Month: December 2019

Down Syndrome, the Gift of Innocence, and Abortion

nancyvalko abortion, disability, law, prenatal testing

In a beautiful op-ed in the December 23, 2019 Wall Street Journal titled “Down Syndrome and the Gift of Innocence” , William McGurn writes about a small group of contemplative nuns called the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb who reside in France.

The order was founded in 1985 by Mother Line, now prioress, and Sister Véronique, who felt a vocation but could not find an order to accept her because she has Down syndrome. Now there are 10 sisters (eight with Down syndrome) who exist so that “those who are in last place in the world”—women with Down syndrome—can “hold in the church the exceptional role of spouses of Christ. In practice this means that able-bodied sisters devote their lives to ensuring their fellow sisters with Down syndrome can live their vocations.”:

“The smiling faces of our little sisters with Down syndrome are a great message of hope for many injured families,” Mother Line tells me. “Our smallness will also say that we are made for very great things: to love and to be loved.”

And while the rest of the world dismisses innocence as naïve or childish, Mr. McGurn writes that:

“the nuns choose to cherish and exalt innocence—and the unconditional love and trust that comes with it—as an example of how we are meant to live with one another.”

DOWN SYNDROME AND ABORTION

In contrast to these wonderful nuns, a federal judge recently reversed his own ruling on a hard-fought pro-life abortion law passed in my home state of Missouri by blocking a provision that prohibits discriminatory abortions on unborn babies with Down syndrome.

Missouri was set to join several other states that passed such laws until U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs reversed his decision.

It is hoped that this decision will be appealed. As Justice Clarence Thomas has previously written about such laws that protect unborn babies from eugenic discrimination:

“… this law and other laws like it promote a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.”

and

“Although the Court declines to wade into these issues today, we cannot avoid them forever. Having created the constitutional right to an abortion, this Court is dutybound to address its scope.” (All emphasis added)

AN “ACCEPTABLE” PREJUDICE?

A few days ago, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  Disability Rights Project Susan Mizner defended abortion for unborn babies with Down Syndrome writing that:

“There is no question that stigma, prejudice, and misconceptions about people with disabilities are widespread. But forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term against their will does nothing to tackle underlying and systemic ableism and discrimination against people with disabilities.

“On the contrary, forced pregnancy threatens a person’s physical, mental, and emotional health, as well as the stability and wellbeing of their family, including existing children.” (All emphasis added)

As an RN and mother who had to fight medical discrimination against my daughter Karen who had both Down Syndrome and a heart defect as well as a past board member of the St. Louis Down Syndrome Association, I take great exception to this dangerously inaccurate statement. We can never eliminate prejudice by eliminating people with disabilities before or after birth.

CONCLUSION

I applaud the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb in France who cherish their sisters with Down Syndrome who have so much to give to the world and I am horrified by the several states that have now passed laws that allow abortion for any reason at any time during pregnancy or even after birth.

Although unborn babies with Down Syndrome are especially at risk, we must remember that ALL children enter the world with the “gift of innocence” and none deserve to be killed before birth.

 

Are We Witnessing the Coming Extinction of Conscience Rights?

nancyvalko abortion, assisted suicide, conscience rights, medical ethics

Last month, Wesley Smith, the well-known writer and lawyer who opposes assisted suicide and abortion, wrote an article titled “Bioethicist Wants to Morally Cleanse Medical Schools”  about plans to weed out pro-life potential doctors and nurses from even entering medical and nursing schools:

“Make no mistake. Schuklenk and his ilk — such as the adamant opponent of medical conscience, Ezekiel Emanuel — are deadly serious about crushing all dissent within the medical professions to emerging cultural paradigms, and plan to morally cleanse the ranks of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and institutions of all  wrong thinkers, particularly of the religious and pro-life kind.”

As Wesley warns after speaking with such prospective medical and nursing students, “such culling already occurs outside of official policy”.

CONSCIENCE RIGHTS FOR HEALTH CARE INSTITUTIONS

Now health care institutions that forbid their employees from participating in abortion and euthanasia are at risk.

As an October 29, 2019 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) titled “Colorado End-of-Life Options Act-A Clash of Organizational and Individual Conscience” explains, a new court case may result in conscience rights being legally upheld when a doctor agrees to help a patient commit assisted suicide against a religious healthcare institution’s policy.

This came about when the Colorado legislature could not pass a physician-assisted suicide in 2014 and 2015 but a new, problematic referendum was introduced and passed by Colorado voters in 2016.

While hospitals and clinics in other states with assisted suicide laws are allowed to prohibit their employees from participating, the Colorado, the referendum added a little-noticed provision in the 2016 Colorado referendum that stated:

“A health care facility may prohibit a physician employed or under contract with the facility from prescribing medication to an individual who intends to use the medication on the facility’s premises. The facility must provide advance written notice of its policy to the physician and its patients. A health care facility may not discipline a physician, nurse, pharmacist, or other person for actions taken in good faith or for refusing to participate in any way.” (Emphasis added)

As the JAMA article notes, “This provision virtually guaranteed the Colorado law would eventually be challenged”.

This set up the current case “Mahoney et al v. Centura Health Corporation” involving Neil Mahoney, a Colorado man with advanced cancer, who wanted physician-assisted suicide and found geriatrician Barbara Morris, MD. Dr. Morris was willing to write the lethal overdose prescription. However, the religiously based Centura Health System where she was employed forbade participation in assisted suicide. Mr. Mahoney and Dr. Morris filed a lawsuit on August 21, 2019 and the doctor was fired on August 26 for violating the ethical directives provided for Catholic health care services.

The article concludes that:

“the case seems destined to have a potentially significant effect on national policy. If the courts rule that the Constitution allows hospitals to exert control over individual physicians’ claims of professional conscience, it will be a victory for corporate medicine.

But if the state law is upheld, the case could establish that physicians’ professional conscience claims hold or take precedence over the ethical and religious directives of religiously affiliated hospitals. It is possible that at least some religiously affiliated health systems might rather close than allow that outcome.” (All emphasis added)

CONCLUSION

As Wesley Smith writes, eliminating pro-life health care providers and institutions is  becoming part of an utilitarian agenda in the bioethics movement where “legalized euthanasia, free and unfettered abortion at all stages of gestation, infanticide, eugenic embryo engineering, invidious forms of health-care rationing based on ‘quality of life,’ etc., are all part of the mainstream bioethics agenda, or at the very least, are seen as respectable advocacy memes.”

With the current support of a predominantly sympathetic mainstream media, well-funded and politically active groups like Planned Parenthood and Compassion&Choices are also putting pro-life health care providers and their supportive institutions in grave danger of becoming an endangered species in law, politics and health care.

If this happens, our health care system will radically change-especially for the unborn, the elderly and people with disabilities.

When dedicated and compassionate people are denied entry into the health care professions because they refuse to deliberately end lives, harassed and/or fired when they refuse to participate in a deliberate death decisions and religiously based healthcare institutions are forced by law to allow lives to be ended by “choice” or close their doors, will any of us be able to trust our healthcare system when we need it the most?

We need to educate ourselves and the public before it’s too late.