in this issue:
hot button issues: CROSSROADS
abortion: BLACK GENOCIDE / MARCH OF DIMES
adolescents: SEX BEFORE 15
assisted suicide: OREGON
death and dying: VOLUNTARY DEHYDRATION
defending the faith: CANADA / WEYRICH
health care: RATIONING
propaganda: TITLE X
sex education: CALIFORNIA
reflection for prayer: LETTER BY BARNABAS
hot button issues
CROSSROADS: The end of the road is in site for ALL’s team of Crossroads pilgrims, who launched their coast-to-coast walk on behalf of preborn children on May 29 in San Francisco and are due to arrive in Washington, D.C., next Thursday. They’ve just crossed into Maryland from Pennsylvania, and are due in Cumberland today, Hagerstown on Monday, Gaithersburg on Tuesday, and Bethesda on Wednesday.
(Reading: “Notes from the road,” Crossroads)
abortion
BLACK GENOCIDE: Ismael Hernandez, executive director of the African and Caribbean American Center in Fort Myers, writes: “The civil rights elite has forgotten the lives of unborn black children and has joined those who choose to kill them. Unbelievable! They have forgotten that in the past racists snatched black babies from their mother’s arms and sold them into slavery. Today, they snatch them from their mother’s womb and throw them in the garbage. “
(Reading: “Abortion leading cause of African-American deaths,” Fort Myers News-Press, 8/7/03)
MARCH OF DIMES: The Elliot Institute News reports that the March of Dimes is attempting to “cover up the abortion link to neonatal deaths and handicaps by removing even the vastly understated risk of premature birth after three or four abortions” that once appeared on their web site. Earlier this year, when the Elliot Institute criticized the March of Dimes, they pointed out that many studies exist indicating the link.
(Reading: “March of Dimes coverup of abortion/preemie issue is the real mystery,” Elliot Institute)
adolescents
SEX BEFORE 15: An associate professor of pediatrics recommends, among other things, that “schools teach middle school students about sexuality, contraception, and STD prevention in a nonjudgmental, factual way,” and that educators and others “always provide adolescents, especially those who are 9 to 14 years old, the opportunity to discuss and ask questions about reproductive health issues without a parent or caretaker present.”
(Reading: “1 in 5 teens have sex before 15th birthday,” Contraceptive Technology Update, 8/03; “14 and younger: the sexual behavior of young adolescents,” National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 5/20/03)
assisted suicide
OREGON: As the U.S. Attorney General’s office moves forward with its challenge of the Oregon assisted suicide law, Kenneth Stevens, president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, said, “Physician-assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose. It represents a reversal of the proper role of physician as a healer, comforter and consoler. By participating in assisted suicide, physicians are providing the direction and means for a patient’s self-destruction.”
(Reading: “Attorney general takes issue with physician-assisted suicide laws,” Medical Ethics Advisor, 7/03)
death and dying
VOLUNTARY DEHYDRATION: Of 307 nurses who responded to a survey, 33% reported that during the previous four years “they had cared for a patient who deliberately hastened death by voluntary refusal of food and fluids. Nurses reported that patients chose to stop eating and drinking because they were ready to die, saw continued existence as pointless, and considered their quality of life poor … 85% of patients died within 15 days after stopping food and fluids. On a scale from 0 (a very bad death) to 9 (a very good death), the median score for the quality of these deaths, as rated by the nurses, was 8.”
In an accompanying editorial, the husband of a 43-year-old Utah woman with ALS, who chose voluntary dehydration as her mode of dying, is reported to believe, though he is not quoted verbatim, “that having the option of voluntary refusal of food and fluids and having a supportive physician prevented his wife from taking her life by means of an overdose. And it relieved him of pressure to help her commit suicide if things became intolerable.” He said, “It gave my wife a lot more peace.”
COMMENT: We can only surmise that this means that assisting in a suicide is more stressful than witnessing a loved one do it on their own. Further, we can only wonder what sort of subjective scale is used to determine the “goodness” or “badness” of death.
