Melissa Ohden Update

I wrote a posting about Melissa Ohden in 2009 when she gave birth to her daughter in the same hospital in which her mother had an abortion. Melissa survived that abortion and was adopted by a loving family. Now several good videos are available featuring her and her story. Here is one of those videos.

You can visit Melissa’s website by clicking here for more info and videos.

Visit Melissa's Face Book page by clicking here for her daily messages.

March for Life Feedback

News from the 2013 March for Life is hitting the local press and the Internet.

Our regional daily newspaper (Fargo Forum) had a story today about the large contingent from Shanley High School (of which I am a graduate) at the march in Washington, DC.  They won an important award at the pro life youth conference at the march for their outstanding pro life activism in our area.

On the Internet my blog friend, Roxane Salonen, has posted a beautiful selection of photos from the march. She chaperoned another group of youth from our area to the March for life. Click here to view her photos.

You can read her frequent posts on her personal blog or her business blog or in the SHE SAYS section of the Fargo Forum.

On A Clear Day - - -

Americans United for Life (AUL) recently posted this video that helps focus the conscience protectioon issue more clearly.




You can find AUL's website here.

President Obama and Human Rights

Here is a re posting of my August 8, 2008 analysis of Senator Obama's responses when he and Senator McCain were interviewed by Pastor Rick Warren during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Since some of the same issues were under heavy discussion the past few weeks, I went back to check my analysis from that time.

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August 8, 2008
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While John McCain’s performance at the California Church was a definite disappointment the responses of Barach Obama revealed a comprehensive grasp of the dire predicament in which our country finds itself . In particular he excelled in his answers to the questions about evil and economic diversity while McCain was embarrassingly shallow on these these critical issues.

Obama’s Achilles heal is the subject of abortion where his continued acceptance of money and support from the abortion industry lobbyists and PACs is totally contradictory to the positions he so elegantly discussed moments before. In this segment of the interview he seemed to excuse or even regret his denial of rights to babies born alive during an attempted abortion. He offered the excuse that the measure (In Illinois) did not contain a certain amendment.

Fortunate for us the business of the Illinois legislature is a matter of public record. The bill did contain the amendment he described. What is also in the record is his arguments against the bill. Essentially he argued that the lives of such children should not be protected because they would be an embarrassment to the abortionist. While he now says he would support such law an apology would have been more appropriate than the misleading and incorrect excuse he did offer. This glaring inconsistency with the rest of his answers was most disappointing.

Disappointing but not surprising. In his best seller, The Audacity of Hope, he made it clear in his story of his entry to politics that his funding came from the abortion lobby. He revealed this by saying that he could not accept funds from the human rights organization and PAC (lobby) to which I belong. This effectively signaled that he had bought into the conservative view that rights are not inherent to being human but granted by the powerful when and if they choose to do so.

Santorum - Better Campaign Practices Displayed

The Republican presidential contest is down to a scrappy few. It's not been pretty and the ugliness is mounting rapidly as the unaccounted millions of dollars pour into the primary states, thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling. Not having been in a primary state we have been spared the trudge through the manure yard of modern media campaigning.

While the leading candidates make every more incredible claims about each other and President Obama there is one candidate that leaves a different impression, Rick Santorum. Even some commentators on MSNBC have expressed admiration of his genuinely candid and personal campaigning style. Last week he was interviewed by  Piers Morgan on CNN. I think we got a little of what the political commentator saw out on the stump. Very respectful and calm responses to all questions.

Later his family joined in the interview and I was again impressed. His kids were asked how they dealt with the the tough aspects of political campaigning. One of his daughters said that when someone unfairly attacks her father she always prays for the attacker. Now, there is a Catholic answer from the real world.

His answers to questions about abortion were uncharacteristic of a Republican politician in that they were clearly about the value of life for all humans. His retelling of bringing his son's body home for a family funeral was a moving example of honoring life even at the time of death.

Disappointing were his unsure answers about the death penalty, his support of torture and his eagerness to use war as an easy tool of international policy. All three of these are also life issues but his answers were not Catholic answers.

All the Victims of Abortion

Can a man or a woman just walk away from an abortion and never think of it again? Does abortion have other victims than just the child? Here is a YouTube video that gives some personal post abortion answers.



