in this issue:
abortion: CONSCIENCE PROTECTION BILL / INDIANA / SURVEY
activism: NEW YORK
bush watch: SCHIP / UNFPA
march of dimes: ABORTION
media: OPRAH
nurses: CRITICAL SHORTAGE
organ procurement: BUY or SELL
politics: KENTUCKY
planned parenthood: LINKAGE
terminal sedation: DOUBLESPEAK / TOTAL SEDATION
unicef: TRICK OR TREAT!
reflection for prayer: THOMAS A KEMPIS
abortion
CONSCIENCE PROTECTION BILL: The Christian Medical Association is among the pro-life groups pleased with the U.S. House’s passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (HR 4691).
INDIANA: Even though Porter County Right to Life lost round one in its bid to get the board of Porter Memorial Hospital to oust surgical abortion from the premises, the battle is far from over. For details and updates on this critical strategy, which is clearly one to replicate in every community where a hospital that permits abortion is located, see Porter County Right to Life.
SURVEY: UC Berkley released the results of a study showing that young adults are hold “more conservative” views on religion and abortion than older generations.
(Reading: “Youths more conservative than their elders on issues involving religion and abortion, new UC Berkeley survey reveals,” UC Berkeley news release, 9/24/02; “Public Agendas and Citizen Engagement Survey,” Pew Charitable Trusts)
activism
NEW YORK: Expectant Mother Care’s 4D sonogram program will benefit from the celebration of Pope John Paul II and the Gift of the Papacy on Oct. 16 at the Church of Our Saviour. For details please contact Expectant Mother Care by .
bush watch
SCHIP: The Bush Administration has made it possible for states to provide special coverage to expectant mothers and their unborn children. The argument is that the regulation would provide more low-income women with prenatal care if the unborn child is specified as deserving of coverage. States are not obliged to provide this coverage. But pro-aborts argue that the Bush administration has chosen to provide coverage to the fetus. That’s not the same as providing coverage to the woman, said Laurie Rubiner of the National Partnership for Women and Families.
COMMENT: Notice that pro-aborts never compromise!
(Reading: “HHS extends health care to fetuses,” Washington Times, 9/28/02)
UNFPA: The Bush administration has shifted $34 million away from the U.N. Population Fund over concerns that the agency tolerates forced abortions and sterilizations in China. However, the administration also admits that “decisions on where the money goes will be made on a country-by-country basis and used for such things as contraceptives and reproductive health.”
(Reading: “Funds moved from U.N. population fund,” Associated Press, 10/1/02)
march of dimes
ABORTION: The White Plains, New York office wrote “While there is no national consensus concerning abortion, there is no question that there is broad agreement on the importance of healthy babies, healthy mothers and healthy children.” Officially the MOD is “neutral” on abortion. They do not recognize the preborn as persons.
COMMENT: Why does a consensus matter when children are being murdered?
(Reading: 9/19/02 letter from MOD national office plus position statement, “Induced abortion,” “March of Dimes,” American Life League backgrounder; “March of Dimes Primer: The A-Z of Eugenic Killing,” Michael Fund position paper)
media
OPRAH: The magazine O published an article in which Larry Norton, M.D., discusses the clear connection between the pill and breast cancer.
(Reading: “Breaking news on breast cancer,” O magazine, 10/02)
nurses
CRITICAL SHORTAGE: A report by the Institute for Public Policy and Social research at Michigan State University says that the current U.S. nursing shortage is already at a level that has been upgraded from a health crisis to a national security concern.
(Reading: “US nursing shortage a ‘national security concern,'” The Lancet, 9/14/02, p. 855; “Informing the debate: Health policy options for Michigan,” Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Institute for Health Care Studies)
organ procurement
BUY or SELL: Michael Friedlaender wrote in The Lancet that organs should be sold as a matter of ethics, but that the sales should be regulated (The Lancet 9/21/02 pp. 971-973). Responding to this position, Francois Mosimann asks, “Can any normal, intelligent human being — which Friedlaender certainly is — honestly believe that young, able-bodied men aged 25-35 years, who receive about US$700 for a kidney in a starved country, are fully informed and autonomous donors?” He argues that such poverty results in the wealthier nations exploiting the poor. He also points out that while there are countries where the sale of organs is illegal, it is those countries that accept organs from places where such sales are not against the law.
(Reading: “The right to buy or sell a kidney,” The Lancet, 9/21/02, p. 948)
politics
KENTUCKY: Northern Kentucky Right to Life leaders continue to emphasize that not one tax dollar should go to cover birth control pills because they can abort human beings during their first few days of life. The organization will only back county candidates who say they will appoint people to the board of health who oppose the federal reproductive health care funding. As pro-aborts insist that the pill’s potent chemicals do not cause death to embryonic babies during their first days of life, pro-lifers insist that the facts are on their side.
(Reading: “Family-planning funds election issue in Kentucky,” Women’s E-news, 9/25/02; for facts on the birth control pill, see “The Pill — How It Works and Fails“)
planned parenthood
LINKAGE: To see the collaboration Planned Parenthood’s National Family Sexuality Education Month has garnered from groups such as March of Dimes, Red Cross, YMCA, YWCA, NEA, ad nauseum, see http://www.plannedparenthood.org/education/020809_nfsem.html. To see the STOPP International statement exposing the hypocrisy of the project see http://www.all.org/stopp/st020930.htm.
terminal sedation
DOUBLESPEAK: Cavin Leeman, M.D., writes “I worked with an anxious patient with ALS who feared loss of control. She threatened to jump out the window so that ‘it would be over,’ but when assured that her primary clinicians would provide terminal sedation when she wanted it, her anxiety melted, her threats ceased, and she later died peacefully in her sleep without any death-hastening interventions. Terminal sedation, which is legal throughout the United States, has in common with physician-assisted suicide the hastening of death and the relief of suffering. In terminal sedation, however, hasted death is regarded as an unwanted but unavoidable side effect, rather than an intended outcome.”
(Reading: “Physician-assisted death,” New England Journal of Medicine, 9/26/02, p. 1041, paid subscribers only)
TOTAL SEDATION: Howard M. Ducharme has written an expository commentary on “TS.”
(Reading: “Total sedation as existential euthanasia,” Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, 1/24/02)
unicef
TRICK OR TREAT! Pier 1 Imports, Ikea, Sears and McDonald’s are among the corporations promoting Trick or Treat for UNICEF, a bogus program that does not help children but supports radical population elimination programs in the developing world. To get the facts see “Trick or Treat for UNICEF?.”
(Reading: “Trick or treat for UNICEF 2002 calls on kids to participate in final fight for polio eradication,” UNICEF news release, 9/17/02)
reflection for prayer
THOMAS A KEMPIS: If thou reliest more on thine own reason or industry than upon the virtue that subjects to Jesus Christ thou wilt seldom and hardly be an enlightened man: for God will have us to be perfectly subject to Himself and to transcend all reason by inflamed love.
(Reading: “Imitation of Christ,” Book I, Chapter14, Section 3)