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Archive for the 'Pro-Life' Category

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Actor Jim Caviezel walks the walk

You know Jim Caviezel, from The Passion of the Christ and many others, including one of my favorite movies–The Thin Red Line. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, and not just because of his films. How can you not admire someone like this? (Via the Anchoress.)

Jim Caviezel, the star of the blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, told an interviewer that he had been challenged by a friend who was not pro-life to live up to his professed pro-life convictions and adopt a disabled child.

The friend told Caviezel that if he did that, then he would change to the pro-life position. When Caviezel and his wife, Kerri, went to China to adopt not one, but eventually two orphans suffering from brain tumours, the friend reneged on the deal. Caviezel, however, said, “It didn’t matter to me because the joy that we had from (Bo) - he’s like our own.”

The couple’s first child, Bo, had been abandoned on a train, grew up in an orphanage until he was five and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The Caviezels nursed Bo through his surgeries and he remains today at the centre of the family.

“We took the harder road,” the actor said. “That is what faith is to me; it’s action. It’s the Samaritan. It’s not the one who says he is; it’s the one who does - and does without bringing attention to himself. I’m saying this because I want to encourage other people.”

Go read the whole thing.

Speaking of Catholics, rumors are circulating that President Bush may convert to Catholicism. There aren’t a lot of specifics, but it’s an interesting rumor at the very least! Closet Catholic? I can relate to that–if he’s really a “closet Catholic” like I am, he’ll do it (I’ve just been lazy, to be honest).

McCain–”Last Hope for Pro-Lifers”

From John Hawkins @ Right Wing News:

Erick Erickson at Red State:

Hillary and Obama agree that until a baby is fully from the womb, it can be slaughtered. But, Hillary believes that once the baby is all the way out, you cannot slaughter it. Obama disagrees and supports killing fully born children.

That’s not “just words.” Read why. It is appalling. More about “The Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever” here and here.

I know most of my readers aren’t single-issue pro-lifers, but as a pro-lifer myself, I cannot understand how any pro-lifer with a conscience can even consider not supporting John McCain. (Okay, so you support Mike Huckabee? Will you support McCain when he is the official nominee?)

35 Years of “Empathy Deficit”

Reprinted in full with permission, this is from Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). If you watched some of the Blogs4Life webcast today, you may have seen Congressman Smith talk about this “empathy deficit” in his remarks. I’m hoping there will be video available later to hear the speakers, for those who missed it.

Empathy Deficit
Remarks for the House Floor

Washington, Jan 22 - Today, 35 years after the infamous Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, we mourn the estimated 50 million innocent girls and boys whose lives were cut off by abortion—a staggering loss of children’s lives, equal to six times the total number of people living in my home state of New Jersey.

Someday future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead so aggressively promoted death to children and the exploitation of women by abortion both here and overseas.

They will note with keen sadness that some of our most prominent politicians and media icons often spoke of human or civil rights, while precluding virtually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today, unborn children.

On Sunday, Senator Barack Obama criticized Americans for both our moral deficit and empathy deficit and called on us to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

Can Senator Obama not see, appreciate or understand that the abortion culture that he and others so assiduously promote lacks all empathy for unborn children—be they Black, White, Latino or Asian—and is at best, profoundly misguided when it comes to mothers?

Why does dismembering a child with sharp knives, pulverizing a child with powerful suction devices or chemically poisoning a baby with any number of toxic chemicals, fail to elicit so much as a scintilla of empathy, moral outrage, mercy or compassion by America’s liberal elite?

Abortion destroys the life of our “brothers and sisters” and the pro-abortion movement is the quintessential example of an “Empathy Deficit.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Blogs4Life and the FRC Remember the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

From Blogs4Life via email:

The Third Annual Blogs4Life Conference (blogs4life.com ) is scheduled for TUESDAY January 22, 2008 in Washington DC. I’m writing with some exciting news with the hope that you’ll be able to attend.

