Must Read: Stephen's Post at Not Dead Yet.

What is this term disability? And how does it's flippant, inaccurate or egregious use affect the rights of the disabled?

Read Stephen's post at Not Dead Yet. I'm delighted to find that he and I have much more in common than our escalated and un-nuanced online spats have yet determined.

Here are two good clips. He's writing about the call by the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation for disability groups to rise up in support of their boycott of The Family Guy show on Fox for its disrespectful and tasteless skit about Terri Schiavo (on the eve of the 5th anniversary of her death, March 31):

Predictably, the Schindler family reacted. I guess I don't blame them. But in a press release they included this:

The Foundation is calling on all disability rights organizations and pro-life organizations to join us in admonishing the producers and writers of The Family Guy.

To my knowledge, no disability rights organization, including NDY, has chosen to join them.

This hasn't gone unnoticed by June Maxam at North Country Gazette. In her article "Where Are They Now?" Maxam lists the national disability groups that were involved in fighting the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. She then suggests that the "silence" from the disability community on "Family Guy" is "condoning and advancing the prejudice, bigotry and hatred of the disabled."

The fact is, we're busy with real crises - and the "Family Guy" skit doesn't come close to being a "crisis." NDY is directly involved with coalitions opposing assisted suicide and euthanasia in 4 states, active in a major "futile care" case in one other, involved with a developing court challenge over guardianship limits in another state, providing technical assistance to disability advocates on state legislation, and monitoring the media for grossly inaccurate reporting on the Final Exit Network and individual homicides of people with disabilities. On top of that, we are working with other national disability groups on other disability rights issues through a national network of advocacy organizations that are run by people with disabilities. The majority of our work isn't that visible -we're seeking change, not headlines.

SNIP

Speaking of disability advocacy, tomorrow the Family Research Council is hosting a panel on Terri Schiavo's death. Bobby Schindler is on the program, which describes him as follows:

Robert Schindler, brother of Terri; full-time pro-life and disability rights advocate

I'm sure the Family Research Council loves the conflation of disability rights and "pro-life." That's one thing they have in common with prominent "lefty" bioethicists. No one in the actual disability rights community appreciates it, though. And we don't appreciate the description of Bobby Schindler as a disability rights advocate.

During the fight to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, the Schindlers showed little understanding of disability rights - or of the potential importance of the involvement of national disability rights organizations in the debate. Surrounded by their prominent prolife supporters, they almost never mentioned the disability rights organizations supporting the struggle to save her life. If they'd made a habit of mentioning that, it would have been harder for news organizations - Fox, MSNBC, CNN, the networks, etc. to pretend this was all just one more battle in the "culture wars." Unfortunately, framing the fight in terms of the culture wars suited "handlers" like Father Frank Pavone and Randall Terry just fine.

I wish I could say that I have any evidence that the Schindlers have any better understanding of the disability rights community and disability rights issues today than they did back then. I don't. They are not involved in any of the battles mentioned above - and play almost exclusively to Christian Conservative audiences.

Catholic Health Care: A Rare Success Story.

I write a lot about the discrimination in Catholic hospitals, enforced by the Church's Ethical and Religious Directives that prevent women, gays, and elders from receiving certain health care services.

Here's a little success story that came my way today from a friend out West:

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker announced that the church will no longer officially sponsor St. Charles of Bend. The hospital serves about a quarter of a million people in central Oregon. To be considered Catholic it had to adhere to a list of guidelines. Bishop Vasa says the hospital was openly breaking guideline number 53 by providing a form of sterilization called tubal ligation. Several hundred women underwent the procedure each year.

Vasa: "The issue of sterilization because it was so prominent and prevalent at the hospital was one that they deemed they could not alter and I deemed I could not accept."

A spokesperson for the hospital says St. Charles is the only hospital serving Bend and the surrounding rural community. So board members felt they needed to provide the procedure. St. Charles did not receive any funding through the Catholic church, but Catholic Mass will no longer take place at the hospital. The cross on top of the building will remain.

Got that? A Catholic bishop told a "Catholic" hospital where to go because it continued to perform tubal ligations.

