SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Surrogate mother shuns cash for abortion to give birth to child with defects – United States

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A SURROGATE mother fled across the United States to save the child’s life when the couple whose baby she was carrying demanded she have an abortion after discovering the girl would be severely disabled.

Crystal Kelley, 30, learned five months into her pregnancy that the child she was carrying on behalf of another couple might be born with disabilities, including a cleft lip and palate, a cyst in her brain and heart defects.

The intended parents said that they no longer wanted the child – a girl and told Kelley she should have an abortion, saying it was “more humane”. They offered her $10,000 (NZ$12,000) to terminate the pregnancy.

Kelley did not believe in abortion and refused. The couple then said that they would take the child and put her into foster care.

Kelley, who was to be paid US$32,000 for the pregnancy, also opposed this proposal. She decided to move 1100 kilometres from her home in Connecticut to Michigan, one of only a few states in the US where a surrogate mother’s legal right to decide the child’s future would trump those of the parents – and find adoptive parents for the girl.

The child was born on June 25.

“I think I did what was right for her,” Kelley said. “I gave her a chance that no-one else was prepared to give her.

“I am proud I stood up for what I believe was right.”

Kelley, already a mother of two daughters aged 3 and 4, decided to become a surrogate parent in August 2011. She had previously had two miscarriages and said her motivation was to help families who could not conceive.

She was put in touch with a couple and in October 2011 became pregnant using frozen embryos that the couple had stored following in vitro fertilization. But in February last year, when Kelley was 21 weeks’ pregnant, an ultrasound scan showed that the child had a cleft lip and palate, a cyst in the brain, and a heart condition.

Doctors said that while she would survive, there was only a 25 percent chance she would have a “normal life” and she would require several heart operations.

Kelley then received a letter from a doctor on behalf of the intended parents that read: “Given the ultra-sound findings, [the parents] feel that the interventions required to manage [the baby’s medical problems] are overwhelming for an infant, and that it is a more humane option to consider pregnancy termination.”

Source Telegraph Group

The Dominion Post 7 March 2012, p. B2

Prime Minister John Key’s claims that euthanasia already happens in hospitals sparks anger from doctors

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We Never practice euthanasia says palliative care official.

Angry doctors are appalled at Prime Minister John Key’s claims that euthanasia already happens in hospitals.

“We never practise euthanasia; euthanasia is the deliberate ending of life, and is illegal and unethical,” Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine chairwoman Sinead Donnelly said.

Mr Key’s comments could seriously damage the trust people had in hospital care of the seriously ill, the Wellington doctor said.

Mr Key signalled his broad support for euthanasia – medical assistance to die – during a stint on Newstalk ZB this week.

“If I had terminal cancer, I had a few weeks to live, I was in tremendous amount of pain – if they just effectively wanted to turn off the switch and legalise that by legalising euthanasia, I’d want that.”

Hospice New Zealand clinical adviser Sandy Macleod said “euthanasia does not occur in our hospitals, full stop”.

Dr Macleod, a palliative care specialist at Christchurch Hospital, said Mr Key’s comments were misguided and incorrect.

“As sickness progresses towards death, the focus of care is on minimising suffering. To minimise suffering, it is not necessary to kill the sufferer.

“Often morphine is blamed for people dying, or sedation is blamed for people dying, but the reality is they die of their disease and neither of those medical treatments hastens their death.”

Capital & Coast District Health Board head of palliative care Jonathan Adler said there was a lack of understanding about end-of-life choices.

Switching off a life support machine and allowing someone to die of natural causes was not euthanasia, Dr Adler said.

“There’s real confusion about what we can and can’t do in New Zealand.

“You can have a lot more control at end of life than people believe at the moment.”

People could refuse medical treatments, such as being resuscitated or given antibiotics.

“They’re not taking something to make their life shorter, they’re just saying, ‘For whatever reason, for me, and how I see life at the moment, I want to be comfortable, I don’t want to have my life prolonged, enough’s enough, just keep me comfortable’.”

An advanced directive states what medical treatment a person wants in a particular situation, and an advanced-care plan details what they want at the end of life, such as dying at home. Both are created in conjunction with family and medical professionals.

Dr Adler called for better discussion about death and dying between doctors and patients, rather than a giant leap to legalising euthanasia.

