Today is World Down Syndrome Day. While there is some debate regarding accurate statistics, the generally accepted rate is that 9 out of 10 babies screened positive for Down Syndrome are aborted.

From one mama:

There is something that pierces my soul. Something that stares me in the eyes every day. Every day I’m reminded: those who God has given life to are meant to live. I am one mom out of ten that knows the joy and beauty of having a child with Down syndrome. And I can tell you, my life is full. I love my son and I would not change him or choose a different life.

Maclean’s is hosting a national dialogue on euthanasia.  I plan to attend the event in Vancouver.  There are events happening in Regina, Whitehorse and Mississauga.  For more information go here.

I just thought this was so sweet. March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju-q4OnBtNU&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop]

Opponents of these very straight forward ads have written a petition against them saying this:

Women deserve to be confident with the choices they make and not be put down because they made a decision they felt was right,” wrote petition creator Hilary Murphy. ”Abortion is a human right in Canada. Whether you are pro-life, pro-choice, or pro-abortion, it is a right and is a medical procedure that is available for all women. “

My personal experience, also as a woman, is that when I truly feel I’ve made the right decision, there ain’t any putting me down, or breaking my confidence. But if I wasn’t truly sure, then it takes very little for me to feel bad about it.

(This is from January, but I still liked the ad. Simple truth.)

Since I last posted, questions about the criminal nature of Baby Mary’s death by starvation in a Toronto hospital have arisen.  Here is a follow-up post from The Protection of Conscience Project about what could be done.

It is now too late for charges to be laid for failing to report a child in need of protection as the limitation of action period has expired.7 On the other hand, there is no limitation period for criminal negligence causing death or murder, so it is still possible for police to investigate the allegations and lay criminal charges if appropriate. Assuming that the Journal article has accurately stated the dates of the birth and death of Baby Mary, it should be possible to determine her actual identity by searching Vital Statistics records for the months of October and November from 2012 and earlier. Records of her birth and death would provide police with the names of the parents and the institution where she died, and they would then be able to pursue the investigation by questioning the authors of the Journal article and health care workers involved with her care.

While the Journal article raises very interesting questions from the perspective of freedom of conscience and religion for health care workers, it is prudent to withhold further comment on the allegations until it is clear what action, if any, will be undertaken by state authorities in the Province of Ontario.

The Toronto Police have been notified.

Two and a Half Men–I always hated that show for all it represents. Nice to hear that one of the actors on the show felt the same way and now talks openly about it. He challenges folks to stop watching the show, because it “makes light of things that real people struggle with.” Absolutely.

We often forget how distressing the pervasive pro-death mentality, that often inhabits modern medicine, can be for pro-life health care workers. As one of our ProWomanProLife commenters wrote on my last post: “it is much easier to say what someone must do when you know that it will never be you who has to put the needle filled with poison in someone’s arm and watch the life drain out of his face. Or that it will never be you who suctions mutilated pieces of a baby out of someone’s body.”

This piece, again from The Protection of Conscience Project (quickly becoming one of my favorite “go to” sites for information) is a brilliant analysis of moral distress defined as:

” … painful feelings and/or the psychological disequilibrium that occurs when nurses are conscious of the morally appropriate action a situation requires, but cannot carry out that action because of institutional obstacles; lack of time, lack of supervisory support, exercise of medical power, institutional policy, or legal limits.”

The actual case study, however, is utterly tragic and I presume, totally illegal.  It is the story of Baby Mary, a newborn starved to death in a Toronto hospital, over the span of 27 days. Prepare to be heartbroken, to say the least.

Quoting Pope Emeritus Benedict in Caritas & Veritate:

…openness to life is crucial to the development of society… a society that moves towards the denial or suppression of life ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.

Sign a petition to help ensure abortion remains unfunded by provincial dollars in New Brunswick.

This just in from The Protection of Conscience Project: Sean Murphy’s post Entrenching a ‘duty to do wrong’ in medicine responds to a blog entry on Impact Ethics by Prof. Carolyn McLeod, The denial of ‘artificial’ contraception by Ottawa doctors.

Prof. McLeod heads up Let Their Conscience Be Their Guide: conscientious refusals in reproductive health care, funded by the Canadian government through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Briefly, the goal of the group is to force physicians to provide abortion, contraception, etc. or to facilitate the procedures by referral or other means. However, the same reasoning is being used to justify forcing objecting physicians to provide or refer for euthanasia and assisted suicide.  In fact, two leaders of the McLeod group are on record on that point through the Royal Society of Canada  panel report on euthanasia.

Professor McLeod warns that physician freedom to act on moral or religious beliefs is limited, explaining that, if it were not, Muslim physicians would refuse to accept female patients, and Catholic physicians would deny care to women who have had previous abortions. These assertions are surprising – and erroneous. In fact, Muslim physicians may treat patients of the opposite sex,6 and a previous abortion is morally irrelevant to treatment decisions by Catholic physicians.7 Her suggestion that the religious beliefs of Muslim or Catholic physicians would make them “uncomfortable” in such circumstances bespeaks a complete lack of intellectual engagement with Islamic medical ethics and with Catholic moral theology. There is a significant difference between discomfort that might arise in real circumstances of ethical conflict, and principled and rational decision making based on religious or moral convictions.