ON
LIFE ISSUES #2
Doctors Say Partial-Birth Abortion Not Necessary and Unsafe.
This week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association features articles on late-term abortion that editor Dr. George
Lundberg notes are sure to be controversial. All address partial-birth
abortion. Two are point-counterpoints, and one is "a scientific discourse
with abundant references." Lundberg writes: "We anticipate a flood of
protests from many points of view on this issue. Nonetheless, we believed
it important for JAMA to serve again as a forum for responsible discussion
and debate on even this troubling and divisive issue" (JAMA, 8/26 issue).
In "Rationale for Banning Abortions Late in Pregnancy," Dr. M.
LeRoy Sprang of Northwestern University Medical School and Dr. Mark
Neerhof of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, argue that partial-birth
abortion is unsafe for pregnant women, painful for unborn children and
unethical because of questions about fetal viability. They also note that
"[a]n extraordinary medical consensus has emerged that [partial-birth
abortion] is neither necessary nor the safest method for late-term
abortion."
The authors note that in its policy statement on partial-birth
abortion, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said it
"could identify no circumstances under which this procedure ... would be
the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." In
ddition, the American Medical Association backed federal legislation to
ban the abortion procedure. Public opinion and state Legislatures also
back banning the procedure, the authors note.
They conclude: partial-birth abortion "should not be performed
because it is needlessly risky, inhumane, and ethically unacceptable. This
procedure is closer to infanticide than it is to abortion."
(Sprang/Neerhof, JAMA, 8/26 issue).
Pro-Life Group Opposes Australian Euthanasia Clinic
Melbourne, Australia -- A proposal to set up a euthanasia clinic in
Melbourne's eastern suburbs should be subject to strict government
scrutiny, the Right to Life lobby group said today.
Right to Life Victoria president Margaret Tighe said euthanasia campaigner
Phillip Nitschke was thumbing his nose at the law on homicide by planning
to establish a clinic in Doncaster in Melbourne's east.
"Dr Nitschke believes he will be allowed to do as he pleases at his
'death' clinic because of the public statements supporting euthanasia on
the part of the Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett," Tighe said in a
statement.
She said Dr Bertram Wainer established an abortion facility in East
Melbourne and challenged the Victorian government to close him down.
"Because of the sympathy on the part of then premier Rupert Hamer for
legalised abortion, no action was taken and the Wainer clinic flourishes
still today," Tighe said. "Will this be a case of history repeating
itself?"
She said the question now was how the Victorian government would react to
Nitschke's proposal. Nitschke, the doctor who spearheaded the Northern
Territory's now defunct euthanasia legislation, said yesterday he would
open rooms in Melbourne to give advice to terminally ill patients.
Nitschke said he would not be performing euthanasia or prescribing lethal
doses of narcotics. "That would be construed as assisting in a suicide and
the legal risks there are severe," he said.
"But I can give them information, I can direct them towards the
fast-diminishing sources of the necessary drugs ... illegal sources and
black market sources."
Nitschke said he would travel to the Netherlands shortly to assess their
euthanasia operations and on return planned to open a clinic in Doncaster.
Australian Medical Association Victorian president Dr Gerald Segal said
what Nitschke planned was "unethical" and against AMA and world medical
association policy. "Euthanasia is illegal in Victoria," he said.
"He (Nitschke) will find himself in huge strife."
Segal said euthanasia advice was unnecessary. "I've had a lot of
experience with palliative care and I have always been able to alleviate
pain in my patients," he said. -- AAP
Is Steve Forbes Coming Around on Right to Life?
Republican presidential hopeful Steve Forbes declared that if
elected in 2000, "he would sign a law banning abortion before he signed a
bill introducing a flat income tax," in an effort to win support from
pro-life supporters.
The Washington Post reported that Forbes "adopted the tough
abortion stance" during a speech at the Christian Coalition's "Road to
Victory" conference last weekend. during his speech, Forbes asserted his
belief that "life begins at conception and ends only at natural death."
Forbes did not make the abortion issue a prominent one during his
1996 primary campaign, and consequently did not win the backing of right
to life supporters, whose support is rightly perceived as crucial for a
White House win in 2000.
The Post reported that some pro-life leaders are "seeking
an early consensus on one presidential candidate to avoid what some
strategists call 'getting Doled,' a reference" to 1996 Republican
presidential candidate Bob Dole, "who was not a favorite of many religious
conservatives" and who won over several candidates favored by various
pro-life leaders and organizations (Edsell, Washington Post, 9/20).
