Pro-LIFE NEWS

Vol. 15 No.4 - Autumn Edition 1999                                  Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042

Contents:

- State Election Year
- Letter to all 139 Victorian State Members of Parliament
- Editorial
- Are You Available to Help the Unborn?
- 1999 Right to Life National Conference
- Lying About Dying
- Seamless Garments Clarified
- World View

The remaining months of this year are crucial for the Pro-Life Movement. Partial birth abortion specialist Dr David Grundmann has now been operating for two years and Dr Philip Nitschke has opened, free euthanasia clinics. At night and at shifting locations to avoid protesters.

Both must be stopped! The best chance prolifers have of doing this is in the lead up to the State Elections. Grundmann and Nitschke must become the election issue. Only we can do this. Elected and aspiring politicians will listen much more closely to their constituents in the coming months that the four years after the next election. They want, above all else, to be elected!

Prolifers should start contacting their sitting M.P.’s now and be alert to the announcement of all the other candidates closer to the elections. Pro-Life Victoria urges all prolifers to write to and/or phone their M.P.’s now.

We know, with the best will in the world, too many of us don’t get around to it in the short three or four weeks of an election campaign. It is much harder to get an interview then. If we really care about these issues we will pick up the pen and/or telephone now and request an appointment. Even if you think it unlikely an appointment will be granted, the request for an appointment to express concern about partial birth abortions and euthanasia is recorded by our MP.. Appointments maybe a long time coming, so it is absolutely vital we start now.

The consensus seems to indicate the election would be as early as October. Prolifers have no excuse to be caught on the back foot. There are 139 State Members of Parliament. We must seek to have delegations on prolife issues to all of them. No parliamentarian of his or her own volition will move to stop Grundmann or Nitschke. They will only do this if urged to take action by every prolifer.

Australian prolifers need to improve their lobbying of M.P.’s. So far, we have failed to make much impact on these issues and the reason is MP.’s simply don’t hear enough from us.

It would be easier to campaign really hard now while we have a chance of being listened to, than over the next four years when M.P.’s will be feeling so much more complacent.

¬ Pro-Life Victoria President Peter Beriman (right) with pro-life activist Paul Johnson outside the Victorian State Parliament.

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l refer to two news reports relating to euthanasia which I feel compelled to bring to your attention.

Although doctors breaching Holland’s voluntary euthanasia rules may be charged with murder, in a little over a decade, the Dutch have lost control of euthanasia. Based on admissions by 400 doctors to intentionally causing 4,500 deaths, research has found that in 20 percent of cases, doctors acted without the required explicit expression by the patient of a wish to die!

In contrast, the British and Canadians have led the world for over two decades in developing palliative care programs which draw on the latest advances in pain relief and provide the best possible support for patients facing despair and depression.

A cry for euthanasia is properly seen by palliative care physicians as most often being a cry for help. To accept a cry for euthanasia at face value would be an abrogation of responsibility to provide the best possible care. Yet in Holland ,there is now no doubt that thousands of patients are deliberately killed by doctors without even a cry for euthanasia.

How difficult it must be for the Dutch medical profession to rediscover the culture necessary to improve the standard of care for their elderly and terminally ill.

How depressing it must be far elderly and terminally ill patients in Holland clinging to their will to live as awareness of Holland’s final solution spreads,

Australia’s politicians have informed themselves sufficiently to see the sinister implications of legal euthanasia and its dangerous slippery slope.

The Crimes Act 1958 provides that any person who incites or aids another person to commit or attempt to commit suicide is guilty of an offence. Pro-Life Victoria is deeply concerned that Dr Phillip Nitschke is planning to set up a voluntary euthanasia clinic in Melbourne (news report enclosed).

Dr Nitschke maintains his advice is given at different levels ranging from telephone advice of a general nature to a home-based "slow euthanasia" process to be coordinated through his euthanasia clinic. Dr Nitschke has admitted (TheLancet) that he had not had any experience with dying patients before his much publicised physician-assisted deaths in the Northern Territory. He also lacks any specialised expertise in palliative care.

