March 9, 2008
Barb, on Proper palliative care is a right, not a privilege:
Sadly, stories like Latimer’s and horribly negatively biased descriptions of genetic conditions (like the one for Down Syndrome that was on the Sick Kids website, but removed due to complaints) become significant information upon which important decisions are made by and for others. When a woman discovers that her unborn baby has a condition related to disabilities what will she think? When a physician (or neonatologist) makes a decision to withhold life saving care for an infant with predicted disabilities, does he do so believing that he will be saving the family a horrible life due to stories like this? The Ottawa Citizen published some beautiful stories about people living with down syndrome this past weekend. It is a start.
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Thad, on Proper palliative care is a right, not a privilege:
The system will continue to fail people until drug laws are reformed in this country. The DEA can and will flag physicians who prescribe what they define as excessive opiates for pain medication. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons has told members to avoid prescribing narcotic pain killers because drug enforcement officials now set medical standards, and doctors risk losing their careers over this. We had this discussion while talking about euthanasia at our church recently. Someone brought up the point that euthanasia is unnecessary because there are laws requiring patients to be given proper pain relief in the terminal stages of disease. An oncologist there brought up the point that this was true, but he risked losing his license if he did so, so many of his patients were in pain. In personal experience, I lost a relative to cancer. She fought the cancer, and was told she had a good change to beat it, but was in continual pain because she could not get enough pain medication. He doctor said she needed more but couldn’t get it because of addiction issues and the risk it would pose to him. She would be shrieking in pain waiting for another dose. She gave up fighting it and died 6 months later in excruciating pain, unable to get enough pain killer even in her last week. I’m 100% pro life but until someone has had the experience of being in continual pain, and not being able to stop it, or seen a relative die horribly at the tied hands of the medical profession, they can’t understand the other side of euthanasia and why someone might desire it. I hope the option is there for me when I need it.
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Loretta, on Except I wouldn’t call it ‘panic’:
I’d like to know how social services will manage to determine the cause of children’s ‘chubbiness’. Of my 8 children, three have been ‘chubby’ a good portion of their childhood. Two of them outgrew it eventually. We’re still waiting on the third. Since we home-school, do not have junk-food on the menu, and know where our kids are at all times, we know what they eat. Healthy and not too much. They also participate vigorously in several team sports. Yet, such diversity! Social services and the courts need to intervene in something that even overweight adults themselves have difficulty controlling? How much more difficult is it to know what’s going on with someone else’s body? The body of someone you don’t even know or particularly care about? I can picture them all getting procedures and rubrik’s for determining need, and acting with ‘goodwill’ to ’save’ the fatty kids! YIKES!! (Will only ‘fit’ social workers and judges be working these ‘cases’?)
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Jono, on Abortion not up for debate at York U:
To be fair, I’ve always held that abortion qua ‘abortion’ cannot be ‘debated’ - that is to say, ‘when life begins’ may be debated, and proceeding from there, legal implications etc. A proper debate assumes that both sides are working from the same glossary, as it were, so I say begin with Life, then proceed to abortion.
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Tanya Zaleski, on Poser la question, c’est y répondre:
“It would be equivalent to having a debate over whether or not you can beat your wife,” Ms. Holloway said. “People in this country have had the debate over abortion. The Supreme Court made a decision, and that’s good enough for me…. I think we should accept that the debate is over.” Canadians should never question the current legal system. This way, women still would not be allowed to vote and sending children to school would be optional. Ms. Holloway, an educated woman, would be very satisfied, I’m sure.
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Exhau, on “Airbrushing away diversity”:
I’m not sure what the point of any of these posts are. Everything seems to skirt around issues. It’s never “and this is why abortion is (BAD/GOOD).” I think this post is anti-abortion. Is it? I dunno. If this post IS against abortion, then it seems to be a weak argument. I mean, are you saying that we shouldn’t try to make people healthier by eliminating the unhealthy ones before they’re done growing? I fail to see a problem with that, as long as we maintain a population growth/distribution.
