If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention

If someone performs an illegal medical procedure on you or your child, should you be able to sue?

Kathleen Sebelius apparently doesn’t think so- at least, not when the procedure is a late-term abortion.  “Women’s rights” indeed!  This is our new Secretary of Health and Human Services.  FML.

Sexual abuse coverup- yet again!

Abortion clinic caught covering up statutory rape, this time in Memphis, TN. This is the sixth time this has been uncovered just by the Mona Lisa project; similar violations have been videotaped in Indiana and Arizona.  As much as Planned Parenthood will claim that this is an isolated problem, it clearly is not.  If you live in Tennessee, call your elected officials and ask them to investigate this!

It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

Here’s part four of the Mona Lisa project.  Watch as a Planned Parenthood in Phoenix fails to comply with statutory rape reporting laws, instead enabling the abuse to continue.  This is the fourth time an abortion facility has been caught just by the Live Action group, and a fifth video is on the way.  Prior to Live Action’s project, a massive undercover investigation found statutory rape cover-up at over eight hundred abortion groups.  The news is out, and the state Planned Parenthood organization says they plan to investigate.  At best, this will end with them taking action against the specific employees, but there’s little chance they will ever address their unspoken, systemic policy of ignoring the law.

Thoughts on the right to die

Several members of a right-to-die group known as the Final Exit Network have been arrested on charges of (surprise!) assisting suicide.  The debate on assisted suicide is often conflated with the abortion debate.  After all, just think of the language used: the right to life and the right to die.  And since I support the right to life, I must oppose the right-to-die activists.  But you know how the Justice Party works; I can’t leave a political stereotype untouched.

First of all, I want to clarify that I am not pro-suicide.  I have experienced the suicide of a cousin and seen the effect it had on the entire family.    Mind you, it wasn’t the “I have a terminal illness and want to pass away on my own terms” sort of suicide that the Final Exit network is advocating.  (Our pastor assured us that suicide is not condemned by the Bible, so I’m going to leave the religious aspects of this out of the post.)

I also had an aunt who, after losing her legs and suffering various other medical problems, decided to stop treatment and enter hospice.  She died naturally– no lethal drugs or similar measures– but in my mind it was along the lines of suicide because she made a conscious decision to die sooner rather than later.  Her death was much easier for the family to accept than my cousin’s, mostly because she had been deteriorating for so long and we all knew it was just a matter of time.  Would it have made a difference to me if my aunt had died a week earlier via assisted suicide?  Honestly, not really.  We all understood what her intentions were, and she had lived a long, fulfilling life.

Naturally, I believe that my cousin and aunt had the right to life.  But here’s the thing that distinguishes assisted suicide from abortion (or any other manner of human killing)- they chose to forfeit their own right to life.  They didn’t take away someone else’s rights, they stopped exercising their own.  The “right to die” is just the voluntary waiving of the right to life.

So here I am, the pro-lifer, having accepted the right to kill oneself, at least in theory.  In practice, there are a thousand other complications.  An old news article comes to mind, from Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal under some circumstances.  A woman received a letter from her insurer that said, in effect: “Sorry your cancer treatments haven’t worked.  We don’t cover the last-ditch treatment you need, but why don’t you take advantage of our lethal drug coverage?”  That kind of scenario is intolerable.  If we conceive of assisted suicide as giving up the right to life, every patient MUST have the resources to try to keep living.  There’s also the problem of protecting a physician’s right to not be involved in a suicide.

In the final analysis, here’s what I have to say.  You can give up your right to life by killing yourself.  That doesn’t mean that you should.  Think about your family and friends, and include them in your decision if possible.  Think about whether your pain can be alleviated by psychological or medical intervention.  But if you know that your time is near and want to spare yourself and your loved ones from a more gruesome, prolonged death, then I don’t see your suicide as selfish or morally wrong.

I don’t care if you’re pro-life or pro-choice

Wherever you stand on abortion itself, it is wrong to force doctors to perform abortions.  The hypocrisy of those “pro-choice” groups who would take deny a physician’s right of conscience is just sickening.  And yet that is exactly what Obama is considering.

“But abortion is legal,” you say.  So is capital punishment, but there would be a huge outcry if doctors couldn’t refuse to administer an execution.  And while other federal legislation may theoretically preserve the right of conscience, that legislation is weak and poorly enforced.  Even Obama’s Health and Human Services administrator admits that “there might be a need to clarify existing laws.”  Unlike the other federal laws, the Bush clause also ensures that taxpayer money will not go to hospitals and clinics that violate physician conscience.

I have my own theory about why “pro-choice” groups want to take away physician choice; fewer and fewer medical students are entering the abortion practice.  They want conscripted service.  If that’s the case, they can go to hell.  My pre-med friends are working incredibly hard because they know that one day, they can save lives.  The abortion lobby has no right to deny a doctor’s life-giving call by forcing them to destroy life.

P.S.- I was discussing this with a pro-choice friend on facebook, who is concerned about the patient’s right to health care.  The Justice Party does agree that health care reform is in order.  But I don’t think that the right to health care extends so far as to be able to demand an aboriton from any ob/gyn.  The analogy I gave was this: I plan to become an adoption lawyer.  That puts me in the broader category of family law, which also includes divorce.  But no client can make me do his or her divorce, even though we all have the right to legal representation.  Similarly, if someone becomes an ob/gyn in order to treat STDs, or infertility, or whatever, that person can’t then be forced to do abortions just because it falls under the broader umbrella of medical services sought by women.

Sebelius and Darwin

Two news items today.  First, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius is being strongly considered for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services.  According to PoliticalBase, she has experience dealing with health insurance companies, a big plus if Obama is planning drastic health care reform (although I don’t think he’ll get it).  She is also strongly pro-abortion and anti-capital punishment, a combination which, though common, never ceases to amaze me.

Second, Thursday is the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday, which has set off a flurry of evolution vs creationism articles over the last few weeks.  The Justice Party position is that evolution should be taught in schools, simply because an understanding of evolutionary theory is necessary for some career fields- and after all, isn’t the point of school to prepare children for careers?  (My best friend since childhood, who is studying archaeology, thanks me for including this in the platform.)

Of course, there’s another layer to the debate, and that is whether or not intelligent design or creationism may be taught.  I personally don’t care.  Our country, and even our educational system, has much bigger issues to deal with.  I will say this: when I took AP biology, we learned “use-disuse” theory.  (This is essentially the idea that you use it or lose it; the classic example is that giraffes got their long necks by stretching a lot.)  The point wasn’t to get students to believe that use-disuse was true, it was just to make us utilize our critical thinking skills.  So the “teach the controversy” idea isn’t without precedent.