A New Eugenics

I have posted about eugenics in the past. The word eugenics is a compound word formed by the merging of two Greek words for "good" (eu) and "genes" (genics). Note the common prefix of "eu" (good) also used in the word Euthanasia ("good death").

In the past, eugenics included (but not restricted to) the practice of abortion and forced sterilization procedures. Today, it is taking on a whole new face. Frighteningly, what used to be deemed fascist - almost torture - is now something voluntarily embraced by the unborn's strongest ally - their parents.

In 1992, the March of Dimes conducted a survey. Their poll concluded that 11% of parents would would abort a fetus if their genome showed a predisposition towards obesity! Four out of five parents said they would abort a fetus if the child was going to grow up with a disability. 43% said they would use the genetic engineering available to them to enhance their child's physical appearance.

That was 1992 - this is 2008. What do these statistics look like now after 15 years of media influence? Films that glorify assisted suicide are handed Oscars for Best Picture -- when such tales, 50 years ago, would have sent our grandfathers to the battlefield and physicians to prison.

These March of Dimes statistics were found on page 183 of the book, "Does God Need Our Help? Cloning, Assisted Suicide, & Other Challenges in Bioethics" by John F. Kilner and C. Ben Mitchell. The book is a part of the Vital Questions series put out by the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. They also have a website and a daily (free) downloadable podcast. Their website is: http://www.cbhd.org/

"The word "compassion" comes from the joining of two Latin words meaning "suffering with" - which is precisely what we stop doing when we encourage or participate in assisted suicide or euthanasia" (Kilner & Mitchell, p. 134). [Author's note: or abortion or genome-influenced genetic interference].

Right to Life or Duty to Die

Al Mohler contributed to the duty to die discussion back in August in his article entitled, A Threat to the Disabled...and to Us All.

"Disability rights activists understand that this same logic threatens persons with disabilities. When does the argument for a right to die morph into an argument for a duty to die? The question is not merely a matter of intellectual interest. It is a question of life or death."

To read the article in its entirety, click here:
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=983

Here are some other articles of "interest"
http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art_medicalfascism.html

This is another Mohler article reporting that Down Syndrome births are down 90% due to abortion: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=943

Here is a terrifying quote from the article linked above.

"We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said, according to The Telegraph, a British online newspaper.The clinic director said he would be willing to try for permission to test for any genetic factor that would produce severe distress in a family.When asked about hair color, Grudzinskas said, "If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits. [Hair color] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it."

The Real Million Dollar Baby

JT beat me to the punch once again. Here is an excellent article by Chuck Coleson about Katie Dallam, the woman that the movie Million Dollar Baby was more than likely based on.

Rick Lyman of the New York Times has also written an article about Katie.

The Independent also has a very long, but very thorough biographical account of Katie's accident and post-injury lifestyle.

The Groningen Protocol

Here is an excerpt from an article posted on rc6.org.

The Groningen University Hospital gives you the facts behind The Groningen Protocol:
The Groningen Protocol has five criteria: the suffering must be so severe that the newborn has no prospects of a future; there is no possibility of a cure or alleviation with medication or surgery; the parents must always give their consent; a second opinion must be provided by an independent doctor who has not been involved with the child’s treatment; and the deliberate ending of life must be meticulously carried out with the emphasis on aftercare.

I think L-rs said it best in his excellent commentary on this infamous Groningen Protocol:
We are not talking about children that have anything to teach us, other than new depths of human pain and misery. Who in their right mind would let their child suffer unbearably to satisfy such irrational perverse nobility? In The Netherlands, the majority would not.

Who in their right mind would let their child suffer unbearably? God, for one.

Isaiah 53:4-5 says of Christ, "Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted."

My parents, for two. In my case, every dire prediction that the doctors made about my life ended up being not true - however, this fact was not observed until I became of age and the behavior could be observed. If I had been terminated as an infant, the doctors never would have realized that I indeed was not blind, brain damaged, mentally retarded, and unable to speak as they said I was. Whether I was healed by God or misdiagnosed, I do not know. What I do know is that I love life - scars and all - and am glad that some doctor "practicing" medicine didn't play God and decide to end my life based upon the way things "looked" when I was a week old.

Note the human will that underlies all five of the stipulations of the Groningen protocol.

