June 24, 2014

Dear Friends,

The right-to-die movement is heading into even more dangerous territory by spreading the message that people can agree to a protocol known as Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking, or VSED. Residents of assisted living facilities and others who are considered frail or disabled are being urged to consider this “option” while they are still competent to make that choice.

Joining Radio Maria’s “Gospel of Life” host Janet Morana tonight at 6 p.m. ET for a discussion of VSED will be Rita Marker, J.D., executive director of the Patients Rights Council in Steubenville, Ohio.

“VSED is legal in every state,” Rita says. Patients who choose VSED will then expect health-care facilities to make them comfortable during the extended and painful death brought on by dehydration. If hospitals, nursing homes, hospices or other health-care facilities do not have written policies stating that they will not provide this palliative care, they could find themselves in the position of having to help a patient kill themselves by VSED.

“We’re not talking about people being fed through a feeding tube, or people who can’t eat or can’t swallow,” Rita says. “We’re talking about people who choose, or are encouraged, to stop eating and drinking.”

To read more about VSED, go to http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/VSED_Questions.pdf and be sure to tune in “Gospel of Life” at http://radiomaria.us.

Tonight Janet and Rita also will discuss the Protective Medical Decisions Document available from the Patients Rights Council. The document allows individuals to name a trusted family member or friend to make health-care decisions for them if they become permanently or temporarily unable to make such decisions for themselves.

By contrast, a Living Will gives power and authority to an “attending physician” to withhold or withdraw medical interventions under certain circumstances. Family members and others who are familiar with the signer’s values and wishes have no legal standing to interpret the meaning of the Living Will.

Tune in to this vitally important discussion, and if you have a question or comment during the show, call 866-333-6279 to speak to Janet or Rita on the air. You can also email questions to info@gospeloflife.com before or during the show.

“Gospel of Life” is presented by Priests for Life/Gospel of Life Ministries. It airs on Radio Maria every Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET, and is rebroadcast on Thursday at 2 a.m. Past shows are archived at www.priestsforlife.org/radiomaria.

In Washington State, terminally ill adult patients have had the right to ask their physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to end their life since 2009 under the state’s Death with Dignity Act. Nearly 550 people have acted on that right since the law went into effect. In 2013, 175 people were given lethal doses of medication, an increase of 43 percent since 2012.

In New Jersey this month, two dozen disabled people – many in wheelchairs – attended a hearing to warn state legislators that a similar bill under consideration there was an open invitation to abuse. The lawmakers on the Assembly committee passed the measure anyway.

The mainstream media lampooned Gov. Sarah Palin when she warned that the Affordable Health Care Act would lead to death panels for the elderly and terminally ill. Now the federal government is again considering reimbursing doctors for talking to Medicare patients and their families about “advance care planning,” including living wills and end-of-life treatment options.

Doctors who are paid for having these discussions are much more likely to initiate them with their patients, and studies show that when given a choice, patients often forgo invasive procedures at the end of life.

For Rita Marker, executive director of the Patients Rights Council, these developments are all cause for concern. Rita will join “Gospel of Life” host Janet Morana tonight at 6 p.m. ET on Radio Maria for an in-depth discussion of right-to-die movement and where it might lead.

“With spiraling health-care costs, we have to wonder how long it is before life-prolonging treatments aren’t covered by insurance, but doctor-prescribed suicide is,” Rita wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

Priests for Life
PO Box 141172
Staten Island, NY 10314
Phone: 888-PFL-3448
718-980-4400
Fax: 718-980-6515
Email: mail@priestsforlife.org
www.PriestsForLife.org

Last Toledo Abortion Clinic Ordered CLOSED

By now, many of you have read the great news that Capital Care Network of Toledo has moved one step closer to closure! Moments ago, we sent out a press release detailing yesterday’s ruling that the last abortion clinic in Toledo be closed. Please find the story from the Dispatch and the story from the Bladecopied below.

Many of you, like us, have been following the closure of this clinic for many months. Many have been praying for its closure for years. And now it’s on the cusp of being closed once and for all.

Please know that Ohio Right to Life is at the front of advocating for the closure of this clinic. As Mike says in both stories from the Columbus Dispatch and the Toledo Blade, the decision to close down CCN puts women’s health and safety ahead of politics.

We are eager to see CCN held accountable for operating illegally for the last year. Most importantly, we are eager to see lives saved in Northwest Ohio!

While we anticipate that CCN will make an appeal to remain open, we will continue to point out the absurdity of letting this clinic operate outside of Ohio law and ensure that it is closed once and for all.