The Family Research Council is providing a first class meeting facility just a few blocks from the annual March for Life, the massive pro-life event which draws tens of thousands of pro-lifers (some estimate the crowd at well over 100,000) . A morning session is scheduled before the March with over a dozen well-known pro-life speakers including Kevin McCullough (MC), Jill Stanek, Judie Brown, Eric Scheidler, Barbara Curtis, Dawn Eden, Phill Kline, Michael New, Michael Illions, Maggie Datiles, Michelena Fredenburg, Peter Shinn and Rep. Chris Smith.

…

An afternoon session from Noon to 4 PM will be held in a luxurious room close to the Capitol building overlooking the March for Life. Internet access will be provided for live-blogging and a 50-inch flat screen monitor will broadcast the Rally and March for Life as it occurs. In addition, several pro-life leaders will be available for interviews and commentary.

You can watch it all via webcast if you aren’t going to be there.

Here’s one story that will be told–Michael Illions from Polipundit shares his story.

I hope many of you will be attending the Family Research Council’s ‘Blogs for Life’ Conference on Tuesday, January 22nd. If you can’t make it live, they will be offering a live webcast of the event.

Not only will I be participating as a blogger, I am also a speaker. In March of 2005, at my wife’s 2nd tri-mester screening, where we would find out the babies sex, things didn’t go quite as planned. Our baby, which we found out was going to be a boy, had serious brain issues and his head was filled with fluid, in fact, at that point, there was no evidence that a brain had even developed.

We were taken to a room where we were, and let me be clear about this, URGED many times in those 2 hours of meetings to terminate the pregnancy, not just by the ultrasound doctor but they also brought in a geneticist who showed us all kinds of pictures of children with Trisomy and severe forms of Down Syndrome, something they predicted the baby would have. They couldn’t seem to grasp the answer NO.

There is alot more to the story of dire predictions and poor diagnosis, but I don’t want to go on and on ..

But to cut to the chase, the Doctors offered us death and we chose LIFE. Cole has a condition called Hydrocephalus and is shunted to treat that condition. He doesn’t have Trisomy or Down Syndrome either. He’s not hooked up to machines 24/7 as they predicted, nor does he have “no quality of life”, yet another prediction. Oh, and he has a fully developed and working BRAIN.

It’s a story that needs to be said.. On Tuesday, January 22nd, Cole’s story will be told. Will you be listening ?

Meet Cole, 2 1/2 years old & 11 brain surgeries later:

Suck Their Brains Out, Metaphorically Speaking, Of Course

Planned Parenthood is about to get the litigious version of a D&C:

LINCOLN, Neb. — A woman has filed a lawsuit saying she almost died after a botched abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Lincoln.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of “Jane Roe” alleges negligence and battery by Planned Parenthood of Nebraska and Council Bluffs and a clinic doctor.

The lawsuit states that when the 40-year-old woman complained of pain and asked staff to stop the procedure, they refused and forcibly held her down. While in the recovery area, the woman continued to complain of pain and suffered three seizures.

The somewhat terse response:

The local Planned Parenthood chapter issued a statement Thursday saying patient safety is its top priority.

Of course it is. That’s why, according to the suit, you had to hold the woman down to complete the procedure. And it’s too bad patient safety doesn’t extend to the human being in the womb.

SCOTUS Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban

Megyn Kendall said on Fox News (TV) that “any other day this would be getting wall-to-wall coverage.” That’s how important this is.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

5-4, with the usual suspects dissenting: Stevens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg, who wrote:

“Today’s decision is alarming,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

I’m no constitutional lawyer, but it seems to me that if all Supreme Court decisions were to absolutely be based on previous decisions, America would look quite different from how it does today–and nobody would be too happy about it. Obviously I’m not dismissing precedent, but whatever. The American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists isn’t a higher authority than the Constitution. Her “tolerates, indeed applauds” commentary means nothing to me, because it’s based on her own personal opinion. Furthermore, the “procedure found necessary and proper” by medical authorities isn’t completely ruled out when it is “necessary and proper.” From Bloomberg News:

The court stopped short of overruling the 2000 case, Stenberg v. Carhart, saying the federal statute was narrower in key respects than the Nebraska law. The majority also left open the possibility that doctors could ask a judge for permission to use the disputed procedure for particular medical conditions that pose a health risk to the mother.

