Recent case exposes myth of "safe", legal, and rare abortion provision in Pennsylvania

A corrupt Philadelphia physician has been charged with one count of murder and seven counts of infanticide for his performance of late-term abortions. Inducing labor in third-trimester mothers and then cutting the spinal chords of the babies they deliver is an illegal but sadly commonplace practice for late-term abortions; the scandal in this story lies in the conditions in which Dr. Kermit Gosnell carried out the procedures, which the grand jury has described as "third world." The criminal grand jury found that: "[He] regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it." Read the full Grand Jury Report here.

As Joseph Bottum of the Weekly Standard comments, "Pennsylvania may not be a third-world country, but its abortion mills—like those in most other states—really are reminiscent of one: free and independent entities, uniquely exempt from supervision and regulation, carved out from the rest of medicine. Every other kind of doctor is weighed down by record-keeping and inspection requirements. Abortionists alone are free. “Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers,” the Gosnell grand jury explained. “Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.”... Many people knew what was going on at his Philadelphia clinic; several filed complaints with state and local agencies. But nothing was done, and at the time of his arrest, he hadn’t been visited by a medical examiner for 17 years. As the grand jury noted, with the change of governors in Pennsylvania in 1995—when the pro-abortion Tom Ridge replaced the pro-life Bob Casey—“the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all,” as “officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions.”"

You can read more about the gruesome case in Politics Daily or The Weekly Standard.

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas!

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas! Here are our top ten suggested ways to celebrate:

10. Wear black and white
9. Begin all retorts with "Sed contra!"
8. Compliment deserving friends with "how angelically doctoral of you!"
7. Go to Mass
6. Resist the temptation to turn the oppositions' positions into straw men.
5. Transform common nouns into proper nouns to give your best friends nicknames employing some unorthodox capitalization (eg, "The Philosopher," "The Commentator," "The Theologian")
4. Enjoy your food and drink with gusto. But make sure the youngest are fed first.
3. Send a pack of whores packing
2. Begin all of your best arguments with a Patristics reference
1. Realize that, in the end, all of this is but straw.

What didn't make the news: the March for Life

This blog may be called "Ethics and Culture in the News," but today it looks at something that didn't make it into the news- or, at least, into the mainstream media: the annual March for Life. As is its annual tradition, mainstream American network news channels and major newspapers simply ignored the demonstration in which tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Americans participated. Participants in the March for life walked from the National Mall in Washington, D.C., up Constitution Avenue, past the Capitol Building, to the Supreme Court, where 38 years ago the Court handed down the devastating Roe v. Wade ruling. the Washington Post was one of the few major newspapers to cover the March; you can read their article here. The online site News Busters covered the lack of coverage. An excerpt from their article:

"Neither NBC, ABC, nor CBS gave any coverage Monday to the march on their respective evening news programs; none of the networks covered the story Tuesday morning. The New York Times did not cover the story, as the MRC's blog "Times Watch" documented. The Washington Post, however, did provide a fair account of the rally in its Metro section....It's not as if the March was crowded out by weightier news developments. Among the stories featured on the broadcast news networks Monday evening and Tuesday morning included a 13-minute segment on the upcoming Academy Awards on CBS's "Early Show," over 20 minutes dedicated to the Oscar nominees on NBC's "Today," and segments on Oprah Winfrey re-uniting with her long-lost half-sister on national television."

The full article is available here.

To correct News Busters, the New York Times did make an 8-picture slide show of the March available on their website, but no article appeared in the paper.

John Paul the Great to be beatified!

Pope John Paul II will be beatified on May 1, Divine Mercy Sunday, in the Vatican. The announcement follows the certification of a miracle attributed to him, the healing of a French nun from Parkinson's disease. Beatification is the last step before canonization, and bestows the title "Blessed" upon one whom the Church holds up as a model of holiness. Read the full story here.

First Anniversary of the Earthquake in Haiti

One year after the disastrous earthquake in Haiti, very little progress has been made. The country still languishes in chaos and poverty. The Wall Street Journal diagnoses the reasons for discouragement. Although they do not put it in these terms, it seems that a major part of the problem is a lack of commitment to the principle of subsidiarity: with hundreds of international charities involved and rebuilding efforts that seem to purposely exclude involvement by Haitians, the people's needs are not being met, and the possibility of leading the rebuilding of their own country is not open to Haitians.

An excerpt: "Due to concerns about Haitian corruption, most of the money is handled by international agencies like the United Nations and charities rather than Haiti's government. Haitian officials say this means they have little control over the money, yet have to face an angry populace that demands progress....

Adding to a sense of dissatisfaction with reconstruction efforts, few reconstruction contracts handed out so far have gone to Haitian companies. Few charities are hiring Haitians, either. One non-profit coordinating refugee camp management for all humanitarian agencies said it's faster to build shelters with imported labor than Haitian workers. After protests from Haitians, a deal was struck to give 25% of the jobs to locals."

Read the full article here.

Controversy over Kidney Donation between Released Prisoners

The New York Times reports today that two sisters imprisoned for a 1993 robbery have been released early on the condition that one donate her kidney to the other, who is suffering organ failure. Gladys Scott, 36, volunteered to give her kidney to Jamie Scott, 38. Controversy has arisen because in their early release from their double life sentences, Gov. Haley Barbour has required that Gladys Scott follow through with the promised kidney donation after release. Ethicists are questioning the governor's motives, who admits that in suspending their sentences rather than pardoning the women, his concern is to relieve Mississippi of the burden of Jamie's annual $200,000 dialysis bill. It is unclear who will pay for the kidney transplant, since the family does not have the means.

An excerpt:
"The kidney donation was the sisters’ idea, and is supported by the N.A.A.C.P. and other civil rights organizations. But the unusual nature of the arrangement has been criticized by some medical ethicists.

Legal experts said that suspending a prison sentence contingent on an organ donation is highly unusual and may be unprecedented.

Jamie Scott requires dialysis treatment at least three times a week, and her health has been failing during the past few months....

Gov. Barbour said he had acted in part out of concern over Jamie Scott’s health, but also to relieve the state of the cost of her dialysis treatment, approximately $200,000 a year.

“The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society,” Mr. Barbour said in a Dec. 29 statement. “Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the state of Mississippi.”"

Read the full article here.

Study linking vaccination and autism retracted

The scientific study that touched off a major vaccine scare in the late '90s has been officially retracted, the Wall Street Journal reports today.  The British Medical Journal has concluded that the study was largely falsified. Despite this, its influence was deeply corrosive, resulting in thousands of children falling ill from measles/mumps/rubella because their parents feared that if they were given the standard vaccine they would develop autism. The study claimed to demonstrate a causal connection between receiving the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine and developing autism. All of the original co-authors of the study, except Dr. Andrew Wakefield of Britain, have retracted their original findings.

The article reports:

"The findings provoked a still-raging debate over vaccine safety and they prompted thousands of parents to forgo shots for their children. Measles outbreaks were subsequently reported in several Western countries. Several epidemiological studies conducted since the Wakefield paper by public health authorities haven't found any link between the vaccines and autism.

The Lancet withdrew the article in January of last year after concluding that "several elements" of the paper were incorrect. But the journal didn't describe any of the discrepancies as fraud. A British regulator stripped Dr. Wakefield of his medical license last May, citing "serious professional misconduct" in the way he handled the research."

The full article can be read here.