Obama Advisors Envision the End of US Health Care

I should say from the start that I have never been a fan of the US health care system. I have of course been fed with all the usual Liberal/European propaganda against it, and I am in no doubt that it is better than its reputation, but I still do not think it particularly charming to allocate patients to varying standards of treatment based on their income. Nor can I see anything cost-effective about spending time trying to determine what procedures a patient's insurance will cover.

Now in Denmark we have a deeply Socialist health care system which is taxpayer funded and covers all citizens. It is a principle set down in law that all persons must receive the same treatment based on no other consideration than their need. Naturally, people with higher mental and social resources know how to work the system better, but in principle there is equal access for every single citizen. When we see a patient needing surgery, we don't waste time wondering about which procedure is most affordable or cost-effective, we just refer them to what they need.

Such a system is naturally very costly, and Denmark cannot be said to be in the vanguard when it comes to pioneering treatments and medical technology. In due course, public health bombs such as obesity and the growing number of elderly might break the back of the system. The waiting lists for treatment are also in many cases prohibitively long. To salvage the system, I envision a two-track solution where those who can afford it may receive privately funded care at separate private hospitals while an equal access system remains in place for the majority of the populace.

In the US, in addition to the problems with the uninsured (the numbers of which have, though, been grossly overestimated) the costs of public health programs is skyrocketing (the US actually spends almost the same proportion of GDP on public health programs as Denmark). So President Obama is trying to reform the health care system - a worthy aim, to be sure, but the plans envisioned are of dubious quality. And some of the advice he is getting seems to not be entirely sound even according to normal Liberal principles. According to the NY Post, two of the President's close advisors on health care policy, Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel and David Blumenthal, favour rationing health care by making doctors assign treatments based on government-issued guidelines for appropriate and cost-effective treatment. At least Dr. Emanuel openly argues that disabled and elderly persons should not receive treatment:

"He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96)."

Say what you will about the American health care system, but it undoubtedly does have the highest standards in the world. Not everyone may have access to the very best clinics, but it is a misconception that you have to be very wealthy to do so: taking out a second mortgage and loaning money from friends and relatives is possible for most people. If the government takes over the system, inefficiency and waiting lists will mount. Even then, what the system might lack in efficiency it might make up for in humanity as long as all patients are treated equally. What Obama's advisors are envisioning is, meanwhile, not a 'nanny state' solution but rather an 'evil stepmother state' solution where patients are viewed as inferior and undeserving of help if they are not good, productive citizens. It is totalitarian to the core, and unabashedly so.

Of course, it is not the first time that media outside the mainstream have exposed strong totalitarian sentiments among Pres. Obama's advisors. One has to wonder why he surrounds himself with people who hold such despicable views - and why the mainstream media couldn't care less.

(Via the Cube)

US Nurse Forced to Assist at Abortion

The New York Post reports that a nurse from Brooklyn was coerced into assisting at an abortion against her religious convictions:

"It felt like a horror film unfolding," said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35, who claims she has had gruesome nightmares and hasn't been able to sleep since the May 24 incident.

The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.

Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

The supervisor "claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion."

But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient's life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.

Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

Feeling threatened, Cenzon-DeCarlo assisted in the procedure.

She said she later learned that the hospital's own records deemed the procedure "Category II," which is not considered immediately life threatening.

"I felt violated and betrayed," she recalled. "I couldn't believe that this could happen."
A native of the Philippines, Cenzon-DeCarlo moved to New York in 2001 and started at Mount Sinai on the East Side as an operating-room nurse in 2004. During her job interview, an administrator asked Cenzon-DeCarlo whether she'd be willing to participate in abortions. She flatly said no.

The nurse said she put her beliefs in writing.

The day after the procedure, Cenzon-DeCarlo filed a grievance with her union. Later that week, she was cornered by two supervisors who told her if she wanted any more overtime shifts, she would have to sign a statement agreeing to participate in abortions, the suit says.

The next month, Cenzon-DeCarlo was assigned to one overtime shift, rather than the eight or nine she usually received, the suit claims.