Anyway, constitutional law aside, since I’m not a lawyer, partial birth abortion is barbaric, violent, gruesome, and painful for the baby. It’s appalling that it has ever been considered a “choice” for anyone who doesn’t need it. And yes, even in the cases of those who need it to save their lives, it’s still the same horrific procedure; I just can’t say a mother should have to die without it. (I do question how many are “medically necessary,” though.) Either way, this is a good day for humanity, and a bad one for demagogues who put ideology before the value of a child’s life.

The law, which has never taken effect [due to legal challenges --Ed.], is the first federal abortion restriction since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The case didn’t challenge the validity of Roe.

The measure outlaws procedures in which a fetus is partially removed from the mother before being killed. Although the law is aimed primarily at a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, or intact D&E, critics faulted the statute for not tracking the medical definition of that technique.

Legal analysis and discussion at SCOTUSblog.

Lots of hysteria on the left; you can find links to that and other commentary (and news articles) at Unpartisan.com.

A commenter at Feministe illustrates why some of these abortion activists think they “need” partial birth abortions in this nauseating bleat:

This generates an anger of unspeakable depth in me. I have 3 year old twins, and I classify my pregnancy as “invasive.” It was poorly timed, I didn’t have any support systems in place to handle the changes it made necessary, and it was medically high-risk. Which ultimately meant a lot of tests, a lot of doctors, and a lot of stress for me. I handled it, meaning that I just decided that pregnancy is just one of those weird physical conditions to be endured and that I was going to be fine and that I would deliver healthy children. And they are.
…

Two years after my children were born, I had a kidney removed. It had failed due to a defect that occurred in childhood and had been left unchecked my whole life.

My whole life. Including my pregnancy. While every organ in my fetuses was investigated and tracked with an eagle eye, no one once thought to run that sonogram over my own kidneys. Basically, I was a glorified suitcase for nine months. My health care was extended only to the capacity of supporting those fetuses. And that pisses me off.

So her argument is basically that she would have aborted “those fetuses” (her three year-old twins) if she had “support systems” in place to handle changes in her body that happen during pregnancy once they became particularly stressful? I don’t know how anyone can even *think* of their own children in that way. But I guess if you believe your child wasn’t your child until the umbilical cord is cut… Sick. That’s just sick.

How pro-life are Al Qaeda?

I’m not familiar with the Al Qaeda position on abortion, though it seems likely to be pretty….clear cut.

But I do know their position on western infidel adult life, namely they’d like to end as many as possible.

This being the case, why the fark are prominent conservatives wringing their hands and worrying about Rudy Giuliani’s pro-choiceness?

As Phyllis Schlafly listens to Hillary’s inaugural, I’m sure it’ll be a big farking comfort to know that she kept a pro-choice Republican President out of the White House.

The Dishonest Democrats’ “Stem Cell” Ad

You wanna talk about stem cell research? OK. Some people have a few words in response to your dishonest and exploitative ad.

Missourians, DON’T BE FOOLED.

Still busy - link dump!

Still trying to catch up on a bunch of stuff on the internets and with email and most importantly, Real Life, so you get a link dump–a real half-assed one, at that. I’m not even gonna mess with sending trackbacks.

Here’s who’s got stuff you need to read:

Blackfive has Someone You Should Know–a Marine who has cancer but actually delayed his treatment as long as possible in order to stay with his men in Iraq
Wade Zirkle and David Bellavia have an update from Iraq as they get settled in
Allah (Hot Air) has all kinds of updates on the two (formerly “missing”) slain soldiers in Iraq
Lorie Byrd talks about the importance of a good history education in light of war, specifically, the war in Iraq (this has sparked a great discussion among the Cotillion email group, and I wish some of them would post their points!)
Speaking of history, Mark Levin says it’s time to start emulating “The Greatest Generation.“
Larry Kudlow says “don’t misunderestimate Bush.”
“Seize the Day,” say the editors at the Weekly Standard.
All these neocons I’m linking! Ace finds the DU (shockingly) hates neocons!
Sandmonkey gives an update on jailed Egyptian blogger Alaa–he’s probably going to be released tomorrow or the next day!
LindaSoG finds the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson is denouncing the revolution with which his grandfather doomed Iran
I meant to link to The Spy Who Fragged Me the other day, but…well, you know. Busy. It’s an awesome story.
Fausta finds out what it takes to get on the faculty of Princeton. Gotta love those Ivy Leagues (not)!
Also at Fausta’s Bad Hair Blog: something I may have to send to my ex-husband as a quick “I told you so.” He thinks I “made up” the story about there being terror cells in Northern Virginia just to make our daughter not miss him! HA! (I wish!)
Also meant to link to this story of a woman with cerebral palsy–because her biological mother had a failed abortion.
And finally, for a laugh, TruthOut is actually sticking by their Rove nonsense. Tom McGuire says “TruthNot”