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Tanya, on It comes down to this:
Convincing someone is different from having an opinion. I myself can be sarcastic and insensitive when it’s time to lay out my position on something like the York University scenario. But here we have a woman, and like many women, she is probably a lovely, intelligent, strong woman. And, like many women, she is now facing a decision. If her first instinct was to keep her baby, this means she wants her baby. She may spend her life blaming her father and herself for getting rid of something that she truly wanted. If she’s concerned for the state of her relationship with her father now, you may want to invite her to consider how deep resentment towards him will effect that relationship. This is not to arm-twist, or point fingers, but to help her consider what will happen when the abortion is over, and dealing with the abortion in her day to day life begins. Pregnancy, delivery, and motherhood are life changing events; wonderfully life changing. And she, a likely strong, intelligent, lovely woman, will almost certainly make a wonderful mother. If you believe that of her, you may be able to appeal to her heart.
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Hana, on It comes down to this:
Dear Elizabeth,You have the same right as your friend’s roommate. Don’t feel intimidated and do what you think is right. If this woman was going to keep her baby initially, what changed her mind? Fear of her father was not there at the begining was it. Is it her pro- choice friend who is advising her? I hope you will be able put forward your argument and help this baby to be born.Best of luck!
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Brian, on It comes down to this:
As a father I would be more concerned about my daughters doing what was right than doing what they think will please me. I would not be happy were either of my daughters to come home pregnant, alone and unmarried but I would still welcome and love the child and most importantly help my daughter. If you try you may fail, but if you do not try, perhaps this woman’s father will find out and be more disappointed in her decision to kill her baby rather than bring it into this world with love.
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TS, on It comes down to this:
A very difficult situation, because it looks like you do not have direct contact with this young lady who is thinking of abortion. Here is my advice: (1) your roommate is “pro-choice” therefore don’t rely on her to save the baby, and don’t think you can change her mind fast enough to resolve the situation. (2) Find some way of contacting this girl directly, even if it means upsetting your roommate. (3) You can avoid scaring her away, and possibly reduce your roommate’s suspicion, by simply appealing to this young lady’s sense of self-preservation (i.e. as opposed to insisting that you have a baby to save). Why not ask your roommate something like, “your friend must be anxious right now, I just want to make sure she knows what she is dong, what’s her number again?” I wouldn’t be too concerned if relations with your roommate went sour because of this.
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Servant, on It comes down to this:
Elizabeth,
This friend of yours may regret her abortion for the rest of her life and she may not. I know that you will regret not interfering for the rest of your life. You need to help this woman and only you can do it. You have been given a gift here that many people never have. You have the chance to save a human life. How can you say no. Do you care more about what your friend will think if you interfere than you do about the baby’s life? I would recommend you send her to the most graphic website you can find www.abortionno.org and have her look at what she is planning to do to her baby. If she still has the abortion after seeing the truth then you will at least know that you have given it your best shot. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
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Karen, on It comes down to this:
If you are pro-life, then I am assuming you value the life of that unborn child as much as if it were already born. So imagine that this woman had a newborn baby and was intent on killing it because it inconvenienced her life or jeopardized her relationship with the father. Would you interfere? I think that we are often too unwilling to risk offending people. Consider the stakes here - even if she and your roommate end up hating you for being (in their view) a busybody, you will have fulfilled your moral obligation to speak out against injustice. If you are silent, you are, de facto, an accomplice. Don’t be silent.
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Loretta, on Down syndrome and misinformation
I don’t believe rampant individualism is more than a side-symptom. Its more like a popular excuse for inexplicable views. Views that the ‘holder’ cannot explain, because in their revelation he himself becomes too aware of their implications.
Closer to the root of a problem that includes abortion - is the growing acceptance, conditioned by society’s support of abortion, of the idea that some humans are more valuable than others. Conditioning for eugenics is only possible because people do not have the knowledge that there is an INNATE VALUE IN BEING HUMAN. (Why don’t they, is possibly a discussion for elsewhere.)
Since Doctors, Scientists and Planned Parenthood agree that human life begins at conception, that it is at no time any other kind of life, we can all agree that unborn humans are HUMAN. Therefore society has decided that born humans are more valuable than unborn humans. Canadians are proposing that ‘wanted’ unborns are more valuable than ‘unwanted’ unborns. The Canadian Medical Assoc. would like to entrench in law their right to develop further the rubriks of ‘human value’. Soon they will be awarded the right to decide which elderly retain value at all, which handicapped are valuable at all, which terminally ill are valuable enough to die at their own pace rather than be killed by their ‘doctor’.
This is only possible in our society because we have accepted that some are more valuable than others. This puts most of us at great risk. Who controls the rubriks? On what basis is value judged? Who benefits, who loses?
