Right to Life of Owensboro Newsletter March 2016

Volume 45 Issue 3 March 2016

Right to Life of Owensboro

NEWSLETTER

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Child of Mercy

1.21.16 by Katie Hartfiel

As she sat across from us, her pain was almost palpable. A family friend sat with my then-fiancé and me as she lamented about her oldest son’s behavior problems. He struggled with nutrition, attention deficit and general disobedience. As she went on, she eventually divulged the real, haunting, deep truth behind her struggle. The root of her pain wasn’t her son’s difficulties, but rather her own guilt. She explained that her son had been conceived out of wedlock and she felt that her sin was the reason for his problems as he grew. This woman felt that her son was being punished for her impurity.

You know, it’s amazing how the devil tricks us into believing sin is no big deal when we are tempted with it only to then convince us that our sin is too big of a deal for God to forgive once we have committed it.

My husband didn’t miss a beat as he began to speak truth to her. “Your son isn’t a child of sin; he is a child of mercy. God’s all encompassing plan is so big, that it can cover even our sins. Our God can bring a good out of every evil if only we let Him.” Years later this same friend pinpointed this day as a pivotal moment in her walk toward healing. She Continued on page 7

EDUCATION Doctors Refused to Help This Baby With Trisomy 18: She Almost Died But This Happened Jesi Smith Jan 30, 2015

You go to the doctor with a chronic headache and he suggests cutting off your head. The doctor assures you that this will put a permanent end to your headaches. Sounds crazy, but that is the same logic the medical community often uses with the biologically imperfect. Your baby has a heart condition, chromosomal abnormality, missing a limb, blind, or deaf? No problem, there is a final solution that will completely cure your child – death.

Over a year ago a new friend needed help. Her daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 and struggling to survive. She went to the hospital with her infant and was told that her daughter was too small to receive any of the tests requested by her pediatrician. The doctors at the hospital were going to send her home, but instead her mother followed sound advice from another parent and transferred to a different hospital.

Once at the other hospital, the little girl was examined and immediately intubated because she had been struggling to breathe. It was determined that her jaw was too short and she needed surgery quickly. In fact, the infant had jaw distraction surgery just 2 days later which lengthened her jaw and opened up her airway so she could breathe.

The first hospital which also performed jaw distraction surgeries was sending this infant child with Trisomy 18 home knowing full well that the child would die without medical attention. Death was their cure, but thankfully with appropriate help this little girl is now almost a year and a half old and doing well.

The medical doctrine of biological superiority can be seen crystal clear in prenatal tests that search out the disabled for the primary purpose and devastating result of destroying them. Exactly how developments and innovations in the field of medicine are to be developed with various disabilities when the patients are routinely terminated is an awful dilemma.

Armed with only the knowledge of how to single out the weak, but not how to treat them has turned medicine into a bizarre pseudoscience that destroys those they cannot understand and do not wish to treat. Really – when did the disabled become too risky for society to tolerate? Certainly, tyrants, the violent, liars, thieves, even the self-righteous are bigger threats to society than these vulnerable individuals. Imagine a world where they could find a genetic code for all of the undesirable traits in people‌would any of us survive?

EDUCATION When medical tests, especially prenatal tests, become more important for our academic research than for the human being they are being performed on we have an ugly problem. We become like the unmonitored medical ministers of death in the 1940’s who deliberately infected their patients with disease and subjected vulnerable people to cruel experiments and ‘treatments’ all under the guise of furthering medical research. We would be foolish to believe that a medical community is willing to help all of humanity if it refuses to help the human being right in front of them. They are like miners panning for gold that hold onto the dust and dump the gold.

We have made the womb into a hunting ground for the disabled child who has no means of escape. Do we find the death of the sick, weak, deformed more humane than their life and preservation? We have become a society more frightened of “wrongful birth” than deliberate death.

We have even expunged the verbal language that represents mercy from society so that we will not be confronted with our own barbarism. Starving a disabled child to death can now be called comfort care.

Medically prescribed overdose can be called hospice. Heartbreaking suicide can be labeled death with dignity. There used to be a time when those who were weak, sick, and without hope were given help, not offered death.

The destruction of the disabled is a crime without a name to represent its horror, like the Holocaust or homicide. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, found that language did not have a word to adequately describe the brutal annihilation of certain groups of people and coined the term genocide. The Greek word genos (tribe or race) was added to the Latin word cide (killing). The conscience of our society no longer wishes to be pin pricked with words that awaken our shame and insist on changing the language instead of our actions. The deliberate and systematic destruction of the disabled and unwanted should have its own chilling name to combat the sinister silence with which society treats their deaths.

