Life Advocacy Briefing

Except His Doctors, the World Is Pulling for Charlie

THE LIFE OF 11-MONTH-OLD BRIT CHARLIE GARD was hanging in the balance at our writing deadline, with prayers and financial support offered by empathetic people throughout the world.

Despite the outpouring of support for Charlie and for his attentive parents, medical bureaucrats at the government-run hospital where he struggles have insisted they will cut off the life support which currently maintains the disabled little one, a decision which became a verdict when taken to the UK High Court and then to the misnamed European Court for Human Rights. 

The baby, explains Fox News, was “born in August 2016 [and] was diagnosed with infantile-onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, which results in the boy’s brain, muscle and breathing ability being ‘severely affected,’ congenital deafness and severe epilepsy, according to a professor who testified in front of the UK High Court that decided the case.

“More than $1.68 million has been raised to help the infant travel to the US for treatment,” Fox News notes. “The life support he is receiving at the London hospital soon will be turned off over the objections of his parents.”

Not only is the hospital seeking to end the boy’s life, the authorities in Great Ormond Street Hospital will not even permit the parents to take Charlie home, let alone take him to another medical facility for treatment. A hospital in the US, seeking to remain unnamed in news reports, offers experimental treatment to children suffering from such disabilities and has reportedly agreed to give Charlie a try. A Vatican hospital has also offered to treat the little guy and has also been turned down – not by Charlie’s parents but by the seemingly almighty Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Gnawing further at our hearts is the LifeSiteNews.com publication of a photo of a dear little four-year-old girl who reportedly was born with the same rare mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Her mother Amye Marquis wrote on a Facebook posting which concerned Charlie, reports LifeSiteNews, “‘My daughter was diagnosed at 13 months with (Charlie’s disease). I was told to let her die. We got her a trachea, a vent and a feeding tube. She was weaned off vent, goes to school and was given a chance at life. She just turned four.’ [Ms.] Marquis added, ‘Every child should be given a right to fight; every parent should not have to live with “What if?”’”

Other parents of children with the same condition as Charlie’s came forward in a LifeSiteNews.com report by Claire Chretien. “An American whose daughter had the same condition as baby Charlie Gard,” writes Ms. Chretien, “and lived to be 15 said Charlie’s parents see a ‘glimmer of hope’ and his parents should have the right to pursue it. …

“‘The love that these parents have for this child should certainly supersede the law that’s preventing them from being able to seek that one glimmer of hope for their child,’” Chuck Mohan “told Good Morning Britain anchors,” reports Ms. Chretien, “and a legal commentator who argued the hospital knows better than the parents.”

The LifeSiteNews story further cites a report in the Daily Mail “that another American child, six-year-old Art Estopinan, ‘has virtually the same genetic condition and is fighting it with the pioneering drugs therapy that is being denied to Charlie.’

“‘“We feel very fortunate to be American and not British,”’” said Art Estopinan Sr. in the Daily Mail report quoted by Ms. Chretien. “‘“Because if we lived in the UK, Arturito would surely be dead by now. … We are beyond shocked that doctors in the UK are saying Charlie should ‘die with dignity.’ How insensitive, when there is a treatment which could save Charlie’s life and eminent doctors in the US who are willing to help him.”’

“Art’s parents say doctors gave him two months to live in 2011,” reports Ms. Chretien. “Now, at age six, he is ‘strong and happy’ and can move many parts of his body. When he was a baby, he could only move his eyes.

“‘We were also told there was no treatment or cure for our son,’ said [Mr.] Estopinan” in the LifeSiteNews report.

In a BreakPoint commentary titled “The Consequences of Usurping Parental Rights,” Christian sage John Stonestreet notes: “The government should have no role in dictating when and where a baby should die, and whether his parents can seek additional treatment options. The decision by the British High Court is an appalling overreach,” adds Mr. Stonestreet, “and it sets a very dangerous precedent. In worldview terms, the government is well beyond its sphere of sovereignty, gobbling up authority that rightfully belongs to the family and to the church. …

“Great Ormond Street Hospital and the British and international courts have determined it’s time for little Charlie to die,” Mr. Stonestreet notes, “regardless of how many people around the world want to help him by paying for transportation and additional treatment. They won’t even allow him to die at home. They’ve effectively asserted ownership over this little boy and his life. This is unambiguously wrong. … When it comes to this little life, by overstepping, hospital officials and judges,” declares Mr. Stonestreet, “have handed down a death sentence that isn’t theirs to render.”

