During Baltimore assembly, bishops to consider revised directives on withdrawal of food, water

WASHINGTON – A proposed revision to the directives that guide Catholic heath care facilities would clarify that patients with chronic conditions who are not imminently dying should receive food and water by “medically assisted” means if they cannot take them normally.

“As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally,” says the revised text of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” proposed by the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine.

“This obligation extends to patients in chronic conditions (e.g., the ‘persistent vegetative state’) who can reasonably be expected to live indefinitely if given such care,” the new text adds.

Deleted from the directives would be a reference to “the necessary distinctions between questions already resolved by the magisterium and those requiring further reflection, as, for example, the morality of withdrawing medically assisted hydration and nutrition from a person who is in the condition that is recognized by physicians as the ‘persistent vegetative state.’“

The proposed revision to the directives will come before members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for debate and vote at their fall general assembly Nov. 16-19 in Baltimore. A majority vote by those present and voting is required for passage.

In an introduction to the revised text, Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., chairman of the doctrine committee, said the directives, last revised in 2001, “were written long before” Pope John Paul II’s March 2004 address to an international conference on “Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State” and the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s August 2007 reply to questions raised by the USCCB on artificial nutrition and hydration.

The current directives based their teaching on documents by “some state Catholic conferences, individual bishops and the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities,” the bishop noted.

Bishop Lori said the changes were needed “particularly since the recent clarifications by the Holy See have rendered untenable certain positions that have been defended by some Catholic ethicists.”

Much of the ethical discussion of the nutrition and hydration question in recent years has focused on the case of Terri Schindler Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband successfully fought for the right to discontinue her feeding tube. Schiavo died March 31, 2005, 13 days after doctors withdrew nutrition and hydration.

Some Catholic ethicists had argued that, because doctors consider a persistent vegetative state irreversible, artificial nutrition and hydration can be withdrawn from those patients.

“While medically assisted nutrition and hydration are not morally obligatory in certain cases, these forms of basic care should in principle be provided to all patients who need them, including patients diagnosed as being in a ‘persistent vegetative state,’ because even the most severely debilitated and helpless patient retains the full dignity of a human person,” the proposed revised directives read.

“Medically assisted nutrition and hydration become morally optional when they cannot reasonably be expected to prolong life or when they would be ‘excessively burdensome for the patient or (would) cause significant physical discomfort,’“ they add. “For instance, as a patient draws close to inevitable death from an underlying progressive and fatal condition, certain measures to provide nutrition and hydration may become excessively burdensome and therefore not obligatory in light of their very limited ability to prolong life or provide comfort.”

The proposed wording also would delete a reference to hydration and nutrition not being morally obligatory “when they cannot be assimilated by a person’s body,” replacing it with the “significant physical discomfort” language.

The revision was drawn up in collaboration with the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities and in consultation with the Task Force on Health Care Issues, Catholic Health Association, Catholic Medical Association, National Catholic Bioethics Center and National Catholic Partnership on Disability, Bishop Lori said.

Dr. Alveda King nails Reid!

Thread by me.

Martin Luther King Jr's Niece Blasts Harry Reid on Abortion Bill-Slavery Comments

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is upset by the comments Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made about opponents of the pro-abortion Senate health care bill. Reid compared opposition to the bill, which funds abortions, to the 19th-century debate over slavery.

Reid on Monday said Republicans opposed to the bill were displaying the same mindset as those who supported slavery.

“If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right,” Reid said. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, ‘Slow down, it’s too early, things aren't bad enough.’ ”

Reid came under heavy criticism for the remarks and, on Tuesday, he defended his comments, saying critics were "distorting" them.

"At pivotal points in American history, the tactics of distortion and delay have certainly been present," Reid said, according to The Hill. "They've certainly been used to stop progress. That's what we're talking about here."

"It's very clear. That's the point I made — no more, no less. Anyone who willingly distorts my comments is only proving my point," he added.

While republicans have struck back -- with national party chairman Michael Steele, who is black, leading the critics, Reid is hearing from another corner as well.

Alveda King, the director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life, a national Catholic pro-life group, also has something to say.

