The miraculous story of Wall-E,

A dog that an Oklahoma shelter “euthanized” and confirmed to be dead was recently found alive and well in the facility’s dumpster, News 9 in Oklahoma City has reported.

(The resurrected pup; Image: Petfinder.com)

The three-month-old male black and white puppy had supposedly been put to (permanent) sleep with injections to one of his limbs and to his heart. A stethoscope test at the Sulphur, Okla., shelter led to the declaration that he’d died.

“You might say that he’s an angel dog,” animal control officer Scott Prall told News 9, after Prall found the resurrected dog, now named Wall-e, wandering around inside the trash bin.

Disney-Pixar’s fictional Wall-e was a robot that was the last of his kind.

Four of puppy Wall-E’s littermates did die as intended during the euthanasia process. Someone had previously left the dogs outside of the shelter, already over-crowded with homeless pets. Staff there believed the puppies were thin and “appeared to be sickly,” so the decision was made to put them down.

Wall-e proved them wrong, however, by not just surviving but thriving.

“He was just as healthy as he could be,” Prall said after his surprise trash bin discovery, made a full day after the “euthanization” took place.

I can see proponents of euthanasia saying, “We would never let this happen with human beings. We would make sure there were no miracles!”

HIV is an epidemic everywhere, but perhaps nowhere is this more true than in Malawi. With a population of 14.8 million, close to 1 million are living with HIV. The Malawi government has stepped up its efforts to combat HIV over the years, but this newest attempt at prevention seems more than a little misguided.

Mwana Palibe, a cultural belief very popular in the lower shire districts of Nsanje and Chikhwawa has been named as one of the contributing factors to the wide spread of HIV and AIDS in the two districts.The belief, which prohibits couples from exercising their conjugal rights unless all the children who live in that particular house are in, is very popular among the Mang’anja people.

People of the two districts believe that once this tradition is breached, children fall ill from Kwashiorkor like diseases and they eventually die.

But speaking after Journalist Association Against Aids in Malawi, a grouping of media practitioners in the fight against Aids, visited the district, Traditional Authority Mlilima of Nsanje said there was no harm in couples having sex in the absence of their children.

“There is no any other connection in couples enjoying in bed and children falling ill. These are some of the beliefs we must eliminate if we are to win the fight against AIDS,” said the chief.

The association’s Chairperson Deogratias Mmana said the custom fires up men to be seeking relief outside their matrimonial circles.

“This is very dangerous because men can be tempted to go behind their wives and seek relief to other women, a thing which can accelerate the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country,” he said.

Wow, blaming wives for the spread of AIDS by cheating spouses, that’s rich! Ultimately, they’re saying “No no, your children won’t get ill and die if you have sex with your husband. They’ll get ill and die if you DON’T have sex with your husband.” I can’t imagine this message going over well, anywhere, or having any impact on the spread of HIV and AIDS.

I was watching Book TV last night and saw the most amazing presentation. It was award-winning Alexander Tsiaras, creator of Anatomical Travelogue, giving a video presentation at Idea City ’03. He was talking about his company and their “travel” videos inside the human body. Tsiaras and his team collect massive amounts of data and imaging of the human body through all its stages, then “visualize” this data as computer images. His book, From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, is a celebration of the first stages of human life. It opens, “Is anything more fascinating or marvelous than the conception of a human life?” It was amazing to see someone, a scientist, a software developer, simply celebrating the beauty of conception without any perceivable agenda. The Idea City presentation was great, but this was even better:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4nm1AHugD4

The parents of Joseph Maraachli could be told any day now that they no longer have power of attorney over their son. The London Health Sciences Centre, currently treating baby Joseph with life support, would then undoubtedly remove his breathing tube without his parents’ consent.

The medical opinion was that “ongoing life support and extension of treatment with tracheostomy is not in JM’s best interest given his current condition and ultimate prognosis,” according to the Consent and Capacity Board’s summary of the hearing.

“A tracheotomy would likely provide for a longer period of life, however, in our view would not result in improvement of well-being and could reduce quality of life,” Fraser told the board.

[…]

But as the family’s plight hit the media, strangers jumped in with offers of help. One of them was Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, who helped the couple retain Mark Handelman, a Toronto lawyer who was once a vice-chairman of the Consent and Capacity Board.

