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Articles of Interest

NURSES FIRST, DOCTORS DISTANT SECOND IN HEALTHCARE PROVIDER RATINGS

Nurses FirstWASHINGTON, D.C. -- At the end of a year when Gallup found Americans’ confidence in the U.S. medical system at its lowest in a decade, a new survey reveals that some prominent players in the system are still widely acclaimed while others are not.

Nurses receive the best rating by far, with 82% saying they provide excellent or good medical care, and doctors rank second at 69%. Smaller majorities feel positive about the care provided by hospitals (58%), walk-in or urgent care clinics (56%), and telemedicine or virtual doctor visits (52%).

Meanwhile, less than half of Americans give positive ratings to the four remaining healthcare entities measured: hospital emergency rooms (47%), pharmaceutical or drug companies (33%), health insurance companies (31%), and nursing homes (25%).

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OBGYN CONFIRMS “ABORTION HARMS WOMEN”

If President Biden wins reelection, his top priority on Day One would be codifying abortion protections in federal law, his deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Host Kristen Welker asked, “What would on day one President Biden’s top priority be?” Fulks responded, “First of all, Roe. The president has been adamant that we need to restore Roe. It is unfathomable that women today wake up in a country with less rights than their ancestors had years ago.”

“Constitutionally speaking, abortion is not a right,” responded Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council. “Believing it is a right under the constitution is the mistake the Supreme Court fixed in the Dobbs decision. It should not be a right because no one should have the right to end someone else’s life, except in the cases of self-defense, when that would be a proportionate response.”

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 ABORTION WAS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATHS WORLDWIDE IN 2023, KILLING 73 MILLION PEOPLE

More human beings died in abortions than any other cause of death in 2023.

A heartbreaking reminder about the prevalence of abortion, statistics compiled by Worldometers indicate that there were over 73 million abortions world-wide in 2023. The independent site collects data from governments and other organizations and then reports the data, along with estimates and projections, based on those numbers.

Worldometers bases its daily abortion figures on a fact sheet from the World Health Organization, which estimates an even higher figure for abortions per year than Worldometers. ...

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SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR CASE TO BAN MAIL-ORDER ABORTIONS, SAVE BABIES FROM DANGEROUS ABORTION PILLS

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear a case on whether to uphold the ruling from a federal appeals court that banned mail-order abortions and protects women from dangerous abortion pills.

As LifeNews reported previously, in April the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that banned mail-order abortions that put women’s lives at risk, condemned the improper FDA approval process for the drug and restored strict limits on the drug meant to protect women’s health that the Biden administration removed.

By illegally approving chemical abortion drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to abide by its legal obligations to protect the health, safety, and welfare of girls and women. ...

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SURROGACY TURNS BABIES IN COMMODITIES TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD, AND THAT’S WRONG

In the 22nd week of surrogate Brittney Pearson’s pregnancy, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Because the necessary treatment could harm the baby, her doctors recommended inducing labor early and allowing the baby to be cared for in neonatal intensive care while she started chemo. However, the gay couple paying Brittney Pearson to serve as their surrogate did not want a premature baby with potential developmental or health problems. They wanted her instead to have an abortion.

Pearson offered to put the baby up for adoption, but the men refused because, according to Pearson, they did not want a child who was genetically related to one of them somewhere “out there.” According to Pearson, the men threatened both her and her doctors with a lawsuit if she did not abort her child. Because of California’s radical surrogacy laws, which allow financiers of a surrogacy arrangement to be granted legal parental rights of the baby before he or she is born, they likely would have prevailed.

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NO, ABORTIOON PILLS AREN’T SAFER THAN TYLENOL

 Abortion activists have repeatedly claimed that abortion pills are safer than Tylenol. As far as I can tell, by that they mean that annually there are more ER visits related to Tylenol (acetaminophen toxicity) than to abortion pills. If more people each year are going to the ER because of Tylenol than because of abortion pills, abortion pills must be safer, right? (No, not right. Read on.)

The above comparison ignores the fact that 60 million Americans take acetaminophen at least weekly, meaning there are at least 3.12 billion doses taken per year. There are an estimated 56,000 ER visits per year for acetaminophen toxicity, so out of 3.12 billion doses that’s a 0.002% ER visit rate.

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STUDY SHOWS AMERICANS ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT ‘ABORTION’ IS. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

How Americans feel about abortion continues to be a complicated issue. While polling has long found that Americans grapple with the morality of abortion, regardless of whether they feel it should be legal, the abortion industry continues to push for abortion to be legal across the country, for any reason, at any time, with no restrictions or safeguards. This has long been an unpopular position, which is perhaps why abortion activists have so frequently misrepresented the reality of what abortion is.

