Limbaugh: “I had excellent care; there’s nothing wrong.”

Rush Limbaugh is notorious for his wimpiness in regard to pain resulting in a Vicodin dependancy and so-called “doctor shopping.” Then there’s his hearing loss, probably due to the Vicodin, and subsequent cochlear implant surgery.

Now, speaking as if he’s the picture of health, Limbaugh gives a press conference on his recent chest pains and visit to the ER:

“Nothing wrong?”  Now, I’m no advocate of a government takeover, but it is stupid to say there’s “nothing wrong” with the American health care system. 

Even Glenn Beck said his hospital stay changed his views on this issue somewhat.

Rather than illustrating “nothing wrong,” Limbaugh’s case only illustrates part of what is wrong: he is a famous multimillionaire, and he got excellent care because he’s a famous multimillionaire.  Would some poor schlob with Medicaid or no insuraance at all get the same level of care?

Also, Rush, an angiogram isn’t a treatment; it’s a test.

In other news, the very people who want to take over our health care and deny they want to do it to control our lives were, during this crisis, expressing hope for Limbaugh’s death.

As someone put it on Facebook, it’s horrible for Limbaugh to express hope that Obama fails, but it’s OK for Limbaugh’s opponents to hope he dies.

Liberals are such nice people.

Health Care: Are we having the same debate?

As the various factions have had their say, what is shaping out in the Senate seems great to me. Now, I’m drafting this both as a report/commentary and as a question. From what I’ve been seeing in the dissatisfaction of liberals about the current stance of health care reform, we’re seeing the beginning of actual reform, as opposed to a government takeover.

According to this Yahoo article,

1. “Public option” is all but dead (good)
2. The bill would require most Americans to purchase insurance (bad but possibly an acceptable compromise)
3. The bill would forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to people (doesn’t say anything about increased premiums, however) for pre-existing conditions, etc. (Fantastic)
4. The bill would provide subsidies to make insurance affordable to lower and middle class families (Fantastic)
5. The bill would apparently put a tax on companies that make medical equipment, supposedly to offset costs and encourage them to reduce fees. (Not sure what I think of that)
6. There is still debate about abortion coverage, and I got lost on who’s who. Apparently, as it stands, abortion would be a separate premium on private insurance. I’d rather not have abortion covered at all, which is I guess where Nelson and the Republicans stand, but at least they’re not forcing pro-life people to pay for abortion.

Honestly, if that’s true, that sounds a lot better. I have no problem with federal regulation and protection of the little guy.

I would just add that they need to do the following three things:

1. Tort reform.
2. Reduce health care costs by increasing the number of health care providers (remove the unnecessary stumbling blocks to enter medical training–increase the number of Nurse Practitioner schools, Physician’s Assistant Schools and osteopath schools, and reduce costs and hurdles to enter medical school).
3. Increase the options for private insurance, as the town hall lady on the Youtube video said: break up the Cigna, BC/BS, Aetna and Humana oligopoly and open up state borders for smaller insurance companies to compete.

Also, the USCCB is to be praised for the strong stand it’s taking in this regard.

Autism and Vaccines

We’ve probably all heard the hypothesis that autism rates in the US are somehow related to vaccinations. Now, there are several factors on both sides of this issue:

1. Mercury used to be used in vaccinations but is no longer used.
2. Mercury poisoning causes brain damage with symptoms similar to autism, but it is not, technically, autism.
3. The reason for increasing “rates” of autism is that autism is being more frequently diagnosed. It was not even recognized in the earliest versions of the DSM. Autism in its severist form used to be considered a form of schizophrenia until the 1960s.
4. Wondering why we have “more” cases of autism would be like people a generation or two now wondering why there were increased cases of Loeys-Deitz Syndrome.
5. The term “autism” was originally coined by Eugen Beuler to describe schizophrenics being focused inwardly: literally “self-ism”. Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner were the first to describe young “schizophrenic” children being “autistic,” around the same time, but it is not known whether they were aware of each other’s research.
6. People generally think autism is supposed to be something rare. In fact, one of Asperger’s points was that in any large school, there were a certain number of students who had these characteristics.

