Category Archives: Uncategorized

Recapping PP Rally, 40 Days for Life, and Bishop Thomas’ Youth Mass for Life

Friends for Life:

Thank you for witnessing for life! On August 22nd we had 250 people join us in Toledo to raise awareness to the fact that Planned Parenthood is involved in trafficking and profiting off of aborted baby’s body parts. Our local rally was featured in the Blade, two local TV stations and was even picked up by the Washington Post, see here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/22/thousands-protest-outside-planned-parenthood-clinics-around-the-country/.

Just as important, however, to us raising awareness was our witness which gives dignity to those lives lost, as well as the men and women who are being taken advantage of through the altering of abortion procedures to effectively procure ‘specimens’ putting the women’s lives at risk and the selling of their aborted babies.

With this dark reality in mind there is a way that we together can end the horrific practice of abortion in our area. I want to invite you to join with me as we PRAY TO END ABORTION through the 40 DAYS FOR LIFE CAMPAIGN (www.40daysforlife.com).

This year’s campaign will take place September 23rd through November 1st and it simply invites people of good will to take 40 days to pray at their local abortion center. Since 2007 it’s been remarkable what the 40 Days for Life has accomplished: 10,331 babies have been saved, 118 abortion workers have quit their jobs, and 60 abortion facilities where the 40 Days for Life has taken place have shut their doors!

We’ll have an information meeting tomorrow night at the Pastoral Center at 7 p.m., 1933 Spielbusch Avenue, Toledo if you are interested in learning more, but you can also visit the 40 days for life website today to sign up to take an hour of prayer: www.40daysforlife.com.

Current News

  1. The Center for Medical Progress – The 9th video released further demonstrates the disgusting reality of the procurement of body parts from babies. This is why we are standing for life. Watch the video, become informed, and join us to pray! The video can be seen here: http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/01/9th-shocking-video-planned-parenthood-sells-intact-aborted-babies-one-just-fell-out-of-the-womb/.

 

  1. Respect Life Calendar Coming Soon – If you have a weekly holy hour for life or a major event planned for this upcoming year please email me with the date, time, location and a short description and I’ll be sure to put it on our Respect Life Calendar that will be posted on our website: www.catholiccharitiesnwo.org.

 

Upcoming Events

  1. 40 Days for Life Informational Meeting – Thursday September 3 at 7:00 p.m. we’ll meet at the Pastoral Center, 1933 Spielbusch Ave., Toledo to discuss strategy for this fall’s 40 days for life. If you would like to volunteer, help coordinate the campaign, or just come listen to what’s going on please RSVP by emailing me at: prange@toledodiocese.org.

 

  1. National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children – Saturday September 12th at 10 a.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Swanton Ohio. Join us as we remember and give dignity to the millions of babies lost through the tragedy of abortion.

 

  1. Project Rachel Retreat – Saturday September 26th an “Entering Canaan” Retreat will be held for those suffering from an abortion experience. Contact Clarissa Lapinski, our Project Rachel Coordinator at: projectrachel@toledodiocese.org for more information.

 

  1. October Respect Life Events including Bishop Thomas Youth Mass for Life – see attached –  the “Youth Mass for Life” is taking place on October 3rd! Please see the flyer (attached) for more information!

Peter Range

Respect Life Program Coordinator

Catholic Charities Diocese of Toledo

1933 Spielbusch Ave.

Toledo, OH 43604

419-244-6711, ext. 220

440-821-1533 (cell)

2014 Ohio Abortion Report

 OHIO RIGHT TO LIFE

 

Ohio Abortions Hit 38-Year Record Low

Ohio Department of Health Reports 8.7 Percent Drop in Abortions in 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE       CONTACT: Katherine Franklin DATE: Wednesday, September 2, 2015     PHONE: 614-547-0099 ext. 304
COLUMBUS, Ohio–Today, the Ohio Department of Health released the 2014 Ohio Abortion Report, revealing an 8.7 percent drop in abortions in 2014.  This marks the lowest level since 1976, when record-keeping first began, and is almost 25 percent lower than 2010 levels (28,123 abortions). A total of 21,186 abortions were reported.