This is a success story for two reasons: 1. Women in that area, where St. Charles is a sole provider of health care services, can still access the medically-sound, legal tubal ligation procedure; and 2. What does the hospital lose? Nothing! The Catholic church provides no funding.

But my follow-up to that second point is more measured: If the Catholic church offers hospitals under it's control no benefits, why would hospitals remain affiliated with the church? Reputation in a community? Tradition? Faith?

This is the larger, more important question we should be having with regard to patients' rights and Catholic health care. If you've got an answer, let me know.

Expanding the "Pro-Life" Tent.

Some in the "pro-life" camp are realizing that their greatest vulnerability is to be seen as a conservative, Christian movement. If the strong case could be made that opposition to abortion and other reproductive rights is religious in nature, they fear that the courts could use Establishment Clause and "separation of church and state" reasoning to liberate women from traditional ideas that sex must be tied to reproduction.

At The American Catholic, contributor Eric Brown, an athiest homosexual turned chaste Catholic who works for Texas Right to Life, wrote a post yesterday that argues that the pro-life movement has got to welcome non-religious "pro-life" groups into the Republican "pro-life" tent. He recommends extending the flaps to include "pro-life" Democrats and others who base their opposition to reproductive freedom on "non-relgious" reasoning. Brown writes:

This misconception [that opposition to abortion is primarily religious and Republican], a barrier to progress, in my view, can and must be eradicated. The pro-life movement is not as monolithic as people assume or even as much as its visible leaders state that it is. Feminists for Life is a non-sectarian, non-partisan organization of Americans who believe that abortion is a symptom of a social failure to meet the needs of women (“Refuse to Choose: Women Deserve Better Than Abortion” and “Peace Begins In The Womb” are their principal slogans). The pro-life feminist perspective is contrary to that of the stereotypical assumption that the pro-life position is pit against women’s rights.

He goes on to list a number of organizations that have been founded outside the "monolithic" movement, including ProLife Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, Secular Pro-Life, Pro-Life League of Athiests and Agnostics, and Not Dead Yet, a disability group that opposes aid in dying. That these groups perplex the public as much as they do the traditional opponents of women's rights is no surprise. (And comments on the site show that these organizations lack acceptance among traditional "pro-lifers.")

From the other side of the fence - and as a woman who has always understood that my independence and equality are reliant on my autonomous decision of when to have children - I find that Brown's argument is disingenuous (beware of a Catholic trying to make a secular argument!) and that his fear of the "pro-life" movement being seen solely as religious is apt but underutilized by women's groups.

Though Roe v Wade was decided on issues of privacy, women have repeatedly called for their rights of conscience and autonomy to be honored without religious discrimination. Opposition to abortion, they say, is primarily religious: a desire to prevent women from choosing when they have children because that's God's job. But they have never done so successfully.

The courts have shied away from using the Establishment clause and "separation of church and state" in their rulings on reproductive freedom and have failed to establish precedent that rightly assigns ideas of "traditional" family, sex, and reproduction to religious influence. In other words, the court has decided to make decisions about women's autonomy on the wrong grounds.

Nor has the case been strongly made to the public that "pro-life" groups are working to legislatively impose their doctrine on all of our pluralistic society. I write all the time about doctrinal medicine, yet readers often take me to task for not giving the good that church organizations do appropriate reverence. My position is often decried as anti-religion - which is not true.

As a society, we respect our traditional churches. And we look to them for moral guidance, even when their answers are archaic and discriminatory. This public sentiment has allowed the courts to avoid Establishment issues when addressing women's reproductive rights - or patients' rights on the whole. And it has shielded "pro-life" groups from owning up to their true intentions.

Chris Brown should relax. Conservative think-tanks, the Medical Right and the Legal Right have his back. They are cranking out papers that work to prove opposition to abortion is not religious, they are lobbying to assert "traditional" values on all of society, they are well-funded and organized. And when they eschew God talk and stick to fear-mongering about the downfall of society, they keep the public and the courts on their side.

