Mercy for the Unspeakable

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Rod Dreher shared a terrible story on his blog yesterday. In Massachusetts, a 6-year-old boy was raped by a convicted sex offender in the public library. The boy's mother was nearby; the rapist lured the boy behind some shelves and he was too paralyzed by fear to cry for help. Here is more from the NY Times and AP.

When we see stories like this, the visceral reaction is usually to wish pain, suffering, and death on anyone who would do such things to a child. In the rush to condemn we sometimes forget that the offender is human, too. His name is Corey Saunders, and here is a bit of his background.

Court records show that Mr. Saunders’s mother left him when he was 9. At 14 he was found wandering the streets clutching a teddy bear and was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for a month...

Saunders, 26, was convicted in 2001 of indecent assault and battery and attempted rape on a child for attacking a 7-year-old boy in a foster home where he was placed. He was released about a year ago by a judge even though prosecutors and three psychologists said he was likely to strike again.

Bristol Superior Court Judge Richard Moses denied a motion by the district attorney's office to keep Saunders in custody under what is called a civil commitment... Moses cited Saunders' low IQ, his history of being sexually abused as a child and his lack of sexual offenses in prison as reasons to let him out. Also, a psychologist for the defense said Saunders was not likely to attack again.

Obviously the judge made a terrible mistake, but the rest of us have to share the blame. Such things are the inevitable result of the decision we as a society made back in the 1960s to "de-institutionalize" the mentally ill (which anyone who rapes a 6 year old clearly is, by definition). In most states it is practically impossible to force people like Saunders to accept any kind of treatment against their will unless they are "imminently" dangerous - which usually means gun in hand, finger on trigger. You have a constitutional right to be crazy in America.

A lot of these people would be fine if they just took medicine regularly. Instead of making them do so, we abandon them to their own private hell. They end up living on the streets, in prison, or dead. It is no accident that this crime happened where it did; in many cities public libraries have become de facto day care centers for homeless people, especially when it is cold outside. Since many homeless people are mentally ill, it should surprise no one if they commit crimes in libraries. It will continue to happen until we fix the mental health system.

Both Corey Saunders and society will finally get what they need now: separation. Hopefully he will get some effective treatment as well, but he sounds like a tough case. I would bet that his mother who abandoned him was herself mentally ill. There are strong genetic connections to these things.

I began this article with a verse from the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Does Corey Saunders deserve mercy? No, he doesn't. None of us do. Yet the Lord expects us to show mercy if we want to receive mercy ourselves. And mercy is something we will all need when we face Him in judgment.

This is a hard teaching to follow. We want vengeance against people who do these things. Yet vengeance has no place in the life of a Christian; God reserves that right to Himself. From us he expects mercy, and particularly toward the weak and helpless.

It is ironic that some Christian "pro-life" advocates turn so bloodthirsty in these situations. People with serious mental illness are not morally culpable for their actions, any more than the unborn babies we fight so hard to protect. The very concept of "punishing" such people ought to be repugnant to anyone who really cares about defending innocent life.

Yes, we need to protect society from such persons. Lock them up for life if necessary. But we owe them mercy at the same time. This is an area where we have failed miserably as a society. Men like Corey Saunders, and a little boy he met in the library, are both paying the price.

Mom and Dad Wanted Me Dead

This is bizarre.

A doctor can't be held liable for resuscitating a baby who was born without a heartbeat and survived with severe disabilities, the state Supreme Court says.

The baby's parents filed a malpractice lawsuit after the baby's 2004 birth. They claimed doctors in Vancouver, Wash., were negligent when they continued to resuscitate the baby for almost half an hour, after he was born without a heartbeat.

The parents also said the medical team should have gotten their consent before continuing to revive the baby.

But the Supreme Court justices say the doctor can't be held liable for failing to stop resuscitation efforts on a baby. [source]

More detail can be found in the Washington State Supreme Court opinion here. Nichole Stewart-Graves was 35 weeks pregnant in 2004 when she began having contractions. She went to the hospital with her husband, Todd Graves. Up to that point there had been no problems in the pregnancy. Nurses detected that the baby's heartbeat was failing and Nichole gave permission for an emergency C-section. She was then placed under anesthetic.

When the baby was born doctors could not detect any heartbeat and began working to resuscitate him. After 24 minutes the baby's heart began to beat. He survived but is permanently disabled with cerebral palsy, mental retardation and many other serious problems. He will require extensive care for his entire life. The parents named their baby boy "Liam."