Although the Brooklyn resident is still working at Mount Sinai, she's asking a court to order the hospital to pay unspecified damages, restore her shifts and respect her objections to abortion.

"I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred," Cenzon-DeCarlo said. "Doctors and nurses shouldn't be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs."

This story is deeply troubling. Even if we were willing for a moment to pretend that abortion does not objectively constitute murder, it is undeniable that subjectively she was coerced to assist at a murder; for that is what she sincerely believes to be the case. No wonder she's been having nightmares since the incident. No person should be put in such a situation.

One of the very last things George W. Bush did before leaving office was to sign a sweeping conscience protection clause which guaranteed the right of any healthcare provider to refuse to participate in treatment which they found morally objectionable. And one of the very first things Barack Obama did upon taking up office was to annul this clause by executive order, that is literally with a stroke of a pen, ostensibly because it had not been "properly reviewed." The Obama administration is instead working on a new clause which will certainly be more modest and will most probably involve some kind of exception for medical emergencies - otherwise the prompt scrapping of the Bush clause would make little sense.

Most Liberals view the right to abstain from compulsory military service as something sacrosanct. The US does not at present employ the draft, but back in the days of the Vietnam war deserters and draft dodgers were viewed as heroes among the Left. In their view, no-one should be forced to kill or even be taught to kill another person if it conflicts with his beliefs - as long as this happens in the context of a war. But on the hospital ward this fierce demand for respect for conscience is largely absent. Why? It seems to me that for Liberals, there is one right that trumps all other rights, even that of the right to respect for conscience, and that is the right to have your life look as you want it to, with a minimum of suffering, even if it requires killing other people to achieve that end.

(Via CMR)

Divine Beauty: Ssa. Trinitá dei Pellegrini, Rome

This church is run by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), which is dedicated to the traditional Latin liturgy. It is a personal parish serving those Latin Catholics in the Eternal City who (with good reason) favour the older rite of Mass.

The dome:



And a picture of the sanctuary in use.

From ORBIS CATHOLICVS

Obama's Science Czar was (is?) a Eugenics Nut

... because this is absolutely too mind-boggingly awful to prevent commenting on. A "Czar", btw, in American political terminology denotes an executive official in charge of a specific area of public policy. The position is ad hoc and appointed by the government, meaning that unlike other officials such as the Surgeon General a Czar does not have to undergo confirmation by Congress or any other democratically elected organ (save for the President).

The 'Science Czar' is the unofficial title of the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is also Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Thus, he has an important role in determining policy on all matters involving science and technology, including, presumably, research.

Barack Obama's pick for this position is a certain John Holdren, PhD, a physicist who has among other things taught Environmental Policy at Harvard (go figure). This has not prevented him from making a bit of an overstatement regarding global warming, stating that sea levels might rise to as much as 13 feet (the IPCC 4th assessment report on climate change, which is largely viewed as authoritative, predicts 23 inches in its absolute worst-case scenario - it can be accessed here).

But this is not the first instance, nor by far the worst, in which he has seriously overestimated the state of the planet's decline. In 1977, he co-authored a book with Paul R. Ehrlich (author of the influential book The Population Bomb) and his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, named Ecoscience - Population, Resources, Environment. The book adresses the issue of overpopulation, which it sees as an alarming and imminent danger to all of humanity, including the United States itself (on another occasion, he stated that the US would not be able to support a population of 280 million by 2040; as of 2009 the population is well over 300 million and the problem faced by most people in the area of nutrition is not exactly that they have too little food). To counter this danger, the authors argue for the following propositions:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" - in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of the lives of all human persons - using an armed international police force.

Surely this is exaggerated? Nope. The guy who uncovered it all has provided scans of pages in the book at his website. It is absolutely clear that the authors are endorsing these propositions. But it must be out of context then? Well, reading the quotes in context arguably only makes them scarier. Do read the whole thing; it provides quite the insight into the mind of a certain strand of radical Environmentalist Malthusianism which wants to sacrifice human life and liberty to save the environment and ensure decent living standards for all (remaining) people. Did I say radical? No, it really isn't radical at all since the people who espoused it are apparently much respected in the scientific establishment and teach at Harvard.

