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Ireland… a lesson for us. Listen in.
https://www.lifematters.life/podcast/Ireland: Last Outpost of Civilization – Part 1
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Abortion-On-Demand is now routine throughout all of Europe and in most of Western civilization. One of the last holdouts is the nation of Ireland. Under Ireland’s 8th Amendment, the laws of that country re-enforce the legal right to life for all vulnerable human beings, particularly those in the womb.
But on May 25th, 2018, a national plebiscite will be held. It is being pushed by all of the political parties that control the Dublin government.
A pro-abortion media and a political climate that favors European progressivism has placed Ireland as one of the final holdouts against the legalized dismissal of human lives.
Ireland is the youngest, most prosperous per capita country in the European Union. It has the lowest death rate and the highest birth rate of that entire greying continent.
Brian Johnston gives background on the laws protecting innocent lives in Ireland and the political efforts to bring those to an end. He includes a special interview with Peadar Tóibín, member of the Irish Dáil, and explains the political dilemma facing the Irish people at this crucial moment in history.
You are living through this very moment in history. The same challenge that is facing the Irish is facing you.
Important Update: Fighting against CALIFORNIA Government-Forced Speech
Important Update on US Supreme Court case regarding AB 775, government-forced speech promoting abortion.
California ProLife was involved in the very significant, successful State Court challenge of AB 775, the so-called “Reproductive Fact Act.” This was a very important victory. This California law would force pro-life counseling centers to first and foremost promote abortion. The law required that before there was any conversation with a young pregnant mother, she must first be informed that free abortions were readily available, and locations for the free abortions were to be made known.
We are Demanding The Right to Freely Speak!
The law also mandated that the prolife organization was to post a large sign stating the details of the free abortions.
The Ninth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals had approved of the law. Therefore the successful state court case protecting prolife speech was hugely significant, requiring the USSC to take up the case.
Advocates for Faith and Freedom, on behalf of the Scharpen Foundation and with California ProLife Council.
as declarants, successfully brought suit to overturn the law.
California state law has a very specific and expressed freedom of speech asserted in the state Constitution. Pursuing the case in state court and invoking the state’s constitution was critically important.
This successful state court case was crucial because it required the United States Supreme Court (USSC) to decide the case itself and confront the discrepancies in the lower court decisions. This October they granted cert to hear the merits of the law.
The High Court will make its ruling during this judicial session. California ProLife we will keep you updated!
thank you for standing with us for LIFE!
Who shall Guard the Guardians?
Who shall guard the guardians?
Voluntary euthanasia is now legal in California. It comes in two forms: intentional denial of all food and fluids, this was legally established as permissible against NON-terminal patients in the Elizabeth Bouvia case. In this case a clearly non-terminal, quadriplegic woman sought to have a hospital facilitate her death via dehydration. The patient later changed her mind, BUT the law didn’t. Elizabeth’s change in heart is the most compelling evidence that her desire for suicide was emotional in nature; but no matter. The legal precedent is now established case law. Voluntary, medically-supervised euthanasia has been authorized and is silently practiced in many California Medical facilities today.
The second form of voluntary euthanasia now legally practiced in California is that popularized by Jack Kevorkian. It is the direct, intentional, and assertive use of medicine in a lethal action against a patient’s life. The slow death of dehydration that was intended for Elizabeth Bouvia is thus avoided. The goal in “physician-assisted suicide” is to immediately kill a patient. The recent law legalizing physician-assisted suicide and justifying the lethal use of ‘medicine’ is employed, “Because they were asking for it.”
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Doctor Pan’s SB 481 is facilitating the ongoing cover up of nursing home abuse and further loss of protections for the medically vulnerable. As in other jurisdictions where intentional medical killing is practiced, ‘guardians’ feel free to use their role to cease a patient’s existence, without that patient’s consent, and without any other outside oversight.
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But there’s more. Many medical facilities, particularly nursing homes, here in California and elsewhere, in more than just a few cases, surreptitiously have not been caring for and even not feeding patients. Historically this was called for what it is, “intentional medical neglect.” You can see numerous examples of this widespread phenomenon in these reports. http://theconsumervoice.org/uploads/files/actions-and-news-updates/Consumer_Statement_Ensuring_Nursing_Home_Safety_April2017.pdf
Our culture is quietly witnessing the institutionalized dismissal of humanity.
