Note: the
following is a lengthy article but very
informative
EUTHANASIA POISONS
PEOPLE AND SOCIETIES
In my first-ever anti-euthanasia article,
published in Newsweek in 1993, I described
the suicide of my friend Frances, who killed
herself under the influence of the
euthanasia-promoting Hemlock Society (since
rechristened Compassion and Choices). Toward
the end of the piece, I predicted what would
happen should assisted suicide become legal
and normalized:
The descent to depravity is reached by small
steps. First, suicide is promoted as a
virtue. Vulnerable people like Frances
become early casualties. Then follows mercy
killing of the terminally ill. From there,
it’s a hop, skip and a jump to killing
people who don’t have a good “quality” of
life, perhaps with the prospect of organ
harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.
I believed my conclusion would be
uncontroversial. After all, it was only
logical. Once the act of eliminating
suffering by eliminating the sufferer is
redefined from a crime to a beneficent
medical intervention, there is no limiting
principle. Terminal illness might be the
gateway excuse for legalization, but since
the real issue is the best response to
suffering, ...
Read more here...
CHECKING THE FACT-CHECKERS: ABORTIONS UNTIL
BIRTH
We
do our best, at NRL News Today, to provide a
rich variety of in-depth coverage of all
issues that are of concern to the pro-life
community. But NRLC goes beyond our stories
with scholarly White Papers.
These are available at
https://nrlcpressroom.com/white-papers-and-research-papers.
Here NRLC experts take a topic—typically a
pro-abortion assertion that is grossly
inaccurate but which the Legacy Media
ignores or misrepresents—and provide a
comprehensive corrective in language that
you can use.
For example, “Checking the Fact-Checkers:
Abortions Until Birth,” the latest
investigation that came out just last month.
The White Paper begins with this critique: ...
Read more here...
JAW-DROPPING:
PRO-ABORTION COUNSELORS CLAIM PREBORN BABIES
CAN CONSENT TO THEIR ABORTIONS
In the article “Conscious Abortion: Engaging the Fetus in a Compassionate
Dialogue” in the Journal of Prenatal and
Perinatal Psychology and Health,
psychologist Claudette Nantel encourages
women to communicate with their baby before
an abortion, tell them how much they love
them, say goodbye, and even get their
child’s permission for the abortion.
Really.
Nantel admits the baby’s humanity, defining
“fetus” as “an unborn baby in its mother’s
womb, at any time from conception to birth.”
“Conscious abortion” hinges on the belief
that the baby in the womb can “hear” and
understand the woman’s thoughts and even
telepathically communicate back. Family
doctor G McGarey suggested2 that someone
having an abortion should have “a
heart-to-heart conversation with her baby in
the womb, explaining how this is not a good
time for her to raise a child, reassuring
them that they are deeply loved.”
Read more here...
Note: the
following is a detailed article on the dangers
of medical abortion
THE CASE AGAINST THE
ABORTION PILL
Here is how I buried the body of my fifth
child: I
took myself to the emergency room because I
was in labor and bleeding. The baby on the
ultrasound screen lay still in the curve of
my belly, its heart silent. Fetal demise
resulting from spontaneous abortion, the
medical term for miscarriage. The room was
quiet as I delivered the baby. At first I
was afraid to hold my child, who fit the
length of my hand, its clavicles and ribs
delicate as strands of hair. Then I saw the
face, and the features were perfect. I
marveled. My baby was soft, its bones not
yet hardened, and still warm from the heat
of my body. In my grief, I was granted a
glimpse into secret places. I am made, and I
make. I was no longer afraid.
The room went black as I lost consciousness,
hemorrhaging. ...
Read more here...
ORAL ARGUMENT DEBRIEF:
FDA v. ALLIANCE FOR HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE
A thorough analysis of the argument by
Litigation Counsel Carolyn McDonnell, J.D.
following oral arguments heard by the
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in
Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine on March 26, 2024.
The case has challenged the FDA’s 2016 and
2021 actions that removed patient health
safeguards for chemical abortion drugs. The
Supreme Court is now determining whether
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has
standing to challenge the FDA’s actions, and
whether those actions were unlawful.
The Court will spend the next several months
deciding important issues about standing,
administrative law, conscience rights, and
health safeguards for chemical abortion
drugs.
Read Litigation Counsel Carolyn McDonnell’s
comprehensive analysis of the Supreme
Court’s oral arguments in Food and Drug
Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine.
Read more here...
NORMALIZING ASSISTED
SUICIDE WILL LEAD TO A DUTY TO DIE
Euthanasia isn’t really about compassion but
fear of decline and a loathing of
dependency
— and of those experiencing them.