The niece of the famous civil rights leader told LifeNews.com she thought Reid's comments clearly were "comparing opponents of his health care bill to supporters of slavery."

She said it is Reid who is more closely aligned with slavery and the mindset of those who support it.

“Senator Reid has written a bill that would force Americans to pay for the abortion of babies and he implies that opposition to his efforts is evil? His comments are outrageous," King said.

“It’s Senator Reid’s bill that treats unborn humans like property. If anything, it’s his actions that should be compared to support for slavery," she added.

Wesley J. Smith makes some grim predictions for the coming year.

Thread by me.

Wesley J. Smith: Abortion, Assisted Suicide and Bioethics Predictions for 2010, Tough Pro-Life Year

"Flash Forward" is a new and interesting television drama presented on the ABC Television Network. The premise is brilliant - due to reasons still unknown, everyone in the world (except the bad guys) blackout for two minutes seventeen seconds.

Planes crash, people collapse on the streets, swimmers drown, it is an utter catastrophe that results in the deaths of 20 million people. Being unconscious, blackout victims experience a "flash forward" - a vision of precisely what they would be doing for two minutes and seventeen seconds at the same specific time in April 2010.

Some have happy futuristic visions of new loves, some unhappy of broken marriages and deaths, some terrifying such as being murdered, one hilarious - an FBI supervisor is chagrined to admit he spent his entire flash forward on the toilet. Still others have nothing but blackness, indicating that they may be dead next April. The show raises several fascinating questions; whether free will exists, can "the future" be changed, indeed, can it really be predicted.

Well, it’s time for our very own "flash forward" as the CBC has again asked me to prognosticate about our bioethical future in 2010:

Obamacare Will Pass

I was caught flat footed in last year’s predictions by the intense heat generated over health care reform in 2009. Rather than target health care reform to the need to expand access to health insurance as I supposed would happen, the proposals sought instead to remake the entire health care system. This stirred a hornet’s nest, raising important questions of affordability, fears of health care rationing - provocatively labeled "death panels" by Sarah Palin - coverage for abortion, illegal immigrants, and the definition of what constitutes medical treatment.

How will it all turn out? I predict a health care reform bill will be signed into law in 2010. That’s the easy part. The question becomes, what will it look like? That is hard to say since many of the important details will be determined by the tens of thousands of regulations promulgated to carry out the law in over the next few years. Still, the outlines are growing clear in my crystal ball. Here is my personal Obamacare flash forward:

The Public Option. One of the biggest controversies surrounding Obamacare is whether there will be a government health care plan to compete with private insurance companies. I predict that the pure PO will not become law in 2010. Instead, there will be a hybrid alternative enacted permitting non-profit companies - and only non profit companies - to join a government authorized purchasing collective. Whether they will actually threaten the private insurance sector - which I believe is the intent - will not become clear until after the law goes into effect in 2013.

Heath Care Rationing. Obamacare doesn't call explicitly for health care rationing, but creates its foundation with the establishment of cost/benefit/best practices boards that will be given tremendous sway over the standards of medical care and extent of coverage for both private and public plans. There is almost zero chance these boards will not be part of any law that passes. That means health care rationing will remain a looming specter and a cause for continuing societal debate for years to come.

Abortion. Companies participating in the public exchanges will be required to provide some abortion coverage, but there will not be direct public funding of most abortions. However, the law will permit regulators to require indirect public funding, for example, allowing abortion coverage to be purchased with government vouchers or tax credits.

End of Life Counseling. The provision allowing doctors to be compensated for providing end of life counseling will pass. But the law will require that it be voluntary and not directed to any particular decisions or outcomes.

Illegal Aliens. The law will not explicitly provide for coverage for people who are not legally in the country. But it will not require purchasers of government underwritten health insurance to provide proof of legal status, meaning that undocumented aliens will find ways to purchase health insurance under Obamacare.

The passage of Obamacare will not be the end of the controversy over national health insurance, but the beginning. There will be much wrangling over the regulations, attempts to roll back the law if and when Republicans regain control of Congress, and anger over increased taxation before benefits are paid. Expect the issue to be politically volatile for many years to come. . .

