Category Archives: Life

Signs of Life

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

August 1, 2005

On the one hand, mankind has been engaged in an eternal quest for the explanation of human existence…where did we come from?  And this debate eventually gets reduced to the basic test…looking for signs of life in the primordial soup.

Where did the first living cell come from, the building block of life?  In the 1950s, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago was busy researching early earth.  Bringing together the work of several scientists, Stanley Miller created a chamber with only hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia to simulate the possible atmosphere of the first earth.

To speed up “geologic time,” Miller boiled the water.  Then, instead of exposing the mix to ultraviolet light, he used an electric discharge to simulate lightning. After just a week, Miller had a residue of compounds. He analyzed them and the results were electrifying: Organic compounds had been formed, most notably some of the “building blocks of life,” amino acids.

Miller’s experiment and his small collection of amino acids were instantly heralded as the first evolutionary sign of life.  At the same time, other scientists were beginning to break into the DNA code to unravel the chemical design of life.

Their claims of support for evolution have not gone unchallenged.  One of the most striking discussions on the possible origins of life is Michael Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box.  A biochemist at Lehigh University, Behe explains complex chemical concepts in plain English, disputing the probability of evolution by chance.

Miller and Behe are two of the many experts at the center of raging debates about human life.  Amazon posts 477 reviews from Behe’s readers alone. On the one hand, peering millions of years into the past, we are feverishly seeking the first sign of life.

On the other hand, with evidence in front of us in the here and now of the most perfectly designed living beings, we are engaged in another feverish battle to ignore signs of life.

Delivering the decision of the Supreme Court in 1973, Justice Blackmun recorded the history of “attitudinal change” regarding the “potentiality of human life.”  For the Pythagoreans, “the embryo was animate from the moment of conception, and abortion meant destruction of a living being.”  In other words, they saw signs of life.  And for Blackmun, this was evidence of their backward thinking and inflexible dogma.

As a modern Intellectual, Justice Blackmun wrestled with “the raw edges of human existence,” looking for signs of life.  But this was hard for him because of the distraction of pollution.  Pollution?  Yes, pollution…it’s right there in Blackmun’s decision.  The Supreme Court can’t find signs of life because of pollution, even as Stanley Miller claimed signs of life in theoretical primordial soup?

For Justice Blackmun, the science of life was not a concrete matter based on fact.  It was a problem with “racial overtones,” complicated, fraught with emotion and subject to “attitudinal change.”  For Stanley Miller, either it was an amino acid, or it wasn’t.  Attitude and emotion had nothing to do with signs of life.

In 1973, Blackmun struggled to find even “the potentiality of human life.”  In 2000, Justice Breyer evaluated a pile of evidence demonstrating more than life’s “potentiality” and declared for the court… “We don’t care.”

Reading through the Court Decision of Stenberg v. Carhart, a truly civilized human must cringe at the signs of life described.  Clinical details of the doctor’s procedure describe  instrumental disarticulation or dismemberment of the fetus or the collapse of fetal parts to facilitate evacuation from the uterus.  The Court writes of problems in the dismemberment of life that can result in a ‘free floating’ fetal head that can be difficult for a physician to grasp and remove.

On the one hand, thousands of the brightest minds in science are intent on defending the evidence of life implied in a simple amino acid.  On the other hand, hundreds of the most educated minds in America are intent on denying absolute signs of life inside the womb.

Has the best of human intellect and the purest of the human spirit reduced us to this level?  Pushing aside the facts, we find signs of life when we want to?

Supreme Court Decision:  Stenberg v. Carhart

Decision Issued June 28, 2000

http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html

December 10, 2004:  The Best Part of Snuggling

Abortion Recall

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

July 4, 2005

Six hours in the airport…

Surrounded by restless, cranky children and their restless, cranky parents…

Our flight is delayed again…and I have finished my book.

This is the time when boredom overtakes good manners, and I begin to read the newspaper in the hands of the woman across the aisle.  My eyesight is just good enough to pick up the headlines:

Massive Drug Recall Spurs Questions

I have two hours in the airport to find a way to move into the seat next to the woman and finish reading the story over her shoulder.  It only takes five minutes.  Next to her, a restless business executive rises, checks his watch, and heads for the nearest lounge.  I slip into his seat and begin reading.

The massive drug recall announced on the front page of USA Today papers is actually spawned in a small New Jersey community.  Able Laboratories has suddenly pulled off the market millions of doses of drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced “serious concerns” that drugs produced by Able Laboratories “were not produced according to quality assurance standards.”  Over 295 products are included in the recall.

Drug recalls…food recalls…medical device recalls…the FDA website list of recalls, withdrawals and alerts in the last 60 days is five pages long.  Consumers are told to beware of bed systems, sulfites in dried vegetables, Mariani brand fancy golden raisins, undeclared soy nets in Catherine’s Finest Pecan Caramel Clusters, BetacTM, pet treats, implantable cardiac defibrillators, Elegant Gourmet cookies, Xigris, almonds…and more.