With you for Life,

Katie McCann

Katherine McCann

Public Relations Manager

Ohio Right to Life

88 East Broad Street, Suite 620

Columbus, Ohio 43215

614/547-0099, ext. 304

www.ohiolife.org

Toledo’s last abortion clinic moves step closer to closure

Toledo’s only remaining abortion clinic moved a step closer to being shut down by the state yesterday.

An Ohio Department of Health hearing examiner ruled that the Capital Care Network’s facility cannot use the University of Michigan hospital 52 miles away for its legally required transfer agreement with a “local” hospital. The decision unveiled yesterday to revoke the clinic’s license upheld two decisions by former Health Director Ted Wymyslo and now will be considered by Lance D. Himes, the department’s acting director.

Read the Ohio Department of Health decision (PDF)

“We applaud the hearing examiner’s decision, which puts women’s health and patient safety ahead of politics,” said Michael Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. “No state regulator or reasonable person would permit an out-of-state hospital to contract with an Ohio abortion clinic to provide backup services. It’s absurd that this abortion clinic would even make such a request. Sadly, it appears that the clinic will put profits ahead of patient safety and attempt to delay and stall through litigation.”

Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, called the health department’s action part of a “regulatory witch hunt.”

“This ruling is no surprise, given that (Gov. John) Kasich wrote these regulations to close abortion clinics,” she said. “Transfer agreements have nothing to do with patient safety. The real threat to women’s health will come if Kasich succeeds in closing the last abortion clinic in Toledo, because women will still need access to abortion in Toledo and could resort to drastic measures.”

Besides failing the legal requirement for a “local” hospital, the clinic’s pact with the medical center in Ann Arbor, Mich., is illegal under Ohio law “because it does not specify an appropriate procedure for the safe and immediate transfer of patients from the facility to a local hospital when medical care, beyond the care that can be provided at the ambulatory-care facility, is necessary, including when emergency situations occur or medical complications arise,” hearing examiner William J. Kepko said.

Clinic officials said the Jan. 20 agreement with the University of Michigan hospital would require them to use medical helicopters based about an hour away in Licking County.

Transfer agreements are required of all ambulatory surgical facilities, not just abortion clinics. The Capital Care facility had an agreement with the University of Toledo hospital, but public hospitals were barred from entering into such pacts under a law signed last year by Kasich. After the Toledo hospital ended its contract last summer, the abortion clinic operated for nearly six months without any transfer agreement.

Toledo’s other abortion clinic, the Center for Choice, closed its doors last year because it could not come up with a valid transfer agreement after operating without one for more than three years.

drowland@dispatch.com

TOLEDO FACILITY

Abortion provider’s Mich. deal not local

6/17/2014

BY JIM PROVANCE BLADE

COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF

COLUMBUS — A state hearing examiner has recommended that Toledo’s last

abortion provider, Capital Care Network, be closed because it lacks a valid

emergency-care agreement with a local hospital as required by Ohio law.

William J. Kepko, the hearing examiner for the Ohio Department of Health, wrote in a

decision released by the Department of Health on Monday that the state’s decision to

revoke the clinic’s license as an ambulatory surgical center was valid.

The final decision now lies with the interim director, Lance Himes, who served as legal counsel to the former director, Dr. Ted

Wymyslo, when he issued his original license revocation order on Aug. 2, 2013.

“Capital Care’s written transfer agreement with the University of Michigan on behalf of the University of Michigan Health System,

located in the state of Michigan, 52 miles from Capital Care, is not a local hospital as required by [state law],” Mr. Kepko wrote.

“The use of the 30-minute availability rule by the Director of the Ohio Department of Health when evaluating Capital Care’s

transfer agreement with UMHS is reasonable and consistent with [state law], requiring the transfer agreement to be with a local

hospital.”

The clinic’s Cincinnati attorney, Jennifer Branch, could not be reached for comment. But she has already indicated an appeal would

be filed should Mr. Himes agree with the recommendation and again issue an order revoking Capital Care’s operating license.

She used the March hearing before Mr. Kepko to lay the groundwork for a constitutional challenge.

The two-year state budget passed last year cemented in law what had previously been an administrative rule within the health

department requiring ambulatory surgical centers to have agreements with hospitals to transfer patients if complications arise.

Lawmakers then went a step further by requiring that agreement to be with a “local” hospital without defining what that meant.

The University of Toledo Medical Center chose not to renew its agreement with Capital Care as of July 31, 2013. The budget later

prohibited public hospitals like UTMC, the former Medical College of Ohio, from entering into such agreements.

