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What Will It Take? Part Two -Does Abortion Really Help Women?

nancyvalko abortion, bereavement, culture, hospice, law, media, medical ethics, mental health, Planned Parenthood, prenatal testing, pro-life

In August 2019, I wrote a blog titled “Pro-abortion Desperation in Missouri” about the last Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Missouri losing its license because of numerous health and safety violations but continued to operate only because of several temporary injunctions by a judge.

The clinic finally closed only after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returned abortion law to the states.

Unfortunately, the pro-abortion choice response to that decision has resulted in terrible turmoil and animosity.

Now the attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches with few arrests and prosecution of peaceful pro-life demonstrators are continuing unabated.

To try to portray abortion as a positive empowerment for women, Planned Parenthood has tried the “Share Your Story” and “Shout Your Abortion— Normalizing abortion and elevating safe paths to access, regardless of legality” campaigns to increase abortion support and activism. (The National Association of Pro-life Nurses countered with “Shout out Your Adoption!“, pointing out that “Adoption is a wonderful act of love and one of the best alternatives to abortion.”)

Now Planned Parenthood has another strategy for increasing abortion support and activism originally published in MS Magazine on 4/12/2022 and titled “A Firsthand View of the Crisis Ahead for Abortion Rights—and What We Should Do About It”

The article states:

“Since it seems we can no longer rely on the courts to protect these rights, our only solution is to pass a new federal law that will protect abortion rights in all 50 states. The Senate’s recent failure to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act makes it clear that we will need a greater pro-choice majority than we have today to pass this new legislation.

This will not happen in one election cycle, and it will take a commitment of time, energy and resources beyond that which we have been expending to date. We have to get all the voters who support reproductive rights registered and encourage them to vote. We have to elect representatives at all levels of government who will protect our reproductive rights that are currently under attack. (Emphasis in original)

THE TRAUMA OF ABORTION

And as a nurse, I have seen the mental and/or physical trauma after abortion in both friends and patients.

For example, one friend felt she had to have an abortion because the doctor said her unborn baby had little or no brain, which may not have even been true according to the doctor I knew who read the ultrasound. That doctor was devastated to learn that an abortion was done.

Knowing that I was pro-life, my friend said she didn’t want to talk about the traumatic 28 hour induced abortion but, after 5 years, she called me and said she needed to know how the hospital disposed of the body. She also revealed that she secretly hung an ornament for that baby on the Christmas tree every year.

And I wrote a November 2016 blog “Why Talk About Abortion” about one of my elderly hospice patients who told me that she was afraid to die because of a secret abortion she had 60 years ago because she believed that abortion was an “unforgivable sin” and she would go to hell. She also felt her now swollen belly due to her terminal condition was God punishing her for the abortion.

My heart went out to this woman who was suffering so much, more emotionally than even physically.

We talked for a long time and in a later visit about God’s love and forgiveness. I told her about Project Rachel, a healing ministry for women (and even men) wounded by abortion. I gave her the phone number and offered to be with her to meet a counselor or priest, but she insisted that my talking with her was enough to help. I felt it wasn’t, but she seemed to achieve a level of peace and she even started smiling! 

Rose died comfortably and apparently in her sleep about a week later.

SOME RESOURCES TO HELP WOMEN WHO ARE CONSIDERING ABORTION OR OTHERS WHO ARE HURTING AFTER AN ABORTION

  1. Support After Abortion “aspires to shift the conversation to compassion and support for those impacted by abortion” (including men)
  2. Project Rachel for women and even including how to talk to a friend who has had an abortion
  3. Birthright An organization with many resources and help
  4.  American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists states it “Promotes Dignity for BOTH our Patients!”
  5. There are also organizations like Prenatal Partners for Life and Be Not Afraid that provide support, information, resources and encouragement for carrying to term with an adverse prenatal diagnosis.

