There has been a great deal of talk in political circles lately on the topic of rape and abortion.  Several persons of note have publicly stated that there should be no exceptions for use of the medical procedure which was guaranteed by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.  The most recent statement was by Indiana Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock who said that rape should not be an exception because if a pregnancy resulted from rape, the fetus should be thought of as  a gift from God.  Missouri Senate Candidate Todd Akin recently made a similar remark, arguing  in the case of a "legitimate rape" a woman's body will prevent conception so there is no need for a rape exemption.  And of course, during the Presidential Primary season, former Senator Rick Santorum opined that life begins at conception so abortion is murder.

Each of these men have stated that their opinions in this matter are a result of deeply held religious beliefs and buttressed by a powerful faith in the Almighty.

Well, first, let us note that all of these persons are men who can never get pregnant and leave it at that.

But if you are a believer (and I am) God works his will in the real world, so before you make such a firm conclusion, it is worthwhile to look at how the real world works.  Akin's remark turns out to simply not be true.  Rape victims do get pregnant at a rate that is consistent with other sexual activity.  And, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, scientific studies of the matter show that anywhere from 10% to 25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in a miscarriage.  This number cannot take into account the unknown and unknowable number of pregnancies that end in miscarriage without the mother ever knowing that she was, for one brief but unknown moment, pregnant.

Look here, God surely isn't murdering all of those babies.  I don't think he works that way.  In fact, I think it must be self-evident that a human life cannot begin at conception because God is not stupid.

Death Panels

OK, as I have said before, I Am Not A Lawyer, I just read stuff they do.

So, apparently according to Betsy McCoughey (pronounced McCoy, May God Rest DeForrest Kelly's Tortured Soul) the reason to fear the 'end of life' consultation provisions of H R 3200 (Link is to the actual text of the bill in PDF format, it will require a bit of bandwidth to load....) is because Medicare reimbursement for doctors is tied to performance criteria and how many "Advanced Care Planning Consultations" a doctor has with their patients and how many actual "advanced directives" are produced, and of couse, are followed in the event they become operative will be part of the criteria. So of course, since their payment rates are involved, doctors are incentivized to make every patient have an end of life consultation and since the end of life consultation must include (yep, they said what it must include) discussion of "artificially administered nutrition and hydration" which is of course so horrible, we'll all immediately sign off on not receiving any of that and agree to die gracefully, thereby saving everybody a lot of money, it's MANDATORY, not VOLUNTARY. Uhmm, that's her argument, I don't get it so I bet I didn't state it right.

But thanks be to Google is your friend, here's what it actually says on Pp 431-432:

24 (A) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of re-
25 porting data on quality measures for covered
431 •HR 3200 IH

1 professional services furnished during 2011 and
2 any subsequent year, to the extent that meas-
3 ures are available, the Secretary shall include
4 quality measures on end of life care and ad-
5 vanced care planning that have been adopted or
6 endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if
7 appropriate. Such measures shall measure both
8 the creation of and adherence to orders for life
9 sustaining treatment.
432 •HR 3200 IH

Yes, End of Life orders defined in the bill include orders for using 'Life Sustaining Treatment" as well as withdrawal of same. You decide and the doctor gets to follow your orders. He just has to go through a prescribed list of things to talk about with you

1 ‘‘(F)(i) Subject to clause (ii), an explanation of
2 orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar
3 orders, which shall include—

a whole bunch of things listed on pages 426 through 428. You can go read it, Google (and my link) is your friend.

If you want (and can afford the copays and deductibles without bankrupting your family) you can demand that heroic measures be taken until a physician is willing to say you are dead, dead, dead, beyond any hope of resuscitation of any kind with any medical technology available in any hospital they can move you to without you being made dead, dead, dead, beyond any hope of resuscitation. And the doctor's performance criteria (on which 5 percent IIRC of his reimbursement hinges) is "Did the directive get followed?"

Ok, so they're reaching to say government doctors will decide when to pull the plug on Grandma. Now you know it, too.

Ask yourself. "Why do they make this s.... (stuff) up?" Do you suppose it's maybe because they haven't got any other arguments? Any other arguments at all? This one reeks of desperation.

Of course, it worked in 1994....

On September 30, 1993, the last day of Hillary Clinton's congressional committee testimony, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by McCaughey, who said she had read and reread the 239-page draft health care reform plan and concluded that the plan differed markedly from the Clinton White House's public statements and that the plan would in her opinion have "devastating consequences."

Yes, just this sort of devastating consequences. Only it's a little harder to carry the lie when any of us can just download the bill and read it ourselves. Yep, Google is your friend. Unless it's not.;o)