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!
'AMERICA'S HEALTHY FUTURE ACT OF 2009' Posted: Thursday October 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm EST by Judie Brown
By Michael Hichborn
Ever since July 14, when the first version of Obamacare, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, American Life League has been carefully monitoring "health care reform” proponents’ efforts to promote abortion, contraception, sex education, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell therapy, health care rationing, violation of conscience rights and any other anti-life endeavors. By publishing several articles and producing two American Life League Report videos on Obamacare, American Life League is exposing so-called health care reform proposals for what they really are: the culture of death’s attempt to vastly expand its power and reach, through institutionalized population control.
The U.S. Senate’s version of Obamacare, ironically named America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 (S. 1796, introduced in the Senate on October 19) is set to cost the American people over $829 billion. To put this amount in perspective, Defense Department spending for fiscal year 2009 was $651.2 billion, and the total amount of outstanding consumer credit card debt for 2008 was $927.73 billion.
But the most significant problems with this 1,504-page bill lie in its coverage of abortion; its redefining of euthanasia so as not to include starvation, dehydration and withholding or withdrawal of medical care; and its creation of a new resource center that would essentially establish Planned Parenthood as a quasi-government agency.
Page 73 establishes abortion as a component of “a State basic health program,” thereby fostering taxpayer-funded abortion in individual states. Paragraph 3 (“Assured Availability of Varied Coverage through Exchanges”) of section 2245, “Special Rules Relating to Coverage of Abortion Services” (pages 140–144), specifically stipulates that there would be at least one state-funded plan that would provide for abortion.
The “compromise” here seems to be that one can opt for a plan that does not cover abortion. Even though subsection (b), “Prohibition of Use of Federal Funds,” of section 2245 purports to prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion coverage, simply segregating funds so that specific individual dollars do not intermingle with abortion dollars is deceit of the highest order. The fact is that when money is granted to an entity that commits abortions, even if cannot be spent directly on abortion coverage, it frees up other funds to pay for abortions.
Part (c) of Paragraph (3) of the same section, titled “No Discrimination on the Basis of Provision of Abortion” (page 144), is especially insidious. Regardless of whether a particular health care plan covers abortion or birth control, the insurer may not discriminate against paying individual health care providers because they do or do not perform abortions or distribute birth control. So, a private Catholic health insurance company that does not cover abortion or birth control, but does cover STD testing and pap smears, may not deny payment to Planned Parenthood if a patient insured by such a company seeks either of those services there, even though PP is the nation’s largest promoter and provider of abortion.
Section 1202, “Application of State and Federal Laws Regarding Abortion” (pages 144–145), simply states that this Act supposedly does not affect standing state and federal laws regarding the practice, funding or coverage of abortion. It also states, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effect on Federal laws regarding conscience protection; willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion.”
Section 1639, “State Eligibility Option for Family Planning Services” (pages 371–380), allows for state plans to cover “family planning services and supplies … in a family planning setting” (page 373). It is well known that “family planning services” means contraception and abortion, and a “family planning setting” is a place like Planned Parenthood.
Section 1640, “Grants for School-Based Health Centers” (pages 380–381), states, “The Secretary shall establish a program to award grants to eligible entities to support the operation of school-based health centers.” It is very possible that Planned Parenthood, already heavily involved in school sex education programs and the peddling of contraception and abortion to minors under the guise of health care, could be among the “eligible entities.”
Section 1802, “Support, Education, and Research for Postpartum Depression” (pages 480–484), authorizes a federal study of all mental health aspects of “resolving a pregnancy,” including carrying to term, miscarriage and abortion. While any speculation on the purpose of such government-sponsored research is pure conjecture at this point, it should be noted that this section also includes plans for a national propaganda campaign regarding “postpartum conditions.”
Section 1921, “Protecting Americans and Ensuring Taxpayer Funds in Government Health Care Plans Do Not Support or Fund Physician-Assisted Suicide; Prohibition Against Discrimination on Assisted Suicide” (pages 581–583), creates a rather interesting dynamic. Subsection (a) states that federal funds “shall not pay for or reimburse for any health care entity to provide for any health care item or service furnished for the purpose of causing, or for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.“
However, subsection (c), “Construction and Treatment of Certain Services” (page 582) specifically states that this prohibition does not apply to abortion. While the statement itself is deplorable, it is highly noteworthy as an implicit recognition of the preborn baby as an “individual” and an acknowledgement that abortion causes the death of an “individual.”
Furthermore, it should also be noted that subsection (c) also stipulates that “the withholding or withdrawing of medical treatment or medical care” and “the withholding or withdrawing of nutrition or hydration” are not to be considered “assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing” and are thus not prohibited under subsection (a). This subsection is a direct slap in the face to those of us who denounced the withdrawal of Terry Schiavo’s feeding/hydration tube for what it was: murder. This subsection allows for physicians to intentionally starve and dehydrate patients to death by redefining what constitutes “assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.”
The title of Section 1803, “Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training” (pages 491–508) is a euphemism for new taxpayer-funded, massive sex education programs and stipulates grants of at least $250,000 to each state for this purpose.
In order for states to receive money for such programs, they must provide the following: current statistics on the pregnancy and birth rates of children age 10–19; goals for reducing pregnancy and birth rates for said children; and a description of how such funds will be used to reach these goals, especially for “youth populations that are the most high-risk or vulnerable for pregnancies or otherwise have special circumstances, including youth in foster care, homeless youth, youth with HIV/AIDS, pregnant youth who are under 21 years of age, mothers who are under 21 years of age, and youth residing in areas with high birth rates for youth.”
The allotted money may be granted to organizations that would operate such programs, i.e. organizations such as Planned Parenthood.
Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Programs are defined as those “designed to educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections” (pages 498–499).
Requirements for these programs, found in subsection (B), include replicating “evidence-based effective programs … which means delaying sexual activity, increasing condom or contraceptive use for sexually active youth, or reducing pregnancy among youth.” Specifically, such a program must be “medically accurate and complete”; the program must include “activities to educate youth who are sexually active regarding responsible sexual behavior with respect to both abstinence and the use of contraception”; “the program places substantial emphasis on both abstinence and contraception … among youth”; and “the program provides age-appropriate information and activities.”
But the most dangerous aspect of this entire section is the creation of a “National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center” through Subsection (C) on page 503:
The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose and activities described in clause (iii). (emphasis added)
According to the requirements set forth in clause (ii),
The organization has demonstrated experience working with and providing assistance to a broad range of individuals and entities to reduce teen pregnancy. The organization is research-based and has comprehensive knowledge and data about teen pregnancy prevention strategies.