“While our work is not yet complete, it is comforting to know that our pro-life initiatives are working in Ohio,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “More and more babies are alive today because of the leadership of Governor Kasich and our pro-life legislature. Ohio Right to Life will continue to advance its strategic legislative plan to help pregnant women and their children, both born and unborn. The nation continues to watch Ohio and learn from our collective efforts to hold the abortion industry accountable and to put women and their children first.”

In 2014, three abortion facilities closed across Ohio or stopped performing surgical abortions. Since 2010, half of the state’s abortion facilities have been been shuttered or closed voluntarily.

“Year by year, Ohio is sowing a culture of life–a culture that is literally saving thousands of unborn babies from the painful inhumanity that is abortion,” said Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. “As more and more women choose life for their children, we’re seeing Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry pushed to the fringe of civil society. There’s no doubt in our minds that the culture of life is winning.”
To read the 2014 Ohio Abortion Report, click here.

Founded in 1967, Ohio Right to Life, with more than 45 chapters and local affiliates, is Ohio’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement in Ohio, ORTL works through legislation and education to promote and defend innocent human life from conception to natural death. 

Full, Unedited Video Confirms Planned Parenthood Sells Baby Parts to Create “Humanized” Mice

 

Full, Unedited Video Confirms Planned Parenthood Sells Baby Parts to Create “Humanized” Mice

National

Cheryl Sullenger   Aug 7, 2015   |   4:29PM    Houston, TX

Today, the Center for Medical Progress released the full, uncut video of the undercover visit to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Houston, Texas, that was summarized in the a shorter video released earlier this week.

The full video, which runs for five hours and forty-five minutes, expands on a conversation between Melissa Farrell, Director of Research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, and two CMP actors posing as representatives of an organ procurement company. That conversation focused on potential compensation to Planned Parenthood in exchange for fetal remains.

Farrell made it clear that Planned Parenthood had been involved in the selling of aborted baby parts for some time and was very familiar with the use of fetal remains in the production of humanized mice.

She discussed how the Houston affiliate for which she worked was “resistant” to recent efforts by Planned Parenthood Federation of America to standardize fetal tissue sales throughout the participating affiliates because “we’ve been doing our own thing for a long time.”

Apparently, Farrell had the routine down pat.

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts

She emphasized repeatedly that she creates a written line-item budget for compensation that effectively conceals the fact that the money received from fetal remains is actually a financial benefit to the company above and beyond hard costs.

In addition, she noted that they are able to alter abortion procedures to make sure they have baby parts to sell.

“And we have had studies in which the company, and or in this case, investigator, has a specific need for certain portions of the parts of conception and we base that into our contract and our protocol that we follow this, so we deviate from our standard in order to do that,” Farrell said, (emphasis added).

Yet Farrell acknowledged that it was illegal for them to alter the timing or manner of the procedure for the purpose of ensuring organs were fit for use by researchers.

In the lengthy video, Farrell is seen looking over her e-mail when she finds a message from an immune-biology laboratory that was requesting fetal tissue to create humanized mice. The full conversation can be reviewed beginning at the 4:27:45 time marker on the full video.

Part of the conversation was included in the CMP summary video published earlier in the week.

The purpose of the request was to obtain cadavers and fetal tissue to generate humanized mice for immune-deficiency experimentation and the development of pharmaceuticals.

One actor posing as a potential buyer asked, “So are they requesting just liver or liver, thymus? Liver, thymus, long bone?”

“Everything! CNS, brain, kidney, thymus, liver, spleen, femur, bone marrow, hematopoietic stem cells, from 14-22 weeks gestation,” Farrell responds in a sing-song voice.

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately

“They’re going to engraft all those? Or just the hematopoietic?” asked the actor.

“It doesn’t say,” Farrell says.

“Wow! They want everything!” said the actor. “See, so that’s the thing. For a study like that, if we could provide, you know, just the whole cadaver, then they can take exactly what they want with the full quality of – you know – and everything.”

“Exactly, Um-hum.” Farrell responded.

“That is actually going to be ideal for them,” the actor continued.

“Well, it would make me very happy for us to finish up what we need to and I can put you in touch with them,” Farrell laughs, later adding, “Oh, I was wrong! They want 120 samples.”

