Berkeley & Bodily Rights, by Stephanie Gray

I recently wrote here about my participation in an abortion forum against Dr. Malcolm Potts (above) at the University of California, Berkeley.  In that post I quoted from a student who e-mailed me a question and followed that with my response.  That same student replied to that message with more questions, and my reply is below, addressing the topics of the beginnings of life, anencephaly, and bodily rights:

Dear [student's name],

Great to hear your follow up reflections and questions--thank you for continuing to engage this discussion.  I think it's a good one!

You wrote, "I guess I see human beings as needing a brain in order to truly live."

I'd like to propose the idea that it's not about what "I see" or "you see."  It's about what is, and about us conforming to that reality.  Leo Tolstoy once said that "Truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn’t gold.”

So when we wash away conveniences, interests, etc., and look at the science of embryology there is no denying the scientific fact that the youngest human beings amongst us do not need a brain in order to truly live.  This isn't about whether one is aware of her life or enjoying her life, this is about whether one is a separate being, an organism, who is not dead.  

Again, you make it about your views, not about science, when you write, "To me, this unique, 'fascinating' quality of an embryo developing with no brain to guide it effectively disqualifies it from being human."  On what scientific basis?  If the embryo's parents are human, wouldn't it logically follow that the embryo must be human too?  If, as time goes on and the embryo grows up into a fetus, infant, toddler, and teen, all of whom are alive, then wouldn't it logically follow that the embryo they grew from couldn't have been dead, since living things come from other living things?

You write, "I suppose you and I may differ on our definitions of 'alive,' which again comes back to where in human development we choose to assign human rights."  If we assign human rights based on development, then we don't believe in human rights, and that's a problem (as problematic as assigning human rights based on ethnicity).   As a refresher, one of the points I made in my presentation was that women get women's rights and children get children's rights.  The necessary criteria for each is not doing something, it's being something (in these cases, being women or being children).  Likewise, with human rights, it's not about doing it's about being; namely, being human. That's it.

You wrote, "I can't help but think of Dr. Potts' story about the newborn he delivered that was born without a brain; he killed it because it was essentially a shell of a baby with no nervous system to grant it human capacity."  If the newborn wasn't alive, why would Dr. Potts have killed her?  His very act of killing her is proof that she was very much alive.  So is his own language: He said, "I wanted that to die as quickly as possible."  His very word choice is an admission that she wasn't dead yet.  Plus, his claim that no child with anencephaly lives longer than 12 hours is simply false: this child Faith who had anencephaly lived for several months after birth.  Furthermore, a child with this condition isn't brain dead--she's brain damaged, and there's a significant difference.

Now, I don't deny that most children born with anencephaly do not live long after birth; something to consider about that is this: Do those of us who will live longer have a right to kill those who will live shorter?  

Your final point you asked about was this: "There is a concept called body autonomy. It's generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over who or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It's why you can’t be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs. Even if you are dead. Even if you’d save or improve 20 lives. It’s why someone can’t touch you, have sex with you, or use your body in any way without your continuous consent.  A fetus is using someone’s body parts. Therefore under bodily autonomy, it is there by permission, not by right. It needs a person's continuous consent. If they deny and withdraw their consent, the pregnant person has the right to remove them from that moment. A fetus is equal in this regard because if I need someone else’s body parts to live, they can also legally deny me their use."

Great question, and it's one I answer in my book to be released next month.  Briefly, however, I will respond for you to consider the following:

Consider all you said above in light of an infant.  That born child requires her caregiver's body, whether breastmilk in the case of the mother, or the hands and arms that will prepare formula and bottle-feed the baby.  What if a caregiver decides they no longer wish to use their breasts, hands, or arms to meet the basic needs of an infant--that, in particular, they believe their right to bodily autonomy absolves them of further responsibility for this child?  What if they cease to hold, feed, clothe, change, and shelter the child?  They abandon her and she dies.  Would we say the caregiver should be at fault for neglect and homicide?  