[…]

Handelman hasn’t ruled out another legal appeal and is still trying to reach a compromise with the London Health Sciences Centre, keeping in mind that the hospital has contacted the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, which could come back with a decision on Joseph’s fate any day.

When people say a child is or would be an “excessive burden” to the health care system, my stomach turns and I quietly wait for them to finish. When the government says it, it’s time for all of us to speak up.

To federal officials, it’s the cost of admitting an immigrant family whose daughter has cerebral palsy: $5,259 a year.

To a father, it’s an unfair and unfeeling calculation.

“It’s really tough to hear your daughter reduced to a number and described as an excessive burden,” said David Barlagne yesterday after lawyers and immigration officials argued before a Federal Court judge on the fate of the Barlagne family.

Persuaded to immigrate here from France and establish a business, the Barlagnes may now have to return because of the “excessive burden” of $5,259 a year in extra education costs that their 7-year-old daughter Rachel’s cerebral palsy would impose on the public.

The family’s level of income and savings makes her “medically inadmissible” to permanently live in Canada, court was told.

[…]

But lawyer Stéphane Minson said the system discriminates against disabled children, and the law must change.

“A child should not be reduced to a financial figure,” Mr. Minson said. “But it’s clear this is becoming a political debate, and it’s less a question of law than morality.”

To me, $5,259 a year for education costs actually isn’t that big of a number, not when you compare sometimes astronomically high private school tuition. But parents pay for that themselves, right?

Private school costs may surprise you, in some cases. Quite a number of schools that list with us have tuition starting under $4,000 per year for elementary levels. Independent private schools in provinces that provide some government funding may even have yearly tuition rates below $1000.

Oh look, government funding to private schools! So why can’t we fund the relatively inexpensive cost to meet Rachel’s needs? You can sign the petition to keep Rachel and her family in Canada here.

‘Abortion is safer than having a baby, doctors say’

The draft guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is for all doctors, nurses and counsellors advising women contemplating terminations.

Its first recommendation on “what women need to know” instructs health professionals: “Women should be advised that abortion is generally safer than continuing a pregnancy to term.”

The guidance also says that women who are deciding whether to have an abortion must be told that most do not suffer any psychological harm. Until now, their advice has been that while rates of psychiatric illness and self-harm in women are higher among those who had an abortion, there was no evidence that termination itself was likely to trigger psychological problems.

While few dispute that terminations carry fewer physical risks to a woman than those of pregnancy, the impact of abortions on psychological health is highly contentious.

Never before has official advice to doctors and nurses in Britain instructed them to use such comparisons to help pregnant women decide whether to keep a child.

How does a doctor initially determine whether or not a women is abortion minded? Is it her financial situation? Her marriage status? Her age? Her race? Because without a direct statement of intent, I can see a lot of women, both the abortion vulnerable and those not even considering it, being told by their doctor “Abortion is safer than pregnancy” and being fairly outraged by it. Not to mention the inaccuracy of the statement.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Prof Patricia Casey, a consultant psychiatrist and fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “The message this sends out is very worrying. There are more than 30 studies showing an association between psychological trauma and abortion.”

________________________

Brigitte adds hard medical fact to the debate: Usually, when an abortion is successful, a baby dies. We should make sure to mention that, too.

________________________

Andrea adds: It is my strong feeling (read Giving Sorrow Words) that many women are looking not for a reason to abort but rather a reason not to. After all, in the UK and Canada everyone knows how to go off and get an abortion. It’s not altogether easy to envision doing the opposite in the early stages of an unwanted pregnancy.

Euthanasia brings many issues to the surface. One of these is the presumption of a person’s desire for it in the first place. Even under so called “voluntary” consent, the possibility for a person in no condition to understand a consent form let alone willingly “choose” euthanasia is vast.

Seeing the room for error even in this situation, we cannot, especially without prior discussion or consent, simply assume someone would want to be euthanized.

Stephan Bolton of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, is seeking confirmation from some authority that euthanizing his wife without her consent was the right thing to do:

Bolton drove the few minutes to the Queens RCMP detachment on the other side of Liverpool to tell police he had played a role in his terminally ill wife’s death last month.

But before he did that, Bolton telephoned The Chronicle Herald to explain that he wanted to go public to spur much-needed public debate about the issue of euthanasia.

“I don’t have an agenda. I have a guilty conscience,” he said.

And then he told this newspaper what he said he did.

It was Jan. 22.

His wife, 59, was suffering with Stage 4 breast cancer and in palliative care, with Bolton her primary caregiver.

One Liverpool resident who asked not to be named said it was well known in the community that Barbara was very ill and in great distress.

Stephan Bolton said his wife had, at most, a couple of months to live.

While she wasn’t in terrible pain, Bolton told The Herald his wife was very depressed. He said he gave her a lethal injection of two medications — morphine and Nozinan — and was taking the drugs to the detachment with him.

They had not discussed the possibility of euthanasia, he said, or did he ask Barbara if she wanted the lethal injections.

For those of you who haven’t seen the 2005 CBC Documentary Sex Slaves, it was on last night and I highly recommend taking the time to watch it. It’s not at all like Pretty Woman, which is all show and no reality, yet Pretty Woman seems to have become our argument for legalizing prostitution.

There is a myth that women become prostitutes by choice, that every woman has an abortion by choice (many of the women in this film are forced to do both), and this film illustrates just exactly why and how that is not the case.

An estimated half million women are trafficked annually for the purpose of sexual slavery. They are “exported” to over 50 countries including Britain, Italy, Japan, Germany, Israel, Turkey, China, Kosovo, Canada and the United States. Misunderstood and widely tolerated, sex trafficking has become a multi- billion dollar underground industry.

[…]

“Eva”; thought she was getting a job as a nanny in Toronto until her handlers took her from the airport to a strip club and forced her to work off her “debt”;, i.e., her purchase price, before she could be set free.

I don’t remember Julia Roberts having a pimp.

Romania has problems, big problems. Historically it’s always been that way. Invaded by every neighbouring country, Soviet occupation, the Ceausescu dictatorship, all of these things contributed to the country’s economic downturn. Though they have now entered the European Union, Romania still has a history of people doing what they can to earn a living. For women, especially Romani women, options were and still are limited. The country’s new “witch tax” threatens to take away a portion of what little income Romanian women are currently making. It’s a requirement for witches to carry a permit and provide receipts would almost certainly result in further discrimination towards the Romani (as they don’t typically have a physical address let alone identification), possible fines and/or imprisonment.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — There’s more bad news in the cards for Romania’s beleaguered witches.

A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country’s soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don’t come true.

Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

In January, the government changed labor laws to officially recognize the centuries-old practice of witchcraft as a taxable profession, prompting angry witches to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube in an attempt to put a hex on them.

[…]

The new bill would also require witches to have a permit, to provide their customers with receipts and bar them from practicing near schools and churches.

Black History Month is not only an opportunity to revisit black history but is also a chance to follow that time-line and look progressively forward to the contemporary civil rights movement.

The Rev. Clenard Childress Jr., told Pennsylvanians for Human Life Scranton Chapter that its cause is the modern civil rights movement.

Delivering the keynote address at the group’s annual prayer breakfast Saturday, the Rev. Childress, who heads the Life Education and Resources Network and founded the website Blackgenocide.org, equated abortion with genocide and an attempt to control undesirable population.

“The African-American community has been targeted by abortion,” he said. “A pregnant woman who is in poverty and destitute and may appear not to have much chance at a fruitful life seems to be a candidate for abortion, but that is the mindset of an elitist group making the rules of who lives and who dies.”

More than 400 people turned out for the breakfast,

[…]

Pennsylvanians for Human Life President Helen Gohsler gave a political overview in which she decried the elimination of abstinence-only education funding from the federal budget but cited the election of Gov. Tom Corbett, who is anti-abortion, as a bright spot. She also mentioned the offenses that came to light recently at a West Philadelphia abortion clinic where employees stand accused of killing viable newborns and conducting late-term abortions.

The Rev. Childress noted he rarely addresses black audiences since he critiques contemporary black leaders and fellow preachers who tolerate or support abortion.

“I tell them they are blind and being played like a harp,” he said.

Following the breakfast, attendee Kathy Tumavich of Clarks Summit saw parallels between the Rev. Childress’ ostracism and former Gov. Robert P. Casey, who often found himself at odds with his political party over abortion.

“Rev. Childress gave a great, thoughtful speech,” she said. “I think he is carrying on the true message of Martin Luther King (Jr.)”