It is a myth that teenagers and young adults support abortion

In a survey that took place a few months ago, it was stated that the generation which is most predisposed to support abortion is the younger generation, specifically composed of millennials (loosely defined as those born between 1980 and 2000) and Generation Z (those born after 2000).

As people from both these generations, we write in unwavering support of a consistent pro-life ethic. We aim to challenge the myth that it is somehow obvious or unsurprising that teenagers and young adults support the pro-abortion position. Motivated by compassion, our position on this matter is that a society is only as humane and liberal as the extent to which it values all human life, whatever its stage, state or condition.

We sincerely believe that life is a gift to be lived, treasured and enjoyed. This being stated, the enjoyment of our own lives does not absolve us from accompanying and helping those who are burdened with hardship. On the contrary, it is in communion with those who suffer that true joy begins. To paraphrase the poetess Emily Dickinson, if we can ease one life the aching, we shall not live in vain.

However severe, hardship does not diminish the value of human life. Rather, it offers opportunities for a person to mature and become more sensitive to suffering humanity.

Building on this, we hold that the first and greatest fundamental right is the right to life. One need not be some eminent jurist to understand that unless one’s right to life is respected all other rights are meaningless. There must be equality in the enjoyment of the right to life. The taking of human life prior to birth, for whatever reason, is an egregious example of inequality and injustice. It unjustly discriminates against those of us still to be born.

We hold dear all expectant mothers in difficult situations and address them directly: your silent cries for help are heard

Human beings are naturally averse to the taking of life. However, in such situations, some frequently reason that abortion may be a necessary evil. We propose a bolder stand.

To choose to kill a child, born or yet to be born, is never an option. Statistics demonstrate that most of those who seek abortion do so because they are bereft of support and friendship. It is this lack of support that may lead a person to conclude that abortion is the only solution to an unplanned pregnancy.

We are the builders of the new, compassionate society. We hold that life itself has intrinsic and inestimable value. It is this core belief that motivates each of us to offer moral and material support to anyone who may be going through a tough time, be it due to unplanned pregnancy or some other situation.

As young professionals in various sectors and as students aspiring to contribute to society, we are committed to being points of light and beacons of hope. We reject the throwaway culture that mars our world as short-sighted and irresponsible. Most of us have direct, personal experience of caring for and accompanying people in need. We believe that children, whether born or yet to be born, deserve equal loving care.

This firm belief leads us to use our personal, professional and academic lives not just for our own advancement but for the betterment of others, particularly the most vulnerable. This is the only way of life that can defeat the throwaway culture of which abortion forms part.

Abortion is not defeated through legislation or debate. It is defeated through love. Specifically, it is defeated through love, concretely expressed. We do not accept that an expectant mother in the most desperate of situations can and should be told that if she aborts her pregnancy all will be well. All will most decidedly not be well.

Those peddling abortion in our country would have us believe that if a desperate mother is sent on an expenses-paid trip to a foreign abortion facility all will be well. This is a falsehood.

We hold dear all expectant mothers in difficult situations and address them directly: your silent cries for help are heard.

Reach out. Do not let anyone tell you that death solves your problems. It does not. We stand ready to help. You and your child are loved, valuable and necessary. Your child is not a problem but a source of hope and joy.

Pro-life Millennials and Generation Z – Michaela Agius, Michelle Attard, Phyllisienne Bugeja, Ryan Paul Camilleri, Maria Formosa, Edward Grech, Javan Grech, Sara Portelli, Bradley Sammut, Nicole Marie Sladden, Rebecca Spiteri and Edelgail Zammit

 This is www.timesofmalta.com opinion piece

Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/inestimable-and-intrinsic-worth-group-of-young-professionals-and.842637

I refer to the article by Aleksandar Dimitrejevic entitled ‘No, we are not our DNA’, (July 25) . The author’s premise is the scientific observation that a large proportion of pre and peri-implantation embryos are lost.

The disconnected and one dimensional conclusion he draws from this significant embryonic death is that the human genome is not enough to qualify an embryo for human value (and therefore, ultimately supports the author’s view that it is permissible to abort it).

The scope of this article is to explain why I consider such a superficial analysis to lack both scientific depth as well as logical coherence. 

Our genome defines our biological identity. If we could analyse the DNA of an embryo, we would know whether we are dealing with a biological male or female, as well as knowing what they would eventually look like, even at an early stage of development. There are no ‘blank’ embryos. This defined biological identity will express itself progressively through the pregnancy and after birth, as we acquire more of the features that are ‘written’ in that code.

While we are more than our biological sex and physical appearance, they are certainly an integral part of who we are as human beings. In addition, embryos are more than their DNA. They are a complete and complex organism, whose cells are rapidly multiplying and specialising into various tissues.

In the majority of the cases where embryos are lost at an early stage, this is largely attributable to significant chromosomal abnormalities (Macklon et al, 2002). The fact that they were not viable because of a life-limiting genetic condition, has no bearing whatsoever on their intrinsic humanity.

At six weeks of pregnancy, there is more than 90 per cent chance that the baby will survive

In simple terms, they died early in their development because of a genetic condition. It may be beneficial to the mother that she is unaware of this early embryonic death since this will mitigate the psychological distress of miscarriage later in the pregnancy. The fact the author concludes that their unacknowledged death strips them of moral value is merely a reflection of his personal views on human worth rather than a logical conclusion based on the evidence. 