I enclose recent news reports regarding the euthanasia situation in Holland and regarding Dr Nitschke’s plans for Melbourne. I hope that these reports and my comments provide some understanding of the concerns we have with euthanasia.

Yours sincerely

Peter Beriman
President. Pro-Life Victoria

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Recently, on one of those lovely autumn evenings for which Melbourne is so renowned, I decided to walk through the gardens surrounding St Patrick’s Cathedral. There is a bronze statue there before which I always pause. It was unveiled last year by the President of Ireland, Mrs Mary McAleese. It is of the Irish patriot, Daniel O’Connell. He was a prominent figure in the history I was taught by nuns of Irish decent. 1829 is one date in history I have never forgotten, due no doubt to their repeated references to this historical date. That was the year Irish Catholics were "emancipated", given the right to vote. The inscription under the statue of Daniel O’Connell reads: "The leading Irish Statesman and Catholic Parliamentarian of his day O’Connell was the Founder of the Catholic Association, a mass movement which promoted universal human rights and social justice, exclusively by political means and non-violent action". There is no doubt the hearts and minds of people need to be converted if unborn children are ever to be "emancipated" and accorded their right to life. But it will be through Parliament that this right, this protection must ultimately be confirmed in concrete. So, like it or not, prolifers must be politically active. We must be prepared to go back and back again, personally, to our individual representatives in Parliament and plead for protection for the unborn from abortionists and the longborn from euthanatists.

Prolifers should not be ashamed to throw themselves on the mercy of parliamentarians. We shouldn’t allow the perception that politics are distasteful or only for secularists, to avoid our responsibility to speak up for those who are unable to speak for themselves. Daniel O’Connell showed us how to exercise influence, to act legitimately and in a principled manner, politically. Catholics gained the right to vote by an Act of Parliament.

Australian prolifers could do with a bit of Daniel O’Connell’s passion in our prolife struggle. Visiting our members of parliament is such a safe, civilised activity compared to what people elsewhere in the world are doing right now in similar struggles for human life and social justice.

Daniel O’Connell exemplified the honourable face of politics. As I stood in front of his statue I recalled his reputation throughout his struggle for Catholic emancipation, of being good natured, genial and a great wit. (He once said of his protagonist, the English Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel_ "His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin"!) In the shadow of Victoria s Parliament House, I was reminded that while it will be through prayer, education and social action it will be in Parliament that the prolife movement will eventually win protection for the vulnerable unborn and longborn.

Last night Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore gave one of the most inspiring prolife homilies I have ever heard with heavy emphasis on the Beatitudes and their compelling application to our life saving cause.

At the beginning of the Mass, the Cardinal observed that as he looked into the eyes of those at the Basilica, he didn’t see weariness, only faith and hope and love. The Scriptures tell us never to grow weary in doing good. My good wife and family were deeply moved last night -  so much so that my 11 year old daughter Elyse whispered, "Maybe we won’t have to march next year, because the little babies will be protected."

A wonderful thought! We can all learn a lot from the faith of a child, for nothing is impossible for God to accomplish.

But like the anti-slavery abolitionists of another era, we have to do our part in God’s plan, no matter how long it takes, regardless of cost or inconvenience or vilification, to stop the violence of abortion in the United States and abroad. We need to recommit ourselves to the "least of our brethren" in the womb and to their dear mothers and say anew to God, as my favourite Christian rock group Petra sings, "I am available." All of us must say, "I am available" because so much prayer, fasting, and work needs to be done now.

You and I have a heavy burden knowing the uncomfortable truth that may refuse to see: Abortion is violence against children and it exploits, injures, and dehumanises women.

Those who fashion themselves as "advocates of children" and "prowomen" while promoting or even acquiescing to abortion are either hypocrites or are living in an unhealthy state of denial.

The unconscionable cruelty to children from partial birth abortion - the execution of a partially born girl or boy by stabbing them in the back of the head and sucking their brains out - shatters the myth that abortion is somehow benign, just, or compassionate. It is ugly beyond words. And if Americans would only connect the dots, they’d see the inherent violence of all abortion methods. And they would demand compassion, justice, and protection for unborn children.

