Posted by: Ed | June 24, 2010

Condoms for First Graders

I was taking a break at the National Right to Life Convention and saw this little report on HLN: Provincetown (MA) schools will give condoms to any student who asks for them. That’s ANY student, including children in the FIRST GRADE.

The report also states that parents will NOT be able to opt their children out from this program. Additionally, no names of students will be recorded; there will be no “paper-trail.” In other words, parents in P-town have no parental rights in the P-town school system.

The long-held plan of “family planning” advocates (to teach sex to children as young as five years old) are now being realized in more ways and in more places than ever before. Does no one see how this will promote and help hide sexual abuse of children by older children or adults? Does no one care?

Click here to see a video of the news report.

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Posted by: Ed | June 24, 2010

2010 National Right to Life Convention

I’m at the 38th National Right to Life Convention and I hope to share so news and information with you as the day goes by. Stay tuned!

Click here for more information about the convention.

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Posted by: Ed | May 4, 2010

Choice of Words

Do you ever wonder why your choice of words is so important? It’s no secret that the battle between pro-lifers and pro-aborts have hinged on how words are used: e.g. am I pro-life or anti-choice; is it a baby or a mass of cells; etc. But sometimes, the carelessness of pro-lifers can leave an opening for the pro-aborts to challenge something good.

Many states already have laws that require women to have ultrasounds performed prior to getting an abortion in order to verify that the women are actually pregnant. These laws were passed because many abortionists performed D&Cs on women who were not pregnant in order to collect money for the abortion (see Carol Everett’s book Blood Money for more information).

But Oklahoma’s new ultrasound law states that women are to obtain “an obstetric ultrasound on the pregnant woman, using either a vaginal transducer or an abdominal transducer, whichever would display the embryo or fetus more clearly….” Because of the stated allowance of the use of a vaginal transducer, the pro-aborts have been given an opportunity to claim that the law violates women by forcing “rape by implementation.”

Jill Stanek makes a good argument (click here for her article) that the instruments used in an abortion is more like rape than an ultrasound probe. However, my question is this: why even give the pro-aborts this opportunity to strike down a good law? It is estimated that 80-90 percent of abortion-minded women who see ultrasounds of their babies decide not to get the abortion.

Watch your words because words can win or lose a battle.

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Posted by: Ed | April 8, 2010

An Amazing Advertisement

I’m in Malaysia this week representing LCMS WR-HC Life Ministries as we finalize details for a grant to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia to start their first pregnancy resource center. Darin Storkson (LCMS WR-HC Director, Asia Region) and I performed a site visit of the proposed center location yesterday.

With a group of over 20 leaders, both clergy and laity, in attendance, we shared a presentation on the work of LCMS World Relief and Human Care as well as Life Ministries; and affirmed our biblical and Lutheran foundation on how we view the various life issues. You’ll be able to read more about this exciting project on the Life Ministries pages in the future.

What I want to share with you is an amazing advertisement in Thursday’s (April 8, 2010) local newspaper, the Sun, which is delivered daily to the hotel where I’m staying. The front page and page 2 are full-page ads for the same thing: a new insurance product called PRUmy child that offers pregnancy and infant coverage, health and education. One tag line is “Comprehensive protection begins before birth“; another states “Protection starts early, even before birth.” The product is being offered by Prudential Assurance Malaysia Berhad, a subsidiary of Prudential plc of the United Kingdom.

The advertisement features Malaysian recording star Sheila Majid. The first page of the ad shows Sheila putting one of her children to bed and the copy reads:

Before you were born, my love for you began. I want to protect my child for as long as I can, starting as soon as I can. Now that’s possible with Prudential’s comprehensive protection plan which starts early, even before birth! Covering health, financial and education security, all your child’s needs are taken care of. When love begins, now protection can too.

Page two of the ad shows Sheila holding an ultrasound picture of one her children and the copy reads thus:

From the moment I saw her, I wanted to protect her. From the moment I first heard her heartbeat, I wanted to be able to keep her safe. And now that’s possible with Prudential’s new plan, comprehensive coverage can begin early, even before birth. And it grows as your child grows, taking care of her health, finance and education. It’s a simple solution to all your child’s needs, from the people who understand.

From Prudential’s product website:

From the moment of conception, this tiny miracle has the power to transform the people around it. Fathers and mothers everywhere find their priorities reordered, goals refocused and their energies centered on ensuring the best for their child.