However Brown wants to couch his arguments, the Right has successfully framed the fight for abortion and patients' rights as one of shameful greed, selfishness and immorality. He should enjoy the fact that abortion is still shamed, that young women have been abandoned, that elders are denied their last wishes at hospitals across the country, that health care delivery is biased and discriminatory, that poor women can't access birth control and are forced into pregnancy. For 37 years, society and the courts have allowed such injustice.

Chris Brown and the "pro-life" movement are highly motivated by their desire to end all reproductive choice for women and they will continue to evolve and adapt their strategies. Women and patients, however, have settled for taking whatever compromises they can get.

Op-Ed on CBS "Pro-Life" Superbowl Ad.

Catch the Op-Ed in tomorrow's Washington Post by Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman about the CBS decision to break with corporate policy to run a "pro-life" commercial, paid for by Focus on the Family, during the Superbowl.

Kissling and Michelman, without drama, address issues of free speech, religious tolerance, and individual conscience:

Those opposed to legal abortions have learned a lot about reaching out to the many Americans who can't make up their minds about the issue. Many of these people don't want abortion to be illegal but believe that too many such procedures take place in this country. Conservative groups, such as Focus on the Family, have gotten that message. They know to save the fire and brimstone for their hardcore base; for Super Bowl Sunday, you appeal to people's hearts with a smiling baby -- or Tim Tebow and his mom. Presenting Americans with a challenge of personal sacrifice, especially if the person who has to sacrifice is a woman, is a convincing sell.

Women's and choice groups responding to the Tebow ad should take a page from the Focus on the Family playbook. Erin Matson, the National Organization for Women's new vice president, called the Tebow spot "hate masquerading as love." That kind of comment may play well in the choice choir, but to others, it makes no sense, at best; at worst, it's seen as the kind of stridency that reinforces the view that pro-choice simply means pro-abortion.

We have seen a dramatic shift in attitudes toward "pro-life" and "pro-choice." In 1995 Gallup asked respondents for the first time whether they considered themselves "to be pro-choice or pro-life." Only 33 percent took on the pro-life label. In 2009, 51 percent considered themselves pro-life, and pro-choice had dropped from a high of 56 percent to 44 percent.

Martin Amis and the Silver Tsunami.

British author Martin Amis is taking it from all sides for suggesting that there should be euthanasia booths on street corners for the impending "silver tsunami" of feeble seniors. The Guardian article is here.

George Pitcher at the Telegraph rightly Amis the slightest shadow of his father and says he may cause damage to the aid in dying movement.

From the tcot-ers at Common American Journal - comes fear that the elites are working to engineer population numbers.

From Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, paternalizing Schadenberg once again fails to see more nuance in the discussion than simple "culture of death" hatred for the elderly.

He suspects Amis may be kidding, trying to promote his latest book, or simply represents all the rest of the blood-thirsty in society who can't wait to knock off our "useless and disrespected" elders.

Egads! At least Amis-the-younger showed how little a sense of humor or proportion both the Antis and the Pros tend to have: the former just 'cause it's their demeanor and they have an entire population to scare with hyperbole; and the latter cause they can't afford the damage a wrongly-placed or too-bold-faced joke or fact will do them.

If Amis is the great commentator on modern culture he has been hailed as, at least with this issue he earns his keep. His simple comments, some absurd, some colorful, some realistic, about aid in dying, euthanasia, assisted suicide - call it what you will - cut through the pastel-colored, soft-voiced, hallmark-esque culture that surrounds the aid in dying discussion.

We're all going to die, he says. Some of us would like the rather practical choice of how to do so rather than be hooked up and strung out for one segment of the populations' gooey adoration and fawning. Give patients choice. Uh, that is what personal rights are all about after all.

And he expectedly draws the "end times," "elder abuse," claims that opponents leverage to reduce seniors to incapable children, fearful for their lives, and unable to make their own medical decisions.

Pro-life groups have done it with women for - ok, forever. Take that "silver tsunami." Your turn.

(Which brings me to the point I'm always making: get the elder's rights folks and the women's rights folks together to fight not only the horrors of pastel leaflets! but the religious efforts to impose doctrinal medicine on patients, ah, could be liberating. Makes sense. Can't be worse than what either group is getting so far on its own.)