A recall of raw almonds due to reports of Salmonella Enteriditis in 2004 alone necessitated the recall of over 40 products from companies around the world:  Royal Food International, GKI Foods, Sahadi Fine Foods, Apple Valley, Fort Fudge Shop, Jeppi Nut and Candy Company…and more.

And it should be no surprise that recalls can launch a flurry of lawsuits.  At www.finddruglawsuits.com consumers are told “Lawyers Investigating.”  You can click on the link and “find out about the drug recall.  You may be able to get Cash back!”  The list of “cash cows” over the years is extensive:  Accutane, Celebrex, Ephedra, Fen-Phen, Lamisil, Viagra, Vioxx…and more.

Whole industries have collapsed as their products are challenged.  Cigarettes, once the chic statement of Bogart and Bacall, after a twenty year campaign succeeded in uncovering the truth of research hidden and denied by tobacco companies, are now called “cancer sticks” on late night television.

Protecting billions of dollars of corporate profit, the temptation to hide product defects is enormous.  Yet, truth does eventually surface…as Ford found out.  Court cases documented that between 1971 and 1978, the Ford Pinto was responsible for a number of fire-related deaths.  Ford puts the figure at 23; critics say the figure is closer to 500. The auto manufacturer did manage to survive the litigation, but not before being ordered by a California jury to pay a record-breaking judgment of $128 million.

With such an extensive record of drug and product recalls in America, one must wonder why discussions of abortion remain so simplistic.  “Are you for abortion?  Or against it?”  Did we ever ask, “Are you for tobacco?  Or against it?”  We simply laid out the facts about tobacco and let people enforce the truth, if needed, through the courts.

Are you for the Pinto?  Or against it?  How can you know the answer to the question unless someone tells you the truth about the design flaw in the fuel tanks that causes them to rupture and explode into fire, killing the people you love?

Abortion is more than politics.  It is a product.  It is a product that has survived without question over thirty years in America.  It is sold to consumers as a wonderful solution to their problems.

Yet, when a courageous editor is willing to challenge the liberal bias of his industry, stories expose the underbelly of abortion that many wish to deny.  Women die from abortion, both surgical and chemical.  Babies survive from abortion, even if maimed.

Abortion is linked to high rates of infertility, fueling a billion dollar industry for women who finally do wish to bring their pregnancies to term.  And battles over the link of abortion to breast cancer are clouded by the knowledge that even scientists and researchers can hide the truth about products for the sake of the corporate bottom line.

Don’t be surprised if one day, when we are able to discuss abortion and the complexities of what it means to have courts protect the sale of this surgery because they are “for abortion”…don’t be surprised if one day, the truth rises from the ashes of people who suffered because we failed to ask the right questions.

An abortion recall…it’s not as far-fetched an idea as you might think.

June 25, 2004:  Unplanned Joy

January 15, 2005:  The Pregnant Elephant in the Room

Planned Parenthood’s War Against Choice

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

June 6, 2005

Choice:  option, alternative, preference, selection, election: suggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely

American children are raised on choice.  They cut their teeth on choice.

Stores live or die based on their ability to offer consumers a myriad of choices.  Hotel conglomerates buy up competitors just so they can offer travelers a range of overnight comfort.  Marriott is not just Marriott.  It is Fairfield, Courtyard, Springhill…well, you get the picture.

It’s no wonder that Choice became the mantra of Planned Parenthood.  In their own Encyclopedia of Women’s Health, they list out the reasons “a woman may choose an abortion,” much like you would list the reasons why a girl might choose a pizza.

Choice is captivating.  Marrying choice to freedom, we elevate the power to choose to an inalienable right.  Thus, the sexual revolution was born on the wings of freedom and choice with its emphasis on an array of sexual behaviors from which any man or woman, girl or boy, could simply choose.

And with a sexual revolution came sex education.  In 1970, a training in Philadelphia for Planned Parenthood staff concluded with a day-and-a-half marathon of films and discussion.  The goal of these trainings?  “To lead to desensitization of anxieties surrounding sexual behavior…with a resultant development of understanding and tolerance of the range of sexual behavior.”

For over twenty years, this “tolerance” formed the foundation of sex education programs supported by Planned Parenthood.  They were all about choice…a child’s right to choose sex from a “range” of behaviors…given the “tools” of contraception.  And if it didn’t work out, there was always one more choice.

Planned Parenthood has grown up on choice.  It cut its teeth on choice.

Thus, it is either surprising, alarming or amusing to watch them conduct a war against choice.  This war can be traced back to 1980 when U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton won congressional approval of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA).  Designed as an “almost exact mirror alternative” to Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding, AFLA set a new course for sex education.  Program objectives emphasized adoption, parental involvement, abstinence from sexual intercourse, and pro-family education for teenagers.