From this thought experiment we can deduce this principle: parents have a responsibility to their offspring they don't have to strangers, and that responsibility involves meeting a child's basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter--and meeting those needs involves the parents using their bodies in some way.

Moreover, if you read this reflection I wrote for my previous ministry, I point out that the uterus is unlike someone's blood, tissue, or other organs, in that while my blood and body parts exist in my body for my body, my uterus is unique from the others in that it exists in my body, but more for someone else's body.  Proof of that is that my uterus, every month, is getting ready for the body of my offspring.  I can exist without my uterus, but my offspring cannot.  Therefore, a child can claim a right to be housed in the uterus the way an infant can claim a right to be nurtured: Just as an infant needs to be bottle or breast fed, and the caregiver has a moral duty to use her body to meet the child's needs (but does not have a moral duty to do so if the child is an independent adult), so too, just as an embryo or fetus needs to be fed by the umbilical cord, the mom has a moral duty to use her body to meet the child's needs.

I hope you find this helpful insight!

All the best, 
Stephanie

Berkeley & Brains, by Stephanie Gray

That's me with some of the Students for Life at Berkeley before the big event.

On November 23, I gave a pro-life presentation alongside Dr. Malcolm Potts, the first medical director for International Planned Parenthood who gave a pro-abortion presentation; together, we spoke to over 400 students in a Public Health 116 class at the University of California, Berkeley.  Although the Q & A which followed our presentations allowed for a small opportunity to rebut each other's views, unfortunately the format of the evening didn't give time for a formal rebuttal of each other's lengthy presentations themselves.  

As it should happen, one of his students e-mailed me a question that came from a point Dr. Potts made, giving me a chance to provide a rebuttal.  Here is the student's e-mail and my response as a teaching tool:

Question from a Berkeley Student:

I am a second-year student at UC Berkeley, and I just returned home after listening to yours and Dr. Potts' presentations tonight. First of all, I would like to thank you for coming and starting the conversation here; Berkeley is a tough place to bring up pro-life arguments but you were incredibly interesting to listen to. 

I am very curious to hear your thoughts regarding the issue of life support. If you consider an embryo to have human rights no matter the status of its brain development, what do you think about the ethics of taking someone off life support after they become brain dead? An embryo with no brain development is fundamentally in the same state as a human that is brain dead, so do you think it is ethical to keep someone who is essentially a shell of a human "alive" on life support? 

In other words, where do you draw the line between when it is humane to "pull the plug" on an embryo versus a brain dead patient? If they have the same mental capacities (none), then why would one be okay to kill over another?

Hope my question(s) makes sense. Again, thanks so much for bringing this discussion up. It was the most engaging lecture I have experienced in this class all semester. My friends and I were discussing it the entire walk home, and I must applaud you on your bravery when faced with an auditorium full of liberal Berkeley students!

My reply:

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful e-mail.  Although the topic is a sensitive and touchy one, you and your classmates were respectful and welcoming and I appreciate that--thank you!

I think you've asked a fantastic question!  There is an article called "Life: Defining the Beginning by the End" that I'd like to recommend to you here and would love your feedback on.  That article is authored by the same professor of neurobiology, Dr. Maureen Condic, whose paper, "When Does Human Life Begin?" I mentioned in my presentation last night.  What makes the first link so insightful as regards to your question, is that Dr. Condic points out that brain death criteria is what should cause us to conclude that we should protect the pre-born, rather than not protect them. She writes, 

"Embryos are in full possession of the very characteristic that distinguishes a living human being from a dead one: the ability of all cells in the body to function together as an organism, with all parts acting in an integrated manner for the continued life and health of the body as a whole."

Dr. Condic further explains the nature of the living embryo, as follows:

"Organisms are living beings composed of parts that have separate but mutually dependent functions. While organisms are made of living cells, living cells themselves do not necessarily constitute an organism. The critical difference between a collection of cells and a living organism is the ability of an organism to act in a coordinated manner for the continued health and maintenance of the body as a whole. It is precisely this ability that breaks down at the moment of death, however death might occur. Dead bodies may have plenty of live cells, but their cells no longer function together in a coordinated manner. We can take living organs and cells from dead people for transplant to patients without a breach of ethics precisely because corpses are no longer living human beings. Human life is defined by the ability to function as an integrated whole”not by the mere presence of living human cells. 