There is no organization that better fits this description than Planned Parenthood. The language in this clause even includes PP’s preferred adjective for its explicit, promiscuity-promoting sex education: “comprehensive.” If this provision is allowed to remain in America’s Healthy Future Act, PP will assume the position of a quasi-government agency with quasi-governmental powers to engage the nation’s youth on matters of sex, birth control and abortion.
American Life League will continue shining the spotlight on the culture of death’s attempt to promote its agenda and expand its reach through Obama-style “health care reform.” As changes are made and provisions are introduced or removed from current federal legislation, you can count on American Life League to keep you updated on these developments.
FROM THE SICKO WORLD OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD Posted: Wednesday October 28, 2009 at 5:34 pm EST by Judie Brown
One never knows what might be posted as a YouTube video, readily available to anyone with an internet connection. Among the most recent is a shocker starring Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s vice president for medical affairs, Vanessa Cullins, M.D. In a recent Wednesday STOPP Report, Rita Diller, national director of Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP), described this video’s basic message quite simply as “Get sexually active and get your STDs.” In fact, Cullins makes it clear that you should “expect to have HPV [human papillomavirus] once you become sexually intimate; all of us get it” and that you should expect this because “most of us” are sexually active and just have to admit it.
Cullins’ hellishly brazen comments are not anything new, of course, and many who read my commentaries know that American Life League has been working for many years to expose Planned Parenthood’s true agenda. Through our STOPP project, we are constantly encouraging parents to get involved with their children, their school systems and their community, to get rid of this extremely harmful stain on the cultural environment. For just as surely as oil sludge can pollute a stream, Planned Parenthood is polluting the minds and souls of our children.
Any adult female such as Cullins who can, with a straight face, expound on the virtues of promiscuity is contributing to corruption in more ways than one. She tells young people that “whether you’re thinking this a relationship [that is] going to end up in marriage or one that’s gonna end up as a one-night stand,” you just need to “take precautions in order to stay healthy.”
This is evidence that Cullins is an adult female who has sold the virtue store down the river for a few measly dollars that will go into Planned Parenthood’s coffers. The problems with this mindset are myriad, but as long as that cash register is ringing out ka-ching, ka-ching, nobody at Planned Parenthood is going to blink an eye.
But what about the public? Aren’t parents concerned about this? Don’t they want their teens to be chaste until marriage, appreciate the authentic meaning of their sexuality and understand why it is important to save oneself for marriage? The sad answer to that question is, for the most part, no!
Cullins’ implication that if you are not sexually active, you are not “like most of us” rings true among not only young people but far too many young parents, many of whom are single parents, and even among married couples who have bought into the lies inherent in the prevailing contraceptive mentality. It is a sad testimony to the times in which we live, but all too true. If we bury our heads in the sand and pretend that such grossly misguided attitudes and distorted theories about human sexuality are normal, then we too are part of the problem. So the question is, how do you solve it?
Well, there are a growing number of young, vibrant experts who already have the answer and are teaching it in any venue they can find that that permits them to discuss sex from a Christian perspective. And some of them are using their public identity to foster wholesome values in the midst of all this bunkum.
For example, Jeff McLain, of American Life League’s Rock for Life project, recently blogged about the failure of school sex education programs. His insights are very useful in this age of “everybody’s doing it, so just admit it.” He writes,
There is an old saying: “When it rains, it pours.” A Chicago high school is now learning a new meaning to that saying. The principal of Paul Robeson High School discovered one out of every seven of his female students is pregnant.
Nowadays, it isn’t unusual to find a few pregnant girls in a school; however, this is certainly a high number. Principal Gerald Morrow told CBS2, in an interview, that he is aware of 115 young ladies, out of 800 female students, who are currently expecting or have recently given birth.
Perhaps the first question that comes to mind is the topic of sexual education. You’re probably assuming the school doesn’t teach it. Otherwise, it would be working, right? Wrong. Reporter Kristyn Hartman, from CBS2, says that the school has had “prevention talks” with the students. So what can we blame this high number on? Is sex education not working in our public school systems?
Principal Morrow is blaming the problem on a lot of issues, one of them being a lack of leadership and a lack of fathers at home. Another issue brought up is the fact that parents aren’t educating their kids.
In case it’s news to you that parents are delinquent in their duties, let’s remember that for the last 50 or more years, Planned Parenthood has been busy in our schools nationwide, brainwashing students, handing out birth control information and referring expectant young mothers to abortion practitioners.
So the parents of today’s kids in that high school are perhaps convinced that their kids are going to have sex, so why interfere? If that sounds crass, you really need to get in tune with the world out there. It is the rare parent who accepts responsibility for instilling values in their children and by doing so, preparing them to say no to sex outside of marriage. Such are the parents of college football great Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy winner.
As a matter of fact, it’s at times like these that I wish the nation had at least a million young men like Tebow. To understand why, read on.
One Florida sports reporter, Martin Fennelly, described his favorite moment at the Southeastern Conference’s Football Media Days:
[T]he moment, at least to me, was when some writer (not me) entered virgin territory - there, in front of hundreds of people, all those cameras, he popped the question to college football’s leading man.
“Tim, are you saving yourself for marriage?”
Heads turned, many with eyes rolling. Some groans, some breath being held.
Given Tebow’s faith and what it means to him, it might not have been out of line to ask this question. But here, in front of hundreds, to put him on the spot in front of hundreds and hundreds of ...
Uh, Tebow, laughing, interrupted:
“Yes, I am.”
Another reporter began to ask another question, but Tebow, still laughing, interrupted again.
“I think y’all are stunned, right now. Y’all can’t even ask a question. Wow. I was ready for that question. I don’t think y’all were, though.”
It was just another touch of class from a kid who has exuded it from the moment he set foot in Gainesville. It probably goes a lot further back than that.
Leave it to Tim Tebow to steer a rancid Gotcha moment onto the high road and stay there.
Obviously, Fennelly sees what a positive effect a young person with good character, faith and the ability to be honest can have. You see, Tebow is a heartthrob, not a guy with buck teeth and thick glasses. And yet Tebow knows what he’s about and is not ashamed to express it.
Whether the good news about how amazing it is to live according to God’s standards instead of Cullins’ is coming from Rock for Life, Tim Tebow or the purity ring-wearing Jonas Brothers, the message needs to be broadcast to young people and their parents over and over again. Real men such as McLain, Tebow and the Jonases need to be in the spotlight so that America can finally replace sicko with hero!
thank you for a great article. I have been thinking a lot lately about the need to promote chastity amongst our young, because abortion is simply the clean up for the sexual revolution. And our kids deserve much more than the license to be sexually promiscuous. Julie Culshaw | October 29, 2009
Catholics should think about the following quotation from Pope John Paul II's social encyclical *Laborem exercens*: "The expenses involved in health care, especially in the case of accidents at work, demand that medical assistance should be easily available for workers, and that as far as possible it should be cheap or even free of charge" (section 19).
