A Newborn Infant Image via Wikipedia
Column by John Jalsevac, Assistant Editor
March 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This past Tuesday we ran two extraordinary stories - albeit extraordinary for very disparate reasons - that I gleefully stacked one on top of the other on the homepage. The intended effect was that the two should, by their very oppositeness, come into conflict and that the bad be revealed in the fullness of its badness, and the good in the fullness of its goodness; and I believe the tactic was successful.
The first had to do with a mother of six children who, at the same time that she found out she had a malignant cancerous tumor on her bladder and would have to undergo surgery and chemotherapy, also found out that she was 14 weeks pregnant with twins. Her physicians advised her to have her children killed, as physicians are wont to do in our enlightened era; but in the end she opted for the nobler road, and risked her life by refusing the treatment (which would likely have killed or severely harmed the twins) until after the children were born.
Her babies safely brought into the world via caesarean section at 32 weeks gestation, the courageous mother was treated for cancer. The treatment was deemed successful, and the story has a happy ending, in every possible way. This was a good story, and it was a pleasure to print.
The other story, strangely enough, also has a happy ending, and yet nevertheless stands in grotesque opposition to the first.
A child was born to a couple in Quebec, but was found to be gravely ill. Eventually a hopeless diagnosis was made, and the decision was made to remove life support, including artificial respiration and food and hydration. However, an apparent miracle occurred: it was found that this infant girl, by the name of Phebe, could breathe on her own.
The hospital ethics committee then took the revolutionary step of doing what ethics committees are meant to do and ordered that food and hydration be immediately resumed: and - thanks be to God - the girl's life was saved. She is now fifteen months old, and suffers from cerebral palsy and other significant health problems. Nevertheless, she appears to be altogether a contented child, and is most certainly not a dead one. This is a mostly happy ending, but for one detail - little Phebe's parents wish she were dead. And to make the point perfectly clear they are suing the hospital for $3.4 million for having kept their daughter alive without their consent.
As is the current fashion, the parents claim that the one who has inconvenienced them with an inopportune and difficult illness would have wanted to die, implying thereby that they were merely respecting their daughter's wishes by attempting to starve her to death. The same argumentation was used in the Schiavo case, and in the Englaro case. According to their lawyer, "They believed if their child could somehow consent, she would have agreed to have her life end." To me, however, it seems most strangely convenient that their newborn child should turn out to be a euthanasia activist (But of course, I have never met the little girl, nor had the opportunity to plumb her political views, so what do I know?)
Now, we could just take these two stories and interpret them through the narrow lens of "good parents vs. bad parents," and end it there; I think, however, that there is quite a bit more to consider.
In the first place, we learn from the testimony of the Quebec couple that multiple doctors advised that they not resume food and hydration, even after she began to breathe on her own, because their child would have a poor "quality of life." It was only the ethics board that overruled that advice and saved the girl's life. So we now know for certain that some doctors in Canada have no problem advocating starvation and dehydration for non-fatally ill infants for "quality of life" reasons. We now have good reason to assume that such quiet cases of infant euthanasia are occurring in our hospitals, possibly regularly.
In the second place, consider the astonishing fact that the Quebec parents are the ones who have come forward and sought public attention for their case. They presented their arguments in a public press conference last week. Now why would they do that unless they thought they had reason to believe that they would receive the pity and support of the public? And if that is the case, what does that say about the public?
Insanely, however, it seems they may have calculated aright. The CTV news reports on the case, for instance, were completely and unapologetically sympathetic towards the parents. They featured interviews only of people who agreed with the couple, and they concluded with the narrator saying, in a chilling way, that the couple has to "live with a decision that they didn't make."
That "decision" is, really, nothing other than Phebe herself. And we are told drearily that they didn't "make" that decision, and that now the poor parents have to "live with it," against their will. And this is how one of the largest news outlets in Canada has treated the case.
In the third place, consider this other chilling line, this time from the couple's lawyer, explaining their rationale for launching the suit: "The ethics committee attempted to impose their morality on the couple, something they had no right to do." With the invocation of that argument (and I use the term loosely) they have practically won the case: for the only inexcusable act in modern Canada, it seems, is the act of "imposing" your morality on someone else.
Pope Benedict has repeatedly warned of the "dictatorship of relativism." Here we see its fruits. Astute critics of relativism have long argued that if you remove absolute standards of right and wrong, then anything, absolutely anything can be justified. In this case we see two parents attempting to justify the intentional murder of their child, because it is not the healthy, perfect child that they ordered. To do so they have merely gone the accepted Canadian route of claiming victimhood - of presenting themselves as the oppressed class, suffering the consequences of the "imposed morality" of someone else.
They complain that the mother has had to quit her job to take care of the child, and now they live on only one income. And they suggest that those who decided to let their child live, should "come to our house for a week and see what it's like to live with a child like ours. See the involvement that's needed -- the time and energy in terms of everything involved in our life."
The message is clear: they are the victims here. Interestingly, the corollary of this victimhood, is that their daughter is the oppressor - she is oppressing her parents with the weapons of her helplessness, and illness, and total dependence, and for that she should have received the death sentence. And in true Canadian fashion, the couple's victimhood is being duly honored by the press and at least part of the public. It remains to be seen if it will be honored by the courts. I believe there is reason to expect that it will be.
The temptation, of course, is to conclude by saying that moral relativism has triumphed, and we are enjoying its insipid fruits, and end it there. However, let us not forget the first story I related, of the mother who was willing to sacrifice her life for her unborn children, rather than take the accepted path out.
In this juxtaposition of stories we see, at one glance, the highs and the lows that human nature can achieve. But the moment we become too discouraged by the implications of the second case, we should remind ourselves that even in the darkest times, human nature retains its capacity for extraordinary nobility and self-sacrifice, which is, of course, its true purpose.
In the Quebec couple we may catch a glimpse of the immediate future, as the West continues its long and lovely suicide dive into moral relativism - but in the mother who was willing to sacrifice her life for her unborn children, we see a glimpse of something infinitely more permanent and certain. We see the ray of light that will always break through the darkness of the worst ages.
Florida Woman Admits to Forcing Daughter to Abort, Dumping Grandchild in Trash
By Kathleen Gilbert
MIRAMAR, Florida, March 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A South Florida woman has been arrested and charged for allegedly forcing her daughter to abort her unborn child via premature labor, and throwing her grandchild, who may have been born alive, in the garbage.
Florida's WFOR CBS 4 reports that 39-year-old Tonuya Rainey admitted to police that she illegally gave abortion-inducing medication to her 16-year-old daughter because Rainey did not want the child.
The teenager told police that her mother had her take the pills before Rainey left for the evening to attend a nightclub. The teenager says she gave birth to the child later that evening over a toilet. Police say Rainey admits to putting the infant in a garbage bag and dumping it in a community subdivision trash can.
A police report says the teen told police that the baby was "moving his hands and breathing" after he was born. Rainey denied the child was born alive. Police were unable to recover the body. Reports are unclear as to the baby's gestational age.
Rainey was charged with termination of pregnancy, unlicensed practice of health care, child abuse and improper disposal of human remains, and is being held on a $100,000 bond.
Calls to the Miramar Police Department made by LifeSiteNews.com for further information were unanswered as of press time.