The parents sued the doctor, the hospital, and everyone else in sight on the grounds that they should have let little Liam die. Yes, that's right - not "wrongful death" but "wrongful life." They say the doctors actually worked too hard to save their baby's life.

The court opinion is strange to read because Liam is, technically, the one filing the suit. His parents speak on his behalf. So you get odd sentences like "Liam made the same allegations as his parents regarding the lack of informed consent and negligence for continuing the resuscitation." Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Liam really wanted to die and the evil doctor should have just read his mind.

It is undeniably true that Liam will never have a normal life. Nevertheless, he has Life, and all life is a gift from God. It is not our place to give it or take it. Had God wanted Liam to die, then nothing the doctors did would have helped. The fact that he was saved suggests God wants Liam on this Earth - alive.

We see similar things when unborn babies are pre-natally diagnosed with conditions like Down's Syndrome. Parents often decide to abort such babies because they won't have "quality of life." This is the first step down a very slippery slope. Once we begin deciding that some lives just aren't worthwhile, where does it end? A lot of old people don't have much quality of life, either. How about poor people? Blind people? Mentally ill people? Where does it end?

Fortunately, in this case the Washington Supreme Court agreed that the doctors were not negligent. They were simply doing what doctors are supposed to do. Justice won in the end, but this case truly has no winners. Unlike some parents who develop a heroic love and dedication for disabled children, this couple clearly wishes their son had never been born. It is unclear to what degree they are involved in his care. It sure sounds like they regard him as a burden rather than a blessing.

If, someday, Liam is able to understand what happened, what will he think? Mom and dad wanted me to die? What a horrible way to go through a life that is already hard enough.

Hat tip: WWWtW

Platonism at the Gym

If you think the religious zealot is hateful to the spiritually indifferent or to those who actively reject his belief, just try to talk to a true Gym Bunny or a Gym Jock. Their utter disdain for your physical weakness, your lack of motivation, your ill-defined abs and flabby butt, their venomous contempt for your high calorie, high fat diet and your ignorance of proper supplementation—all of these combine in a heart so spiritually pure in its hatred for the body that these Gym Bunnies and Jocks would scare the dungeon masters of the Spanish Inquisition with their zealotry!

Make no mistake: their torturous routines on those robotic machines are not about loving the flesh…no, no, the flesh must be denied, tamed, shaped, and beaten into submission. [more]

Friendly Advice: Sell The Boat

Health care is a growing political issue in the U.S., and for good reason. Nobody is happy with the system we have and no one can agree how to fix it, either. There are too many competing interests with loads of money at stake. This week I heard a story that illustrates the problem.

A person I know - male, mid-twenties - developed a condition that is very painful. The pain comes and goes. A few days it ago it became so severe he went to the emergency room. The doctor there said he needed to see a specialist, gave him some pain medication and sent him home.

This gentleman is a self-employed craftsman and appears to have a decent income. I know he recently bought a very expensive boat. He does not, however, have health insurance. He also doesn't have the $250 it takes to see the specialist who treats problems like his. How someone can afford a boat but not be able to come up with the cash to get himself out of excruciating pain, I don't know. It makes no sense. But he spent a couple of days at home in agony before his girlfriend finally took him back to the ER again. This time they gave him morphine, again advised him to see the specialist pronto, and told him his life might depend on it.

So what did he do? He went back home and relaxed until the morphine wore off. Then the pain started up again. They finally went to the ER of a much larger hospital which had the necessary specialist on staff. It appears he is bleeding internally and is now scheduled for surgery. It is unclear what this will cost and who is paying for it. Depending what the surgeon finds inside, he may need a lot more treatment.

I tell this story for two reasons. First, this man needs your prayers for healing. Second, it illustrates that the so-called health care crisis in the U.S. isn't always the fault of "the system." This guy isn't poor. He could have afforded health insurance, but like a lot of people his age he goes without because he thinks he is indestructible. He gambled and lost. He figured "somebody" would always be there to take care of him. "Somebody" means all the rest of us who buy health insurance and pay taxes.

This doesn't mean he will be off the hook. With this condition in his medical history, he will probably be uninsurable for the rest of his life. He works in a field where most people are self-employed and group medical coverage is hard to find. He'll need insurance if he decides to marry and start a family, yet he'll be too "rich" to qualify for Medicaid and still unable to get insurance privately. His best bet will be to change careers and go to work for a big company or a governmental agency. That will be a shame because he's very good at what he does.