1. The newborn has no prospects of a future.
How can that be accurately determined? What about misdiagnosis? What about severe physical deformities with no brain damage? How do you draw a distinct boundary line around a prospective future when analyzing a day-old baby? I am also curious how the doctors define "suffering" as most infants, especially those in vegetative states, will probably never "suffer" in that they are unaware of their lives in contrast to reality. It is the parents who suffer and so I wonder if that is not what infant euthasia is primarily designed to relieve.

2. No possibility of a cure.
With the sophistated advancement of medical research, technology, and the ever-chaning scene of medicine and medical breakthroughs, how can one determine that a baby born today could not be cured during the course of his or her lifetime? This protocol also rules out prayer, miracles, misdiagnosis, and God's intervention.

3. Parents must give consent.
Here, the entire fate of the child is being decided upon by fallible human beings with no omniscient knowledge of their baby's future or the future of medical research.

4. Must have a second opinion - consent of the doctor.
Again, the fate of the child is put into human hands. A moral choice is made on behalf of a newborn infant who cannot speak on its own behalf. The decision is also made prematurely before the baby is alive long enough to be observed or thoroughly diagnosed.

5. Deliberate ending of life must be meticulously carried out with thought of aftercare.
Finally, we have one point that seperates the Groningen Protocol from Adolph Hitler and Dr. Joseph Mengle. Yet, aftercare creates a bit of a paradox. Showing mercy to the parents of a child who you refused to show mercy to.

Boxing the Straw Man

I have to get in at least one more Million Dollar Baby post (seeing as I doubt anyone will be talking about this film ever again in another week or so). It dawned on me last night that the storyline really went out of its way to make the Swank character’s life unbelievably pitiful -- poor, trailer trash, daddy’s dead and he’s the only one who ever loved me, scrimping dimes from a dive café’s tips to make ends meet. Wow – talk about every cliché in the book! And even after the accident – as if being paralyzed isn’t enough – they had to make a point to also amputate her leg, and have a desperate, over-the-top scene with the family all huddled around Swank’s bed, shoving a pen in her mouth, trying to greedily have her sign all her money over to them. Wow – it all really pulls at the heartstrings, doesn’t it?

But, is it realistic? Is the deck stacked that ridiculously against people in real life? Or was Swank’s character designed to draw on the sympathies of the audience by subtly lulling them into the “there’s nothing left for her to live for” myth?

We must watch movies with discernment. I know no one likes the party pooper who is always saying, “That would never happen in real life!” But it is a question that needs to be asked, especially in films like this where ethics that go against our cultural norms are being applauded.

We must watch movies with all of our “eyes” open (not just the ones in our head). Be consciously aware of the fact that the finale of a movie is grounded in all of the previous actions and decisions of its characters. So, when all of the scenarios, experiences, and outcomes of these decisions and actions are completely inconsistent to how the situations would really play out in real life – we have a problem. Undiscerning movie-goers leave the theatre questioning their current worldview, not even realizing that the outcome of the film was based on a dozen or more previous outcomes that never would have played out that way in a real-life situation.

Eastwood commits the “Straw Man” crime in this movie. A Straw Man argument is when a person ignores a person’s true position and substitutes it with a distorted or exaggerated viewpoint. Million Dollar Baby distorts and exaggerates the position that most quadriplegics have about the value of their lives. At the end of the movie, the “poor, miserable” quad who is put to death may appease a weeping audience, but it does not appease the real quads who, unlike Eastwood, have lived and experienced that life and know for a fact that despite all of the inconveniences and bad days, life is worth living. Life is a greater gift than two legs or boxing career. This is why rock climbers who get pinned under rocks in the middle of nowhere would rather painfully saw their own limbs off with a dull Swiss Army knife than be left there to die. We value our lives above everything and that is a fact that needs to be kept at the forefront of our minds before we walk into a movie theatre.

Go Ahead...Make My Day

As you all may well know by now, Million Dollar Baby picked up several Oscars last night. Eastwood won best director and the film won Best Picture. (Now we all know how Michael Moore felt on Election Day!) I am tempted to contemplate the philosophical impications of a society who applauds this movie as "art" - on the other hand, I can't get too worked up about it because my guess is, when it comes to the Oscars -- no one really cares. Half the viewers tuned in to see J-Lo's dress or to see if Chris Rock would drop the F-bomb. Ultimately, Even Hollywood is too wrapped up with who Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston showed up with to care two hoots about what flick won Best Picture. This too shall pass...

