THANKSGIVING AND THE CULTURE OF DEATH
November 22nd, 2006 by Peter
The day Gary Horn’s son was born three months ahead of schedule and weighing barely a pound, a team of intensive care doctors began a feverish battle to save the baby.
Now, David is 13 years old – and Horn has trouble hiding his disdain for the doctors who rescued his perilously premature child. To Horn, the heroic efforts in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center gave his family a burden, not a gift.
“He has no quality of life,” Horn says of David, who has cerebral palsy and mental retardation. “He’s had a lifetime of surgeries, he doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t go outside and play.
“His life sucks.”
Horn, of West Harford, is brutally honest about a question that has vexed experts and ethicists: Is it always right to save an infant who is born too small and too early just because the technology exists to do so? Or, if the baby is facing a lifetime of disability, is there a time when it’s appropriate to let the newborn die?
It got worse with today’s news that taxpayer-funded embryo destroying research is moving forward:
Connecticut handed out $20 million to scientists working on groundbreaking research into the use of embryonic stem cells Tuesday, becoming among the first states in the nation to step into a role the federal government has refused to take on…
Scientists believe stem cells hold keys to treatments for a host of diseases, but some critics argue that research using embryonic cells – which are obtained by destroying the developing embryo – should be banned or severely restricted.
The Courant story, excerpted above, notes that the state turned down—for now—a proposal by a UConn researcher “who wants to become the first scientist in the world to clone a human embryo to produce stem cells.” But it’s clear from the New Haven Register’s story that the state is especially focused on embryo-destructive research:
Dr. David W. Rowe, director of regenerative medicine and skeletal development in the UConn School of Dental Medicine, said, “We’re very pleased” by the grants.
Rowe said UConn may have submitted slightly better applications. “This was a case of ‘grantsmanship.’ Yale didn’t really appreciate the legislation. The panel wanted research involved (with) human embryonic stem cells, stuff that’s not fundable by the National Institutes of Health,” he said.
“They just didn’t read the tea leaves,” Rowe said…
Dr. Robert J. Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said Yale had a broader research approach and believes much research could be done in animals. Apparently, the committee was more interested in human embryonic stem cell proposals, he said.
It’s tempting at a moment like this to wonder if the culture of death’s apparent stranglehold on our state will ever be broken. But it’s a temptation we should not give in to. The Connecticut that could celebrate without reservation Gov. Wilbur Cross’ 1936 Thanksgiving Proclamation is, in many ways, the Connecticut of today. Here is that proclamation, from my Nov. 23, 2005 blog:
In 1936 Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross, noting that “it has seemed good to our people to join together in praising the Creator and Preserver,” issued the following Thanksgiving Proclamation.
A Connecticut Thanksgiving Proclamation
State of Connecticut
By His Excellency WILBUR L. CROSS, Governor
Proclamation
Time out of mind at this turn of the seasons when the hardy oak leaves rustle in the wind and the frost gives a tang to the air and the dusk falls early and the friendly evenings lengthen under the heel of Orion, it has seemed good to our people to join together in praising the Creator and Preserver, who has brought us by a way that we did not know to the end of another year. In observance of this custom, I appoint Thursday, the twenty-sixth of November, as a day of
Public Thanksgiving
for the blessings that have been our common lot and have placed our beloved State with the favored regions of earth — for all the creature comforts: the yield of the soil that has fed us and the richer yield from labor of every kind that has sustained our lives — and for all those things, as dear as breath to the body, that quicken man’s faith in his manhood, that nourish and strengthen his spirit to do the great work still before him: for the brotherly word and act; for honor held above price; for steadfast courage and zeal in the long, long search after truth; for liberty and for justice freely granted by each to his fellow and so as freely enjoyed; and for the crowning glory and mercy of peace upon our land; — that we may humbly take heart of these blessings as we gather once again with solemn and festive rites to keep our Harvest Home.
Given under my hand and seal of the State at the Capitol, in Hartford, this twelfth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty six and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and sixty-first.
Wilbur L. Cross
By His Excellency’s Command:
C. John Satti Secretary
The Family Institute of Connecticut thanks God for our many blessings, in particular the victories we experienced throughout 2006. We are especially grateful to all of you, who, “in the long, long, search after truth” made our fight to protect Connecticut’s heritage of faith and family possible. “The great work still before us” can be accomplished—if we do not lose heart in the face of the culture of death and if we remember to Whom the victory truly belongs.
FIC wishes all of you a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.