The program outlined above is eugenics, plain and simple. There is very little difference between this and the eugenics program launched by the Nazis. The Nazis only resorted to direct killing of adult 'undesirables' at a late stage, but in the beginning the program was comprised of much the same elements: involuntary sterilization of 'undesirables' (mentally handicapped and people with hereditary defects) and forced removal of the children they already had. They, too, employed a police force which interfered in intimate details of the lives of all citizens. If anything, Holdren & al.'s program is even more radical than that of the Nazis. Now, the Nazis' motive was racial hygeine, while the motive of Holdren & al. was ensuring decent living standards for all humans on the planet and preventing environmental degradation caused by overpopulation. The latter are worthy aims, to be sure. But does the end justify the means? Those human persons who will have their rights curtailed, forced to being sterilized, abort their children or see them taken away by the authorities are not going to bloody well care about the motives behind these heinous and utterly despicable acts. They are evil no matter what purpose they are intended to serve (i.e., intrinsically evil).

The blogger whom the story originates with has not been able to identify any statement where Holdren distances himself from these views. Granted, the book was written in 1977, so a lot can have happened since then. Yet it still gives me the creeps that a person who has once displayed such profoundly twisted reasoning is now in charge of the scientific and technological policy of the world's only remaining superpower.

And even more, that this fellow was made a Professor of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley - in 1978!

(Brought to my attention by the redoubtable Cube)

Back On

There has been a long hiatus of blogging due to exams (all passed, btw) and a spate of general laziness and uninspiredness following. But I'm ready again...

A Tale of Two Decisions

Via CMR, I was made aware of a book review in the June issue of Psychiatric Services, which I gather is the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association. The reviewed book is named Three Generations, No Imbeciles and recounts the history of an infamous US Supreme Court decision from he 1920's, Buck v. Bell, which assured mental institutions of the right to forcibly sterilize their patients (inmates, rather). The decision was outright fraudulent as the poor woman who had brought the case was supplied a lawyer who "was a prominent sterilization advocate with ties to the institution petitioning for her sterilization" and the expert witness "had a eugenics agenda." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated in his opinion, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." (Holmes was, by the way, in his time viewed as a 'progressive'.) The decision resulted in hundreds of thousands of poor and disabled people being coerced into sterilization for 'social purposes' right into the 1970's.

I am not sure whether it is the book itself or the reviewer who makes the connection to another infamous SCOTUS decision, but it is a very interesting one:

This book also resonates with policy questions about the tension between individual autonomy and protecting people with disabilities. Lombardo sees Buck v. Bell and Roe v. Wade as fundamentally opposed because the former gives the power over reproductive decision making to the state and the latter reserves it to the individual. But Roe v. Wade was used to overturn protective state legislation banning sterilization of people with mental retardation and enabling guardians to impose sterilization on their wards (2). Thus each case has been used to support sterilization of people with mental disabilities. Our continuing social ambivalence about these issues makes Lombardo's book starkly relevant today, when women are using the rights they gained under Roe v. Wade to abort fetuses found to have Down's syndrome and the Supreme Court protects hospitals that follow parents' direction to provide only palliative care to infants born disabled when those infants could have been treated and lived (3). Is it hypocritical to criticize the statement that "three generations of imbeciles are enough" when individuals today decide that even one generation is too many?

This is a meticulously detailed and researched history that should be read not only by those who enjoy history but also because, as Lombardo says, "one of the important lessons of the Buck story [is that] a small number of zealous advocates can have an impact on the law that defies both science and conventional wisdom." As Lombardo shows, the move to sterilize "social undesirables" is far from extinct today.

The complete review is available here.