Somebody Tell Sen. Susan Collins

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS A NEW TARGET for its “services” and a new clientele to “serve” with our tax dollars.

The abortion/sexual promiscuity promoter has now, according to Fr. Mark Hodges for LifeSiteNews.com, “released a video promoting ‘trans’ health care,” a label which the National LGBT Health Education Center (NLHEC) says, writes Fr. Hodges, “is merely an umbrella term to focus on health problems of transgender people. … Men who want to be or seek to appear to be women – and vice versa,” explains LifeSiteNews, “experience serious health issues,” according to NLHEC, which “lists those problems as including HIV infection, mental health, ‘suicidality and non-suicidal self-harm,’ substance abuse, tobacco use, violence and victimization, ‘discrimination,’ delay seeking health care, no health insurance and a ‘lack of culturally competent care.’”

Planned Parenthood to the rescue! And to hype its new target, the outfit’s video features a “young woman … describ[ing] her discovery of being genderqueer. …

“Because of its ‘trans’-enabling approach,” writes Fr. Hodges, “Planned Parenthood is becoming more popular among the gender confused. ‘Like me, a lot of “trans” people rely solely on Planned Parenthood for their health care,’ the video concludes,” reports LifeSiteNews.

Makes you proud of how your tax dollars are being used, doesn’t it?

Boning Up

A CONTACT IN THE WHITE HOUSE has given us two information sources – two Internet websites – to pass along to our readers.

One, cited as “the White House portal on ObamaCare repeal-and-replace, can be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/repeal-and-replace-obamacare. According to our source, “the website includes videos, easy-to-use data points, ObamaCare victims’ stories and examples of ObamaCare’s failures in the news.”

The second relates to the Dept. of Health & Human Services and what HHS “is doing to provide ObamaCare relief right now for patients.” Its address is www.hhs.gov/relief.

We commend these information sources to you for your own concerns as well as to prepare you to make the case for ObamaCare repeal to those with whom you are in contact.

ObamaCare has been and continues to be destructive to the right to life, as it seeks to burrow government bureaucracies ever deeper into the life-and-death field of medical care. And riding within the proposals to repeal it, now being discussed in the US Senate, is the critical provision disqualifying Planned Parenthood from continuing to receive hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dollars.

Calls to Senate offices are needed urgently and may be placed via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121. Be part of history as it is made.

Forcing Abortion Coverage

THE STATE LEGISLATURE IN OREGON last Wednesday sent a bill to liberal Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to force insurance companies in the state, reports Kristena Hansen for the Associated Press, “to cover abortions and other reproductive services at no cost to the patient regardless of income, citizenship status or gender identity.” The proposal “does offer some religious-based exemptions,” according to AP.

“Oregon already has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the US,” writes Ms. Hansen, “leaving out otherwise common requirements for waiting periods or spending limits on taxpayer funds.”

The State Senate “approved the measure in a 17-13 vote along party lines,” reports AP, which described the measure as “unique … in that patients would have access to the procedure for virtually any reason, at any time, including sex-selective and late-term abortions. The bill would also allocate almost $500,000 over the next two years,” writes Ms. Hansen, “to expand cost-free reproductive health coverage, including abortions, to immigrants who are otherwise ineligible under the Oregon Health Plan – the state’s Medicaid program that currently spends nearly $2 million a year to pay for roughly 3,500 abortions statewide.”

The AP report describes the GOP “minority in the Oregon Legislature [as] angered by passage of the bill. ‘We are both a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and we are a sanctuary state for federally illegal, taxpayer-subsidized abortion,’ said Sen. Dennis Linthicum,” in Ms. Hansen’s report. “‘We should not be showering politically well-connected abortion clinics with political gift cards under the guise of “equity” that is totally discreditable.’”

Contributing to the Delinquency of Minors

June 27, 2017, Blog column by Ryan Bomberger, president, The Radiance Foundation

            There are many reasons to keep the nation’s largest abortion chain out of the business of miseducating our children. Here are ten really good ones:

a.       They promote promiscuity. When asked if “promiscuity is a bad thing,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) responded: “It’s a word that’s used to judge or shame people.” No. It’s a word used to describe sexually risky behavior. Planned Parenthood encourages it, declaring: “There’s nothing bad or unhealthy about having a big number of sexual partners.” Our nation is facing an STD epidemic. The 18% failure rate of condoms is alarming. Birth control pills, shots, implants, rings and IUDs don’t prevent STDs at all. Abstinence is the only 100% effective way to avoid STDs, HIV, HPV and unintended pregnancy. Should a business that profits from selling abortions, birth control and STD treatments be teaching our teens that there’s nothing wrong with promiscuity?