Rogue OB/GYNs.

At HuffPo Bioethicist Jacob Appel summarizes the Florida case of a pregnant woman who was held in confinement against her wishes - by her doctor:

The facts as reported are strikingly straightforward. Burton, a married mother of two toddlers, contacted her obstetrician in March 2009–during her twenty-fifth week of pregnancy–when she became concerned that she might be going into premature labor. The obstetrician advised her to report to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. While at the hospital, it became apparent that Burton was not going into labor. However, Dr. Bures-Forsthoefel recommended up to fifteen weeks of bed rest for her patient. When Burton explained that she had two children at home and a job, and that full bed rest was not a viable option for her, Bures-Forsthoefel ordered her confined to a hospital room to protect the health of her fetus. The hospital and Bures-Forsthoefel then obtained an order from the Circuit Court of Leon County that mandated Burton remain in bed for the duration of her pregnancy (eg. up to fifteen weeks) and to undergo “all medical treatments” that her physicians believed were in the fetal interest. Burton was denied any opportunity to obtain a second opinion at another hospital. She was effectively held prisoner in her room for three days, at which point an emergency C-section revealed a dead fetus.

Is this where we are in the US? Women are seen as dangers to their unborn fetuses? Their individual rights can be denied if they are pregnant and a rogue doctor decides to place the rights of the fetus above those of the mother? Informed consent is meaningless? A woman's medical decisions are not hers to make but the public's and the medical professions?

At first this story is shocking. And yet, the attitude that women are unable to make sound decisions about their own fertility is old as can be. Witness the lines outside reproductive care clinics where "pro-life" activists have planted themselves to shame women, to treat them as non-persons without rights to their own bodies. Note the laws in this country that paternalize women by requiring they look at ultrasounds of a fetus before having an abortion - as if they are unaware of the workings of their own body, treated as ignorants who must be told their responsibilities, shamed by a segment of culture that works to reduce women to one sole purpose, child-bearing.

Note the laws that discriminate against women by allowing pharmacists to deny them contraception - because the pharmacist deems their own judgement above that of the woman. Count the hospitals in the US where the Catholic Church decides when a woman will be pregnant, how many children she will have, and how. From Hyde to Church to Coats to Weldon to the Bush provider refusal laws, women, particularly the poor and minority, are continually subject to the sanctions of the self-righteous - those who think they know what is best for her. Doctors, medical schools, medical professions are all taught that their decisions - based on their "conscience" are more important than those of the woman whose body is in question.

In the article, Appel note the damage to the medical profession by these rogue actors who assert their religious beliefs on women. And he recommends to all women that they have a serious talk with their OB/GYN about his or her beliefs early in their relationship:

Pregnant women and those planning pregnancies should also take away a lesson from the Samantha Burton tragedy. Ask your obstetrician directly: Is there any circumstance under which you will refuse to let me make my own medical decisions or will prevent me from leaving the hospital? That is a question no woman should ever have to ask her doctor. Unfortunately, as long as rogue OBGYNs continue to impose their values upon unsuspecting patients, it is a prudent question to ask.

We should all thank Burton for having the strength of her convictions and rights to stand up to doctors and judges who find themselves superior enough to assert their will on another's rights.

The Medical Right.

A fantastic article about the medical right, by Kathryn Tucker (wicked smart legal counsel for Compassion & Choices, end of life rights group) at the Journal of Legal Medicine. While her work is on religious imposition on patients' rights at the end of life, her logic and rationale apply directly to women's reproductive rights - indeed to all patients' rights. A quick clip: Medical Right organizations are delving ever more deeply into activism, policy promotion, and politics. They are expanding the range of issues they work on, forming new organizations, and consciously taking front and center roles in media and legal debates. The RCRC Report points out that the Medical Right has created a virtual “shadow medical establishment.” [FN8] Unlike *498 professional societies that represent physicians and other health care providers, medical schools, and teaching hospitals, most of the Medical Right groups are relat- ively unknown because they act outside of the normal channels of medical policy and practice. Evidence of the shadow medical establishment can be found in legislatures, the courts, and obscure profes- sional societies and journals. The goal is to establish an alternative body of medical fact to validate beliefs of the Christian Right and thereby advance its political agenda. Want proof that she strikes a cord? Here's Wesley J. Smith, everyones favorite "pro-life" patriot and Discovery Institute fellow, going wacko over Tucker's article, conscience clauses, informed consent and referrals. I know I've been banging the Establishment drum pretty hard lately but it is the drum that the Religious Right, the Medical Right - and if I may, the Legal Right - fear the most.