I believe we all have a moral obligation to help the sick. What do we do, though, with people who have the ability to take care of themselves and simply don't? This guy made a mistake by not insuring himself when he had a chance. He knows that now - or at least he will very soon when he starts getting the bills. Multiply this story by a few thousand times every day throughout the U.S. and you start to see the magnitude of the problem. I don't have a good answer. I think an excellent start would be to do something about the trial lawyers whose frivolous lawsuits drive up the cost of health care for everyone. Beyond that, I don't know.

Condomania & the Catholic Church

The rapid spread in Latin America of the virus that causes AIDS is made worse by the Roman Catholic Church's stand against using condoms, a U.N. official said on Monday.

Some 1.7 million people across Latin America are infected with the HIV virus or full-blown AIDS, and the epidemic is spreading swiftly with up to 410,000 new cases in 2006, up from as many as 320,000 new cases in 2004, according the UN AIDS program, UNAIDS.

"In Latin America the use of condoms has been demonized, but if they were used in every relation I guarantee the epidemic would be resolved in the region," said Alberto Stella, the UNAIDS Coordinator for Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. MORE

This is so absurd it would be funny if the subject were less serious. We are, apparently, supposed to believe that the very same people who obviously reject Catholic teaching on fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and other such practices somehow feel they must, nevertheless, slavishly avoid condoms because the Church tells them to. Therefore, the Catholic Church is responsible for AIDS. I don't think so.

In fact, if the people of Latin America (or anywhere else) actually did what the Catholic Church says - i.e. limit sexual activity to married men and women who are faithful to each other - diseases like AIDS/HIV would disappear very quickly. Funny how this works - frequently things the Church teaches for moral reasons also turn out to be just plain smart. Most Protestant and Evangelical denominations teach the same thing, incidentally.

Some will argue that that condoms are hard to obtain in Catholic-dominated cultures. Even if it's true, which I doubt, so what? The places where condoms are most easily obtainable also happen to be the places with the highest HIV infection rates. Condoms are freely available all over the United States, even beginning in middle school in some states, and we still have an HIV epidemic here. Clearly the relationship between condom usage and infection is a little more complicated than just assuming "More condoms = less HIV."

The most effective way to prevent HIV and other STDs is to change your behavior and stop engaging in the practices that spread it. This is what the Catholic Church teaches, but it isn't just a moral principle; it is scientific fact. The UN certainly isn't giving people this message, but someone needs to. Lives depend on it.

[Note also, in the Reuters story linked above, how all pretense of journalistic objectivity is abandoned. Normal practice is to show both points of view. In this case the UN condom pusher gets quoted directly, while the Catholic position is characterized by the reporter without a response from the Church. Typical for the Reuters "News" Agency.]

American Papist has a good take on this same story.

Sixth Grade Contraception

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.

The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services. [source]

There is an excellent discussion about this story underway at the Crunchy Con blog. I've never seen so many people from all political and religious viewpoints agree on anything like the do on this. The consensus: it is a monumentally stupid idea.

Set aside for a moment the question of whether schools should be in the business of enabling or encouraging, however tacitly, sexual activity by middle school students. The plan is medically dangerous.

Students treated at the centers must first get written parental permission, but under state law such treatment is confidential, and students decide for themselves whether to tell their parents about the services they receive.

It is a small comfort that parental permission is required, though I wonder how closely the clinic workers will scrutinize whatever signatures or forms the kids bring from home. Nevertheless, exactly how feasible is it to expect an 11-13 year old to provide accurate medical information to the clinic?

Birth control pills and patches are prescription medicines. They have risks, side effects, interactions with other medications. You can overdose on them. They have to taken on a precise schedule in order to work. Yet "students decide for themselves" whether to tell their parents about any medicines they receive. Any parent who lets their kid go to this clinic, as well as any physician or nurse who works there, is taking a huge risk.

The very same public schools that are terrified a kid with a headache might take a Tylenol are now happy to administer birth control pills. The logic behind this escapes me. We know that school-administered sex education isn't preventing sexually transmitted diseases, even as the states outlaw the one technique that actually is effective: abstinence. Is there a method to this madness?

I can only think of one thing that fits: school administrators (and the parents who cooperate with them) must want the kids to be sexually active, as early and often as possible, and are willing to risk medical complications in order to achieve this. The plan in Maine makes perfect sense if that is their motivation. So far, they seem to be succeeding.

Does Poverty Cause Abortion?

Surveys of women who have had abortions reveal that many of them felt they simply "couldn't afford" to have a child. Darwin responds to a Christian blogger who made this argument:

We live in the most wealthy country in the world, with one of the highest abortion rates in the world. Is our problem really that we're not wealthy enough?

