Medical Ethics

Regarding “Pope Francis: Abandonment Does Greatest Injustice to the Elderly” (NCRegister.com, March 6):

As an R.N. with 45 years of nursing experience, including many end-of-life situations, I’m sure the Pope meant “ethical” palliative care, which is indeed wonderful for both patients of any age and their families. Unfortunately, there is a growing trend towards calling unethical practices “palliative care.”

For example, just last year, I saw a middle-aged nurse/friend’s life deliberately ended due to so-called palliative care labeled “comfort care.” She had recently suffered a severe brain injury and was declared hopeless after a couple of weeks. The family was strongly encouraged to switch to “comfort care.” She was taken off a ventilator, had her feeding tube removed (against family wishes), and the sedation medications used when she was on the ventilator were continued and even increased when she continued to breathe on her own, until she died a few days later.

The public needs to be aware of such practices and what the Church teaches so that they can make informed decisions if they find themselves or a loved one in a difficult situation.

         Nancy Valko

         St. Louis, Missouri

 

Editor’s note: Nancy Valko is the spokeswoman for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses (NursesforLife.org).

 

Funding Racism?

Are your tax dollars funding racism?

In the 2012-2013 fiscal year, Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, reported that it had received $540.6 million in taxpayer-funded government grants.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, worked closely with the scientists who devised Hitler’s “race purification” program. She commissioned Dr. Ernst Rudin, director of the Nazi Medical Experimentation Program, to write for the magazine she was publishing, The Birth Control Review. In her book, Women and the New Race, Sanger wrote, “The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

In her newspaper, The Woman Rebel, Sanger wrote, “I look forward to seeing humanity free someday from the tyranny of Christianity no less than capitalism.” Sanger, like Hitler, believed in eliminating races that she considered to be inferior. In 1939, Sanger devised the “Negro Project,” whereby she enlisted black ministers to propagandize for birth control. She said, “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members” (Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood by George Grant).

Since Jan. 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in the United States, more than 16 million African-American babies have been killed by abortion (about 25% of the total black population). Although African-Americans comprise only 11% of the national population, more than 43% of all abortions done in the United States are done on black women, according to Priests for Life.

In 2010, Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote for the same organization, “The most obvious practitioner of racism in the United States today is Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by the eugenicist Margaret Sanger and recently documented as ready to accept money to eliminate black babies. The most positive step we can take to fight racism is to end the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies given to an organization that fulfills the dreams of the Ku Klux Klan — a group Planned Parenthood’s founder once addressed.”

Perhaps of more concern than her secret emails as secretary of state is presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s admiration for Sanger upon receiving Planned Parenthood’s 2009 Margaret Sanger award: “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously — her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her; there are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life.”

         Sister Mary Rose Reddy

         Rochester, New Hampshire

 

Catching Up on Back Issues

Regarding your 2014 story on Bethlehem’s neonatal hospital (“Bethlehem Hospital Is ‘A Gift of Peace’ in War Torn Region”):

My daughter just had her third baby, and it was also her third child born in Holy Family Hospital’s maternity unit. Here in the U.S., we are always so glad she can go there for her births. It’s so safe. I visited it myself in 2010 and was amazed at the peace, love and tranquility I felt there. It was an oasis of peace.

The doctors and nurses were so thorough, kind and experienced. It’s the most wonderful place to have a baby, and I’m very thankful for it. Thank you for writing this story about it.

         Moira French

        Marietta, Georgia