Round Two

Click here for Part Two of the O'Reilly/Eastwood video interview about the film Million Dollar Baby.

For a transcript of the entire interview, click here.

Round One

Click here to view Part One of a short interview between Bill O'Reilly and Clint Eastwood regarding the movie Million Dollar Baby. Surprisingly, O'Reilly comes off far more stomach-churning that Eastwood. I will post Part Two as soon as it becomes available.

Edgar Allen Poe or the American Justice System?

Here is an excerpt from an eerie article appearing on the Not Dead Yet website.

Disability activists have called for a nationwide moratorium on the dehydration and starvation of people alleged to be in "persistent vegetative state." This would apply to individuals who do not have an advance directive or durable power of attorney.

The call for a moratorium is a reaction to the newly-published report indicating high levels of brain activity in people thought to be in "minimally conscious state (MCS)." The study, published in the February issue of Neurology, discovered evidence that these individuals may hear and understand much of what is going on around them, but are unable to respond.
The study drew a distinction between MCS and Persistent Vegetative State (PVS), but the distinction is not a reliable one. In a New York Times article, Dr. Joseph Fins mentioned research indicating a 30% misdiagnosis rate of PVS, indicating that nearly a third of persons diagnosed in PVS are actually in "minimally conscious state." Fins is chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

With the exception of oblique references to Terri Schiavo, current coverage of the study and its implications dance around the most important issues regarding this study. Namely, thousands of people around this country with labels of both MCS and PVS are being starved and dehydrated, often without an advance directive indicating their wishes, or a durable power of attorney appointing a substitute decision-maker they chose for themselves.

"Given the current research regarding brain activity and misdiagnosis, it's a virtual certainty that countless people have been helpless to prevent their own deaths through starvation and dehydration," says Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Supreme Court to Challenge Euthanasia Law

Justices will review a lower court ruling that said the U.S. government cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing overdoses under Oregon's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act. Since 1998, more than 170 people — most with cancer — have used the law to end their lives. Arguments will be heard in the court's next term, which begins in October.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft filed the appeal last November, on the day his resignation was announced by the White House, arguing that physician-assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" and that doctors take an oath to heal patients, not help them die.

Oregon countered by saying that regulation of doctors generally has been the sole responsibility of the states. Ashcroft has no authority under the federal Controlled Substances Act to punish doctors because Congress intended the law only to prevent illegal drug trafficking, the state argued.

Interesting choice of words. An act that protects patients from being murdered by their doctors is a way of "punishing" doctors.

Click here to read the entire article.

Peter Singer

I did some further research on the philosopher Peter Singer. This is the man I mentioned in my last post that supports the outright murder of disabled babies. Irony of ironies – Singer is the founder of the Animal Rights Movement. Yes, that’s the truth, folks, even I couldn’t make something that nonsensical up!

Because the articles I read about Adolph Hitler and Margaret Sanger both mentioned their connections with drugs and the occult, I did a specific search and found that Singer is also an atheist with occult ties. It is amazing to me that drugs and the occult consistently birth within its followers deep-seeded racism. What is it about the poor, disabled, and diversity that the Evil One hates so much? Why does he specifically target these groups?

Satan’s blatant attempt to destroy us (the disabled) begs the question, “Why?” Is he just a cosmic bully who picks on the weak? Is he some Wizard of Oz – someone we are told to fear but is really nothing more than a cowering man behind a curtain?

Or, is there something about the weak things of the world that Satan fears? I cannot be dogmatic here, all I am doing is speculating. But can we jump to the conclusion that Satan targets that which threatens his work? I can understand his hating Jews and Christians…but why the handicapped? Why is there a global vendetta against us? What does Satan know that we don’t? Why are we a threat to him?

Here is my off-the-cuff attempt at philosophizing – God has a mind-blowing eternal purpose for those of us that he created with disabilities! We will have a role in heaven that will bring the Lord glory, forever. If we were as harmless and worthless and weak and purposeless as the world would have us think, then why such blatant, extreme, extraordinary measures to rid the planet of us?

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

1 Corinthians 1:20-31

When We Are Weak, He is Strong!