Not only the average citizen of our country, but the poor of our country are far, far wealthier than they were 100 years ago. And yet, as we have become wealthier, the institution of the family has collapsed, illegitimacy has become a pandemic in the lower economic reaches of society, divorce has become commonplace, abortion is common -- used by some parts of society as a last resort, and by others almost as backup-birth control. (The stats I've seen on abortion repeat customers are pretty terrifying.)

And yet the problem, we are told, is that our country is still too poor to have a lower abortion rate? The claim is, quite frankly, so ludicrous that it's hard to believe the author even means it seriously. Sadly, though, I think he does. MORE

I agree - the idea is simply laughable. The fact that people take it seriously says a lot about the rampant materialism of Americans. When these women - and the men who impregnate them - say "I can't afford to have a child," what they really mean is "I can't afford to have a child without giving up my life of fun, frolic, and freedom."

Contrast this with of Third World countries where people who have far less than even the poorest Americans continue to view children as a blessing, and do whatever it takes to care for them. For that matter, right here in America we have parents who figure out ways to afford five, ten or more children on a typical middle-class income.

So the question is not really about money; it is a question of priorities. People whose highest priority is their own pleasure naturally regard children as a burden to be avoided. That's why we have DINKs and pampered pooches. Children are, quite literally, the future. If your focus is on the present, it's much easier to flush your future down the drain.

Strange Place To Make A Stand

President Bush promises to veto expansion of children’s health care program.

I don’t doubt for a minute that the Democrats are using this issue to score political points. If they really want to make health care affordable, they can start with reining in the trial lawyers whose frivolous lawsuits force physicians to spend half their income on liability insurance and order all kinds of needless tests. Of course they won't, because the trial lawyers are among their biggest contributors.

Nonetheless, this is a strange place for Bush to suddenly draw the line. How many spending bills has he vetoed in the last seven years? None. Zero. For six years the GOP-controlled Congress spent money like drunken sailors and handed out billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, who also happen to be major donors to Republican campaigns. Bush signed off on all of it. He especially liked the vastly more expensive prescription drug benefit for retirees. (The fact that senior citizens vote, while children do not, had nothing to do with this dichotomy, of course.) Bridges to nowhere and $900 hammers also received the president's signature.

The SCHIP spending bill Bush now intends to veto costs $35 billion. Not chump change, but it’s a drop in the bucket for our Brobdingnagian federal government. Along comes a bill to provide health care for children of the poor, though, and the White House decides we just can't afford it. Are there better ways to help poor kids? Of course. There is good reason to veto this bill. But why this one and none of the others?

The fact that the Bush Administration allowed itself to be backed into this corner is a sign of remarkable, almost unprecedented political blindness. The Democrats will bring it up again, and force Bush to veto it again, probably several more times in the next year. George W. Bush will now go down in history as the president who was willing to spend any amount of the taxpayer’s money on anything for anyone – except health care for kids. Some legacy.

It will be a long time before any GOP candidate will again be able to convince the nation that he represents the party of fiscal responsibility. Meanwhile the Democrats will have loads of fun portraying Republicans as greedy, heartless Scrooges who hate poor kids. I'm not so sure they will be wrong.

Any Republican who still supports this president needs to have his head examined. Bush's arrogance and stupidity have destroyed your party as a viable force for change. Congratulations. Get ready for a long time in the wilderness.

Debauchery in the Ranks

Texas Fred has a new post with interesting stories from war front. Specifically, his sources say that prostitution and illegal drug use are growing problems among U.S. troops in Iraq. We don't know how widespread these problems are, and Fred's sources are anonymous, so take this with a grain of salt. However, I don't think anyone would deny these things happen to some degree at least.

Prostitutes have followed armies for thousands of years, of course. The difference this time is that the same people are wearing both hats: some female American soldiers are reportedly selling themselves to the males for cash. Some, according to Texas Fred's sources, are making quite a lot of money in this way.

I'm trying to think of a historical parallel for this and coming up short. Examples of gender-mixed armies deploying outside their home countries for more than short periods are few and far between. Maybe now we are seeing why it is not a good idea.

In principle, I'm not against the idea of women in the service. My experience in the Army commanding a mixed unit was fairly positive. We had some minor problems, but the females in my company were professional and did their fair share of the work. However, those women came of age in a different era. They didn't grow up with MTV and gangsta rap and all that goes with it. Is a mixed force workable in today's sexually-charged popular culture? Maybe not.

