“House of Horrors?” Country of Horrors?

Maddi Gillel

By now you’ve read about Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his Philadelphia abortion clinic also known as the “house of horrors.” It is exactly that.  I’ve heard bits and pieces of the case and don’t want to hear anymore; it’s too heartbreaking and disturbing.

Gosnell has committed extraordinary atrocities and hopefully will never be allowed to harm another woman or child.  But the bulk of abortion doctors are performing a legal ‘medical’ procedure. They are doing what the ‘mother’ asks and pays them to do, and what our society allows them to do! Nevertheless, where are their hearts/did they ever have one?

So, we’ve talked about the doctors. Number two on the list are the women who request this procedure. I have no sympathy or tolerance for women who do this.  Do they not know what causes pregnancy? With all the birth control so available in our society, there isn’t any excuse for abortion!  Do these women have no moral code in their heart/mind/life that tells them that pre-marital/extra-marital sex are wrong and that ending their unborn child’s life is not the way out of their predicament?  Last but not least – where are these women’s hearts?  How can they allow a tiny helpless baby to be killed – inside their uterus, OR outside!?  Where is their tenderness, sympathy, their motherly intuition? Can they feel any emotion at all?

Now, third on the list is our society.  I would venture to say that if we think nothing of killing the smallest and most helpless in our society – the sky is the limit.  Then we have no sympathy or tenderness for old people, the maimed, physically or mentally impaired, how about minority groups?  By the way, Planned Parenthood’s founder stated that the program’s purpose was to get rid of and prevent the birth of the undesirables in our society.  Planned Parenthood performs the most abortions per capita on women of minority groups with African Americans at the top of the list. You do the math and draw your own conclusions.

Remember Nazi Germany. They started out exterminating the Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, and moved on to religious groups.  Evil usually begins small, and then, incrementally and insidiously, takes over: Nazi Germany and WWII.

The actress Ashley Judd and her batty views have been in the news lately. God is ambiguous to her and she believes it is abominable to “breed.”  She’s white and beautiful.  She would be the last in Nazi Germany to have been given any grief.

This is the state of many in our society today: heartless, Godless, narcissistic, unsympathetic, past feeling.

So, who should really be on trial in the above case?  The mother?  Probably. The Doctor? For sure.  Our society? Absolutely.

Shame on us.

 

UFI Reader Poll: Should the organ transplant community publicly refuse organs from suicides?

Here’s the question:

“Should the organ transplant community publicly refuse organs from suicides?“

Here is the UFI reader response:

62 percent          “No”

38 percent          “Yes”

 0 percent            “Unsure”

We found this question was difficult to get our brain around.  There are so many people in need of organ transplants, yet every effort must be made to not incentivize those who struggle with mental illness and might use “well, at least I can donate my organs and do some good” as another reason to justify ending their lives.

It appears that the majority of UFI readers took the “greater good” route and felt like it was more important to provide help to those desperate for organ transplants.  It is, however, worth reading Wesley J. Smith’s article were he states:

“Suicidal people need help in living, not reasons to die.  To prevent people from using the pretext of organ harvesting as a justification for their suicides, we need to make it very clear that their organs will not be so used if they decide to do the deed.  Not only might such a clarion statement by the organ community save lives, but we don’t want a society that has a utilitarian stake in the self destruction of suicidal people.”

We at United Families are leaning towards agreeing with Mr. Smith, but we recognize the other side of as well.  It’s a thought provoking question.  You can read Wesley J. Smith’s article here.

 

Kevorkian: “I haven’t been stopped.”

Dr. Jack Kevorkian was interviewed by Anderson Cooper last week and that everybody should watch.

Kevorkian, often called as Dr. Death, is famous for his advocacy for euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. The interview is a clear continuation of that work and presumably comes as part of a promotional push for the upcoming HBO film celebrating his life, You Don’t Know Jack.

The interview is worth watching. It gives a clear picture of the distorted compassion behind the euthanasia movement and the battle we have ahead of ourselves in defending the sanctity of life. Kevorkian makes it very clear that this is an issue he and others will continue to push forward.

“Like the judge says, ‘You have now been stopped,’” he says. “Well, she was wrong. I haven’t.”

“I still push for this issue. And when the chance comes, I will do it the way it should be done.”

You can watch the video here.

A week left to stop the legalization of assisted suicide in Canada

There is less than a week remaining to convince the Members of Parliament to vote against a bill to legalize assisted suicide in Canada. Bill C-384, which would allow doctors to cause the intentional death of a patient under defined circumstances, is currently scheduled for a second hour of debate on April 20, followed by a vote on April 21.

The same bill was scheduled for debate and vote in December of last year but was postponed by sponsors in order to garner more support. There is still a possibility that the vote may be delayed again, but we should be prepared to stop the bill right here and now. As Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews.com, “We must soundly defeat Bill C-384 to discourage other MP’s from also attempting to legalize euthanasia in Canada.”

We encourage all Canadians to contact their MP and push them to oppose this legislation in order to stop such legislation from proceeding any further.  You can find contact information for Members of Parliament here.

For more information on Bill C-384, visit the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for a complete breakdown of the legislation.