God Bless Jim Robinson for his unwavering dedication to life!

Free Republic is a fringe right-wing Christian fundamentalist site

Free Republic is a fringe right-wing Christian fundamentalist site... or so they say... and they might even be right.

We don't go for any of that godless left-wing big government socialist malarkey. And we do put our faith and trust in God, not government. We are pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Family, pro-Country and pro-Liberty.

We do not believe that government or science knows what's best for us or our children. We will make our own decisions thank you very much.

Every once in a while some group of posters get together and try to bend Free Republic to their will. Now, we tend to be pretty free-wheeling around here and will take a lot of guff and a lot of obnoxious insults from a lot of people, but eventually a breaking point is reached.

For example, when a group of RINO lovers recently banded together to try to force FR to accept an abortionist/gay rights RINO as our presidential candidate, they soon found themselves on the outs.

And a few years ago a group of evolutionists tried to force FR over to their way of thinking and they soon found themselves on the outs.

FR is a pro-God, pro-Creator, pro-Life, pro-Liberty site.

And now we have yet another group of Darwinists trying to have their Darwinist way with us. Well, as I've said before what doesn't kill us will only make us stronger.

Darwin Central has again declared war on FR. They have ping lists and email lists and will try to pull away as many FReepers as they possibly can. So be it. Those who would rather go with Darwin, please go. I sure as hell won't try to stop you.

FR will remain a pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Liberty, pro-Creator conservative site.

We wholeheartedly believe that our unalienable rights are a gift from God our Creator not from man or government. And no man, no government will ever deprive us of same.

Keep your powder dry.

I have posted two threads on Dutch plans to expand eugenic infanticide to include the killing of infants who MIGHT suffer in the future.

Researcher to Dutch Government: Allow Euthanasia for Newborns Based on Foreseeable Suffering

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, December 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Dutch health researcher has called on the nation's government to allow physicians to euthanize newborns based on foreseen suffering, rather than only actual suffering, reports the Dutch medical journal Zorgkrant.

Hilde Buiting, maintains that such an amendment would only conform the law to the current practice among physicians.

"The current guidelines state that there must be actual grave suffering on the part of the newborn," she said, as quoted in Zorgkrant. "In practice, physicians look not only to the actual suffering of the sick newborn, but also to the grave suffering foreseen in the future. This reality should be included in the considerations in adapting the guidelines."

The Groningen Protocol, approved by the Dutch government in 2006, establishes guidelines within which physicians may kill seriously ill newborns.

The Protocol allows doctors to kill newborns who fit into three separate categories: those who are so ill that they are likely to die very soon; those who could survive after "intensive treatment," but "expectations regarding their future condition are very grim," and; those who can survive without any additional medical treatment whatsoever, but are deemed to be experiencing suffering and "for whom a very poor quality of life, associated with sustained suffering, is predicted."

The Dutch government has established a committee to oversee newborn euthanasia, but they have received very few reports of the practice thus far.

Buiting made her comments in response to a statement made last month by Dutch State Secretary for Health, Welfare, and Sports Jet Bussemaker, who expressed concern about the lack of reporting.

Buiting believes that doctors will be more willing to report newborn euthanasia cases if the guidelines are amended to reflect what she says is the current practice among doctors - of killing newborns based upon likely, and not only actual, suffering.

"Given that we in the Netherlands find it important to exercise social control over the active killing of newborns, the guidelines should therefore be adjusted," she said.

However, according to Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, "[potential future suffering] was always part of the Groningen Protocol."

He pointed to the February 2008 article "Ending the Life of a Newborn," from the prestigious bioethics journal The Hastings Center Report, which aimed to clarify various "misunderstandings" about the Protocol. According to the authors, the Protocol already allows for euthanasia based on future suffering.

"The protocol has been taken to apply not only to pain, but also to other kinds of serious and unrelievable conditions," they wrote. "The protocol thus leaves room for cases in which the suffering will take place in the future."

