“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Monday, June 30, 2008

Mass murderer of the unborn to be given Canada's highest civilian award?


Here in Canada, rumours are rife that the nation's infamous king of abortion, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, may receive Canada's highest civilian honour -- the Order of Canada. This is truly an outrage because it is tantamount to saying abortion is a Canadian value. That is not true.

Millions of Canadians are deeply offended at the status quo of abortion on demand (which Henry Morgentaler is a key figure in bringingf to Canada). Even his name strikes controversy. He is the darling of abortion ideologues that apparently includes the Governor General who is the official represent in Canada of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. (I wonder if Her Majesty is aware that the Governor General's Office has been hijacked by radical left-wing interests and agendas?

When I heard the rumour (from credible sources) that Abortionist Henry Morgentaler is about to be given the Order of Canada, I wrote and faxed an urgent letter to Canada's Prime Minister with a copy to the Governor General to voice my outrage at the Order of Canada being used to celebrate the abominable work of a mass murderer of unborn children, Henry Morgentaler. (Text of my at the end of this blog.)

Let me put this into context for American readers of this blog: Imagine if the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to Jack Kevorkian! How would you feel?

A mass murderer of the unborn being given Canada's highest civilian award?! That is not my Canada. Mind you, nor is my Canada a place where seven out of ten Canadians agree with assisted suicide of the disabled and chronically ill, like me. (Public opinion surveys consistently show 70% support for assisted suicide for the terminally or chronically ill or severely disabled people.)

It is a terrible thing to feel like a stranger in one's own country.

Mark Pickup

TEXT OF LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6

Dear Prime Minister:

Henry Morgentaler and the Order of Canada

It has come to my attention that the Governor General of Canada plans to bestow Henry Morgentaler with the Order of Canada on July 1st. If this is true then I must protest this scandalous decision by the Governor General. It will bring dishonor to Canada’s highest honour.

The very name of Henry Morgentaler strikes division amongst Canadians. Please have your staff immediately confirm whether the Governor General plans to give the Order of Canada on Henry Morgentaler and register your strenuous objection if it is true.

The Order of Canada should be the pride of all Canadians without tarnishing Canada’s highest civilian honour by the scandal of awarding it to Canada’s most infamous abortionist. This is an outrage!

Please take immediate action. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark Pickup

Prime Minister's office fax #
(613) 941-6900, constituency office Fax # (403) 253-8203
Governor General fax # (613) 998-8760.

____________________________________
For additional reading on this matter go to:
Henry Morgentaler's Canada is not my Canada
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/06/29/douglas-farrow-quot-henry-morgentaler-s-canada-is-not-my-canada-quot.aspx

Political Eunuchary & the Order of Canada
http://www.socon.ca:80/or_bust/?p=1156

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The natural death of Samuel Golubchuk


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080213/life_support_080213/20080213?hub=Health, "Orthodox Jew to Remain on Life support, trial next."


Orthox Jew, Samuel Golubchuk (84), died of natural causes today at the Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Canada. His family heroically defended their father's right to live until natural death. (See http://www.samuelgolubchuk.com/). For background see above story.

In short, Mr. Golubchuk's doctor's wanted to remove his respirator. And in the event that he committed the unpardonable sin of breathing on his own, they wanted to seal his fate by removing nutrition and hydration and administering morphine to allay the pain of dying of thirst and hunger. How merciful of them. Contrary to Right to die lawyer and space cadet, George Felos' claim, dying of starvation and thirst is not "peaceful" nor "beautiful." (See previous blog "Foreshadows of things to come")

Remember, this was in a Christian hospital!

Samuel's doctor's decided his case was "futile." Golubchuk's family strenuously objected to the hastening of their father's death. They considered it euthanasia. How very precise and exact of them. That's exactly what it would have been. They filed an injunction to stop it. Fortunately a Manitoba court ruled that he should continue to receive care.

Samuel Golubchuk's family believed that he should die a natural death without an impatient medical team trying to hurry the process. The doctors were incensed! One even resigned (how dare mere mortals contest his decision!)

In the end, after all the legal wrangling, posturing and pontificating by the Manitoba medical establishment, and the Graceless Hospital, ... Samuel Golubchuk passed away naturally.

Mr. Golubchuk's family can take consolation knowing they vigorously defended his right to life until natural death. By extension, they defended all of us who live compromised lives with chronic illnesses. None of are futile and nor is our care.