When confronted with these numerous incidents, the facilities often justify their actions (or inactions) on the legal concept of “substituted judgment.”
“They would have asked for this… if they could.” Substituted judgment gives authority for your decisions to someone else if your wishes are considered unknown.
California medical institutions have usually invoked a California Health and Safety code, Sec. 1418.8 which allows institutions to make medical decisions for a patient if they ‘could not find’ another responsible party to speak for the patient. Historically this law was meant to provide care for patients, but now it is usually invoked to ‘take care OF patients.’
But here’s the rub, under 1418.8 these institutions were very free to simply declare you to be incompetent and then have their way with you!
One of the more common sentiments invoked by institutions is the pop culture maxim, “I would never want to live like that.” And Substituted judgment ensures that the medically dependent person won’t. Their lives are dismissed.
California Association for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) brought a lawsuit in Alameda County Court against Section 1418.8 and Presiding Judge Gorillo essentially agreed with their concerns. He said the nursing homes and other hospitals were violating “a patient’s due process rights” by making such declarations of ‘incompetence’ whenever the institution so wished. Remember – ‘No one shall be deprived of Life, Liberty, or property without due process of law.’
But there is still more. The medical institutions are not happy with someone investigating their declarations of incompetence and the subsequent actions they may take. They still want be free to deny care whenever THEY decide. Remember, when invoking ‘substituted judgement’, by definition it is not the patient deciding. I have been given more than one story of a an ill or elderly patient’s request for essential sustenance being simply met with a declaration of ‘incompetence’.
The California Medical Association (which recently dropped its long-held stance against a doctor intentionally killing a patient) and the California Hospital Association 9which has a vested interest in ‘moving along’ unprofitable patients) have asked California State Senator Pan to offer a bill, SB 481 to amend the flawed Health and Safety code which had previously given them license to freely deny any care or treatment. Under Pan’s bill, when an institution declares a patient ‘incompetent’ they will simply present the patient with a note, stating ‘You are incompetent.’
Think about that for a minute. If someone is actually incompetent, they will read and understand your note? Really? No matter. The institution is now ‘free’ to do what it wants with the patient.
Senator Pan asserts that the institution simply wants to be free to ‘help the patient.’ They wish to make ‘caring medical decisions’ for the patient. But tellingly, Pan has refused amendments that would prohibit the intentional denial of food and water or the intentional ‘deleterious use of medicine.’ Most alarming is that there are already two existing state programs that are designed to intervene on behalf of medically vulnerable patients: The State Long Term Care Ombudsman program and Adult Protective Services (APS). Dr. Pan is intentionally cutting these agencies out of involvement with these freshly declared, ‘incompetent’ patients: intentionally ignoring established protections for incompetent patients is a very bad sign.
The existence of the Ombudsman and APS programs should be of only slight comfort to you. My experience has been that in the world of bureaucratic medicine, no one really wants to care for an individual that no one wants to care for. I mean, who wants more caseload?
Doctor Pan’s SB 481 is facilitating the ongoing cover up of nursing home abuse and further loss of protections for the medically vulnerable. As in other jurisdictions where intentional medical killing is practiced, ‘guardians’ feel free to use their role to cease a patient’s existence, without that patient’s consent, and without any other outside oversight.
“The tragedy,” says Law Professor Mort Cohen, who sued the state over the ‘substituted judgment’ clause, Health and Safety 1418.8, “is that we live in a culture that doesn’t want to view care homes as actual care homes, but places to just go die.” Sadly, the medical profession now sees its role as simply ensuring those deaths.
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Brian Johnston is a former Commissioner on Aging for California. He has served on the state’s Board of Examiners of Nursing Homes and on the board of directors of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled. He currently serves on the board of directors of the National Right to Life Committee.
Suppressing the evidence for self-evident truths
“WE hold these truths to be self-evident…”
By Brian Johnston
The Right to Life is asserted as an observable, self-evident fact. “The laws of nature and of nature’s God” are to be seen in the objective reality of unique human lives.