6. CareNet helps find a crisis pregnancy center in your area

CONCLUSION

Serrin M. Foster of Feminists for Life in her 2018 National Review article “Women Deserve Better than Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women” perhaps said it best:

 “The reality is that there is no such thing as a safe abortion. Few unborn human beings escape a violent death, but what is underreported is the mortality of healthy pregnant women killed during or as a result of abortion.

When we know how much a woman grieves from reproductive loss through miscarriage or stillbirth, who would choose abortion? According to the Guttmacher Institute, those who have abortions come primarily from the poorest among us (75 percent), women of color (61 percent), women pursuing post-secondary degrees that would lift them out of poverty (66 percent), and mothers who already have dependents (59 percent). Half of all abortions are performed on a woman who has already had one or more abortions, proving that abortion solves nothing. Abortion isn’t empowering, and it’s not something to celebrate. Abortion is a symptom of, not a solution to, the problems faced overwhelmingly by women who don’t have what they need and deserve. Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better.”

And ALL of us deserve a better and more peaceful society!

Over 600 Doctors Send Powerful Letter to President Trump Calling the Covid 19 Lockdown a “Mass Casualty Incident”

nancyvalko Covid 19, culture, drug addiction, economics, end-of-life, media, medical ethics, suicide

Although it received little media notice, a May 19, 2020 letter to President Trump signed by over 600 doctors detailed the physical and mental impact of the lockdown in the US due to Covid 19, calling it a “mass casualty incident” with “exponentially growing negative health consequences” to millions of non-COVID patients. 

As the highly contagious Covid 19 virus was spreading around the world, President Trump issued a proclamation on March 12, 2020 declaring a national emergency with “preventive and proactive measures to slow the spread of the virus and treat those affected”.

On March 18, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recommended that hospitals cancel all elective surgeries and nonessential medical, surgical and dental procedures to prepare for the expected deluge of patients with Covid 19 and the health system complied.

Regular healthcare became virtually suspended as states went to lockdown with rules to shelter in place except for essential errands or work. Schools and many businesses were closed. 

Ironically,  except for New York and other hotspots that received massive federal help including ventilators and emergency field hospitals, US hospitals wound up with many empty beds and even emergency room visits dramatically declined. 

Many hospitals are now facing a financial crisis and health care professionals are being furloughed.

THE IMPACT OF THE LOCKDOWN ON AMERICANS’ PHYSICIAL AND MENTAL HEALTH

The doctors’ letter to President Trump focused on the devastating impact on Americans’ physical and mental health of the lockdown and why the months-long lockdowns should be ending. 

Here are some excerpts:

“Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%,” the letter said. Other silent casualties: “150,000 Americans per month who would have had new cancer detected through routine screening.”

“Patients fearful of visiting hospitals and doctors’ offices are dying because COVID-phobia is keeping them from seeking care. One patient died at home of a heart attack rather than go to an emergency room. The number of severe heart attacks being treated in nine U.S hospitals surveyed dropped by nearly 40% since March. Cardiologists are worried “a second wave of deaths” indirectly caused by the virus is likely.“

“The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.“

“It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown,” the letter says. “Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million [now 38 million] other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.” (All emphasis added)

But while nearly all 50 states are starting to relax lockdown rules to some extent, some officials are threatening to keep many businesses closed and other draconian measures in place until August or even later. Many schools and universities now say they may remain closed for the remainder of 2020.

But as Dr. Marilyn Singleton, a California anesthesiologist and one of the signer of the letter said, “Ending the lockdowns are not about Wall Street or disregard for people’s lives; it’s about saving lives.” (Emphasis added)

CONCLUSION

We know a lot more about Covid 19 now. The US Center for Disease Control’s new ‘best estimate’ implies a COVID-19 Infection fatality rate below 0.3% with an estimated 35% of people with Covid 19 never having symptoms. 

States have rescinded orders that forced long term care facilities with our most vulnerable people to admit Covid 19 patients after hospital discharge resulting in lethal outbreaks.

But as more states are slowly opening, Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute writes:

“Will patients come back? COVID-phobia is deathly real.

