Wednesday, December 31, 2008

President protects the Consciences of Health Care providers

The Washington Post does its best to spin this as a bad thing with the telling headline "Rule Shields Health Workers Who Withhold Care Based on Beliefs". They could have easily titled it "Rule Protects Rights of Conscience for Health Care Workers".

Here is an excerpt:

The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. It was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.

But women's health advocates, family planning proponents, abortion rights activists and some members of Congress condemned the regulation, saying it will be a major obstacle to providing many health services, including abortion, family planning, infertility treatment, and end-of-life care, as well as possibly a wide range of scientific research.



Read the rest.

So, the logic of Planned Parenthood and other opponents of such regulation is that there will not be enough people providing abortions, euthanasia, in-vitro fertilizations, embryonic stem cell research, and other ethically dubious "services".

Hold on a second, though...

I thought people were so excited about these things that they were eager to provide them!

The subtext of the opposition's argument is that there will not be enough people to perptetuate the Culture of Death unless Planned Parenthood, the AMA, and other left-leaning "powers that be" in the medical, scientific, and political world are free to force doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and researchers to participate in unethical practices against their will.

The other underlying message is that the practices mentioned above are absolutely necessary and vital health services. There seems to be little faith in what human ingenuity can do, even within the bounds of divine law. There are natural alternatives to artificial birth control. Abortion is not the only option for pregnant women. In-Vitro fertilization is not the only fertility treatment out there. Adult stem cells have proven much more useful so far than the embryonic variety, and we can care for the elderly and the terminally ill without hastening their deaths.



To expect any professional to violate his or her conscience in order to remain employed is ludicrous and irresponsible. What good is a conscience if one is not permitted to follow it? What kinds of doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and other professionals would we have in our society if we only hire those who are willing to compromise their most closely held beliefs for a paycheck? What kind of society will we have if we teach our children to listen to their bosses before their hearts?

Furthermore, in a nation where freedom of speech, religion, and association are held to be sacred values, it is inappropriate for employers to penalize their workers for exercising their rights in every part of their lives.



I can tell you this: there are many people in many professions who will choose their consciences over everything else, even if it means changing careers. Many people have already risked their jobs in order to provide what they believe to be the best, most ethical care for their patients. If people are worried about a health care shortage, they should wait and see how many doctors and other health care providers will elect to leave their profession rather than lose their souls.

I suggest that if such procedures as abortion and embyronic stem-cell research are as widely accepted as we are led to believe, proponents of such things should have nothing to fear!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Cat Captions

ICanHasCheezburger.com is a blog devoted almost exclusively to funny cat pictures and their captions. Captions usually include some form of phonetic spelling.

Here's one to which I relate quite well:

If you're a cat fan with a sense of humor, it is worth a look.

For Star Wars fans, a similar website exists: http://www.icanhasforce.com/

Thanks to Michelle for telling me about ICanHasForce.com.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Naral Co-Founder and former Abortion provider tells the truth.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson is not new news to many of us. As an abortion doctor and abortionist, he played a crucial role in forming media and public opinion with respect to legalized abortion. When he began studying fetology (that's foetology for those of you "across the pond"), he changed his mind. Here is what he says about the numbers and slogans still touted by the pro-choice movement today:

"We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favour of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalising abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500% since legalisation."

Read more.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bailouts for banks, auto manufacturers... And Planned Parenthood?

From the Susan B. Anthony list, which advances the cause of pro-life
women in America:

http://www.sba-list.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=ddJBKJNsFqG&b=4179747&aid=11533

Abortion groups have submitted their 50 page proposal to the
Obama-Biden transition team. At the top of the list? More taxpayer
dollars for abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. How much
more? Over 1.5 billion dollars more!

The Abortion Bailout Package:

* $1 BILLION dollars in taxpayer funding for International Abortion Groups
* $700 million in taxpayer funding for "Title X" Health Clinics
(aka your local Planned Parenthood affiliate)
* $65 million for the UNFPA, an international aid organization
connected to coercive abortion as part of China's coercive one-child
policy
* Repeal the Hyde Amendment – Vastly expanding federal taxpayer
funding for abortions
* Include Abortion coverage in any taxpayer-subsidized national
health care program
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions on military bases
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions through the Peace Corps program
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions for federal prisoners

Send a letter to your Senators today demanding that they keep your tax
dollars out of the pockets of abortion providers.

Click on the link above to take action and automatically send a letter
to your US senators.

Designer Babies

I ran across this today:

http://www.elitedonors.com/Ad%20Criteria.html

This service calls itself "Elite" donors is looking for a tall, attractive, college educated (At a top 100 school, no less), athletic, caucasian egg donor with no genetic health problems. I saw a link to their advertisement on Facebook and flagged it as offensive.

Nope, no hint of eugenics here.

And let's not even talk about how exploitative and dangerous egg harvesting can be to women, even to the point of bearing disturbing similarities to human trafficking.



The couple using this service should be ashamed of themselves, especially when there are so many imperfect yet perfecly loveable children out there who need to be adopted by loving parents, even if said children do not look like they do.


Watch Gattaca, people.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Absurdity in Advertising

There have been some police chases in the news lately. These things always seem to be alike. This one is a little different. Different enough, in fact, that it makes for some fairly memorable advertising.

The video speaks for itself: