An Internal Voice: A Forever Moment

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Jesus is the reason for Christmas Season

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A case study

I was recently cleaning out old files from my filing cabinet and came across the following. I don't remember where it came from or the source. MP

Dr. Paul Ruskin of Baltimore (MD) is a geriatric psychiatrist. He presented the following case to a group of nursing students:


"The patient I will discuss is a white female. She neither speaks or comprehends the spoken word. Sometimes she babbles incoherently for hours on end. She is disoriented as to person, place and time. She shows disregard for her physical appearance and has to be assisted in her own care. She must be fed and bathed by others. She is incontinent and has to be changed and bathed. Her sleep pattern is erratic. She awakens in the middle of the night and her screaming awakens others. Most of the time she seems friendly and happy. However, several times a day she becomes agitated without any apparent cause and screams loudly until someone comes to comfort her."

Dr. Ruskin asked the nursing students their feelings about caring for such a patient. He heard words like "hopeless," "depressed," and "frustrated." He told the nurses he cared for this patient and thought they would enjoy it too. Then Dr. Ruskin passed around a photograph of his six month-old daughter. After the laughter subsided he asked why it is so much more difficult to care for a 90 year old female with the same symptoms than for a 6 month old female.

The central issue is how we perceive the value of all human life. It’s easy to care for a cute little baby but not a frail aged person. One life has the promise of a future while the other does not but both are just as needy of love and care. A truly enlightened society holds both in high esteem and protects both lives equally.

There are many reasons modern bioethics can find to abandon or kill the 90 year old woman  ... but only one to cherish her: She too is a worthy member of the human family.  Our humanity calls us to a higher standard of love. Pro-Life people understand this. We must never tire of proclaiming this message ― especially to a society that seems to have forgotten it. 

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SEARCHING FOR THE MEANING OF SUFFERING: A Christian Perpective

To read Mark Pickup's latest post SEARCHING FOR THE MEANING OF SUFFERING: A Christian Perspective, go to http://markpickup.org

25th Anniversary for a Pregnancy Care Centre!

This column is boastful on my part. I confess my infernal Pride and will confess this sin after I post my blog.

My wife and I recently attended the 25th anniversary of Edmonton’s Pregnancy Care Centre. It was a moving experience for me because I co-founded this Christian pro-Life ministry to women in crisis pregnancies.* All evening I was close to tears to see what they have accomplished throughout two and a half decades. A few years after the ministry was established, back in the 1980s, I was forced to leave because my health was deteriorating due to multiple sclerosis.

Today, the Pregnancy Care Centre serves more than 1,800 women a year. Since its beginning, the Centre has helped an estimated 20,000 women!

At one point during the anniversary banquet a woman and her 15 year old daughter introduced themselves to my wife and me. The mother was helped by the Pregnancy Care Centre in 1993 when she was in a crisis pregnancy. She chose to give birth to her baby rather than abort her. Apparently at the banquet the mother pointed me out to her daughter as the person who co-founded the ministry. Her daughter wanted to thank me.

After their introductions and explanations were completed, I nearly wept. If it hadn’t been for the Pregnancy Care Centre the young girl standing in front of me might have been aborted. This occurred years after I was forced by poor health to step down from the ministry's Board.

There are very rare occasions in a person’s life when they realize that they made a life or death difference in the lives of others. It was one of those occasions for me and I am indebted to that mother and her daughter for letting me know that.

The day after the banquet, my wife decided it was time to clean our home’s basement of its clutter. She brought box after box of my papers upstairs for me to go through and throw away. All day long and into the night I sat in front of the backyard fire-pit burning papers, thinking about the millions of Canadian children whose mothers did not choose life for their babies. At one point in the paper purging process I came across my files pertaining to the establishment of the organization that eventually became the Pregnancy Care Centre. I had not seen them in years and found some speaking notes for an address I delivered to an evangelical church in 1984. I was asking them to get involved with the fledging ministry. This is part of what I said:

“We stand at edge of a precipice of a great and terrible day. Abortion is a package deal: Euthanasia and infanticide are the other parts of the deadly package. It is a slow walk from the abortion chamber to the nursery and the nursing home. The same arguments can be used for killing the severely disabled adult as the unwanted child in the womb: The life in question would be a burden on their family; the life in question is not even wanted by anyone; the quality of life for the individual in question will not be good.”

I continued: “Brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot just sit back while this silent holocaust of abortion continues, and worsens, as it surely will. We must understand and believe in the sanctity of all human life ─ born or preborn, sick or well. We are all made in the image of God.”

Thinking I was on a roll, I concluded with these words: “Do you not see that the hour is dark? Do you not sense that Almighty God is grieved at the insult of abortion? I tell you this: Abortion is a denial of the God’s sovereignty. It is tantamount to telling the Giver of life that He doesn’t know what He’s doing. Abortion throws the gift of life back in God’s face unwanted, unopened, stamped Return to Sender.”

Christians did support the ministry not only with their financial gifts but
personal volunteerism. Many churches supported the Pregnancy Care Centre within their yearly budgets, and continue to do so.

The Centre expanded into public education, school programs about abstinence and prenatal development, post-abortion counselling, pregnancy care and support, mentoring, life-skills training and educational supports that enable young mothers to complete their education. At the Pregnancy Care Centre the operative word is love: love for people that is rooted in love for God. It’s shoe-leather Christianity at its best. Check out their website at http://www.pregnancycarecentre.ca/ .

The slow trains of infanticide and euthanasia have arrived. Disabled newborns are routinely killed in hospitals across North America. Neonatologists refer to the child they are about to kill as a ‘neonate’ in an apparent attempt to distance the baby from its humanity. Euthanasia is legal in Oregon and the state of Washington and other jurisdiction in Europe. Canada’s Parliament has been asked to consider a euthanasia bill under the guise of “death with dignity.” Much of the public has erroneously bought into accepting that euthanasia and assisted suicide are merciful.

Christians once again face a stark reality: We have entered a great and terrible day where vulnerable human life is now at risk outside the womb. We must again respond with love and compassion yet refusing to acquiesce to those who want help taking their own lives or the lives of sick or dying loved-ones. Let us take a cue from the Pregnancy Care Centre and reach out in life affirming Christian ministry to vulnerable populations at the other end of the life spectrum.

Mark Pickup

*The parent organization for Edmonton's Pregnacy Care Centre is the charitable Outreach For Life. It was based upon the U.S. based Christian Action Council, now called CareNet.