The purpose of the Right to Life movement is to show forth those self-evident facts of human life, and to assure the protections of government for those lives. We do not assert our personal faith or idiosyncratic beliefs regarding those lives, we simply show the self-evident uniqueness of the individual. According to America’s founders, the just powers of all governments is derived from the intrinsic value and worth of the lives governed. The ‘power over lives’ is directly related to recognizing the value and uniqueness of those lives.
On Nov 10, 2016, the French Supreme Counsel shocked caring people world-wide, when they ruled that the mere image of a 
Down’s syndrome child could not be broadcast on national television. The smiling images were part of a campaign by the Down’s Syndrome Association, ‘Dear Future Mom,’ it showed the hope and joy of Down’s syndrome individuals.
The State Counsel said that allowing people with Down’s syndrome to smile on television was “inappropriate” because it was “likely to disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices”. Note that the High Court has ruled ending the life of a Down’s child is not to be considered ‘inappropriate,’ but the true offense against humanity is the showing images of those joyful children.
In our movement the most difficult challenge is not merely the opposition of those who disagree, but the imperious use of government authority to suppress and dismiss the ‘self evident’ nature of the Right to Life, of the value and significance of each life, even the seemingly insignificant life. For Government to war against ‘self-evident’ truths, it must first commit itself to suppressing the evidence. In France, 96% of Down’s children are ‘eliminated’ via abortion.
Please Join with Citizens Nationwide to Keep Medicine Ethical!
Below is an urgent memo from the NRLC Medical Ethics Department
Memo
To: State Affiliates and Board members
From: Jennifer Popik, J.D. Director of Medical Ethics at National Right to Life
Re: URGENT emails and phone calls needed to the American Medical Association (AMA) over next several weeks
Date: September 15, 2016
Background:
There is an effort currently underway within the American Medical Association (AMA) to abandon its decades-long position opposing assisted suicide and take a neutral stance. At its July 2017 annual meeting, the AMA will consider taking a “neutral” position which essentially sends a green light to the states that legalizing is acceptable. However, we have recently been made aware that the AMA will hold an interim meeting on November 13 and 14 in Orlando where a special breakout session will be held on assisted suicide.
Both the national and state medical societies’ opposition to doctor-prescribed suicide have been instrumental in stopping the spread of these dangerous laws. In fact, when the Vermont and California medical societies took neutral positions, it was devastating to the efforts in the legislature to block legalization. Assisting suicide is now legal in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California, and the practice may have some legal protection in the state of Montana.
Action Needed
We are asking the following things:
1. Please have your members contact one or both contacts below via phone or email.
2. Please restrict arguments to the suggested bullet points, in the person’s own words.
3. Speak with any physicians you know and urge them contact the AMA.
4. Ask for a written response/ report any information received back to NRLC.
1. Who to contact:
Dr. Andrew W. Gurman, MD, AMA President, andrew.gurman@ama-assn.org
330 N Wabash, Ste 43482
Chicago IL 60611-5885
312.464.5618 ph
312.464.4094 fx
Bette Crigger, PhD, CEJA’s Secretary, bette.crigger@ama-assn.org
Secretary, Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
American Medical Association
330 N Wabash, Ste 43482
Chicago IL 60611-5885
312.464.5223 ph
312.224.6911 fx
Based on both polling and the positive experience of many states fighting these assisted suicide laws, please try and restrict your arguments to one or two of the following:
2. What to Say:
(Select one or more of the following statements and re-word or add your own thoughts.)
The AMA should retain its longstanding position in opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide because:
· Medical professionals should focus on providing care and comfort to patients – NOT becoming a source of lethal drugs. I would not want my doctor to have this power and suggest suicide to me as an “option.”
· Will the government and insurance companies do the right thing – pay for treatment costing thousands of dollars – or the cheap thing – pay for lethal drugs costing hundreds of dollars?
· Everyone knows someone who has been misdiagnosed or outlived a terminal diagnosis.
· Wanting to die because of depression is treatable. Millions of people are living proof.
· Everyone agrees that dying in pain is unacceptable, however nearly all pain is now treatable. A patient in pain should find a new doctor.
