In Personhood 2011 we outlined pro-life legislators upcoming attempts to circumvent the courts on abortion and pass legislation granting “personhood” to every child upon conception. Personhood is the country’s best hope for ending the scourge of abortion in the near future and the revived Personhood movement has been gaining momentum across the country.

Abortion Incorporated, however, is not sitting idly by waiting to be put out of business. Before Personhood legislation can come to a vote in the House, there will surely be an attempt to legally define a “person” in terms compatible with the culture of death.

The views of controversial atheist Peter Singer, a professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, provide a glimpse of the arguments the abortion lobby will likely put forth in the upcoming debate. Professor Singer prides himself as an intellectual champion, not so much of abortion per se, but of the euthanasia of those society should not have to view as “persons”.

A true “person” in Peter Singer’s brave new world, is a “sentient being” which must be capable “of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time. Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons, therefore the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”

That’s right, this “bioethical” view does not even grant personhood at birth. In his book, Rethinking Life And Death, Singer asserts that parents of children born with a disability should be legally entitled to some type of post-partum evaluation time in which to decide whether they wish to keep the child or have a willing doctor perform a lethal injection.

Needless to say Professor Singer places little value on the lives of the severally disabled or the elderly infirm, who are also not considered to be “persons”. Apparently worried that he may have been too vague on his views, the professor emphasized that if it were left up to him his mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease would not be alive.

Such “bioethics” are based upon the philosophy of Preference Utilitarianism, which, in short, equates morality with doing whatever satisfies the most people in a given circumstance. Hence, with the parents and the disabled newborn, if the parents would be happier killing the disabled child who is not viewed as a person anyway, it is perfectly moral to do so.

Professor Singer and his adherents view themselves as enlightened liberators of mankind from the chains of religion. “We are living in an incredible time of transition. In the West, we have been dominated by a single tradition for 2,000 years. Now that whole tradition, the whole edifice of Judeo-Christian morality, is terminally ill. I am trying to formulate an alternative.”

When the debate begins on what legally constitutes a person, no one from the abortion lobby is likely to have Professor Singer sit in front of a congressional committee and equate the life of a newborn baby with that of a pig. But arguments will be made, based upon Singer’s premises, to the effect that a fetus is not “self-aware”, or capable of grasping that he or she “exists over time”, and therefore is not “bioethically” considered to be a “person”. And this would apply to fetuses at any stage of development.

Acceptance of such arguments will open the door to a future where the “self-awareness” or “grasping of one’s existence over time” flim flam would logically be extended to justify euthanizing Alzheimer’s patients, the severally retarded, the autistic, and the senile elderly. “Bioethics” as practiced in Germany seventy years ago.

There is some danger of complacency setting in over the pro-life gains in November, America’s increasing rejection of abortion and the Personhood legislation being proposed in Congress. Rest assured that the minute Personhood gains any impetus in Washington, the culture of death will attempt to blind side us with a legal definition of “person” based upon the views of Peter Singer, professor of “bioethics”.

Let’s be ready to respond.

March 31st commemorates the 5th anniversary of the death of Terry Schindler. We do not use Terri’s married name Schiavo. It was her husband, Michael Schiavo, who fought in the courts to have Terri’s feeding tube removed and have her starved and dehydrated to death. It took seven agonizing days for Terri to die in this manner. Armed guards kept anyone from even giving her cracked ice to ease her blistered lips.

Despite Michael Schiavo’s claim that Terri died a painless, dignified death, Terri Schindler was in fact tortured to death. Starvation and dehydration can be nothing less than torture. Where were the horrified opponents of water boarding in 2005?

Father Frank Pavone of Priests For Life had access to Terri’s room during those thirteen days. You can read his account of the agony Terri suffered in Terri’s Final Hours.

In  the following video from 2007, Father Frank discusses Terri’s death and the debate over government’s place in protecting the disabled. Some members of congress attempted to intervene on Terri’s behalf. Ultimately they were overruled by Circuit Court Judge George W Greer, of the Pinellas-Pasco, FL Sixth Judicial Court, who ordered the feeding tube removed.

President George W Bush could have saved Terri’s life with the stroke of a pen, but inexplicably refused to intervene.

Priests for Life and Terri’s Foundation established March 31st as Terri’s Day, the “International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters. Its purpose is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced so that no one will again suffer as she did.”

A memorial Mass is celebrated each year for Terri at Ave Maria University, in Florida. Father Frank Pavone will again celebrate this year’s mass.

The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation is dedicated to “Helping Families Fight for Those Who Cannot Fight for Themselves”. “Terri’s Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group dedicated to helping persons with disabilities, and the incapacitated who are in or potentially facing life-threatening situations. The clear focus of Terri’s Foundation now and in the future is to help others avoid tragedies that reflect what Terri endured.”

“Terri’s Foundation anticipates establishing Terri Schindler Schiavo neurological centers to provide care for brain injury victims and support for their families.”