So, the theory that autism is somehow spiking in our society due to some other factor (like vaccinations) is really just a factor of autism being identified.

Now, what about parental wisdom coming into play? One of the most basic flaws of medical ethics is the refusal of doctors to trust patients’ self-knowledge. I spent nearly seven years trying to get someone to listen about my TIAs till an angiogram turned up my brain aneurysm.

So parents say their kids start showing signs of autism when they get vaccinated. Maybe it’s not anything in the vaccine; maybe it’s the vaccine itself.

Autism is, fundamentally, an attachment disorder. I’ve read about studies where autistic patients were given pitocin, and it basically cured their autism. The endorphin-oxytocin cycle of the brain actually explains a great deal of mental health issues.

Oxytocin is the hormone that helps humans form pair bonds, particularly family bonds. It is triggered by several activities, and is the hormone that gives that true feeling of “euphoria” you get from:

1. Having a great conversation
2. Meeting someone you really like/are interested in (whether in terms of romance, friendship or professional relationship).
3. Skin to skin contact
4. Completing a job.
5. Prayer or meditation
6. Lots of exercise
7. Massage
8. Childbirth and breast feeding.

Most people who’ve heard of oxytocin have heard of it because of its role in childbirth and breast feeding. The mother’s body releases a ton of oxytocin when she gives birth, to both loosen her joints and loosen her mind. Her body also releases a ton of it when she breastfeeds, to help bond her with her baby. But oxytocin is triggered by any of the above activities, giving the body a sense of satisfaction and relaxation, and opening the mind to pair-bonding, whether it’s parent/child, husband/wife or friend/friend.

There is a cycle of hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain which starts with endorphins and dopamine. These are the body’s “reward” hormones. They give that basic buzz you get when you finish a small pleasant task. The idea is to keep you going for the next “buzz” till the job’s done.

ADHD medicines trigger that part of the brain. So do caffein and cocaine. So does autoeroticism. Most addictive behaviors are addictive because they give the body that dopamine buzz. But the purpose of dopamine is to facilitate production of oxytocin, and too much triggering of dopamine can impede oxytocin.

So a great deal of mental health issues, including autism, are linked in some degree or another to failure of oxytocin in the system. The research I mentioned earlier tried artificial pitocin–the huge dose of artificial oxytocin sometimes given to pregnant woman to induce labor or help in a difficult labor–on autism patients and found them almost cured by it. But the dose was too strong to be healthy, and the implications of a drug that would make people trust one another implicitly were scary.

Now, let’s get back to the vaccination question. Vaccinations don’t cause autism, but do they exacerbate it? Parents think vaccines cause autism because the children’s behavior changes after receiving their shots. Mary says that about our own kids, that she saw marked changes in their behavior after their first sets of shots, not necessarily the first, but definitely the second.

Could the real connection not be a biochemical one, per se, but a psychological one? The infant’s entire sense of safety and trust is bound up in the parent bond. Vaccination takes that relationship of trust and immediately throws it into a challenge. The parent has brought the child to this stranger to be poked with a painful needle.

To a child with the genetic predisposition to autism, could this traumatic experience in infancy lead to a worse or earlier manifestation of autistic symptoms by breaking that crucial bond?

Here’s what Sarah Palin Actually *said* about “Death Panels”

OK.  So Obama has created the talking point over the past several days that has led many, even many the right, to disparage Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment as being over-the-top, inaccurate, etc. 

As I’ve discussed in several recent posts, the Liberals have based their claim of inaccuracy on the idea that Palin is talking about “end of life” care counseling.  I have speculated, having not read the actual speech till just now, that she wasn’t even talking about that, and she wasn’t.  Even if she *were*, as I’ve previously discussed, end of life care, as they call it, goes against Christian principles.

