Daily Archives: May 18, 2021

Mary Rose Somarriba, Opinion contributor Published 7:01 a.m. ET May 13, 2021 | Updated 5:51 p.m. ET May 13, 2021

A magical moment caught on camera during a 4D ultrasound. A tiny fetus waves to his mommy and daddy.

I wondered how many vulnerable moms this doctor had encouraged to remove their supposedly imperfect babies from the gene pool.

Recently, the head of Planned Parenthoodacknowledgedthe racist and eugenic beliefs of its founder, Margaret Sanger, and statedthat the organization is working to undo the damage these views have caused. I applaud Alexis McGill Johnson for openly discussing the ugly origins of Planned Parenthood, but completely disagree that the organization is capable of stopping what Sanger started. Eugenic motives are still alive and well in the abortion- and contraceptive-providing business, of which Planned Parenthood is a leader.

In March, I was lying on an exam table in a local hospital for a 20-week ultrasound, after which an attending doctor was brought in to look over the imaging and answer any questions I had. While the ultrasound tech said my babys physiological specs looked great, the doctor redirected the conversation to my childs possible risk of Cystic Fibrosis (CF), whichcauses damage primarily to the lungs and digestive system.

I am a CF carrier,and we havent tested if my husband is or not, so, the doctor encouraged me to get him tested so we could have a risk percentage for this child.

I told her I dont care to do so; I already have three healthy children with this man, CF risk or not. But she continued to push the issue. Would knowing the chance of CF for my child give us a head start in providing care for her? I asked. No, she said. My ultrasound shows no Down Syndrome risk, but CF cant be seen by ultrasound, she stressed. Id need my husband to be tested to have an estimate.

Children with special needs are a gift: I was pressured to abort my children. For my first baby, I gave in.

I repeatedly tried to wrap up the conversation;she repeatedly tried to focus on how there could be something wrong with my baby.Neither of us used the word "abortion,"but it was obvious she was trying to steer our conversation into a discussion about it. I felt like she was trying to convince me to care about something, a CF diagnosis, thatI didnt care about like she was trying to convince me to un-want my pregnancy.

The entire exchange had less to do with my 20-week-gestated babys development and more about genetic testing data that could render my child defective and disposable in her eyes.

The doctor seemed unable to see my childs humanity. I wondered how many vulnerable moms she had encouraged to remove their supposedly imperfect children from the gene pool. Detectable in utero or not, hardships are a part of life, I thought, and I dont believe they make life not worth living.

Mary Rose Somarriba in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 2017.(Photo: Jonathan Koslen)

I recently learned that my state of Ohio has a law prohibiting doctors from performing abortions if the woman seeking it has informed the doctor her motivation is fear the child has Down Syndrome. In the United States, about 67% of children who are diagnosed with Down Syndrome after genetic screening are aborted. In other countries it is much higher; 90% in the United Kingdom; 95% in Denmark; nearly 100% in Iceland.

Her death was a gift of mercy: I had a later abortion because I couldn't give my baby girl both life and peace

A panel of judges suspended the Ohio law from enforcement in 2019, but last month, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, allowing the law to be enforced once again.Laws like this aim to curb abortions sought for eugenic purposes i.e. for reasons of discrimination due to race, sex, or disability. In my case, the concern for my childs possible disability wasnt coming from me, but from the doctor pushing the CF fear on me.

Ive come to see abortion and eugenic thinking as quite intertwined, and what makes me completely disbelieve that Planned Parenthood cares is that we dont see them lobbying to expose or stop pressured abortions, or notifyingthe state when underage girls are raped and made pregnant by adult men.Despite purporting to exist for womens free choice, they make money from womens abortions, so they are not without incentive. According to the organization's recently released 2019-2020 annual report,although the number of patients seen remained unchanged from the year before,the number of abortions performed actually increased to nearly 355,000.