· Oregon is proof that general suicides rise dramatically once assisted suicide is promoted as a “good.”
· My family member could die from taking lethal drugs and I wouldn’t know about it until he/she is dead because no family notification is required in advance.
· Assisted suicide is a recipe for elder and disability abuse because it can put lethal drugs in the hands of abusers.
· A relative who is an heir to the patient’s estate or an abusive caregiver can pick up the lethal drugs and administer them without the patient’s knowledge or consent. There is no oversight and no witnesses are required once the lethal drugs leave the pharmacy
Please send any replies to jpopik@nrlc.org
Killing the ‘Disabled’ – A mass killing that the American media ignores
It is strange that there was so little coverage or public discussion. Mass killings are always headline news.
And after such mass killings there are always calls for gun control or dramatic government intervention. At the end of July, Japan witnessed the largest mass-killing since the atomic bomb. And it was all by one man.
But there was no gun. The government had actually assembled the victims. A government employee was the perpetrator. And if a newsevent appears to challenge the thinking of the popular press, the reaction is usually the same: ‘”Nothing to see here. Just move along. We in the media will determine what should be important to you.”
But there is something particularly important and haunting about what happened in Japan at the end of July. It is a dramatic commentary on the world-wide push to use medicine as a tool to kill.
On July 26th, Satoshi Uematsu, a 26-year-old Japanese man who had worked at a state-sponsored facility for the disabled, broke in through a window early that morning before beginning a methodical, knife-wielding rampage. The attack — in which nineteen, nine men and 10 women were killed, and 26 more people injured — is Japan’s deadliest mass killing since the end of World War II.
The suspect turned himself in at a local police station around an hour after the attack began, carrying a bloodstained knife and cloth, officials said.
In a letter he wrote several months before the incident, and made public to the media, he said he had “the ability to kill 470 disabled people.”
We have plans for you.
While that is astounding, it is his reasoning in the letter that is most alarming. It is not the wandering rant of a madman, it in fact echoes the ‘thinking’ of so many other compassionate “caregivers” around the world who believe they see a better way. And they are acting on it. They have legalized it.
He boasted that he could easily kill 470 disabled people at a go. It would help society. He dreamed, “of a world where disabled people with severe difficulties socializing as well as severe difficulties at home are allowed to be peacefully euthanized.”
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‘Oh, but in California and in Oregon and in Europe,’ you may say, ‘the issue is about voluntarily killing one’s self, its about assisted suicide.’ And that’s where you would be wrong. Once the use of medicine is authorized to kill patients, and done so in the name of kindness, or love or ‘mercy,’ it inevitably cannot be kept from those who are ‘unable’ to make known their desires. The laws have borne this out in each jurisdiction where medically authorized killing is implemented. If this is kindness for those facing suffering, the cruelest unkindness is abandoning those who are unable to make such decisions.
The legal concept of ‘substituted judgement’ is well established and inescapable. Both case law and legislation have provided for someone else to make important decisions for individuals in MANY different circumstances It might be the court, or your next of kin, or a designated power-of-attorney, but third parties routinely make decisions for individuals who may otherwise appear to be quite competent to you or me. I’ve toured dozens of nursing homes; I am quite sure that the majority of those therein are legally dependent on the good wishes of outside agents for their well being. Their ‘decisions’ are not their own.
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Mr. Uematsu did something that is regularly being done in the Western world. And he eloquently underscored the ‘compassionate reasoning’ of those who are legally using voluntary euthanasia and non-voluntary euthanasia as a form of medicine.
Though initially legalized as ‘assisted suicide,’ in Belgium thousands have been killed by physicians without ever making a request. The vast majority are elderly in nursing homes, yes, dependent on the care and kindness of others. Dutch law too has upheld the euthanizing of those who ‘couldn’t bring themselves to ask.’ If medical killing is a good tool, why should it be denied to those ‘who need it the most’?
In Oregon, those who are ‘non compis mentis’, ‘not of sound mind,’ have been killed via so-called, ‘assisted suicide.’ There is no requirement for psychological counseling. Alzheimer’s patients, emotionally distraught paraplegics, and others in a questionably emotional or intellectual state, have been legally killed with the “help” of an “assistant.” But in assisted suicide it is only the “assistant” who is getting freed by such use of medicine. They are free to walk away from the scene without further questioning or investigation, even if they are immediate heirs. The victim is simply dead.