Who will bear witness for the weak and most vulnerable people? What if we have terminated the best among us? What if they were the smartest, kindest, most beautiful souls? How would the world be different if the millions of people that have been destroyed would have lived?

LifeNews Note: Jesi Smith and her husband Brad are pro-life speakers with Save The 1, from Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Smith is a wife and mother to five children including one very special girl named Faith. Learn more at www.keepingourfaith.com.”

Care Net Pregnancy Center

11th Annual Fundraising Banquet Special Guest Speaker: Abby Johnson Thursday, April 21, 2016 Owensboro Convention Center 501 west Second Street Limited Seating begins at 6pm, please call for reservations at 270-685-5077

EDUCATION Celebrate Life November-December 2015

Hospice and Palliative Care: Ethical Concerns

By Germaine Wensley, RN

Most people are familiar with hospice care, but relatively unfamiliar with palliative care, a more recent specialty in the practice of medicine. Both hospice and palliative care are similar and both are utilized in end-of-life care, but there is a difference between the two.

British physician Dame Cicely Saunders is credited with founding the modern hospice movement, and setting the highest standards in care of the dying. She wanted to make sure that people could die with dignity and free of pain. Her philosophy was, “You matter because you are you. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”

Hospice care is available to patients who have been diagnosed as having six months or less to live, although this diagnosis is not always accurate. Some live longer and others die more quickly. If a patient lives longer than six months, hospice care can continue as long as the hospice medical director or other hospice doctor re-certifies that he or she is still terminally ill.

In hospice, patients are given comfort and supportive care including symptom and pain management, but not curative treatment.

Palliative care grew out of hospice, but is quite different because palliative care does not focus only on the dying. Anyone who has a serious, chronic, and/or life-threatening illness can begin palliative care, and at the same time, continue to look for a cure. At its core, palliative care is a beautiful, total-care concept with a team that might consist of doctors, nurses, therapists, chaplains, psychologists, and others depending on the patient’s needs. The goal is to relieve suffering and give support wherever needed to improve quality of life. Patients may even recover and move out of palliative care, or they might worsen and segue into hospice care, at which time they would no longer receive curative treatment for their underlying disease.

Physician-assisted death versus doing no harm Those of us who respect life had hopes that excellent palliative care would become the ultimate antidote to the persistent physician-assisted suicide movement, and we still hope for that because the original concept is one of caring on all fronts. However, a very unfortunate development has unfolded. Organizations sympathetic to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia began an aggressive outreach to hospice and palliative care medicine with a focus on transforming the goals of palliative care. This progression is carefully documented on Life Tree’s website. “A major transformation of traditional medical ethics is taking place. What was once unthinkable has become acceptable. . . . In the last half of the 20th century, a multimillion dollar social engineering and marketing project financed by foundations and directed by bioethics think tanks has normalized the withdrawal of ordinary care,” says Dr. Elizabeth D. Wickham, Executive Director of LifeTree.1 The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) was founded at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and has become recognized as the nation’s premier training center for development of palliative care programs around the US, but the lesser known and quite troubling fact is that the founders of CAPC have a long history as proponents of physician-assisted suicide.2 Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (PCCEF) also had serious concerns about the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) when their board of director’s position statement regarding “Physician-Assisted Death” was altered to change its position from opposing physician-assisted suicide to one of “studied neutrality.” One of the questions PCCEF asked in an article published after reading the revised statement was: “Is there a political bias favoring assisted suicide among

EDUCATION the leadership of AAHPM? Has one of the key authors of this revised position, Timothy Quill, a known supporter of assisted suicide, pushed the AAHPM Board of Directors to shift the power and influence of the organization in alignment with other promoters of assisted suicide and euthanasia? Given the previously published work of Dr. Quill, we find the claim of ‘neutrality’ of this important group of physicians disingenuous, if not frankly deceitful.”3 This is the same Dr. Quill who provoked a great deal of debate when The New England Journal of Medicine published his story about a woman called “Diane,” a patient whom Quill said he helped to commit suicide. In Dr. Quill’s story, he admitted to providing a prescription for the drugs she used to kill herself. 4 Timothy E. Quill and Margaret P. Battin are the authors of the book Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice. Professor Antonio Casado de Rocha, PhD, at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, wrote a review of the book for Metapsychology on-Line Reviews. He stated, “The conclusion by Quill and Battin is clear: excellent palliative care should be the standard, and physician -assisted dying the last resort, but a legal one” [emphasis added]. 5 Might it be of concern that the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine named Timothy E. Quill, MD one of the 30 most influential leaders in hospice and palliative medicine in 2013?

