(Prolifer)ations 7-17-09
by intern Anne Marie D.
Spotlighting important information gleaned from other pro-life blogs…
After a heart attack and a fall down a flight of stairs in 2006, Gary Harvey was placed in Chemung County Nursing Facility for long-term care. After his wife removed a tracheotomy tube (in place to prevent aspiration, or inhalation of foreign substances into the lungs, as in vomiting) without medical permission, stating Gary found it uncomfortable and no clinical staff would take action, Sara was limited to restricted, supervised visitation.
Now, CCNF is pushing for placement of a DNR and removal of his total parenteral nutrition, Gary’s only source of nutrition. Watch a local news report of the story here.
An article in the Dakota Voice begs the questions: Why is CCNF clinging so hard to keep Gary in their control? No one is forcing CCNF to be the appointed care facility for Gary, so why do they feel it is necessary to terminate him, rather than let him go home with his wife to live or die? Why can’t they simply terminate their control over this man, rather than terminate the man himself?
Individual pharmacy workers will not be required to fill prescriptions if they are opposed, but pharmacies must fill the order or face a $2,500 penalty. The legislation was a last-minute rider added on to the state budget, along with a measure requiring WI insurance plans to cover birth control as a “prescription drug.”
First, women must wait at least 24 hours after their “consultation” with the clinic to come back for an abortion. Second, pharmacists and pharmacy workers may opt out of distributing contraceptives on the basis of moral or religious objection. Also, a current law has been revised to include tougher restrictions regarding parental notification of minors.
Brewer replaced pro-abortion Janet Napolitano when she moved on to head Obama’s Dept. of Homeland Security, which as most know is now targeting pro-life activists as domestic terrorists. What a difference a governor makes! Three cheers for AZ and Gov. Brewer!
“Individual pharmacy workers will not be required to fill prescriptions if they are opposed, but pharmacies must fill the order or face a $2,500 penalty. The legislation was a last-minute rider added on to the state budget, along with a measure requiring WI insurance plans to cover birth control as a “prescription drug.””
Way to go Wisconsin. :(
Way to go, ARIZONA!! :)
Because of that ruling, phramacists will also be required to give fatal “medicine” to patients seeking suicide.
Yes, what a difference a governor makes. Doyle needs to go, Janet.
Your WI friend.
PS
The temp was 58 here in WI this morning. It is now 63, in July, in WI!! I miss global warming!!
Carla, It’s about the same here. No swimming today! Maybe it’ll warm up by tonight? (Check yr blog).
I keep playing tag with you Janet. I am either here or there. :)
Individual pharmacy workers will not be required to fill prescriptions if they are opposed, but pharmacies must fill the order or face a $2,500 penalty. The legislation was a last-minute rider added on to the state budget, along with a measure requiring WI insurance plans to cover birth control as a “prescription drug.”
wanna bet that this is a question in the hiring process
prolife pharmacists will be screened out,you can be sure.
One can easily see how euthanasia and the culture of death will eventually be emplaced within all the medical professions – you won’t get a job unless you are willing to abort, prescribe abortifacients and other death dealing medicines, and fill those prescriptions.
And all the result of that seemingly harmless right of “reproductive freedom”.
Go AZ!! Tsk Tsk WI. :(
Thanks, Anne Marie!
Although I disagree that Plan B is an abortifacient and I find absolutely nothing wrong with using contraceptives in any form, I do support peoples’ rights not to sell the pill if they personally oppose it. If I were ever in need of such medications, I would simply take my business elsewhere. Capitalism FTW.
I find the decision in WI to be an unfortunate denial of rights, but nothing more.
I also find nothing wrong with assisted suicide, if that is really what an individual wants for themself. They are the only ones being hurt, and I really feel the ultimate decision lies with the person (people kill themselves all the time, under all sorts of circumstances anyway…if I really really really REALLY wanted to kill myself, there are plenty of ways to do it. It’d just be nicer with the help of a professional). Personally, I wouldn’t like to be kept alive to linger in such a diminished capacity, although I know my husband insists that he’d never let me check out before he does. -.-
The biggest and pretty much only problem I have with assisted suicide is that it opens a door for the state (for some reason, I don’t know WHY the government thinks that ANY life or death decision made by its citizens MUST include them) to decide who should live and who should die. When it comes down to us being able to make such a decision or the govenment making that decision for us but lucky us, we get to use a doctor for it their way…I’d rather go with the tall building/bullet vs. brain/bottle of sleeping pills method, and leave the government out of the equation completely.
Suicide does NOT just hurt the person doing it. There are generations of families that have to bear the burden and the sadness of someone who took their own life. It is devastating to wonder why.