“A hundred and twenty? This is huge!” says the actor.

To illustrate exactly how big this request was, earlier in the conversation, the actors told Farrell that they were interested in obtaining liver-thymus pairs from the same donor, which would then be supplied to a laboratory that was hoping to create humanized mice.

But the actors only hoped to harvest one sample per week, adding that five to six per week would be better.

What exactly are “humanized” mice?

Around the year 2000, a line of mice created through breeding and genetic alteration to suppress the immune response that prompts rejection of foreign tissue. This was around the time that Operation Rescue first discovered that scientists had begun experimenting with stem cells derived from aborted babies and began speaking out against it.

With the rodents’ immune systems suppressed, human fetal cells or tissue could be transplanted or grafted into the mice where it would grow.

For example, “hematopoietic” stem cells mentioned in the CMP video are cells related to the creation blood. Grafting these cells into mice would create blood that more closely resembled human blood. Then researchers could conduct experiments on these “humanized” mice and get results more reflective of how a human being’s blood would react.

Mice continue to be altered and bred to allow their tissues to take on more realistic human properties.

In the case of the immune-biology group discussed in the video, they were seeking a very large order of essentially 120 intact fetal cadavers from 14-22 weeks gestation. The bodies would then be dissected to extract the desired tissue, which would either be transplanted into mice and grown, or processed into cells that would be grafted or injected into mice.

“It is as if researchers have taken a page out of The Island of Doctor Moreau, the classic sci-fi story by H.G. Wells, where a mad scientist crossed the bounds of ethics and morality to create human-animal hybrids,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, who also serves on the Board of the Center for Medical Progress. “The profit stream that extends from the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, through the third party procurement companies, to the pharmaceutical and commercial laboratories is all generated at the expense of human babies. To Planned Parenthood, the only value in these human beings is in how much they can get for their broken remains. They are like butchers selling meat by the pound.”

For years Planned Parenthood has benefited financially from the illegal sale of aborted baby remains, which has created a lucrative additional revenue stream for the abortion giant.

It is clear from the full contents of the latest CMP video that Planned Parenthood is aware of the laws that regulate fetal tissue “donation” and have constructed an elaborate scheme to conceal and even justify their illegal activities.

Operation Rescue puts the blame for this illicit market in aborted baby remains squarely on the shoulders of greedy Planned Parenthood officials who are operating more like a cut-throat for-profit industry than a non-profit charity.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton testified before the a Texas legislative hearing on July 29, 2015, that his investigators visited the Houston Planned Parenthood’s tissue room and observed recognizable body parts from aborted babies being dumped into a red trash bag. He noted that this facility generates 260 pounds of fetal remains per week, every week.

It is difficult to even mentally process the enormity of that number and what it means in destroyed human lives.

“It is time to re-examine Planned Parenthood’s non-profit status. The way they look to squeeze every buck out of taxpayers, vulnerable women, and now even the broken bodies of defenseless babies, merits the revocation of their tax-exempt status along with their defunding at the state and federal levels,” said Newman. “But more than anything, criminal prosecutions of Planned Parenthood affiliates that have engaged in illegal activity in the selling of baby parts often obtained through the use of the banned partial birth abortion procedure are absolutely necessary. In order to bring an end to this horrific flesh-trafficking, Planned Parenthood must not be held above the law.”

LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue, a pro-life that monitors abortion practitioners and exposes their illegal and unethical practices.

 

melissafarrell

Source & to watch video: http://www.lifenews.com/2015/08/07/full-unedited-video-confirms-planned-parenthood-sells-baby-parts-to-create-humanized-mice/

 

Suicide Should Not Be Made Easy

NRL News Today

Suicide Should Not Be Made Easy

By Wesley J. Smith948446-jay-franklinSuicide should not be easy to access. It should be difficult. That is how lives are sometimes saved.

I daresay, there may be people reading this post who once wanted to die for enduring and understandable reasons, but who are now glad to be living because their suicides were resisted by family, friends, and society. I know: I have met them. I hear from such people all the time.

But these days, we are told in the media and among suicide activists that we should make suicide easy.