Well… that was just a little too much choice for Planned Parenthood to handle.  It geared up to undo the harm of excess choice.  In Congress, it fought to limit and ultimately decrease AFLA funding at the same time that it sought increases in Title X funding.  It continued to exploit its own federal funding streams flowing from over 100 different laws.  In the battle between U.S. funding of Planned Parenthood-style programs and abstinence programs, they had a funding advantage by one report of at least 75:1.

Another tactic to eliminate AFLA programs was an attack on the very meaning of the term “abstinence.”  In a March 1987 report written by Marie Haviland-James for the Planned Parenthood Federation, an attack on the abstinence program Sex Respect set out an extensive list of objections including: “many references…to a ‘spiritual’ dimension of sexuality”, “use of the word ‘baby’ for fetus”,  and “unsubstantiated claims” such as “abstinence has future benefits for teens.”

In its battle against choice, Planned Parenthood had no better friend than Senator Edward Kennedy.  In the 101st Congress, he submitted two bills with the intent to subvert the AFLA programs by repealing the focus on adoption and abstinence, requiring abortion counseling, and repealing the mandate for parental involvement.  No wonder, Senator Kennedy received a Planned Parenthood Memo for March 28, 1989, warmly praising his help in crafting legislation to “prevent teenage pregnancy rather than teenage sex.”

Apparently, for Planned Parenthood, choice is worth defending…as long as it is their choice.

Abstinence education is a choice that parents pay for with hard-earned tax dollars.  It is a choice to have medically accurate and complete information presented to their children that helps build understanding of and reinforcement for abstaining from sexual behavior.  It helps teens define future goals, and it is taught by teachers who value teens enough to believe in them and their ability to succeed.

Abstinence education is a choice.  No school district, nor any parent or student, is forced to listen to or believe in the abstinence message.   It is a choice.

Abstinence education is one choice.  Nothing prevents a school from inviting abstinence educators to their campus in October and inviting Planned Parenthood to their campus in February.

But that’s not good enough for Planned Parenthood.  If they are to have their way, we will be paying our taxes to have one choice, and one choice only…theirs.

Choice?  Hey, Planned Parenthood…what about the choice of people who don’t want your choice?

February 21, 2005:  Sex Without Value

April 2, 2004:   Sex Education:  Spinning the Truth

Defending the Indefensible

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

April 4, 2005

Tina’s small table was inconspicuous in the back of the conference room.  Filled with brochures, posters and business cards, she was looking forward to sharing information about her abstinence program.

But, at the end of the day, packing to go home, she shared her frustration with me.  Here she was at a conference dedicated to problems caused by teen sex.  It had seemed reasonable to think that nurses and teachers would want her information.  Instead…she spent the entire day defending herself and the notion that teens could and should remain sexually abstinent until marriage.

At every turn, sexual restraint and abstinence are being challenged.  The Department of Health and Human Services has just launched a new website that helps parents promote abstinence to their children as “the healthiest choice.”  We should be thankful.  Instead the director of HHS must defend himself against attacks from the ACLU and gay rights groups.

On today’s news, reporters discuss candidates under consideration as the new Catholic pope.  They point out that some people are enthusiastically hoping for a pope who will “modernize the church”…a pope who will withdraw opposition to abortion, birth control, premarital sex, and divorce.  In essence, from his place in heaven, Pope John Paul II, must defend himself.

This week, an uncommon convergence of news stories gives shape to an ethic that has come to dominate our land.  America’s heart can be best be known by making a list of the beliefs and behaviors we oppose, by cataloging the great offenses that make us angry.

Maybe, instead of rejecting sexual abstinence, gay activists could speak out in loud and clear voices…not to mention angry and indignant voices…opposing individuals and organizations such as NAMBLA who advocate adult-child sex.  What a wonderful sight it would be to see a sit-in of gay leaders blocking access to bookstores that sell the two-volume book set, Loving Boys.

Or…when is the National Organization for Women going to take on the media and demand a return to respect for women…real respect?  Why did NOW pass up the chance to give a good tongue-lashing to NBC, Terrell and Nicolette over the prime-time striptease on Monday Night Football?  If anyone should defend himself, why not start with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue?

Where are the class action attorneys when you really need them?  No matter how much “protection” Planned Parenthood educators promise with a condom, there is no denying that the unacceptable incidence of genital herpes infections – accurately labeled an epidemic by experts – is due to the failure of condoms to protect.  Where is the attorney to represent the thousands of students betrayed by educators who labeled condoms “safe sex”?

What about journalists wedded to promotional packets put out by the ACLU, NARAL and Planned Parenthood, reporters who do not take the time to educate themselves and write about the basics of sexually transmitted diseases and fetal development?  Shouldn’t they have to offer a defense of their news stories filled with inaccuracies and bias for the sake of advancing the politics of these organizations?