The clinic struggled for months to find someone willing to take its place before inking a deal with UMHS. The agreement with the

Ann Harbor hospital, however, stated it would not be responsible for transportation of patients.

The clinic’s owner, Terrie Hubbard, testified that in a true emergency she would call 911 to have the patient transferred to a Toledo

hospital, which would have to treat the patient under federal law regardless of whether a transfer agreement was in place.

In the event of a complication not considered life-threatening, Ms. Hubbard said she would hire a helicopter to fly the patient to

Ann Arbor.

Mr. Kepko found that to be unreliable and determined, in his decision time-stamped on Thursday, that the clinic has been without a

valid transfer agreement for nearly a year.

“This ruling is no surprise given that [Gov. John] Kasich wrote these regulations to close abortion clinics,” said Kellie Copeland,

NARAL Ohio executive director. “The transfer agreements don’t have anything to do with patient safety. They have everything to

do with closing abortion clinics.

“The real tragedy is if they are successful in closing the last abortion clinic in Toledo,” she said. “Women still need access to

abortion, and women may resort to drastic measures.”

Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis, who worked to have the transfer agreement language added to the state budget,

applauded what he characterized as a “common-sense” decision.

“We believe this decision puts women’s health and safety ahead of politics, concluding that a hospital in another state does not

meet the requirements that our state requires,” he said. “It would have been a first-of-a-kind decision if he’d ruled otherwise.”

He noted, however, that the clinic is likely to remain open for some time as the appeal works its way through the federal courts.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

Pornography Consuming Our Children

By Luke Gilkerson

This training article was a collaborative effort between Luke Gilkerson from Covenant Eyes and the VIRTUS® Programs Associate Director, Crispin Ketelhut. 

Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.

—U.S. Department of Justice¹

Does this sound applicable to our current culture? It was actually a warning from a U.S. Justice Department memo from 1996, even before wireless broadband, smart phones and tablets.

Reality 

The statistics of today are frightening.

The largest consumers of Internet pornography are children between the ages of 12-17. More than half of boys and a third of girls have seen pornography before their teenage years. Thirty-five percent of young teenage boys (13-14 years old) say that they have seen pornography “more times than I can count.” By the age of 18, more than nine out of 10 boys, and six out of 10 girls have seen pornography online.² Pornography also contributes to the sexual trafficking of minors, as victims become part of the pool of videos and images circulated online.³ There are also grave neurological effects. As one can imagine, viewing graphic and degrading material can negatively impact a person’s thinking in profound ways. This is even truer when a person’s brain is still in its most formative stages-as is the case with teens and preteens.⁴

Perhaps most sobering of all is the fact that children who have seen pornography, even inadvertently, are more likely to be sexually abused by a peer or adult.⁵

As is denoted in the pastoral letter of Bought With A Price, pornography has spread like a plague through our culture, affecting the souls of men, women and children, and victimizing the most vulnerable among us.⁶ There is a plethora of evidence that pornography and sexualized material influence moral values, sexual activity and sexual attitudes toward sexual violence. And it is not going away. 

The Haven of Secrecy

Through TV, movies, wireless communication and the Internet, we find ourselves with almost unlimited access to pornography. There is also the heightened sense of secrecy involved in using pornography, which is why researchers believe it has become even more widespread. Many call this the “Online Disinhibition Effect.” Safely behind the anonymity of a computer screen or smartphone, people feel freer to do, say, and experience what runs against their values in the “real world.”⁷ This is especially true for children and teens.

A Comprehensive Solution: Communication and Accountability

The best defense against allowing pornography to reach our children is to stop it before it begins, or to address it immediately. Whether we are parents or caring adults, we need to train children to become responsible Internet users. Below are some tips on how to foster a healthy environment of online accountability and communication in the home and other environments:

• Discussion: One of the best tools is communication. Dr. Patricia Greenfield from UCLA has spent decades studying the impact of sexual media on the mind. Her words to parents are noteworthy: “A warm and communicative parent-child relationship is the most important non-technical means that parents can use to deal with the challenges of the sexualized media environment.” Adults should be willing and open to discussing the websites family members visit and have regular conversations about the sexual messages communicated online. For a helpful guide, consider viewing UNFILTERED: Equipping Parents for an Ongoing Conversation About Internet Pornography, a recorded parent workshop that addresses how to have this conversation.