The Groningen Protocol, Schadenberg went on, "is not just about terminally ill newborns in difficult situations. It's about newborns who are not always terminally ill. Some of them are actually not even needing medical treatment."

The Protocol is "a eugenic policy," he insisted, "because we're determining at the newborn stage that these children will have a wretched life, so let's end their lives." "In reality we have little actual knowledge of what is the actual situation for that child," he said.

While the Netherlands say they are motivated by compassion, according to Schadenberg, "they've become a cold and harsh society that eliminates those people who are most in need of care."

The situation in the Netherlands "should be saying to Canadian society that we need to be going the opposite direction and actually provide care," said Schadenberg, referring to Canada's current debate over euthanasia and assisted suicide. "We actually have to care for people, not kill them."

______________________________________________________________

Killing Children Now in Case They Might Suffer in the Future

Fairly often I’m taken to task by some of my friends for suggesting that state-sanctioned eugenics is alive and well in the 21^st century. I have a question to ask them:

Explain to me that what I’m about to report is not eugenics in its purest, simplest, and ugliest form.

First, a standard definition of eugenics:

the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics).

The Nazis took eugenics a step further to take care of all those pesky people with medical and other disabilities who were inconveniently alive, believing that they were so debilitated that they had no acceptable quality of life.

The Dutch are now doing the same. (Google translate will give you a close English version).

Read on.

On Monday, a Dutch medical researcher, Hilde Buiting, called for another step down the slippery slope to pure insanity by calling for the government and the medical profession to change the rules on euthanizing newborn infants.

NOTE: I said change the rules, not devise the rules, because euthanizing newborns in the Netherlands has been officially allowed for quite a while, via the so-called Groningen Protocol of 2006.

In 2006 the argument was the same as what I’ll share below: Killing newborns was already happening in Dutch hospitals, but it was unregulated and therefore uncontrolled.

PRESTO!! Develop a medical set of rules that lay out when doctors may kill newborns. The Groningen Protocol makes killing newborn infants OK!! (An act of love and mercy, you understand).

I really wish I were making this up.

So now, in 2009, the Dutch are again pushing toward expanding euthanasia beyond the Groningen Protocol.

Sidebar: The Dutch already have precedent in killing adults to rely on for how they are now trying to justify killing more newborns. Initially, adult assisted suicide and euthanasia was officially only allowed for the terminally ill in unbearable and uncontrollable suffering. Now, years later, adult assisted suicide and euthanasia have morphed to where medical killing can be carried out for a host of other reasons, even if people are not terminally ill and even if they have no physical illness.

With me so far?

Here’s the new proposal from Ms. Buiting:

The current guidelines state that there must be actual grave suffering on the part of the newborn,. . . In practice, physicians look not only to the actual suffering of the sick newborn, but also to the grave suffering foreseen in the future. This reality should be included in the considerations in adapting the guidelines. . . . Given that we in the Netherlands find it important to exercise social control over the active killing of newborns, the guidelines should therefore be adjusted.

See the change? Now they want to kill newborns because of what they might suffer in the murky future.

Oh, and don’t forget about the “social control” part either.

That’s a chilling step past killing newborns that are already suffering, and like the Nazis, this is, as Ms. Buiting so cavalierly noted, a medical and government-sanctioned form of exercising social control.

Again, I ask, how is this not state- and medically sanctioned eugenics?

Prove me wrong, I beg of you, so that I can stop thinking that the unthinkable is now not only thinkable but doable; that we now want to judge newborn infants as so medically disabled that they should be killed by the white-coated, stethoscope-carrying grisly necromancers divining future suffering in order to kill infants now.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

The left just keeps getting sicker.

Thread by me.

Carbon Scheme: Offset Your Jet-Set Lifestyle by Eliminating African Babies

December 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Population control groups have been using the hype surrounding the Copenhagen climate change conference to promote their solution to hypothetical impending environmental catastrophes. Earlier this month, two pieces appearing in the same edition of the Guardian revisited a report by Britain's Optimum Population Trust (OPT) that suggests that people in wealthy first-world countries should "offset" the carbon cost of their jet-setting lifestyles by paying to prevent the births of poor children in the developing world.