That, it seems to me, is our calling. Let us never shrink from enlightening society that abortion methods dismember and decapitate and cut to pieces the fragile bodies of children; that abortion methods pump salt water and other poisons into their innocent bodies. Abortion means violent, painful death to little children - kids who, if allowed to live, might someday thrill their parents with their first step, play soccer or baseball, or maybe make the honour roll in school, and fall in love someday. All of that potential is lost when the fatalism of abortion prevails.

As the new Congress convenes, please pray and fast for the President and the first Lady, Vice President Gore and Mrs Gore - that they would cease their unseemly and aggressive persecution of children here in America and overseas. The scandals that have rocked the White House pale to near insignificance when compared to the anti-child policies so methodically pursued by our Abortion President and his Administration.

Pray and fast for Congress and all politicians - that we might have the love, wisdom, courage, and numbers - that is to say, the votes - to protect human life.

And continue praying and fasting for, and loving, as you have done so magnificently, the women who’ve had abortions. They - perhaps more than anyone in society today - need love, reconciliation, and the "peace that surpasses all understanding" that only God can give.

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1999 Right to Life National Conference

or (03) 9387 7098 and ask for Renato.

An opportunity to learn more about pro-life issues,

meet and gain inspiration from fellow pro-lifers.

Keynote Speaker: Dr John Keown, Cambridge University

Eminent UK Lecturer & Author

When Jack Kevorkian appeared on 60 Minutes the Sunday before Thanksgiving to explain his killing of Thomas Youk, a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Kevorkian justified his crime to Mike Wallace by claiming Youk was scared to death of choking on his own saliva. Wallace, a vocal euthanasia supporter, accepted this excuse at face value rather than digging more deeply Had Wallace done his job as a journalist and asked a competent doctor about proper care of patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, the 15 million people who watched Youk die would have learned that the very symptoms he feared most - choking and suffocation - could have been virtually eliminated with proper medical care.

Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is the red flag waved most vigotourly by propagandists for so-called mercy killing. The media predictably rise to the bait because this neurological disorder is devastating, causing progressive debilitation, paralysis and death. But it doesn’t have to be the excruciating death by choking or suffocation that euthanasia activists luridly depict. Given the likelihood that the millions of viewers who watched Kevorkian kill Youk almost certainly included patients with the same disease and their families, it was unconscionably cruel of Wallace to allow Kevorkian’s propaganda to go unchallenged.

One expert Wallace could have interviewed is Dr Walter R Hunter, a medical director of the Hospice of Michigan (located in the county where Kevorkian lives) and chairman of the ethics committee for the National Hospice Organisation. Hunter was appalled at the depiction of Lou Gehrig’s disease presented by 60 Minuutes. "No one with ALS should be allowed to choke," Hunter told me. "We have medications that control secretions substantially. If more is needed, we can teach the patient’s family to use a simple suction device, similar to that used by dentists." But what of suffocation? As the disease destroys the body’s muscular ability, the diaphragm weakens, and it becomes progressively harder for patients to breathe. "A small dose of morphine is a godsend to patients experiencing shortness of breath," Hunter says. And it doesn’t mean consigning the patient to a drug-induced haze. "I recently started a patient with late-stage ALS on morphine," Hunter says. "She is the wife of an anaesthesiologist. He was worried about that and the slowing of her breathing. But once we started with the morphine, he couldn’t believe how comfortable it made her. The key is to find a doctor who is an expert in such care."

Morphine isn’t always necessary to treat breathlessness in patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease. There are other palliatives too, including a machine that forces air up the patient’s nostrils to make breathing easier. According to Hunter and other experts, with proper treatment, no ALS patient should feel that they are suffocating. Nor should they choke. Indeed, the British physician, Dame Cicely Saunders, the creator of the modern hospice movement, has written that she has treated hundreds of patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease and not one of them choked or suffocated to death. Indeed, Hunter says, in the typical progression of the disease, "the body is unable to clear carbon dioxide from the blood. There is a slow build up and the patient sleeps more often. Death comes in the patient’s sleep. It is quiet gentle and painless."