Rest in peace, Samuel Golubchuk.

Mark Pickup

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Foreshadows of things to come?


Why is dehydrating and starving a dying or disabled person becoming acceptable? Howls of outrage would be heard if the same thing was done to a crippled animal. Take away food and water from a dying man and its death with dignity. Take food and water away from Fido when he’s in his last days and it’s an inhumane cruelty.

In 2005, disabled American Terri Schiavo was dehydrated and starved to death. Her estranged husband’s lawyer, and right to die champion, George Felos, described her death as “peaceful and beautiful”. Did he actually think the public was dumb enough to believe his despicable lie?

A few months after Terri’s judicial murder, my wife and I were visiting with Terri’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. They described her death. It was not peaceful nor beautiful! It was dreadful, so utterly and unspeakably horrible. And so in respect to Terri’s memory, and her parents' feelings, I will leave it at that, and not give further description.

Foreshadows of things to come?

In the present climate of North America’s Culture of Death and abdication of its previous sanctity of human life ethos, I am at risk of meeting a similar fate as Terri’s, should my degenerative multiple sclerosis fall beneath some arbitrary standard for “quality of life.” After all, I am serious disabled with MS: If my current state of triplegia moves to quadriplegia, then on to being bedridden (and there's a strong possibility it will), I will be increasingly viewed as a liability rather than an asset to my society. I will be a financial burden to the state, or as the Nazi’s termed people like me: a “useless eater.” Some medical bean counter or bioethicist will impatiently tap his toe at the end of my hospital bed and think, “Time’s up, old man. We need this bed for a patient that medicine can actually heal.” Of course, in public or at the hospital ethical consultation, he will say my case is "futile". He may use any suitable reason to euthanize me that’s in keeping with respectable bioethical guidelines of Autonomy, Beneficence, Nonmaleficence or Justice.

Outcome justification

In his ground-breaking book Culture of Death: The assault on Medical Ethics in America (Encounter Books, 2000) Wesley J. Smith gave the following definitions:

Autonomy – “respecting the decision making capacities of autonomous persons.”
Beneficence – “providing benefits and balancing benefits against risks and costs.”
Nonmaleficence – “avoiding the causation of harm.”
Justice – “distributing benefits, risks, and costs fairly.”[1]

Let me speculate which it will probably be: Futile care -– although a case could be made for Beneficence or Justice. They could not say my starvation and dehydration was the exercise of my personal autonomy because I have been vocal all across North America against euthanasia and withholding food and water from people. Autonomy would be out. Nonmaleficence wouldn’t work either unless they presented the case that continuing to live would only cause further harm as new lesions develop in my brain and brain stem. No, best to stay with futile care. It would be cleaner and tidier and easier to refute family objections.

Perhaps in a magnanimous gesture they might administer morphine to dull the agony. Maybe by then bioethical medicine will have moved beyond the barbarism of starving and dehydrating us vegetables to death, and administer a merciful lethal injection without fear of prosecution. It's so much neater. By that time, public attitudes may have coarsened sufficiently toward the incurables that doctors who euthanize the severely disabled, handicapped and terminally ill will be viewed as humanitarians. They may even receive awards and honors.

This is what lies in the future, if people of good will do not stand adamantly against it. What else lurks the mists of the amoral 21st century to which North America is drifting (some would say careening)? What was that ancient Chinese curse?

Mark Pickup
_________________________________
[1] These definitions are not Wesley Smith’s. He was quoting Tom L. Beauchamps, and James F. Childress, from their 1979 book Principles of Bioethical Ethics.

The thought police and thugs at the Canadian and Alberta Human Rights Commissions


Read Mark Pickup's blog "The thought police and thugs at the Canadian and Alberta Human Rights Commissions". Go to http://markpickup.blogspot.com

Monday, June 9, 2008

LaRee Pickup to be Director of Alberta Pro-Life

LaRee Pickup (far right) with husband Mark, and Bob and Mary Schindler (parents of Terri Schiavo) at 2005 US National Right to Life Convention in Minneapolis, MN

My wife LaRee (pronounced like Marie only with an L) has been hired as the provincial Director of Alberta Pro-Life. (See http://www.albertaprolife.com/).

