Posted on 03/18/2011 1:14:05 PM PDT by wagglebee
The world has taken notice of a 14-month old baby from Canada whose family has been fighting the medical establishment since October to help their child breathe. Moe and Sana Maraachli were refused a tracheotomy for their son because the apparently fatal neurological disease that the child has renders further intervention “futile.”
Working with many others, we at Priests for Life arranged to have the baby transferred to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St Louis, and I went on the medical jet to pick up the baby and his father on Sunday night March 13. Now, the child has another chance at getting better care, and the family another chance at maximizing the time they can spend with their child.
A lot of media has accompanied the event. One reporter who was not too interested in covering the story asked, “Who the hell is Baby Joseph and why should I care?”
The short answer is, Baby Joseph is all of us.
After all, the problem underlying this case is not simply one particular hospital or the Canadian medical system. The problem is a philosophy of life that says that how valuable you are depends on how well you function. The problem is a philosophy of medicine that says that if someone is going to die anyway, there’s no benefit in prolonging life. The problem is a philosophy of suffering that says we can actually determine what somebody else’s level of happiness is, and measure their misery, and that if they don’t have the good sense to eliminate it, we can step in and do so against their wishes.
If we don’t think that we and our loved ones will be affected by this philosophy when it comes to our own medical challenges and decisions, we should think again. It’s happening every day, often with subtle or not so subtle pressure from medical professionals, who, instead of rendering medical judgments, render value judgments. Doctors are not supposed to judge for us the “meaning” or “value” of extending the life of a loved one, or our own life. Rather, they are supposed to judge for us whether a particular treatment or intervention will have certain effects on a loved one or on us. They need to leave it to us, in consultation with our family and clergy, to determine what meaning or value we find in the situation.
This is what the parents of Baby Joseph, together with Priests for Life and many others, are trying to say. Baby Joseph’s parents, who want to care for him no matter how long or short his life may be, were told that this life wasn’t worth extending. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and tell the medical profession that this is not their role. “Life not worth living” belongs to a philosophy that led to one of the world’s greatest holocausts, which ended with the declaration “Never Again.”
Our efforts on behalf of Baby Joseph can actually be summarized by those two words.
LifeNews.com Note: Father Frank Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life.
How so? If we are to treat "the least of these" among us (i.e. Baby Joseph) as we do Christ, you would be willing to say of Christ, "...because I don’t know him, I’ll focus on the problems/issues of those I DO know,” just as you said of Joseph.
Actually, I merely cited a Scripture verse, to which you inquired, "Yes, but why this one baby specifically. Are there no needy people in your own town?"
Don't ask questions if you're not prepared to have them answered. If the answer brought you into uncomfortable territory, I would suggest that perhaps you ought to evaluate where you were standing in the first place.
"I feel as if you are trying to trap me..."
I needn't put forth that much effort when you already painted yourself into a corner.
I am not giving you cover for your rediculous comment that you made at post #5 seen below
I’ve ignored every Baby Joseph thread I’ve seen. I have no clue who he is. In fact, the only reason I am responding in this thread is that I saw the title and I agree with it (and the title is all I read), in so much as “because I don’t know him, I’ll focus on the problems/issues of those I DO know.”
I guess if you dont know the guy obviously dying by the side of the road then you just walk around him.
Well, YOU certainly haven't agonized about Baby Joseph, by your own admission you had know idea who he was a few hours ago and probably still don't.
Yes, people are killed every day in tragic accidents; however, their deaths are not IMMEDIATELY PREVENTABLE the way that Baby Joseph's is.
And yet this one baby gets all the press.
This baby gets press because people who care about the sanctity of life CHOSE to do everything possible to save his life.
Were it left up to the mainstream media, the ones who report the news you do care about, Baby Joseph would have been murdered and nobody would have known.
Very good point. It happens too many times every day.
>>How so? If we are to treat “the least of these” among us (i.e. Baby Joseph) as we do Christ, you would be willing to say of Christ, “...because I don’t know him, I’ll focus on the problems/issues of those I DO know,” just as you said of Joseph.<<
If I focused on the problems of every single person in the world, I’d go crazy. Literally. Joseph is not the only “least of these” in the world. He is just the one getting press, and the industry is cleaning up pulling heart strings. I am not attempting to minimize his suffering. Rather, I see the massive focus on his suffering as minimizing the millions of other “baby Josephs” in the world. But again. This baby Joseph thing is really not about him or how I treat him (since I am thousands of miles away), but about the politics of what is going on. That is why it is a story in the first place.
A friend’s son (who is now in his 20’s) was born with downs syndrom. He was not expected to live more than a few years. But we went to the hospital and “patterned” him anyway. It was worthwhile. ;)
OK, apparently you live in the same town as Joseph. My bad.
>>I guess if you dont know the guy obviously dying by the side of the road then you just walk around him.<<
That is not analogous to what is going on here. This is media manipulation of people’s feelings. Not having television myself, it is easy to see from the outside.
I repeat what I said earlier: It makes no sense to walk by 10 starving people to feed a starving person. Start with the one closest to you and work your way out. But still, this is not about Joseph. It is about the political fallout of what the state is attempting. Joseph just brings the “humanity” to the story.
Yes, I’ll agree with most of what you are saying in that post. I look at it as very similar to the Terry Schiavo case. A media frenzy over a very political hot potato.
