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Monday, July 17, 2017
Does Pro-Life Language Regarding Charlie Gard Prove the Pro-ChoiceArgument?
Does Pro-Life Language Regarding Charlie Gard Prove the Pro-Choice Argument?
Over the last few days the Charlie Gard situation has ignited into an inferno within the pro-life community.
Arguments by those who support GOSH, because they believe his dignity is best protected by allowing him to die "peacefully" by removing his ventilator, make up one camp. The other side of the debate is made up of those who are outraged at the idea of "death with dignity" due to strong pro-life positions on assisted suicide and euthanasia.
This is being argued out on both sides in terms of "parental rights", and how far they extend when you've got a gravely ill child. Those who support GOSH have come out strong for hospital personnel and medical professionals, who they believe have the better handle on the situation. Those who support Charlie's parents are crying foul on terms of traditional beliefs when it comes to parents and children.
In the middle of this maelstrom comes a strong warning from some pro-lifers who have noted our language in terms of "who decides" is eerily similar to the pro-choice camp: in pushing this as solely a parental rights issue, our rallying call has become, "parents have the ultimate authority over their children's life and death", when it comes to serious illness and birth defect. We are setting a dangerous precedent here, as we are using the pro-choice language of our opponents to justify overturning the court order which will end the life of Charlie Gard.
I myself fell victim to this rhetoric, and while I still hold my position that when it comes to a medical decision a parent has authority over medical professionals, I would like to make one clarification: a parent should not ever have the option of removing life support from a child who is still living, which is the case with Charlie Gard.
Charlie Gard is alive, and he is fighting.
What does this mean?
That he has a right to potentially life-saving treatment not because his parents have decided they would like to pursue it, but because he is a human being with inherent value. This speaks to the core of our pro-life mission at Save the 1: we fight for the exceptional cases where even pro-life persons may waver on their life ethics. We do this because we understand the question isn't whether a woman should have the right to end the life of a child, but rather, whether a pre-born child is human and deserving of equal protections under the law.
Because the questions which seem to be causing so much division revolve around potential pain and suffering, any conversation must include information about this.
There is absolutely no definitive proof Charlie Gard is suffering, and furthermore, with the extent of damage the hospital is claiming, there are legitimate medical arguments to dispute the idea that he's in pain. Without going into too much detail and getting sidetracked: the type of damage they are claiming he has would also affect his body's ability to process pain. His condition leaves him unable to feel pain, as the relevant proteins needed for this process are missing.
What people are perceiving as pain is really scary photos of him on a ventilator- but when we put aside our emotions on this one, reality tells us people can live full lives while on a ventilator.
Back to the central issue: Even if he were capable of feeling pain, pain is treated with palliative care, not death. Charlie Gard's case is less relevant in terms of whether the suffering individual should be euthanized (by either doctors or parents), and much more relevant in terms of the rights of the disabled people to live to their own potential vs. the potential society decides to set for them, in terms of quality of life.
In addition to this, Charlie Gard's parents have said in interviews that critical information may have been withheld from the court. They have clarified there are many more physicians who are now in consensus with them and the physicians who hope to treat him in the US.
These doctors are working for Charlie. Not his parents, not GOSH, and certainly not the pro-life superstars who've shown up at his bedside (no insult intended).
These doctors recognize a possibility for success with treating Charlie Gard, and for the sake of all humanity, maybe we should too.
It's not about who has the right to decide how he's treated, but about whether a desperately ill child has the right to potentially curative medication. We believe he does, and we are firmly in
Charlie's camp on this one- not because we believe his parents have the right to decide whether he lives or dies, but because our little niche of the pro-life stratosphere is home to the most desperate of cases- children whom the rest of the pro-ilife world sees only as bargaining chips. We've seen the power of life in little Faith, and Christian, and Angela, and once you see those tiny miracles, it's impossible to believe our God may have a bigger plan for Charlie Gard.
We hope you too support Charlie Gard- not because you put yourself in his parents shoes, or you believe the government health system has overstepped its boundaries. We hope you support Charlie Gard because he deserves this chance to live to his potential, whatever that potential may be.
BIO: Sarah St. Onge is a wife, mother of 4, step-mother of 2, and pro-life blogger for Save The 1. She blogs on faith, grief, loss, and pro-life issues pertaining to continuing a pregnancy after a lethal anomaly has been diagnosed, at www.shebringsjoy.com.
