NOT the criminal and should NOT be put to death. It is the father of that child who has perpetrated the crime.
I am not a fanatic, Joell, but I do know that God creates every human being and He never makes a mistake, although human beings like you and I make them all the time.
Pro-Life Story: our beautiful baby boy Posted By amy senne on Apr, 24 2007 It was Christmas Eve 2005 our 22 year old daughter came to me and my husband and said one of the worst things that a parent would ever want to hear. She said Merry Christmas I'm ... Read