(Thanks, Martin, for filling in the blanks here with the recent posts!)

Maybe we need to learn from the left

I read the entry on the Coke/Pepsi tax that the AMA is suggesting, and like Beth, I blew my stack. My goodness, just come out and say it; it’s just another way to implement Marxism.

How many times will they have to get hit by the old clue bat before they learn we can’t be conned?

I guess, maybe, I’m a bit paranoid, but if you think of all the things going on in our country you can’t deny there’s a move afoot to redistribute the wealth.
Maybe we should learn from the ~~commies~~ democratic left.

Instead of a tax on sodas we tax abortions? I mean, only for the common good. Think of all the money we spend for recruiting and reenlistment bonus’ in the military. Why do we spend this money? We have to get quality people to enlist and then stay. The left is aborting quite a few of our future soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, so since its hurting the common good we need to tax it.

Just think of the size of the pool if it weren’t for all the aborted children.

Now what about eminent domain? Nothing sticks in my craw like the government taking someones property for the common good then selling it to a developer because his condos will bring in more tax money.

Well, what if we learned? How about using eminent domain to confiscate the student centers at Berkley, Harvard and Yale? They could be our newest officer selection offices.
Wouldn’t it be great?:mrgreen:

Don’t let the leftards get you down, just remember what Quinn and Rose (on XM 165, Monday-Friday 6-9AM) say: “Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent”.

Rest in peace, Andrea Clark.

I got email this morning, first from Right Mom, then from some others, about Andrea Clark’s passing yesterday. Here’s what Melanie (Andrea’s sister) posted at DU:

Andrea passed away peacefully a little before 3pm today, with her family and her friends at her bedside. We love her so very much and we are going to miss her
terribly. We hope that the battle that we fought for our sister will bring to light and bear witness to the horrible acts committed in the name of ethics in hospitals across the state of Texas.

The fact that we had to fight this battle is both frightening and a sad commentary on the so-called
“ethics” now being practiced in medical facilities in this state. The battle for life is a difficult one,
in the best of situations, but when a family is put through what we had to go through at such a time, it is especially agonizing.

We wish so much that we could have spent more time at our sister’s side, when she was living and fighting for her life, rather than having to visit our attorney’s office, give interviews to radio and television stations to let the public know of the atrocity about to befall Andrea, and literally stand outside the hospital and beg them not to kill our sister. In attempting to deprive Andrea of the most basic of her human rights–life–St. Luke’s Hospital managed to deprive her family and her of that which is most dear to us all, when we are faced with the death of a loved one: a proper goodbye.

How, in the name of God, anyone can call putting someone to death when they are at their most helpless and begging for their lives “ethical,” we cannot imagine.

And an appropriate comment from “Pigwidgeon“:

“Ethics” is like “Class”. The people who use the term the most tend to have the least of it.

Rest in peace, Andrea, and may her family find peace as well.

This was one of those rare times when people from all political ideologies could come together for a common cause. Let’s not let the issue fade away–life is too precious to leave decisions to “ethics” committees, and a ten day grace period is incredibly inhumane. Even prisoners on death row get far longer to fight for their lives. The culture of death and laws such as the Texas Advanced Directives Act must be exterminated.

Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet:

“These policies are obviously directed with the aim to protect hospitals, doctors and other medical staff. There is absolutely no concern for the rights of patients reflected in these policies. And these policies are spreading, thanks to cooperation from both Democrats and Republicans.”