Suicide does NOT just hurt the person doing it. There are generations of families that have to bear the burden and the sadness of someone who took their own life. It is devastating to wonder why.
Posted by: carla at July 17, 2009 10:28 PM
This isn’t the same thing as a mentally troubled family member or friend who is battling with a known (purely) mental condition and just blows their brains out one day. These people knew ahead of time their plans, their family knew, they were of sound mind, and both had terminal/degenerative diseases. Personally, I would never want to be forced into living life with a crippling/debilitating/degenerative/painful disease, and if my children were grown, my husband were dead or sick/dying also, I probably wouldn’t want to stick around. Freedom first, life second. I’m pro-life because it infringes on the rights of pre-born human US citizens, not because I consider all lives sacred and requiring protection at all times under any and all circumstances.
I am not talking about mentally ill people blowing their brains out either. I believe one can purchase an “exit bag.” No need to leave a mess for others to clean up.
So you will abort yourself when you are tired of the pain of a disease?
God has numbered all of our days, He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows the exact moment our hearts will stop beating. To trust in His timing and His wisdom offers hope and dignity and peace.
There is a disconnect in your logic and in your arguments, X. It is your unbelief in the God who formed you in your mother’s womb. You were His idea.
“God has numbered all of our days, He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows the exact moment our hearts will stop beating. To trust in His timing and His wisdom offers hope and dignity and peace.”
Beautifully said.
For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:15-16
Hi X,
once again you have well articulated your belief system as an athiest. [[ “Suicide does NOT just hurt the person doing it. There are generations of families that have to bear the burden and the sadness of someone who took their own life. It is devastating to wonder why.
Posted by: carla at July 17, 2009 10:28 PM
This isn’t the same thing as a mentally troubled family member or friend who is battling with a known (purely) mental condition and just blows their brains out one day. These people knew ahead of time their plans, their family knew, they were of sound mind, and both had terminal/degenerative diseases. Personally, I would never want to be forced into living life with a crippling/debilitating/degenerative/painful disease, and if my children were grown, my husband were dead or sick/dying also, I probably wouldn’t want to stick around. Freedom first, life second. I’m pro-life because it infringes on the rights of pre-born human US citizens, not because I consider all lives sacred and requiring protection at all times under any and all circumstances.
Posted by: xalisae at July 17, 2009 11:14 PM” ]] I am a person who actually lives every aspect (and more) of the ‘poor scenario’ you have painted. You do make a mistake though (ignorance?).
When a person is confronted with such a sparse choosing: (living vs freedom), a life AND freedom can be embraced by changing the definition/understanding of what ‘freedom’ means. Personally I have found that when freedom’ means ‘an extension of being’ that a much more rich comprehension ensues. We humans CAN actually become one, not only with God but with each other and even with things.
To become one-with/in is just another way of saying that a person loves(embraces) another (they become The Other). It might be easier to think of your being ‘a flame’ rather than a solid defined person. ( http://www.drjilltaylor.com ) So we can become more than we are: extension to the ‘things’ in our life; when we extend this way::: in marriage, two-joined become a freer being because we have extended to another fabulous being. An extension to God is freeing because He has no limits. When He extends Himself to us, we call this special favor liberation. He Being ………… I sure hope this helps some!
Additionally, I find it very strange that all PC ‘proofs’ make sense to those fixated on left-hemisphere reasoning’, and block off any input at all from the right hemisphere. This is my stance from reading Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s work.
Sorry, a pre-born is not a US citizen. Citiz4enship, like naming is a ‘birth right. A HUMAN right is one that is considered inalienable and begins at conception. Only those limited to a physical universe(left-hemisphere reasoning), think this way.
“Sorry, a pre-born is not a US citizen. Citiz4enship, like naming is a ‘birth right. A HUMAN right is one that is considered inalienable and begins at conception.”
Forgive my blunder, but if anything, I think that the fact this goes beyond national affiliation to the realm of the entire human race only makes it that more imperative that those human rights be protected and legal abortion be ended.
precisely, X!
Look at studies in Holland. Assisted suicide will NOT ever be confined to those with ailments as to those with depression. Human beings do NOT work that way; we make a mockery of everything. If you say death is desirable ever, then you suggest that death is desirable, and a lot of people only hear that part of the sentence.
My husband’s cousin killed himself five years ago. It devastated the family and nearly destroyed his parents’ marriage.
2 years ago his brother died of a sudden and unknown cardiac issue. Although the grief is very intense, it is far different in nature from the grief felt due to the suicide.
Sadly enough, one of his step-mother’s nephews killed himself just 2 weeks ago. It was an act of supreme selfishness and the letter he left behind was designed to bring pain upon his own children. There is sadness, but also great anger in the family at this time.
I can testify to the pain and suffering left behind by someone who willingly destroys their life.