Patients still are fearful about going to hospitals for heart attacks and even for broken bones and deep lacerations. Despite heroic efforts by physicians to deeply sanitize their offices, millions have cancelled appointments and are missing infusion therapies and even chemotherapy treatments. This deferred care is expected to lead to patients who are sicker when they do come in for care and more deaths from patients not receiving care for stroke, heart attacks, etc.”

While still observing social distancing, sanitizing and other common sense measures to protect ourselves and others, it is my opinion that the more than 600 doctors writing to President Trump are right when they urge ending the Covid 19 shutdown as soon as possible for all Americans’ physical and mental health.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now Even Family Assisted Suicide?

nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, law, media

Her obituary  stated that Tessa was 55 years old and the divorced mother of two adult children when she died on May 14, 2002 in San Francisco, California after a nearly four year fight with breast cancer . She had been a real estate agent and later worked as controller in her son’s company.

Her son was Gavin Newsom, who just won the race for California governor November 6, 2018.

However and just the day before, a November 5, 2018 article in The New Yorker titled “Gavin Newsom, the Next Head of the California Resistance” gave a different version of Tessa’s death:

“Newsom’s sister, Hilary, said that when their mother had breast cancer, in her fifties, he was difficult to reach. ‘Gavin had trouble explaining to me how hard for him it was to be with her when she was dying, and I had trouble explaining to him how much I needed him,’ she said. ‘Back then, he seemed like the kind of guy who would never change a diaper.’

In May, 2002, his mother decided to end her life through assisted suicide. Newsom recalled, “’She left me a message, because I was too busy: ‘Hope you’re well. Next Wednesday will be the last day for me. Hope you can make it.’ I saved the cassette with the message on it, that’s how sick I am.’ He crossed his arms and jammed his hands into his armpits. ‘I have P.T.S.D., and this is bringing it all back,’ he said. ‘The night before we gave her the drugs, I cooked her dinner, hard-boiled eggs, and she told me, ‘Get out of politics.’ She was worried about the stress on me.’” (Emphasis added)

Sadly, a previous 2016 San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “How Gavin Newsom’s family tragedy led to ammo-control initiative” quoted Gavin Newsom on an earlier suicide tragedy in his mother’s life:

“My grandfather committed suicide, but not before putting his daughter — my mother — and her twin against the fireplace and saying he was going to blow their brains out,” Newsom said.”(Emphasis added)

THE CRAZY HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA’S PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW

I admit I was puzzled when California governor Jerry Brown signed a new law in September, 2018   titled  “AB-282 Aiding, advising, or encouraging suicide: exemption from prosecution”. This amended the 2016 physician-assisted suicide law that “Every person who deliberately aids or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony” to “A person whose actions are compliant with the provision of the End of Life Option Act (physician-assisted suicide) shall not be prosecuted under this section.” (Emphasis added)

For many years, California was especially targeted by assisted suicide groups like Compassion and Choices, the former Hemlock Society, for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide because of its size and influence. By 2015, there had been 8 failed attempts for legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

However, the Brittany Maynard tragedy started a media frenzy around the 30-year-old newlywed with an aggressive brain tumor when she announced that  she and her family left California for Oregon to commit assisted suicide where it was legal and picked November 1, 2014 for her assisted suicide. Brittany Maynard also became a spokesperson to raise funds for Compassion and Choice’s campaign to legalize assisted suicide throughout the US. Her family continued to vigorously fight for a physician-assisted suicide law in California after her assisted suicide in Oregon.

Significantly and because of the Brittany Maynard tragedy, most mainstream media outlets have now dropped the term “physician-assisted suicide” in favor of more palatable terms like “death with dignity” and “physician aid in dying.”

Surprisingly though, another attempt to pass  the “End of Life Options Act” in California failed in the 2015 legislature-until a sudden extra and controversial legislative session was called to pass it. This new law was signed into law by Gov. Brown and took effect in June 2016.

However in May 2018 and after at least 111 assisted suicide deaths, a Superior Court judge overturned the law, ruling it unconstitutional because of  how it was improperly passed in the special legislative session.