In all these jurisdictions, physicians are encouraged to falsify the death certificate, and instead replace the true cause of death with natural causes. This makes for less scrutiny and need for explanation. But does ‘mercy’ really need an explanation? Apparently not to the contemporary press. ‘Love and Mercy’ seems reason enough.
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This summer Mr. Uematsu took it upon himself to act on a very common, contemporary idea. Japan’s largest mass-killing since the use of nuclear weapons has much more significance than the popular press has given it. The ‘fallout’ of this news story is the result of decisions made long before Mr. Uematsu decided to lift his blade ‘in compassion.’ It is a deadly fallout that has already settled over and infected much of the medical profession.
Don’t be confused – policy is what politics is about.
California ProLife Council is a non-sectarian and non-partisan organization. That being said, in the current political environment, the stated policies of the two dominant political parties are inescapable.
The Republican Party has a solid pro-life platform, and in addition to protecting the unborn, sees a need to assertively protect the elderly and medically vulnerable.
The Democrat Party is committed to unlimited abortion funded by the government, and to the voluntary euthanizing of vulnerable patients.
Instead of the law protecting the vulnerable, using the euphemism “choice,” today’s Democrat Party has become the party of government-sponsored killing of the vulnerable.
In this important election year, we would be remiss to not point out this clear and bright distinction.
In this important election year, we would be remiss to not point out this clear and bright distinction.
Dear Friend of Life,
The Republican party was founded for the specific purpose of ensuring that the dignity of the human person was protected in the law and in public policy. This was unlike the rest of the inchoate and at times confused abolitionist movement, which employed many non-policy related efforts from Harper’s Ferry to the Underground Railroad to address slavery.
Lincoln was VERY clear that the Republican Party was dedicated to, and in fact designed to use the civic process to change the policies that many others complained of and lashed out against. Lincoln, in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, made clear that the Republican Party was unique in its anti-slavery efforts, and that unlike some abolitionists, Republicans were dedicated to using the civic process to the utmost, as both the principle tool and the ultimate tool for ending slavery.
Lincoln was right to focus the concern of America on the immediate electoral and policy opportunities at hand in order to bring an end to slavery. Employing these civic avenues is still our greatest hope for bringing an end to the legalized culture of Death, and the Republican Party remains our most effective tool to do so.
In this confusing election year, I urge you to ‘cut through the fog’ and wisely search out and support candidates who will bring an end to the cultural madness that ‘choice in killing’ has brought to our nation. Be sure that your family and friends understand the stances of the political parties on this, the most important of issues, and be ready for one of the most significant and exciting election years of our lifetime, and perhaps in all of American history.
Thank you for your support of California ProLife and the National Right to Life team across the nation, your efforts and support are what allow the cause of Life to be heard and remembered in the legislative process.
Yours in Life ,
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California – Execute Murderers or the Medically Vulnerable? It’s the Latter.
The California bureaucracy proposed a dramatic policy last week. It was essentially unreported. The Department of Corrections issued new regulations proposing that no prisoner shall be allowed to avail of the so called “Death With Dignity” Act. The law itself, currently under litigation, has been allowed to remain in effect for all other Californians until a ruling expected later next month. But in the meantime it is proposed that no prisoner, no matter how ill, may avail of the ‘right’ that other ill people have been offered; the supposed ‘right to be dead’. This might indeed be a good idea, but it reveals much deeper problems with the law. Problems other countries have also faced.
Individuals in California are currently ‘free to be dead’ when given a terminal diagnosis and an MD approximates that within 6 months they could die. If despondent and ‘hopeless’ in their own judgement, the patient is free to simply ‘get things over with.’ And ‘accommodating individuals’ may attend. They may be given a lethal dose of medicine. No psychological evaluation or counseling is required for those patients. As in Oregon and elsewhere, only certain physicians who view mercy killing as benign, are inclined to employ medicine in a deadly manner.