"What does the nature of death tell us about the beginning of human life? From the earliest stages of development, human embryos clearly function as organisms. Embryos are not merely collections of human cells, but living creatures with all the properties that define any organism as distinct from a group of cells; embryos are capable of growing, maturing, maintaining a physiologic balance between various organ systems, adapting to changing circumstances, and repairing injury. Mere groups of human cells do nothing like this under any circumstances."

What I like to point out to people is this: A brain dead person is dead because they have complete and total, irreversible cessation of the entire brain.  In short, we could say their brains are "no more."  In contrast with the early embryo, their brains are "not yet."  Consider this simple analogy: A green banana will become a yellow one, but a brown banana will never become a yellow one.  The brain dead person will never again have a functioning brain, whereas the early embryo will, in fact, develop a functioning brain.   In a sense, this means embryos are more impressive than you and me; here's what I mean by that: You and I have developed to the point that we need our brains, so that if our brains are "no more" we ourselves are no more too (hence, "irreversible" cessation).  You and I cannot live without our brains.  The early embryo, however, has an incredible ability you and I do not have: the early embryo can in fact live without her brain (otherwise, if the early embryo, without a brain, were actually dead then the embryo would never develop into the fetus, infant, toddler, teenager, and adult like she does).  She can move through some stages of human development without the very thing you and I need to continue moving through our stages of human development.  Fascinating, eh?! [And the Canadian in me slips out ;)].

One final point I'd make is this: In the case of a truly brain dead person, there is no ethical dilemma about "unplugging" them because they are dead.  There may be other cases, however, where someone's brain is not dead, but rather is damaged, which raises questions about how we determine what medical interventions to use or not use on such individuals.  I've developed an FAQ here, which gives perspective on end-of-life matters.

I hope that was helpful.  Thank you again for your thoughtful message, and please know that I'd be happy to hear from you again should you have more questions or feedback. 

All the best, and happy American thanksgiving!
Stephanie :)

Be Still, by Stephanie Gray

I got my first e-mail address in 1998.  And I have been “connected” since then.  But on October 6 that changed: For 40 days I disconnected entirely from e-mail, Facebook, texting, and phone, and went on a six-week retreat.  In the coming months I’ll be reflecting on my 40 days in the wilderness (literally—I was in a small town in the woods of Ontario), but initially I want to share this insight:

My time was spent with the beautiful apostolate Madonna House, situated on the Madawaska River in Combermere.  The river often moved making little ripples, but on a number of occasions, often later in the day, I noticed it would be entirely still so that the trees and sky were perfectly reflected on its glassy surface.  One day I decided to capture this profound stillness and the photo above shows how perfectly tranquil the water was.  That reminded me of a quote by one of my favorite authors, Father Jacques Philippe who wrote the following in his book Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart:

“Consider the surface of a lake, above which the sun is shining.  If the surface of the lake is peaceful and tranquil, the sun will be reflected in this lake; and the more peaceful the lake, the more perfectly it will be reflected.  If, on the contrary, the surface of the lake is agitated, undulating, then the image of the sun can not be reflected in it. 

“It is a little bit like this with regard to our soul in relationship with God.  The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us.”

There are many things my 40 days away taught me, but most certainly one was the power of peace, and the necessity that we be still.

A Notice About Fall 2015 Availability

If you contact me this Fall, please note that I am away on a 40 day retreat and am entirely off of e-mail, phone, Facebook, etc.  I will begin reading and responding to messages the week of Monday, November 16.

If you write to inquire about scheduling me to give a presentation, I will respond as specified above; in the meantime, you can see my upcoming schedule so far here.  

If you write to inquire about my book, it is scheduled to be released in January 2016.  More information is here.