I believe that the abortion problem will only be solved when the advocates become frightened by their own success, when they begin to realize, perhaps painfully , the extreme danger they have put themselves and their loved ones in. When it becomes personal to a lot of people. When the plan that originated with Margaret Sanger and Tommy Douglas and others of ‘good will’ - eugenics of those less valuable- becomes a threat to all without power to control the ‘rubriks of human value’.
What reason is there for any other result, if we do not know that there is value in human life BECAUSE it is human. How are we to know this, if we don’t accept the basis for this belief…
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Naomi, on When the open-minded and tolerant are, well, not:
That makes me very frustrated that they would gladly side with such racism… is anyone finding out about these articles… what a great way to find out planned parenthood/poor choicers true colors. We need to hire some more actors and start show these people publically who they are. That should be a breeze with the right planning and with all of these reality tv shows.
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Sheila, on Celebrating the tube
This ties directly to the earlier Latimer discussion (along with the prevailing idea that the “system” failed Tracy). However, in most circumstances, the “system” can only do for children that which their parents will permit. A feeding tube (i.e., a J-tube) would probably have been enormously beneficial to Tracy, both by circumventing the frustration of the thrice daily struggle to feed her adequately and by improving her nutritional status with all that follows from that. (Stronger immunity, healthier skin and muscle, faster healing, better thermal regulation, enhanced mood, etc., etc.)
Sadly, according to court transcripts, Mr. Latimer considered a feeding tube to be an extraordinary intervention that was unduly burdensome, to be avoided at all costs, and the “system” was unable to persuade him otherwise.
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Heather, on Celebrating the tube
I cannot read these stories without tears (I’m actually having a hard time seeing the keys right now). My little sister, who passed away 3 years ago at the age of 22, was tube fed for 11 years. *Her* quality of life was not only improved by tube feeding, MINE WAS TOO. She was my best friend, my conscience, and my world shattered the day her little body finally gave out.
I remember asking my father when the Latimer *cough* situation was happening, “What do you think about this?” The look he gave me stopped my heart for a second. I knew then that I needn’t have asked. Of course it was illegal, immoral, dare I say EVIL?!? To starve a healthy child is neglect… but to starve the most dependent, most innocent, most in need of protection in our society is “withholding life-sustaining treatment”?????
If those on that side of the fence would drop the (I so want to swear here, but I will restrain myself) *darned* code words and euphemisms, the debate would be short indeed.
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Tanya, on You call that sympathy?
On the one hand, Zerbisias claims that the number of physical offenses against women will not reduce with tougher penalties for attackers. She, on the other hand, asks for a bill protecting women from abusive partners.
I hear a really strange echo in here. And it’s not making very much sense.
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Loretta, on Finally!!! (Another view)
Why is it that a group with specific requirements for ‘membership’ or ‘communion’ should be chastised for explaining to ‘members’ what those requirements are? The Archbishop is telling his flock the truth - if you want to be ‘in communion’ this is how it is.
‘Catholics for Choice’ is a dissident group. They are anti-Catholic. No doubt that is why the media calls on them for comment on everything Catholic….
McGuinty is right to put himself in the same category as Martin, Chrétien and all the numerous other Canadian politicians who call themselves Catholic while at the same time proving with their own lips that they are not. He lies when he calls himself ‘faithful’. One cannot be ‘faithful’ and disavow church teaching. Only a LIAR or a very stupid person would propose such a thing. McGuinty may qualify as both.
Excellent question - why do they care what Catholics think?
I think the answer lies in a ‘liberal’ mentality. They are not satisfied that you do not force your views on them. They wish to force you to accept their view. This is what passes for ‘tolerant’ today.
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Elena, on Finally!!!
I like both your comments Brigitte and Véronique re Abp Prendergast’s statement. However, perhaps partly because of my cynical streak and partly because Canadian bishops are largely spineless, I’m not reading the statement with as much enthusiasm as you are.
“He told the crowd, “I think if a bishop is going to involve Canon 915, he has to know [the politicians], and speak with them or have the priest speak with them. Ultimata that come down from on high don’t help anybody…”
Here is an interesting rundown of what happens when in fact a bishop has enough of a spine to give “ultimata”. As a Catholic, I tend to think safeguarding a Sacrament in fact requires the occasional “ultimata”:
http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=691