>>Well, YOU certainly haven’t agonized about Baby Joseph...<<
As I said in a previous post, if I agonized over every person that is suffering in the world, I would literally go insane. What about the people in the middle east that are being slaughtered right now? I don’t see anybody here flying out there to join them on the front lines. How you feel about that could be similar to how I feel about Joseph. Thanks to the press I’d say he’s pretty well covered by folks like you. And that IS a good thing.
Meanwhile, I’ll focus on the suffering of others. And that is a good thing too.
Actually, the pro-life movement learned a lot from Terri. This is why people like the Schindlers and Father Pavone decided to keep this from becoming political, nobody waited for the Canadian courts to "do the right thing," they just went to Canada and rescued Baby Joseph.
As I said in a previous post, if I agonized over every person that is suffering in the world, I would literally go insane.
So you choose to care about NONE OF THEM, and you choose to call yourself a Christian and reference Revelation 18:4 in your tagline? That makes no sense.
How you feel about that could be similar to how I feel about Joseph. Thanks to the press I’d say he’s pretty well covered by folks like you.
The mainstream media has NEVER publicized Baby Joseph's case. Pro-life news outlets and Free Republic did that.
Yep and Fox News picked it up too
B S ! The media ignored this! At this point I dont believe anything that you say. Your very first post on this thread stated everything I need to know about any opinion you have. Go back and look at your #5 post about not even reading the article. You still had to make a statement about something that you were totally ignorant of.
Baby Joseph is not the only person we’ve reached out to. Many of us have been reaching out to help the victims ever since we heard about this happening to Terri Schiavo.
We really should compile a list of the people we’ve saved, and the people we’ve tried to save. Mae Maguirk, Lauren Richardson, Sun Hudson, Haleigh Poutre, Vo (I can’t remember the rest of her name, a Vietnamese refugee), and who knows how many others.
Publicity is not necessarily a bad thing. If not for publicity, Baby Joseph would almost certainly have been murdered by now.
We work to save these people’s lives because it’s the right thing to do, not because we’re a bunch of hormonal women who can’t control our emotions. Some of us are men, and I would venture to say more man than anyone too selfish to care about anyone he doesn’t know intimately.
We can’t help each person individually, but each time someone is exterminated for being disabled or near death, there is a ripple effect that puts more and more people at risk. When it reaches your circle of acquaintances, will you start to care, or will you find a new excuse for not caring?
Bump!
>>So you choose to care about NONE OF THEM, and you choose to call yourself a Christian and reference Revelation 18:4 in your tagline?<<
OK, NOW I feel like I am on DU. Where, exactly, from my posts, did you divine the presence of mind to say that I care about “NONE OF THEM”? Are you actually reading my posts? Has your emotional mind completely overridden your rational mind?
I hate being so direct, but if you are going to attack me like that, you need to present some evidence to back it up.
You are female, correct? I know how they can get with this sort of stuff. I rack it up to “your virtues are your vices”.
>>Your very first post on this thread stated everything I need to know about any opinion you have.<<
My, my. A single post and you have someone all sized up. I’m impressed.
No, not really. No.
The irrational emotionalism in this thread is truly a thing to behold. I have a difficult time discussing politics with the liberal women at work for obvious reasons. I have a difficult time discussing children and pets in news stories with women on FR for the same basic reason. At least, I am presuming from the tone of your response that you are female.
I think that is pretty cool. I missed my last trip to Haiti because the earthquake hit just a few days before we were to leave and our flight got “removed”.
I am beginning to get the drift here that one of my paradigms has bee skewered. Usually when I see the same name in a thread title on freerepublic, I figure I am getting only a tiny sampling of what is going on in the MSM. I didn’t really notice the Bird Flu was actually a concern in the US until it wasn’t any more. I ignored the few stories on FR because I figured it was just media hype - and it was. It looks like this story is just the opposite from what some are saying.
I will say this though: If this was in the US and controlled by US law I would be significantly more interested. And considering how many babies are aborted in this country, I actually see that as the greater issue, because it is MY country, where I can make more of a difference.
>>Some of us are men, and I would venture to say more man than anyone too selfish to care about anyone he doesn’t know intimately.<<
That is one way of looking at it. Another is to say that some of us have our hands full already. How many is enough to care about? Five? Ten? A hundred? It really can wear you out to the point of illness and death. Technically, there is no a limit, so none of us can be “proud” since we have all reached a limit.
I weep for the people of Japan and Iran, and now Libya. Millions of innocents killed, maimed, tortured, losing their homes. Yet so many are focused on the media frenzy of a single baby. Don’t get me wrong. The one sheep is more important than the 99, but in that parable, the 99 are safe. Here we have millions and millions of sheep who are NOT safe, and yet so many are focused on the one. I think the only two rationals behind that are 1. it is a heartstring pulling story and 2. It has political ramifications. But since it is not my country, I can only use the political part to point out the folly of Canada and why we do not want to follow their footsteps.
It looks like this baby was saved, like so many nameless adults and children pulled out of wrecked cars and burning buildings. And that is the perspective I give it - and I applaud the individuals that saved this baby as much as those that pulled the victims from those other tragedies.
Wrong. Get lost.
*****************************
Yes, and thank God for them both.
>>Wrong.<<
That’s even worse.
>>Get lost.<<
And that is, uh, pathetic.
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