Now, a new poll shows that there is widespread confusion about what constitutes an “abortion.”

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AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (AMA) IS DEBATING ASSISTED SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA

The American Medical Association Policy 5.7 on assisted suicide currently states:

American Medical Association LogoPhysician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.

Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.

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COLORADO NURSING BOARDING BREAKS WITH COLORADO MEDICAL BOARD OVER ABORTION REVERSAL TREATMENT

Breaking with the state medical board, the Colorado Nursing Board refused to classify “abortion reversal” treatment as unprofessional conduct.

“The nursing board passed a rule declaring it will not treat abortion reversal as a ‘per se act subjecting a licensee to discipline’ for providing the treatment, but will instead review individual complaints of abortion reversal treatment on a case-by-case basis,” Hannah Metzger reported for Colorado Politics.

“The (nursing) board, historically, has pretty much treated everything case-by-case for review and discipline,” said Joe Franta, president of the nursing board, during Wednesday’s vote. “We don’t make general standards of care. We don’t create those. … I don’t think we have the basis to do that.”

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SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM SAYS TRAFFICKER “TOOK ALL HIS GIRLS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD” FOR ABORTIONSPlanned Parenthood Storefront

Ann” visited Planned Parenthood often with her human trafficker for birth control and, when it failed, abortions.

A survivor of sex trafficking, Ann told researchers in a 2019 study how her abuser befriended staffers at Planned Parenthood so they would not ask questions about the many girls he brought there.

“I went to Planned Parenthood. I went there a lot for birth control. He took all his girls there,” she said. “They knew him by Benny, but they didn’t know who he was. He just kept saying that they were sisters or friends.”

According to Live Action News, Ann’s story is just one of many linking human trafficking victims to Planned Parenthood, a billion-dollar abortion chain that receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year.

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FORCED EMPLOYER ABORTION BENEFIT (ELCRA) - RIGHT TO LIFE OF MICHIGAN

Current Status
S.B. 147 was signed into law by Governor Whitmer on May 17, 2023 and will go into effect 90 days after the close of the 2023 session.

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Description

S.B. 147 amends the Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act by changing the definition of “sex” to include elective abortion. This change makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee for pregnancy, childbirth, or elective abortions, and forces employers to treat pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion equally for the purposes of employer benefits including health insurance, paid leave, and work accommodations. There is no religious or conscience exception to this bill.

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WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION DESTROYS CONSCIENCE RIGHTS, WOULD FORCE DOCTORS TO KILL BABIES IN ABORTION

DoctorThe World Medical Association has published a revised “International Code of Medical Ethics” that is intended as “a canon of ethical principles for the members of the medical profession worldwide.” Most of it is fine. For example, the code states that “the physician must provide care with the utmost respect for human life and dignity, and for the autonomy and rights of the patient,” and that doctors are not to have sexual relations with their current patients.

But, problematically, the WMA has eviscerated medical conscience rights in a way that would compel doctors to engage in interventions and actions to which they are morally or religiously opposed. It doesn’t do this blatantly, but subtly. From the code (my emphasis):

29. This Code represents the physician’s ethical duties. However, on some issues there are profound moral dilemmas concerning which physicians and patients may hold deeply considered but conflicting conscientious beliefs.

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NEW RESEARCH ON ABORTION PILL REVERSAL’S EFFECTIVENESS

Abortion Pill ReversalAbortion pill reversal saves unborn babies when their mothers have a change of heart part way through a chemical abortion pill procedure.

A new study demonstrates an impressive success rate which translates into legitimate hope for tens of thousands of women who want to save their babies.

Chemical abortion consists of taking two different pills, mifepristone, followed by misoprostol to effectively kill an unborn child early in pregnancy. The first drug, …

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90% OF BABIES WITH DOWN SYNDROME ARE KILLED IN ABORTIONS, WE MUST FIGHT FOR THEM

Cute Baby with Down's SyndromeChildren with Down syndrome face discrimination before they are even born.

Researchers estimate between 60 percent and 90 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States. In other countries, the deadly discrimination rate is nearly 100 percent, and many families say they felt pressured to abort their unborn babies by doctors and genetic counselors.

But parents, disability and pro-life advocates, and Christians are fighting back, working to create a society that values and cherishes every child’s life.