With this product, you can add an insurance rider to cover congenital conditions for the fetus if the baby is between 18 and 35 weeks into the pregnancy. While it’s not unusual for health insurance companies to cover babies in the womb for congenital conditions (as an example, click here to see Aetna’s policy for fetal surgery in utero), what is most impressive and exciting is the company’s willingness to talk about the baby as a human life from the moment of conception and recognition that the baby in the womb should be loved and protected.

Maybe it’s just me, but…don’t you wonder how long this irrational dichotomy can exist – pregnant women who want their baby know it’s a baby! They want safety and security for their baby! They have love and concern for their baby! Even the insurance companies are savvy enough to know that the preborn baby is a human life, or they wouldn’t be providing a product intended for the protection of that life! And yet, in the US, abortion-on-demand is legal during all nine months of pregnancy and you have organizations like the UN pushing abortion-on-demand worldwide as part of women’s reproductive health care.

Wouldn’t it be great if all insurance companies had the courage to  make such a bold public statement?  I applaud Prudential – I just can’t wait to see an ad like that in the US!

Although the Sun’s online version of the paper doesn’t have the ad, you can click here to go to Prudential’s product website to see a video interview with Sheila. Check back later to see if I’m able to scan the ad and post the ad here.

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Posted by: Ed | April 5, 2010

Values That You Support

In the wake of the passage of the abortion-supporting health care bill, there has been much discussion about what it means to be a pro-life Democrat. Some have said that the pro-life Democrats are our allies and are trying their best. But here’s a question for you: what does it mean when you support a politician or political party?

I am a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and therefore I can state clearly that I agree with and support the beliefs and teachings of this church body. Does that mean I agree with what an individual LCMS congregation may teach? Maybe, as long as what they teach is in agreement with the Bible and with the main church body.

Well, I see it that way with political parties as well. I may or may not agree with what a particular person has done or said under the label “Democrat” or “Republican,” but I want to see if what they have done is in line with the larger group with which they claim to align.

So let’s look at what the party platforms of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee state. The party platform is what a politician supposedly supports while under its aegis. I would also assume that if you support a political party directly, or if you support a politician of that party, then you also support the party platform.

Let’s start with the platform of the Democratic Party. You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion,  regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. (Page 50)

So, there you have it. If you support the Democratic Party or a politician who is a Democrat, then you also “unequivocally”  support “Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion” and you also “oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

By the way, here’s a little bit of irony from the Democratic Party Platform:

Ending violence against women must be a top priority. (Page 51)

Considering an estimated 1.2 million babies are aborted in America every year and the US Census Bureau estimated in July 2008 that 50.7 percent of Americans were female, I think it’s safe to say that more than half of the aborted babies are female. How can you end violence against women when you also advocate one of the most violent actions that can be taken against baby girls?

In contrast, let’s read what the Republican Party Platform states about human life.  Click here to read the entire platform.

Maintaining The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life

Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life.

We have made progress. The Supreme Court has upheld prohibitions against the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. States are now permitted to extend health-care coverage to children before birth. And the Born Alive Infants Protection Act has become law; this law ensures that infants who are born alive during an abortion receive all treatment and care that is provided to all newborn infants and are not neglected and left to die. We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement. We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life. We salute those who provide them alternatives, including pregnancy care centers, and we take pride in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.

Respect for life requires efforts to include persons with disabilities in education, employment, the justice system, and civic participation. In keeping with that commitment, we oppose the non-consensual withholding of care or treatment from people with disabilities, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide, which endanger especially those on the margins of society.

I understand that there other political parties in the US and some of them may also believe in the value of human life. I encourage you to comment here with examples of those parties’ platforms.

Meanwhile, I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating for any particular political party; it’s not the “label” that has my loyalty – it’s the foundation on which they stand that I support – that all human life has intrinsic value, regardless of age or ability.  Ideally, what I wish for is that ALL political parties value human life and will protect it. When that happens, then we can get on with looking at the other issues that differentiate the various parties. But until that happens, the fact that one major political party in the US openly supports the ending of innocent human life should concern everyone.

“Do not put your trust in princes.” (Psalm 146:3a NKJV)

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Posted by: Ed | March 31, 2010

Is it Really Death with Dignity

The Washington Post carried an article on March 17, 2010 about a new book called “Imperfect Endings” written by a daughter, Zoe FitzGerald Carter, who helped her mother, Mary, die. Mary had been suffering with Parkinson’s Disease for 20 years and decided in 2000 that she would kill herself and she wanted her daughters to help. This book is about the last year of Mary’s life.