But Palin was not talking about that. She was talking about the standards for “triage” and health care rationing.  Here’s the text:

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

Where in the speech does she say anything about forced euthanasia?  She is talking about denial of services to those who are deemed unworthy, something that Rahm Emmanuel, Tom Daschle and others have all advocated.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

Here’s an article on what Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother, advocates in terms of health rationing.

Some blogs are suggesting that Palin’s speech was inaccurate because such “death panels” are not in the Bill.  But they *were* in the Bill and were struck down.  Either way, as I said in my last post, it’s the slippery slope.  Why do we want to open the door to these people to allow it? 

One of the things we’re told about the alleged evil of insurance companies is about denial of services to those who need them most.  Does anyone really think the government is that altruistic????  Does anyone really think the government will do better?  Does anyone really think that, when Medicare and Medicaid already have absurd rules for what services they’ll pay for, that a new government insurance plan will be any better?

I have been online since 1997.  I’ve been on message boards, listserves, blogs, Facebook, etc.  I’ve argued these issues time and again with people.  I know my view is an unpopular one with most people, including may self-styled conservatives and many self-styled Catholics.

This is why I know we need Sarah Palin in the public square . We need someone who is a voice against the attitudes about the disabled and those who have genetic disorders, etc. 

I know what it is to grow up in pain, knowing that death is always potentially around the corner.

I know what it is to be ridiculed for being different.

I know what it is to be told that I’m not worthy of being alive. 

I know that liberals and many who call themselves conservatives take it as a given that it is cruel to “knowingly” allow a child to be born with a genetic disorder.  Most people presume that people with genetic disorders should never reproduce, and that people who get in utero diagnoses of genetic defects should have abortions. 

This is how they think.  It’s not just my experience from one or two conversations.  It’s what I’ve heard from every liberal I’ve ever argued with, and from many a yuppie graduate of Franciscan University or Christendom College (though they cover up their eugenicist mentality with perpetual continence or NFP). 

They say these things.  Their “experts” say these things.  The countries that already have government-run health care do these things or are working towards them.  Then, when we call them on it, they say we’re lying!

Here’s a piece on Peter Singer’s contribution to the Death Panel debate.

Here’s a piece on Obama’s appeals to “faith based” Groups to win support for socialism and to redirect the debate on health rationing.

Here’s an article by a disabiltiy group that agrees with Sarah.

Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece on how rationing is central to Obamacare (HT Below the Beltway)

Here’s an article about GE’s role in promoting health rationing.

Here’s an article about how the death panel already exists: it’s the “Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research,” which was part of the “stimulus” bill. 

According to George Will, the draft report on the so-called stimulus bill states the CER will identify medical “items, procedures, and interventions” that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They “will no longer be prescribed” by federal health programs.

This is especially ironic, since one of the original purposes of the federal government getting involved in medical research was the Orphan Drug Act: federally funding research deemed to be too commercially unviable.

Here’s a blog piece from July which points to the rationing provisions in the House plan.

Starving someone to death is not “end of life care”

I’m sick of the lying.  Yesterday, Barack Obama, in a conference call to sympathetic religious leaders, accused his enemies of “bearing false witness” against his socialist health care plan.  The Democrat shills at Yahoo and the AP keep trying to “debunk” the “myths” about “Health Care Reform.” 

He calls the discussion of abortion coverage a “fabrication,” but the point is that, as a priest recently pointed out on Facebook, if abortion is not specifically *not* covered, it is implicitly covered by Obamacare because it is a legal medical procedure.

And then there’s Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels” comment. 

Now, there are two issues at stake here:

1.  Obama and his supporters are conveniently skipping over the question of “rationing”: that in any government-run healthcare system, there is rationing of services.  This is expressed in minimal practice by the waiting lists in Canada and the UK.  I’ll do a separate post on that later.