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CHILDREN SURVIVE TRISOMY 18, THEY SHOULD NOT BE KILLED IN ABORTIONS

risomy 18 returned to headlines recently as a pregnant Texas woman carrying a child, living with Trisomy 18, fought in the courts to procure an abortion. Thankfully the Texas Supreme Court ruled against the abortion, but sadly Kate Cox traveled out of state to end the life of her baby.

Contrary to much of what you read in the media; Trisomy 18 (T-18) is not an automatic death sentence. It is true that most babies with this condition do not survive, but we are becoming aware of more and more children who do – some into adulthood. The longevity of individuals with T-18 has gotten the attention of the research world. A case report was published in the National Library of Medicine.

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CRANKY OLD MAN

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

Read the poem here...

ASSISTED SUICIDE BILLS

Assisted suicide bills have currently been introduced in 10 US states including: Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. We expect several more states to introduce an assisted suicide bill in 2024.

Some of the assisted suicide bills are being debated in states that are not likely to legalized assisted suicide, while other states are more concerning. All of these bills should be treated seriously

No new state has legalized assisted suicide in the past two years but the assisted suicide lobby remains relectless.

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IS HOSPICE AN ANTIDOTE TO ASSISTED SUICIDE

Woman in hospital bed.The goal of palliative care is to relieve symptoms—including pain and stress—at any stage in a serious illness. Palliative care can be provided in conjunction with curative or life-prolonging treatment. Hospice is a subset of palliative care. Hospice provides comfort care when a person no longer has curative options or has chosen to forgo treatment because the burdens of treatment outweigh the benefits. The founding principles of hospice were to maintain dignity, to increase quality of life, and to provide comfort and pain control. When these principles are followed and staff members are trained in proper pain management, hospice can be a blessing for people in need of expert end-of-life care.

Unfortunately, there is a growing trend to misapply palliative medications to make people die, particularly in the hospice care setting. (emphasis added)

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“FETAL CONTAINER’S”: BIOETHICIST PROPOSES USING WOMEN IN VEGATATIVE STATES AS SURROGATES

Woman in surgeryA bioethicist has argued for using women in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) as surrogates, calling it “whole body gestational donation.”

Anna Smajdor, of the University of Olso, wrote in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics that women who are brain dead shouldn’t have their wombs going to waste, when people who want children can use them. “We already know that pregnancies can be successfully carried to term in brain-dead women,” she said. “There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not be possible.

But the ethics of such a decision seems to have overlooked by Smajdor.

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A HEALTH PROVIDER’S ROLE IN FIGHTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Human trafficking, a form of modern slavery that exploits people for labor and sex, affects about 24.9 million victims worldwideExternal link:open_in_new, the U.S. State Department estimates. And the majority of victims will encounter the health care system during their time being trafficked.

Health care providers are uniquely positioned to identify and help human trafficking victims because of the likelihood they will come into contact with victims—particularly in urgent care settings, said forensic nurse Diana Faugno, MSN, RN, CPN.

“They’re coming into the emergency rooms, the urgent care [facilities] and the clinics,” said Faugno, ...

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Nancy Valko’s comment: After writing my April 1,2023 blog, I agree with Dr. DeCock’s conclusions below.

PROPOSED UDDA CHANGES CONFLATE DEATH WITH BEING “DEAD ENOUGH”

In episode 109 of Bioethics on Air, “Redefining Death by Revising the UDDA,” Joe Zalot interviews Christopher DeCock, MD, about how proposed changes to the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) shift the focus from obtaining prudential certitude that someone is dead to establishing that he or she is “dead enough” to remove life-sustaining treatment. DeCock works as a pediatric neurologist in Fargo, North Dakota. As an observer for the Uniform Law Commission—the legal body tasked with proposing changes to the UDDA—he is specially suited to explain the controversy surrounding the proposed changes.

According to DeCock, the UDDA emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the wake of the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee that defined irreversible coma, or brain death. Because of rising interest in determining death, the UDDA standardized a definition of death for medical and legal purposes. It states that “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” DeCock refers to the President’s Commission 1981 report, Defining Death: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death, as being especially important for this definition. He paraphrases the commission’s finding that “when the brain dies the body very quickly thereafter disintegrates.”

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DEA PROPOSAL WOULD STOP ASSISTED SUICIDE VIA TELEHEALTHElderly Couple Hug

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has proposed a new rule for prescribing drugs via telehealth. The rule states that when a person has not seen a medical practitioner and requires a Schedule II medication or narcotic that the prescription cannot be prescribed via telehealth. The patient would be required to see the medical practitioner in person before receiving the prescription.