Reflections on the Murder of Abortionist Dr. Tiller

The American media has been much preoccupied with the murder of the radical abortionist, the gynaecologist Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller was, as abortionists go, rather extreme: he specialised in third-trimester abortions and is reputed to have killed a large number of perfectly viable babies for very spurious reasons. Recently, he was brought before a court to answer charges that he had broken state laws that require parental consent before conducting abortions on minors but was acquitted.

Not surprsingly, a radical anti-abortion activist has been arrested on suspicion of the murder. Blogs and various media outlets are teeming with vitriolic statements against the whole pro-life movement. The State Attorney has even announced that the federal government will provide protection for abortion providers across the country - an enormous overreaction, if you ask me. I don't have the facts at hand myself, but LifeSiteNews reports that it has been eleven years since the last murder of an abortion provider in the US. Hardly an everyday occurrence.

There are two implications of this worth noting:

1. I fear that this murder is providing pro-abortionists with an opportunity to whip up a state of mass hysteria that will make life difficult for the whole pro-life movement. For instance, laws might be enacted which prevented demonstrations to take place within hundreds of yards of abortion clinics, thus destroying the possibilities of helping young mothers to reverse their decision to abort their child (mind you, there have already been instances where people have been prosecuted for doing this). After 9/11, Liberals were falling over themselves to express support for Muslims and reminding everyone that Islam was a 'religion of peace'. Now, these same people label pro-lifers who deplore this murder 'hypocrites'. Double standard anyone?
2. I have even heard some pro-lifers voicing concerns that the rhetoric used by pro-lifers in the abortion debate - calling abortion 'murder' etc. creates opportunities for radicalisation. In other words, voicing the opinion (which has more than a fair share of basis in science as well as in the intuition of most people) that abortion entails the killing of a human person is arguably 'hate speech', and is something which should be avoided for the sake of the harmony of society. This illustrates how futile the whole 'hate speech' debate is. If people cannot call things by what they earnestly believe is their proper name, public discourse devolves into the exchange of insincere platitudes. Labelling a certain person who is convicted of molesting children as a 'paedophile' or even as a 'child molester' also arguably constitutes hate speech as it puts that man in danger of being assaulted. Should we call him a 'person with a compulsion of a sexual nature towards persons below the legal age of consent' instead? And his crime? 'Improper consorting with a person below the legal age of consent while himself being above that age'? In a world ruled by fear of the inflammatory potential of language, public speech becomes neutered and meaningless.

Let it be said once and for all: vigilantism is wrong. According to Christian moral teaching, it is the responsibility of the state to exert justice in this world, and all citizens are to abide by the laws and the decisions of the state. Dr. Tiller was tried before a court and was acquitted. He was not tried for his major crimes, but that is because the state does not view them as criminal. While that is highly unsatisfactory, no person has the right to usurp the power of the state to dispense justice.

It is tempting for persons who feel strongly about any issue to think in consequentialist terms: if I do such-and-such, this will be the outcome; this will save so-and-so many lives, etc. Christian moral teaching does not permit such reasoning. There are actions that are inherently evil and are never permissible under any circumstances. Such is the taking of innocent life. Dr. Tiller was not innocent in the eyes of God, but he was in the eyes of the state, and so the above principles apply. Now, a person may legitimately exert violence against another person in order to prevent that person from killing another. But this requires 1) that the person presents an immediate danger to another and 2) that only the necessary minimum use of force is employed. None of these principles apply to this case. The last observation I will make is that it is under certain circumstances permitted for persons to usurp the authority of the state and effect an armed uprising. However, this is limited to the rare circumstances when there is prolonged and severe oppression of fundamental rights by the state or an occupying power. In the US, the state does not enforce abortion, but only permits it (and, to some extent, encourages it). It is, thus, not the state that is the source of the injustice, but the mothers who abort their children. The state is not liable for their actions and so it may not be attacked because of them. The crime of the state is its failure to protect the most vulnerable of its citizens, but since a democracy takes its legitimacy from its voting citizens, it is ultimately those citizens who are responsible for this failure. Ending abortion may only and will only be accomplished by legal means: pushing for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and for state laws criminalizing abortion, which will only be made possible by educating the public on the issue. There is no other way.