However, it needs to be said that, when people talk about “death panels,” they’re talking in part about panels that will at least establish triage rules if not the very overt elimination of “inferior people” advocated by Peter Singer, Tom Daschle, and several of Obama’s closest advisors.

2.  The question of “end of life care.” Obama’s supporters, including some Republicans, say the issue is just whether Medicare/Medicaid and the hypothetical “government option” should pay doctors to give “end of life” counseling to elderly and terminally ill patients–things like living wills and such.  They claim it’s not about the government or doctors dictating the end of life decisions, and that provisions specifically forbid euthanasia or assisted suicide counseling.

That’s all a matter of your definition of terms.  Because the Obama Apologists point to the Terri Schiavo case as the example of what they’re talking about.  In *their* view, an individual has the right to decide *not* to receive basic care such as nutrition and hydration.

I’m the first to admit that a patient should be allowed to refuse measures which can be classified as “extraordinary” according to the criteria laid out in the Catechism, and that any one of the conditions listed in the Catechism can be sufficient to refuse a medical treatment.

For example, I don’t get the flu vaccine, even though I’m in the category that “ought to”.  In my experience , every year I got the flu vaccine, I ended up getting a horrible bout of bronchitis or pneumonia .

Or when a particular medication has side effects that are too severe for the particular user, that’s an extraordinary measure in that person’s case.

But basic survival is a moral obligation.  Even if one believes a feeding tube as such is “extraordinary,” one is still obligated to provide *some* sustenance.  It wasn’t just that they removed Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube–that was bad enough-but after they did that, they tortured her by not even trying to give her ice cubes or small amounts of food by mouth.  They brutally starved her to death.

A feeding tube is not the same thing as a respirator or other “life support.”  On a respirator or heart-lung machine, one could theoretically go on for years in a physiological limbo.  But one can also die on such a machine, in spite of artificial survival.  There is no natural cognate to the machine in that case: but for a feeding tube, the natural cognate is just eating or drinking. 

My mother in law lived off a feeding tube for a year.  In terms of basic life functions, there was nothing else wrong with her.  Certainly, there were times she felt like “giving up”–quite frequently, in fact–but she kept going.  Seven years later, she’s living a fairly normal, active senior life. 

Now, when she was at the worst of her situation, she’d had several surgeries, infections, etc., and it was pretty dire.  It would have been one thing to say, “I don’t want any more surgeries.”   Had she made that decision, it would have been sad and tragic and ironic (given that the last one was the one that worked), but that would have made sense.

However, to say, “Take out the feeding tube” would *not* be a morally acceptable decision, because, while it’s a very nuanced difference, that would have been to actively kill her. 

Certainly, these matters are complex.  We are not, as Obama has claimed, “God’s partners in matters of life and death”–at least not in the way that he means.  Indeed, we should be God’s “partners’ in these matters, if he means prayerfully deciding what action is most in keeping with moral law.  But when we force God’s hand, whether it’s by contracepting, or using IVF, or by denying basic life sustenance to a seriously disabled or terminally ill person , we are not “partnering”–we’re controlling.

Recently, some friends’ former son-in-law passed away.  Their grandson was faced with the troubling decision of whether to “pull the plug” on his own father.  God was merciful, and his father passed away that night on the life support, anyway.

On the other hand, there was a family member who, after multiple bouts with cancer, signed a living will with a blanket refusal of life sustaining measures, which was phrased so broadly that, when the time came, she was starved to death.

And then there was a family friend who was in a horrible traffic accident like a year and a half ago.  When it first happened, he was on lifesupport and not responding, and there was a big debate about “pulling the plug.”  Before a decision was made, he woke up.  Then they said he was completely paralyzed.  Then he wasn’t.  Now he’s walking again and, while not 100%, mostly back to his old life.

As I have read many stories of middle aged Marfans who coughed too hard, thus dissecting their aortas, and then went into comas for several months only to die of respiratory failure when their lungs filled up with blood, I wonder how I want such a situation handled.  I don’t want to be arbitrarily denied care or taken off the machines.  I don’t want to die *only* because a living will was improperly written or whatever, too vaguely.  

