AL#9 Assisted Suicide; PBA; Cloning

This is the ninth in a series of ten emails on abortion and related subjects. To be removed from this mailing list please send an empty email from the account in which it was received with the subject line "REMOVE." If you find the materials you will be receiving worthwhile you are encouraged to forward them to your own email lists. If you missed any of the other emails (AL#1..., AL#2..., etc.) and would like to receive them, please let me know.

[ 3/7/04 - Before forwarding the next to last email in this project below, I would like to call your attention to the posting on the Internet of detailed Birthist Abortionite strategies as set forth in material from the Center for Reproductive Rights. It was entered into the Congressional Record by Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey and can be accessed at the website of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute at www.c-fam.org (updated version at https://c-fam.org/international-pro-abortion-litigation-strategy-an-anti-democratic-plan-to-force-legalized-abortion-on-the-worlds-governments-2/). Although lengthy, this material reveals an incredible contempt for parental rights and a plan to subvert the protective laws of all nations by securing favorable incremental interpretations of coded phrases such as "reproductive health" such that abortion rites become accepted under the concept of "customary law." This approach will receive a tremendous boost if the next American administration is inclined to appoint Birthist Abortionites as representatives to the United Nations and other international organizations. (The alert on this information came from Life Dynamics - www.LifeDynamics.com)

On another matter, I am including as an attachment an idea from Dr. David Reardon of the Elliot Institute (afterabortion.org) regarding an approach to defending marriage by addressing the legitimate concerns of single people, not just homosexuals. He draws parallels to mistakes that were made early in the fight to stop the campaign for legal abortion by focusing only on the moral arguments and failing to address the legitimate concerns of pregnant women.

(I could not find this item in 2015.)

Al Lemmo ]

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This email (AL#9) will consist of material on a variety of subjects, including physician-assisted suicide, partial-birth abortion and cloning. Both activists and non-activists may find portions of it of interest. This is the next to last email in this project. I will provide my ideas on where we should go from here in the final email, some of which may be surprising. I will also report on what it was like to conduct this project for those who may be interested and request feedback from those who have stayed with it to the end.

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I sent the short letter below to just three major papers in Detroit and its suburbs. I don't know which published it but the local right to life organization called to congratulate me on it. Apparently, some reporter(s) pressed Kevorkian on the point of this letter and he stopped using the term "medicide." I think it would be helpful to keep it alive, however, to be sure that its full implications are not missed in the future. It will remain in the Glossary of Abortionism (attached to email AL#3).

Feb. 18, 1996

To the Editor:

"Medicide", a term popularized by Jack Kevorkian, literally means "the killing of medicine". This is what Kevorkian and the juridical exhibitionist who represents him will accomplish if they succeed in turning physicians into agents of death.

Let's not succumb to the temptation to put the sick out of our misery. Let's not kill the medical profession.

The following letter was mass faxed nationwide. I was very pleased to learn that it was published uncut in the journal of the state medical society in West Virginia, one of the many places I sent it.

July 31, 1998

To the Editor:

Jack Kevorkian used to call what he does "medicide" until it was pointed out that the term literally means "the killing of medicine." Many feared that killing the medical profession was exactly what he would accomplish if he succeeded in turning physicians into agents of death who were authorized to put the sick out of our emotional and financial misery. But it appears to already be too late.

Although partial-birth abortion has been condemned by the medical profession as never justified, the profession has taken no action against its practitioners. Why not? What kind of mind does it take to hold a perfectly formed human child squirming in one's hands and then puncture its skull and suck its brains out? Do such as these really qualify to be called medical doctors? Then why are they still members of the profession in good standing and allowed to continue this horrific practice?

The byword of the medical profession used to be "above all do no harm," and the Hippocratic Oath used to say "I will give no deadly medicine." It also included an explicit prohibition against committing abortion. (Perhaps this has something to do with why it has quietly disappeared from many medical schools.) What has become of the medical profession when it welcomes into its ranks those unethical practitioners who have prostituted their skills to destroy human life, accepts abortion when there is no medical indication, and intrudes itself into families by condoning surgery on minors without parental permission or knowledge? Yet many, duped by the wedge issues of pain and personal autonomy, want to trust this thoroughly corrupted brotherhood with end of life decisions for the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

We are not far from the experience of the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal. The Dutch now fear entering their own hospitals where many lives are involuntarily ended in spite of so-called safeguards.

[Signed]

Note: If this must be shortened the first paragraph can be considered optional.

[End of letter file]

The last paragraph was technically not quite correct at the time this was published but the Dutch have since changed their laws and made it accurate.

Advocates of physician-assisted suicide succeeded in placing a question on the state ballot in Michigan in 1998. I sent the following letter just to papers in Michigan. Note that in the last paragraph I changed the phrase "put the sick out of our emotional and financial misery" from the previous letter to "put the sick out of *our* misery - not theirs - both financial and emotional." Some editors of the previous letter had reflexively changed the "our" to the more habitual "their," destroying the intended subtle insinuation that assisted suicide is a selfish rather than a compassionate act. Writing letters to the editor can be a very frustrating experience.

October 23, 1998

To the Editor:

Proposal B was written entirely by advocates of physician-assisted suicide. It contains many serious flaws that the give and take of the legislative process normally weeds out. For example, only two doctors (Kevorkian and Redding perhaps?) could rubber stamp requests for the entire state. But its greatest flaw, created by its focus on emotional wedge issues, is the dangers it will create for those not wanting to end their lives.

Proposal B's wedge issues are pain and personal autonomy. Because all of us can relate to these, we can easily neglect protecting the large population of eventual targets who will be too weak to resist the pressures for their destruction.