Other people mentioned in the article excerpt below are Guth, Zoe’s husband, and Sarah and “Katherine,” Zoe’s sisters.

Here are some excerpts from the article (click here to read the whole thing):

At a family Christmas celebration in 2000, Mary was still walking. But shortly after a series of painful writhing episodes (uncontrollable jerking and twisting common in Parkinson’s patients), she took to her bed, moving only to use the bathroom. Zoe was never sure whether movement had become too physically painful or just too emotionally exhausting, but either way it was around this time that the woman who had once strived to capture the perfect brogue started pursuing the perfect death.

… A volunteer from the Hemlock Society visited the house and suggested placing a bag over Mary’s head and having her inhale helium; a Dupont Circle doctor met with Mary and Zoe to prescribe the sedative Seconal after a consultation to assess Mary’s mindset. In a catch-22 twist of logic, he would provide a means to die only to someone who was not depressed.

“The scenario of her trying to choke down Seconal was horrifying, and the Hemlock Society was even worse,” Zoe says. She was horrified by the legal implications of assisting her mother — even tacit approval felt like too much — and she was horrified by the casual glibness with which her mother discussed dying.

… Her [Zoe] father had died in 1994; Guth’s had fallen seriously ill in 1995 before eventually passing away in 1998, which was only shortly before Mary began contemplating suicide. “We had seven years of losing parents,” Guth says. “How much time can you put into each process, and what are the consequences if you don’t?”

Zoe was horrified that her mother would no longer be living, or maybe “horrified” is not the right word.

She was sad.

“I didn’t understand why,” she says, “she didn’t want to stay alive and be my mother.”

… After months of discussion, Mary had decided to end her life not with helium or Seconal but by starvation. The family had been told she would die in a matter of days, but after a week her body was still strong, though she appeared smaller each day, wasting into nothingness. She suffered. She begged Zoe and Sarah — “Katherine” hadn’t come down after all — for their blessing to allow her to take morphine.

On a baking hot evening in the middle of July, Zoe, her husband and Sarah said goodbye at their mother’s bedside. To prevent themselves from being implicated in Mary’s death, they had decided not to be in the room when she actually ingested the drug.

Mary FitzGerald Carter died a few days after the night of morphine, on July 11, 2001. Her passing brought grief and peace, both in Zoe’s ongoing relationship with her mother and in her relationship with her sisters.

Do we fool ourselves to think that there is dignity in dying just because we choose the method by and the time at which we die? Is there really dignity in starving oneself to death (a painful and slow process)? Is there really dignity in putting a plastic bag over your head as your body reacts violently while you are suffocating yourself to death?

There is no inherent dignity in dying, no matter how it occurs. It is not natural. The fact that most of humanity resists and struggles against it to the end is evidence that God did not intend for death to be part of life; but because of sin, we do have disease and disability, and ultimately, physical death.

I cannot and will not speak to what the family went through that year, nor am I condemning them for the decisions they chose.  I have never personally experience that kind of despair and can’t imagine how overwhelming the conflicting thoughts and emotions must be.

But feelings lie, and that is why we all need to consider caregiving options for ourselves and for our loved ones before we find ourselves in the midst of the emotional maelstrom that comes with end-of-life decisions.

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Posted by: Ed | March 28, 2010

A Different Kind of Walk

We’ve all heard of them or participated in them: a walk for life; a march for life; a walk for hunger; a race to find a cure; or even a three-day walk, but how many have heard about a Pro-Life Walk Across America?

Believe it or not, there’s a bunch of college-aged men and women who are going to make a pro-life statement by walking across the United States and Canada (click here for more information). In the US, there are three walks which all end in Washington DC. The three starting points are Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

It’s not just about walking across the US, the walkers will also stop at parishes to speak to groups and at abortion clinics to participate in peaceful prayer and sidewalk counseling. If you’ve been looking for a unique way to spread the message of life, think about participating in one of the walks across America.

Click here to see a video made during the 2009 walk.

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Posted by: Ed | March 20, 2010

More on “Vegetative State”

In February I wrote about an article reporting that patients in a vegetative state may not be as unaware of their surroundings as doctors had previously thought (see News the Public Needs to Know). Now, I know that I’ve said I’ll try to be better in reading my books and magazines, but I just recently read the December 2009 issue of Scientific American. In it, there’s a short article about how some people can still learn while in a vegetative state.