I will also say as a health care provider, that I find all of these instances extremely different from the attitude of hospice, which is one of controlling pain and dignity at the end of life, even if the dosage necessary to control pain hastens the end of life. I view this similarly to inductions necessary to save the life of the mother that unfortunately, do not manage to save the life of the child (or management of ectopic pregnancies). The end result may be the same as an abortion (just as the end result of effective hospice care may be ending the life somewhat before it would have naturally ended) but that is not the intent.
“If you say death is desirable ever, then you suggest that death is desirable, and a lot of people only hear that part of the sentence.”
Desirable? Never. Preferable to certain circumstances of living? To me, yes. There is a difference.
Preferable to certain circumstances of living? To me, yes.
That is an interesting statement. Even if circumstances that cause pain are definitely permanent, does that mean that the pain caused by those circumstances is permanent?
I went through a difficult experience some years ago. At the time I would have been okay with dying, I think — it’s tough to say, in retrospect, but I do remember the almost empowering shock of the realization that this terrible thing had happened to me, and yet I had survived; I still breathed and thought and spoke. It was almost exhilerating. I was still Alexandra.
Then came the realization that I would never be the same Alexandra — I would never, essentially, be someone who had not lived through that experience. The best I could be was someone who lived through that and “got over it,” or worked with it, or worked through it, or whatever happy-sounding hard-working phrase you want to use. That realization was very hard. I missed the version of myself who did not know that kind of fear, that kind of anger, that kind of shame. I was furious that I had to create a new version of myself out of what felt like the shattered pieces of my old self. I had never wanted to have to learn to deal with such difficult things. The only reason I got “through” this point in my life was because literally the only other choice was death. If I kept living, I had to work with my own pain; there was no way out of it as long as my heart was beating.
I did not want to die, but I did desperately want the pain to stop — and this is what people mean when they say they want to die: they want the pain to stop. What if I had been supported in choosing death for myself? Would I be here? Probably, in all honesty. Would the world be any worse off if I weren’t here? Maybe yes, maybe no. Probably little effect, if any; I don’t put too much weight on my own importance. My absence would mean little. But should we rely on people having so little to contribute to the collective experience of the world that we support their decision to opt out of any chance at contributing? Or should we, on principle if nothing else, maintain that people are never a lost cause, that life is always worth living?
I know that life experiences, and the difficulties of coping with them, are not the same as terminal or painful physical problems. I know this because I have ushered loved ones through painful and terminal illnesses, through physical humiliations, through emotional devastations. But I cannot help but remember that despair, and how maddening it was to feel so out of control — the only way for me to regain control of my life would have been to take it myself, because I had no control over the external circumstances that led me to such despair. But there is another form of control that we are capable of — we can control how we approach and react to external circumstances.
There is no way to opt out of them except through death; but perhaps opting out isn’t the only way to stop the pain. I am not saying that people can just choose to react differently to painful illness, and it all becomes sunshine and roses. But can we consider a person who wants to take his own life to be legally able to consent to such a thing? If this is a decision made, almost by definition, under excruciatingly painful and difficult circumstances, is it one we should support as a valid and rational choice, or one we should recognize as a symptom of an illness? Is this choice a solution, or is it merely evidence of a problem?
I hear so much talk of “dying with dignity” and I worry at changing the definition of dignity. I feel like having the ability to avoid the more difficult aspects of old age or disease allows us to confine the definition of dignity to the easy definitions, the head-held-high, by-my-own-bootstraps definitions. But that’s pride, not dignity. I don’t think it’s possible for any living being to lose his dignity. I think dignity is synonymous with life. And I think that, if we make dignity synonymous with pride, we may eventually lose the ability to see a quieter, more difficult kind of dignity — the dignity inherent in doing what you can with what you have; in living. If we can avoid the realities of old age or illness, then will we eventually lose the ability to implicitly understand that old age and illness fit into the greater story of life? What will that loss mean?
People will always have the choice to kill themselves. It is one of the most difficult things to stop people from doing. But what are the implications of presenting that choice as an equally valid and rational option?
I’m sorry this is so long. I’m sure no one will read it all the way through, and I don’t blame you — but I didn’t want to let it go unsaid.
Alexandra,
Excellent post – I read the all of it! :)
Especially the part about dignity:
“I hear so much talk of “dying with dignity” and I worry at changing the definition of dignity. I feel like having the ability to avoid the more difficult aspects of old age or disease allows us to confine the definition of dignity to the easy definitions, the head-held-high, by-my-own-bootstraps definitions. But that’s pride, not dignity.”
I can relate to this feeling as well:
“Then came the realization that I would never be the same Alexandra — I would never, essentially, be someone who had not lived through that experience. ”