In the health care debate, we should relentlessly fight funding for abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, contraception, and other grave evils, but we should not oppose the concept of government-insured health care *per se*. Stephen M. O'Brien | October 30, 2009
THE FINAL END OF ABORTION IN AMERICA WILL COME WHEN … Posted: Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 11:14 am EST by Judie Brown
Recently, I received a letter from a dear physician friend with whom American Life League had worked in the late 1990s. His name is Charles W. Norris and he is one of the world’s leading experts on naturally spacing children, commonly known as Natural Family Planning. His book, Know Your Body: A Family Guide to Sexuality and Fertility, is still one of the best available on the subject.
When he wrote me last week to catch up on old times, he expressed a serious concern. And it provoked me to recall that, while American Life League does not remain silent about what it will take to actually end abortion in America, we don’t emphasize positive alternatives with the enthusiasm we should. A culture that understands the reasons behind naturally spacing children within marriage is key to ending the death grip proponents of contraception, abortion and all manner of sexual perversion have on this nation at this moment.
In his letter to me, Dr. Norris said,
It seems that pro-lifers have used every weapon against the pro-aborts that they can think of: logic, the truth, the ballot box, the law, anecdotal abortion horror stories, trying to get pro-life judges elected and on the Supreme Court and etc., etc. Let me suggest to you that abortion will not stop until everyone takes the responsibility for the handling of their own fertility on their own shoulders in the practice of Natural Family Planning. Frankly, Judie, I fail to understand why pro-life organizations do not vocally and loudly promote NFP as the weapon to combat abortion.
Dr. Norris is fundamentally correct, though we might put his sentiment in a more critical light. It is, in fact, the contraceptive mentality that has driven couples away from a sincere desire to understand fertility and subsequently accept the fact that if a couple really wants to avoid procreating a child, there are natural ways of doing that. Further, should a child be conceived anyway, that same couple would welcome God’s gift, even though untimely, by realizing that God’s timing is perfect.
Imagine a world where teens were not being ravaged by sexually transmitted diseases nor carrying babies and aborting babies while they are still developing into adulthood. What sort of culture would it be if men and women respected each other as human beings gifted by God with blessings that are to be appreciated rather than savaged by date rape, promiscuity and all manner of sexual perversion? How many crimes of the flesh would go away if persons of both genders addressed the fundamental truth that life itself is a gift from God and the practice of virtue is the only road to physical, emotional and spiritual health? In a situation like that, nobody would even think of murdering his own child or pressuring an expectant mother to do so based on selfish reasons of economic gain.
This is exactly what Dr. Norris is getting at. In the spirit of reviving an old friendship and honoring a man who is still teaching us what it really means to respect human dignity, we remind readers of my blog that indeed American Life League does understand the fundamental facts about what it will take to end abortion in America. This is why, more than nine years ago, the American Life League Board of Directors approved the following statement of policy:
A married couple sincerely seeking the will of God makes a genuine commitment to always include His will in their marital relations. During this process their love for each other grows. The reason is clear: marriage and conjugal love are, by their very nature, ordained to procreation.
A question often arises in today’s society regarding the differences between spacing children according to nature’s calendar (natural family planning) and contraception. A further question is asked regarding the licit practice of such natural approaches. Let us be clear. First, the differences between respecting a woman’s natural rhythms and the practice of artificial family planning methods are stark. In fact these differences were once recognized by all Christian churches. Prior to 1930 no Christian church approved the practice of contraception.
We recognize that the practice of contraception violates the principles of Natural Law which are understandable by the use of reason alone. We endorse the consistent Catholic teachings on this subject and specifically cite Pope John Paul II’s definition of these differences, Familiaris Consortio, (Section 32):
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings [the unitive and procreative purposes of the marriage act] that God the creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as “arbiters” of the divine plan and they “manipulate” and degrade human sexuality and with it themselves and their married partner by altering its value of “total” self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.
Regarding the licit practice of natural approaches to spacing children, which we have referred to as respecting a female’s natural rhythmic cycle, we understand that such practices may be employed for just reasons [Humanae Vitae, Section 10]. We understand that what one couple views as just reasons may not be viewed as such by another couple. It is clear, however, that in loving communion the couple can, during such times and with spiritual guidance, discern the will of God and grow in mutual respect, love and tenderness ever remembering that above all else, God is at the center of their union and the couple’s prayer is “Thy will be done.”
American Life League concurs with Pope John Paul II, who writes in Familiaris Consortio (Section 32),
In the light of the experience of many couples and of the data provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: It is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is, the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control. To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never “used” as an “object” that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God’s creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person.
American Life League will never endorse any method of family planning designed to intentionally avoid one of the two meanings of the conjugal act within marriage which are to be open to the possibility of a child (procreative) and to nourish the love between the spouses (unitive). We do recognize the distinct differences, however, between artificial methods which are grievously sinful all of the time and the occasions when for just reasons a couple may ask God to postpone conception for a while. It must be clear that couples understand that when they ask God to not send them another child just now they are also saying, “If it is Your will to send us another child at this time, we praise You for Your divine providence.”
American Life League continues to insist that the contraceptive mentality is the root cause of abortion on demand, and we will persist in our efforts to make this truth known in every way that we can. It is because of the insistent teaching of physicians like Dr. Norris and ordained priests like Father Paul Marx, OSB and Father Thomas Euteneuer that we have grown not only in our understanding of how to teach these facts but in our desire to do all we can to spread the good news.
The final end of abortion in America will come when every human being begins to appreciate his own life as a gift from God and the lives of those entrusted to his care as the true blessings they are. A culture that affirms life will not practice contraception nor will it murder its progeny.
Judy,
I'm concerned that this post is misleading. On the one hand ALL is promoting NFP, which should only be used to GET pregnant, or in extreme cases and with spiritual guidance from a solidly Catholic priest, to avoid pregnancy for a time - but the reasons must be grave, and not frivolous, as is often the case.
Your article seems to be promoting NFP as a method of contraception, yet turns right around and says that if one practicing NFP (supposedly with the intention of NOT getting pregnant, i.e. as contraception) DOES get pregnant, then said pregnancy should be seen as a gift from God. Why not just leave it all up to God and let Him decide EVERY time when pregnancy is right for a couple? My husband and I are doing that, and the spacing between our children so far is 13 months and 14 months. Not much time, but then God won't give us something we can't handle, right? I realize NFP has been "approved" by the Church, but it is abused FAR too often - being used for reasons such as mere child spacing. That's not a grave enough reason in my book.