A team of doctors at the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires has started developing tests to determine if patients have the ability to learn. The director of the lab, Mariano Sigman, said, “We want to have an objective way of knowing whether the other person [the patient] has consciousness or not.” The desire to find this objective method… (click here to read the entire article)

…stems in part from surprising neuroimaging work that showed that some vegetative patients, when asked to imagine performing physical tasks such as playing tennis, still had activity in premotor areas of their brains. In others, verbal cues sparked language sectors. …

To explore possible tests of consciousness in patients, Sigman and his colleagues turned to classical conditioning: they sounded a tone and then sent a light puff of air to the patient’s eye. The air puff would cause a patient to blink or flinch the eye, but after repeated trials over half an hour, many patients would begin to anticipate the puff, blinking an eye after only hearing the tone.

If two stimuli are delivered at exactly the same time, even snails will equate the stimuli. But the team actually delayed the puff after the tone by 500 milliseconds. To associate two stimuli separated by that time gap, “you need conscious processing,” says lead study author Tristan Bekinschtein of the Impaired Consciousness Research Group at the University of Cambridge. In fact, delaying the second stim­ulus by more than 200 milliseconds is enough to demonstrate some learning, he adds. By comparison, people under general anesthesia, considered to be entirely lacking awareness, showed no sign of such learning when given the tone and air-puff test.

…The detection of learning…also opens up questions about when patients should be classified as being in a persistent vegetative state, in which emergence isn’t predicted to be likely.

Why is this an important advance in diagnosing a patient’s condition? The article also states that: “A recent study found that about 40 percent of vegetative state diagnoses are incorrect” [emphasis mine].

In March, another news item on this topic showed up on the Scientific American website. It seems that certain patients in a “minimally conscious state” or a “vegetative state” due to brain injuries may be revived by injecting the patient with apomorphine, a drug used for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Esteban Fridman of the FLENI hospital in Buenos Aires is one of the leading proponents in of this treatment. This excerpt tells a little bit about the theory and the research to this point (click here to read the entire news item):

Fridman hypothesizes that apomorphine might work by acting in place of dopamine. Flooding the injured brain with the chemical might stimulate it enough to repair the connections, enabling the patients to reach full consciousness. He notes the drug wouldn’t work in cases where the brain has been deprived of oxygen or blood, because the damage is more widespread. Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose care sparked a nationwide controversy that peaked in 2005, was in a vegetative state caused by that kind of injury.

…Fridman first tried apomorphine on a patient in 2004. The man had been in a minimally conscious state for 104 days. After he was given the drug the patient’s mother called Fridman to tell him her son had awakened after only 24 hours.

Over the next few years, Fridman and a colleague, Ben Zion Krimchansky at the Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center in Israel tried the drug on a total of eight patients. Seven recovered consciousness. (One subsequently died of an unrelated problem.) One welcome effect, Fridman says, was that patients did not regress even after the treatment was discontinued. Five improved to where they could walk, and one can now drive by himself.

…But because these clinical observations were not double-blind studies—in which neither the physicians nor the patients know if subjects get a placebo or the drug—Fridman currently is starting a formal clinical study with a total of 76 patients. The apomorphine will be given between one and four months after a traumatic brain injury, and the dosages will be spread over several weeks, given over 12-hour periods. Some patients will get the drug and some will be controls.

Maybe now that science has raised doubts about the realities of “vegetative state,” doctors and health-care professionals will be a little less quick to judge whose life is worth saving and whose is not. Maybe we’ll start honoring all people as human beings deserving of love and care, whether we think they can see us or hear us, or react the way we expect them. And when talking about Terri Schiavo and others in her condition, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick say, “I wouldn’t want to live like that.”

Because maybe, just maybe, that patient in a “vegetative state” can hear every word you’re speaking and is scared to death of what’s going on and that no one will hear her silent cries.

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Posted by: Ed | March 19, 2010

An Alternative to the Girl Scouts

Some friends of mine have told me that all I ever do is harp on the negative and never offer alternatives. Well, never let it be said that Ed Szeto doesn’t offer solutions. Over the last week, I’ve posted twice about why we shouldn’t be supporting the Girls Scouts anymore in light of their continued collaboration with Planned Parenthood by distributing materials from the International Planned Parenthood Federation that encourage sexual promiscuity (see What are the Girl Scouts Supporting? and The Girl Scouts Deny the Allegations).

Reading other blogs and press releases, I found an alternative to the Girls Scouts in the United States: the American Heritage Girls. I’m not completely endorsing this organization as I have not spoken to anyone involved in it or contacted the organization directly, but I wanted to let you know that there are alternatives to helping young girls develop a better self-image and confidence.