As in Oregon, no investigation is launched into the intentional killing, and as in all ‘assisted suicides’, the ‘assistant’, the third-party agent, is free to go, unquestioned and unhindered, even if he or she is an heir or should they in some other way benefit from the intentional killing.
So why should prisoners be denied this new, ‘human right’? Are prisoners in similar circumstances not human beings and also suffering? If medical killing is indeed both a benefit to the patient and all involved, wouldn’t the authorities be glad to be done with a sickly miscreant? Though they made mistakes, why are these poor captives of fate denied this supposed, ‘basic human right’ to not exist?
Perhaps because it is not a ‘right’ at all.
Brian Johnston is the author/ producer of “Death As A Salesman: What’s Wrong With Assisted Suicide”
In California we have seen many inversions of what was once governing law, and its principle purpose, protection of the vulnerable innocent. Law is now routinely being used in California not to order society and protect its members, but to alter society; to dramatically change the values of society’s members. Public institutions from the schools on up are seen as tools of social manipulation. Instructive guidance, the basis of all law throughout history is now being employed in an effort to ‘progress’ society toward some new destination, a new cultural-Utopia we have somehow been denied.
Perhaps the experience of Belgium can give us insight into the Brave New World our voluntary euthanasia laws are attempting to impose on both the vulnerable as well as murderous prisoners. There, ‘assisted suicide’ via medicine is authorized even for the non-terminal, provided the patient themselves feel their lives have no purpose. This ‘freedom’ was given new meaning in January 2015 when serial-rapist and murderer Frank van Den Bleeken. He was denied execution at trial, though he desired it, as the death penalty is outlawed in Belgium.
Several years later and diagnosed with incurable illness, van Den Bleeken did not wish to spend the remainder of his life in prison. Initially the courts ruled that he indeed could kill himself at his own hand, since anyone can in Belgium. Grieving family members of his victims were content with the ‘self-execution’ – justice would finally be done. But it was not to be.
The courts in their newfound sense of justice ultimately ruled that what Mr. van Den Bleeken needed is what all despondent and suicidal individuals should always be offered, psychological intervention and counseling. In Belgium only innocent people may be killed. Murderers must get counseling and protection.
Today capitol criminals cannot be killed in California even if they desire it. The finest counseling and interventions are instead offered. There have been no executions since Clarence Ray Allen in 2006, and complete prohibition is proposed for the November ballot. To be killed in a California prison you will still have to rely on the age-old ‘shiv’ secretly offered by an accommodating murderer.
On the other hand, the most vulnerable and emotionally needy in California are, on a wholesale level, being ‘offered’ medical elimination by society. Nursing homes, hospitals, medical facilities of all kinds can make this available. No counseling is required for those who are depressed and despondent due to their serious illness. No physician need be in attendance.
Thoughts of suicide are the number one indicator of depression. Dispensing poison instead of counseling to those with terminal diagnosis indicates the objective reality that assisted suicide is designed, not for those we care for, but for those we no longer wish to care for.
We have always condemned violence to change the law
California ProLife Council Condemns Violence
Recent events in Colorado renew condemnation
Sacramento, California -Nov. 27, 2015
The California ProLife Council, the California affiliate of National Right to Life, strongly condemned the recent violence in Colorado Springs at a Planned Parenthood center.
The California ProLife Council, the California affiliate of National Right to Life, strongly condemned the recent violence in Colorado Springs at a Planned Parenthood center.
“We believe the way to end serious conflict in a civil society is by ballots, not bullets,” said Brian Johnston, Chairman of California ProLife, a pro-life organization with chapters and affiliates throughout the state. “Whatever the motive of this shooter, this is the wrong way to address the most important issue of our time, and only clouds peoples’ emotions and understanding of what is at stake and how to bring positive change.”
A non-sectarian and non-partisan organization, the California ProLife Council was founded in 1971. It publishes legislative voting records, candidates positions on issues, organizes statewide and local educational and outreach projects on abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and has a long-standing record of condemning all acts of violence.
A non-sectarian and non-partisan organization, the California ProLife Council was founded in 1971. It publishes legislative voting records, candidates positions on issues, organizes statewide and local educational and outreach projects on abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and has a long-standing record of condemning all acts of violence.