In Australia, the media boosts a man’s quest top access suicide. Jay Franklin has a painfully debilitating chronic disease. He was accepted for a death appointment at a Swiss suicide clinic.

As they were with Brittany Maynard, the media are in full supportive mode of the planned suicide. From The Age story:

In 2013, a Dignitas doctor decided that Mr Franklin’s constant abdominal pain, difficulty eating and constant struggle to live a productive life meant he qualified for an assisted death. To get to the clinic, Mr Franklin raised thousands of dollars from sympathetic supporters to cover his expenses.

I am always stunned that people would pay to help make another person dead. Anyone who contributed to that fund will have Franklin’s death on their own shoulders if he takes a one-way trip to Switzerland.

But now, Franklin wants to do it at home, and is again asking for others’ assistance in making him dead–a request dutifully amplified by the reporter:

Taking another step in his extraordinary journey, Mr Franklin has made a video pleading for someone in Australia to give him the drug Nembutal – the so-called “peaceful pill” promoted by pro-euthanasia groups. The drug is not available on prescription in Australia, although an increasing number of people have illegally sourced it and taken their own lives with it in this country over the last decade.

Extraordinary journey?” Do you see how the reporter is validating and praising Franklin’s desire for suicide, thereby pushing an insidious and thoughtlessly cruel message–not only to Franklin that he is on the right path, but that others struggling with medically and mentally difficult conditions should consider suicide too.

In a moral and truly compassionate–the root meaning of which is to “suffer with”–world, there wouldn’t be suicide clinics.

But if flying to one is more than a suicidal person wants to do, then life is obviously still preferable to death. Anyone supplying the deadly and illegal drug to a suicidal man should be imprisoned.

Hey, The Age, hey Australia! How about support for Franklin’s life, rather than cheering on his death?

Oh: That would not sell papers.

Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog at http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/421757/we-should-not-make-suicide-easy-wesley-j-smith

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism

Source: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2015/07/suicide-should-not-be-made-easy/#.VbtXx-LJCM8

“And another boy!” –Planned Parenthood’s Harvesting-to-Custom Order of Baby Body Parts is ‘Sickening and Deplorable’

NRL News Today

“And another boy!” –Planned Parenthood’s Harvesting-to-Custom Order of Baby Body Parts is ‘Sickening and Deplorable’

nrl-comm-ltrhdA fourth undercover video by The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), released today, appears to show a senior physician-executive of an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) casually discussing the harvesting and trafficking of body parts from unborn children killed by abortion. National Right to Life calls the Planned Parenthood doctor’s remarks “sickening and deplorable.”

“The chirpy nonchalance with which these Planned Parenthood executives talk about dismembering and pricing unborn children is both sickening and deplorable,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president.

One segment contains footage apparently taken at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) in Denver, and shows a conversation between two investigators posing as representatives of an organ-vending firm, and a woman identified by CMP as Dr. Savita Ginde, the clinic’s vice president and medical director.

In the video, Ginde says that most of the second-trimester abortions they perform are “D&Es,” a dismemberment method that usually does not produce “intact” specimens, but she suggests that the abortionists perhaps could be trained to perform D&Es in ways “to make sure they didn’t crush . . . to see if we could do a little work with them to maybe be a little more gentle,” in order to preserve the desired organs in good condition. Ginde notes, “I know I’ve seen livers, I’ve seen stomachs, I’ve seen plenty of neural tissue. Usually you can see the whole brain come out.”

Near the end of the video segment, after carefully picking through the parts of a 12-week abortion victim, a medical assistant happily chirps: “And another boy!” Perhaps she thought that the identifying body part would bring a premium price from the organ vendors.

In several passages Dr. Ginde appears to be acting on a belief that some of the activities under discussion are problematic from a legal standpoint or with respect to public relations, or both. For example, she advises those who she thinks represent an organ-vending firm, “Because if you have someone in a really anti-[abortion] state that is going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.”

This latest video underscores the need for passage of legislation to cut off all federal funds to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote next week on such a bill, S. 1881, introduced by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), with numerous cosponsors and the strong backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“Senator Ernst’s bill would push the snout of Planned Parenthood, a bloated abortion mega-marketer and a fetal organ trafficker, out of the U.S. Treasury feeding trough,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life.