Implications of Citizens United Ruling for Roe.

A scary report from Politico that asks whether the current Supreme Court, so ready to throw decades-old precedent out the window for corporations, will toss Roe v Wade next:

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday overturning a ban on corporate political spending that had been in place for more than a century has left abortion-rights supporters jittery that the justices could be similarly prepared to upend the landmark Roe v. Wade decision the court handed down 37 years ago this week.

“Yesterday’s Roberts court decision, which exhibited a stunning disregard for settled law of decades’ standing, is terrifying to those of us who care deeply about the Constitutional protections the court put in place for women’s access to abortion,” said Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We are deeply concerned….Yesterday’s decision shows the court will reach out to take an opportunity to wholesale reverse a precedent the hard right has never liked.”

“It is worrisome beyond the direct impact of yesterday’s ruling on election law,” said, Jessica Arons, the director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress. “It’s certainly cause for concern.”

The court’s 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case Thursday declared unconstitutional a law which has been in place since 1907 barring corporations from involvement in federal elections. Just six years ago, the Supreme Court called the longstanding ban “firmly embedded in our law.” Now, it’s gone.

RIP Ruth Proskauer-Smith.

She co-founded NARAL. She worked tirelessly for end of life rights. She lived 102 years.

From Compassion & Choices president Barbara Coombs Lee:

Ruth Proskauer Smith, a friend and an activist for individual autonomy, died last night, closing her life in the manner she had wished for, planned for and devoted her life to securing as her right.

When I met Ruth in 1996, she was already an icon in the movement for freedom of choice at the end-of-life. She had a long list of accomplishments behind her. But she was not happy. At that time, only Oregon had succeeded in affirmatively legalizing aid in dying, and its Death With Dignity law languished in legal limbo. Ruth was determined to make a difference and joined the work of Compassion & Choices, serving as a dedicated ambassador of end-of-life choice.

Among the things I treasure from my 15-year friendship with Ruth is having had the opportunity to see her growing pleasure with advances we’ve achieved in end-of-life choice. Together Ruth and I witnessed the triumph of justice over repeated legal challenges to Oregon’s law, the passage and implementation of Death With Dignity in Washington, the passage in California of the Terminally Ill Patients’ Right to Know End-of-Life Options Act and a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court to recognize and affirm physician aid in dying.

Ruth was a generous, fierce and dedicated supporter of our movement, as she was forreproductive choice.

From HuffPo:

Ruth Proskauer Smith, a founding hero of the reproductive rights movement, died last night at 102 years of age.

As we celebrate today the anniversary of Roe v. Wade - an historic decision of which Ruth was part - we mourn the loss of this remarkable woman.

Ruth Proskauer Smith's history on behalf of reproductive freedom spans back to the 1940's, when she began advocating to give women access to birth control. In 1969, she co-founded NARAL with the goal of litigating against state abortion prohibitions, a life mission that led us directly to the steps of the United States Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade. For her work in reproductive rights, NARAL Pro-Choice New York honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award at our 2009 Champions of Choice Luncheon.

While she lived to see the legalization of abortion and took pride in her role in ensuring safe healthcare, she also recognized the unrealized promise of full access and the challenges that remain.

We honor Ruth as a founder and are reminded of all the young women activists today who will be the next leaders of our movement. On this 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we send out thanks to the women who came before and all those who will come after.

Bobby Schindler Wants Your Complete Vulnerability.

This post from Catholic News Service is making the rounds of the "god, guns, and country" blogs right now. In it, Bobby Schindler condemns the media for misrepresenting his sister's health at the time of her death.