FILE- In this June 4, 2019, file photo, a Planned Parenthood clinic is photographed in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)(Photo: Jeff Roberson, AP)

Women who have had abortions can experience disenfranchised grief. Many abortion activists assume any question or limit on abortion is motivated by a desire to hold women back; it cant possibly be due to genuine care for the child. Some abortion activists fear any question or limit on abortion, even in cases of eugenics, will be the beginning of the end for their cause. Maybe it will be. Maybe seeing the fetus in utero as someone worth protecting from discrimination based on race, sex, or disability is the beginning of seeing them as having human rights.

An ultrasound photo in January 2018.(Photo: Courtesy Rocio Zuniga)

We can discuss this issue as a culture, but we cannot pretend Planned Parenthood, the United States largest abortion provider, is an impartial party in this conversation.

Former Planned Parenthood employee: Planned Parenthood cares about abortion above all, even patients' health

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black preborn babies were most likely to be abortedof all races in 2018.In some areas of New York City, Black children are more likely to be aborted than born alive.A 2012 study by Protecting Black Life found that79% of Planned Parenthoods surgical abortion facilities are within walking distance of minority neighborhoods. And the International Planned Parenthood Federation continues to push for abortion and contraceptionoverseas.

In multiple African countries, women havebeen implanted with contraceptive devices even after they were discontinued in the United States due to safety concerns, despite some of those women having less access to health care when they experience side effects and complications.According to Nigerian biomedical scientist and author Obianuju Ekeocha,aggressive contraceptive programs, far from helping African women, "will only make them sterile at the cheapest rate possible."

So consider me unconvinced that Planned Parenthood can undo its founders motives to reduce the number of unfit people born into the world. Abortion providers have a habit of seeing some lives as more worthy than others its ugly, I know but its kind of their thing.

Mary Rose Somarriba is editor of Natural Womanhood andassociate editor of Verily Magazine. She completed a Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship on the connections between pornography and sex trafficking.Find her at maryrosesomarriba.com.

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I was pressured for wanting my at-risk baby. Abortion and eugenics can't be separated. - USA TODAY

The Kelly Adirondack Center at Union College has been holding a series of virtual conversations on social justice issues in the Adirondack Park. It culminated Thursday with a discussion on The Color of COVID in the Park: an assessment of vaccine hesitancy among residents of color in the region.

The Kelly Adirondack Center at Union College is renowned for its Adirondack Research Center, which includes historical and scientific data on the Park.

Adirondack Diversity Initiative Director Dr. Nicole Hylton Patterson serves on the New York state Equity Vaccine Task Force and the North Country Health Equity Task Force. She has taught courses on experimentation and exploitation of People of Color and finds current vaccine hesitancy can be traced back to historical medical experimentation and eugenics.

Some significant moments in history were medical exploitation on Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities and well as low income people were very very prevalent and extreme," Hylton Patterson said. "And this has led to and is a large basis for vaccine hesitancy within these communities. All of those ideas about the human body have come out of the pseudoscience of phrenology, eugenics and those ideas become systemic racism when theyre incorporated and turned into policies and laws. And these policies and laws often impact who gets the vaccine, where vaccine is distributed, how vaccine access is communicated etc. And that is what the Health Equity Task Force in the North Country is here to deal with.

Sierra Club past president Aaron Mair notes that the early environmental movement which led to the protection of the Adirondacks is intertwined with the eugenics movement and still impacts how some populations approach the COVID vaccine.

A lot of the modern eugenics movement is anchored in with the naturalist field," Mair said. "We saw one of the consequences when denoting and classifying people, flora and fauna in terms of superior and inferior species. So it is interesting that something as important as the naturalist field and natural movement and the environmental movement in its early 19th and early 20th century antecedents was a core pillar in what would become the classification the pseudoscientific classification of race and racial purity which has led and still drives a lot of the conversations today.

Another factor leading to hesitancy is the political diversity across the region. Dr. Hylton Patterson says voting patterns appear to correlate with unwillingness to get the vaccine.

Theres no solid data but if youre looking anecdotally or at rhetoric I believe it would be fair to say that those on the far right politically are less willing to take the vaccine," said Hylton Patterson.