In an address to the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI addressed fundamental problems with bioethics. He told the attendees that “some ethicists warn that modern bioethics is in fact a new normative system of ethics that, based on principles of utilitarianism, can never be compatible with Natural Law principles.” He went on to say, “Under traditional medical ethics, the guiding principle is ‘do no harm.’

But contemporary bioethics abandons this . . . in an effort to find the utilitarian goal of the ‘greatest good for the greatest number.’ Under these principles, preserving the life of the human patient is not considered paramount.”6 Palliative sedation With this kind of background information, it is not too surprising to learn that a group of experienced, ethical hospice professionals became alarmed when they discovered that not all hospices were living up to the proper standards of health care, sometimes even violating patients’ and families’ rights. They also noted that palliative care in the wrong hands could prove deadly. The Hospice Patients Alliance (HPA) grew out of this concern. Its mission is to promote excellence in end-of-life care and relieve suffering at the end-of-life while allowing natural death in its own timing. HPA hopes, through education and outreach, to counteract the abuses it sees happening in its field.7 When used properly, palliative care is wonderful. But Ron Panzer, BA, LPN, one of the founders of HPA said, “There is something else out there masquerading as palliative care. Reports keep coming in to our organization about certain facilities where every patient there is being ‘sedated’, because all patients who come there are agitated. That is not palliative care nor the clinically-precise application of palliative medicine but a perversion of it.” Panzer continued, “This misuse of palliative care is a deliberate railroading of patients to an imposed death, a death hastened through what is called ‘palliative’ or ‘terminal’ sedation (TS).” Additionally, HPA found that some hospice agencies are training their staffs to do this type of “stealth” euthanasia through the misuse of TS.8 The terms “palliative sedation” or “terminal sedation” lack precision. The terms can have different meanings. A common understanding of terminal/palliative sedation is the monitored use of medication to sedate a patient to varying degrees of unconsciousness in order to relieve intolerable pain which cannot be controlled any other way. Death is not intended and the patient dies from the underlying disease. Occasions when pain cannot be controlled except by TS are very rare due to our greatly improved methods of pain

EDUCATION control. But those who would like to see euthanasia and/or physician assisted suicide legalized also use the term “terminal sedation.” For these organizations and individuals, the intention of “terminal sedation” is to terminate the patient’s life. According to Canadian Professor Margaret A. Somerville of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, an essential component of TS is the withdrawal of all treatment, including food and water, so that death occurs as soon as possible. There are doctors who condemn assisted suicide but have embraced TS as an ethical “choice.”9 There are some physicians who call the practice Dr. Somerville describes “slow euthanasia.”

“Some ethicists and doctors have proposed ‘terminal sedation’ as a legal alternative to assisted suicide,” says Nancy Valko RN, a former hospice nurse and current nurse consultant. “However, even in circumstances where such medications might be necessary, I have never seen a case where a patient ‘needed’ to be made permanently unconscious.” But she is concerned about another aspect of TS rearing its ugly head, one which would be touted as a cost-saving device for health care institutions. Originally, hospices were non-profit organizations. Today the majority are for-profit companies. When profit becomes an important issue, care can be compromised. For example, Valko asserts that “the newer health care system problems of cost-containment and stressed, overburdened caregivers can make TS even more attractive—and dangerous—to patients, families and medical professionals alike.”10 What we need to demand It is important to realize that not every hospice and palliative care program will employ unethical methods. If you or a loved one uses either of these services, it would be prudent to find out their policies and philosophies ahead of time so as not to be caught unaware. 11 Make sure the care will be what you want and expect by asking many questions. To be free from pain, have your values respected, and be treated with dignity are reasonable expectations. It is so important to demand excellent quality from an institution and ethical end-of–life care. For those who support the sacredness of human life, intentionally causing death is never acceptable. Nutrition and hydration should be considered basic, ordinary care, even if delivered by artificial means, unless the body is no longer able to process them and/or they are causing serious complications. Hospice and palliative care that respect the sanctity of life do not impose death in any way. They allow natural death to occur in its own timing with loving, supportive care along the way.

We need to demand quality, ethical palliative and end-of–life care.

Germaine Wensley RN, BS is a founder and president emeritus of California Nurses for Ethical Standards (CNES) where she presently serves as vice president. She is the editor of Life Scenes, a publication of CNES, and speaks on sexual health for high schools. She is an executive board member of the Scholl Institute of Bioethics. She is past president of International Life Services, past president of the Torrance Pregnancy Center board of directors, and a charter member of the Los Angeles Diocese Commission on Life Issues (now retired). She is a wife and mother of six and grandmother of ten.