And finally, some words for reflection: "The life of action ought to flow from the contemplative life... 'Before allowing his tongue to speak,' says St. Augustine, 'the apostle should lift up his thirsting soul to God, in order to give forth what he has drunk in, and pour forth that with which he is filled.' ...Is there anyone who does not know St. Bernard’s saying, to apostles: 'If you are wise, you will be reservoirs and not channels.'...The channels let the water flow away, and do not retain a drop. But the reservoir is first filled, and then, without emptying itself, pours out its overflow, which is ever renewed, over the fields which it waters. ...As a mother cannot suckle her child except in so far as she feeds herself, so confessor, spiritual directors, preachers, catechists, professors must first of all assimilate the substance with which they are later to feed the children of the Church. Divine truth and love are the elements of this substance. But the interior life alone can transform divine truth and charity in us, to a truly lifegiving nourishment for others." -The Soul of the Apostolate, By Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O. 

God bless you, 
Stephanie Gray!

Suffering Unleashes Love

On September 12, 2015, I gave a presentation (called "Love Unleashes Life") at Calgary's 40 Days for Life formation afternoon.  In that presentation, I quoted from St. John Paul II's "Salvifici Doloris" (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering).  He wrote,

"We could say that suffering . . . is present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s 'I' on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love that stirs in his heart and actions."

The wonderful Victor Panlilio kindly recorded my presentation, and this (above) is a one and a half minute clip he put together.

Frequently Asked Questions About Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, by Stephanie Gray

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Syringe2.jpg

With various countries facing the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide, it is important for people of good will to be able to winsomely articulate why these are not moral.  Click here to read a PDF of Frequently Asked Questions About Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide.

The Garden of Stephen, by Stephanie Gray

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature.  To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.” –Alfred Austin

A garden is a teacher of life’s great lessons; namely, that variety breeds beauty, that good fruit is born of hard work, and that nature has its own rhythm to be trusted.  My father’s garden is set apart in its manifestation of these.

With a house sitting on almost a quarter acre of land, Pops, as I affectionately call my father, had a good chunk of space to work with.  Growing up, our backyard was simple: a large stretch of green grass and a long, rectangular plot of dirt for growing vegetables.  But when Pops retired, he transformed the plain, practical space into a living masterpiece. 

Variety

A garden is made more beautiful by a variety of plants and trees—it’s the many different colors and kinds that make it so attractive.  It’s a bit like our world—if everyone were a cardboard cutout of each other, how boring it would be!  It’s our different personalities, ethnicities, and idiosyncrasies that make the world interesting and exciting.  So too with Pops’ garden, which has as its pinnacle the pink magnolia tree, shading the area where we gather: “the red square” (dubbed so for its brick base).  Transplanted from the front yard, and dotted throughout the oasis of the backyard, are pink, purple, and blue hydrangea bushes.

Narrow pathways of the green lawn wind around the now-colorful space, lined with phlox, roses, rhododendrons, a Japanese willow, evergreens, a cherry tree, english laurel, lilac, yellow forsythia, potentillas, red and pink weigela, echinacea, and a diversity of bushes from Rose of Sharon, to viburnum, camellia, and spirea, and, even, heavenly bamboo.

Hard Work

One of the things I love about Pops is that he’s a fighter—it’s a tribute to his Scottish nature, for there’s naturally a bit of “Braveheart” in every Scot’s blood.  His determination and sheer will power conquered his lack of knowledge when it came to gardening.

Pops is self-taught.  To him, not knowing something isn’t an obstacle; it’s an opportunity to learn.  As retirement brought a slower pace of life, Pops took the time to teach himself how to garden.  Reading gardening magazines and looking at pictures would give him some ideas.  Others came from his imagination—and creativity and hard work brought things to life.

I asked him how he knew what to do, and he said from his study along with simply planting at his own discretion, learning another life lesson: the need to be flexible.  Pops told me, “Sometimes you realize, like all gardeners do, that you plant stuff in the wrong place, and so you have to change it around, but that’s trial and error and learning from experience.  Some plants like shade and some plants like sun, and just like humans they need to be fed, as well as get haircuts (pruning!).”

It took years of persistence, “practice making perfect,” and the reality of time for the garden to take on a life of its own, but now it is a magnet for those desiring to be surrounded by beauty.