Sincerely,
Bernadine C. Bernadine | October 27, 2009
Agree entirely that "The final end of abortion in America will come when every human being begins to appreciate his own life as a gift from God and the lives of those entrusted to his care as the true blessings ...", BUT this requires a huge cultural shift and is not the most expedient way to end or at least minimize abortion. It is highly unlikely that attitudes even within Christian Churchs will go back to those prior to 1930. Judy, you know that the vast majority of women are not going to change their attitude toward sexual activity in the foreseeable future. In the meanwhile abortions continue to take place every day. In my discussions with other women, they are very receptive to the message that abortion is murder, but not that contraception is wrong. Start with that message and they just tune me out. The difficult question is: in the society and situation we now have (neither likely to change soon) is not one of the ways to reduce and potentially end abortion the use of barrier contraception? Quite frankly, I care much less about the sexual sins of adults than the murder of children. Although the sin of non-marital relations remains, non-abortive contraception eliminates the killing of a created human. There is an urgent need for a solution non-believers can accept. That would make a real difference. Petra Spahr | October 28, 2009
A "Catholic" sister escorting at an abortion clinic, and apparently has been for years! Canon law allows her superior, or one of three bishops to take action. Apparently, none of them have.
http://www.canonlaw.info/2009/10/canonical-options-in-sr-donna-quinn.html David Volk | October 28, 2009
Dear Bernardine
The fact is that naturally spacing children is not the practice of contraception. NFP recognizes the body's mechanisms and respect's God's intentions by entrusting all to His wisdom and will; contraception says no to God. Period.
The fact that human beings abuse natural family planning does not make NFP bad; it means that sinful human beings will choose to abuse a good and use it for evil purposes. And as you suggest, child spacing is not a just, grave or serious reason as the Church makes perfectly clear.
Judie Brown Judie Brown | October 28, 2009
Petra
Sexual sins and denial of God's will lead to abortion, whether we care to admit it or not.
MERCK RESEARCHER ADMITS: GARDASIL GUARDS AGAINST ALMOST NOTHING Posted: Monday October 26, 2009 at 3:31 pm EST by Judie Brown
By Joan Robinson and Steven Mosher
On the morning of 2 October 2009, one of us (Joan) joined an audience of mostly health professionals and listened as Dr. Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, gave a sales pitch for Gardasil. Gardasil, as you may know, is the new vaccine that is supposed to confer protection against four strains of the sexually transmitted HPV.
Dr. Harper came to the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination to prove to us the real benefits of Gardasil. Sadly, her own presentation left me (Joan) and others filled with doubts. By her own admission, Gardasil has the doctors surrounding me glaring at a poor promise of efficacy as a vaccine married to a high risk of life-threatening side effects.
Gardasil, Dr. Harper explained, is promoted by Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, as a “safe and effective” prevention measure against cervical cancer. The theory behind the vaccine is that, as HPV may cause cervical cancer, conferring a greater immunity [to] some strains of HPV might reduce the incidence of this form of cancer. In pursuit of this goal, tens of millions of American girls have been vaccinated to date.
As I sat scribbling down Merck’s claims, I wondered why such mass vaccination campaigns were necessary. After all, as Dr. Harper explained, 70% of HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in one year. After two years, this rate climbs to 90%. Of the remaining 10% of HPV infections, only half coincide with the development of cervical cancer.
Dr. Harper further undercut the case for mass vaccination campaigns in the U.S. when she pointed out that “4 out of 5 women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.” (Harper serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization [WHO] for HPV vaccination in the developing world.) Indeed, she surprised her audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is so low that “if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the U.S.”
If this is the case, I thought, then why vaccinate at all? From the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought had occurred to them.
In the U.S., the cervical cancer rate is 8 per 100,000 women. Moreover, it is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. The current death rate from cervical cancer is between 1.6 to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 women. The American Cancer Society (ACS) notes that “between 1955 and 1992, the cervical cancer death rate declined by 74%” and adds that “the death rate from cervical cancer continues to decline by nearly 4% each year.”
At this point, I began to wriggle around in my seat, uncomfortably wondering, is the vaccine really effective? Using data from trials funded by Merck, Dr. Harper cheerfully continued to demolish the case for the vaccine that she was ostensibly there to promote. She informed us that “with the use of Gardasil, there will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70% of the population is vaccinated, and in that case, the decrease will be very minimal. The highest amount of minimal decrease will appear in 60 years.”
It is hard to imagine a less compelling case for Gardasil. First of all, it is highly unlikely that 70% or more of the female population will continue to get routine Gardasil shots and boosters, along with annual PAP smears. And even if it did, according to Dr. Harper, “after 60 years, the vaccination will [only] have prevented 70% of incidences” of cervical cancer.
But rates of death from cervical cancer are already declining. Let’s do the math. If the 4% annual decline in cervical cancer death continues, in 60 years there will have been a 91.4% decline in cervical cancer death just from current cancer monitoring and treatment. Comparing this rate of decline to Gardasil’s projected “very minimal” reduction in the rate of cervical cancer of only 70 % of incidences in 60 years, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.
Despite these dismal projections, Gardasil continues to be widely and aggressively promoted among pre-teen girls. The CDC reports that, by 1 June 2009, over 26 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed in the U.S. With hopes of soon tapping the adolescent male demographic, Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer of the vaccine, and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations are targeting girls between the ages of 9 and 13. As CBS News reports, “Gardasil, launched in 2006 for girls and young women, quickly became one of Merck's top-selling vaccines, thanks to aggressive marketing and attempts to get states to require girls to get the vaccine as a requirement for school attendance.”
Just as I began, in my own mind, to question ethics of mass vaccinations of prepubescent girls, Dr. Harper dropped another bombshell. “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years,” she told us.
Merck did study a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.
If I wasn’t skeptical enough already, I really started scratching my head when Dr. Harper explained, “if you vaccinate a child, she won’t keep immunity in puberty and you do nothing to prevent cervical cancer.” But it turned out that she wasn’t arguing for postponing Gardasil vaccination until later puberty, as I first thought. Rather, Dr. Harper only emphasized to the doctors in the audience the need for Gardasil booster shots, because it is still unknown how long the vaccine immunity lasts. More booster shots mean more money for Merck, obviously.
I left Dr. Harper’s lecture convinced that Gardasil did little to stop cervical cancer, and determined to answer another question that she had largely ducked: Is this vaccine safe?
