For all those doubting Thomas-types who refuse to accept the fact that we live in a culture steeped in all kinds of euphemisms designed to deny that every human being has dignity and integrity, this is a wake-up call. America is not ready to have health care reform imposed on us by political fiat because America is not ready to die.
Whether one is discussing abortion, fertility treatments, human embryonic stem cell research or care for the dying, the news is quite disturbing.
For example, on November 2, this headline caught our attention: “Down Syndrome Births are Down in U.S. – More than 90 Percent of Women Carrying a Child with Down Syndrome Choose to End Their Pregnancies, but Parents Raising These Kids Say They’re a ‘Gift.’”
The report addresses several matters concerning those who work in health care, and those who have had Down syndrome children or chosen to abort their children. While this is interesting, the question is, once government-controlled health care is in place, will a couple who learns that their preborn child has a congenital problem be more likely to receive information that encourages life-affirming decisions or information that encourages them to exercise the alleged constitutional right to kill? Which way will the cost cutters lean?
One month later, almost to the day, the Washington Post added fuel to this fire by publishing “A woman who had little choice enlightens health-care debate.” You guessed it … another report about an expectant mother who was told that her preborn baby had a problem, in this case, anencephaly. The reporter claims that such a condition can be dangerous to the mother’s life, a claim that is false and unethical. But when the commitment is to convince the public that America needs to accept taxpayer funding for abortion, what’s a little error here and there?
Additionally, last month, there were reports from several media outlets about the dilemma faced by the fertility industry. One such report, entitled “The Maybe-Baby Dilemma” discusses “unused embryos,” described as “a byproduct” of fertility treatments and acknowledges that the parents confronted with this “problem” can choose “a research program or a fellow patient to accept a donation, discarding the extra embryos or doing absolutely nothing.” Such language is designed to deny the value of the human person. And there’s a reason for that. Buried in the article is this revealing statement:
In March, President Obama signed an executive order paving the way for more couples to donate their embryos to stem-cell research, but because embryo use was so recently limited by law, few labs are in a position to receive donations. A patchwork of state laws means that patients around the country have varying degrees of access to the three choices that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine deems ethically acceptable for spare embryos: thawing and discarding them (typically, they go into a clinic’s biohazardous-waste container), donating them to medical research, or donating them to another patient.
Clearly, if one of the health care reform proposals becomes law, there will an instant solution for all states’ laws because the White House is enamored with using those “spare embryos” for research and experimentation. This is why, in my opinion, the report dehumanizes these children by using terms such as “unused,” “byproduct,” “spare” and “extra.” If the reader didn’t know it, he would think he was reading about car parts, not embryonic children.
The Chicago Tribune ran a similar report nearly a month ago entitled “Embryos’ fate: a fertile debate” in which the reporter again used demeaning language, encouraged the acceptance of human embryonic stem cell research and promoted cultural acceptance of killing the preborn human embryonic child by telling a story:
The freedom to make that decision [to donate extra embryos] without condemnation is one of the many factors Adriana finds appealing about the Methodist church, where the couple will baptize their children right before Christmas. Raised Roman Catholic in Brazil, Adriana began to drift after a heart-wrenching divorce.
She cannot imagine her offspring raised by another family without any control over their upbringing. By devoting them to research, she as their mother would have the final say about their greater purpose in life.
There is no suggestion in this entire report that the act of “donating” a human embryo to science is tantamount to execution of an innocent person. God forbid that the media tell the truth, especially when national health care reform hangs in the balance. Playing on the heartstrings of America is the better choice, right?
As if disimissing embryonic children as unworthy of life were not enough for the Obama-promoting media, we find the same disastrous reporting techniques applied to the born. When the news broke that Indiana had proposed an “Altered Standards of Care” guideline in the event of an H1N1 flu outbreak, there was nary a whisper of horror. Even though the proposal would result in “some cancer patients, heart attack sufferers and burn victims” being taken off ventilators and left to die so that saving the most lives possible could be achieved as an ultimate goal, nobody mentioned triage, intentional killing or rationing as a threat to the community. In fact, no follow-up investigative reporting has been done on these proposed guidelines, no public polling to see how the potential victims of such guidelines might react, nothing at all!
But perhaps that is also a planned oversight, for Ron Panzer, long-time patient advocate, told RenewAmerica.com recently,
What we do know is that the pharmaceutical industry is a huge donor to the campaigns of many elected officials. Their lobbyists are very active and have great access to both sides of the political aisle. Billions of dollars are being made through the big push to vaccinate everyone.
The elected officials are pushing for expanded powers of the government through many means. The health care system becomes a tool of the government in times of crisis, whether real or created/manipulated. Health care workers in hospitals and elsewhere will be told to follow the government (U.S. Public Health Department policy) and will have to do so if they are to retain their jobs.
As if by coincidence, in Chicago, the latest investigations regarding nursing home patients and the doctors who treat them is quite similar to those Indiana guidelines that nobody wants to discuss. As Sam Roe reports in the Chicago Tribune, “When physicians or psychiatrists prescribe a drug for a patient, facilities must administer it as long as the order is consistent with state and federal nursing home regulations. If inspectors determine a violation occurred, they cite the nursing facility, not the doctor.”
In other words, a prescribed drug overdose, administered according to doctor’s orders could render the patient near death or dead, but the physician is not held accountable. How will this sort of patient abuse be accelerated once health care reform and its cost-cutting aspects go into motion?
If you think this question relegates Judie Brown to the wacko division of commentaries on health care reform, consider the words written by Nancy Valko, R.N., more than 10 years ago in her commentary, "No Blank Bullets:"
Few people would seriously consider legalizing relative- or family-assisted suicide. The inherent dangers of this type of private killing are much too obvious. Thus, the goal must be physician-assisted suicide or, more accurately, health care professional-assisted suicide, since nurses also must necessarily be involved when the assisted suicide occurs in a health facility or home health situation. We doctors and nurses are the ones society is now considering asking to perform the act of terminating lives, but unlike the firing squad or the lethal injection team, we will know and have to live with the certain knowledge that we caused death.
It is doubly ironic that when a convicted murderer tries to discourage efforts by lawyers to stop his or her execution, this is considered as a sign of stress or mental disorder, while a sick person's willingness to die is considered an understandable and even courageous decision! How do we reconcile the two views that killing is the ultimate punishment for a convicted murderer and, at the same time, the ultimate blessing for an innocent dying or disabled person?
When one considers the fact that Valko wrote this in 1996, what has happened in those intervening 13 years should be a sobering exercise for even the most liberal in our midst.
In summary, pro-life Americans must be vigilant during these health care reform discussions. We must be the ones to consistently remind our elected officials, news reporters and pundits that we are not merely discussing ways to provide health services to the indigent and the uninsured. Rather, America is considering permitting others—namely politicians and career bureaucrats—to make life-changing and life-ending decisions on our behalf. Throw into this mix the clear and undeniable fact that this is the same government that willingly turns a blind eye toward killing the innocent prior to birth and the vulnerable after birth, and one is left with only one choice or mode of action …
Just say no! Obviously, we can all live without government-controlled health care.