Thread by topher.
Commentary by Judie Brown
May 26,2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pandora's Box: Etymology: from the box, sent by the gods to Pandora, which she was forbidden to open and which loosed a swarm of evils upon humankind when she opened it out of curiosity (1579)
Most Americans are familiar with the term “Pandora’s Box’ but that same percentage has no idea what “Caritas Christi” is so this is where my story must begin.
Caritas Christi (CC) was established in 1985 and is New England's largest community-based hospital network and is a comprehensive, integrated health care delivery network providing community-based medicine and tertiary care in eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
The CC mission statement reads in part:
“Being part of a Catholic Health Care System means that ours is a ministry with roots in the teachings of the Church and the Gospel message of Jesus. At Caritas Christi we are not just another provider of health care. We are a continuation of the healing ministry of Jesus. Our Mission and Values are the forces that drive us toward achieving Exceptional Care.”
Earlier this year something changed in the CC dynamic when it announced a joint venture with Centene Corporation in a bid to provide government-subsidized health insurance in Massachusetts. In fact the announcement sent shock waves through Massachusetts Citizens for Life which immediately issued a press release stating in part:
“Massachusetts Citizens for Life sent a letter on Thursday to the President and CEO of Caritas Christi, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, requesting a meeting as soon as possible to address the concerns members of the organization have about the Caritas Christi joint venture with Centene Corporation that offers insurance through the Commonwealth Care Health Plan.
“Caritas Christi has said it will provide a full range of family planning services. The public has learned that this terminology is code for abortion and abortion-related services. Mass. Citizens sought the meeting to give Caritas Christi the chance to refute these assumptions and to assure the general public that it would not be providing such services.
“Since we have not heard from Dr. de la Torre, Mass. Citizens must regretfully assume that, in fact, Caritas Christi would abandon its twenty-three year commitment to protecting the lives of unborn babies and their mothers.
"Our members will be contacting the offices of Caritas individually to express their outrage that Caritas would take this anti-life position.”
On March 12, 2009, another shock wave went through the pro-life ranks when Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Family Health Plan announced on March 12 that, “it was awarded the contract to manage healthcare services for Commonwealth Care members in Massachusetts. The health plan is a partnership between Celtic Group Inc. (Celtic), a subsidiary of Centene Corporation, and Caritas Christi Health Care (Caritas)."
The facts about this “Commonwealth Plan” are disturbing on a very basic level. The Massachusetts Commonwealth Care plan is the very type of "universal health-care insurance" that President Barack Obama wants to impose on the rest of the country. Indeed, proponents of national health-care insurance always point to the Massachusetts program as a model of a successful plan.
Second, in order to be an approved health-care provider eligible for payment under the Massachusetts plan, the law requires that the hospital must provide the full range of “reproductive services," such as abortion, sterilization, contraception, and counseling that recommends such services. All of these things are directly contrary to the teaching of the Church. This is what we have to look forward to from Obama's proposed national plan.
Furthermore, Caritas Christi cannot participate in the approved plan without agreeing to provide the mandatory “reproductive health services” that are in direct violation to Catholic teaching. . .
Thread by me.
Zurich, Switzerland (LifeNews.com) -- The Dignitas assisted suicide facility in Switzerland is coming under investigation for allegedly killing a man with depression. Under the euthanasia law in Switzerland, someone can only be killed in an assisted suicide if they suffer from a terminal illness.
Swiss Judge Philippe Barboni has ordered an investigation of the death of Andrei Haber, a Romanian who lived in Fribourg.
Relatives notified Swiss authorities that he had planned to kill himself at the Dignitas facility.
"This case presents a particular fact: that the person didn't suffer from a serious or incurable disease, provoking severe pain. His motives were essentially psychological," Judge Barboni said, according to Swiss media reports.
Care Not Killing, a British-based group that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia, commented on Haber's death and the resulting probe, which it called felicitous given that euthanasia advocates appear to prey on the depressed. . .