Here’s what my research turned up. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse effects include Guillain-Barre syndrome, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.
Dr. Harper, who seems to specialize in dropping bombshells, dropped another in an interview with ABC News when she admitted, “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.” This being the case, one might want to take one’s chances with cancer, especially because the side effects of the vaccine are immediate, while the possibility of developing cancer is years in the future.
In the clinical studies alone, 23 girls died after receiving either Gardasil or the aluminum control injection. 15 of the 13,686 girls who received Gardasil died, while 8 died among the 11,004 who received the aluminum shot. There was only one death among the group that had a saline placebo. What this means is that 1 out of every 912 who received Gardasil in the study died (see page 8 of Merck’s prescribing information). The cervical cancer death rate is 1 out of every 40,000 women per year.
The numbers of deaths and adverse effects are undoubtedly underestimates. Dr. Harper’s comments to ABC News concur with the National Vaccine Information Center’s claim that “though nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review.” On average, less than 10 percent—perhaps even less than 1 percent—of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported, according to the American Journal of Public Health.
Given the severity and frequency of Gardasil adverse reactions, I definitely wasn’t the only one in Dr. Harper’s audience who winced when she dismissed most Gardasil side effects as “easily just needle phobia.”
Due to the young age of the trial participants and the short duration of the studies, the effects of Gardasil on female fecundity have not been studied. I did discover, in my post-conference reading, that Polysorbate 80 (sometimes referred to as “Tween 80”), an ingredient in the vaccine (see page 14 of Merck’s prescribing information) has been observed in a European clinical study to cause infertility in rats. Is this an additional concern? Time will tell.
I do not wish to give the impression that Dr. Harper presented, even inadvertently, a consistently negative view of her own vaccine. She did tout certain “real benefits,” chief among them that “the vaccine will reduce the number of follow-up tests after abnormal PAP smears,” and thereby reduce the “relationship tension,” “stress and anxiety” of abnormal or false HPV positive results.
To me, however, this seems a rather slim promise, especially when weighed against the deaths and side effects caused by the Gardasil campaign. Should millions of girls in the United States, many as young as 9, be put at risk, so that sexually active adults can have less “relationship tension” about false positive HPV results? Is the current rate of death, sterility and serious immune dysfunction from Gardasil worth the potential that, in 60 years, a minimal amount of a cervical disease (that is already decreasing on its own) may perhaps be reduced?
But what I really wanted to know is why Merck is so eagerly marketing such a dangerous and ineffective vaccine? Aren’t there other ways they could make a profit? While Merck’s behavior is probably adequately explained by the profit motive, what about those in the Health and Human Services bureaucracy who apparently see Gardasil as medicine’s gift to women? What motivates them?
I (Steve) think that they see Gardasil as what one might call a “wedge” drug. For them, the success of this public vaccination campaign has less to do with stopping cervical cancer than it does with opening the door to other vaccination campaigns for other sexually transmitted diseases, and perhaps even including pregnancy itself. For if they can overcome the objections of parents and religious organizations to vaccinating prepubescent—and not sexually active—girls against one form of STD, then it will make it easier for them to embark on similar programs in the future.
After all, the proponents of sexual liberation are determined not to let mere disease—or even death—stand in the way of their pleasures. They believe that there must be technological solutions to the diseases that have arisen from their relentless promotion of promiscuity. After all, the alternative is too horrible to contemplate: They might have to learn to control their appetites. And they might have to teach abstinence.
Joan Robinson is assistant editor for the Population Research Institute. Steven Mosher is president of the PRI. This article was originally published as the PRI’s October 15, 2009 Weekly Briefingand is reprinted with its kind permission. Founded in 1989, the PRI is a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to objectively presenting the truth about population-related issues and to reversing the trends brought about by the myth of overpopulation. Its growing global network of pro-life groups spans over 30 countries.
Please read more about Dr. Diane Harper and Gardasil at: http://www.naturalnews.com/027225_cancer_cervical_Merck.html
This article may explain why Dr. Harper " cheerfully continued to demolish the case for the vaccine that she was ostensibly there to promote." God bless you.
Barbara Spencer Barbara Spencer | October 26, 2009
Bart Stupak has the best idea on how to proceed lobbying for no abortion funding (and conscience protection, too), i.e., demand Pres. Obama follow-up with his press conference claim that abortions not be funded in any health care reform. Pres. Obama's legislative leaders must not have heard his promise. He needs to follow through, or take responsibility for a falsehood. David Volk | October 27, 2009
ARCHBISHOP RAYMOND BURKE: A HUMBLE MAN OF GOD Posted: Friday October 23, 2009 at 3:33 pm EST by Judie Brown
When I read the news that Archbishop Raymond Burke, who currently heads the Vatican’s equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court, had just been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to serve the Church as a member of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, I was elated.
He has been such a heroic figure to all of us. Setting aside his enormous grasp of Catholic teaching, his intellect and his commitment to defending truth, perhaps his most endearing characteristic is his humility. You have to be in his presence to know what I am saying, but anyone who has even been in the same room with him knows it. One experiences a feeling of peace and joy just by looking at his face. These are but a few reasons for my total elation over the Holy Father’s selection of my favorite archbishop for yet another Vatican post where we know he will do great things for God.
American Life League immediately issued a statement of congratulations, which I am sure would embarrass His Excellency. But when good things happen to extraordinary people, it’s nice to say a good word.
In the wake of this news, I felt it would be appropriate to recall some of the profound statements enunciated during his recent speech at Inside Catholic’s 14th Annual Partnership Dinner.
Reminding the attendees that “God has created us to choose life,” Archbishop Burke exhorted pro-life people and, in fact, all faithful Catholics, to therefore “never give up in the struggle to advance a culture founded on the choice of life, which God has written upon our hearts, and the victory of life, which Christ has won in our human nature.”
I believe it is no accident that he made the point that abortion cannot be fought in isolation, which the Church has made repeatedly. One must first understand the connection between contraception, the abuse of human sexuality and the act of killing an innocent preborn child. He said,
The attack on the innocent and defenseless life of the unborn has its origin in an erroneous view of human sexuality, which attempts to eliminate, by mechanical or chemical means, the essentially procreative nature of the conjugal act. The error maintains that the artificially altered conjugal act retains its integrity. The claim is that the act remains unitive, even though the procreative nature of the act has been radically violated. In fact, it is not unitive, for one or both of the partners withholds an essential part of the gift which is the essence of the conjugal union. The so-called “contraceptive mentality” is essentially anti-life. Many forms of so-called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy, at its beginning, a life which has already been conceived.