Not Dead Yet calls for a halt to the backroom lobbying by special interest groups that have resulted in bills like this one. The Texas futility bill should be killed followed by open and public hearings. In the end, that’s the only way to craft legislation that will protect the rights and lives of people in the health care system.

You could be next.

Thank you to all who worked so hard to get the word out; Andrea was given the chance at survival because of all the attention. All the family expected was for her to be given a chance, and for her wishes to be honored. May God bless them.

Tags: Andrea Clark, Texas Futile Care Law, Texas Advance Directives Law, Chapter 166, euthanasia, futile care, medical futility, advance directives, will to live, medical ethics, bioethics, right to life

Attorney Jerri Lynn Ward on the Andrea Clark case

Jerri Lynn Ward, the tireless and dedicated attorney for Andrea Clark and her family has posted an article about the case (and that of Yenlang Vo, also her case). She shares her thoughts about the Texas Advance Directives Act.

Things have worked out for Andrea Clark, and appear to be working out for Yolang. However, I have seen a number of commentors on various blogs who have expressed the belief that these outcomes mean that the Texas Statute works.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Were it not for the huge stink raised by the public, these ladies would not be alive today. Finding a new attending physician and/or especially a new facility to accept a patient whom a hospital has deemed a “futile case” is like finding a needle in a haystack. In the case of Andrea, without all the press, the new attending physician would never have been located or even known that this was happening.

…
What is meant by “futility”? It’s not about the care being “futile”. The care is doing what it’s supposed to do, which is to keep someone from dying for at least some period of time. What the futilists are saying is that the person’s “quality of life” is not worth sustaining and that it is not worth providing treatments that will prolong such a life.

Read the whole thing. It’s important. We HAVE to stop this creep toward accepting the concept of eliminating those who have a different “quality of life” from us. This could be any one of us–as mortal human beings, nobody is exempt. There IS more to life than the physical, much more. The sick and disabled are absolutely no different from you and me; they just have physical challenges. Everyone has challenges of some kind. This agenda of eugenics indoctrination and practice MUST STOP.

We can change it, despite the stomach-turning wishes of ghouls like this disgusting “bioethicist” (eugenicist).
Listen to people like this instead.

stein hoist ProLife Blogs

Tags: Andrea Clark, Yolang Vo, Yenlang Vo, Texas, futile care, futile care law, medical futility, bioethics, eugenics, right to life, end of life issues, quality of life, disability

Texas Right to Life Statement re: Andrea Clark

Via ProLife Blogs–Texas Right to Life (who’s been working closely with Andrea Clark’s family) has a statement regarding the case:

On Tuesday, May 2, the treatment team at St. Luke’s convened to further discuss Andrea’s condition and treatment plan. At this meeting, Dr. Matthew Lenz, a physician with privileges at St. Luke’s, transferred Andrea’s care into his own hands. This physician became involved at the request of Texas Right to Life and has since taken a personal interest in protecting Andrea’s life. His goal is to nurse Andrea back to a point where she can then be transferred to another facility for further rehabilitation. Andrea’s condition is very fragile, and she requires a lot of specialized care, yet her condition is no justification for speeding her to her death by abruptly ending treatment and care that has been working. Dr. Lenz is now the new attending physician, and he has already begun to see improvements in her care. Andrea must undergo a surgery tomorrow to have her septic gall bladder removed, and this surgery does pose risks to Andrea’s fragile condition, but the removal of the diseased organ should lend to Andrea’s overall improvement.

While St. Luke’s has not made this process easy, St. Luke’s has now offered the full support of the administration and of other specialists to assist Dr. Lenz in caring for Andrea. While the futility law and St. Luke’s policy remain problematic, St. Luke’s is now committed to preserving Andrea’s life and confirmed that the futility statute will not again be invoked as long as Andrea is under Dr. Lenz’s care. The heroes in this battle are Andrea’s siblings and son who fought for her life and cried from every mountaintop for help. Please join Texas Right to Life in praying for Andrea’s recovery and in thanksgiving for the moral courage exhibited by Dr. Lenz in challenging St. Luke’s and in sacrificing his personal time to treat and protect Andrea.