I can vouch for that. It is how my friend Bob died of Lou Gehrig’s disease - peacefully, in his sleep. Bob was my most recent patient at a hospice where I volunteer. Once a week, for about a year and a halt I visited Bob for several hours. During that time, he did begin to feel breathless. To treat his discomfort, he was prescribed the breathing assistance machine, which did not extend his life but eliminated the feeling of suffocation. Toward the end of his life, he also used small doses of morphine. People like Bob are the ostensible beneficiaries of the euthanasia movement. But Bob despised it. I remember his anger in January 1997, after Nightline aired a program about a Rhode Island patient with ALS who was asking for assisted suicide. (He too, would later die naturally and peacefully.) Bob was devastated by the program. He put it to me this way: "They are trying to push me out of the well-lit boulevard into dark alleys. They make me feel like a token presence in the world."

After Bob became ill, he began to write a novel, first by hand and when that became physically, by dictation to a computer. So when he asked me what he should do about the Nightline show, the answer was clear. "You’re a writer," I said. "A writer writes." Bob’s article, "I Don’t Want a Choice to Die," was published in the February 19, 1997, San Francisco Chronicle. "Too many people," he wrote "have accepted the presumption that an extermination of some human lives can be just ... Where has our sense of community gone? True, terminal illness is frightening, but the majority overpower the symptoms and are great contributors to life ... In my view, the pro-euthanasia followers’ posture is a great threat to the foundation on which all life is based. And that is hope. I exhort everyone:

Life is worth living, and life is worth receiving. I know. I live it every day."

Bob, like millions of other disabled and terminally ill people, lived fully and with dignity until his natural death. The facts of their lives and deaths are not far to seek, and are routinely lied about by the likes of Kevorkian. Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes could easily have found that out. But they were apparently too busy congratulating themselves for their supposed journalistic courage to do so.

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Reprinted from Cincinnati Right to Life News, April, 1999

Cardinal O’Connor recently spoke at a major National Conference on the Culture of Life at the Columbus School of Law in Washington. He explained the essence of a directive that was passed overwhelmingly by the American Bishops at their November meeting. It spoke to the consistent ethic of life or Seamless Garnment on various social justice issues. He stressed the primacy of abortion and euthanasia life issues and that they took precedence over other church teachings in the area of social justice. "This is a demon. This is diabolic, what’s happening in our country - the culture of death." The Washington Times reported that the new image in God’s House has abortion and euthanasia as the foundation. The crossbeams and walls are unemployment, racism, housing, health care, etc.. Church Spokeswoman, Helen Alvare’ said that "under previous understanding, lawmakers voting pro-abortion could say ‘We are good on 8 out of 10 issues, so leave us alone.’" She firmly stated, "No longer" The directive from the US Cardinals from the November meeting of US Bishops reads:

"Catholics must address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, education, housing and health care. But being ‘right’ on these can never excuse a wrong choice on issues such as abortion and euthanasia... Catholic public officials who disregard Church teachings on the dignity of the human person are indirectly in collusion in the taking of innocent life. In so doing, they jeopardise their own salvation, erode the Community of Faith and give scandal to the faithful ... Catholic officials who support abortion do so at their own spiritual peril. Abortion is not the only issue voters should consider before voting, but it has to be a major consideration... People don’t really have rights if they’re not alive."

This is real clarification and direction for those people who insist that if a polititian is right on other issues, but wrong on abortion, they can still vote for him. This paper makes the priorities of Catholics very clear. Let’s hope that this gets wide circulation before the next election.

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USA - Justice Blackmun Dies: Justice Blackmun will never be forgotten. He will go down in history as the prime author of the most tragic decision ever made by the US Supreme Court rivalled perhaps only by the Red Scoot decision of 1857. He was the author of the Roe vas Wade and Doe vs Bolton decisions in 1973. We are being reminded that when he was confirmed he stated that he wanted to be remembered for his treatment of the "little people". Well, he holds the prime responsibility for the direct killing of what now is approaching 40 million unborn little people. May God have mercy on his soul.