Or my wife’s cousin, who was the center of a national Botox scandal, whose father almost “pulled the plug” when things were most dire (they brougth the family together and used the minimal communication they were able to get from her–as they do with people with “locked in” syndrome–to get her response on which family member she wanted as her representative), but she’s since recovered.

I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of shutting down “life support,” nor with the idea of “brain death.”  

So much of it depends on the exact circumstances ,an

Should people have living wills?  Yes, if only to protect themselves from the  Michael Schiavos of the world. 

Should people carefully consider these issues?  Yes. 

Should doctors or the government or the insurance be the ones to “counsel” people?  No.  This decision should be made with detached parties who have the expertise in the moral rules, with a thorough understanding of the medical situation and possibilities, not with those who have a vested interest in the situation.

Obama implies he’s not a believing Christian

“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that,” an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.”

I know people are going to call this a stretch, but one thing I’ve experienced first hand, and through many conversations, is how different the death experience for those who have faith and those who don’t.

One person’s “agonizing” death from cancer may be a time of family togetherness, all-night prayer vigils, hand holding and hugging and hymnody.  Another’s death really is agony: dark-rooms, somber relatives, no one speaking, everyone standing at a distance. 

We had a big conversation about this at my Carmelite meeting a few months ago.  People told amazing stories of relatives’ deathbed conversions.  Some talked about relatives who had no faith, whose deaths were *horrible.* “You could feel the demons in the room,” said one lady of her brother-in-law’s death experience.  He was writhing in the bed, screaming.  Suddenly, he asked for a priest.  They got the priest who’d been waiting outside, blocked by the atheist relatives.  The priest received the dying man into the Church, and the whole room changed.

When you hear liberals talk about death, they talk about the agonizing nature of it. And the liberals, and the media, just don’t get it.  They think people have a “choice” about “end of life” care (to a certain extent, we do).  They say that the Schiavo case was a matter of “choice” and “family decisions” in which the government had no place (even though it had been in court for years, and the federal involvement was merely giving the family a chance at an appeal to someone other than the corrupt judge who always ruled in Michael’s favor).

But you don’t have the choice not to accept basic nutrition.  You have to the choice to refuse medical care, under certain circumstances . You do *not* have the choice to turn down basic nutrition or hydration, even to the point of refusing to provide nutritoin or hydration to a dying person when one has pulled the plug.

But his talk of the agonizing experience of watching his grandmother’s death–and how much did he actually experience?  Was it agonizing because of his guilt of putting his own ambitions above family?–betrays the fact that he thinks death is something fearful.

Years ago, before my heart surgery, the topic was being discussed at a Cursillo Ultreya.  Members were discussing their ailing parents and how sad it was they were dying in their 80s or whatever, and Dad said, “When John dies, it will be the happiest day of our lives.  All he wants is to go to Heaven, and why should we be sad that he gets his heart’s desire?”

Obama: Turn in Anyone who Opposes Me

From the White House Blog:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an e-mail or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Mr. Obama, you talk of “disinformation.”  Can you show us a single example of a country with socialized medicine, other than Malta, that actually *works*?

Can you tell us how we are supposed to make free medical choices when the government is in charge?

Can you guarantee us that your plan is not going to fund contraception or abortion?

Can you guarantee us that there will not be “rationining,” euthanasia or sterilization, even though your closest advisors tell us this is the case?

Can you guarantee that you are not taking away our right to purchase private insurance, taxing us for having it, or otherwise penalizing private insurance versus your government plan?

Oh, and how are you going to pay for this?

Why I do not support “universal health care” at the federal level

1.  It goes against the Social Justice Encyclicals.  “WHAT?”  you ask?  “That’s impossible!”  But it does: one of the most consistent teachings of the Popes, found also in Chestertonian Distributism, is that workers should have an “ownership” of their labor, that those who do the work should have the ultimate say in the business.  Ask public school teachers if they have a sense of ownership in their labor.