Please forward any kudos for Dr. Lenz to ProLife@TexasRightToLife.com, and your praise will be forwarded to him.

Read the full statement here.

Tags: Andrea Clark, Andrea Clarke, Yenlang Vo, Not Dead Yet, disability, disabled, euthanasia, advance directives, Texas, bioethics, medical ethics, right to life, culture of death, eugenics

Disability Advocates: Texas “Futile Care” Law Should Be Euthanized

Not Dead Yet issued a press release yesterday about the Texas Futile Care Act / Texas Advance Directives Act (Chapter 166 of the Texas Health & Safety Code), in light of the cases of Andrea Clark, Yenlang Vo, and others:

Austin, TX, May 1, 2006 — The publicity surrounding the struggle to save the life of Andrea Clark - sentenced to die under Texas’ “Futile Care” Statute - has brought attention once again to little-known hospital policies regarding so-called “futility.” There is also a second case in Texas right now that hasn’t gotten as much attention involving a Vietnamese woman named Yenlang Vo, in Austin, TX. Ms. Clark is in a hospital in Houston, TX.

This isn’t the first time the Texas law on “futile care” has received national attention. During the struggle for Terri Schiavo’s life, Sun Hudson, a 6-month-old boy with a serious condition was removed from a feeding tube over his mother’s objections under the Texas law. It received brief attention from Democrats pointing out that Sun Hudson was dying against his mother’s wishes under a law signed by ex-governor George Bush. But the critics (U.S. Rep. John Conyers for one) seemed more motivated to score political points than in having serious moral qualms about the Texas “futile care” law.

The law is back in the public eye and is under criticism from grassroots activists as diverse as the Democratic Underground and ProLife Blogs. Essentially, futile care policies provide that a physician may overrule a patient or their authorized decision-maker in denying wanted life-sustaining treatment. Futile care policies do not generally require that the treatment be objectively futile, but allow doctors to use subjective criteria such as quality of life judgments and even economic factors as grounds for denying treatment.

It’s also a concern to disability advocates who, until recently, were excluded from the relatively small group of players that has played a major role in pushing for the “futility” statute and other changes in Texas health care policies. “We think that all health care consumers should be questioning whether it’s advisable, or even constitutional, for doctors to have this kind of power,” said Diane Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet.

Coincidentally, Bob Kafka, Texas NDY Organizer, withdrew from the Advance Directives Coalition just days before the news hit the web about Andrea Clark. He withdrew over efforts to “improve” the “futility” statute.

“I have come to the conclusion that the essence of any futility law embraces involuntary euthanasia,” says Kafka. “The ability of a doctor to overrule both the patient and their surrogate in withdrawing life-sustaining treatment is in violation of the principle of patient autonomy. There’s no way to ‘fix’ this law. It just needs to be killed - or euthanized, for those who prefer softer language. I am increasingly suspicious of the willingness of the medical community to honor ‘autonomy’ of old, ill and disabled people ONLY in those cases where they want to die.”

Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, agrees.

“These policies are obviously directed with the aim to protect hospitals, doctors and other medical staff. There is absolutely no concern for the rights of patients reflected in these policies. And these policies are spreading, thanks to cooperation from both Democrats and Republicans.”

Not Dead Yet calls for a halt to the backroom lobbying by special interest groups that have resulted in bills like this one. The Texas futility bill should be killed followed by open and public hearings. In the end, that’s the only way to craft legislation that will protect the rights and lives of people in the health care system.

For more information:
Diane Coleman, Stephen Drake
708-209-1500, exts. 11 & 29

I wholeheartedly agree. It’s the sick and disabled who have everything to lose with laws like this, not insurance companies, hospitals, or their affiliated interest groups.

Andrea Clark’s life being spared is a HUGE victory, but it’s not enough. As long as this law (and others like it) is on the books, there will be more Andrea Clarks. Andrea is not the first, and she won’t be the last until the law is “euthanized.”