Dr. Hylton Patterson is working with seven vaccine hubs and the North Country Vaccine Equity Task Force. The goal include ensuring widespread equity, developing a regional plan, and creating a task force to pay special attention to BIPOC and low-income residents of the region. Dr. Patterson outlined their outreach to vulnerable populations, also including the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, Amish, and migrant farmworkers.

My job is to focus on these communities," Hylton Patterson said. "To build relationships. To identify gatekeepers who can then work with the different vaccine hubs to make sure that our approaches are culturally sensitive and are effective at reaching the North Country. Because we know that the North Countrys population is largely rural, largely white, large pockets of poverty, dense poverty. So we have lots of challenges.

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Kelly Adirondack Center Discussion Focuses On Reasons For BIPOC Vaccine Hesitancy In The Adirondacks - WAMC

By George Magakis

Rick Santorum said that there was nothing here to speak of when Europeans arrived on the continent. He said that we birthed a nation, meaning white people, preferably English.

When Europeans arrived on the continent for the first time in the 15th Century, there were 60 million indigenous peoples with rich cultures that have influenced American culture. At the same time, there were 55 million people in Europe. Where did all of these 60 million go? Genocide over the centuries by white colonists & the people who birthed a nation.

Santorums statements are part of the rights attempts to present a white sanitized version of American history. In the 1960s, William F. Buckley in his debate with James Baldwin about racism argued that it was necessary to lie about American history and focus on its exceptionalism and ideals. Nothing would be gained from looking at the ugliness in American history. This was needed to be done for future generations, for the kids. White kids that is.

As a result, myth making has been integral on the right. The genocide of indigenous peoples is downplayed. Andrew Jacksons expulsion of indigenous peoples from the eastern states in the 1830s is hardly ever mentioned. Commentators like Bill OReilly have argued that slaves were treated well. Others on the right claim that the Civil War was not about slavery, but attacks on southern culture by an industrialized north.

White violence against blacks by the KKK & other southerners, the epidemic of lynching , false imprisonment of Back people, segregation, and Jim Crow laws that existed into the late 20th Century are glossed over on the right. Lindsey Graham has argued that there is no systemic racism in America, because we elected a Black president. He fails to mention that Obama never got a majority of the white votes. No wonder Republicans want to suppress minority votes.

Draconian immigration laws that forbade Chinese from coming here and becoming citizens is swept under the rug even though the ones that were allowed here built the railroads. This country was built on the sweat and labor of slaves and imported labor. Cotton was king in the first half of the 19th Century. Slaves were worked 12-14 hours a day, often beaten, families were broken up, and wives and daughters of slaves were casually raped by white masters.

Slaves were treated as units of labor and mortgaged to buy more slaves. Northerners and Europeans were heavily invested in cotton industry, which was dominant at the time. In the early 20th Century, the eugenics movement became popular and many undesirables were sterilized. And there were the infamous medical experiments on Black people in Tuskegee in 1931.

During WWII, Japanese Americans were interned during the war & their property often stolen by white people. As a result of all this whitewashing of history, many white people have no understanding of what Black Lives Matter is really about for example.

Santorum and others of his ilk want to sweep this ugly history under the rug and talk about American greatness & exceptionalism. The audience that Santorum speaks to do not know much about American history, have little interest in delving deeper, and applaud people like Santorum, because he makes them feel good about themselves in living a lie.

George Magakis Jr. writes from Norristown, Pa.

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Rick Santorum furthers the rights lies about American history | Opinion - pennlive.com

Science is an ever-refining process using long-standing procedures to find truth.

Scientism is a philosophical belief used by macro evolutionists, materialists and atheists (interchangeable terms) to impose the concept that science and belief in an intelligent designer are separated by a chasm impossible to bridge.

Since the later 1800s and the 20th century, the new atheist scientists of all disciplines have tried to replace the belief of most of the earlier scientific revolution geniuses in the Judeo-Christian God hypothesis with a system despising a designing intelligence. They demand that all questions must and can only be answered by natural means (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Feb. 16, 2006).

Science is now becoming a set of politicized, dogmatic principles that cannot be questioned or evaluated, i.e. human-caused climate change, macro evolution and COVID-19. They claim ownership of science. But is it so?