John Vidal, the Guardian's environment editor, wrote that the OPT's report suggesting a "radical" plan to cut carbon emissions was the "best bet" to reduce global warming trends. In August, the OPT issued a report claiming to have made a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to work out exactly how much "carbon emission" a child born in the developing world costs.

Vidal pointed to the claim in the OPT report that the 10 metric tons of carbon emitted by a single return flight from London to Sydney could be "offset" by "enabling the avoidance of one unwanted birth in a country such as Kenya."

In the same issue of the Guardian, David Burton wrote in an editorial that the OPT offset scheme, called "called PopOffsets," could be used to save the environment and "to help the world's poorest women."

The OPT scheme, Burton wrote, "will give practical help: both to the poorest women in the world to enable them to control their own fertility and to humanity by tackling the threat posed by human-induced climate change."

The report, published in August and titled, "Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost: Reducing Future Carbon Emissions by Investing in Family Planning," said that "family planning" is cheaper than low carbon technologies like windmill power generators and low-consumption light bulbs.

"Based on the study's findings, it is proposed that family planning methods should be a primary tool in the optimum strategy for reducing carbon emissions," the report said. . .

This is an AMAZING story.

Thread by me.

Abortion Survivor Shares Story of Beating Death at 24 Weeks Into Pregnancy

Melissa Ohden's 19 month old daughter, Olivia, was not supposed to have a chance at life because of abortion. Not because Melissa ever considered aborting her, but because Melissa, herself, was aborted at approximately 24 weeks of gestation and survived.

Abortion attempt survivors, in and of themselves, are rare in our society. Having an abortion attempt survivor become a mother, herself, and speak out against the intergenerational impact of abortion, is certainly even more of a rarity. But by all appearances, Melissa is up for the challenge that faces her in her ministry.

"It's my calling," states Melissa. "This is who I am; I wouldn't change a thing."

Although adoption was an intrinsic part of her family and life, Melissa didn't learn that she was the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion attempt until she was in the 8th grade. Finding out the painful reality of how she entered the world truly changed her life and the lives of all of those around her forever, and understandably, it hasn't always been easy.

"Ashamed, guilty, and embarrassed," is how Melissa describes the predominant feelings she had for many years after finding out about surviving the abortion attempt.

Even though Melissa felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being saved from certain death, for many years shame and embarrassment at being "so unwanted," and guilt for growing up to be perfectly happy, healthy and successful rendered her silent.

After a long journey of healing, and a decades-long, but successful search for her birth records and biological family, however, Melissa came forward publicly in 2007 to share her story with the world and provide a voice to the millions of voiceless, aborted children just like her.

Since that time, Melissa's life has come full circle, as she gave birth to her first child, Olivia, at the very same hospital where her own life was supposed to end.

In spite of all the blessings that Melissa has received in her life, her search for the truth has not been painless, and many of her experiences have been emotionally and spiritually challenging. Sadly, even though Melissa had discovered that she was living in the same city as her biological father in 2007, he passed away in 2008, prior to ever meeting her.

With his passing, however, many gifts have come. Although her father had never told anyone about Melissa, after discovering a letter that she had sent him months prior to his passing, her biological father's family contacted her after his death.

"There's still so much grief," Melissa says about her father's passing.

Since initially being contacted by the paternal side of her family, Melissa has now met her grandfather and great-aunt, whom she sees on a regular basis. She has also spoken to her grandmother by phone and her father's wife by email.

The pain of losing her father and discovering that he carried the secret of Melissa with him all of his life, and ultimately to his death, is still too much for many in his family to handle, yet Melissa hopes that she will someday meet other family members, including a younger half-sister, that is unknowingly living in the same city as her currently.

Although Melissa has never had the opportunity to meet her biological mother, she has communicated with her maternal grandparents by letter, and she hopes to someday have contact with her mother, also. She is grateful that she has been given the opportunity to reach out to both of her biological parents and their families to let them know that she has forgiven them for the decision that was made to end her life, and has lived a full, blessed life.