When Mr Key was asked last night about his earlier comments, he said: “I don’t think anyone is breaking the law, but in a practical sense I think that [euthanasia] already happens here in New Zealand today.

“Switches get turned off from time to time, don’t they?”

Asked if his comments made hospitals seem untrustworthy, he said: “No, I don’t think so. Their comments in the paper align exactly with what I meant.”

Source: Story by Bronwyn Torrie (HEALTH) – The Dominion Post, Friday, August 24, 2012, p. A5.

Fairfax NZ News

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7538178/PMs-euthanasia-claim-sparks-anger

Challenge Weekly – owned by registered charity – highlights “University ProLife Win”

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Challenge Weekly Newspaper, owned by a legal entity that was incorporated in 1975 and registered with the Charities Commission as a charity on 30 June 2008, runs a story on its front page this week “Prolife elated with win: University [Prolife] club survives expulsion bid.”

A student-run prolife group is celebrating a vote by its peers at the University of Auckland not to disaffiliate the club.

Prolife Auckland won the vote 227 to 125 at a special general meeting attended by a large and noisy crowd on July 18 and club president Amy Bowers is pleased with the result for a number of reasons.

“We had support from many students who are not members of our club and have no intention of joining. But clearly they recognised that freedom of expression is a right worth protecting for everyone, in particular in a university setting where academic freedom must be paramount.”

After a single anonymous complaint regarding the club’s ‘Right To Know’ pamphlets that were distributed around campus, the Auckland University Student Association (AUAS) executive put forward a motion to deny ProLife Auckland the right to exist as an affiliated club.

“The club ran this campaign in May which promoted a women’s right to know the facts when faced with a crisis pregnancy, which included the health risks of abortion and full statistics. Ironically, this attempt to shut us down has given us the chance to reach a far wider audience with our message, and that’s the whole reason that we exist as a club,” says Ms Blowers.

Prolife Auckland’s sister club at Wellington’s Victoria University is also thrilled with the result.

“Freedom of speech is a vitally important right in a society that truly claims to be open, free and democratic,” says LifeChoice Victoria president Mary-Ane Evers.

“University is the perfect place for discussion of controversial issues. Student Associations should encourage free and frank discussion and not shy away from these topics.”

Celebration has continued throughout the wider prolife community in New Zealand.

Right to Life spokesperson Ken Orr was delighted at the resounding victory for the right to free speech upheld by the students. “We congratulate the members of Prolife for its defence of free speech…” said Mr Orr.”The battle for recognition of the inalienable right to life of every human being from conception to natural death will be won or lost in our universities.”

Source: Challenge Weekly. July 23, 2012, Vol. 70 Iss. 27, p.1.

Challenge Weekly – owned by registered charity – applauds ProLife’s pamphlet upholding “sancity of life”

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Challenge Weekly Newspaper, owned by a legal entity that was incorporated in 1975 and registered with the Charities Commission as a charity on 30 June 2008, has just published the following “Publisher’s Letter” dealing with ProLife issues, including “the sanctity of human life … made in the image of God”…….

The Power of One: by John Massam [23 July 2012]. It seems incredible that a complaint from one anonymous student, about the distribution of a pamphlet, ‘Right to Know’, at Auckland University, would propel the Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) executive to ban ProLife from affiliation as a club on campus.

But rather than accepting the decision the group challenged it, and at a special meeting called to consider their right to exist as a club, won a resounding victory. The vote was 227 for to 125 against.

What is hard to fathom is how a pamphlet advocating the right of women to know about health risks associated with abortion and the alternatives available to them, so they can make an informed decision, should provoke such a reaction. Particularly when the material used came from peer-reviewed academic studies with medical statements which were supported by footnote references to reputable journals.

It is proper that philosophy student Amy Blowers. President of ProLife Auckland, would be elated by the support given by students, many of whom, she said, had no intention of being members of their club. Beyond that she sees freedom of expression as a right worth protecting, particularly in a university setting, where academic freedom must be paramount.

Sadly, we are seeing values that we have taken for granted being replaced and worse still, denigrated. The very people who demand the right to promote alternative values appear to believe that they have the right to silence anyone who holds a different view. They very cunningly picture those who oppose their view as driven by phobia.

What is needed are more people committed to addressing a particular issue, such as William Wilberforce did with slavery. People who are passionate and determined about something they commit themselves to, believing that it is non-negotiable and recognising that if they present the truth then the truth will speak for itself. What is hard to fathom is that so many are blind to the truth.

