Daily Archives: April 13, 2022

Last year, Canadian lawmakers approved legislation that expanded the eligibility for euthanasia and assisted suicide to the mentally ill, and now policymakers, doctors, and others are debating what the law will mean for medical practice in the country.

There is debate over whether a doctor may reasonably say that patients with depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder have realistic prospects of recovery, and debate over whether they have the ability to consent to end their life, the National Post reports. There are concerns that the availability of euthanasia and assisted suicide will make it harder to treat those with mental illness.

The legislation, set to take effect in March 2023, stripped the requirement that a person seeking euthanasia or assisted suicide must have a reasonably foreseeable death. It now allows for a person to seek legal euthanasia or assisted suicide even if mental illness is their sole underlying condition.

The legislation was written in response to a 2019 Quebec Superior Court decision which found that limiting euthanasia and assisted suicide only to people with reasonably foreseeable deaths was a violation of human rights. The province was sued by two people with chronic, but not terminal or progressive, conditions who sought access to assisted suicide.

Canadas Catholic bishops had strongly opposed the 2021 legislation.

Our position remains unequivocal. Euthanasia and assisted suicide constitute the deliberate killing of human life in violation of Gods Commandments; they erode our shared dignity by failing to see, to accept, and accompany those suffering and dying, Archbishop Richard Gagnon of Winnipeg, then- president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an April 9, 2021 letter.

Some doctors who work with the mentally ill criticized the change, worrying that some patients felt helpless because they had not been referred to the right specialized care or lacked access to it, or because mental illness by nature can take years to treat properly.

Many parts of Canada even lack psychiatrists to treat mental illness, so fewer still are available to assess a patient for a euthanasia or assisted suicide request, the National Post reports.

Dr. Viren Naik, medical director for the medical aid-in-dying program in the Ottawa area, told the National Post that most providers are unwilling to see patients not in danger of imminent death but who still wish to be assessed for euthanasia or assisted suicide.

A 2021 Ontario Medical Association survey of its psychiatry section found that only 28 percent of doctors would support allowing medical assisted suicide when mental illness is the sole underlying condition, and only 12 percent said they would support it for their own patients.

A joint parliamentary committee studying the new law must report by June 23.

The Liberal Party-controlled government has also tasked an expert panel that will present its report on the law sometime this month. The panel must consider parameters and safeguards for how people with mental illness should be assessed for and provided euthanasia and assisted suicide, if eligible.

Dr. Sonu Gaind, who does not oppose assisted suicide in general, told the National Post that the most fundamental safeguard has already been removed in cases of mental illness. There is no scientific evidence that doctors can predict when a mental illness has no cure.

Gaind, a past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, is chief of psychiatry at Humber River Hospital in Toronto and is the physician chair of the medical assisted suicide team.

Theres no doubt that mental illnesses lead to grievous suffering, as grievous, even more grievous in some cases than other illnesses, Gaind told the National Post. Its the irremediability part that our framework also requires and that scientifically cannot be met. That we cannot do. Thats the problem.

Depression, he noted affects a patients outlook on the future.

You dont think about the future the same way. You see nothing. And theres that hopelessness, he said.

Gaind said isolation and poverty could play a role in assisted suicide requests. People seeking assisted suicide due to the prospect of foreseeable death do so out of concerns about their autonomy and dignity and tend to come from a higher socioeconomic standing.

Those seeking euthanasia or assisted suicide solely for mental illness, however, tend to be disproportionately women. In the Netherlands, women outnumber men by two-to-one among such patients. Gaind voiced concern that this parallels the ratio of suicide attempts. Most who attempt suicide and fail do not do so again, he noted.

So, the concern is, are we then shifting this transient suicidality into a permanent death? he asked.

The Netherlands has allowed assisted suicide for those with irredeemable mental suffering since 2002. At the same time, 90% of initial requests do not end in assisted suicide, with most request denied by psychiatrists and some requests withdrawn by the patients.