The bill states, Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be made available to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, or to any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, successors, or clinics.” The bill also contains language to provide that “all funds no longer available to Planned Parenthood will continue to be made available to other eligible entities to provide women’s health care services.” In other words, any funds removed from Planned Parenthood would be reallocated to women’s health services provided by others (but such funds cannot be used for elective abortions).

PPFA is the nation’s largest provider of abortions – about one-third of all abortions in the U.S. are performed at PPFA-affiliated facilities. PPFA also receives at least $528 million annually from the federal government or other levels of government.

“As abortionists reassemble dead babies on a table, they can try to couch their actions in compassion, but they can’t mask this truth: they package violence as compassion and market it as ‘helping women’,” Tobias added.

Source: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2015/07/and-another-boy-planned-parenthoods-harvesting-to-custom-order-of-baby-body-parts-is-sickening-and-deplorable/#.VbtVD-LJCM8

Why the Pro-Abortion Camp Fears John Kasich

Ohio Right to Life

Friend —

At a time when the abortion industry has been exposed for trafficking aborted baby body parts, one would think this to be a terrible time to trash pro-life accomplishments like late-term abortion bans. Apparently, Mother Jones thinks otherwise.

This week, Mother Jones published a smear article on pro-life Governor John Kasich, calling him an “extremist”–a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Why? Because over the last four years, he’s signed 16 pro-life measures, including our late-term abortion ban in 2011. 

7-17-15_Kasich_on_PP.jpgSo much for a smear. Governor Kasich signed a ban on extreme late-term abortions, and he signed legislation providing new funding for pregnancy help centers at a time when Ohio is facing an infant mortality crisis. Only radical abortion cheerleaders would believe this to be devious.

Make no mistake – Big Abortion fears Kasich because after enacting a record number of pro-life laws he still won re-election in a “purple” state by 30 points! He won 86 of 88 counties in the great state of Ohio. Ohio is THE swing state and his pro-life record helped catapult him to a historic victory on election day.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Mother Jones finds scandalous all the life saving laws Governor Kasich enacted. Kasich is public enemy #1 to the abortion industry and this industry views him as a threat to their financial bottom line of aborting babies and selling their body parts.

At Ohio Right to Life, we are grateful to note that abortions are at their lowest level since their high point in the 1980s. As abortion mills continue to close their doors, and abortions continue to decline, we’re glad to read articles like this one from Mother Jones. It means we’re doing something right.

As the campaign to expose Planned Parenthood continues to unfold, it’s more important than ever that we work with our pro-life leaders to change the culture and pass life-saving legislation. Will you sign our petition to de-fund Planned Parenthood? When the pro-abortion camp is clearly scrambling to play defense, it’s critical that we keep pushing forward.

Ohio Right to Life
http://www.ohiolife.org/

donate_button_2015.jpg

Are you in?

Hi  —Here’s the latest:

*** THE U.S. SENATE WILL BE VOTING THIS MONDAY – IN JUST FOUR DAYS – ON LEGISLATION TO COMPLETELY DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD***

Your SBA List is literally working around the clock to apply as much pressure on wavering Senators as we approach this historic vote, but our funding is running dangerously low. 

ACT NOW: Make an emergency donation of $10, $35, $50, or even $100 or more to fund our efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood, America’s abortion giant. 

There is no time to spare.

Senators are deciding how to vote NOW.

We must have the resources to mobilize Americans across the country to keep the phones ringing off the hook and fill up inboxes of Senators demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

So please, make your emergency contribution of any size right now – it only takes a minute. 

And then, I need you to storm Heaven with prayers

Pray that God will move the hearts of Senators…

that He will open their eyes…

allow them to watch the videos…

move their hearts… stir their conscience…

so they will vote to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, the Abortion Goliath.

I don’t normally ask for your prayers. And I should more often.

And I try not to bug you too much for your donations – I know it’s a sacrifice.

But now is the moment where I must ask you for both.

Are you in?