Nature

I asked pops what gardening taught him, and he said, “The amazing hardiness of creation.”  When I asked him what he liked most about his garden, he explained, “Seeing all the flowers and trees bloom in the spring.  You look in the winter and think everything is dead and think it won’t come back again, but in the Spring you wander around and you see signs of life coming from the earth and all of a sudden, one day, it just shoots into bloom.”

I think we need to trust nature more.  In a world of technology, we often attempt to change the natural instead of letting it be, letting it teach us to weather storms and embrace changing seasons.  That’s not to say all things natural should be left wild—pruning is important, but it is to say that life has its own rhythms and routines worth embracing and growing from.

Immersing oneself in nature affords an opportunity to reflect on this.  And a garden, in particular, attracts contemplative souls to such musings, as well as to embrace nature’s beauty, something Pops’ garden does naturally, drawing birds and insects of all kinds along with Pops’ family and friends.

In fact, if the flowers, bushes, and trees of the Garden of Stephen could talk, they would tell tales of countless souls that have basked in its serenity, ladies who have enjoyed tea time, hummingbirds who have drunk from its nectar, and children who have played amidst its magic.  It is a sight to behold and a work of art to experience.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” –Luther Burbank

It's Not About Conscience, It's About the Nature of the Healing Profession, by Stephanie Gray

With today’s news that the Canadian Medical Association has voted to reject a motion that would protect the conscience rights of physicians who refuse to refer patients to die by euthanasia, panic and fear is likely to set in with some pro-life physicians.*

“Well, if I’m forced to refer for euthanasia then I can no longer practice as a doctor,” some might say.

Not true.  We create a false dilemma by saying there are only two options: Either I refer for euthanasia or I don’t practice as a doctor.  No.  There is a third option: You practice as a physician and you do not refer for euthanasia.  Let me explain.

I have never been a fan of emphasizing “conscience” as one’s argument for doctors avoiding practices that simply aren’t good medicine.  I have written on this before regarding abortion and that can be viewed here.  Emphasizing conscience has the risk of marginalizing true, ethical physicians, putting them on the “fringe,” as though pro-life doctors are somehow different from the average doctor because they have a “conscience” that tells them something that is different from what “real” medicine would do.  That is not the case. 

Real medicine heals, not kills. 

Real medicine alleviates suffering without eliminating sufferers.

Real medicine addresses the underlying motivation for someone’s request to die (e.g., administering pain medicine, giving love and attention to the lonely), rather than responding at a surface level.

Real medicine believes we should “do no harm.”

Real medicine heeds the Canadian Medical Association’s Code of Ethics which says, “Practise the profession of medicine in a manner that treats the patient with dignity and as a person worthy of respect.  Provide for appropriate care for your patient, even when cure is no longer possible, including physical comfort and spiritual and psychosocial support.”

Real medicine remembers it was less than a century ago when physicians were lead killers during the Holocaust, killing not only Jews, but also the elderly and disabled, the individuals they categorized as “lives unworthy of life.”

Real medicine remembers the words of Holocaust-survivor Elie Wiesel whose essay, incidentally titled, “Without Conscience,” was published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine and read by UBC medical students in which he writes, “[I]nstead of doing their job, instead of bringing assistance and comfort to the sick people who needed them most, instead of helping the mutilated and the handicapped to live, eat, and hope one more day, one more hour, doctors became their executioners…Why did some know how to bring honor to humankind, while others renounced humankind with hatred?  It is a question of choice.  A choice that even now belongs to us—to uniformed soldiers, but even more so to doctors.  The killers could have decided not to kill.”

Real medicine simply does not kill.

Instead of emphasizing conscience, we need to emphasize what the nature of the healing profession is all about.  We have to show it is simply not good medicine to kill a patient.  Instead of saying, “I do not refer for euthanasia because my conscience tells me not to,” a pro-life physician should declare, “I do not refer for euthanasia because it is not good medicine.  I do not refer for euthanasia because it goes against the nature of the healing profession.  I do not refer for euthanasia because as a physician I am called to do no harm and I would be violating that command.”  At this link I have developed an apologetic to help guide physicians to articulate why euthanasia is not the proper response, and what, in fact, is.