England Birth Defects from Prostaglandin: According to a report in the Lancet (a British medical journal), illegal use of the oral Prostaglandin Cytotec (Misoprostol) to induce abortions in South and Central America is taking its toll. It is leaving surviving babies with "congenital defects of the limbs, digits and nervous system". Dr Caludette Gonzalez of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, examined 42 infants born with congenital defects. Their mothers had attempted abortions by taking the cytotec drug during the first trimester. This drug causes uterine contractions which can interfere with the blood supply to the developing baby. It is also the second drug used with RU 486 and Methotrexate. Both of these primary abortive drugs can cause fetal deformity if the child is carried to term. Since the cytotec drug is used to follow up with the administration of RU 486 and Methotrexate, we can say that there is a double threat to normal development of a child in the event an abortion is not produced.

Russian Couples Sterile: Russia’s Deputy Health Minister, Tatiana Stukolova, is quoted by Tass News Agency as saying that between 15% and 20% of Russian couples cannot have children. "In more than half the cases, this sterility is due to abortions carried out too early on the woman."

USA -AMA President- Euthanasia: Dr Nancy Dickey, President of the American Medical Association, spoke recently at the annual Respect Life Conference for the Diocese of Austin. She stated that euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are not only bad for the patient but are also bad for the physician: "We believe it is not our job to decide which life to shorten". The AMA opposes both practices.

USA - ACRU Verses ACLU: Several prominent prolifers have recently formed the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) to counterbalance the fiercely pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union. Judge Robert Bork & former Attorney-General Edwin Meese are among the founders. Mr Meese said, "This is needed to look out for all the civil rights contained in the Constitution rather than selected defence of certain rights based on a liberal political bias".

Dutch Anti-Euthanasia Cards: All Netherlands prolifers know that euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands for almost two decades through judge-made law. Now the newly elected Dutch government is pressing ahead with a proposal to legalise "assisted suicide" by doctors in a formal law. Of the roughly 130,000 Dutch people who die every year in the Netherlands, it has been estimated that about 25,000 die through direct or indirect euthanasia. One-fourth of the practicing physicians in Holland report that they have ended a patient’s life without his or her specific request.

from International Right to Life Federation Newsletter, Dec/Jan 1998/99.

 

El Salvador’s Victory: A year ago the El Salvador parliament reformed their criminal code. This removed all exceptions that would have allowed abortion for any reason. They also passed the first step in a two step process to amend their constitution. The change would protect life from conception. The second step was approval by their parliament by a 2/3 vote. That vote came in February and received an overwhelming approval, 72-8. The new constitutional provision recognises, "the human person as a human being from the instant of conception". Julia Regina de Cardenal, prolife leader in El Salvador has called this a miracle.

Germany Rejects BioEthics convention: The German Justice Minister, Edzard Schmidt-Jorzig, has demanded that the Convention on Human Rights & Biomedicine not be signed. The chief criticism is that research on the mentally incapacitated which is not for their benefit, is unethical. The judiciary "rejects research on embryos unreservedly".

The Central Ethical Committee of the German Medical Association has also declared a moratorium on the use of fetal brains for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. Why is it that the Germans, of all West Europe, adamantly oppose recent trends on human research? It should be obvious. They have been there once before - and remember what happened under the Nazis. They will not be a part of its being repeated.

USA - Lincon for President? We wonder when Abraham Lincon was running for President, how many people said, "that Lincoln fellow, he’s a single issue candidate. All he ever talks about is slavery. What about the really important issues like financing new railroads to the west, or the instabi1ity of cotton prices?

USA - Spina Bifida Treated: There is a possibility that spina bifida, in the future, could be treated while still in the womb, according to an article in the American Journal of Ob-Gyn (1-99, PP.153-158). The new treatment now being researched involves the use of endoscopic surgery inside of the womb, which covers the spinal lesion. Let’s hope it works.

USAID Again: Dr Mary Meaney has written about a recent trip to Kenya. While there, she found a sick Kenyan woman laying by the side of the road. Alarmed, she and her companions drove this woman to the nearest government hospital, which was 5 hours away by cart There was no doctor there. In the pharmacy there were "no gloves, no syringes, no vitamins no basic medical supplies but there were 75,000 condoms from the US Agency for international Development (USAID).