This is an important rule in the assisted suicide debate. The assisted suicide lobby wants to provide lethal assisted suicide drugs to people via telehealth and then ship those drugs to the person via courier.

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ABORTIONIST DEFINES “MEDICALLY NECESSARY” ABORTIONS

“A medically necessary abortion is any abortion a woman asks for.”

— Abortionist Jane Hodgson, quoted in Human Life International Special Report Number 83, August 1991, pages 6 and 7.

Editor’s note: This appeared at "Clinic Quotes" and is reposted with permission.

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FBI DIRECTOR: 70% OF ABORTION-RELATED THREATS AND VIOLENCE ARE AGAINST PRO-LIFERS

FBI Director Christopher WrayTestifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated last week that about 70% of abortion-related violence and threats since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization have been perpetrated against pro-life groups.

On November 17th, Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) questioned Wray about recent allegations that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI under the Biden administration have been unfairly targeting pro-life individuals for prosecution when, in fact, the actual surge in violence has been against pro-lifers at the hands of abortion advocates – crimes the FBI has seemed to ignore.

Wray replied, “My view — plainly expressed to all of our people, including in the context of abortion-related violence — is that I don’t care what side of the issue you’re on, you don’t get to engage in violence, and we are equal-opportunity when it comes to that.”

Wray continued, “Now, we have quite a number of investigations — as we speak — into attacks or threats against pregnancy resource centers, faith-based organizations, and other pro-life organizations.

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Answering a question from a legislator as to why so few arrests of people who spray paint and firebomb pregnancy help centers and desecrate churches, United States Attorney Merrick Garland replied that those who do such things do them at night and they are hard to see.

HERE FOR A REASON: PLANNED PARENTHOOD PERFORMS ALMOST 200 ABORTIONS FOR EVERY ONE ADOPTION REFERRAL

Annual Report Shows Abortions Are Nearly 100% of Planned Parenthood’s Pregnancy Resolution Activities

Planned Parenthood performed 383,460 abortions in 2019-2020 according to their latest annual report, performing almost 200 abortions for every one adoption referral.

Nichole C. Wilson, executive director of Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), said:

“Planned Parenthood’s annual report is titled ‘Here for a Reason’ and their own data shows that reason is abortion. Planned Parenthood’s callous disregard for those less fortunate is evident when you consider they performed fewer than 3,000 cases of miscarriage care and fewer than 2,000 adoption referrals in an entire year but performed almost 400,000 abortions on vulnerable women and girls.”

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WORLDWIDE DIRECTORY OF PREGNANCY HELP HITS MAJOR MILESTONE WITH 7,000 LISTINGS

Heartbeat International’s Worldwide Directory of Pregnancy Help has surpassed 7,000 listings, boosting the celebration of the pregnancy help network’s half-century of service.

Heartbeat is the first network of pro-life pregnancy resource centers founded in the U.S. and it the most extensive network in the world, with more than 2,900 affiliated pregnancy help locations in more than 60 countries around the world working to provide alternatives to abortion.

Heartbeat’s Worldwide Directory, an online directory of life affirming service providers around the world, is the leading comprehensive list of pregnancy help organizations (PHOs). Heartbeat is observing its 50th anniversary this year.

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THE SLED TEST

What follows here is a way of presenting a clear rationale for the defense of unborn human life. The summary here is brief, but full details of this argument can be found here.

A way to demonstrate the value of the unborn child can be offered by using the SLED test.

SLED stands for Size, Level of Development, Environment and Degree of Dependency. As the defense unfolds it is easy to see that all of the “qualifications” society places on the unborn child for continued existence are artificial and would never be imposed on a child, perhaps a toddler, present before us.

Size: we come in all sizes—big, small, short, tall. Size clearly does not determine the value of life

Level of Development---we develop as individuals throughout the continuum of our lives—we never stop learning, experiencing and expanding our abilities

Environment—we all need a place to live, food to eat and air to breathe. Some of us live in mansions, some in bungalows. Some of us eat caviar and steak, some of us eat chicken and potatoes. Some of us have full lung capacities, some of us breathe less well—but breathe we do!

Level of Development—the infant develops physically into the toddler, to the child, to the teen, to the adult, to the mature person. As he/she develops physically, mental development takes place also. We do not say that the toddler had more value than the infant or the mature person more than the adult. Again, such development is a continuum.