She brings her unique life-experience to the position. Having had an abortion at 17 (it was my baby), followed by years of grief, then helping both her grandparents through their end of life care, and living with my degenerative and frightening multiple sclerosis (MS) for a quarter of a century, she has vast experience in various Life issues. She earned her degree from the School of life.

DISABILITY AND GRIEF

She understands that assisted suicide and euthanasia are the abandonment of love just as abortion is the abandonment of love. Profound disability doesn't affect just individuals ─ it affects families. Family grief must be ministered to -- not just individuals' -- if hope is to be restored, and life embraced, even at its end stages. Assisted suicide is abandonment more profound than the disability. To acquiesce to a person's request for help in their suicide is to agree their lives are worthless -- so worthless they are not worth defending.

HOPE

Despair is not only a sin against hope it is a sin against love. Without love, hope can not germinate, it can not survive, and it certainly can not thrive. People may despair in their circumstances in the short term but a high and noble calling of a Culture of Life is to help vulnerable people (whether they be individuals directly threatened or their families) look past the short term despair and discover or rediscover hope. It is the Culture of Death that agrees with despair’s claim -- There is no hope. Curse God and die (or kill).

COMMON BOND

LaRee's primary strength is the ability to say to the woman in crisis pregnancy, or the family of a dying or disabled loved one "I know your pain."

She knows the pain and poverty of saying No to life through abortion just as she knows the blessing and refining of the soul that can occur with the choice to affirm human dignity and value through love and care for disabled and dying family members.

LaRee’s life journey is about to enter a new phase as she assumes the director’s position of Alberta Pro-Life. Her offering is her humanity.

I pray people accept it. I pray she succeeds as the director of Alberta Pro-Life.

Mark Pickup

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Canada and late term abortions


Abortion ideologues are busy building a myth that there are no late term abortions in Canada. This is blatantly false. They are like other holocaust deniers. In the long and putrid history of abortion on demand in Canada, late term abortions have been part of the equation.

Perhaps you may remember the fiasco that the Calgary Foothills Hospital was caught in during the late 1990s. They were involved in late term abortions of disabled children. They vehemently denied it but unfortunately a nurse who was there spilled the beans. I was later informewd that the hospital simply changed their approach and began fatally injecting children in utero, who were suspected of having disabilities: Voila! Still born not abortion.

Dr. Margaret Somerville, Director of McGill University Centre for Medicine,Ethics and Law, responded to the claim that there are no late term abortions in Canada. She said there were --

"...several late term abortion cases on which I have been consulted by people - some of them healthcare professionals - involved in the decision making about abortion, who were extremely distressed about the situation they were facing.

The case in question involved a married couple - man and woman - who had conceived naturally, the woman was 34 weeks pregnant and the scan showed the baby had a cleft palate. They requested an abortion, because they did not want to have a "defective baby".

In another case, a 29 year old graduate student from [OMITTED] was 32 weeks pregnant and wanted an abortion for social reasons. I was consulted on the case and later followed up to see what happened. The answer I received was that "You don't want to know", said in such a way it was clear an abortion had been undertaken.

I've also been consulted on late term selective reduction of multiple pregnancy in which one or more fetuses are killed in utero with a lethal injection of potassium chloride into their heart and the dead fetus(es) delivered at term with the living one(s). In two cases I know of involving twins, one twin was killed. In fact, I wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine on an early case in which this was done because the woman did not want to have twins and said she would abort both babies unless one was killed.

There is an abortion clinic on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal that, as I understand the situation, does all the very late term (over 22 weeks gestation) abortions in Quebec. It's been reported that the Quebec Government has sent at least one obstetrician to the US to be trained to do these abortions - if they were not happening, why have a clinic and why train someone to do them? And I also understand that late abortions up to 22 weeks (i.e. past the CMA's cut-off for viability of 20 weeks) are usually done at a University of Sherbrooke hospital in Sherbrooke.

I do not have information on other provinces, but I'd be surprised if the situation I describe above is unique to Quebec. There's a truism in ethics, but no less important for that, that good facts are essential to good ethics. We all need to know these facts. The reason we do not, is that some years ago, instructions were given to Statistics Canada not to request from hospitals and clinics reporting, as required, on the number of abortions, the gestational age at which abortion occurred. My understanding is that this was a politically motivated instruction."


There you have it.

Do not believe the rantings of abortion advocates. They will say whatever it takes to defend their sacred cow of abortion on demand.

Mark Pickup