Thanks to the blog "Post Abortion Walk" for the link to this video.

Completing Health Care Reform

A little good news from  Washington. House bill HR358, making permanent the ban on tax funding of abortion and  protecting the conscience rights of hospitals and health professionals and workers, has been passed by the House  Commerce Committee. The US Catholic Bishops welcomed this progress in an improvement to the health care reform now being implemented.

"The Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) welcomed the approval in committee of the Protect Life Act (H.R. 358). Sponsored by Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and 123 co-sponsors, the Protect Life Act would apply longstanding federal policies on abortion funding, and conscience rights on abortion, to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) passed last March. On February 15, the full House Energy and Commerce Committee approved H.R. 358 in a bi-partisan vote (33 to 19), and rejected three amendments that would have weakened the bill."  Click here to read entire press release.

This bill is one of two measures being considered by the House on this issue. It is modelled after the 2010 Stupak-Pitts amendment (to Health Care Reform) that received bipartisan approval by the House but was then defeated in the Senate. Some of the elements of this measure are temporarily in force due to an executive order issued by President Obama last year but most American would prefer a permanent place for this measure in the law. 

There have be almost manic efforts to discredit the bill from the abortion industry and their lobbyists. Since  most Americans have supported this measure it seems these 'talking points' are intended to give the false impression that this is a entirely different bill. Here is a sample and of some of them and some comments.

Claim one: This measure proposes to decriminalize rape.

Facts:    The measure bans the use of Federal Tax dollars to pay for abortions and protects conscience rights of hospitals, heath care professional, and health care workers. It does not decriminalize rape.

Claim two: This measure will insert the Federal Government in every woman's pregnancy.

Facts: This measure would bar the Federal Government from using our taxes for abortions or insurance that pays for abortions and  would bar Government from forcing hospitals, professionals and workers to perform actions that violate their ethical standards (conscience).

Editorial Comment: I seriously doubt that one measure could be libertarianistic (decriminalize rape) and socialistic (have government take over your pregnancy) at the same time. HR 358 has essentially been around for may months and is supported by a majority of Americans and is not characterized by these claims.

Claim three:  This is just a token measure that the Republicans have concocted to satisfy  radical conservatives in their party.

Facts: The supporters of this measure, a majority of Americans, cannot be characterized in this way. We are conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, gays, straights, religious, non religious, men and women. What we have in common is an opposition to our government paying for or forcing individuals or institutions to perform violations of human rights.

Claim four:  This measure outlaws all reproductive health care.

Facts: This measure addresses only the funding of abortion and heath care industry conscience protections. While some claim that abortion is health care there is much more to reproductive health care than ending the life of  the fetus.

Editorial comment: Abortion is a human rights violation currently permitted by our courts. This measure and the earlier Stupak-Pitts amendment do not change this brutal fact.

Pro Abortion Talking Points Try Alarmist Ploy

What a cry has gone up from the pro-abortion commentators on our media over the efforts in our national congress to make the ban on tax funding of abortions a permanent part of our national law. This is the same ban that is passed by conress every year known as the “Hyde Amendment.” It is also the same ban approved by bipartisan vote in the US House of Representatives last year as part of the Healthcare reform known as the “Stupak-Pitts Amendment”. This ban was not accepted by the Senate, however.

What did happen in the face of the Senate’s turning it’s back on the peoples’ preference in this matter was that Representative Stupak asked President Obama to issue an executive order that prohibits tax funding of abortions in the healthcare reform implementation. The President, who has openly acknowledged his support for abortion, did issue that order. Mr Stupak is clearly the Pro-Life hero of 2010. In face of threats to his life and the life and safety of his family from both pro and anti abortion extremists, the animosity of many of his confreres, Democrats and Republicans, he was resolute in his support of human rights.

The media coverage of the healthcare reform effort and Bart Stupak in particular was likewise bipolar. On one major cable channel Stupak was praised for his courage and dedication and was seriously and politely interviewed by one commentator. A couple of hours later another commentator on the same channel repeatedly characterized him as “single handedly bringing down healthcare reform.” This latter claim is far from the facts. I think a case can be made that, in the end, it was the courage of Bart Stupak that singlehandedly got heath reform finally accepted in Congress after decades of campaign promises by Republicans and Democrats to do just that.