To my many dear, and some of my closest, friends who are physicians: Do not let this decision discourage you.  Let it empower you.  Let it embolden you.  Get ready to love your patients like you’ve never loved before, and get ready to fight your medical establishment like you’ve never fought before.

If the day will come when you no longer practice as a physician, may it be because your license was taken from you, not because you voluntarily walked away.  Do not walk away.  If the day will come when you no longer practice as a physician, may it be because you were literally dragged from doing so, not because you willingly left.  Do not willingly leave.  

If the day will come when any of this happens, our attitude must be to look at it, not as the end, but as a beginning, to get creative about how physicians can practice as doctors and do the right thing, regardless of the environment one is in--just as others in the past who have lived through human rights violations have done.   Never give up. 

Patients who are truly loved and cared for physically, emotionally, and spiritually are unlikely to request euthanasia.  So do your job and let the lawyers who exist to defend you (here  and here) do theirs.

What the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, about the early church is as a relevant to the civil rights activists of his day as it is relevant to the pro-life physicians of our day:

“There was a time when the church was very powerful -- in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven,’ called to obey Gad rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.”

If we are going to bring an end to the present-day evil of killing the weak and vulnerable, we will not only have to capture the sacrificial and courageous spirit of the early Church, but we will need to be prepared for an epic battle.  That is what happens when the Culture of Life clashes with the Culture of Death.  But we need not be afraid, because we are people of hope.  And as the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once said,

“Hope is a virtue of having looked unblinkingly into all the reasons for despair, into all of the reasons that would seem to falsify hope, and to say, 'Nonetheless Christ is Lord. Nonetheless this is the story of the world. Nonetheless this is a story to which I will surrender myself day by day.' Not simply on one altar call, but as the entirety of one's life, in which every day is a laying of your life on the altar of the Lord Jesus Christ being offered up in perfect sacrifice to the Father.

“And will we overcome? Will we prevail? We have overcome and have prevailed ultimately because He has overcome and He has prevailed. There are days in which you and I get discouraged. On those days I tell myself — I suppose almost every day I tell myself, sometimes several times a day — those marvelous lines from T. S. Eliot's 'East Coker,' where Eliot says, 'For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.'

“For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. Some people read those lines as lines of resignation, kind of shrugging your shoulders and saying, 'What can you do?' But I read them as lines of vibrant hope. The rest is not our business. The rest is God's business.

“Thank God, we are not God. Thank God, God is God.”

So try, try with all your might, and watch God work mighty wonders through you.

---

*It should be noted that there were several votes by the CMA on this topic. Although the CMA reported that “Conscientious objection was a contentious issue, with 79% of delegates voting against a motion to support conscientious objectors who refuse to refer patients for medical aid in dying”  the CMA also reported that “According to results of a CMA member survey [of 1407 responses] presented at the meeting, many doctors remain opposed to assisting in a patient's suicide. Only 29% of those surveyed said they would consider providing medical aid in dying if requested by a patient, 63% would refuse outright and 8% were undecided.”   The CMA also reported, “‘No physician should be forced to participate against their conscience,’ said Dr. Jeff Blackmer, vice president of medical professionalism at CMA. ‘But there's disagreement about what this means.’”  

This isn’t the end of the story as the CMA is looking at all these votes and motions and considering guidelines moving forward; therefore, it is still possible the guidelines to come will respect a physician’s conscience.  Time will tell, which is why, at minimum, protecting conscience rights can still be lobbied for, but, more importantly, a solid pro-life apologetic on euthanasia must be articulated, not only at a national level with the CMA, but also to the provincial governing medical bodies as well as to our elected representatives on a provincial and federal level.

Do You See What I See? by Stephanie Gray

Glass half empty or glass half full?  It’s a question that shows how the same thing can be viewed two entirely different ways—the negative or the positive.  How we see something determines everything.  It’s all about perspective.