President of Texas Right to Life Responds to New York Times Magazine
Questions raised about Texas Governor George W. Bush by national Pro-Life
leaders in regard to the sincerity of his commitment to the Pro-Life cause
have a familiar ring. The same questions were raised early in the
campaigns of Ronald Reagan and of the other George Bush. Both became
heroes of the Pro-Life movement upon election.
When national columnists began to speculate that George W. Bush
would distance himself from Pro-Lifers and Christian conservatives in
order to advance his Presidential aspirations, Governor Bush called a
meeting of Pro-Life leaders last year to announce that such a move was
furthest from his intention precisely because his heart is with the
Pro-Life cause.
But actions speak louder than words. At the end of the last session of
the Texas Legislature, Governor Bush stood against powerful forces in the
state and vetoed legislation that would have allowed a physician to deny
life-saving treatment to a patient requesting it - even if the patient's
death should result. This veto action was taken at the specific request
of the Texas Right to Life Committee.
In the same session, Governor Bush aggressively lobbied for the passage of
substantial Pro-Life legislation. His efforts failed because there was
simply not enough Pro-Life support in the seated legislature. The
Governor is currently advocating parental consent legislation and is
committed to working actively for passage of all Pro-Life bills in the
upcoming 76TH Texas Legislative session next January. Governor Bush
refers to himself as the most Pro-Life Governor the state of Texas has
ever had. His words and actions give ringing proof of the claim. And he
sure beats Ann Richards.
Joseph M. Graham, Ph.D.
The Texas Right to Life Committee, Inc., President
Send comments or question on this article to: TXRTLife@aol.com
Doctors' group opposes Michigan assisted suicide proposal
LANSING -- A nationwide Christian medical group is planning a speaking
tour to fight the ballot measure that would legalize assisted suicide in
Michigan. Dr. David Stevens, a Tennessee physician who heads the
Christian Medical and Dental Society, is visiting seven Michigan cities
this week.
"We now have advanced pain control technology which provides excellent
alternatives to suicide," Stevens said. "We need to be teaching doctors
how to provide quality end-of-life care, not abandoning terminally ill
patients in their most critical time of need." Allen Harmer, a spokesman
for the Tennessee-based medical society, said Stevens' tour will educate
voters about Proposal B, the ballot measure which would legalize assisted
suicide in Michigan. A statewide vote is scheduled for Nov. 3.
"We're not a lobbying organization ... but we're committed to the truth,
from expert testimony on partial birth abortion to bringing the truth on
physician-assisted suicide to the voters of Michigan," Harmer said.
Harmer said the group made a similar effort in Oregon, where a measure
legalizing assisted suicide went into effect last November. "I think our
lack of success in Oregon was due to the complacency of voters. A lot of
people were opposed to it, but they were not getting out to vote," Harmer
said.
Brian Willats, a spokesman for the Lansing-based Michigan Family Forum,
said his group is supporting the tour but not paying for it. Stevens is
speaking on a voluntary basis, Willats said. Willats said many of the
speeches will be held at medical schools because Proposal B will force
physicians to decide whether or not to aid suicides. "Physicians used to
be healers. Now they can be a healer or a killer, you're not going to be
exactly sure," he said. Willats said the Michigan vote is an extremely
important one. "Oregon's kind of in its own little world," he said. "But
when you've got Midwestern, mainstream Michigan saying yes to assisted
suicide, you realize that this is becoming more of a national issue."
Stevens visited Detroit and Southfield on Wednesday, Ann Arbor and East
Lansing today and Holland, Muskegon and Grand Rapids on Friday.
Physicist Plans To Clone Himself.
BOSTON -- A physicist with three Harvard degrees but no medical license
said he is ready to begin the first step toward immortality: he will clone
himself. Richard Seed, who provoked controversy earlier this year by
announcing plans to clone humans, said that the first person he will try
to copy will be himself, The Boston Globe reported Sunday.
Seed said his wife, Gloria, has agreed to carry an embryo that would be
created by combining the nucleus of one of his cells with a donor egg, the
newspaper said.
``I have decided to clone myself first to defuse the criticism that I'm
taking advantage of desperate women with a procedure that's not proven,''
the 69-year-old physicist said Saturday at a meeting of the Association
for Politics and the Life Sciences, a group of academic researchers.
Seed declined to give his wife's age, but described her as
``post-menopausal.'' He refused to give details of how the pregnancy would
work.