Leaving aside the moral dimension, this kind of activity is still problematic. First of all, in a war zone every soldier is a potential blood donor for injured troops. Anything that promotes the spread of infectious disease creates risk for all. Yes, yes, I'm sure they use "protection." Fine. It's not foolproof, as lots of people find out the hard way.

Second, when the "protection" fails, the result is pregnancy. That leads to several possibilities, all unpleasant. The pregnant female soldier becomes physically less able to do her job, leaving more work for the others in the unit and harming morale. Eventually she will get shipped home and may or may not be replaced. From there, she will either kill her baby through abortion, or give birth to a baby with no father in the picture. Neither option is good for the child.

Third, we now have an Army with many married soldiers. Long deployments create temptation for both spouses to be unfaithful, which may be inevitable, but it doesn't do morale any good when the wives (or husbands) back home have to wonder what their husbands (or wives) are up to over there. This leads to more broken homes and family strife, and ultimately weakens the force as good soldiers look for work that lets them keep their families together.

Fourth, a unit whose members are in the habit of sleeping with each other for money is unlikely to be cohesive and operate at peak efficiency when necessary. Given that military forces are routinely involved with life and death, it doesn't make sense to let them devolve into fraternity parties.

Short of imposing a draft, I doubt the U.S. could field a military force of the current size without females. On the other hand, young men and women will do what comes naturally, especially when forced together for months on end. Sergeants can't be everywhere at once, and anyway who will watch the sergeants? They're human, too. I don't see any good solutions.

Finally, don't think for a minute that the Iraqi population doesn't know this is going on. Their culture frowns on such behavior. It's not surprising, then, if the last thing they want is for their country to become more like America. They observe our debauchery and conclude, quite reasonably, that if this is what "freedom" brings they don't want any part of it.

At the end of the day, it all points back to what I've said for many other reasons: U.S. forces should not be in Iraq. This operation is accomplishing little and destroying readiness in the process. It needs to end as soon as possible.

Can Gays Go Straight?

I recently heard a radio interview with Dr. Joe Nicolosi, a psychologist who runs a group called NARTH - National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. He takes the politically-incorrect position that homosexuality is a condition that can, with the correct kind of therapy, be treated and reversed.

In the interview several callers challenged Dr. Nicolosi on this belief. Their point: they were born gay, they didn't choose it, it is simply who they are.

His response: first, there may be some kind of genetic predisposition to homosexuality. The research isn't conclusive yet. Nonetheless, his experience is that early childhood experiences are the immediate cause of this condition. Specifically, people who become gay almost always had some kind of disordered relationship with the same-sex parent. Sons with absent, inattentive or abusive fathers are more likely to become gay. Likewise for daughters who have problems with their mothers. (If this is true, it is no wonder there seem to be more gay people now than in the past. Think of how many single mothers are trying to raise boys without much help from the father.)

Dr. Nicolosi was careful to say that he doesn't think homosexuality is a voluntary choice. No one asks to be placed in the circumstances that make them gay. He simply says that it is not mandatory. He is, in a strange kind of way, "pro-choice" about homosexuality. Even if you didn't choose to be gay in the first place, you can choose to change. Read this story if you don't believe it.

Unfortunately, the psychological establishment does not believe this so it can be hard to find the right kind of help. The NARTH web site has a lot of information. Groups like Courage and Exodus International are also good resources.

Some gay people will argue that they have tried to change and failed. They are probably right - no one says it is easy. Dr. Nicolosi simply says that change is possible. In this regard, changing a gay inclination is no different than any other type of abnormal behavior. Some people have an inclination to steal, or gamble, or drink too much, or whatever. We all have some kind of weakness. I know I have many of them. I try to do better, maybe I succeed for awhile, then I fall back into the same bad habits. It's easy to get discouraged and give up. An alcoholic could say "this is who I am, I might as well accept it and drink myself to death." The better choice, however, is to go to AA, try to change, and never give up no matter how many times you stumble. Ditto if you are gay and want to change.

Go here and change the calendar to 8/27/07 to download or listen to the interview with Dr. Nicolosi.

Wrong Twin Aborted

When prenatal tests revealed that one of her unborn twins had Down's Syndrome, a woman in Italy decided to abort the "defective" child and keep the healthy one. Doctors proceeded to abort the wrong child, apparently because the unwitting masses of fetal tissue changed position between the time of the ultrasound and the abortion procedure.

Now, some people would have interpreted this horrible event as a sign from above and amended their life. This mother did not; upon being informed of the mistake, she returned to the hospital and had the remaining child aborted, too. She now says her life has been ruined, and I'm sure it is. So were two other lives. We can trust they are now in a better place - no thanks to their earthly parents.