"One decision, one single moment, can have such a detrimental impact on so many people, living and dead, born and yet to be conceived," is the driving point of Melissa's message.

Melissa's life and her ministry speaks to the true reality of abortion and the impact it has on not just women and children, but men, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, friends, and communities. Yet it is also about so much more.

Melissa shares her inspiring story of survival and the awesome power of faith, hope, love and forgiveness in by speaking at Christian and pro-life events across the U.S. and Canada.

God Bless Lila Rose for all she does.

Thread by Pyro7480.

Pro-Life Activist Lila Rose Attacked by Planned Parenthood Abortion Center Escort

Lila Rose has made a name for herself exposing the abuses at Planned Parenthood centers, such as staffers misleading women about abortion or hiding cases of sexual abuse. Rose became a victim herself Thursday morning as a Planned Parenthood staff member attacked her.

Late Thursday morning at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility located at 1691 The Alameda in San Jose, California, Rose led a group of pro-life advocates....

According to a police report filed at the scene and numerous witnesses, a uniformed Planned Parenthood escort engaged in a short exchange with Rose and eventually struck her on the hand, knocking her literature to the ground.

"Sir, are you familiar with the abortion procedure?" Rose asked the Planned Parenthood escort while standing on the public sidewalk.

The escort approached Rose from the Planned Parenthood parking lot and said, "You idiot. You've caused so much trouble. You piece of crap."

Rose offered to show the escort a picture of a baby victimized by abortion, saying, "Can I show you a picture of what it really does to a baby?"

At this point, the escort struck Rose's hand knocking her pro-life pamphlets and Bible to the ground and Rose stepped further back on the public sidewalk.

The Planned Parenthood official moved closer to Rose and, visibly shaking, says, "It's a woman's choice!"

"What about the baby's choice?" Rose responds....

The evolution of evil continues.

Thread by SeekAndFind.

Video: Mother kills newborn, can’t be charged with crime (Abortion Legal till Umbilical Cord is cut)

This may be the worst story of the year, at least in reference to domestic policy and crime.

How bad is it? When Matt of Creative Minority Report tipped me to it this morning, I had to track it down to make sure it was on the level. A woman in Campbell County, Virginia smothered her newborn infant, and police are powerless to do anything about it:

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR VIDEO

The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it.“, says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“

Law enforcement officials have repeatedly attempted to get the law changed, asking state legislators to do something about the gap in protection for newborns. Why have Virginia legislators failed to act? They’re afraid of running afoul of the abortion industry:

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Er, what? I’m not aware of fourth-trimester abortions being legal anywhere in the US. In fact, I doubt that third-trimester abortions are legal in Virginia, either. Ironically, if the baby had been killed by someone else in an assault on the mother before its birth, that person would have been charged with murder, which sets up a really interesting double standard. Are legislators in Virginia so afraid of the abortion industry that they can’t take steps to protect full-term babies after their birth? Sounds like Virginians need a new class of lawmakers.

God has a purpose for each and every one of His children.

Thread by NYer.

Baby Without a Brain : A Miracle Story

Pueblo, Colorado - Nicholas Coke, a baby boy from Pueblo is a living miracle. He was born with no brain. He can’t see, hear, crawl or suck, but still managed to make a history. This week he has completed his one year’s tough fight for survival.

The disease Nicholas was born with is called Anencephaly. It’s a genetic disorder in which a person has no brain, just a brain stem. Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during development in the womb. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes between the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy, forming the brain and the spinal cord. In rare cases, one end of the neural tube does not close. This results in the absence of a major part of the brain, skull, and scalp.

Anencephaly occurs in about 1 out of 10,000 births, although the exact number is not known because many of these pregnancies result in a miscarriage, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The cause of anencephaly is unknown, although the mother’s diet, including an insufficient intake of folic acid, may play a role. Most scientists, however, believe many other factors are also involved.

Nicholas, the miracle child has survived without doctors, or tubes. Her mother Sheena told that he even showed sign of emotion. It was his first smile that brings solace to her poor mother.