Government To Decide Who Lives And Who Dies

The worst nightmare for any parent is the thought of losing a child.  For Isaac and Rebecca May this nightmare has become a reality.  After complications with their son, Isaiah’s, birth the May family has experienced one trial after another.  For Isaiah’s grandmother and grandfather, Kathy and Bob Griffis, this nightmare began when Kathy received a phone call from her crying son who told her, “Mom, there are about ten doctors around his bed.  I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Isaiah was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck which depleted his oxygen supply long enough to cause serious brain damage.  The day after Isaiah’s traumatic entrance into the world, Kathy stood with her children as the doctors at the University of Alberta Hospital informed them that their son’s brain damage was severe.  Their diagnosis was that little Isaiah would never move or grow; that he was brain dead and would not survive.

All Isaiah’s family was looking for was hope.  The first sign of hope came when Isaac saw his son move for the first time, raising both his arms a few inches above his bed and extending his fingers.  Isaiah didn’t stop there. As time progressed, he continued to defy the odds, moving constantly.  His pupils began to dilate. He is growing measurably, responding to sounds, opening his eyelids, making occasional sounds, and even sporadically breathing over his intubation.  After all this progress, it was obviously a shock for the Mays when they received a letter from the hospital stating that because they did not believe Isaiah would survive, it was unethical to continue to keep him on life support.

After receiving a court injunction, the Mays have been given time by a judge to present medical experts who can testify to the progress Isaiah has made and his potential for continued progress.

United Families’ Stance

For the Mays, the main issue is to save the life of their little boy.  But this case now appears to have the potential to set a precedent which could affect millions of lives all over the world.  If the power to choose whether or not to remove baby Isaiah from life support is taken away from his parents and given to the government, the precedent would be set, granting government the ability to decide who should live and who should die.  In a legal context, the government is placing a monetary value on the life of a child and replacing the parent’s rights and responsibilities to care for and nurture him.  Government’s rationale for making these decisions would be vastly different from a set of caring parents. Costs of care, essentially placing a monetary value on life, become the ultimate interest of the bureaucracy.

Euthanasia is the act of denying treatment to, or putting someone to death through medical means.  Targeting the weak, infirm, and disabled, those with a limited ability to fight for their own lives, the practice of euthanasia is only legal in two countries worldwide – Belgium and the Netherlands.  But while advocates for the practice will argue that it is merciful, the truth shows us otherwise.

The practice of euthanasia distorts the relationship between doctors and patients.  It allocates too much power to doctors who cannot accurately diagnose when a patient will die, but still have the power to choose to end life-saving care, or even directly end a patient’s life.  In countries with socialized medical programs, it places even more power in the hands of government bureaucracies with budgetary and programmatic priorities to consider.

In the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal for more than a decade, two government reports found that at least 26 percent of euthanasia cases where committed without the explicit consent of the patient and over 20 percent of those killed without consent were competent to make life and death decisions for themselves.

Escalating health care costs, coupled with growing elderly and disabled populations, set the stage for a culture of death eager to embrace alternatives to expensive, long-term medical care. The so-called “right to die” may soon become the “duty to die” as elderly, disabled, or depressed individuals are pressured or coerced into ending their lives. The move toward managed care also threatens to promote euthanasia as more and more doctors are offered financial incentives to decrease the number of health care dollars spent per patient. Belgium has considered legislation which would allow parents of children with incurable diseases to have a doctor kill their children.

If the authority to decide which lifesaving medical treatments are given is granted to corporations and governments, who value life based on dollars and cents rather intrinsic human value, and removed from parents, in consultation with medical experts who are trained to save and value life, then stories like that of baby Isaiah will become the norm of modern society.  The power to decide any child’s future should be the sole responsibility of the parents.

United Families International is working tirelessly to help ensure that not only the rights of parents, but also the right to life, are protected and respected worldwide.  Through educational and advocacy initiatives at the local, national, and international levels, UFI is fighting for families just like the Mays.  Isaac and Rebecca May have a fundamental right as parents to make important decisions for their son.  That right must not be taken by government fiat.  Likewise, Isaiah May, and everyone else on the planet today, has a fundamental right to life that must not be surrendered to the interests of the culture of death.

Physician Assisted Suicide Up for Debate in Canada

The Canadian Parliament is currently considering a bill to legalize euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Bill C-384, proposed by Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde, would alter the criminal code to allow doctors to cause quick and painless death if a patient “appears lucid,” is aware of other treatment options and has made two written requests. As a private member’s bill, C-384 already received one hour of debate on October 2 and is scheduled for a second debate on December 2 with a vote the following day.

Passage of the bill is highly uncertain but proponents cite polls indicating strong public support of euthanasia as indication that it should pass. Some polls have indicated that as many as 60 to 70 percent of Canadians support the legalization of euthanasia, but that number was considerably lower for Canadians over the age of 60 at only 36%.

Yet, as Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition points out, “C-384 is not about creating end-of-life choices for the terminally ill. C-384 gives medical practitioners the right to directly and intentionally cause the death of another person.”

“The bill allows euthanasia and assisted suicide for people with chronic physical or mental pain,” Schadenberg explains.  “The bill allows euthanasia and assisted suicide for someone who requested it, while ‘appearing to be lucid.’ Appearing to be lucid does not mean the person is lucid.  How can a person who lives with chronic depression who ‘appears to be lucid’ make a free choice?”