Tickets for The Terri Schiavo Life And Hope Concert on April 11th, in Indianapolis, IN, can be purchased through the foundation website. The concert will feature Country Music Stars Randy Travis and Collin Raye. A Life That Matters, the Schindler family’s account of the struggle to save Terri’s life can also be purchased through the site, or click on the graphic at the right.

“Quality of life”
In 2005 we were told by sanctimonious liberal/progressives in congress that government had no right to “interfere” in Michael Schiavo’s decision to deprive his helpless wife of food and water. The starvation and dehydration of a woman by a man who had a financial interest in her death, and was now living with another woman, was a “family matter”.

In 2010, these same members of congress have conferred upon the federal government the power to make similar “end of life” and treatment decisions for the seriously ill, the elderly and the disabled. The end of Terri Schindler’s life is a glimpse of the future under Obamacare.

Terri was not on life support. No one could just “pull the plug” ending her life in a matter of minutes. Terri was a functioning, disabled human being, loved and cared for by her parents and siblings, who simply needed assistance to eat and drink.

But a circuit court judge concluded that Terri’s life lacked “quality” and ordered Terri be deprived of nourishment and hydration. It took thirteen days to kill her. Anyone torturing an animal to death in a similar fashion would be jailed for cruelty.

Government employees in the socialized medicine chain of command will now have similar power to determine whether or not our lives have sufficient “quality” to warrant medical care. Indeed, during the midst of the healthcare debate last fall, our noble president himself declared to a group of liberal/progressive rabbis that “we are God’s partners in life and death”.

Over the last year, controversy arose over the possibility that murderers executed by lethal injection might experience some pain or discomfort during the six or seven minutes it takes to die. Since the procedure begins with a massive dose of the sedative sodium pentothal, the possibility of the condemned feeling anything is nil. Yet hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent researching the issue. Countless hours of arguments consumed the time of our courts.

No such concern was given for Terri Schindler, sentenced to death by starvation and dehydration.

And perhaps the best we the people can hope for under Obamacare is that government will be generous with the sodium pentothal when our lives are deemed to no longer possess quality.

The Economist June 27

President Obama’s highly ballyhooed (the clucks at MSNBC actually had a countdown clock) press conference on healthcare spoke volumes about what the president and congressional democrats have no intention of speaking about. Questions from a complicit press on the actual details of healthcare “reform”, and how the numbers can’t possibly add up, were either not forthcoming or not answered.

The whole show boiled down to the by now standard Obama MO of declaring an imminent crisis and reciting a cliché. The cliché of the evening was “no one can be denied coverage”. The deliberately misleading big lie inherent in all government controlled health care. Because coverage” does not equate with, or guarantee, treatment.

The truly deadly “R word”, rationing of healthcare, is by necessity and design an integral component of every government controlled healthcare plan in existence. And this one will not be any different just because Barack Obama is initiating it.

And “controlling cost”, from the first day of Obamacare onward, will focus on the two easiest targets: the elderly and the unborn.

Picture DMV and postal employee type “case evaluators” making return on investment decisions on who, and who is not, worth the expenditure of government dollars. Initially, these decisions will primarily be made upon the basis of age. Americans past the age of 75, or 80 tops, will simply not “qualify” for certain types of treatment. Euthanasia by indifference.

One of the president’s favorite code words, “empathy” will be bandied about in the form of doctor assisted suicide for the elderly ill willing to cooperate “for the good of the state”. All costs included in your coverage.

As the cost of the fiasco begins to overwhelm the country, as government healthcare has done everywhere else it has been implemented, the category of those offering a poor return on government’s investment of healthcare dollars will be expanded to include those, of any age, who are severally ill with diseases requiring intensive long term treatment.

Television and radio abound with reports detailing the cessation of treatment for the elderly and severally ill in Canada and Europe.

The lives of America’s unborn, already denied protection under our laws, will be another primary area in which government will “control cost”. Mandatory amniocentesis will be used to screen for potential “cost excesses”. Children with birth defects. Pressure to abort such children will be tied to that presidential magic word “empathy”. The pressure will likely begin with “counseling” encouraging the parents to be to do the “right thing”. But, again, as the cost of healthcare continues to drive up deficits, children with birth defects could easily cease to be born in America.

And it won’t stop there. In England, members of parliament cite families with an excess of two children as “irresponsible”. In January, Nancy Pelosi began paving the way for a similar consensus in the US when she stated that population control is necessary for a healthy economy.

There can be no doubt that any healthcare bill coming out of the US House of Representatives will include provisions for completely unrestricted abortion upon demand. All of the evils of the “The Freedom of Choice Act” dressed up as healthcare for children. Stealth FOCA as Father Frank Pavone of Priests For Life recently termed it. Abortion Incorporated is relishing the potential for windfall profits in Obamacare.

“Universal coverage” may sound wonderfully reassuring. When you’re well. But if this legislation becomes reality, America will find “Obamacare” to be the door into An Ugly New World we should have never entered.