While all abortion is unacceptable, abortions undertaken for the specific purpose of killing children who are somehow disabled is particularly disgusting. People with Down's Syndrome are still people. If we permit people to be killed before birth because they are inconvenient and imperfect, by what logic do we forbid them from being killed after birth?

You may recall a similar case last March, also in Italy, where an infant thought to be deformed was aborted, only to be born alive and without the defect that inspired the abortion in the first place. The child died after six days.

Such efforts at population purity are nothing less than eugenics. This same mentality allowed the Nazis to define entire categories of people as non-human and systematically exterminate them. It's all a big word game. "We value all human life," they will say, without being too specific about how they define "human." For example, will these organisms be human? How will we know?

Think it can't happen here? Wrong; it already does. Watch this video. It is the only time I've ever seen Bill O'Reilly rendered speechless.

Hat tip: Leticia

Adults-Only Guessing Game

Guess what this doctor is talking about:

"Patients tell me afterwards they are more confident and comfortable,'' Rho said. "Some patients say having a sleeker, thinner ______ makes a tremendous difference in their lives.''

Hint: the missing word is something that won't make it through many spam filters. Hence I will not be more specific. Click here to see the answer.

I would love to read comments about this new and exciting medical breakthrough. Please tell me what you think.

Not Chopped Liver

Imagine you are very sick. After suffering for years, doctors say you need a liver transplant or you will die very soon. Amazingly, more than two dozen people volunteer to donate part of their own livers to you. You can take your pick, right? Sweet.

This is exactly what happened to Bishop William Weigand. He did not celebrate his good fortune. Instead, he worried about the risk to the donor. In most cases the liver will regenerate itself, but the donor still faces a small chance of complications.

Here is a story about Dan Haverty, the Sacamento firefighter who was finally chosen as donor for Bishop Weigand.

The bishop required that the donor have neither children nor parents to care for and be financially secure, in the event of disability or death. He insisted that any donor have the support of his entire family.

To guarantee such support, the Havertys called a family meeting with their parents, three adult children and grandchildren. They showed medical data, graphs and photos. They described hypotheticals.

One daughter-in-law wondered what would happen if one of his grandchildren needed a liver in the future and there was nothing left to give. Haverty's mother said she had lost two daughters, one to cancer and another in a plane crash. She could not face losing another child, she said.

"We trust in the Lord," Haverty assured the assembled family. "If I should die, that's the sacrifice we are willing to make."

Eventually, the family came to share that perspective, he says. "There was a bit of faith involved."

By the fall of 2004, Weigand was growing weaker by the day. He could no longer work full time and had to turn over some of his responsibilities to others. When saying Mass, he needed other people to help him stand or hold the chalice. The toxins had begun to affect even his mental acuity and made him dizzy. He got up to use the bathroom one night and fell down the stairs.

Meanwhile, the search for a donor was narrowing. In February 2005, the bishop phoned Haverty to say the fire chief had been chosen.

"The Lord puts suffering in some people's lives so other people have the opportunity to show love and compassion," Haverty recalls the bishop saying.

It was tough, even then, for Weigand to accept such a gift. He was awestruck by the parishioner's generosity but wondered if he should jeopardize another man's life. What if something happened to Haverty, he worried. That would be worse than dying himself. MORE

What amazing faith and sacrifice in both men. God honored them with a complete success. Doctors took 73% of Haverty's liver to implant in the Bishop, who had practically no functioning liver left. Now both men have livers that are about 90% of their original size. Read the whole story. It's inspiring.

Hat tip: Orthometer

Ron Paul on Life

Here is presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul speaking about the relationship between life and liberty. The video is about ten minutes long. You need to watch it.

Hat tip: Bro. Robin.

The Right Priorities

I'm not a basketball fan but this story grabbed me. It sounds like something from a Disney movie - but it's true. There's at least one Real Man in the NBA:

OAKLAND, Calif., May 10 — Derek Fisher had 30 minutes Tuesday morning to decide whether to remove his daughter’s left eye.

Fisher, a point guard for the Utah Jazz, sat in an office at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, across from Dr. David Abramson and Dr. Pierre Gobin, asking them how to cure the cancer that had formed in his baby girl’s retina.

“He really had three choices,” Abramson said. “Remove the eye, remove the eye or remove the eye.” Read on.

David Kuo is starting a Derek Fisher For President campaign.

Touch Her Dress And Be Healed!

If there was any doubt whether Nancy Pelosi has ambitions beyond being Speaker of the House, this ought to answer it:

“Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure.”