That nasty truth has become abundantly clear
with a new column published in the Times of
London in which former Tory MP Matthew
Parris argues that euthanasia/assisted
suicide should not only be permitted — but
encouraged. In “We Can’t Afford a Taboo on
Assisted Dying,” he writes (my emphasis):
I can’t dispute the objectors’ belief that
once assisted dying becomes normalized we
will become more apt to ask yourselves for
how much longer we can justify the struggle.
Read more here...
OBGYN CONFIRMS
“ABORTION HARMS WOMEN”
If
President Biden wins reelection, his top
priority on Day One would be codifying
abortion protections in federal law, his
deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Host
Kristen Welker asked, “What would on day one
President Biden’s top priority be?” Fulks
responded, “First of all, Roe. The president
has been adamant that we need to restore
Roe. It is unfathomable that women today
wake up in a country with less rights than
their ancestors had years ago.”
“Constitutionally speaking, abortion is not
a right,” responded Joseph Backholm, senior
fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic
Engagement at Family Research Council.
“Believing it is a right under the
constitution is the mistake the Supreme
Court fixed in the Dobbs decision. It should
not be a right because no one should have
the right to end someone else’s life, except
in the cases of self-defense, when that
would be a proportionate response.”
Read more here...
NO, ABORTION PILLS
AREN’T SAFER THAN TYLENOL
Abortion
activists have repeatedly claimed that
abortion pills are safer than Tylenol. As
far as I can tell, by that they mean that
annually there are more ER visits related to
Tylenol (acetaminophen toxicity) than to
abortion pills. If more people each year are
going to the ER because of Tylenol than
because of abortion pills, abortion pills
must be safer, right? (No, not right. Read
on.)
The above comparison ignores the fact that
60 million Americans take acetaminophen at
least weekly, meaning there are at least
3.12 billion doses taken per year. There are
an estimated 56,000 ER visits per year for
acetaminophen toxicity, so out of 3.12
billion doses that’s a 0.002% ER visit rate.
Read more here...
STUDY SHOWS
AMERICANS ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT ‘ABORTION’
IS. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
How
Americans feel about abortion continues to
be a complicated issue. While polling has
long found that Americans grapple with the
morality of abortion, regardless of whether
they feel it should be legal, the abortion
industry continues to push for abortion to
be legal across the country, for any reason,
at any time, with no restrictions or
safeguards. This has long been an unpopular
position, which is perhaps why abortion
activists have so frequently misrepresented
the reality of what abortion is.
Now, a new poll shows that there is
widespread confusion about what constitutes
an “abortion.”
Read more here...
COLORADO NURSING
BOARDING BREAKS WITH COLORADO MEDICAL BOARD
OVER ABORTION REVERSAL TREATMENT
Breaking
with the state medical board, the Colorado
Nursing Board refused to classify “abortion
reversal” treatment as unprofessional
conduct.
“The nursing board passed a rule declaring
it will not treat abortion reversal as a
‘per se act subjecting a licensee to
discipline’ for providing the treatment, but
will instead review individual complaints of
abortion reversal treatment on a
case-by-case basis,” Hannah Metzger reported
for Colorado Politics.
“The (nursing) board, historically, has
pretty much treated everything case-by-case
for review and discipline,” said Joe Franta,
president of the nursing board, during
Wednesday’s vote. “We don’t make general
standards of care. We don’t create those. …
I don’t think we have the basis to do that.”
Read more here...
SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM
SAYS TRAFFICKER “TOOK ALL HIS GIRLS TO PLANNED
PARENTHOOD” FOR ABORTIONS
Ann” visited Planned Parenthood often with
her human trafficker for birth control and,
when it failed, abortions.
A survivor of sex trafficking, Ann told
researchers in a 2019 study how her abuser
befriended staffers at Planned Parenthood so
they would not ask questions about the many
girls he brought there.
“I went to Planned Parenthood. I went there
a lot for birth control. He took all his
girls there,” she said. “They knew him by
Benny, but they didn’t know who he was. He
just kept saying that they were sisters or
friends.”
According to Live Action News, Ann’s story
is just one of many linking human
trafficking victims to Planned Parenthood, a
billion-dollar abortion chain that receives
hundreds of millions of tax dollars every
year.
Read more here...
FORCED EMPLOYER
ABORTION BENEFIT (ELCRA) - RIGHT TO LIFE OF
MICHIGAN
Current Status
S.B. 147
was signed into law by Governor Whitmer on
May 17, 2023 and will go into effect 90 days
after the close of the 2023 session.
...