They are celebrating every moment as they didn’t know when that fateful moment would come and they had to witness their child breathing his last breath.

We wish Nicholas a Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas. May God bless him.

What really goes on in Big Murder's death chambers.

Thread by rhema.

What Goes On At Planned Parenthood

About 20 high school kids (including myself) from my school’s Live Action chapter went to a Planned Parenthood in the Bay Area.

We got there around 10:00 AM, and met with a few more activists with signs picturing abortion victims. We split up into a couple of groups of 7 or so each, and each group gathered in a circle near one of the 3 driveway entrances to the parking lot of the clinic. We prayed for a while, each sharing his/her own prayer, and then we read aloud from the Psalms. Then we prayed again. The whole time, children were being slaughtered, mercilessly, by abortionist doctors whose nurse friends had entangled the “patients” in a web of lies and deceit. Telling them that “Its not a baby…or anything like that.”

After praying, three of my friends and I began handing out information such as magazines on fetal development to the mothers coming into the clinic. We stood next to the driveways of the clinic, and when a car came by we would do our best to hand them the information. This we did with little success. In fact, one mother and her daughter, aged about 15, were driving out of the clinic parking lot. The young girl was sobbing, with her face buried in her hands. Her mother had her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, trying to comfort, only to fail. The hard, cold, reality was that their family had probably driven into that same parking lot a few hours before, with one more member of their family.

Now that member, boy or girl, was probably thrown carelessly away, but its spirit is in God’s hands.

This young girl was not the only one in that situation. Other women came out of the clinic, holding their stomachs and with expressions on their faces that said, “I regret it already.” and “don’t talk to me I am worthless.” and “what have I done?”. Not one–not one of these women came out of the clinic smiling.

Soon after that heartbroken girl had left the clinic, we were startled by some harsh words from a somewhat raised voice, a little ways behind us. Planned Parenthood “volunteers” had been patrolling the grounds with cameras, and if we set one foot across that invisible line which separated public property from Planned Parenthood property, they would whip out their cameras, hoping to get a picture of us so that they might file a report of tresspassing. Anyway, the speaking had come from an elderly man, who, despite Planned Parenthood’s attempts to keep him from engaging in conversation with us “anti-choice” people, had been arguing one of our group, Lila Rose. She had tried to ask him if he knew what abortion really was, and he was calling her names like “idiot”, “piece of crap”, and the like. He angrily slapped the magazines and her Bible out of her hands, and with the final comment of, “Its not a baby,” he turned around and walked away.

Meanwhile, another of our student groups was centered around a young man who was crying. They were praying for him, for his child, for the mother of his child, and for the “doctor” and all the others in the clinic. His child was, on that day, scheduled to be murdered.

He had tried to convince his girlfriend not to go through with the abortion, but she would not listen to him, and she went into the clinic anyway. He tried to follow her but the workers would not let him in. Since then, earlier in the morning, he had been either sitting outside the clinic, sobbing, or trying to get into the clinic, to save his child from those brutal instruments it was about to encounter. But there was nothing, nothing he could do. He was so close to his child, on those last hours, those last minutes of its life, but there was nothing he could do to save that one life that was so dear to him. So dear, even though he had never even seen his child. Now that is true love. That is the kind of love that needs to be shown by every mother, whether her son or daughter has been brought into the world yet or not. That is probably the closest that love on earth gets to the kind of unconditional love that God has for us.

I joined this group to pray for him. After we prayed, and he had gone off somewhere, probably to try to get into the building, we saw two women: one older and taller, the other younger and shorter. They walked over to our group, and told us that a man said to them as they were preparing to enter the clinic, ” You don’t want to go into that clinic.” The woman was not sure if she was pregnant. She said that she had once had an ectopic pregnancy, and she wanted to find out if she was pregnant and if the child was growing in the correct place this time. She had been going into Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test.