Now that the Hyde amendment, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and the Obama Order have been proposed as a permanent part of our national healthcare regulation, the abortion supporters in the editorial media and the abortion industry in advertising media have really gone off the deep end.

Their first ploy was an alarm that a measure was being pushed by radical element in congress to redefine “rape”. This sounded like some new libertarian members of Congress were proposing to decriminalize rape to get the government out of our private lives. In fact what had set them off was the move to make the Hyde-Stupak-Pitts-Obama ban on tax payer funding of abortion permanent. Unlike the outlandish characterizations made about the Healthcare Reform bills this one seems to have fizzled quickly. In fact there are currently at least two bills proposed in the House (HR3 & HR358) to do this. As is almost always the case the final wording of the bills is not yet know. These fall far short of the thousands of pages that characterized the health bill and so can be read and understood more quickly.

Moving from the “libertarian” alarm to the opposite extreme claiming that the Hyde-Stupak-Obama or the Smith-Lipinsky-Pitts (the bipartisan sponsors of the two current measures listed above) measures would be a big government intrusion into private behavior with the “government involved in every woman’s pregnancy.” In giving this talking point they give the impression that Hyde-Stupak-Obama or Smith-Pitts-Lipinski were bans on abortion. This clearly is not the case.

I suspect they think their efforts to alarm extremes on both ends of the political spectrum will have the effect of defeating the very measure that most Americans want, to not have tax dollars spent in carrying out these human rights violations currently permitted by our courts. Most of us Americans are neither libertarian or socialist as described by these alarms but do support these bipartisan measures. We need to be proactive in being sure that such inaccurate characterizations of them are not given credence or left unchallenged.

I urge you to write, call, Email, Text or Twitter your Congress members. Ask them to participate in making the Hyde-Stupak-Pitts-Obama ban on tax funding of abortion a permanent provision of our law.

March For Life 2011

Citizens taking to the streets seeking the protection of human rights by their government gets a lot of attention in our media if it is in Tunesia or Egypt but not if it is in our own country! In the last week such citizen activism did occur in Tunsia, Egypt and the United States. If you watched mainstream media, however, you might not even be aware of this huge human rights gathering by citizens of the United States.

A bright spot, if you had the time, was the extensive coverage of the 2011 March for Life provided on EWTN. This posting provides a number of links to pictures from this year's effort.

March for Life Pictures:

Washington  DC-

http://stblogustine.blogspot.com/2011/01/2011-march-for-life-in-washington-dc.html

http://www.aul.org/2011/01/slideshow-2011-march-for-life/

West Coast-

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2011/01/observations-from-the-walk-for-life.html

One striking reality is the size of the youth contingent of the prolife activists. Another is the dramatic testimony of women and men who have regreted their involvement in abortion. The journey from being pro abortion to supporting the human right to life of all humans is described in many ways. Here a few links and videos about some of these journeys:

Abigail:

http://abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-i-became-pro-life.html

Jennifer:

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/01/how-i-became-pro-life.html

Jason:

Ann Marie Cosgrove had an abortion in 1985 when she was young, poor and felt she had nowhere to turn. To ease her pain, Cosgrove founded the Minnesota chapter of Silent No More, a pro-life group dedicated to consoling women who have aborted and encouraging women to make what she considers the only right choice, to keep the baby.

http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/video/video.aspx?testimonyid=5255

Conscience Protection for Healthcare Professionals

The new health care reforms that are now part of federal law are quite weak if not a step backwards on conscience protection for health care professionals. In our federal system, however, each state can act to fill in the gaps left in federal law. We now have three states (Louisiana, Mississippi and Idaho) that provide comprehensive conscience protection. Idaho is the latest addition to this list. Here is a portion of a report on that development from Americans united for life (AUL):

“Idaho has become the third state to provide comprehensive protection for health care freedom of conscience. Governor Butch Otter has permitted Senate Bill 1353 to go into effect without his signature. AUL worked with Idaho Chooses Life, a state pro-life policy group, to help enact this important legislation.