Three decades ago we were sold abortion of the basis of so-called "hard cases" such as rape. These served as wedge issues to distract from and mentally abandon the much larger number of intended targets by emphasizing rare but emotionally loaded situations that could affect anyone through no fault of their own. The result was abortion on demand and now the savagery of partial-birth abortion. What have we become that we tolerate this? Can we trust this death-desensitized society with assisted suicide?

Our pagan ancestors did not give us the Hippocratic Oath (which says "I will give no deadly medicine") to make life more difficult. They did it because cruel experience proved it was necessary. Proposal B will again empower those who see human lives as little more than meat to be managed. How many needless deaths will it cost this time?

Abortion was forced on us by an act of judicial tyranny. But we need not commit "medicide" - literally the killing of medicine - by our own votes. Proposal B is abandonment and subtle coercion masquerading as compassion. We are being tempted to put the sick out of *our* misery - not theirs - both financial and emotional. Let's not reduce the depressed, the dying and the disabled to the disposable.

During the campaign the Michigan legislature considered bills to permit some form of physician-assisted suicide. I had the opportunity to attend a Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee public hearing devoted to this legislation. People on all sides of the issue -- including people with various disabilities and terminal illnesses -- spoke passionately at this event. It was an exhilarating experience in the democratic process which left me with a deepened sense of gratitude for what we have in this country. I had not come prepared to speak but decided to provide written testimony later. It is attached to this email. Much of it is borrowed from the essay on Abortionism which was the subject of email AL#2 but I believe there are important additional points in it that you may find of value.

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The following letter was mass faxed nationwide to point out some aspects of the politics of partial-birth abortion.

September 4, 1998

To the Editor:

Supreme Court dictates on abortion have required a health exception for laws regulating late-term abortions but have permitted the "attending physician" to decide when the exception applies. In other words, the abortionist decides. This glaring but little-known loophole is well understood by activists on both sides.

The real purpose of health exceptions is to force pro-life legislators to oppose them and thereby appear insensitive to the health needs of women. This ploy has usually eliminated the support of borderline legislators and is a major reason why we still have abortion-on-demand.

The only real obstacle to obtaining a partial-birth late-term abortion is finding a physician unethical enough to commit the act. This is why a twelve year old incest victim from Michigan had to go to Kansas - where it is also supposedly illegal.

President Clinton vetoed the last bill to outlaw partial-birth abortion because it lacked a health exception, in spite of the American Medical Association's statement that the procedure is never justified. He trusted correctly that the media would be unable or unwilling to explain the loophole this would create.

So long as we have activist judiciary and abortion advocates who care nothing for the rule of law or our democratic process, the will of the people will be frustrated by such cynical and destructive tactics.

Clark Forsythe of Americans United for Life concluded his article which I referenced in email AL#6 this way:

"But a renewal of the public dialogue won't mean much if the people are not allowed to express the public will on this issue, as they usually do in our democratic republic. Twenty-six years ago, the Supreme Court claimed hegemony over the issue and created a nationwide rule of abortion on demand, preventing democratic debate and solutions. The public policy dictated by the Supreme Court collides with majority opinion and reflects the views of only the 20 percent who are committed to abortion on demand. Twenty-six years later, that is the main reason the pot keeps boiling."

I have in my files a letter from Michigan's U.S. Senator Carl Levin that was sent in response to a letter from me many years ago. In that letter Levin says (paraphrasing) that he believes that issues like abortion should be taken out of the political arena and decided by the careful reasoning of the judiciary. In other words, he doesn't believe in democracy. Levin and his ilk believe that we the people are too stupid or incompetent to determine what our laws ought to be and need the enlightened judiciary to instruct us. Yet Levin and most of the rest of his Birthist Abortionite dominated party still get away with calling themselves "Democrats."

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The letter below was mass faxed by computer to many publications nationwide. Its first main objective was to popularize a hopefully catchy, alliterative and demeaning label for the anti-life philosophy which cuts across all the life issues: the "meat manager mentality." I didn't go into it here but I also feel we should refer to meat managers by the shorter expression "meat heads" once the longer phrase has been introduced. The point about the arrogance of so-called bio-ethicists is attributable to Wesley J. Smith. I felt it could use wider exposure so included it in this letter. Another objective was to return focus to the reason why conception is the only logical time to mark the beginning of an *individual* human life. There has been too much nonsense disseminated about the "continuum" of life to include gametes.

March 11, 2002

To the Editor:

There is a pagan world view that sees human lives as simply cattle. This meat manager mentality never ceases to plague us with new and more perverse assaults on human dignity and societal ethics. The scientific arm of meat management is now trying to con us that there's a difference between a cloned human embryo intended for implantation ("reproductive" cloning) and one intended for cannibalization for its stem cells ("therapeutic" cloning). The overwhelming arrogance of these self-styled witch doctors and their "bio-ethicist" enablers is revealed in their assertion that the difference lies not in the nature of the embryonic entity but in their intended use of it.

So-called "bio-ethicists" want to define human value based on brain functions. But they have forgotten why the loss of brain waves first became accepted as a criterion of death. It was the irreversibility of the loss with existing medical technology that justified a pronouncement of death. However, brain waves and all other functions will be irreversibly present once conception (fertilization) has occurred, whether by natural or mechanical means in the lab. The same criterion of irreversibility of the onset or loss of brain functions can be used logically to mark the beginning or end of a human life.

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That about does it for this time. I expect to wrap things up next time. Thanks for sticking with me this far.

Al Lemmo

Dearborn, Michigan

March 30, 2003