The ACLU has a long history of spending millions supposedly to oppose injustice and defend our rights.  Maybe they could defend the right of helpless pre-born babies to make it through the birth canal in one whole piece, living and breathing as they were created to be.  Isn’t this a choice worth defending, the choice to be born alive?

And at the top of the defenseless mob are the judges who pass themselves off as arbiters of justice and sound reasoning.  Is there any serious person in America, much less a Supreme Court Justice, who can truly defend the notion that we are unable to determine the moment when life begins?

Defending the indefensible is big business in America.  We have an intricate set of laws, complete with elections, judges, courts and attorneys.  But it will all come to naught unless we can fix what is truly wrong with us…the list of things that make us angry…and those that don’t.

July 2, 2004:  Abused by Freedom

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.                –Confucius

 

Serious Death and Destruction

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

March 28, 2005

A News Watch is on.  An earthquake of 8.7 magnitude struck late Monday off the west coast of Indonesia.  Described as one of the four or five “greatest earthquakes of the past century,” Kerry Sieh, a seismologist with the United States Geological Survey, predicts, “…a Tsunami has a 100 percent chance of hitting.”

Officials in Indonesia are just now beginning to report damaged buildings and lives lost.  Reporters on Fox News read from their scripts.  As dawn breaks on the other side of the world, they tell us we could again be facing, “serious death and destruction.”

Meanwhile, a tsunami of a different kind has been unleashed in America this past week.  Born on the waves of the pain of one family, this tidal wave threatens destruction of proportions dwarfing the death toll from December’s Indonesian tsunami disaster when at least 273,000 people lost their lives.

The American Tsunami is due to take its first victim any time now.  Terri Schiavo’s life is washing out to sea, one small life sacrificed for lack of a justice system that will uphold her right to live.

Her case is a harbinger of things to come.  As Americans rush to call their attorneys and download living wills from the Internet, Terri’s case proves we live under the tyranny of a judicial system that has no need of advance directives.  Terri left no such set of instructions to guide her care, yet we pretend we know what she wants.

Seven years after she fell into her coma, her husband suddenly remembered that Terri didn’t want to live.  There is no written will, no signature, and no directive.  It is the word of one man who wants to get on with his life…against the silence of one woman whose life hangs in the balance.  The man will win.  The woman will die.

Brace yourself.  This Tsunami is building and gathering force.  It threatens to unleash widespread death and destruction on Americans who will be unable to justify their worth to a world demanding function and profit. This is not just about Terri.  Millions of human lives are at risk.

We will have years to unravel the details about Terri’s case that have gone largely unreported in the mainstream media.  We will learn how easy it is to hire two expert witnesses to say a life is worthless and to get one death-prone judge to agree.  We will find all sorts of soft words to describe the process of killing.  And we will build a cadre of physicians who are willing to assist in the administration of death.

And just to make sure that we can live with ourselves, we will paint pretty pictures of death by force.  It will be quiet.  It will be compassionate.  It will be merciful.  But mostly, it will be profitable.

The day is not too far off when some compassionate judge will set aside your written directive to live.  Some relative who wants to preserve his inheritance or some hospital administrator who wants to improve the bottom line will show up in court.  The judge will agree with a well-paid lawyer that you would really want to die if you had known what life would come to when you mistakenly signed your living will.  And you will die.

It’s happened before.  In 1942, just as German mental patients were being finished off, Dr. Foster Kennedy, wrote his recipe for death in the official publication of the American Psychiatric Association.  “Parents who have seen the difficult life of a crippled or feebleminded child must be convinced that though they have the moral obligation to care for the unfortunate creatures, the wider public should not be obliged…to assume the enormous costs that long-term institutionalization might entail.”

The News Watch is on.  In the coming days, we will witness the results of the potential Indonesia tsunami in an immediate wave of destruction.  Many may die.  We will mourn.  And we will rebuild.

In America, the coming week will pass quietly.  One American woman will die for lack of food and water…because one man said she would have said she wanted to die, if she could have said she wanted to die, even though she didn’t say she wanted to die.  And we won’t need to mourn, because we did it for her good.

Terri’s death will be the crashing force of an earthquake happening miles below the water’s surface.  And seismologist Kerry Sieh’s words spell out the pending disaster both for Indonesia…and for America.  “I would guess that this has produced significant tsunamis and that there will be significant damage.”

 Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live thoughtlessly and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to give it true value.  To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live.  At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every will to live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own.  He experiences that other life in his own.  He accepts as good preserving life, promoting life, developing all life that is capable of development to its highest possible value.  He considers as evil destroying life, injuring life, repressing life that is capable of development.  This is the absolute, fundamental principle of ethics, and it is a fundamental postulate of thought.  

-Albert Schweitzer