The new law protects any licensed health care professional from being required to participate in “any health care service that violates his or her conscience.” “Health care service” is specifically defined to include “abortion, dispensation of an abortifacient drug, human embryonic stem cell research, treatment regimens utilizing human embryonic stem cells, human embryo cloning or end of life treatment or care.” A health care professional declining to participate in these services may not be discriminated against or held liable for exercising his or her conscience.”

Read the entire article here.

The Church’s Teaching and Health Reform

The Church’s social doctrine directly addresses the situation faced by Congressman Stupak. He clearly has been working to assure that loopholes that could be exploited by the marketplace to fund human rights violations (abortions) with tax dollars are not permitted to be used for that purpose.

A honest review of Mr Stupak’s efforts, the church’s teaching (CSDC: Paragraph 570) and the events of the last week reveal that he has conformed to the teaching in every detail. In fact the bill is not an abortion bill but a repair of our busted health care system consistent with the principle of subsidiarity and whose effect is to restore to the family its rightful role as a subsidiary social unit in providing health care for its members. The marketplace has rationed, restricted and denied the resources needed by millions of American families and individuals to receive health care. A hundred years of federal leaders and the efforts of 50 state governments have not been able to bring this restoration of equity and justice to individual’s access to health care. Paragraph 570 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says:

“570. When — concerning areas or realities that involve fundamental ethical duties — legislative or political choices contrary to Christian principles and values are proposed or made, the Magisterium teaches that “a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political programme or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals”[1191]. In cases where it is not possible to avoid the implementation of such political programmes or to block or abrogate such laws, the Magisterium teaches that a parliamentary representative, whose personal absolute opposition to these programmes or laws is clear and known to all, may legitimately support proposals aimed at limiting the damage caused by such programmes or laws and at diminishing their negative effects on the level of culture and public morality. In this regard, a typical example of such a case would be a law permitting abortion[1192]. The representative's vote, in any case, cannot be interpreted as support of an unjust law but only as a contribution to reducing the negative consequences of a legislative provision, the responsibility for which lies entirely with those who have brought it into being.

Faced with the many situations involving fundamental and indispensable moral duties, it must be remembered that Christian witness is to be considered a fundamental obligation that can even lead to the sacrificing of one's life, to martyrdom in the name of love and human dignity[1193]. The history of the past twenty centuries, as well as that of the last century, is filled with martyrs for Christian truth, witnesses to the faith, hope and love founded on the Gospel. Martyrdom is the witness of one who has been personally conformed to Jesus crucified, expressed in the supreme form of shedding one's blood according to the teaching of the Gospel: if “a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies ... it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24).” [CSDC © USSB, 2004]

[To go to on-line access to the entire Church document on the church’s social teaching click here.]

It is clear that it is the federal government’s turn to attempt to force the marketplace to facilitate the return of this function to the family and the individual. This is necessary because the marketplace has demonstrated repeatedly its cruel unwillingness to bring about justice on this matter and insists on giving more homage to profits than to human rights.

Is it a “take over” of health care? In the sense of making it possible for the family to have the power rather than the marketplace it facilitates such a take over by the appropriate and lowest social level competent to exercise that power, the family and the individual.

Is it a “Government takeover”? Since it mostly addresses the cost of and the mechanism of paying for health care the current bill primarily provides regulation of the insurance portion of the market. A high level of Government (States) already regulates health care insurance it hard to see this as more government takeover. It does seem to address the obvious inequities and injustices between states often unfairly visited on those families who must or do move often from state to state. Lastly, since millions of older Americans are covered by Medicare or VA insurance (Government Insurance) there is nothing introduced by the current bill that rivals their size.

Will the anti human rights elements of the marketplace try to use this change to enrich themselves? I am sure they will as they most certainly would have if the Republicans had championed the correction when they were the majority in Congress. They do not intend to give up and neither should we.

However, they, the abortion industry in particular, will lose a big lever they now have to argue that their services, the termination of the life in the womb, cost much less than having and raising the child. The restoration of access to health care to families and individuals especially those at the lower economic levels will remove much of this lever from the abortionist tool bag.

Byron Dorgan - Public Servant

A couple of years ago my wife and I were in the Minneapolis Airport on a Friday afternoon waiting for our flight to Fargo, ND to board when Senator Byran Dorgan and a number of staff persons entered the waiting area. They were on their way from Washington, DC back to North Dakota, and the Senator would be speaking at two critical public meetings in his home state over the week end.