Science is, of course, a wonderful thing and has greatly improved all our lives. But "biblical in its power to cure" sounds a wee bit more optimistic than mere humans ought to be. A good Catholic (hah!) like Ms. Pelosi should know this.

The subject Ms. Pelosi is discussing in the quote above is a new attempt by Congress to authorize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. President Bush vetoed the last such bill and has said he will nix this one as well.

The controversy over ESCR involves a great deal of false information. The most common misunderstanding is that Bush has "banned" ESCR. He has not. Such research is perfectly legal in the United States. The argument is about whether the federal government should pay for it or not. No one is stopping scientists from carrying out ESCR if they can find other sources of funding.

Now stop and think for a minute. We are told that ESCR is the key to curing many painful and debilitating diseases. "The lame will be able to stand and walk" is one common claim. OK. Suppose this is true. Do you think people would be willing to pay for such a cure? Maybe pay a lot? Of course they would.

That being the case, if the cure really is just around the corner, why waste all this time and effort trying to get federal funding? Form your company, get backing from venture capitalists, and get to work. You are sitting on a gold mine.

This is, in fact, how most of our modern medical breakthroughs have been made. Private enterprise is a lot more efficient than government-funded research at actually getting things done. Investors zero in on the projects with the best chance of success, and if they are correct they get handsomely rewarded.

This is not happening with ESCR. Instead, people sit around moaning and groaning about how Bush is letting his religious beliefs stand in the way of scientific progress.

The fact is that scientists know that producing actual medical breakthroughs with ESCR is a very long shot. Big-money investors know it, too, so they aren't willing to gamble on ESCR. They will, however, be glad to let the taxpayers pick up the bill for research that may, once in a blue moon, actually turn out something useful. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies will then use this "free" information to pad their own profit margins.

Meanwhile, research using adult stem cells, umbilical cord cells, and other sources that do not involve the destruction of young humans, and that has already produced actual cures and saved real people, proceeds along slowly but surely, out of the limelight. This is where the real promise can be found, but we don't hear so much about it.

I am against ESCR because it involves the destruction of a human life. Yes, it's a very young human life, but we were all there once. ESCR is really nothing more than a form of cannibalism, wherein we consume the young of our species in order to save ourselves. (Here is a good overview of the ethical issues surrounding ESCR.)

However, even if you disagree with the ethical argument against ESCR, there remains the economic question. Where we should direct our limited resources? Do we really want to trust politicians to decide which medical projects are funded? Keep in mind these are the same people who run the Post Office so efficiently and the IRS so compassionately. Need I say more?

ESCR is, for lack of a better term, a fraud. It is a blatant attempt by wealthy investors to have taxpayers subsidize research they will, maybe, if it ever works, use to make themselves even wealthier. This alone is reason enough to oppose it. The fact that young humans must die in the process is another reason.

Unfortunately, the truth about ESCR is obscured behind so much smoke that most people don't understand what they are really supporting. Pelosi will get her way, eventually. Will cures follow? Probably not. What will follow is more death and destruction. We never seem to learn.

Red Carpet For Terrorists

In the recent case of the man with drug-resistant tuberculosis, most of the news coverage revolved around his extreme narcissism. There is certainly plenty to say on the subject. Yes, both local and federal officials failed to react quickly enough, but in time they let him know he was a threat to other people and needed to be isolated. He still chose to get on an airplane and expose not only hundreds of strangers but his own wife to his potentially fatal condition. "Selfish" is definitely an appropriate description for his behavior. There is another angle to this story, though, and it has to do with border security.

Having flown back from Europe to Montreal rather than straight to the U.S., reportedly because he knew he was on the no-fly list, this gentleman entered the U.S. via rental car at Champlain, New York. By this point the wheels of government had turned enough to flag his passport in the immigration computers.

The screen the agent looked at, when this person attempted to enter the U.S. from Canada, said he had a contagious disease and should be detained and isolated. So what happened? Thinking to himself the man did not look sick, the agent welcomed the TB carrier home and wished him a nice day.

Keep in mind, this person was not trying to hide his identity. He wasn't sneaking across the border in darkness. The staff at the border checkpoint, whose job is to keep dangerous people out of the United States, knew exactly who he was and how they were supposed to react if he appeared. They just didn't do it.

If this is indicative of the motivation and training of the people who guard our borders, it doesn't really matter how much money we spend on fences or how many background checks we run on immigrants. We might as well roll out a red carpet for terrorists - especially terrorists who are carrying deadly viruses.