Examples of first publication: Sir Isaac Newton described gravity in his Principia Mathematica (1686) or the photo Earthrise from Apollo 8 on Dec. 24, 1968, and Blue Marble from Apollo 17 on Dec. 7, 1972.

Job 26:7 describes the Earth rotating and orbiting the sun, suspended by nothing (gravity), 2,300 years before Newton and 2,800 years before the Apollos.

The first secular writing of the water cycle of the Earth was by Bernard Palissy in 1580. Job 36:27, 37:11, and Ecclesiastes 1:7 describe water molecules as vapor being uplifted by air currents and then condensing as rain, and returning to the sea. The water cycle is still incompletely understood.

In the 1920s, a Japanese meteorologist, Wasaburo Oishi, using special balloons, detected the jet stream around Mount Fuji.

Ecclesiastes 1:4 The wind whirleth about continually.

Ecclesiastes 11: 5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mothers womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things.

Modern atmospheric physics research observed that energy (light) from the sun controls the wind systems of the Earth.

Astrophysicists determined that stars of the Constellation Pleiades (the Seven Sisters), are gravitationally bound together, while the stars of Orion are drifting apart.

An engineering discovery is that electrical currents can transmit radio and TV signals at lightning speed.

Job 38:35 knew that concept.

In the 12th century, the philosopher Moses Maimonides deduced from Genesis that 10 dimensions exist. This has been corroborated by modern physicists.

A warfare argument by materialists was developed in the late 19th century period of historical revisionism. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew D. White (1896) appeared after Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species in 1859.

For years, the subtitle On the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, has been omitted from Darwins title.

This concept of favored races was the basis of the eugenics movement to rid humanity of undesirables and those deemed unfit to live. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an eugenics movement pioneer.

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision upheld a Virginia law allowing the forced sterilization of people to promote the health of the patient and the welfare of society. Worldwide forced sterilizations of the unfit and the planned extermination of races in the 1930s and 1940s occurred.

With the continuing widespread acceptance of no accountability for our free will actions to someone greater than us, that planned result happened. Romans 2:11, Mark 12:31, John 13:34, and others speak of loving others above yourself, with everyone being favored in Jesus teachings.

Is it realistic to believe that the 3.6 billion letter-long (3.6 giga-basepairs) human DNA code and the variations of that code in plants and animals repeatedly occurred by chance? If Darwinists wish to believe life exists without initial design, they must believe information originally created itself. The most advanced computer codes, which require a human intelligence to design, are as a baby crawling compared to the DNA code.

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that ... the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to be satisfied to get it going. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, 1981.

Is it reasonable that the following occurred by chance: The 574 amino acid building blocks of the hemoglobin molecule designed to carry oxygen, sequenced and folded in precise order? The random occurrence of the 50-plus fine-tuning requirements from the cosmological to the sub-atomic? The thousands of proteins in the plant and animal kingdoms? Digitized information and error-correcting properties of DNA?

These are only partial, synchronous requirements for life. To believe in such repeated, successful randomness is a leap of faith in chance, and is a new faith religion.

The two biggest questions at the intersection of science and faith are the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Macro evolutionists believe in the impossible mathematical odds of all of the above happening by chance. Even given 13.8 billion years of the universe, there is not enough time. Evolutionist Richard Dawkins states: The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

I observe the same properties and conclude they are exactly what to expect of a transcendent intelligence that has acted periodically and purposefully, with new information. I probably cant convince them, but can leave them with no excuse.

Suggested sources for information are: The Bible, The Language of God, Francis S. Collins, director, Human Genome Project; Return of the God Hypothesis and Signature in the Cell, Stephen C. Meyer; The Cost, Russell Miller; Canceled Science, Eric Hedin: Purpose and Desire, J. Scott Turner; Cosmic Codes, Chuck Missler; Science and the Mind of the Maker, Melissa Cain Travis; The Miracle of the Cell, Michael Denton; and Foresight, Marcos Eberlin.

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Commentary: What is possible to believe and what is not - Lewiston Morning Tribune