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I was watching an episode of the old TV show, Little House on the Prairie, with my friend and her daughters the other day. Jack, the dog, had been bitten (they thought) by a rabid raccoon. Pa headed out back with his shotgun to kill Jack, once he confirmed that the dog was rabid.
The girls hid their faces in fear—and thankfully it was a false alarm and all was well on the prairie again—but I found myself needing to explain why you would shoot an animal if it is suffering:
Exciting news from Illinois: We will no longer be the dumping ground of the Midwest for underage girls seeking abortions. As of today, the 1995 Parental Notification Act will begin to be enforced.
Obviously it leaves something to be desired—what with the judicial bypass, allowing grandparents to sign off on the abortion, and the fact that it simply requires notification of her parents (rather than their consent)—but it’s sure better than a 15 year old girl getting an abortion no questions asked like it was in the past. Now 35 states have parental notification or consent laws—let’s push for 50!
A nurse from New York City is suing Mt. Sinai Hospital for forcing her to assist in the performance of a late term abortion in May. When she found out she was scheduled to be involved with the abortion, she immediately asked to be reassigned.
Although they had six hours to find a replacement, they told her she must participate in this “life saving abortion” or she’d lose her job. Which raises the question-who schedules an emergency “life saving procedure” more than six hours in advance? None of the articles I’ve seen have addressed this question.
With my birthday coming up (don’t worry, you don’t have to buy me a present), I need to get my driver’s license renewed. Several years ago I marked on my license that I would like to be an organ donor, not realizing that would not be dead yet when they came to take my liver out.
Now that I know the difference between actual death and so-called “brain death” (when your brainwaves stop, but your heart is still beating) there’s no way I’d let them have my organs! So I’ve been planning to mark “no” on my license instead.
Eluana Englaro, Italy’s Terri Schiavo, died on Monday after being starved to death for only four days. Other deaths by starvation, like Terri’s death, are typically drawn out over two weeks, so many are questioning why she died so quickly. Was she being deprived of fluids before the official starvation began? Or did her body simply give out?
Eluana was in what they call a “minimally conscious state” after a skiing accident in 1998. Wesley J. Smith, of an American bioethics watchdog group, said Eluana’s father—the one who was pushing for the euthanasia—told the courts “she did not want to be maintained in such a condition.” He goes on to question whether casual statements made without any knowledge should really given the force of law. Death by starvation is horrible, painful, and slow. It’s one of the methods Hitler used in his concentration camps. That ought to be reason enough to ban it.
I would like to ask for your prayers for two priests in the diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Being a priest is such a hard job to begin with. Then, instead of taking the easy path and only preaching homilies on “safe” topics, these two priests spoke about abortion.
From the category of “better late than never,” I want to draw attention to the organ donation controversy that has been in the news on and off for the last month.
Two well known physicians in the field of organ donation, Drs. Troug and Miller, published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine contesting the current “brain death” standard used in organ donations. According to LifeNews.com:
The authors claim that patients brain dead may not really be dead, since, as one example, some patients declared dead by neurological criteria secrete certain hormones. [Continue reading ...]
We’ll be doing our first 2005 Truth Tour on Wednesday, March 23. Call our Holy Week Action News later that day. We will be at Madison and Wacker Drive from 7:30 to 9 a.m. and at the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Join us and get your Holy Week off to a good start by showing Christ’s little ones and praying for Terri Schiavo, and by being mocked, cursed and spit upon. You’ll love it.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Happy St. Joseph’s Day, and Happy Palm Sunday.
While the whole pro-life, Christian nation is praying for Terri Schiavo, to be granted a stay of execution, former Democrat nominee for President John Kerry was putting out a emergency plea to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
LifeSiteNews reports about a new article in the bioethics journal The Hastings Center Report:
In 2005 the world was horrified when it was revealed that in the Netherlands doctors were not only openly admitting that they had killed disabled newborn infants, but that the medical institution was actively promoting child euthanasia through the so-called Groningen Protocol. [Continue reading ...]