The Chicago scientist has three Harvard degrees, including a Ph.D., but no
medical degree, no money and no institutional backing. He has vowed to
produce a pregnancy with a human clone within 2 1/2 years.
Cloning would be the first step in discovering immortality, Seed said
Saturday during his talk. He also said he has received hundreds of calls,
including many from parents of dying children who want to clone them.
People at the conference said cloning could be used to produce a child for
an infertile couple, to replace a dead child or to produce a child who
could donate bone marrow or other vital tissue to a sick family member.
Two states, California and Michigan, have outlawed human cloning and
dozens of other states are considering bans. A five-year moratorium on
cloning is apparently being observed by mainstream scientists, but
Congress has failed to act on legislation to outlaw the procedure.
Seed has said that if Congress bans cloning, he will move his operation to
Tijuana, Mexico.
Kevorkian For Governor? No, just his lawyer, who thinks just like he does!
Pro-Choice Extremist,
by Mona Charen
Until now, Geoffrey Fieger was known primarily as the lawyer who kept Dr.
Jack Kevorkian out of jail, but the voters of Michigan have just handed
him the Democratic nomination for governor.
You mean you haven't heard non-stop coverage about a pro-choice extremist
receiving the blessing of a major party? No calls for party regulars to
distance themselves from this candidate? Strange. You would have if the
tables were turned -- if the Republicans were to nominate someone who
favored, say, shooting abortionists.
Fieger (pronounced like tiger) was more than Kevorkian's lawyer. The two
are soulmates -- though in a flash of insight, Fieger once told an
interviewer that he had quite a time of it keeping from the public what a
complete "lunatic" Kevorkian really is.
He hasn't succeeded. The most famous client of the Democratic nominee for
governor of Michigan has now helped kill more than 100 people, only 20 of
whom were terminally ill. As he wrote in his 1991 book "Prescription:
Medicide," Kevorkian has long believed in harvesting organs from "assisted
suicide" patients, death-row inmates, the mentally incompetent and other
undesirables. Though Fieger has attempted to paint Kevorkian as a
humanitarian, his client's ghoulish obsession with death and mutilation
surfaces again and again.
Last spring, as reported in The Weekly Standard, the body of a man was
left at a Michigan hospital. In his back were two gaping holes from which
the kidneys had been removed. Whoever did the job had not even bothered to
remove the victim's clothes -- but had simply pushed them out of the way.
The blood vessels were crudely off tied with twine.
The body belonged to Joseph Tushkowski. The mutilator was Jack Kevorkian.
It's no surprise. He had written many years before that the "voluntary
self-elimination of individual and mortally diseased or crippled lives,
taken collectively, can only enhance the preservation of public health and
welfare."
While Kevorkian fantasizes about doing away with thousands of undesirables
at one fell swoop, Fieger does his best to insult those Kevorkian misses.
He called Adam Cardinal Maida, the Catholic archbishop of Detroit, a
"nut," likened the Council of Orthodox Rabbis of Greater Detroit to Nazis
for opposing assisted suicide ("they're closer to Nazis than they think
... Orthodox Jews are not different than the right-wing Christian nuts")
and speculated that Gov. John Engler's triplet daughters are not his own.
"Unless they have corkscrew tails, those are not his kids," said Fieger.
As a tag team for assisted suicide, these two are perhaps the worst
possible salesmen. Kevorkian is a fiend, and Fieger is a lout who has yet
to meet the man he can't offend.
Geoffrey Fieger's other views.
Here's Fieger on drug policy: "What's the difference if we just let people
do as many drugs as they want, crawl into a hole and die. ... If you put
them in jail, another one pops up." (Detroit Free Press, October 1996)
He accuses Engler of racial bigotry. The evidence? Engler favors testing
welfare mothers for drugs. Now watch this reasoning: "Implicitly (Engler
is) making a reference to African Americans even though most welfare
recipients are white."
Wait, it gets better. Fieger has also accused Engler of religious bigotry
because the governor's office circulated news reports of Fieger's
statements about Jesus Christ: "Do you think the Roman soldiers thought he
was the Son of God or just some goofball who got nailed to the cross? ...
In 2000 years, we've probably made somebody who is the equivalent of Elvis
into God, so I see no reason why not to believe that in 2000 years Elvis
will be God."
As for the rest of the human race, Fieger is not exactly enthusiastic.
"You couldn't develop a virus that kills as many people as we do and
destroys as many things as we do. We're just a pestilence with
appendages."
Perhaps he is speaking for himself.
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