Description
S.B. 147 amends the Elliott Larsen Civil
Rights Act by changing the definition of
“sex” to include elective abortion. This
change makes it illegal to discriminate
against an employee for pregnancy,
childbirth, or elective abortions, and
forces employers to treat pregnancy,
childbirth, and abortion equally for the
purposes of employer benefits including
health insurance, paid leave, and work
accommodations. There is no religious or
conscience exception to this bill.
Read more here...
NEW RESEARCH ON
ABORTION PILL REVERSAL’S EFFECTIVENESS
Abortion pill reversal saves unborn babies
when their mothers have a change of heart
part way through a chemical abortion pill
procedure.
A new study demonstrates
an impressive success rate which translates
into legitimate hope for tens of thousands
of women who want to save their babies.
Chemical abortion consists of taking two
different pills, mifepristone, followed by
misoprostol to effectively kill an unborn
child early in pregnancy. The first drug, …
Read more here...
CRANKY OLD MAN
When an old man died in the geriatric
ward of a nursing home in an Australian
country town, it was believed that he had
nothing left of any value. Later, when the
nurses were going through his meager
possessions, they found this poem. Its
quality and content so impressed the staff
that copies were made and distributed to
every nurse in the hospital.
Read
the poem here...
IS HOSPICE AN ANTIDOTE
TO ASSISTED SUICIDE
The
goal of palliative care is to relieve
symptoms—including pain and stress—at any
stage in a serious illness. Palliative care
can be provided in conjunction with curative
or life-prolonging treatment. Hospice is a
subset of palliative care. Hospice provides
comfort care when a person no longer has
curative options or has chosen to forgo
treatment because the burdens of treatment
outweigh the benefits. The founding
principles of hospice were to maintain
dignity, to increase quality of life, and to
provide comfort and pain control. When these
principles are followed and staff members
are trained in proper pain management,
hospice can be a blessing for people in need
of expert end-of-life care.
Unfortunately, there is a growing
trend to misapply palliative medications to
make people die, particularly in the hospice
care setting. (emphasis added)
Read more here...
“FETAL CONTAINER’S”:
BIOETHICIST PROPOSES USING WOMEN IN VEGATATIVE
STATES AS SURROGATES
A
bioethicist has argued for using women in a
persistent vegetative state (PVS) as
surrogates, calling it “whole body
gestational donation.”
Anna Smajdor, of the University of Olso,
wrote in the journal Theoretical Medicine
and Bioethics that women who are brain dead
shouldn’t have their wombs going to waste,
when people who want children can use them.
“We already know that pregnancies can be
successfully carried to term in brain-dead
women,” she said. “There is no obvious
medical reason why initiating such
pregnancies would not be possible.
But the ethics of such a decision seems to
have overlooked by Smajdor.
Read more here...
Nancy Valko’s comment:
After writing my April 1,2023 blog, I agree
with Dr. DeCock’s conclusions below.
PROPOSED UDDA CHANGES
CONFLATE DEATH WITH BEING “DEAD ENOUGH”
In episode 109 of Bioethics on Air,
“Redefining Death by Revising the UDDA,” Joe
Zalot interviews Christopher DeCock, MD,
about how proposed changes to the Uniform
Determination of Death Act (UDDA) shift the
focus from obtaining prudential certitude
that someone is dead to establishing that he
or she is “dead enough” to remove
life-sustaining treatment. DeCock works as a
pediatric neurologist in Fargo, North
Dakota. As an observer for the U
niform
Law Commission—the legal body tasked with
proposing changes to the UDDA—he is
specially suited to explain the controversy
surrounding the proposed changes.
According to DeCock, the UDDA emerged during
the late 1970s and early 1980s in the wake
of the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee that defined
irreversible coma, or brain death. Because
of rising interest in determining death, the
UDDA standardized a definition of death for
medical and legal purposes. It states that
“an individual who has sustained either (1)
irreversible cessation of circulatory and
respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible
cessation of all functions of the entire
brain, including the brain stem, is dead.”
DeCock refers to the President’s Commission
1981 report, Defining Death: Medical, Legal,
and Ethical Issues in the Determination of
Death, as being especially important for
this definition. He paraphrases the
commission’s finding that “when the brain
dies the body very quickly thereafter
disintegrates.”
Read more here...
ABORTIONIST DEFINES
“MEDICALLY NECESSARY” ABORTIONS
“A medically necessary abortion is any
abortion a woman asks for.”
— Abortionist Jane Hodgson, quoted in Human
Life International Special Report Number 83,
August 1991, pages 6 and 7.
Editor’s note: This appeared at
"Clinic
Quotes"
and is reposted with permission.
Read more here...
Read more here...
For Life 
