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Pro-Life Update As Pro-Life individuals, we must be vigilant in our choices and fully understand the organizations that we support financially. Some United Way organizations, for instance, do fund Planned Parenthood, and those United Way chapters should not be supported by Pro-Lifers. We must also be attentive to our health care, especially at the end of life. Our caregivers should understand our wishes and be interviewed as to their willingness to follow them. One doctor in California has recently been charged with speeding up a patient’s death in order to obtain his organs for transplantation.
Please read this issue of the Pro-Life Update carefully to understand some of the challenges we now face and how you—an educated Pro-Lifer—can advance the Culture of Life. Please share this information with your family, friends, and church congregations. Make copies. Spread the news.
The United Way and Abortion Each fall, the United Way fires up its fundraising campaigns. Most people encounter them through their requests for workplace giving. The United Way encourages individuals to donate to a variety of local charitable organizations or to the United Way itself. Each local United Way determines whom they will support through their grant programs and their lists of charitable organizations in the area. Most United Way organizations claim they do not provide money for abortion services through their fundraising program. In truth, some United Way organizations do support Planned Parenthood or other abortion-advocate agencies, while some do not.
Some areas, such as New York City and Atlanta, provide grants to Planned Parenthood. The Dallas, Houston, and Austin United Ways do not give money to Planned Parenthood. However, the Austin United Way does send volunteers to The Lilith Fund, which, according to the United Way, “assists women in exercising their fundamental right to abortion by removing barriers to access. We [The Lilith Fund] envision a society in which equal access to abortion is guaranteed for all women, regardless of economic situation.”
Nationally, the main United Way website (unitedway.org) does point volunteers towards Planned Parenthood. Again, not every state or city agency promotes Planned Parenthood, but several do. Texas Right to Life opposes volunteering or donating money to United Way agencies that support such groups as Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion perpetrator. We have no position concerning United Way agencies that do not support organizations that counsel, promote, refer for, or commit abortions.
Doctor Accused of Overdosing Patient to Obtain Organs This summer, a San Francisco surgeon was charged with administering an overdose of painkillers and sedatives to hasten a patient’s death in order to ensure that his organs could be harvested for transplantation, according to the Los Angeles Times. They reported that Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, a transplant surgeon who was on the organ transplant surgical team, was charged with “dependent adult abuse, administering a harmful substance and prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose.”
The patient was 25 year-old Ruben Navarro, ill with a degenerative neurological disorder called adrenoleukodystrophy. In January 2006, he was found unconscious in the long-term care facility where he lived; he was then moved to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo. Four days after his transfer, the doctors determined that Navarro had suffered irreversible brain damage. They also decided that life-sustaining medical treatment should be withdrawn and his organs harvested, according to the Associated Press.
Instead of waiting until Navarro had died, Dr. Roozrokh immediately gave Navarro large doses of morphine and Ativan (a sedative), and he then injected Betadine (an antiseptic given after death) through his feeding tube. “The law and the facts indicated that Dr. Roozrokh… tried to accelerate [Navarro’s] death to facilitate the harvesting of his organs,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephen Brown.
Mr. Navarro did not die for more than seven hours after his medical treatment was withdrawn and the death-hastening drugs were administered. His organs were therefore unable to be harvested.
Mr. Navarro’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dr. Roozrokh, the transplant network, and the hospital; she claims that she did not give informed consent to the withdrawal of Ruben’s medical care or to the attempted organ harvesting. She told the Times, “They mistreated him and they abused him and they took advantage of him and me. He didn’t die with dignity, and I didn’t have a chance to really say goodbye to him. I don’t think it’s right. These people need to pay for what they did to him.”
The Pro-Life movement still has much work to ensure that all people throughout the world are welcomed into Life and respected. If you would like any additional information on the topics discussed above, please send me a note or log onto www.TexasRightToLife.com. If you ever have questions about any Pro-Life issues, please be sure to let me know.
Yours for Life,
Dr. Joseph M. Graham President |