What interested me the most about this organization is its Statement of Faith. I reprinted the statement below so you can read it for yourself.

American Heritage Girls is a Christ-centered leadership and character development ministry. The following Statement of Faith applies to all American Heritage Girls Charter Organizations, Adult Members and Adult Leaders.

We believe that there is One Triune God – Father, Jesus Christ His one and only Son, and the Holy Spirit – Creator of the universe and eternally existent. We believe the Holy Scriptures (Old/New Testament) to be the inspired and authoritative Word of God. We believe each person is created in His image for the purpose of communing with and worshipping God. We believe in the ministry of the Holy Spirit who enables us to live a Godly life. We believe that each individual is called to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength; and to love their neighbors as themselves. We believe that each individual is called to live a life of purity, service, stewardship and integrity.

Clarity is further provided to the following terms:

Purity – An AHG member is called to live a life of holiness, being pure of heart, mind, word and deed, reserving sexual activity for the sanctity of marriage; marriage being a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman.

Service – An AHG member is called to become a responsible member of their community and the world through selfless acts, which contribute to the welfare of others.

Stewardship – An AHG member is called to use their God given time, talents and money wisely.

Integrity – An AHG member is called to live a moral life, demonstrating the inward motivation to do what is right, regardless of the cost.

What I like the most about this (beside being founded in the Triune God so there can be no mistaking which god we’re talking about) is the stance on purity. No wishy-washy “we didn’t distribute that sexually explicit brochure but we’re not going to say we don’t agree with it” sitting on the fence like the Girl Scouts. There it is, loud and clear: American Heritage Girls believes in “reserving sexual activity for the sanctity of marriage; marriage being a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman.” They are not afraid to say to  young girls: “you don’t have to buy into the cultural message that pressures you into having sex just because ‘everybody else is doing it.’”

Let’s support organizations that will help build character and self-image based on the proper foundation: that we are all created in the likeness of God. When we understand that, then there’s nothing on this earth that can take away who we are. Let’s stop supporting organizations like the Girl Scouts that partner with organizations like Planned Parenthood, who believes that sexual promiscuity is good thing for young, adolescent girls and that abortion is considered a part of women’s “health care.”

And besides, wouldn’t be it better for all of us (myself included) if we didn’t pay $3.50 or $4.00 a box to scarf down cookies that contained 9 grams of fat for a single serving? [Tagalongs®, 2 cookies; click here and select the link on the right for nutritional information.]

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Posted by: Ed | March 16, 2010

The Girl Scouts Deny the Allegations

Not surprisingly, the Girl Scouts deny the allegations that they helped Planned Parenthood  hand out sexually explicit materials during a conference held at the UN earlier this month (see What are the Girl Scouts Supporting?).

According the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), the Girls Scouts have denied placing that material in the meeting room and they have stated that C-FAM’s source was not in the room during the Girl Scouts meeting.

In a press release, C-FAM rebuts the claims of the Girl Scouts thus:

1.    The Girl Scouts imply another group left the literature prior to their panel. Understand that the Girl Scout meeting was on opening day of the conference (March 1), which means the room was clean of all literature that morning.

There were four other meetings in that room that day prior to the Girl Scouts meeting. At 10 am the NAACP had a meeting about climate change. At noon the UN had an orientation meeting for NGOs attending the conference. At 2 pm CORAID had a meeting about counterterrorism and women.

Very clearly, none of these meetings were on adolescent topics, which was the target audience of the sex guide.

2.    The Girl Scouts say we were not in the room. That is true. All non-Scout adults were thrown out prior the meeting; and no wonder given what was distributed there. However, even though our source was thrown out of the room, she stayed around and as the doors opened she went right in to see what was being distributed. It was there and then that she found the stack of dangerous sex brochures.

Maybe it’s just me, but…isn’t it interesting that, although they are denying any connection with the distribution of the brochure, the Girl Scouts have not decried the contents of the brochure? Does the Girl Scouts organization really support what is presented in that brochure? If not, then they need to say so. But their silence on the brochure itself can, and should, be taken as support of it. And that’s where you need to tell the leadership of the Girl Scouts that this is wrong for our daughters in the US and around the world.

A simple rule of thumb when trying to figure out who is being truthful and who is lying is to ask yourself, “Who has the most to lose if the truth comes out?”

Click here to read the entire C-FAM press release. Click here if you haven’t read the IPPF brochure and want to see what all the fuss is about.

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