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Tag Archives: babies
“Choices” Little Murders
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Lioness’ busiest day of the year was February 14th with 447 views. The most popular post that day was Choice’s Little Murders, which I repeat here is summary:
I believe that if we realized the person in-utero is not hanging in some ethereal place while we decide whether or not we can accomodate our lives to their presence in the here and now, realizing that they are a reality and not a choice, and that their one life is all they have on earth and they want it just as much as we want, defend and protect our own, for they precious to us, then the abortion debate would be over.
Here I am, beneath your heart,
My heart beating in happy harmony,
As my frame perceives
The gentle throbbing within your breast,
Serene.I began in secret and in darkness,
A mystery, even to myself.
Day by day, nature shapes my clay,
As you await the blessed dawn of my birth day.What I know, I know by existence.
I am now all trust,
Simply growing,
Simply becoming who I am.Comfort, you give comfort.
Love, you are all I know of love.
As you wait for me, my mother,
The eyes of my soul are wide open.
I behold you, smiling upon me.Expectant, vigilant and gleeful,
Mother of my moments,
You cradle me.
You are my home of sweet delight.© 2011 Joann Nelander
Begin by Change–Defend Life– “Truly, we have an obligation to try” (Obama)
The classic case of do as I say, not as I do?
How It Feels to Withdraw Feeding from Newborn Babies
Why should we care about euthanasia as present in Britain? I care because we are following in their footsteps. How soon before Obama-care mandates cost cutting methods effecting care of the elderly and the weakest among us. Abortion is only the beginning! How opposed to “First, do no harm, or, in Latin, primum non nocere,” a medical injunction of the “Hippocratic oath” is this:
Sue Reid and Simon Caldwell report”
“THEY WISH FOR THEIR BABY TO GO QUICKLY. BUT I KNOW, AS THEY CAN’T, THE UNIQUE HORROR OF WATCHING A CHILD SHRINK AND DIE
Here is an abridged version of one doctor’s anonymous testimony, published in the BMJ under the heading: ‘How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies’.”
The voice on the other end of the phone describes a newborn baby and a lengthy list of unexpected congenital anomalies. I have a growing sense of dread as I listen.
The parents want ‘nothing done’ because they feel that these anomalies are not consistent with a basic human experience. I know that once decisions are made, life support will be withdrawn.
Assuming this baby survives, we will be unable to give feed, and the parents will not want us to use artificial means to do so.
Regrettably, my predictions are correct. I realise as I go to meet the parents that this will be the tenth child for whom I have cared after a decision has been made to forgo medically provided feeding.
A doctor has written a testimony published under the heading: ‘How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies’
The mother fidgets in her chair, unable to make eye contact. She dabs at angry tears, stricken. In a soft voice the father begins to tell me about their life, their other children, and their dashed hopes for this child.
He speculates that the list of proposed surgeries and treatments are unfair and will leave his baby facing a future too full of uncertainty.
Like other parents in this predicament, they are now plagued with a terrible type of wishful thinking that they could never have imagined. They wish for their child to die quickly once the feeding and fluids are stopped.
They wish for pneumonia. They wish for no suffering. They wish for no visible changes to their precious baby.
Their wishes, however, are not consistent with my experience. Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days.
Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues.
I try to make these matters clear from the outset so that these parents do not make a decision that they will come to regret. I try to prepare them for the coming collective agony that we will undoubtedly share, regardless of their certainty about their decision.
I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby.
I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.
As a doctor, I struggle with the emotional burden of accompanying the patient and his or her family through this experience, as much as with the philosophical details of it.
‘Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days’
Debate at the front lines of healthcare about the morality of taking this decision has remained heated, regardless of what ethical and legal guidelines have to offer.
The parents come to feel that the disaster of their situation is intolerable; they can no longer bear witness to the slow demise of their child.
This increases the burden on the care-givers, without parents at the bedside to direct their child’s care.
Despite involvement from the clinical ethics and spiritual care services, the vacuum of direction leads to divisions within the care team.
It is draining to be the most responsible physician. Everyone is looking to me to preside over and support this process.
I am honest with the nurse when I say it is getting more and more difficult to make my legs walk me on to this unit as the days elapse, that examining the baby is an indescribable mixture of compassion, revulsion, and pain.
Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels. The one thing that helps me a little is the realisation that this process is necessarily difficult. It needs to be.
To acknowledge that a child’s prospects are so dire, so limited, that we will not or cannot provide artificial nutrition is self selecting for the rarity of the situations in which parents and care teams would ever consider it.
Choice’s Little Murders
“And because the homicides involved in abortion are ”little murders” – the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives – it’s easy to look the other way.”
“Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have ”no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”
Archbishop Charles Chaput
From the Lioness:
I reached into my pocket and found the small plastic fetus I use to interject reality into the conversation on Life vs. abortion in a time in which we have to show people the cost of abstracted arguments hiding behind “privacy” and “choice”.
I believe that if we realized the person in-utero is not hanging in some ethereal place while we decide whether or not we can accomodate our lives to their presence in the here and now, realizing that they are a reality and not a choice, and that their one life is all they have on earth and they want it just as much as we want, defend and protect our own, for they precious to us, then the abortion debate would be over.
Here I am, beneath your heart,
My heart beating in happy harmony,
As my frame perceives
The gentle throbbing within your breast,
Serene.I began in secret and in darkness,
A mystery, even to myself.
Day by day, nature shapes my clay,
As you await the blessed dawn of my birth day.What I know, I know by existence.
I am now all trust,
Simply growing,
Simply becoming who I am.Comfort, you give comfort.
Love, you are all I know of love.
As you wait for me, my mother,
The eyes of my soul are wide open.
I behold you, smiling upon me.Expectant, vigilant and gleeful,
Mother of my moments,
You cradle me.
You are my home of sweet delight.© 2011 Joann Nelander
Read here what “choice” actually means.
“We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it’s never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of evil.” Archbishop Charles Chaput
The following is a list of useful abortion statistics as well as some facts on abortifacients. All abortion numbers are derived from pro-abortion sources courtesy of The Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood’s Family Planning Perspectives.Click here for the Guttmacher Institute’s latest fact sheet on abortion.
WORLDWIDE
Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 115,000Where abortions occur:
83% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 17% occur in developed countries.© Copyright 1996-2008, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)
UNITED STATES
Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700Who’s having abortions (age)?
52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%.Who’s having abortions (race)?
While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.Who’s having abortions (marital status)?
64.4% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; Married women account for 18.4% of all abortions and divorced women obtain 9.4%.Who’s having abortions (religion)?
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as “Born-again/Evangelical”.Who’s having abortions (income)?
Women with family incomes less than $15,000 obtain 28.7% of all abortions; Women with family incomes between $15,000 and $29,999 obtain 19.5%; Women with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 obtain 38.0%; Women with family incomes over $60,000 obtain 13.8%.Why women have abortions
1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).At what gestational ages are abortions performed:
52% of all abortions occur before the 9th week of pregnancy, 25% happen between the 9th & 10th week, 12% happen between the 11th and 12th week, 6% happen between the 13th & 15th week, 4% happen between the 16th & 20th week, and 1% of all abortions (16,450/yr.) happen after the 20th week of pregnancy.Likelihood of abortion:
An estimated 43% of all women will have at least 1 abortion by the time they are 45 years old. 47% of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least one previous abortion.Abortion coverage:
48% of all abortion facilities provide services after the 12th week of pregnancy. 9 in 10 managed care plans routinely cover abortion or provide limited coverage. About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds, virtually all of which are state funds. 16 states (CA, CT, HI, ED, IL, MA , MD, MD, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA and WV) pay for abortions for some poor women.© Copyright 1998, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)
© Copyright 1997, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)
© Copyright 1995, Family Planning Perspectives
© Copyright 1988, Family Planning Perspectives
- As Presidents’ Day bids us remember our nation’s presidents and the legacy they left to our country, we would do well to pray for President Barack Obama. The legacy of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” rests first and foremost on the God-given gift of Life. No life: no liberty and no pursuit of happiness!
If President Obama’s promises to Planned Parenthood to sign FOCA (in whatever form it finally emerges) are realized in law, this president’s legacy will be written in the deaths of countless more unborn Americans.
Be Holy! 