• Establish expectations, such as the location of Internet usage: Internet use in the home should always take place in a common area, such as a family room, and not in the privacy of a bedroom. Technology controls should be a routine part of media use through computers and smart phones, exhibited and modeled by all persons within the family, including the adults.

• Use technology to your advantage: Have you given much thought as to how many Internet-enabled devices are in your home or ministry environment? Take stock and make use of the technology that is available to have control over the devices children use to access the Internet. This is also true for the adults who monitor devices used in public settings, such as a school.
• Create a review system: Are you aware that teens spend an average of five hours a day online and often remove the evidence trail of visited websites? A recent survey from McAfee showed that 53 percent of teens have cleared browser history to hide Internet activity from their parents and 46 percent of teens have minimized a browser window to hide online activity (and only 17-18 percent of parents are aware teens do this).⁸ Parents need to be able to have informed discussions about Internet habits, which includes the good and the bad. This means regularly looking at the sites children visit-and having a system that will account for the sites children erase.
• Install accountability and filtering software: Install a comprehensive control software suite that includes both accountability and filtering. It is not enough to simply have content filters for computers. Internet filters are important tools for preventing inadvertent exposure to pornography, but the ultimate goal is to raise young men and women who will hold themselves accountable and be their own watchdogs online. If you conduct an online search, you will find several software options on the market (including Covenant Eyes) with filtering capability to block objectionable websites, and accountability services to monitor and email regular reports of questionable websites, searches, and information accessed by each user. It can be as strict or flexible as you determine is necessary and reduces some of the challenges of managing all the technological aspects of controlling access.

This is a battle worth fighting. As caring adults, it is our privilege and responsibility to protect children from access to pornography, which begins with communication and is fortified by a prudential control of media available within the home and throughout our ministry.

References

¹U.S. Department of Justice. Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at I, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996)

²Covenant Eyes. Pornography Statistics: Annual Report 2014. Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/?utm_campaign=Virtus&utm_content=catholic&utm_medium=web&utm_source=article

³Shared Hope International. The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children (2009). Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SHI_National_Report_on_DMST_2009.pdf 

⁴Covenant Eyes. The Porn Circuit. Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://www.covenanteyes.com/science-of-porn-addiction-ebook/?utm_campaign=Virtus&utm_content=catholic&utm_medium=web&utm_source=article 

⁵Covenant Eyes. Pornography Statistics: Annual Report 2014.

⁶Most Rev. Paul S. Loverde, Bishop of Arlington. Bought With A Price. (2014) Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://www.arlingtondiocese.org/purity/pastoral_letter.aspx

⁷John Suler. The Psychology of Cyberspace: The Online Disinhibition Effect. Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html

⁸McAfee. The Digital Divide: How the Online Behavior of Teens is Getting Past Parents. (2012) Accessed from the Internet March 19, 2014. http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/misc/digital-divide-study.pdf

Right to Life of Northeast Ohio

The answer to a crisis pregnancy is to eliminate the crisis

Dear Friend:

     As technology and more have increased our productivity and knowledge, we tend to assume that we are all a lot smarter.   That may be true, but that doesn’t always mean we think or act smarter! Socrates said:   “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser”.  That is entirely true, especially when it comes to those who promote abortion.

     A few days ago a letter to the editor was printed in the Akron Beacon Journal where the writer compared abortion to the prohibition. He said that if abortion were to be made illegal, then deaths would increase from “back alley abortions”, and hoped that “rationality will return to our wonderful country and the anti-abortionists will see the harm they are afflicting on fellow citizens.” I don’t know about you, but there can be no comparison between the death of a human being and the production of alcohol!

      This is scare tactic widely used by uninformed individuals who try and convince the public that if abortion was illegal, then deaths from illegal abortions would increase.  This “coat hanger” theory is based on false premises and is far from the truth.  In countries where abortion has been made illegal, like Chile, studies conclusively show that outlawing abortion is remarkably effective at reducing the number of abortions that take place in a country, including clandestine ones, and that there is absolutely no link between making abortion illegal and an increase in the number of deaths from clandestine abortions.

     What the letter writer failed to recognize, which is even more significant, is that LEGAL abortions have been responsible for taking the lives of more 56 million children since 1973.  It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception.  No amount of rationalization can change this fact, and no “coat hanger” theory of harming women can change the fact that lives of 56 million children and their descendants were deliberately terminated.

     The answer to a crisis pregnancy is to eliminate the crisis, and not the child.  We should be improving our morals and values regarding sex rather than letting a mother kill her child as birth control.

     I sent in a response to this letter, but who know whether or not it will be published. Unfortunately, our work goes on…

For Life,