2.  It goes against subsidiarity, as well as the Tenth Amendment.  It’s none of the federal government’s business.  It’s a state or local matter.

3.  “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”: socialized medicine is just another way for the federal government to increase its power.  Like every new bureaucracy, it will add more political appointments for politicians to reward people with.  More tax money for them to play with.   Again, has the US Department of Education done anything to improve education in the 30 years it’s existed?  And when Reagan came to power, promising to abolish it, did he?  No.  He realized it represented new power for him to push his personal agendas with.

4.  Does anyone *really* think the Democrats will let it pass without including abortion?  And is anyone bothering to say they won’t support it if it funds contraception?

5.  We already have socialized medicine.  It’s called Medicaid, and it stinks.  But just about anyone who really needs healthcare will qualify for it.

6.  Rationing, eugenics and euthanasia: as Oregon, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and other places that have socialized medicine have demonstrated, it comes with great cost to those who have serious health conditions, genetic disorders and severe disabilities.  We’ve already seen how Obama’s original HHS appointee, Tom Daschle, supports a national committee to establish standards for denying care to those who are most seriously ill.

7.  Vaccines and embryonic stem cell research, or even natural child birth: socialized medicine will take away our freedom of choice in our own medical care.  We will have less freedom to conscientiously object to any procedures we disagree with .  As it is, federal standards are often cited by doctors who refuse to let patients conscientiously object.

8.  Every person I’ve talked to who has actually lived in a country with socialized medicine, even those who say they are supporters of it, will admit that there are huge waiting lists for what we now consider basic tests like MRIs and CT Scans, as well as for seeing specialists and definitely having major surgery. 

All they need to do is make it easier for those who need it to qualify for Medicaid, and give tax credits for private health insurance.

Why do I see so many articles from the UK on Marfan syndrome fundraisers?

It seems that most of the Marfan syndrome related news that pops up on my news search is from the UK. So many articles about people in the UK dying from Marfan syndrome because they didn’t get the proper diagnosis or treatment. Articles about people raising money to save the lives of people with Marfan syndrome. . . . .

Socialized medicine is great, isn’t it?

Scientists study recombination

“Geneticists unearth the Roots of Human Genetic Variation“, says this sensationalistic headline.  In reality, it’s just a study of the exact process of recombination, and the “what to take home with you” in this article isn’t anything different than what I learned in Advanced Biology 17 years ago.

But it’s still interesting to read.

Evangelium Vitae on Other Offenses to Life

Expounding on the vast range of offenses of the Culture of Death, John Paul II writes, in Evangelium Vitae,

What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world’s ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life? It is impossible to catalogue completely the vast array of threats to human life, so many are the forms, whether explicit or hidden, in which they appear today!

Ecological responsibility is a pro-life issue.
The drug war, obviously, is a pro-life issue.
But it is interesting that John Paul notes, in passing, how sexually promiscuous behavior, due to spreading STDs, is also an offense against life.
Interesting contrast to those who say that the Church is irresponsible in regard to AIDS by opposing condoms: how about those who engage in promiscuous sex are “irresponsible” in regard to AIDS?

Are you afraid of the flu?

One of my major pet peeves with modern Americans is their fear of illness.
This is especially true when it comes to people who claim to be Christians.

Whether it’s discussion of vaccinations (ethicality or otherwise), distribution of Holy Communion (even though I disagree with common distribution of the Chalice, anyway), the technical rules of the VIRTUS program according to its website (church employees and volunteers are to stay home if they cough or sneeze, for fear of causing a lawsuit for infecting smoeone), or attendance at Mass (some say it’s morally obligatory, not just permissible, to stay home if you’re sick), it baffles me why anyone who has faith in Christ should fear illness.

As Fr. John Corapi puts it, “It is not fit for a prince or a princess of the kingdom to be afraid.”