One staff person was obviously checking over the senator's speeches and periodically calling something to the Senator's attention. Another staffer seemed to be working a folder of correspondence and also sought his attention. As I watched I noticed that many members of the public were also seeking the politician's attention. In every case Byron Dorgan gave priority to the conversation with the citizens over the staffers.

It was a clear indication of the attitude of a man who has been one of the most popular public servant of that state for almost forty years. The pattern continued after we boarded the plane. The Senator and his staff were seated in first class and were boarded first. As we peasants passed the first class seats the staffers were diligently working their work folders the Senator was greeting and talking with anyone who caught his eye.

Obviously he was more than chatting with us. After we were in the air and the "seat belt" sign went off I noticed that Mr Dorgan was sitting in Tourist just a couple of rows from me. He had switched places with someone whom he felt needed the space of a First Class seat more than he did. Truly a man of the people.

In the recent health care "debates" in Congress Senator Dorgan as well as all the Senators and Representatives of North Dakota and the adjacent districts in northeastern and northwestern Minnesota voted to oppose the funding of abortion with tax dollars. All these gentlemen are Democrats and in this, vote at least, they reflect the pro life majority of both liberals and conservatives in this part of the country.

His decision, yesterday, to retire after the end of his term seems to be thought out and consistent with his age (He's three years younger than me) and not brought on by any political threat on the horizon. The local press has been filled with anti life and anti health care letters criticizing him but I do not think these correlate with the position of the majority of voters in our region.

In my district the Republicans have often put forward candidates to oppose Colon Peterson, our pro life Representative, that tout themselves as being the "choice" candidates. It is unlikely this approach has a chance.

Give Senator Dorgan a "Thank You" for his pro life vote on the Nelson Amendment and for his years of public service. His Email link can be found at:

http://dorgan.senate.gov/contact/contact_form.cfm

Adult Stem Cell Research at Notre Dame

At a meeting of a parish group studying The Catechism of the Catholic Church a member of the group that is a graduate of Notre Dame mentioned the excellent videos available on the ND website about the various projects of the University. Here is one about adult stem cell research.

View the Notre Dame Info Page About Stem cell Research.

Catholic Bishops and Health Care Reform

Here is Bishop William Murphy speaking for the Catholic Bishops of the United States. The Catholic position on health care reform is clear and balanced. It truly represents our commitment to the dignity of all human life.

Archbishop Wuerl on Healthcare Reform

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, DC has written an Op-Ed for 'Politics Daily'. He says in part,

“As Congress returns to work, the debate on health care reform surely will focus on the political, technical and economic repercussions of various proposals. What cannot get lost in this debate, however, are the moral implications. Health care is about life and death, who can take their children to the doctor and who cannot, who can afford decent medical coverage and who is left to fend for themselves. Because health care reform has real consequences -- literally life and death -- decisions must be evaluated through a prism of fundamental ethical principles to see how they will impact the dignity and value of each human life.

Universal coverage should be universal, including everyone. Health care reform cannot leave people out because of pre-existing conditions, chronic illnesses, their place of work or because they cannot afford insurance. Reform should not leave people out because of where they come from or when they arrived here.

The United Stated Conference of Catholic Bishops, following the Gospel mandate to care for the "least of these," urges us to look at health care from the bottom up. A particular gauge against which to measure true universal coverage would be how reform treats the immigrants in our midst who contribute their labor and taxes to our nation, but are at risk of being left out of health care reform."


Read Archbishop Wuerl's entire article.

Go to the Source Documents

I keep seeing editorials that call any healthcare reform “Obamacare”. Usually the position of commentators using the term are opposed to any reform. While we Americans did elected President Obama in part because he promised to support healthcare reform he has not created a plan but appropriately left that up to the legislature. Several healthcare plans or elements of a plan are in circulation. The text major bills actually processing through Congress are found at:

SENATE: Affordable Health Choices Act
(22 pages in length)
http://help.senate.gov/Maj_press/2009_07_15_b.pdf

HOUSE: H. R. 3200
(over 1000 pages!)
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Since these bills are the product of our bipartisan legislative process it is certainly a misnomer to characterize them as Obama’s. Please go to the text of the bills for information on which to base your questions and suggestions to your legislators.