So we offered to drive them to a Community Pregnancy Center (CPC) which is a pro-life organization that counsels women with unplanned pregnancies to consider putting their child up for adoption, or to keep their child: anything but kill it. But first, we all prayed for her together and then sent her with one of the dads in the group to the nearest CPC. If she had gone into the clinic, the “counselors” would have probably entangled her into that same web of lies that the first young girl we saw had probably been entangled in, and that so many women, looking for help, looking for support, find themselves entangled in.

While we were meeting all these people, we were passing out copies of Live Action’s magazine, The Advocate. I saw a young man of about 14 sitting at a bus stop. I was going to hand him a copy of the magazine, but I thought better of it and asked my brother to give him one instead, because I thought he would be more likely to listen to another boy his age than a girl. My brother sat down next to him and showed him the magazine. The boy asked, “What’s this?” to which my brother opened it up to a picture of a slaughtered child. about 10 weeks old. “That’s nasty…” the boy said. My brother then began explaining what it was, and that it was going on in the clinic behind them right at that time.

The boy looked startled, confused, sad, and my brother handed him a couple more copies of the magazine, advising him to give it to his friends, and if there was any girl he knew who was contemplating abortion, to show her that picture and advise her against it.

We saw suffering and pain that day. In that young girl’s life, in that unfortunate father’s life. In all those lives that we knew were being ended before they had a chance to thrive. We saw how much abortion hurts people. Not only in brutally killing babies, but also hurting both mothers and fathers emotionally and, sometimes, the mothers physically. We saw what it was like to be on so many different sides of the issue, to be the father, the mother, and the fortunate woman who makes that “choice” of life, to be an angry Planned Parenthood “escort”. We saw the young man on the bus stop, who doesn’t know what is going on. So many are ignorant. And so many are hurt.

How can these things happen? How have we let them continue to ravage our country?

“Let us be that generation that stood up, raised our voices, and finished the work.”
~Lila Rose (Live Action President, from her 2009 Life Prizes acceptance speech)

Gary Harvey Update

Thread by me.

Schiavo's brother backs local woman's custody fight (Gary Harvey)

Bobby Schindler watched his sister die in one of the most publicized end-of-life cases in the nation’s history.

Now, he’s hoping a similar case in Chemung County has a different ending.

Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, was in Elmira Monday to show his support for Sara Harvey, who is attempting to regain custody of her injured husband, Gary Harvey.

“We’re trying to support her efforts to bring her husband home,” Schindler said.

Chemung County is the guardian of Gary Harvey, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since he fell down his basement steps in January 2006 in Horseheads. Sara Harvey was removed as her husband’s guardian in February 2007.

She claims Chemung County is trying to kill her husband, as evidenced by its request in May to remove Gary Harvey’s feeding tube. The county has said it follows the advice of doctors to make decisions in Gary Harvey’s best interests.

“I just want my husband back,” she said Monday. Ultimately, the county withdrew its request to remove Gary Harvey’s feeding tube, but a do-not-resuscitate order remains in place.

The case remains in legal limbo.

Sara Harvey lost guardianship of her husband in February 2007 after a judge found she was ill-suited to care for him and did not follow medical advice. The county attorney’s office claims Sara Harvey has a history of abusing her injured husband, an allegation she denies. Like Sara Harvey, Schindler and his family did not have guardianship of Terri Schiavo, whose husband was her guardian.

Terri Schiavo, who had been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990, died March 31, 2005, in Florida after her feeding tube was removed by a court order, a move requested and backed by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her death culminated years of bitter legal fights between the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo. “There are animals that got treated better than my sister,” Schindler said. “All life is really sacred.”

Schindler said Chemung County should allow Sara Harvey to regain guardianship and let Gary Harvey live. “Gary Harvey is not dying,” Schindler said. “There is no reason care (should be) denied.”

Schindler, who visited Gary Harvey on Monday at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Elmira, said the county is bullying Sara Harvey.

“It’s horrible how they are treating this woman,” he said.

Sara Harvey is allowed only supervised visits with her husband.

“I went through hell, and I’m still going through hell,” she said. “The government owns my husband.”

Schindler, who has an uncle who lives in Corning, helps run a foundation that advocates for people in situations similar to Sara Harvey’s. The foundation’s Web site is www.terrisfight.org.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

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