Think Fr. Corapi’s a “right wing extremist”?  OK, how about this “extremist” “fideist” fanatic?

“And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mt 10:28; this and next several from Douay-Rheims).

“He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it.” (Mt 10:39).

“2 And when they had seen some of his disciples eat bread with common, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. 3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews eat not without often washing their hands, holding the tradition of the ancients: 4 And when they come from the market, unless they be washed, they eat not: and many other things there are that have been delivered to them to observe, the washings of cups and of pots, and of brazen vessels, and of beds. 5 And the Pharisees and scribes asked him: Why do not thy disciples walk according to the tradition of the ancients, but they eat bread with common hands?

6 But he answering, said to them: Well did Isaias prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and precepts of men. 8 For leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pots and of cups: and many other things you do like to these.[. . .]15 There is nothing from without a man that entering into him, can defile him. But the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man. (Mk 7:2-15).

“41 And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: 42 But one thing is necessary.” (Lk 10:41-42).

So, what do you have to be worried about?  Don’t you know that every hair on your head is counted, that your Father in Heaven will protect you as He protects the lilies of the field?

That isn’t to say you won’t get sick.  As St. Teresa of Avila teahes, and experience proves, God’s will is often precisely that we *will* be sick and suffering.  God wants to keep us knocked down so we’re dependent upon Him.

But God will provide.  What possible thing is there to worry about in getting the flu?

Death???  Are you, a Christian, really afraid of death??? 

“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor 15:55)

Why be afraid of death?

“Now the sting of death is sin: and the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor 15:56)

The only reason to be afraid of death is when we live in Sin.

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. (1 Cor 11:29-30).

When we sin, we place ourselves under the law instead of the freedom of Christ.  We lose God’s protection–except in efforts to bring us to repentance–when we live in sin.

That is the real reason people fear the flu.  They fear their own sins, which put them in subjection to the Devil.

If you fear death, go to Confession.  There is a Catholic psychologist who says obsessive compulsion is just a “guilt complex,” and that guilt complexes come from unrepented sin.  He recommends that compulsives make a constant prayer of Psalm 51.

Otherwise, if you are trying to live a holy life, if you are trying to be as close to Christ as possible, why fear death?  Why obsess over organic food?

If you die, it’s God’s will.  You can’t escape that.  Certainly, you must do certian basic things to maintain your life, but obessively pursuing health is contrary to the Gospel.

So you eat your organic food and exercise an hour a day and wash your hands every hour, and sterilize everything, and brush your teeth 4 times a day.  Even if you live like Adrian Monk, how can you add a single day to your life?  Can you really escape death?

“You fool: don’t you know this very day your life will be demanded of you?” (Lk 12:20).

“But I have responsibilities,” you say.  “I have a family.  A spouse.  Children.  Elderly parents.  They need me.”

Do they?  Do you, in your pride and vainglory, presume to be so important?  Do you not trust God to provide for them? 

In vain is your earlier rising,
your going later to rest,
you who toil for the bread you eat,
when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber. (Psalm 127:2)

If you are worried about providing for your family, live in a state of grace! Those who live according to God’s Will will always have their needs provided by God’s Providence. Those who die in a state of grace, and free from attachment to sin, will go straight to Heaven. The best way to provide for your family after your death is not a “nest egg” or life insurance policy.

The best way to provide for your family after your death is to become a Saint.

So, what have you, Christian, to fear from the flu?

Interesting Headlines

On Blogger, if I just wanted to make note of a cool story, I could just write a headline and copy the URL into the link box below the headline.

Here, I can’t attach a link to a headline (haven’t tested whether the links on my old articles still exist, but I often took them for granted).

ZENIT has an article on Dr. Joseph Nicolosi’s work with curing homosexuals.  Nothing groundbreaking, but, if you’ve never heard or read anything by him, now’s your chance.

