Month: March 2020

Coping in the Time of the Covid 19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic

nancyvalko Covid 19, faith, family

Although we are in a time of national crisis that is causing disruption in all of our lives, we need to avoid panic and foster realistic optimism and resolve in ourselves and others. We are all in this together.

As a semi-retired nurse, I have been following the Covid 19 situation closely. We and our extended family and friends keep up with and strictly follow the sanitary and social isolation recommendations. If we all follow these precautions, this crisis may begin to abate in hopefully weeks or months.

There is cause for cautious optimism. Although the numbers of people infected will increase with more testing now available, most people will not die from Covid 19 and many will have no or mild symptoms. And a promising experimental vaccine against the Covid 19 virus has been developed in record time and is now being tested on humans. However it may take a year or more to prove its effectiveness. We must be patient.

Even better, a FDA drug long used to treat malaria has shown promise in treating Covid 19 patients in other countries and a clinical trial of the drug will start here.

However, the Covid 19 virus has and will continue to have an enormous impact on our lives for the foreseeable future not only in our homes but also in our work lives, education, the economy and the health care system.

But, as frightening as this crisis is now, in the end it may help us reorder our priorities from materialism and political/social divisions to a new appreciation for our families, our country and our ability to work together for the greater good.

One of the advantages of being older is that I am old enough to remember the polio virus epidemic in the 1950s that struck so many children and caused panic in my own parents until Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine. As a nurse, I also remember the terrible AIDS virus epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s that killed so many people and even became the “poster child” for legalizing physician-assisted suicide until an effective treatment was developed in 1997. And I remember the relief and joy when the polio vaccines and AIDS treatments were found.

Like AIDS, polio and other deadly infections in the past, the Covid 19 crisis will also eventually pass. I recently asked my wonderful 97-year-old friend “Melissa” who lived through World War II about how people got through those terrible years of turmoil and sacrifice. She seemed surprised by the question and said, “We just did what we had to do”. No wonder she is one of those people now celebrated as the “Greatest Generation”  with the values of  “personal responsibility, duty, honor and faith.”

Those values are just as important today.

FIGHTING WORRY AND FEAR WITH GRATITUDE

In our current crisis, one way we can help ourselves cope is by being grateful for the often unrecognized blessings we do have. Gratitude is a potent antidote to the panic, worry and fear that can infect us, our loved ones and others.

So I am grateful that we live in a time when computers, smartphones (especially with text and FaceTime) and other devices that are available to most people now. How much worse would social isolation and access to critical information be in the past without these devices?

Personally, I am grateful that our grandchildren have access to online learning after their schools closed and that some of our adult children are now able to work by computer from home.

I am also grateful for my religious faith that encourages trust in God, prayer, hope and helping the less fortunate in times of crisis. And I am grateful that even though churches and other places of worship are closing, religious services and inspiration are easily available online or on television. And I am inspired by the efforts of religious groups like the St. Vincent DePaul Society that never stop caring for the less fortunate no matter what the crisis.

I am also grateful that I am healthy enough to help my more elderly or infirm neighbors by picking up items from the store or even just calling them on the phone to chat. We can all look for ways to help our community without endangering ourselves or others such as ordering take-out food from small businesses that had to close their dining rooms and lay off workers. I have always found that helping others promotes happiness and optimism in both the person receiving help and the person giving the help.

I am grateful for my husband and family, especially now that we are grandparents who can help care for our grandchildren-particularly those who are out of school and have (thankfully) working parents. In times of crisis, we have a great opportunity to get closer to all our loved ones and the entertainment value of family alone is worth it.

All of us should remember that it’s the tough times that strengthen us most. We have a duty to set a good example for our families and our nation so that when the crisis is behind us, we all will be kinder, wiser and better people in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Is Abortion More Important than Safety? The Case Now Before the US Supreme Court

nancyvalko abortion, law, medical ethics

In 1986, Missouri became the first state to pass an abortion law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital “in the community” to ensure the health and safety of women undergoing abortion.

Later, I was horrified to find out that a doctor was doing abortions just a few miles from my home in St. Louis. It turned out that his admitting privileges were in another country! The abortion clinic was closed.

As I wrote last August in “Pro-abortion Desperation in Missouri” :

“the last abortion clinic in Missouri lost its license because of numerous health and safety violations. The Planned Parenthood abortion clinic continues to operate only because of several temporary injunctions by a judge.”

While the Missouri case is still ongoing, now the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the June Medical Services v. Russo case concerning whether Louisiana’s law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital conflicts with the Court’s 2016 Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision along with a second issue about “whether abortion providers can legally represent the interests of women seeking an abortion when those providers sue to overthrow laws protecting those women’s health and safety.”

IS ABORTION MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAFETY?

In a powerful commentary titled “The OB-GYNs Who Play Politics With Women’s Lives-Abortion is more important than safety to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists” in the March 3, 2020 Wall Street Journal, Dr. Christina Francis calls out the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) for “offering a medically unsound recommendation in the furtherance of its extreme position on abortion”.

Dr. Francis, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and the chairman of the board of the American Association of Prolife OB/GYNS, refutes ACOG’s friend of the court brief arguing that the admitting privileges requirement for abortionists is not “‘medically justified’ and therefore constitutes an ‘undue burden’ on a woman’s right to abortion'” by stating:

“Yet every second counts in an obstetric emergency. A pregnant woman experiencing severe uterine hemorrhage can bleed to death in as little as 10 minutes. That’s why its essential that anyone performing an abortion have the ability to admit a patient to a nearby hospital—preferably one closer than 30 miles away.”

ACOG routinely puts politics ahead of medicine by adopting the most extreme positions on abortion. It has lobbied and briefed against parental notification of minors and informed-consent laws, and in favor of taxpayer-funded abortion. It has advocated for laws restricting speech around clinics and compelling pro-life pregnancy centers to tell women where they can go to obtain state-subsidized abortions. ACOG’s work has gotten so political that in 2008 it added a lobbying arm. I was refused when I asked if I could direct our dues only to the organization’s nonlobbying arm.

Eighty-six percent of OB-GYNs don’t perform abortions, but ACOG’s position is that you either support the most extreme abortion lobbying or you’re off the island. Most of ACOG’s abortion advocacy is undertaken free of consultation with its almost 60,000 members. Physicians who’ve left the organization, like me, support its general work but don’t want to support abortion lobbying, especially when it comes to watering down or eliminating safety standards. (Emphasis added)

Dr. Ford also notes that:

“In any practice area other than abortion, a doctor performing an operation would have hospital-admitting privileges. In the case of complications that doctor would, at a minimum, call ahead to fast-track the patient to the appropriate emergency care. Abortion-clinic patients, on the other hand, are frequently kicked to the curb and told to make their own way to the emergency room.”

CONCLUSION

Those of us in Missouri have seen the problems and attempted coverups at the hopefully last Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis.  Just last year, it was reported that:

“Operation Rescue, with the help of Missouri pro-life activists, has documented 74 medical emergencies that have occurred at RHS Planned Parenthood in the past ten years, including three emergencies that required ambulance transport for women to a local hospital within a 22-day period ending on May 15, 2019.” (Emphasis added) 

The Supreme Court decision is not expected until June and is likely to have an enormous impact on the state of abortion in our country, especially since pro-abortion groups have now abandoned the old rhetoric about keeping abortion “safe, legal and rare'” in favor of tax-payer funded abortion on demand up to birth and even leaving babies to die after failed abortions.

In the meantime, considering choosing and supporting pro-life health care professionals and their professional organizations such as the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and the National Association of Pro-life Nurses (NAPN).