(Reading: “Nurses’ experiences with hospice patients who refuse food and fluids to hasten death,” New England Journal of Medicine, 7/24/03, pp. 359-365; “Death by voluntary dehydration – what the caregivers say,” New England Journal of Medicine, 7/24/03, pp. 325-326)
defending the faith
CANADA: Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary told a reporter he would deny Holy Communion to Prime Minister Jean Chretien: “I don’t want to embarrass anyone publicly but at present he is not in communion with the church. I don’t intend to threaten the prime minister but I think his eternal salvation is at risk and I pray he experiences some kind of conversion and enlightenment and mend his ways.”
(Reading: “Catholic bishop says he would refuse prime minister Communion,” LifeSite News, 8/5/03)
WEYRICH: Free Congress Foundation chairman Paul Weyrich looks at Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Kerry’s response to recent Vatican pronouncements: “Bishops SHOULD [they can, but are not commanded to] stand up, even denying dissenting politicians such as Kerry the right to receive Communion or to speak at Church events. If they do that, they will send a needed message that marriage and the defense of innocent life are important moral principles, not just to the Church but for the good of American society. They are not simply ‘choices’ to be made.”
(Reading: “Will the real Catholic please stand up?” Cybercast News Service, 8/6/03)
health care
RATIONING: A report on health care rationing notes that a 2002 survey of more than 5,000 members of the Society of Critical Care Medicine found that two-thirds of the respondents would withhold from one patient a medication, test or service that is in limited supply in order to give it to a patient who might benefit more. The ongoing work of the Values, Ethics and Rationing in Critical Care Task Force is studying rationing and hopes to publish guidelines to help hospitals and critical care specialists determine how to make treatment decisions when resources are in short supply.
COMMENT: Follow the money.
(Reading: “Who gets what in critical care? Task force tackles care rationing,” Medical Ethics Advisor, 8/03)
propaganda
TITLE X: So-called reproductive health professionals are putting on a full court press, designed to convince lawmakers that even more money is needed to fund family planning programs in the United States. An editorial in the medical journal Contraception (not online) states, “unintended pregnancy is a continuing and costly public health problem in the United States. Reproductive health and family planning services reduce unintended pregnancy, prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and save money. At a time when every dollar counts, we must not miss the chance to make an investment with such immediate and important payoffs.” Felicia Stewart, M.D., is the chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, and she is a member of the boards of National Abortion Federation, NARAL, et cetera.
The same issue of Contraception carries two studies designed to make the editorial writers’ point. The first is a study suggesting “unintended pregnancy is expensive both to women and to society in terms of medical costs, the costs of caring for more children and attaining personal/professional goals.” The second is a study indicating that in the United States, “49% of all pregnancies are unintended and over half of these 3 million pregnancies end in abortion.”
(Reading: “Title X: a sure fire investment with at least a 300% return,” Contraception, 68 (2003) 1; “Economic analysis of contraceptives for women,” Contraception, 68 (2003) 3-10; “Determinants of contraceptive method among young women at risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections,” Contraception, 68 (2003) 19-25)
sex education
CALIFORNIA: Planned Parenthood is adamant that Senate Bill 71 is needed to clarify the state laws regulating sex education. Planned Parenthood’s analysis suggests that the proposed law would bring uniformity to the various state laws “without bias.” STOPP International takes issue with that claim, stating in a letter to California newspaper editors that SB 71 would “expose children to the predatory tactics of those with an agenda.”
COMMENT: Clearly, SB 71 is not good for California’s young people.
(Reading: SB 71, California General Assembly, 6/19/03; “California Comprehensive Sexual Heath and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Act,” Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles; letter from STOPP International, 8/7/03)
reflection for prayer
LETTER BY BARNABAS: When evil days are upon us and the worker of malice gains power, we must attend to our own souls and seek to know the ways of the Lord. In those times reverential fear and perseverance will sustain our faith, and we will find need of forbearance and self-restraint as well. Provided that we hold fast to these virtues and look to the Lord, then wisdom, understanding, knowledge and insight will make joyous company with them.
(Reading: “Letter by Barnabas,” Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 4, p. 57)