At six weeks of pregnancy, there is more than 90 per cent chance that the baby will survive since the risk of miscarriage at this stage is 9.4 per cent (Tong et al, 2008). Sixty-five per cent of first trimester abortions happen after six weeks (CDC, 2016). Therefore, more than 90 per cent of these terminations occur on viable embryos who would have probably survived till birth. So even from a purely utilitarian perspective, justifying abortion on the basis of early pregnancy loss is not only illogical but misleading.

Of course, there is an ethical dimension that clearly differentiates abortion from early embryonic death. Abortion is an intentional intervention that actively brings about the demise of these embryos, the majority of which are viable and would have otherwise been born. We become the agents of their avoidable death.

On the other hand, early embryonic loss, as a result of natural causes is largely an unavoidable consequence of chromosomal abnormalities. From an ethical point of view there is no comparison between the death of non viable embryos by natural means and the termination of viable embryos by induced abortion.

As an advocate for women’s rights, it is surprising that the author does not perceive how insensitive his words may be to mothers who have suffered a miscarriage. It is no comfort to these women, or their partners, that the author uses the miscarriage that grieves them to disqualify their son or daughter from being considered human at all.

Additionally, if the author wants to engage in a serious scientific discussion, he should not divert from science. His references to God and religion in an attempt to ride on anti-Catholic sentiment are as irrelevant as they are distasteful.

As an identical twin, I would like to conclude by agreeing with the author when he writes that we are certainly more than our DNA, while emphatically stating that we are never ‘less’ than our DNA.

Konrad Borg, consultant in emergency medicine, member Doctors for Life

Ref: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/certainly-more-never-less-konrad-borg.809157

In early childhood, the Dutch psychiatric patient known as 2014-77 suffered neglect and abuse. When he was about 10, doctors diagnosed him with autism. For approximately two decades thereafter, he was in and out of treatment and made repeated suicide attempts.

He suffered terribly, doctors later observed, from his inability to form relationships: “He responded to matters in a spontaneous and intense, sometimes even extreme, way. This led to problems.”

A few years ago, 2014-77 asked a psychiatrist to end his life. In the Netherlands, doctors may perform euthanasia — not only for terminal physical illness but also upon the “voluntary and well-considered” request of those suffering “unbearably” from incurable mental conditions.

The doctor declined, citing his belief the case was treatable, as well as his own moral qualms. But he did transmit the request to colleagues, as Dutch norms require. They treated 2014-77 for one more year, determined his case was, indeed, hopeless and administered a fatal dose of drugs.

Thus did a man in his 30s whose only diagnosis was autism become one of 110 people to be euthanized for mental disorders in the Netherlands between 2011 and 2014.

Case 2014-77 appears on the Dutch-language Web site of Holland’s Regional Euthanasia Review Committees, which review mercy killing in the Netherlands — but almost never find fault. Of 5,306 euthanasias listed in the committees’ 2014 annual report, the vast majority based on physical illness, regulators found a lack of “due care” in four, or 0.08 percent. The consequences of these rulings, if any, are unclear.

Now, however, doctors from elsewhere are starting to apply independent scrutiny to the increasingly common euthanasia of Holland’s mentally ill, and their findings are not so reassuring. To the contrary.

According to an analysis of 66 of the 110 cases from 2011 to 2014, by psychiatrist Scott Kim of the National Institutes of Health and two colleagues, Dutch psychiatric patients were often euthanized despite disagreement among consulting physicians as to whether they met legal criteria. In 37 cases, patients refused possibly beneficial treatment, and doctors proceeded anyway.

The Kim report, published Feb. 10 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, undercuts the very notion of a “voluntary and well-considered” request for death from a patient who is, by definition, cognitively and/or emotionally troubled.

Dutch doctors have honored the request for lethal injection of a seemingly lucid, physically healthy woman in her 70s who said her life had become “meaningless” after her husband was euthanized a year earlier for a terminal physical illness. And they have done the same for people who were in the grip of delusions or hearing voices.

Among the obvious risks, Columbia University psychiatrist Paul S. Appelbaum writes in a companion article to Kim’s, is “inducing hopelessness among other individuals with similar conditions and removing pressure for an improvement in psychiatric and social services.”

“Will psychiatrists conclude from the legalization of assisted death that it is acceptable to give up on treating some patients?” Appelbaum asks.

Some doctors already have. In 2009, a 37-year-old Belgian woman became distraught after a romantic breakup and began seeking a doctor to euthanize her, per that country’s law, which is similar to Holland’s.

The woman, Tine Nys, had a history of mental illness, including a teenage suicide attempt, but had more recently been doing well. In February 2010, she received a new diagnosis of autism and, two months later, a lethal injection.

Appelbaum chairs the World Psychiatric Association’s ethics committee; he says it will address the situation in the Low Countries at a meeting in Munich in March.

It’s late. Once the Netherlands authorized euthanasia for physical illnesses in 2002, demands to extend this “right” to the suffering mentally ill were inevitable and, indeed, logically consistent.

Canadians are now debating how to implement last year’s ruling by their Supreme Court establishing a right to “physician-assisted dying” in cases of a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” A panel of experts advising Ontario and 10 other provinces and territories has urged the ruling be construed to include mental illness.

And why not? The Canadian Supreme Court’s opinion specifically said that, in Belgium and the Netherlands, the “predicted abuse and disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations has not materialized.”

Ref: http://nypost.com/2016/02/27/europes-cure-for-autism-is-euthanasia/