The manipulation of the conjugal act, as Pope Paul VI prophetically observed, has led to many forms of violence to marriage and family life (Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae, “On the Proper Regulation of the Propagation of Offspring,” 25 July 1968, no. 17). Through the spread of the contraceptive mentality, especially among the young, human sexuality is no longer seen as the gift of God, which draws a man and a woman together, in a bond of lifelong and faithful love, crowned by the gift of new human life, but as a tool for personal gratification. Once sexual union is no longer seen to be, by its very nature, procreative, human sexuality is abused in ways that are profoundly harmful and even destructive of individuals and of society itself. One has only to think of the devastation which is daily wrought in our nation by the multi-million dollar industry of pornography. Essential to the advancement of the culture of life is the proclamation of the truth about the conjugal union, in its fullness, and the correction of the contraceptive thinking which fears life, which fears procreation.
This is the heart of the pro-life message. It addresses what underlies the highly problematic moral relativism spewed not only by many politicians but by many ordained to the Catholic priesthood. It is impossible to focus on ending the killing of the preborn unless we also focus on the root causes of this tragedy.
At a profound level, Archbishop Burke has always understood this, as well as the reality that the child hidden in the womb of his mother or barely visible in a petri dish is a human person as truly as the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ are present in the Holy Eucharist. Nonetheless, our opponents spend millions dehumanizing the preborn baby and disparaging Catholic teaching, as exemplified by anti-Catholic TV personality Bill Maher, who has likened Holy Communion to cannibalism.
We have heard, witnessed and been the targets of so many attacks against defenders of human personhood and Christ’s real presence in Holy Eucharist. We know the truth of what His Excellency told his audience as he quoted from the late, great Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (section 58):
The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.
He underscored his point by explaining that, in fact, a phrase such as “common good” cannot be equated with “common ground,” as some, including President Obama, have attempted to do:
The common good refers to an objective perfection which is not defined by common agreement among some of us. The common good is defined by creation itself as it has come from the hand of the Creator. Not only does the notion of common ground not correspond to the reality of the common good, it can well be antithetical to it (for instance, if there should be common agreement in society to accept as good for society what is, in reality, always and everywhere evil).
In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, the common good “is the good of ‘all of us’, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society” (Caritas in veritate, no. 7).
Inside Catholic's founder and director, Deal Hudson, reflecting on Archbishop Burke's address, wrote,
Archbishop Burke describes the latest tactic of pro-abortion Catholic politicians, who talk about finding common ground, as a form of “proportionalist moral reasoning.” “Common ground is found rather on ‘the ground of moral goodness,’ and not in a compromise of certain moral truths, like the rejection of abortion and euthanasia.”
He warned against allowing this kind of false reasoning to enter the health-care debate. A Catholic cannot accept the attainment of universal health care if it includes abortion and other evils “just because it achieves some desirable outcomes.”
In this form of reasoning, the archbishop hears an echo of the type of “seamless garment” argument that conceals a distinction between intrinsically evil acts and those that may be evil in some situations; these acts “are not all of the same cloth.”
The standing ovation for Archbishop Burke lasted several minutes before Raymond Arroyo, the master of ceremonies and news director of EWTN, returned to the podium….
As InsideCatholic.com editor Brian Saint-Paul handed Archbishop Burke the award for “Service to the Church and our Nation,” I commented that “[t]his lion speaks with the voice and face of a lamb, and, thus, is an example of how to speak the truth in charity.”
We agree! Archbishop Raymond L. Burke is an example to all of us as a teacher of truth and goodness. God bless His Excellency!
HOW TO DRIVE THE CULTURE OF DEATH CRAZY IN ONE SIMPLE LESSON Posted: Thursday October 22, 2009 at 3:41 pm EST by Judie Brown
There’s got to be a reason why there is so much whining in the pro-abortion movement right now. The recent behavior of the folks at RH Reality Check, National Abortion Rights Action League (I mean NARAL Pro-Choice America) and elsewhere is very interesting. These people are seriously distraught over our insistence that every human being, from his beginning, has a right to equal protection under the law.
NARAL’s latest video production, Women Can’t Lose, focuses on our efforts, and Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, referred to American Life League during the first 60 seconds of a recent speech. Not only that, but as LifeNews.com’s Steven Ertelt reports, Keenan is getting downright hostile toward those of us who understand the cruelty of taking the life of even one innocent preborn baby:
“I’ll be honest -- we all expected a fight from the usual anti-choice agitators on health-care reform,” she said. “We expected it from Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), the Family Research Council, and the American Life League.”
She accused [Michigan Congressman] Stupak of “carrying the right wing’s water on this issue.”
“Stupak is ready to jeopardize the entire health-care reform bill to stand between women and their doctors,” Keenan claims.
“He’s willing to undermine health-care reform -- blocking the landmark bill from even coming to a vote -- in order to impose an abortion ban on women in the reformed health system. His proposal would take away coverage from women who already have it,” she says, even though the latter claim is not the case.
My, oh my! Could it be that we at American Life League, and our pro-life friends, are touching nerves that make our opponents nervous? I wonder why? Is the pro-life fly on the pro-death movement’s oversized chassis starting to create a big pain that can no longer be ignored by the vigilantes for “choice”?
What could be so nerve-racking for Keenan about a simple standard that prohibits payment for child killing in any health care “reform” bill? The answer, quite simply, is that the proponents of death for the preborn see big bucks coming their way. They don’t mind deceiving expectant mothers into believing abortion is a choice, not an act of killing. They just want our tax dollars to pay for the dirty deed. Keenan says it’s all about reproductive rights, after all, not about those expectant mothers and their future pain, should they actually decide to abort.
The lesson to be learned from this is a simple one. When the pro-life movement stays on message, doesn’t play games with politicians, presses forward and repeats the facts, the other side gets as nervous as a kindergarten student preparing for his first Christmas pageant. All we pro-lifers have to do is remain steadfast; the rest is easy.
Meddling busybodies are back, sneaking around behind the scenes and trying to abort Montana’s constitutional right to privacy.
Last weekend, a national anti-choice group slithered into three Montana cities, including Missoula, to launch a petition drive with the covert intention of stopping abortions. In order to do that, the Virginia-based American Life League wants Montanans to rewrite our constitution. The proposed Constitutional Initiative 102 would define “person” as starting “from the beginning of the biological development of that human being” — basically anything with one or more human cells. If this group has its way, the due process clause that says “no person should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law” would apply to an egg the minute it is pierced by the head of a sperm, even if it sits in a test tube.