Physician-assisted suicide was again illegal until a month later when California’s 4th District Court of Appeals granted the state’s request to reinstate physician assisted suicide while it considers the case.

Then, as I mentioned before, Gov. Brown signed the law to prevent prosecution of anyone involved in an assisted suicide, including family members.

CONCLUSION

According to Findlaw:

“If you’re not a licensed physician, then assisting someone with suicide is most definitely a crime. But in states that have enacted “right to die” or “death with dignity” laws, eligible patients may request lethal drugs and administer them on their own.” (Emphasis added)

But the reality is that very few cases of a friend or family member assisting a suicide are prosecuted and even then, the penalty is light or nonexistent.  So-called “safeguards” are useless.

There is no chance that Governor Newsom will be prosecuted or even investigated for allegedly assisting his mother’s death in 2002 (long before California legalized physician-assisted suicide). But the new California law that forbids prosecuting anyone involved in a physician-assisted suicide who “aids or advises, or encourages suicide” further reinforces the dangerous myth that assisting  suicide is a victimless and even loving act.

Swedish Citizen Unmasks a Main Physician-assisted Suicide Propaganda Point

nancyvalko assisted suicide, Compassion & Choices, euthanasia, law, media

Oregon, the first US state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, is routinely promoted by advocates as having the model law for assisted suicide. Now the debate has come to Sweden.

The Swedish National Council of Medical Ethics, an advisory board to the Swedish government and parliament, published a November 20, 2017 report, “Assisted Death: A Knowledge Compilation” (an English translation is coming) “to promote a more fact-based debate on assisted dying” and states that the Council “does not take a stand on assisted dying in the report”.

However, Fabian Stahle, a Swedish private citizen who read the report, found a problem.

In his article “Oregon Health Authority Reveals Hidden Problems with the Oregon Assisted Suicide Model” , he notes that:

“As a basis for their reassurance of no slippery slope in the Oregon model, the authors of the Swedish report note that there is one question that is ‘the crucial issue’: is anyone with a non-terminal, chronic disease granted medical assisted death?” (Emphasis in original)

But Mr. Stahle notes that the report says elsewhere that the six-month limit on expected survival time applies, “if no treatment is given to slow down the course of the disease” (Emphasis in original)  and thus “might complicate the the whole idea that the law only applied to the ‘untreatable’ sick where nothing could be expected to extend life beyond six months”.

So Mr. Stahle says he did his own investigation by contacting the Oregon Health Authority himself.  Craig New, Research Analyst with the Oregon Health Authority  replied and told him that:

“…your interpretation is correct: The question is: should the disease be allowed to take its course, absent further treatment, is the patient likely to die within six months” (Emphasis added)

Fabian Stahle went further by asking if the doctor suggests to a eligible patient a treatment that possibly could prolong life or transform a terminal illness to a chronic illness or even cure the disease but the patient refuses, would that patient still be eligible for physician-assisted suicide.

He gave the example of a patient with a chronic disease like diabetes who refuses life-sustaining medication/treatment and becomes likely to die within 6 months and asked if that person would be eligible for assisted suicide.

Oregon’s Mr. New answered yes and that if the patient does not want treatment, that would also be their choice-along with the choice for assisted suicide.

As Fabian Stahle observes, this “allows a sanctioned path to suicide, aided by a physician, for anyone with a chronic illness who is likely to die within six months if they chose to stop treatment.” (Emphasis in original)

Fabian Stahle then asked about patients with a chronic disease whose health insurance company is not willing to pay for the treatment/medication.

Oregon’s Mr. New responded that:

“I think you could also argue that even if the treatment/medication could actually cure the disease, and the patient cannot pay for the treatment, then the disease remains incurable.” (Emphasis added)

And thus the patient is considered eligible for assisted suicide under Oregon’s law. This is especially outrageous.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Unfortunately, much of the public just accepts the Compassion and Choices propaganda that physician-assisted suicide is a safe “choice” with strict regulations for terminally and incurably ill people who are going to die soon anyway. Unfortunately, a mostly sympathetic mainstream media concurs and portrays assisted suicide as a “humane” last resort for extreme cases.