A number of things are worth noting: the tone, Schindler's points, the fact that Schiavo died 5 years ago, coincidence with the Walk for Life and The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation's promotion of a new annual concert (featuring Randy Travis), and the way Schiavo denies that individual patients should have rights to their own health care choices.

The tone of the article is saccharine, full of talk about the gift that "these people" bring to our lives. But the conversation shouldn't be about the Schindler family's unnaturally long and unhealthy grief. It should be about law and patients' rights. Here's the totally creepy quote:

"They allow us to show our compassion, our love. I believe that they are blessings.

“And if you talk to families that are caring for people like my sister, they look at their loved one as a blessing – to be in this position of having to care for them – because they are completely vulnerable to us."

Complete vulnerability is point.

Loving someone who can't love you back is like loving a God you can't prove is there. You can project whatever attributes onto that being you want and you will never be told a lie, never given a harsh word, never doubt their love, never wonder what they are thinking, never, in other words, have a real relationship with them fraught with all the challenges of typical human interaction.

Loving and caring for the severely disabled, however, does not occur in a vacuum. The Schindler's would like you to believe that their "sacrifice" for their sister was redemptive (and it did give Bobby Schindler a new career). They fail to mention the details of such care, the fact that such care is in many cases not possible for families, and the fact that Terri Schiavo was only alive because she was placed on life support at the time of her initial collapse, her body maintained long after her coma and severe brain damage. They work hard to tell you how horrible her death from dehydration was but coroners have said she was unable to sense any pain.

I saw Bobby Schindler speak in Pennsylvania in October. His prolonged grief was otherworldly, an unhealthy extension of mourning and suffering, written in the lines on his face, in the drag of his voice, the slow pace of his steps. His profoundly sad "testimony" was about how his sister's death won him back to God.

Unconditional love is a beautiful thing. But what the Schindler family - and so many others deny - is that there's something unnatural and disturbing about their efforts to prolong Terri Schiavo's death - abetted by a patriarchal hierarchy, the Catholic Church, that for centuries has made its legacy out of the suffering of others and the conversions it brings them.

In November, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, even as they worked to make the health care bill denominational, changed their Ethical and Religious Directives to qualify artificial nutrition and hydration as "obligatory" care. Now, at all Catholic hospitals - 1 out of 5 in the country - despite whatever a patient's proxy or advance directive or state laws say, will be given ANH if the hospital deems it necessary.

To be clear: The Schindler's fight is no fight for life. This is an all out battle by "pro-life" organizations and the Catholic Church to remove by whatever means necessary your right as a patient to decide what your medical treatments will be. While they are certainly sincere, it is their faith that they wish to legislate, not your rights as a patient.

And these powerful organizations have the ear of your legislator, your attorney general, your Catholic doctor, your emergency room, your hospice or long-term care facility, and your neighbor. They are better funded and organized than any patients' rights group out there. And their objective is to impose their religious ideology on your health care rights by law.

Scotland and the Work of "Life" Crusaders.

To the string of Westernized countries that have contemplated aid in dying over the past year, add Scotland. This week, Margo Macdonald introduced a bill that has been called more permitting than the Netherlands' - and according to opponents of aid in dying the latter country is not one to emulate. In every court case in the US, the Netherlands has been held up as the primary "culture of death" capital, only exceeding Switzerland in it's wickedness because the latter has made efforts to reign in "suicide culture" by considering changing it's "permissive" laws.

Of course Scotland's bill, the End of Life Assistance Bill, has caused an international "pro-life" ruckus. Here are some links from the usual noisy criers:

From Peter Saunders, Director of Britain's Care Not Killing

From Wesley J. Smith, of the junk science haven Discovery Institute, who paused to demonize Scotland before ranting his (premature?) joy at the defeat of the US health care bill.

From Alex Schadenberg at Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Rather than dig into the bill to tell you the pros and cons of it's construction, or tell you the forces that are working on the ground to address it's passage, or the story of the MP who introduced it, I'd rather ask a question:

Why is there a rash of constituents in Westernized countries who are compelled to press their legislators and government leaders for aid in dying?