I will give Lundquist credit for understanding the fundamental meaning of human personhood, even if her spin is off base. After all, working to protect the human rights of all persons from the moment their lives begin is in keeping with America’s traditional defense of the innocent; it’s certainly nothing that requires slithering or sneaking. I guess that when our team visited the Big Sky state, the message made sense, so poor Laura had to say something negative.
Jodi Jacobson, a blogger on the anti-life RH Reality Check web site, opines about the human personhood effort in Michigan, telling her readers that with the economy being in such poor shape and women struggling to pay for “family planning services” such as contraception and abortion, state legislators should not be attempting to garner support for a resolution that might open the way to placing a personhood measure on the ballot in that state. She writes,
The implications of these so-called “personhood” amendments, which are spreading like the swine-flu in state legislatures, such laws would also outlaw any activity or medical treatment required by a woman--radiation or chemotherapy for breast cancer, say--that might interfere with the “personhood” of fertilized eggs, or the possibility that a fertilized egg might be present in the carrier of said egg-people.
In case Jacobson’s silliness troubles you, let me set the record straight. A human personhood proposal affirms that all human beings, including those not yet born, have equal rights and that their human rights should be protected. The effect would be to restore the integrity of this statement in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This is why the human personhood message is spreading like the good news that it is—quite the opposite of swine flu. Americans are sick of the pro-abortion tirades and are increasingly uncomfortable with the whole idea of killing babies prior to birth. It’s as simple as that, really. And as far as radiation treatments, chemotherapy and other treatments for disease are concerned, the ethical physician who is treating an expectant mother always provides proper guidance to her because he knows that he is dealing with two patients, even though pro-abortion stalwarts like Jacobson prefer to ignore one of the doctor’s two patients.
Oh, and speaking of the swine flu, Amanda Hess just reported that that the ordeal of swine flu victim Aubrey Opdyke, whose horrific suffering resulted in losing her preborn child, her ability to walk and more, has not been properly reported by others. Hess tells her readers,
In [New York Times reporter] McNeil’s profile of Opdyke, losing the baby was “most important”—more traumatic than even falling into the coma, suffering a seizure, temporarily losing the ability to walk, talk, and see her family, and facing death. The trauma of losing a child in the womb is clearly central to Opdyke’s experience. But it is still Opdyke’s experience—the ordeal is hers, not her baby’s.
No, Amanda, the ordeal was that one person died and the other will grieve for that loss. The whole experience of losing that baby was so tragic that Opdyke's husband of 16 months had photos taken of their baby girl, Parker Christine, who died shortly after birth, so that, when sufficiently recovered, Opdyke could at least see the daughter she lost due to swine flu complications.
To callously toss off this baby’s death as nothing more than another side effect of Opdyke’s devastating illness is chilling. However, it underscores the fact that for women such as Hess and her confreres in the shrinking culture-of-death cartel, these babies count for nothing. And that is the greatest tragedy of all.
If pro-life Americans were not having a positive effect on our culture, people such as Hess, Jacobson and Keenan would not be exhibiting such a bizarre degree of hysteria. I feel badly for these women. I worry about their dysfunctional attitudes toward the wonder and beauty of life, motherhood and family, and I pray for them. But I am eternally grateful to my friends in all the many spheres of our united pro-life effort. We are truly blessed to be of one mind in this work. We join with David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life, in a prayer that should be on our lips and in our hearts as we persist in our quest for human personhood and pray for our enemies:
O God, our heavenly Father, give us courage and wisdom as we seek to eradicate the evil in our society. Help us to realize that Your divine Spirit alone can change hearts and minds so that all Your human creatures may enjoy the fullness of life You intended for them. I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Amen.
Thank you ALL for the work you're doing to protect our truly innocent, the unborn child.
You are angels! I'll keep you in my prayers. Patricia Gehlen | October 23, 2009
Judie, excellent analysis as usual.
2 things I have to comment on though.
1: When Laura Lundquist used the term "slithered" is she sure she isn't talking about NARAL & PP?
2: Jodi Jacobson's misleading comments on medical treatments she claims the personhood amendment would ban is disgusting. She is using what I see as a disgusting scare tactic that she knows is a lie. She knows that radiation & chemo would not be banned for pregnant woman any more than they are now.
As I said, keep getting the truth out. They are scared, thus the whining, because they know that as it does, people will come to support our efforts to protect all human life. Al | October 25, 2009
HEALTH CARE REFORM AND THE POTENTIAL FOR MADNESS WITHOUT PITY Posted: Wednesday October 21, 2009 at 3:31 pm EST by Judie Brown
In her seminal book Dialogues with the Devil, Taylor Caldwell digs deep into a fictional Lucifer’s psyche as well as that of Saint Michael the Archangel. While it is a work of fiction, there are profound insights throughout, including Lucifer’s description of human beings who choose to do evil. He tells Saint Michael, “Evil is madness and has no pity, and therefore it is confusion thrice compounded. Evil men possess no wits. They are easily led to believe what they wish to believe.”
These succinct phrases are very applicable to that grave fear of the unknown many Americans experience at the thought of the federal government managing everyone’s health insurance. My sense is that these concerns are not far off the mark. A visit to the real world is in order before anyone jumps up to claim that Judie Brown is just a right-wing fanatic who doesn’t care about all those millions of Americans without health insurance. This persistent allegation about my intentions is false, but what I am about to share is very real.
Two years ago, at the University of California at Berkeley, Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Clinton and current Obama economics advisor, spoke candidly about health care rationing. His comments are a matter of public record. The following excerpt exemplifies the serious ethical problem in certain politicians' thought process: “[I]f you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive...so we’re going to let you die.”
This past week, the pro-assisted suicide organization Compassion and Choices focused attention on a court case, Blick v. Connecticut, which it claims could lead to a court ruling on “whether a mentally competent, terminally ill patient’s desire to bring about a peaceful death should be considered ‘suicide.’ Connecticut physicians Gary Blick and Ron Levine are asking a Connecticut court to rule that the state assisted suicide statute does not reach their conduct in providing aid in dying.”
On her Living His Life Abundantly web site, well known EWTN personality Johnette Benkovich posted an article by journalist Susan Brinkmann that gets to the heart of why a ruling on Blick v. Connecticut could have deadly consequences:
Opponents of assisted suicide, or aid in dying, cite the many serious problems occurring in the two U.S. states that allow assisted suicide and countries where assisted suicide is legal. For instance, a 1995 Dutch study found that 948 patients who did not request suicide were killed by their doctors.
There are also innumerable problems with the legal definition of “terminal” which has allowed many patients to commit suicide who were not dying but suffering from depression.