Australian ethicist Peter Singer says the disabled and the unwanted should be killed. Not just passive euthanasia, but active, eugenic euthanasia for infants, the sick, and the elderly - everyone whose "life is not worth living" (8/8 World).

In the U.S., Singer is joining the faculty of Princeton University that once included Jonathan Edwards and J. Gresham Machen! (Calvary Contender, September 1, 1998).

Praise the Lord that we are in the hands of God and not Peter Singer!

1 Samuel 2:8-9 says, He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the LORD'S; upon them he has set the world. He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. It is not by strength that one prevails.

It is in the mind of God alone to determine whose life is "not worth living." It is not by strength that one prevails...how comforting that is to those of us who are weak! Strength and physical ability are not biblical prerequisites for worth or success!

But it gets even better. The Lord does not simply leave us to our own defenselessness. He gives us Christ and the promise that, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." It is like a biblical "tortise and the hare" analogy. The weaklings rise up to the stature of Christ, thus dwarfing the boast of man's own supposed "strength" to a level that no weak, dependent saint would ever covet.

Be Not Afraid

Be Not Afraid is an online outreach to parents who have received a poor or difficult prenatal diagnosis. The family stories, articles, and links within this site are presented as a resource for those who may have been asked to choose between terminating a pregnancy or continuing on despite the diagnosis. The benotafraid.net families faced the same decision and chose not to terminate. By sharing our experiences, we hope to offer encouragement to those who may be afraid to continue on.

To read more visit: www.benotafraid.net

Save a Special-Needs Baby!

Currently America is debating whether to have government funding of abortions of disabled babies. I am reminded of Proverbs 12:10b: "Even the compassion of the wicked is cruel."

To read three inspiring stories about special-needs babies saved from abortion:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327538/posts

CHASK (Christian Homes and Special Kids) is an organization that specifically designed to find homes for special-needs babies. Their mission statement (as posted on their website) is:

To encourage families with special needs children, in ways that glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. To find Christian homes for children with special needs.

For more information about their service, to download an adoption application, or contact info, visit their website at: http://www.chask.org/

History's Fine Print

Nazi Germany was not the first or only country to sterilize people considered "abnormal." Before Hitler, the United States led the world in forced sterilizations. Between 1907 and 1939, more than 30,000 people in twenty nine states were sterilized, many of them unknowingly or against their will, while they were incarcerated in prisons or institutions for the mentally ill. Nearly half the operations were carried out in California. Advocates of sterilization policies in both Germany and the United States were influenced by eugenics. This sociobiological theory took Charles Darwin's principle of natural selection and applied it to society. Eugenicists believed the human race could be improved by controlled breeding.

Margaret Sanger opened the nation's first birth control clinic in 1916. For the rest of her life she worked to establish a woman's right to control her body and to decide when or whether to have a child. In 1921, she founded the American Birth Control league, the forerunner of Planned Parenthood.

Through detailed research and concise writing, Grant unveils Sanger's true character and ideology, which included blatant racism, revolutionary socialism, sexual perversion and insatiable avarice. In a 1921 article in the Birth Control Review, Sanger wrote, "The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."

Many African American women have been subject to nonconsensual forced sterilization. Some did not even know that they were sterilized until they tried, unsuccessfully, to have children. In 1973, Essence Magazine published an expose of forced sterilization practices in the rural South, where racist physicians felt they were performing a service by sterilizing black women without telling them.

Still, no nation carried sterilization as far as Hitler's Germany. The forced sterilizations began in January 1934, and altogether an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people were sterilized under the law.

Forced sterilization in Germany was the forerunner of the systematic killing of the mentally ill and the handicapped. In October 1939, Hitler himself initiated a decree which empowered physicians to grant a "mercy death" to "patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health." The intent of the so called "euthanasia" program, however, was not to relieve the suffering of the chronically ill. The Nazi regime used the term as a euphemism: its aim was to exterminate the mentally ill and the handicapped, thus "cleansing" the Aryan race of persons considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society

These are only a few selected quotes from two larger articles that I urge you to read in their entirety.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MARGARET SANGER:
http://blackgenocide.org/sanger05.html

THE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED: VICTIMS OF THE NAZI ERA http://www.holocaust-trc.org/hndcp.htm