Tags: Andrea Clark, Andrea Clarke, Yenlang Vo, Not Dead Yet, disability, disabled, euthanasia, advance directives, Texas, bioethics, medical ethics, right to life, culture of death, eugenics

Great news for Andrea Clark!

An email from Melanie, Andrea’s sister, to ProLife Blogs:

How am I doing? I am doing FABULOUS! My sister, Andrea, is GETTING WELL. Her white blood cell count has been down to normal for the FOURTH day in a ROW now, and she has been able to get off of the blood pressure raising drugs that she has had to be on for MONTHS. She is doing GREAT. Her new doctor … has also halved the amount of pain medications that she is taking, so that she can talk to her family. He says that her condition is “serious,” but that she does have the ability to get much better.

The futility proceedings are stopped now. Because this new doctor took over her case, it is all stopped.

I’m so happy I don’t know what to think, or say, or do. Not only is my sister NOT going to be put to death by St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, but it also looks like she is RECOVERING from her heart surgery, finally.

Melanie

AWESOME!!! Not so “futile,” is she?! Take THAT, death-mongering “bioethicists!”

And here’s a DU thread that Melanie posted today, with this added comment from her:

There are some wonderful people in this world. I found that out during this fight for my sister. The Texas Right to Life people are absolutely phenomenal. The attorney worked for us pro bono, and believe me, she was up all night on weekends and everything. The hospital, the bastards, served us with notice of the medical futility committee meeting late GOOD FRIDAY (a holiday) and expected us to be there, in downtown Houston, at SEVEN AM on Tuesday, which is not even a reasonable hour. We contacted Jerri Ward late Friday evening, and she was on the phone to us that night. Saturday night, at 2am, I was still answering emails from her, and she was replying back to me, asking for even more information. What a woman! We met Monday, in a Houston attorney’s office, got together on a conference call with Jerri (Jerri is in Austin) and the Texas Right to Life people were right there. I have never seen people swing into action so quickly. They got us another doctor, and one that is a specialist in the field that Andrea needed. These people are great; just absolutely wonderful.

And the right to life and Christian blogs and radio stations. I can’t say enough about how they got the word out for us. These people have the courage of their convictions. They are right there, battle stations ready. Whatever differences Democrats have with these people, they are fighting tooth and nail for their cause, and I don’t know what we would have done without them. And they didn’t care whether we were Democrats or not; they fought for our sister’s life. They stood by their principles and didn’t let politics get in the way. It was a very stressful and frightening time for our family, but it was good to see the right and the left get together on an issue, for once.

One woman, right here on DU (”knitter4democracy” –Ed.), had her husband contact St. Luke’s and offer to take Andrea as a patient. And, when that wasn’t possible, she continued digging up information for us. This person wouldn’t know us if she passed us on the street, but she stood right by us, all the way. And the CALLS to St. Luke’s! Did you know that they had a “media team” formed to deal with all of this? A gentleman from one of the largest newspapers in the United States told us that this was a “public relations nightmare” for St. Luke’s Hospital (as well it SHOULD have been!).

I just don’t know what we would have done without everyone who worked on this. I don’t know how to thank everyone. I am just absolutely floored by the capacity for decency in my fellow human beings.

That’s thanks enough for all of us. Andrea Clark and her family have reminded all of us that we can all pull together for a worthwhile cause. And most of all, her reprieve and the improvement in her condition is all anyone really wanted. Well, that, and now getting something done about these ghoulish “futility” laws/policies, because as long as these laws are in place, there will be more cases like this. John Hawkins has a somber reminder, as well:

…the new doctor would be taking over Andrea’s case and that the hospital wouldn’t be able to pull the plug as long as he disagreed with the medically futile diagnosis. While she said she hoped that would happen, she thought it was possible that it would not, and she was ready to file papers in Houston to try to stop Andrea’s life support from being pulled if necessary.

This battle may be won–we hope–but the war’s not over yet. Not by a longshot.

Congratulations to Andrea Clark’s family (and to Jerri Lynn Ward) for the good news!

Tags: Andrea Clark, Andrea Clarke, euthanasia, right to life, futile care, medical futility, eugenics, disability issues, culture of death