But now, Fabian Stahle, a Swedish private citizen, has done what few people do today even with such a life and death issue: He actually investigated the topic and contacted the Oregon Health Authority to clarify what “terminal” and “incurable” really legally means in Oregon’s “model” law.

Of course, there are many other problems with physician-assisted laws but Mr. Stahle focused on the one cited by the Swedish National Council of Medical Ethics as ‘the crucial issue’: is anyone with a non-terminal, chronic disease granted medical assisted death?”

Mr. Stahle is right to question this. The latest Oregon report on their assisted suicide law shows a range of diseases from cancer to undefined “other illnesses” as well as 43 people whose “ingestion status” of the prescribed overdose is unknown and obviously not followed up to see if or when they died.

Having written medical news analysis articles in the past for a national newspaper, I am appalled by the routine lack of investigative interest in life or death issues like assisted suicide from today’s mainstream media. The public needs and deserves better.

I wish Fabian Stahle was eligible for a Pulitzer Prize.

Why Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Laws Grant Special Privileges?

nancyvalko end-of-life, euthanasia, law, media, medical ethics

A May 2016 Gallup poll titled “Euthanasia Still Acceptable to Solid Majority in US”   reports that now 69% of those surveyed agree that “doctors should be allowed by law to end a patient’s life by some painless means” if the person “has a disease that cannot be cured” and “if the patient and his or her family request it”.  (Emphasis added)

There is also reported  growing support among doctors  for medically assisted suicide.

This is alarming but should not be surprising in view of the intense and usually one-sided portrayal  of assisted suicide as “courageous” and honorable while unassisted death is routinely portrayed as agonizing to both the family and the patient.

However, there are few healthcare providers who actually want to personally participate in ending a life even when they say they support legalizing assisted suicide. This is one reason why Compassion and Choices, the former Hemlock Society, has been involved in most of the assisted suicides in Oregon and Washington.

The reluctance of most doctors and nurses to participate in assisted suicide has come about despite the unique and special protections given to healthcare providers who participate in medically assisted suicide that can actually encourage healthcare providers to participate without fear of legal consequences.

Note two of these provisions in the Oregon law :

“The Health Services shall make rules to facilitate the collection of information regarding compliance with ORS 127.800 to 127.897. Except as otherwise required by law, the information collected shall not be a public record and may not be made available for inspection by the public.” (Only an “an annual statistical report of information” is made public.) (Emphasis added.)

And

“No person shall be subject to civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action for participating in good faith compliance with ORS 127.800 to 127.897. ” (Emphasis added.)

There is also no requirement that the doctor or anyone else witness or even be present at the lethal overdose.

But why are the activists and  lawyers who write these laws not challenged when they purposely omit  the stringent documentation and oversight required for any  other medical intervention by relying on doctors’ self-reporting the process  while also granting these doctors virtual immunity from any legal, civil or professional liability  for coercion, complications, abuse etc.?

One answer is that this allows the media and even doctors like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (one of the architects of Obamacare) to declare:

“Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are increasingly being legalized, remain relatively rare, and primarily involve patients with cancer. Existing data do not indicate widespread abuse of these practices.”  (Emphasis added)

The second answer is that these provisions allow assisted suicide doctors  (who obviously have more in common with the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian than the iconic Marcus Welby, MD of the 1970s)  to privatize the death and thus prevent any real investigation, followup or even serious medical research as well as allowing the coverup of any problems.

Apparently, nothing can be allowed to interfere with the carefully manufactured image of a kindly doctor helping a patient in excruciating pain to have a quick painless demise.

No other area of medical practice-even lethal injection execution-is allowed such secrecy and immunity.

Legislatures and the public need to know and challenge these outrageous provisions as well as being informed about the personal and societal dangers of assisted suicide itself. We must demand truth, transparency and accountability, especially when life and death are at stake.