The U.S. managed to fight and win World War II in less than four years. It's been almost six years since 9/11 made clear that there are people who want to kill mass numbers of Americans. Why are our borders still not secured? If our government can't even stop a lawyer with TB when they know he is coming, it is only a matter of time before terrorists enter the country with a far more deadly disease.

Oh, I remember now. We're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. The Bush Administration is working hard to keep out foreigners who might threaten places like, say, Fort Dix or JFK Airport. Got it. I feel safer already.

UPDATE: Congress mad too.

Awake After 19 Years

A man in Poland is awake after 19 years in a coma.

Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988.

"Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he told Polish television.

He credits his survival to his wife, Gertruda, who cared for him.

Doctors gave him only two or three years to live after the accident.

Mr. Grzebski's wife, Gertruda, cared for him all those years, moving him every hour to prevent bed sores. That's devotion. She obviously took her "til death do us part" vow seriously.

Contrast Mrs. Grzebski with Michael Schiavo, who also had an unconscious spouse with (allegedly) no hope of recovery. Within three years he was trying to withhold treatment for a potentially fatal urinary tract infection; clearly he did not wish to be troubled by caring for Terri. Eventually he succeeded in starving her to death. Nonetheless, her fight goes on.

Life can be just as mysterious as death. Why do some people go into these comatose or vegetative states, only to wake up years later, while others linger a painfully long time and then die naturally? We do not know.

Maybe we cannot know, because He who gives life for reasons of his own also takes life for reasons of His own. We aren't capable of understanding it, any more than a mouse can understand trigonometry. It is beyond our comprehension. What we do know is that we are expected to preserve life as much as we can, within our limited abilities. Mrs. Grzebski did so, and now she has her reward.

UPDATE: Here is a more detailed story from AP via AOL.

UPDATE 2: I see here that now there are conflicting stories about whether Mr. Grzebski was actually in a coma for 19 years or not. That is what BBC and AP say, and I can't find any record they have issued corrections. On the other hand, The Guardian apparently says he was injured and in a coma for only four years and has since been conscious. I don't know who is right, but to be fair I'm giving you the other version of the story.

Goodbye, Emilio

If you've been following the fate of baby Emilio Gonzales, it's over now. He passed away on Saturday, with his mother and other relatives surrounding him.

The next court hearing was scheduled for May 30, so there was never a final decision on whether he could be disconnected from life support. I suspect that is what the people involved probably wanted to happen. No one seemed to be in any great hurry to reach a resolution.

This story has, if nothing else, exposed to public view a Texas law that seriously needs to be re-thought. I don't have an answer, but there must be a better way to resolve situations like this one.

Rest in peace, Emilio. Now you are home.

Passing The Test

You must read this story.

Unable to conceive naturally, Elizabeth and Matt decided to adopt a baby from China. Within hours of seeing the 1-year-old girl for the first time, they noticed problems. Big problems: a tumor, spina bifida, brain damage, paraplegia.

We have a solution, said the Chinese orphanage officials: just pick out a different baby.

Months before, we had been presented with forms asking which disabilities would be acceptable in a prospective adoptee — what, in other words, did we think we could handle: H.I.V., hepatitis, blindness? We checked off a few mild problems that we knew could be swiftly corrected with proper medical care. As Matt had written on our application: “This will be our first child, and we feel we would need more experience to handle anything more serious.”

Now we faced surgeries, wheelchairs, colostomy bags. I envisioned our home in San Diego with ramps leading to the doors. I saw our lives as being utterly devoted to her care. How would we ever manage?

Yet how could we leave her? Had I given birth to a child with these conditions, I wouldn’t have left her in the hospital. Though a friend would later say, “Well, that’s different,” it wasn’t to me.

I pictured myself boarding the plane with some faceless replacement child and then explaining to friends and family that she wasn’t Natalie, that we had left Natalie in China because she was too damaged, that the deal had been a healthy baby and she wasn’t.

How would I face myself? How would I ever forget? I would always wonder what happened to Natalie.

I knew this was my test, my life’s worth distilled into a moment. I was shaking my head “No” before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. “She’s our daughter,” I said. “We love her.”

"She's our daughter." What amazing love. There's more to the story; read it here.

Now, compare this to the parents who, based on nothing more than grainy ultrasound images, decide that their unborn child is not worthy of life and must be killed. Such so-called parents delude themselves into thinking that "it's for the best." No, it's not for the best. Yet people who would never be so rude as to reject a friend's gift are quick to reject the greatest gift of all: life itself.

Elizabeth and Matt passed their test. Will we pass ours?