There are many serious and constructive commentators attempting to help the reform process.I recommend you check out:

• Americans United for Life: http://blog.aul.org/
  
• Catholic Health Association: http://www.chausa.org/
  
• US Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/comphealth.shtml
  

Healthcare Rationing Common Sense

I have read a number of editorials about healthcare rationing which prompted my posting yesterday. On Friday the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an editorial on rationing. While agreeing with me that Sarah Palin's claim of “Death Panels” is “over the top” they go on to say the following.

“(O)nce health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted. Far from being a scare tactic, this is a logical conclusion based on experience and common-sense. Once health care is a "free good" that government pays for, demand will soar and government costs will soar too. When the public finally reaches its taxing limit, something will have to give on the care and spending side. In a word, care will be rationed by politics.” (Read the entire Editorial)

It may indicate the isolation of the WSJ editorial staff from the American main stream and in particular seniors that they can say such things. The following should be considered rather than their undefined “experience” and “common sense”. [1]

• Seniors are already significantly covered by nationalized government health care insurance.
• Heath care is never a “free good”, even charities require resources to provide it.
• Government pays for nothing, in our system we citizens pay for the things government does. We also select those who set up government programs and set the tax levels needed to fund them.
• A large segment of us are already at our “taxing limit” and/or our “health care expense limit”. This is one urgent reason reform is needed.
• Health care insurance is currently regulated at the state level. Such regulation could be nationalized without instituting a national health care insurance program (but, duh, see first item above).

They do admit and argue that rationing is inevitable. Resources are indeed limited, new technology does takes years to deploy and is very expensive, resources are often not where they are needed and hard decisions are required every day. The reform needs to ensure that these unavoidable decisions are made fairly and do not violate human rights or conscience rights.

The conclusion that reforms undertaken to assure that healthcare is available to all, that healthcare decisions are fair, that healthcare cost are controlled and human rights are protected will cause the very things they would fix is irrational.

The tone of many editorials on this subject including this one is that it is bad to have such decisions made by government. In another section they say that Medicare (the existing government insurance) costs could be reduced if seniors had more control over their own healthcare and that this could be achieved with more “competitive” plans available to seniors.

Since such a shift of control to patients has not happened in the current private and competitive insurance marketplace it is not likely to happen without government action to reform the system! I would ask seniors to consider which decision maker is most likely to grant any control to you, the private marketplace over which you and I realistically have no control or the government which is charged under our constitution with protecting our rights and over which you and I have some control?

For another analysis of the WSJ opinion see the American United fro Life Blog.
--------------------------------------------
[1] I recall from teaching logic in college that specific true facts are required as premises to arrive at at logical conclusion. I don't think “experience” and “common sense” qualify as specific facts. Incorrectly calling something "logical" does not cancel it scary intent.

HEALTHCARE RATIONING AND SENIORS

One of the most rational and well researched Pro Life Web Sites is that of American United for Life (AUL). Charmaine Yoest, PHD, the President of AUL , is one the coolest heads in our national abortion discussion. Her July 30th posting commented on the end-of-life sections of the House and Senate bills. Here is her paragraph on Section 2707 of the Senate bill.

“Section 2707 of the Senate HELP bill requires that insurers develop and implement a reimbursement structure for making payments to healthcare providers that includes incentives for use of evidence based medicine and best clinical practices. This and other provisions in the bill create the possibility that health care coverage determinations could be based on a patient’s health status, age, and/or quality of life. The resulting structure could become a means of advocating for the least expensive treatment at the expense of respect for life. With cost as a primary driver, the elderly, sick, and disabled may find their options for care severely limited.”

Some crass politicians have taken analyses such as this, restated them as facts and use them to terrorize us seniors. In fact the potential situation Dr. Yoest wants to avoid in the Heathcare reform is already a fact in our current system, particularly the private (non-governmental) segment.

“ . . . the possibility that health care coverage determinations could be based on a patient’s health status, age, and/or quality of life. The resulting structure could become a means of advocating for the least expensive treatment at the expense of respect for life.” is the present reality for most of us today. It is one of the major problems that is to addessed by the healthcare reform that is underway!"