BIO: Sarah St. Onge is a wife, mother of 4, step-mother of 2, and pro-life blogger for Save The 1. She blogs on faith, grief, loss, and pro-life issues pertaining to continuing a pregnancy after a lethal anomaly has been diagnosed, at www.shebringsjoy.com.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Woman From El Salvador Given 30 Years For Killing Her Son Was Never Raped, by Rebecca Kiessling
If you search the name of "Evelyn Beatriz
Hernandez Cruz," you will find a multitude
When I
wrote an article about this story last week, I pointed out evidence that
facts were being subverted by the media in order to push the abortion agenda,
so I had our Spanish team (Salvar
El 1 from Save The 1) reach out to pro-life leaders in El Salvador, and
they provided us with links to these news stories telling the court records of
what actually happened. Our friends
explained that the misinformation distributed to the English-speaking world is
a concerted effort of pro-abortion feminists to interfere with the solidly pro-life
policies established in El Salvador.
In a search of the father’s name -- Henry
David Vásquez Hernández -- I could not
find a single story in English with this name, demonstrating that not one
English language news outlet in the world is reporting the truth in this case,
but simply repeating what’s been fed to them by the abortion lobby.
Not only is it a flat out lie that Hernandez
Cruz was being gang-raped or even raped at all, but it was also a lie that the
baby was delivered in and found in a toilet.
In fact, the baby was found at the bottom of a septic tank which his
mother had thrown him into.
The manipulated facts were also that the baby
was stillborn. However, coroners
testified that the baby had been alive 12 to 24 hours before being killed and
had breathed and sucked. It was
determined that he did not have blood on him because he’d been cleaned after
his birth, and that he died from inhaling feces.
Hernandez Cruz went to the hospital seeking
care for herself, still denying she’d ever been pregnant. She claimed she threw something “hot and big”
into the septic tank, but denied knowing this was a baby.
On rumors she was pregnant, a health care
professional had visited the home several times during her pregnancy, offering
pre-natal care. But Hernandez Cruz refused,
claiming she was not pregnant.
This is a horribly tragic story. Every effort was made to get pre-natal help
for this 18 year old and her unborn child.
This is not an example of a young mother who wasn’t offered help and
didn’t have access to the care she needed.
The abortion lobby is manipulating this story
to advance more bloodshed. They would
have you believe that this situation would have not been tragic at all if they
could have just killed the baby before he’d been born.
Every child is worthy of protection, without
exception. The abortion advocates’ lies once again demonstrate why you cannot
trust them, and why a rape exception will open the door for abortion on demand
for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy, because if the woman isn’t
fabricating a story that she was raped, you can surely count on the abortion
clinics to do so.
BIO: Rebecca Kiessling is an international pro-life
speaker, attorney, wife, mother of 5,
Friday, July 7, 2017
Abortion Advocates Exploit El Salvadorian Rape Victim and Her Son's Death, by Rebecca Kiessling
The death of a baby conceived in rape and the sentencing of
his teen mother for “aggravated
A multitude of news
stories have quickly been published globally, using this case to justify the
legalization of abortion. In each of these
one-sided articles, either someone from the pro-abortion Amnesty International
is quoted or from the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion. It’s no surprise that earlier this year, a
bill was introduced in El Salvador to legalize abortion in cases of rape. It is evident that they see this as the opportunity to pounce.
As the founder and president of Save The 1 – a global
pro-life organization with a network of over 500 conceived in rape (like me,)
or mothers who became pregnant by rape, I have great concern that only one
viewpoint is being expressed in the news coverage thus far, and facts are being
subverted.
The news articles all demonstrate that there was a trial and
a sentencing, but you will find that the various articles provide different
information about what really occurred in this case – some seem to intentionally be omitting pertinent information. Some articles
indicate that local media reported that she was convicted on the grounds that
she did not seek “antenatal care.”
However, given the facts, the circumstances are quite a bit more alarming than that.
Many cite the Guardian
article as their source, where it was reported not only that Cruz gave
birth in the toilet, but also that she was arrested after the police found the
baby still in the toilet. This tells me
that there was no effort to remove the baby from the toilet. The reports say that medical experts could
not ascertain whether the baby was born alive or stillborn, but leaving a baby
in the toilet to potentially drown to death is more than failing to obtain
ante-natal care.