A Louisiana newspaper has an article about a group of women who’ve been meeting to say the rosary every Thursday for 30 years.  Great inspirational story in the proper sense of the term.  I do take issue with this:

Regardless of religious affiliation, everyone can agree on one thing: Praying never hurt anyone.

Actually, no.  That’s definitely not something where everyone can agree.  Praying to the wrong entity can be the most harmful thing there is.  That’s why, given their errant understandings of Mary, Heaven and how God set things up, Protestants think Catholics are in grave danger for praying to Mary.

Another great human interest story tells of the high school graduation of a girl with a severe form of osteogenesis imperfecta.

And here’s a great article on the Eucharist, written by a medical doctor, starting with the great Flannery O’Connor dinner party story.

“You don’t have a degree, so you don’t know what you’re talking about”

Whether we’re talking about the medical side or the theological side (or any other issue), a popular dismissal of opposition voices is “You don’t have a degree.”

Well, a 17 year old high school senior correctly diagnosed herself with Crohn’s Disease by examining slides of her own intestinal tissue in a microscope.

The article does not explain how she *got* the tissue.

What’s wrong with the depiction of Tiller and Carhart

When pro-aborts talk about Carhart and Tiller, they act like they’re the super specialists, like the neurosurgeon my mom went to a few years ago who had to postpone her brain surgery to get an award from the Nobel Committee. 

They act like these guys are performing some rare and important medical procedure.  Like the woman who goes to Carhart for an abortion is akin to a Marfan with a dangerous aneurysm going to Hopkins for surgery instead of the thoracic surgeon at a regional hospital.

No.

First, Tillers records examined by Phil Kline prove the abortions were *not* medically necessary.

Second, it is inconceivable that there is any medical issue affecting a pregnant woman at 9 months that could not be just as easily resolved by bed rest, or a C-Section or inducing premature birth and caring for the premature baby in the NICU for a while.

No.  The equivalent is to a person with Marfan syndrome and a bulging aneurysm saying that Hopkins is too much money and/or trouble, and paying thousands of dollars cash to Dr. Jack Kevorkian instead.

Batman on IVF

Batman, in a recent episode of the new serise Batman: The Brave and the Bold (referring to a robot):

“Creating life in a laboratory is a dangerous game.”

Why embryonic stem cells will *never* be useful in treating diseases

From Don Margolis at the Repair Stem Cell Institute:

ESCs have no interest in sticking around and helping — they have but one
interest, to grow into a baby. . . .

To summarize — this is how far ESCs research has to go:

1. Discover a way to avoid the need to destroy the patient’s immune system.
2. Discover a way to “teach” these cells to continue to repair rather than proliferate, or
3. Discover a way to “turn off” the cells before they become tumors.
4. Discover a way to avoid the enormous cost in time and money to produce a trained ESC, something embryonic scientists never mention. America’s largest embryonic stem cell company tells investors quite clearly, in an SEC-required document, that the cost of its product may be too high to sell.

A touching testimony on assisted suicide

From a man who considered ODing his dying mother on morphine.

He said that, thanks to the hospital’s refusal, his mother was able to wake up in her dying moments, and they were able to have a final goodbye, which would not have happened had she been in a morphine coma.

As I read stories about Marfans who do not immediately die from aortic dissections but linger on life support, in comas, until their lungs fill with blood, I wonder about that aspect of things. Not direct euthanasia, and not necessarily even rejection of extraordinary means.

But if we’re truly to talk about “death with dignity,” we need to be talking about the best ways to help dying patients regain consciousness long enough to say their proper good-byes as well as to receive their Last Rites.

Cue the "X-Files" whistle: some state governments are cataloguing babies’ DNA

Now that the genome is mapped and genetic testing is being common, states are doing genetic testing of babies as part of the standard blood tests done at birth. The thing is that they’re not giving the parents the *results* of thoes tests.

Repair Stem Cell Blog: 12 articles on heart repair that are 6 years behind

As the US finally gets it about adult stem cell therapies.