To those who work from the premise that society is bifurcated into good and evil, that "the culture of death" has risen from the "threat" of modernization and the decline of church power over personal lives - the Peter Saunders, Wesley J. Smiths and the Alex Schadenbergs - a great decline in human morality is what most threatens the "sanctity of life" around the globe.

This fear of change and the future is a powerful force or these men wouldn't make their living hating personal autonomy and patients' who fight for their right to control their medical destiny. These men think they are grappling against the new decline in personal and societal morals. However successful their strategies are at the moment, they are on the grand scale actually actors who, like the American teabaggers who are funded by corporations to promote government deregulation, aiding and abetting power structures by spreading fear of sound government representation of individual citizens.

To the rest of us who view the Westernized medical landscape without the fear or ideology, without the self-righteous desire to keep society governed by unchanging and draconian faithful strictures, the cause of aid in dying bills is more difficult to explain.

The patriarchal character of medicine has combined with new technology to remove patients' from their own medical decision-making. The church and the state have colluded to, with all their might, leave such rights in the hands of doctors dedicated to curing disease; doctors who now operate within a closed, corporatized and cost-driven delivery system that compels patients into futile care, over-treatment, and ignorance of how death occurs. Patients are rendered helpless in this new landscape and so they fight, country by country, to wrest their control over death back from these institutional forces.

The new dying culture has pitted helpless, resourceless patients against the church, the state and the medical profession, much more powerful and organized institutions.

The three men I cite consider themselves crusaders for society's morality. In truth, they are crusaders, throwbacks to the time when ideological views of the world were unchallenged by science and medicine. Their ways are dated because they appeal to a moral compass that no longer exists, and indeed was a state and church sanctioned imposition on personal beliefs and autonomy. These men are the enemies of patients' rights, of social services that work to end suffering, and of human advancement.

And their maniacal, antiquated work has allowed the state and the medical profession, forces that they otherwise despise when they counter the church, to dictate what rights individuals have in the world of new technology.

They are throw-backs to be sure. With self-righteousness and paternalism they claim to stand for the disabled, the poor, the ill, the "least of these." But their stand is on their own ideological premise, not on the rights of individuals in a pluralistic society. They demean the autonomy of every patient and yet claim compassion. They paint selected facts and statistics as proof of moral debasement. They monger fear among the elderly and disabled.

And most importantly, they fail to address the cause of these bills in a mature, real-world manner, preferring to work in their good vs. evil constructs, rather than seek non-judgmental approaches to the crisis in modern medicine of a good death.

Scotland is not the last country where citizens rise up and say they want to make their own health care decisions. Crusaders who work to keep individuals under the power of corporations, the state and the church will always exist. They will continue to frame the issue of patients rights as one of "moral decline". And they will continue to do the work of imposing power structures while patronizingly claiming that they indeed know what is best for a patient.

The task we have as a society is to recognize who they work for.

It's Wrong 'Cause They're Christian Science.

From the New York Times today, an article on the provision proposed for the health care bill that would cover prayer for the sick, submitted by the Christian Science church:

Although the Christian Science measure calls for reimbursement for some basic forms of care for the sick, like helping them eat and bathe, the prayer component has drawn fierce opposition from various civil liberties groups and child-protection advocates. They say it would violate the separation of church and state and could endanger the lives of minors whose parents turn to prayer rather than medicine when their children are ill.

In the past, some members of the church, formally known as the Church of Christ, Scientist, have been prosecuted for allowing children to die instead of treating them medically. But such cases are rare. And while healing through prayer remains their central belief, church officials say they do not forbid conventional medical treatment.

The church has had powerful allies. Earlier this year, its reimbursement measure passed two committees in the House and one in the Senate.

The Senate health committee acted at the behest of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, where the church has its headquarters, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who is a Mormon and has said the measure would ensure that the health legislation “does not discriminate against any religion.”

In the end, critics said it was unconstitutional, and the measure was dropped from the final House bill and from the Senate version being debated now.