1 Elizabeth D. Wickham, PhD, Repackaging Death as Life—The Third Path to Imposed Death. Presented at the 2nd Annual Life Conference. Raleigh, North Carolina, October 23, 2010, lifetree.org/newsletter/2010-11-02.html.

2 Warning: Who’s Leading Palliative Care Now? Life Tree. September 24, 2007,lifetree.org/newsletter/09-24-07.html.

3 Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation. Article. November 20, 2007, pccef.org/articles/art59.htm.

4 Lawrence Altman, Doctor Says He Gave Patient Drugto Help Her Commit Suicide, New York Times. March 7, 1991, nytimes.com/1991/03/07/us/doctorsays -he-gave-patient-drug-to-help-her-commit-suicide.html.

5 Antonio Casado de Rocha, Review, Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice by Timothy E. Quill and Margaret P. Battin.

Metapsychology Online Review, September 19, 2006, metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc. php?type=book&id=3309.

6 Repackaging Death as Life—The Third Path to Imposed Death. Presented at the 2nd Annual Life Conference, Raleigh, North Carolina, October 23,2010, lifetree.org/newsletter/2010-11-02.html.

7 Ron Panzer, Stealth Euthanasia: Health Care Tyrannyin America. E-book, Hospice Patients Alliance,2013, hospicepatients.org/this-thingcalledhospice.html.

8 Ron Panzer, Terminal Sedation: Is It Good PalliativeCare or Euthanasia? Hospice Patients AllianceNewsletter, September 16, 2012, hospicepatients.org/ term-sedation-q-palliativecare.html.

9 “The Principle of Double Effect,” A New Zealand Resource for Life Related Issues, n.d., life.org.nz/euthanasia/euthanasiaethicalkeyissues/doubleeffect/.

10 Valko, Nancy, Sedated to Death?: When “Comfort Care”Becomes Dangerous, Voices, Online Edition,Medicine and Morality, Pentecost 2002, Volume XVII, No. 2, wf-f.org.

11 A guide for questions to ask when interviewing a hospice agency is available on page 12 of Informed: A guide for critical medical decisions, a publication of the Pro-life Healthcare Alliance, a program of Human Life Alliance, humanlife.org/files/8714/0966/9899/informed.pdf.

Continued from front page

began to see that God didn’t give her punishment for her sin, but a miracle instead. Finally, she was free to help her son carry His cross with Christ’s strength rather than her own.

Flash-forward thirteen years and now I am a parent as well. I can say without a doubt that it is the most wonderful and most difficult thing I will ever do. The reality is that many times it feels like I am letting my heart walk around outside my body.

Hands down, my kids are the greatest miracle I have ever witnessed. It wasn’t a coincidence that God set up the family and later declared that “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).

For our friend and for many facing unplanned pregnancies, the thought of a child is terrifying.

Yes, a child changes everything especially when conceived outside of marriage. However, it is the habit of our God to make miracles out of our messes. We only have to look at the image of the cross and the echo of the Resurrection to see that this is how God operates.

January is Right to Life month as we commit to pray for the many women in turmoil as they confront an unplanned pregnancy. In a world that emphasizes hate, let us pray for these children of mercy! Jesus declared that, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matt 18:5). God doesn’t promise our lives will be easy, but He promises great fruits from those who trust in His ways. Whether you’re broken, impure, struggling with your sexuality, pregnant, addicted or lonely, God wants to hide you in His wounds.

Our God is a Father that desires not to work in spite of your weakness but through it. Lord, show us the fruits of your mercy. http://chastityproject.com/2016/01/child-of-mercy/ Katie Hartfiel is the author of Woman In Love, which chronicles her developing a relationship with the Lord as her First Love allowed Him to mold her for her Second Love (vocation). Katie received her Theology degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville. She served as a youth minister for seven years in Houston, where she now resides with her husband, Mark, and three daughters. For more on Katie and her books, visit www.womaninlove.org.

Letter from the PRESIDENT The Presidential primary season is in full swing and it has never been more important to vote prolife. If you're pro-life there's only one party you can consider voting for on the national level. The National Democratic Party long ago chose to be the party that says not only is it ok to kill unborn children up to the day of birth but that "we the people" should pay for it. Their dark path was illustrated in the 2012 Democratic National Convention when after God was removed from their platform it took three tries to put Him back in the platform. Over much protest from the crowd present during the process, I might add.

