Dealing with Unethical Vaccines

On Tuesday I took the little ones to the doctor for their check-ups.  This is always a little tense for me as I am forced to think about immunizations and the fact there are some that are derived from aborted babies and wonder whether or not I should share my reservations with the doctor.  There is some excellent information at http://www.cogforlife.org/ if you'd like to find out more.) 

Baby Boy was due for his MMR shot in which the rubella part of this vaccine is derived from aborted babies.  We also had the option of the Hep A shot and the Chicken Pox shot which are also derived from aborted babies.  There are no readily available ethical alternatives to these vaccines.  

According to my understanding of church teaching, if I feel that the health risks are serious enough I may choose to receive these vaccines any way, but I need to make known my objections to the company (the doctor too?)  We went ahead with the MMR but said no to Hep A and Chicken Pox.  (Hep A is not required yet, but Chicken Pox Vaccine is for school and day care.)  I didn't share my reasons with the doctor like I should have though I had shared them with him prevously regarding a combo vaccine where there is an ethical alternative (pedarix vs. pentacel, pedarix being the ethical version).  Fortunately, the doctors office uses the ethical alternative to this particular vaccine. 

Next time I may just give him this information as it spells out which are the unethical vaccine and the churches position regarding whether or not the get this vaccine so he knows where I am coming from.  Meanwhile I really need to write the companies to make my objections known.

Why Bart? Why?

 Why did Bart Stupak cave so easily for an executive order after standing so strong for so long?  I'm really disappointed.  I had been thinking how admirable Bart Stupak was for standing his ground under such immense pressure from his own party and then this...  It seems to me that he and the other pro-life Democrats that were standing with him could have really done a lot better than an executive order.

It appears to me that Obama had been snubbing Stupak up until the last minute when he saw that Bart and his followers could be a real threat to the passage of this legislation, indicating that Stupak and his followers had a lot of power, more than anyone was expecting them to have, I think.  Had they held their ground the bill may not have passed but just think how much could have been gained if they had used this power for the betterment of the Democratic party and the country with their pro-life views.  Unfortunately they threw away any real influence they could have had in this reagard. 

And to top it all off Stupak accused the pro-life Republicans Chris Smith, Joseph Pitts and another whose name I don't know of trying to kill the bill by speaking out against the fact there are no provisions actually written into the bill itself to prevent federal funding for abortion or for conscious protection.  He should know that Chris Smith and the others are sincerely pro-life and protection for the unborn is their first concern. Did he just want to regain the approval of his fellow Democrats?  Democrat first, pro-life second.  I guess now we know.  Heartbreaking.

Response to Community Abortion Promoter

It is a shame that the centerpiece of women’s rights and women’s health has become the right to abortion. This is an injustice to women and does not by any means speak for all women despite the perception created by the rhetoric of people like K K who promote abortion as the pinnacle of women’s rights. Governments and their people should have the right to support the health and well being of both women and children after and before birth without being forced to accept something as horribly wrong as abortion. A convention that most people would otherwise have no moral problem with has taken on new meaning with the push for abortion rights to be interpreted in CEDAW. Many countries where abortion is illegal have ratified CEDAW but apparently, as is shown in K’s March 28 column, this may lead these countries to be forced to accept legalized abortion. Is it any wonder this convention hasn’t received unanimous support?
Is K angry over inaction regarding women’s rights or the fact that many don’t fully embrace the abortion ideology that has been made an integral part of women’s rights? Why are we being forced to accept these two things as inseparable? Women’s rights should include the right of women to be treated with the dignity that has been bestowed on all humanity by God, not with the artificial right to abortion that pro-abortion feminists falsely say is central to a woman’s dignity.

Throwing the Word "Science" Around

It seems that I hear the word science a lot used by people who are not scientists but want to put down people with a pro-life view. The "unscientific" seem to most commonly be those who think things like embryonic stem cell research to be unethical. The reasoning seems to go something like, " Embryonic stem cell research holds a lot of promise for helping serious diseases so it must be the right thing to do. Yes, I understand why people may have a problem with it but in the furture this will help people with serious illnesses so science will be vindicated in the end." What does this have to do with "scientific" or "unscientific"? People with pro-life view points aren't objecting to the fact that this research may help people but to the destruction of human life in the process (to state the obvious). What those who consider themselves to be enlightened and "scientific" are really saying is that to hold value in human life at its earliest stages to the time of natural death (traditional pro-lif stance) makes you a neanderthal. Is this idea based on science or is it ideologically driven? I think we can easily see that it is the later. Ironically the pro-escr crowd accuse Bush's policy of banning federal funding on escr as being ideologically driven and being "unscientific". Not providing funds for for ethical reasons is not a scientific decision but a policy decision so I'm baffled at the word unscientific being thrown around in regard to this. To quote Wesley J. Smith from his blog Second Hand Smoke in the entry Media/Obama Conflate Ethics Dispute with Science. "...they don't have the candor to admit they are as political and ideological as their opponents. Instead, they pretend they are objective, indeed, scientific. That may be a good political tactic, but nothing could be further from the truth."

A Great Find

A caller on EWTN Radio's Catholic Answers mentioned the group Flipsyde's song Happy Birthday. He called it a pro-life rap song. He said they were a "secular" group too. I had to investigate so I googled it and this is what I found. I thought it was one of the most open, honest things I have ever heard. It cuts through all the politics and politically correct language and seemingly comes from the heart. I'm not sure if this is the personal experience of this young man, Piper, or a song about someone else but how rare it is to hear a man's perspective about the hurt of abortion and expecially a black man's perspective. Apparently this is from 2005 and this group is (or was?)more popular in Europe than in the United States. This song says it all! Please listen.

Letter

Here is a letter I submitted to the local newspaper regarading the policies of the new Obama administration. It appeared in this last Saturday's paper:


I would love to be able to rejoice fully with many others in the country at the inauguration of our 44th president, Barak Obama. Unfortunately this occasion is overshadowed by Obama's strong support for abortion and embryonic stem cell research. It has been said that in the first days of his presidency President Obama is going to overturn the current ban of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research as well as bring back many other policies that threathen the unborn. Science should be guided by ethics. The use of embryos for stem cell research destroys a human at the very beginning of life. This is unethical. Why don't we use federal funding to look for ways to fight diseases without destroying human life? This would be ethical.

Why is it considered progressive to destroy life in its earliest stages for our own purposes? Please think about this President Obama and reconsider your positions on these issues. Human rights begin with protecting the most defenseless among us.