Of course it's unconstitutional to allow the Christian Science church to insert their faith-based prayer coverage into health care cause they're well, unAmerican, a cult, you know, not real Christians. But let every other tax-exempt Catholic or evangelical backed group push to limit reproductive rights, gay rights, elder rights and well, it's ok?

Senator Nelson said this week that he is waiting for the USCCB to weight in on his Stupak-Pitts-like anti abortion amendment before he poses it to the Senate. Perfectly fine and constitutional, right? The title of the article is, witlessly, "To A Divisive Debate, Now Add Religion." As if religion is only making an entrance when it is backed by the Christian Science church?

Obama's Bioethics Under Fire for Not Imposing Ideologically Driven Science.

From Catholic News Agency:

Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International has called for Americans to be watchful of President Obama's appointments to the new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, claiming the unlikelihood of the advisors to share the pro-life sentiment of the majority of Americans.

On November 24, President Obama signed an Executive Order creating the new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, whose purpose is to advise the President on concerns emerging from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology.

"As our nation invests in science and innovation and pursues advances in biomedical research and health care, it’s imperative that we do so in a responsible manner," said President Obama. "I am confident that Amy and Jim will use their decades of experience in both ethics and science to guide the new Commission in this work, and I look forward to listening to their recommendations in the coming months and years."

Obama is referring to Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania to and James W. Wagner, president of Emory University, who will serve as chair and vice-chair of the new commission, respectively. Research on the two found that many of Gutmann's publications regard democratic theory, while Wagner studied engineering and materials science before becoming involved in academic administration.

The other 11 appointments to the commission have yet to be announced.

"Does anyone think that even one person on this commission will strongly represent the majority of Americans' pro-life views?" said Fr. Euteneuer. "We saw what the president thinks of bioethicists who disagree with him when he fired the previous presidential bioethics commission the day after they lodged a complaint about his policies."

Last June, Obama suddenly and without warning disbanded Bush's bioethics commission, who's charter was set to expire in September, without allowing the scheduled final meeting of the council. In March, the council had released a statement disagreeing with Obama's position on stem cell research.

Last Wednesday, Obama authorized embryonic stem cell research for 13 lines of stem cells obtained from the destruction of fetuses "left over" from IVF treatments.

"We already know what the president is going to do. He is going to find eleven utilitarians who will carefully furrow their scholarly brows as they tell us that we just have to get used to the idea that some lives aren't worth as much as others," said Rev. Euteneuer. "Then he is going to find two 'pro-life Christians' or other religious types who provide religious-sounding rationalizations for this assault on life."

Euteneuer noted that every one of Obama's current advisors who has written on bioethical issues "is pro-abortion, pro-embryonic stem cell research, pro-euthanasia, pro-assisted suicide. Bioethicists like this strive to create a ‘Brave New World’ for the weakest and most vulnerable of those created in God’s image: those who doctors used to swear an oath to protect."

Huckabee Works to Unify "Pro-Life" Advocates on All Discriminatory Patients' Rights Abuses.

From the infamous LifeNews:

Former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee spoke to 700 people at the annual Tippecanoe County Right to Life banquet Tuesday night. He urged the pro-life advocates in attendance to be consistent in advocating the pro-life position.

Huckabee said that, for him, holding a pro-life view means more than opposing abortion -- it extends throughout life to issues such as assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Or, as the potential 2012 presidential candidate said, “from the womb to the tomb.”

“For me, it’s not a political issue, it’s a matter of principle,” he said. “Some people try to make it an issue of abortion, but it’s really about every human life having value, dignity and intrinsic worth."

“People say I'm anti-abortion," Huckabee added, according to the Purdue Exponent. "That does not describe me actively, accurately or efficiently. I'm not anti- anything. I am for treating people as I'd like to be treated."

Huckabee struck a chord often mentioned by pro-life advocates in noting how the devaluing of some human lives -- such as those of unborn children -- results in lessening the value of others -- like the elderly or disabled.

“This is why every person must get involved – you have to stand up and speak up or this is what can happen,” he said. “Once a culture begins to devalue human life, it begins to deteriorate.”