For Life,


Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List

PS: Your Susan B. Anthony List’s legislative and political teams are working around the clock to prepare for Monday’s historic vote to Defund Planned Parenthood in the U.S. Senate. We need an immediate infusion of contributions so we can put tremendous pressure on wavering Senators. Please, make the biggest contribution you can afford right now so we can DEFUND this abhorrent organization

U.S. Senate to Vote Within Days on De-Funding Planned Parenthood!

NRL News Today

U.S. Senate to vote within days on de-funding Planned Parenthood!

Over the past several weeks, videos released by The Center for Medical Progress have shown top doctors of Planned Parenthood Federation of America casually discussing the harvesting and trafficking of body parts from unborn children killed by abortion.If you are as troubled as I was by these videos, you should be equally troubled that more than one million unborn babies are similarly and brutally killed by the abortion industry each year.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest provider of abortions – about one-third of all abortions in the United States are performed at Planned Parenthood facilities.

Enough is enough. It’s time to end public funding of this abortion giant!

The U.S. Senate will vote as early as Monday, August 3, on a bill — strongly backed by National Right to Life — that would cut off all federal funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and all of its affiliates.

Please act immediately — urge your two U.S. senators to vote in support of “Sen. Ernst’s bill, S. 1881, to de-fund Planned Parenthood.” 

Thank you.
Carol Tobias,
National Right to Life President

Assisted Suicide: This is a Road Down Which We Should Not Go

NRL News Today

Assisted suicide: This is a road down which we should not go

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionGlyn Davies, the  MP [Member of Parliament] from Montgomeryshire  UK, responded to  Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying Bill  in an article that was  published today by Politics Home  in the UK.

Davies, focuses on the effect of legalising assisted suicide in the UK. For instance, Davies responds to Marris’s assertion that assisted suicide is happening already.  From the article :
 
Mr..  Marris will be aware that breaches of the existing law in this area are rare. Less than 20 cases a year cross the desk of the DPP [ Director of Public Prosecutions] throughout the whole of England and Wales. However, he tells us that “terminally ill people are ending their own lives” and that “some doctors are complicit in hastening patients’ deaths”. 
The claim about terminally ill patients ending their own lives rests on an extrapolation of data from just seven out of 139 health authorities. Even so, the number is dwarfed by the death rate from legalised assisted suicide in Oregon. Oregon’s death rate from this source last year is the equivalent to over 1,500 assisted suicide deaths in England and Wales if we had a similar law here. And it is Oregon’s law that is the model for Mr.Marris’ bill. 
 
As for the claim that doctors are already engaging in hastening patients’ deaths, I can do no better than quote the words of Sir Graeme Catto, Chair of the campaigning group Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society). He told Mr. Marris’ meeting last week that “that is highly unlikely” because “doctors now work in teams and it is very hard to get one-to-one contact”. In fact, Sir Graeme was only confirming independent research, which has concluded that covert hastening of deaths of patients by doctors in the UK is “rare or non-existent”
Davies then points out that Marris’s assisted suicide bill is based on arbitrary criteria.  From the article :
… The essential question before Parliament is this: do you want to license doctors to involve themselves in deliberately bringing about the deaths of some of their patients? Most doctors don’t want that. 
 
All these ‘assisted dying’ bills rest on purely arbitrary criteria – like terminal illness (but not chronic illness or disability) and assisted suicide (but not administered euthanasia). Their boundaries are irrational and therefore permeable. That is why so many people are worried about the thin end of the wedge. This is a road down which we should not go.
Liz Carr, who is an actress and disability rights leader, stated at the  Not Dead Yet UK rally two weeks ago :
 
I am terrified by this bill. I am terrified because as a disabled person I have experienced first-hand how poorly our society values disabled people. It’s the same with elderly people.
 
I’m always been told, ‘If I was like you I’d kill myself’. ‘If I was like you I’d want to die.’ There are people who sincerely believe that people like me are better off dead. 
 
This is really serious. It’s about life and death. If this bill becomes law some disabled and vulnerable people will be subjected to exploitation and abuse and will die as a result. 
 
This bill if passed will also mean that innocent people get killed. The current law protects people against this kind of abuse. It does not need changing.
This is a road down which we should not go.
Editor’s note. This appeared at http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2015/07/assisted-suicide-this-is-road-down.html and is reprinted with permission.