If you walk into an assisted living home for the elderly, you might see this:

•    An empty piano alongside a blaring TV with a row of wheelchairs in front of the latter, with the occupants of said chairs ranging from sleeping to zoned-out watching.
•    A drooling old man, wearing an oversized bib, sitting alone, slumped against a table.
•    A crippled, toothless person sitting alone in a room staring out the door to an empty hallway.
•    An elderly lady who refuses to leave her dark room for breakfast.

And if you see that, you might just support euthanasia. 

But I’d like to tell you what I see:

•    I see people to give the gift of music to, entertaining them by a person playing the piano.
•    I see an elderly lady who can be given an opportunity to come alive with music, giving her a chance to joyfully reminisce about her days when she attended musicals.  I see that lady not just standing, but dancing to the beat, swinging her arms, and singing along.
•    I see an opportunity to wipe the face of someone who, decades before, wiped the faces of many other souls.
•    I see a chance to slide open curtains and share the sunshine with a lady who didn’t know it was there.
•    I see someone with ears to speak to.
•    I see lips to be provoked into a smile.
•    I see sweet ladies to listen to and laugh with.
•    I see a fragile, soft hand to hold and give the gift of touch to.
•    I see people in wheelchairs to push into the brilliance and beauty of the outdoors.

And if you see that, you might just thank these people for being.  You might just realize their existence is enough to warrant our attention.  You might just realize

we have something to give,

something to learn,

and most importantly, someone to love.

Indeed, how we see something—especially someone—determines everything.

A Tale of Two Baby Boys Slated for Abortion, by Stephanie Gray

“If she can’t calm down, I can’t do the abortion,” an abortion doctor frustratingly declared in the presence of Holly O’Donnell, an ex-procurement technician who used to obtain tissue from aborted fetuses.  In Episode 3 of “Human Capital,” the expose on Planned Parenthood by the Center for Medical Progress, O’Donnell describes her observation of, and participation in, what happened after. 

The patient eventually did calm down; the abortion eventually did happen; and O’Donnell eventually did do her job.  O’Donnell was soon to see the intact, later-term baby who was killed as a result of the abortion the child’s mom calmed down for (although when, precisely, the fetus died is in question, since O’Donnell said a colleague tapped the baby’s heart with an instrument and it started beating).  In order to procure a brain, O’Donnell cut through the middle of the child’s face. 

It was a boy.

To think that this precious child could have been saved if—if his mom hadn’t “calmed down.”  Incidentally, that’s what saved the life of another little boy, the son of Dana.

When Dana was pregnant with her fifth child, overwhelmed by the pressures of raising a family, she and her husband opted for abortion.  She went to the clinic for a medical abortion: RU486.  She ingested the first pill in the presence of a doctor, and took the second pill home to consume the following day.  The first pill would kill her baby; the second pill would expel her baby.

Dana already had reservations about the abortion when she went to the clinic.  Those concerns only deepened as time went on.  She wrote, “I was already regretting my actions. I was thinking, ‘What if that would have been the son I wanted.’ I cried with my husband, and I cried myself to sleep.”

By the next day, Dana, like the first woman mentioned, couldn’t calm down.  In fact, she was crying hysterically.  But she had an advantage over the other woman: She was not in a clinic with time pressures, waiting rooms, and organs to harvest; moreover, she herself was in control of administering the abortion. 

So Dana went online and searched “Abortion pill regret” and discovered a miracle: It is possible to reverse the effects of RU486. The first pill in RU486, mifepristone, kills a pre-born child by blocking the effects of progesterone, a hormone a woman’s body produces that is necessary to grow a healthy baby.  So the Culture of Life Services in San Diego, California, was able to connect Dana to a physician who immediately began administering progesterone to her body, to counteract what the first pill was doing. 

It was a success: Dana maintained her pregnancy and in April of this year, to the great joy of his parents, a baby boy was born.

In struggling to “calm down,” both women showed that they intuitively knew how it goes against a woman’s nature to kill her child.  And in a bittersweet way, both women’s stories teach us how vital it is to never, ever give up.