b.      They fail to reduce STDs. When public schools partner with Planned Parenthood, they are being careless – no matter what. Youth are 25% of the population yet 50% of all new STD infections. You can’t teach sexual responsibility to teens by teaching them to act recklessly. PPFA’s newest videos encourage casual hookups, downplay the serious consequences of STDs and promote homosexuality (which is the highest risk factor in the contraction of HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea and syphilis). PPFA suggests highly risky “outercourse,” such as STD-prone oral or anal sex, as an abstinence alternative. Promiscuity and anal intercourse increase the risk of anal cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. But abstinence doesn’t generate a profit for Planned Parenthood. Risky behavior does.

c.       They promote bondage sex to teens. Because teen sexual behavior isn’t already risky enough, Planned Parenthood encourages BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism). Do we really want our youth practicing sexual violence? Oh, and “no” doesn’t really mean “no.” In PPFA’s sex tutorial for teens, it encourages creating a “safeword” other than “no.” Here are some safewords: “Don’t trust your teens with Planned Parenthood.”

d.      They don’t trust parents. Planned Parenthood doesn’t even mention “parents” in their latest 2015-2016 annual report. They think parents are dangerous. Planned Parenthood fights against every parental notification law regarding a minor’s reproductive health, declaring: “… They put teens at risk for abuse at the hands of their parents.” They want full, unrestricted access to our children.

e.       They fail to report rape. Planned Parenthood has been found to repeatedly protect sexual abusers instead of victims. Live Action caught them in undercover videos willing to aid and abet sex traffickers. PPFA called the expose a “hoax” yet fired one of their medical directors as a result. They don’t take sexual abuse seriously. Planned Parenthood proudly partnered with faux feminist Lena Dunham to promote her Not That Kinda Girl book tour. In the book, Dunham falsely claimed she had been raped and boasted about molesting her younger sister.

f.        They don’t “know” when life begins. What real healthcare organization denies basic science? Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards claims we don’t know when a human becomes a human. Embryology, the scientific study of embryonic and fetal development, has been certain of this well-known fact for a long time. Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, of Harvard University Medical School, testified to the Senate back in 1981: “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

g.       They fail minorities. In New York City – the home of Planned Parenthood – more black babies are aborted than born alive: 1,101 are aborted for every 1,000 born alive. PPFA calls this “reproductive justice,” falsely claiming it’s due to lack of access for reproductive health care. Black abortion rates are five times higher than whites and twice as high as Hispanics, even though Hispanics have higher poverty rates than blacks (24% vs. 21.5%) … . New York City has the highest abortion rate (36.3 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44) and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, yet the most prevalent access to contraception.

h.      They are more political than medical. “We aim to be a kick-butt political organization,” declared Cecile Richards in the New York Times. She also keynoted [sic] at the past few Democratic National Conventions – hardly non-partisan – endorsing Democratic nominees. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is funded millions by PPFA, spent millions endorsing Hillary Clinton. In 2016, 99% (or $669,935) of Planned Parenthood’s Congressional election funding went to pro-abortion Democrats. Less than 1% (or $10,000) went to two pro-abortion Republicans. Public schools are fertile ground for recruiting activists.

i.        They are corrupt. Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar, self-policing business that has overbilled taxpayer-funded programs $127.9 million. PPFA had to repay a small fraction of their Medicaid fraud ($4.3 million) back to Texas and the federal government in 2013. The DOJ, which investigated the case, stated: “We are very pleased to settle this matter for an amount of money that addresses what was, in the government’s view, an abuse of programs that are extremely important to the well-being of many American women.”

j.        They kill human beings. The first black PPFA president, Faye Wattleton, at least admitted what abortion really is: “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman’s body and therefore ultimately her choice.” The fetus, or Latin for “children,” is not part of anyone’s body but a distinct human with separate DNA. Last year, PPFA reported killing 328,348 unique human beings. Abortions bring in 80% of their “health services” revenue, enabling a $77.5 million profit last year.

            This is simply a case study in Marketing 101. PPFA perpetuates the need for their “services.” They target our young, and public schools are more than willing to expose students to the medical malfeasance. Planned Parenthood misinforms. Teens comply. Customers created. Treat and repeat.

            Our teens deserve much better protection than this.