I (Heart) (Kidney) (Liver) (Spleen) NY!
September 28, 2012 - Friday
If you're traveling to New York, you might want to make sure your family knows your organ donation wishes. Some New York health care workers have filed a lawsuit with the shocking claim that they were pressured by the state Organ Donor Network to prematurely declare patients brain dead so that their organs could be harvested. Their lawsuit names four different instances of unethical organ harvesting at four hospitals. Organ donation has been long guided by what is known as the "Dead Donor Rule," which explains that "to hasten the death of a person whose death... is already inevitable is homicide in law," and that "anyone removing organs from an apparently inanimate body... must first ask himself whether he can positively pronounce the body dead."
While that moral barrier seems like common sense, it's apparently too much for doctors anxious to do transplants. One of the plaintiffs, Patrick McMahon, a nurse practitioner who had the role of organ transplant coordinator, may have been fired for resisting the practice of prematurely calling a patient dead. All four cases included elements of pressuring next of kin into providing consent before the patients were dead. The patients included a 19-year-old man who was injured in an automobile accident, a mother who had recently undergone a kidney transplant, a woman who was recovering from a drug overdose, and another adult male. According to McMahon, all patients showed signs of life when they were declared dead. As with abortion and embryonic stem cells, this is the trend in our culture: discarding lives of the powerless when they're inconvenient or when their destruction may benefit the powerful.
Value Your Vote--Vote Your Values!
On Election Day, there's a lot more affecting your house than the White House. America's top leader is important, but on November 6, that isn't the only vote that matters. You've probably heard about the marriage amendments in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, and Washington--but there are plenty of social issues to go around! There are six marijuana initiatives on the ballot--and casino gambling measures in four other states. Florida, Missouri, Montana, and Wyoming could block certain parts of ObamaCare, and Florida voters could repeal a ban on faith-based funding. Supporting good candidates is key--but these initiatives give you a chance to decide the issues, instead of electing officials to do it for you. On November 6, Americans will be voting on 175 referendums in 38 states. You can learn more about what's on your ballot on FRC's new state issue brief. Take the initiative--and read about yours!
This Weekend's PA Announcement...
The FRC Action team is on the move! Tomorrow, the Values Bus will pull into historic Philadelphia to catch the America for Jesus assembly, where I'll be speaking, along with some of our good friends and allies. Meanwhile, one state away, FRC's Ken Blackwell will be firing up the crowd at Young America's Foundation's Freedom Conference in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday morning. If you're not at the event, you can catch Ken's speech online at 10:00 a.m. here. From there, he heads up to Mansfield, Ohio for an early afternoon tea party rally.
On Sunday, our Pennsylvania friends can join me for Sunday services at the Family Worship Center (1000 Troxel Road) in Lansdale, where I'll be preaching the 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. messages at the invitation of Senior Pastor J.R. Damiani.
** Don't miss the latest edition of Washington Watch Weekly with Congressman Ted Poe (R-Texas), who stops by to talk about the violence in the Middle East and his bill to remove Pakistan's status as a U.S. ally. Also, Kellyanne Conway, CEO of the polling company, inc., will be on the show to discuss the Missouri Senate race. For more information or to find a radio station near you, visit FRCRadio.org.
*** Are the inmates running the asylum at the United Nations? FRC's Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison certainly think so. Read their take on this week's speeches at the U.N. General Assembly in the new American Thinker piece, "Ahmadinejad at the U.N.: Sympathy for the Devil?"