Pro-euthanasia groups usually cite humane reasons for ending someone’s life to gain public sympathy; however, today’s palliative care is so advanced that virtually all pain can be eliminated with the proper care. Even in those cases when pain cannot be completely alleviated, it can be reduced significantly if properly treated.
People can die with dignity naturally, without having to resort to killing.
But imagine how convenient a court decision in favor of “aid in dying” could be if cost cutting is at the root of so-called health care reform!
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine attempts to paint dementia as a terminal disease in need of a quick resolution. This news report indicates just how skewed the thinking of these researchers is: “During the last three months of life, more than 40 percent of those with end-stage dementia underwent at least one serious medical intervention -- hospitalization, emergency department visit, IV nutrition or tube feeding.”
In other words, if certain medical “experts” can redefine comfort care such as nutrition and hydration as a “serious medical intervention” and persuade family members that their loved one is better off dying now than later, starvation can become a cause of death not seen as the cruelty that it is. Medical journal articles such as this one and court cases such as Blick v. Connecticut are paving the way for health care rationing and denial of basic comfort care, regardless of what Obama-style health care “reform” supporters are telling America. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
The recent news out of Florida unequivocally proves my point. In that state, there are plans to literally bar some patients from treatment in the event of a severe flu pandemic. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports,
Florida health officials are drawing up guidelines that recommend barring patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals if the state is overwhelmed by flu cases.
The plan, which would guide Florida hospitals on how to ration scarce medical care during a severe flu outbreak, also calls for doctors to remove patients with poor prognoses from ventilators to treat those who have better chances of surviving. That decision would be made by the hospital.
The flu causes severe respiratory illnesses in a small percentage of cases, and patients who need ventilators and are deprived of them could die without the breathing assistance the machines provide.
According to this report, so far the state “has not yet publicized the guidelines or solicited input from the general public.” But something is terribly wrong when such a proposal even meets the light of day. Then again, we are living in the age of Obama-style health care rationing.
When the media and the medical professionals, not to mention politicians, talk about things such as denying nutrition, hydration and/or oxygen to certain patients, think about this man in Liverpool, England, who had suffered from stomach cancer, was starved to death in a London hospice and after his death, was found to be cancer free! The news report states,“76 year-old Jack Jones had responded successfully to chemotherapy and surgery, but died of pneumonia two weeks after doctors at the Marie Curie Hospice ordered the withdrawal of food and hydration and all medication except painkillers in accordance with what is being called in British media the ‘death pathway.’”
No wonder Mrs. Jones is suing the hospice! What would you do? Could such draconian so-called palliative care measures be adopted in the USA? Would they be deemed cost-effective?
Well, as reported recently, such atrocities already do happen here. Bill Beckman, executive director of Illinois Right to Life Committee, reported the following in his blog on September 8:
A caller from Virginia today told me how her father died prematurely when a doctor and hospice decided 89 years was enough for him, since his quality of life had declined. This case begins on a positive note. A caring doctor and nurses helped this man overcome pneumonia successfully.
He was ready to go home and the family was ready to take him home when another doctor raised the issue of food aspiration, suggesting they could not take care of him on their own. The medical basis for this concern is unclear, but it created fear that affected the family’s decisions. Even though this patient had no terminal illness, the family ultimately accepted getting hospice involved.
Hospice wanted to give the patient morphine, even though he told them he was not in pain. Family members did not allow use of morphine at that time. With severe restrictions on food and water intake by mouth, he began showing symptoms of dehydration. Rather than offering an IV or feeding tube, hospice pushed morphine as the solution. When the dehydration began causing serious external symptoms, the family gave in to allow the morphine. Between the dehydration and the morphine, the patient died rather quickly.
The doctor and hospice justified the denial of sufficient food and water as observing the patient’s durable power of attorney for health care, which indicated he did not want to be kept alive by “extraordinary means.” That generic phrase allowed this patient to be denied food and water, leading to his death, even though he had no underlying terminal illness or condition.
Such anecdotal cases, coupled with public comments by political operatives such as Reich and state government proposals such as that of Florida, invite a second look at current discussions about “scarce medical resources” and “cost cutting.” Political considerations in life-and-death matters must not be based on the cruel proposition that one may save money at the expense of human lives.
This was the message of parents of children with disabilities who gathered with members of Congress on Capitol Hill recently. At their press conference, Congressman Trent Franks, whose deceased brother had Down syndrome, said, “A society is measured by how it cares for those who are down, in the shadows and in the twilight of death. Those in the shadows have the greatest things to say and God’s greatest gift is given to them.”
America’s response to the elderly, the terminally ill and the vulnerable must not be starvation, dehydration, suffocation or denial of basic, humane comfort care. But lest we forget, Taylor Caldwell’s fictional Lucifer reminds us, “Evil is madness and has no pity, and therefore it is confusion thrice compounded. Evil men possess no wits. They are easily led to believe what they wish to believe.”
You've lost this one, dear Judie. Praise God for a strong and intelligent conference of U.S. bishops to keep all of us thinking clearly in the midst of so many naysayers and promoters of fear and downright incorrect information. Roger M. | October 21, 2009
Judy - The only point I wish to question is the criticism of the Florida guidelines about prioritization of treatment during an emergency. What is it you would alternately do, not plan at all? Not having a plan at all will only lead to chaos and more death. A plan that seeks to spread resources evenly regardless of the prognosis will only treat everyone inadequately and not minimize mortality. Alternatively, a plan that "does the best" for the first to arrive is unfair in that it will ensure that little or nothing is available for the many more that arrive later. Keep in mind that the Florida guidelines are for EMERGENCY DISASTER planning, not the normal healthcare situation. When faced with inadequate resources createded by sudden, cataclysmic circmstances, I ask, "What would you do?" There is no easy or perfect answer. So we must strive to find a good, practical plan that maximizes life, not a philosophical response. Petra Spahr | October 22, 2009
Dear Roger
The Conference of Catholic Bishops is not thinking clearly and that's the problem. This is not about proper politics in a polite society; it is about protecting human rights and the family.
The is no incorrect information in my commentary or on this website. Read the bills -- all five versions.
Judie Brown Judie Brown | October 23, 2009
Dear Petra
The problem with determining ahead of time that a policy is in place to deny treatment, thus performing passive euthanasia, is that alternatives to such a draconian measure should be examined and before a finalized policy is put in place, all avenues should be examined. This is why the Florida policy is now open for public comment.
Planning is a great idea; planning to kill is not.
Pro-Life Story: Through His Eyes Posted By Kati Fobes on Apr, 6 2008 I became pro-life when I found out that many pro-abortion advocates use disability to justify abortion. I have been mildly autistic since birth and have been losing my hearing ... Read