The Republican Party has always been the party of life, choosing to defend the rights of the most vulnerable among us. However, would it surprise you to know there is a segment of the National Republican Party that thinks defending life is a losing proposition? And it seems to be growing. Year after year those of us who have stood strong in our defense of the unborn have been given lip service only to have little to nothing actually done to protect the unborn even among those who claim to be pro-life. We are past the time of supporting someone whose view of abortion evolved into a pro-life one. That is not to say people can't change their mind. The proof is in the pudding. Show me your pivot point and a record of supporting life since.

Needless to say, I place little faith in our elected leaders to do what is right. Political pressure seems to be too strong to overcome for even the most ardent pro-life representative. It just is not politically correct to be pro-life and few political leaders are willing or able to do what is right in the sight of the Lord. Consequently it is up to us. It's up to the people to educate themselves on the issue and to spread the word to others. And it's up to us to vote our pro-life values and not make excuses for a candidate that may not be very pro-life if at all. If we won't stand up and vote our values, then millions of unborn children will continue to face the risk of painful deaths. So when you make your choice at the ballot box, please remember to choose life. You won't regret it.

Jerry Embry President, RTLO

Board Members Officers Jerry Embry President Gayle Rhodes 1st Vice President Kevin Dorth 2nd Vice President Stacey Davis Secretary Wes Hamilton Treasurer Board Members at Large Taryn Rice Newsletter Editor Katelyn Stallings Michelle Byrne Kenny Barr John Thompson Mike Mudd Laura Ruth Edge Stuart Squires Shannon Sandefur Andy Norris Robin Beatty Executive Director

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Marilee’s Message WHY? Why do women make the choice to abort their own babies?

This is a question that I get often. Not because they are judging me, they just want to understand. The problem is, there is no way to understand. I still don’t understand.

There are so many reasons that women choose abortions, and yet there is absolutely no reason that is good enough to end a child’s life.

I spent almost 15 years justifying my abortion to myself. I’ve always been ashamed, but having a good reason just seemed to help me mask that shame. I told myself that I was 16 years old. I was a child myself, and I was scared. I had a baby inside of me that I couldn’t see, feel or touch, and it wasn’t real. My fear WAS real.

Everything I was going through was real. It was all about ME. Reasons don’t matter. Every abortion comes down to the statement I just made above: “It was all about ME.” A woman chooses abortion to save herself every single time. What they are saving themselves from may be different, but in the end it’s all the same. Abortion is a mother choosing her own life over her child’s life.

And it doesn’t matter why. It just needs to stop.

Abortions clinics are closing all over the country at a faster rate than ever. Women are changing their minds and babies are being saved every day. We have to stop focusing on the “Why,” and focus on God’s plan. We have to keep fighting, praying, and believing for an end to abortion and true protection for the unborn.

WIMM Catholic Radio

Thanks to all who sponsored Right to Life of Owensboro’s 2015 Annual Banquet

Edge Body Boot Camp

Thanks to all who sponsored Right to Life of Owensboro’s 2015 Annual Banquet

Right to Life of Owensboro

May Community Event- May 5, WKU-O Chalk Out- June 15, RTLO Office Sidewalk Story/Craft Time for Kids– 6-9 thru 7-18, RTLO Office Art Show– June 11, The Creme Golf Scramble– July 16, Ben Hawes Walk for Life– September 3, Our Lady of Lourdes Banquet– TBA, The Hines Center

Local Pro-Life Agencies Birthright 270-570-5319, Terri LaHugh Care Net Pregnancy Center 270-685-5077, Donna Flaspoehler Catholic Charities of Owensboro 270-852-8328, Rita Heinz Opportunities for Life

The RTLO mission, in part reads...

“The purpose for which RTLO is organized is to encourage among the general public an understanding of the dignity and worth of each human life, whatever his or her state or circumstances; to foster respect for human life before and after birth, particularly for the defenseless, the incompetent, the impaired and the incapacitated: to promote and encourage passage of amendatory and statutory measures which will provide protection and support for human life...”

1-888-496-3638, Brenda Thomson Project Rachel 270-683-1505, Betty Medley Rachel’s Vineyard 270-570-4717, Debbie Ward

Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life Celebrate Life

NEED HELP? CALL 1-800-822-5824 or 270-685-5077 Jerry Embry Robin Beatty President Executive Director ________________________________________________ Phone:270-685-4922 Fax 270-684-0625 rtlo1973@att.net Online: www.rtlo.org 1115 Tamarack Road, Suite 200, Owensboro, KY 42301 ________________________________________________

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