Those in the pro-life movement are committed to upholding the sanctity of life. They see it as a God-given gift to be valued and upheld. They believe that we denigrate and disrespect it at our peril. In bold terms, they regard the taking of human life as murder, which has disastrous effects on both the perpetrator and society.

Even if upholding the sanctity of life is not the issue we are personally dedicated to uphold, we must affirm our support for those, particularly young people committed to doing so.

One thing we can do, however, is refuse to use weasel words like abortion, fetus and unborn that are intended to lull people into a false acceptance of murder, the killing of a child conceived in the image of God.

Source: Challenge Weekly, 23 July 2012, p. 2.

http://www.challengeweekly.co.nz/editorial.html

Family First NZ – a registered charity – calls for abortion law change

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The latest figures released by Statistics NZ on June 19 show a drop in abortions. There were 15,863 abortions performed in New Zealand in 2011 as compared to 16,650 in the previous year, the lowest number since 1999.

To grasp the size of this number, one can compare it with the current population figures for three vibrant rural NZ towns: Tokoroa (14,200), Cambridge (14,400) and Ashburton (16,100).

If all the inhabitants of each of these three towns were killed, one town at a time per year, over three years, through the medical intervention of skilled registered health practitioners, funded by the tax-payer, pro-lifers argue that this would gives us a good comparison (numbers-wise) of the devastating impact of removing the same number of unborn children under our present system of (effectively) “abortion on demand”, over the last three years.

In the case of the elimination of foetuses (unborn children), the ability of these “victims” to respond to, protest, retaliate against, call for “human rights protection”, or seek refuge, from impending surgical removal; is somewhat muted compared to the elevated, hysterical, well-educated and strident calls for mercy that would come from the more mature denizens of Tokoroa, Cambridge and Ashburton, if they were faced with surgical elimination (genocide).

But of course, this gulf between the level and quality of the hypothetical ‘protest actions’ mounted by foetuses, compared with those  mounted by those actually able to speak for themselves; is perfectly comprehensible. The latter group, faced with elimination, are treated under current law as, in effect, “a superior class of human beings” – one that is “mature”, “fully sentient”, and “highly educated” (relatively speaking) and worthy of full “human rights” protections – while foetuses in contrast are “the unborn” – a mere “category” of “non-sentient” development tissue (sub-human/less than human).

The “passing” (elimination) of a foetus does not warrant the erection of a tomb stone or a national memorial, nor a death notice in a local paper, nor the awarding of a posthumous Queens Honours award for crowning achievements. Their crowns are not yet fully-formed, nor their tongues, nor their language-functions, nor their sensory apparatus, when they were aborted.

On average 55 teens have an abortion in New Zealand every week, 17 per cent being performed at 12 weeks or later despite the research on foetal development that has revealed the exquisite beauty and wondrous complexity of the organ and tissue structures of the unborn child, even as early as 12 weeks.

Challenge Weekly (June 25) reports that Family First NZ, a charity registered with the Charities Commission, “is calling for a law which requires informed consent, including ultrasound, for all potential abortions, and counselling to be provided only by non-providers of abortion services. Parental notification of teenage pregnancy and abortion should happen automatically except in exceptional circumstances approved by the court.

“It is incorrect to label abortion as ‘pro-choice’, because nobody chooses to be in the situation of unwanted pregnancy and having to make such a difficult decision,” said Mr McCoskrie.

The fact that 6042 women were recorded in NZ as having had a repeat abortion in 2011, has raised serious concerns among  members of pro-life groups.

References

1. Source of quotes from Family First NZ: Challenge Weekly, June 25, 2012, p. 3.

2. Statistics NZ – report released 19 June 2012

3. Cities Population data http://www.tageo.com/index-e-nz-cities-NZ.htm

Note: The SPCS has as one of its objects: “To promote recognition of the sanctity of human life and its preservation in all stages” (s. 2[b] of SPCS Constitution). Approved by the Charities Commission on 17 December 2007 (Reg. No. CC20268).

For more material from a Christian perspective on abortion see chapter 6 of Dr William Lane Craig’s Hard Questions, Real Answers. Online here:

http://christian-apologetics.org/2012/abortion-hard-questions-real-answers/