NRLC Asks U.S. House Members to Co-Sponsor Bill to Prevent Obama Administration Paying Doctors To Ask Seniors if They Really Want Life-Saving Health Care

NRL News Today

NRLC Asks U.S. House Members to Co-Sponsor Bill to Prevent Obama Administration Paying Doctors To Ask Seniors if They Really Want Life-Saving Health Care

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RE: Coverage of Advance Care Planning Services Under the Medicare Program (H.R. 3251

Editor’s note. The following letter was sent today to Members of Congress.

Dear Member of Congress:

On July 8, 2015, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule (to take effect January 1, 2016) to pay doctors for “advance care planning” in Medicare. Although many advance care planning proponents give lip service to honoring individual preferences, in practice its pervasive focus is to ‘nudge’ patients to agree to forego life-saving treatment and even assisted feeding through the use of unbalanced, distorted, and even inaccurate information. Advance care planning is openly promoted as a means of slashing health care spending.

Congressman Steve King has introduced a bill, H.R. 3251, that would prevent Medicare from paying for these new and potentially biased advance care planning sessions. Advance care planning refers to counseling potential patients on deciding when to accept or reject life-preserving medical treatment and advising on legal documents embodying that decision.

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to do everything you can to advance this legislation, including adding your name as a cosponsor if you have not already done so. NRLC is regularly updating our affiliates nationwide on the status of the cosponsorship drive.

Far from opposing the concept of advance directives concerning treatment, the National Right to Life Committee provides a ‘Will to Live’ version on  www.nrlc.org and supports alternatives that provide truly informed consent to decisions about medical treatment. But we must fight the tax funding and promotion of advance care planning counseling that cannot be adequately monitored for bias and that typically is less about discovering and applying patients’ own wishes than about pushing them to accept premature death.

The Powell Center recently released a report entitled “The Bias Against Life-Preserving Treatment in Advance Care Planning,” available at  http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/advanceplanningbias2015.pdf .

The report cites a 2013 Health Affairs article entitled “Decision Aids: When ‘Nudging’ Patients to Make A Particular Choice Is More Ethical Than Balanced, Nondirective Content,” which gave this advice on how to get people with prostate cancer to agree not to have costly surgery:

[I]f incontinence and impotence are presented as plainly stated–that is, with no detailed description of these risks– men with early-stage prostate cancer may be swayed toward the option of surgery. If instead those possible effects of surgery are presented vividly via personal stories, men may be swayed away from the surgery option.

The Powell Center report gives multiple examples of advance care planning materials in widespread use that violate the principle of informed consent by selectively presenting facts in a distorted and unbalanced manner to “nudge” unwary patients to reject cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), IV fluids, and medically assisted feeding. Other advance care planning materials, it documents, describe disabilities and illnesses in an inaccurately repugnant way so as to induce people to agree that a low “quality of life” is not worth living.

The Powell Center report notes that providers of advance care planning materials to health insurers frequently tout the money it saves them. For example, to implement an advance care planning program Aetna hired the “Center to Advance Palliative Care,” which proudly reported that the result of its efforts was an average reduction of more than $12,000 annually in benefits for senior citizens covered by the insurance company.

The Powell Center report concludes, “Significant safeguards would need to be incorporated in any governmental program promoting . . . advance care planning in order for [it] to be truly protective of the values and intent of patients, and to ensure they are not pressured into rejecting treatment against their wishes…all in the name of cost-savings.” The proposed rule would give a blank check to use tax funds for advance care planning without any safeguards against the widespread bias against choosing life-saving that is tragically so pervasive.

Thank you for your consideration of our request that you co-sponsor this vital legislation.

Respectfully,

David N. O’Steen, Ph.D.
Executive Director

Burke J. Balch, J.D.
Director, Powell Center for Medical Ethics

Jennifer Popik, J.D.
Senior Legislative Counsel for Medical Ethics

Source: http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2015/07/nrlc-asks-u-s-house-members-to-co-sponsor-bill-to-prevent-obama-administration-paying-doctors-to-ask-seniors-if-they-really-want-life-saving-health-care/#.VbqNHeLJCM8