According to the Sun
article, the judge believed she dropped the baby in the toilet to die –
which would be premeditated murder under the law. The Guardian news story also
says that, at sentencing, the judge expressed that it seemed apparent that the
girls’ mother played some role as well.
I have to wonder what came out at trial.
I’m finding that it takes reading dozens of articles to get a broader
picture than what the pro-aborts would have everyone believe.
This BBC article
explains that her mother drove the 18 year old to the hospital for care due to
anemia, while leaving the baby in the toilet – very strange behavior if they weren't trying to hide something.
All reports indicate that the young mother (18 at the time,)
was suffering on-going gang rape. If she
was living at home with her mother, perhaps she knew or should have known her
daughter was being raped. I find it unconscionable that none of these articles are reporting what efforts, if any,
had been made for the girl to be protected, and there are no quotes from advocates expressing such concern.
What we often find, is that a girl’s own mother may be
participating in her trafficking, or at the very least, leaving her neglected
or unprotected. Alternatively, we find
that it is the police who have left rape victims unprotected, with no hope for
obtaining justice.
Regardless, it is most often the case that the baby is the
one who finally exposes the rape, and delivers her out of the abusive
situation. It is typically the baby who
protects the rape victim, by bringing the rape to the light of day so she can obtain justice, or because the child motivates her to escape her circumstances and seek a better life.
In this particular case, it seems clear that the baby did indeed expose
the rape, but too late for her to obtain proper justice.
Abortion actually enables and protects sex traffickers,
rapists and child molesters, by destroying the evidence, and allowing them to
continue perpetrating. Rapists LOVE
abortion!
Again, there is surely so much we do not know in this
particular case – many facts which would undoubtedly work against the interests of the
abortion rights lobby. Their story line
is that the baby was stillborn and she’s being convicted for homicide, and that legalized
abortion would have been the solution for her.
The BBC report indicates that she was initially charged with having procured
an abortion. Yet, Cruz told the court, “I
did not want to kill my son.” Her own admissions counter what the abortion lobby is saying! Like
most rape victims who become pregnant, she did not want to end the life of
her child.
Cruz is being exploited by the abortion lobby, while her own
testimony, sworn under oath, is that she never wanted to end her baby’s life. This is much like the exploitation of Sandra Cano –
Jane Doe from the U.S. Supreme Court case of Doe v Bolton, which was the
companion case to Roe vs Wade, together having legalized abortion in the
U.S.. Cano since testified under oath
that she had never even sought an abortion during her pregnancy, but was exploited
by pro-abortion lawyers.
Cruz’s own story is absolutely tragic. Just like her son, she deserved to have been
protected. Justice would have been
served with the rapists having been punished – not her and not her innocent
son. We should all be advocating for the
punishment of rapists, not babies.
So the question is, what should her penalty have been, if any? If she had procured an abortion, what would be the
appropriate judicial solution? How do we
provide a proper deterrent to abort, and incentive for rape victims to report
their rapists, and abortionists? I believe the answer is to legislate
whistle-blower statutes – to offer women immunity from prosecution in exchange
for their testimony against the abortion provider. This way, there would be a disincentive to
anyone else to provide an abortion, for fear that the women would turn them in.
Several of the women in our network of 500 are post-abortive
from rape, and they are now speaking out regarding their rapes and the loss of
their children through abortion. Do I
wish to see these women in prison? No. I think justice would be served if they could
report their abortion providers and if they could sue the abortionists in civil
court for wrongful death of their children.
A rape victim who has already been exploited is prone to
further exploitation and more violence is never the solution. A rape victim deserves to be protected from
the rapist, and from the abortion – and not the baby! The baby is not the perpetrator. The baby is not harming her.
My daughter at 6 years old wrote: “Conceived in rape is not bad because that’s
my mom. Rape is bad and abortion is bad
because they both hurt people.” This is a basic truth which everyone must understand. We don’t
have to ever be “either/or" is our approach to pregnant rape victims. We can care
about a rape victim while at the same time caring about her innocent child.
This case of Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz and her deceased
son is tragic, but the outcome is no justification for the legalization of
killing other innocent children.
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