Let me demonstrate how this form of health care rationing is already in place in our current, non-governmental system. Since these sections are used most often to frighten seniors the analysis will be from our (seniors) perspective:

health status – By the time you are my age (70) “preexisting conditions” effectively exclude economically many seniors from needed health care.

Age - Many seniors have NO CHOICE but the present public plans since private insurance rates or regulations have effectively blocked them from coverage.

quality of life – This includes the first item but most notably poverty bars seniors both from insurance coverage and economically from care. Also in this category are the handicapped, disabled veterans and others whose quality of life is judged by the current insurance industry as either “non-insurable” or effectively economically bar them from coverage. Many whose quality of life is considered below standard CURRENTLY HAVE NO CHOICE but the public plans if they are even available in their state!

the least expensive treatment at the expense of respect for life – This is a serious flaw of the current system! The private insurance industry makes no bones about doing it. Patients are routinely told that they are excluded from coverage, or their doctors or the the care their doctors have suggested are not covered. The industry is honest about this clearly appealling to their “bottom Line” to rationalize this cost based rationing.

These problems are rampant in the present system and are one of the reasons why the reform is so urgently needed. As I wrote so strongly to Senator Grassely and Issacson (see my Aug 12 posting) the Pro Life Voices must stay in the discussions to assure that this reform is actually accomplished. If your Senator or representative has abandoned the health care reform effort please contact him or her immediately and demand his/her return to the discussion. If he or she has chosen to oppose reforms such as this ask for an explaination of why he or she opposes your interests.

Read Dr Yoest's entire posting.

A Life Well Spent

Here is a portion of Deacon Greg Kandra's sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

"In 1994, when Amy was three months pregnant with her first child, her doctor told her that the baby had anencephaly, a neural defect. As a result, part of the baby’s brain, and skull, would never be formed. It happens in about one out of every 200-thousand pregnancies. There was nothing medical science could do.

Amy was told the baby would die soon after birth.

She had the option of terminating the pregnancy, having an abortion. But Amy McNamara chose not to. She carried the child for another six months and then, finally, gave birth.

The baby died just four hours later, cradled in his mother’s arms.

A few days later, friends and relatives received the following notice in the mail.


Patrick and Amy McNamara
proudly announce the birth of their son
Adam Christopher McNamara
June 15, 1994
5 lbs. 9oz., 19 in.


Amy and Patrick enclosed a note:

"Adam was our son for nine months and four hours on this earth,” they wrote. “Four hours was enough time to baptize and confirm Adam, to appreciate his perfectly formed body, to shower parental affection on him, and four hours was enough time for Adam to touch our hearts in a way that we would have never dreamed of only a few months before.”

The note concluded:

'Our son brought an immeasurable amount of joy into our lives. When we miss Adam and sadness begins to descend, we recall this joy and pray that the strength of this memory will sustain us.' "

Read Deacon Greg's entire sermon including a poem Amy wrote about Patrick's role as Adam's father. Amy, Patrick and Adam's life experience provide a shining contrast to the culture of death.

Abortion Funding Under Cover of Healthcare

There is much discussion in our media of health care reform. It is every where. It on TV,newspapers, the Internet and in our day to day conversations. Just this past weekend at a family gathering health care discussions were heard from time to time, some heated.

This evening I listened in on part of a huge Internet Pro Life meeting that featured speakers from a great diversity of organizations. Religious, non religious, men, women, liberals, conservatives were all heard expressing their concern that the human rights of the unborn will be further violated if abortion is mandated in the health care reform being considered in congress.

Recently in a meeting with Catholic Media Mr Obama said that he had more or less put the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) on the back burner. However, if abortion were to become a mandated benefit under national health care reform a major portion of FOCA would be accomplished.

Despite the opposition of a majority of Americans to abortion and even larger opposition to forced funding of abortions by those who oppose such human rights violations (see my earlier postings about polls concerning abortion) many in Congress appear willing to do just that. We would be forced to do this through taxes for government plans (existing and proposed) and through premiums for open market insurance plans.

We need to urge our Representatives and Senators to keep abortion out of health care.

An action plan to help keep FOCA out of health care can be found here. Its first suggestion can and should be implemented by all, PRAY. Then get to your representative and Senators about your concern using your preferred means (mail, phone, Email).