The Canadian Medical Association on April 4 published a study that surveyed Netherlands psychiatrists about assisted suicide for the mentally ill, the U.K. newspaper The Independent reports. The study summarized their views: making meaningful prognostic claims about psychiatric suffering is challenging or, some feared, impossible.

Guidelines for euthanasia and assisted suicide could emphasize a retrospective view of a patients history of failed treatments rather than ask psychiatrists to evaluate prospects for improvement.

Jocelyn Downie, a professor of law and medicine at Dalhousie University, said those who seek assisted suicide are generally not forced to undergo other kinds of treatment, such as chemotherapy for cancer patients, out of respect for autonomy. At the same time, she told the National Post that if a patient refuses basic treatments, that to me is a red flag about their decision-making capacity that merits deeper scrutiny from an advising doctor even though the patient might still have that capacity.

Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, a Denver, Colo.-based internal medicine doctor who is an eating disorders specialist, made the news for co-authoring academic paper advocating assisted suicide for patients with severe anorexia nervosa.

Gaudiani, who does not endorse assisted suicide for other psychiatric conditions, told the National Post an exceptionally tiny fraction of people suffer from anorexia so severe that they could quality for a terminal diagnosis. She cited the dangers the condition causes to patients including malnutrition and bone damage.

Her stand drew criticism and concern from those who said the condition is treatable. A patient who is starving or severely malnourished may lack the mental capacity to consent. Several doctors told the Colorado Sun that her paper is dangerous to patients.

Dr. Blake Woodside, a professor in the University of Torontos psychiatry department and former director of Toronto General Hospitals eating disorders program, said offering medical assisted suicide to those with anorexia nervosa would be complicated beyond belief.

Most people with anorexia nervosa do not want to die, and most people with severe anorexia nervosa do not see themselves at risk of death. The majority of people with bad anorexia nervosa have significant denial about how severe their illness is, Woodside told the National Post.

Dr. Angela Guarda, a psychiatrist who is director of the eating disorders program at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, told the Colorado Sun that assisted suicide medication for people with anorexia is alarming and fraught with problems.

It is in direct contradiction to treating mental illness, promoting hope for recovery and improving quality of life for our patients, said Guarda, who has testified against assisted suicide legislation in Maryland.

She said that the condition is treatable and a patients ambivalence about treatment is one of the characteristics of the condition. Guarda questioned a patients ability to consent to assisted suicide because it is impossible to disentangle this request from the effects of the disorder on reasoning, and especially so in the chronically ill, demoralized patient who is likely to feel a failure.

Gangon, in his letter on behalf of Canadas Catholic bishops conference, expressed concern that the new law will result in those with mental illness or disabilities being pressured into ending their lives. The legislation did not include conscience protections for medical professionals who do not wish to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.

There has also been legal pressure on hospices with a history of opposing assisted suicide or euthanasia, including hospices with an explicitly Christian identity.

Excerpt from:

As Canada normalizes euthanasia, assisted suicide for mentally ill, doctors voice concerns - Angelus News

13 April 2022 by Rosalind English

Lings v Denmark (Application no. 15136/20)

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that states have a broad margin of discretion in applying their criminal law to cases of assisted suicide. The applicants conviction may have constituted an interference with his rights, but that interference was prescribed by the Danish criminal law, which pursued the legitimate aims of the protection of health and morals and the rights of others.Denmark had not acted disproportionately by convicting him.

Law Pod UK recently ran an episode with former Court of Appeal judge Sir Stephen Sedley and Trevor Moore, the director of the campaign group My Death, My Decision, in which we dealt with this difficult subject in detail. Sir Stephen is a victim of Parkinsons disease and his contribution to the debate is profoundly important. I have therefore quoted extensively from the article Sir Stephen wrote for the London Review of Books in October 2021, A Decent Death.

Those campaigning for a change in the law in this field object to the use of the word euthanasia and I have respected this position in the following case report. It should be noted at the outset that the applicant physician was a member of an association called Physicians in Favour of Euthanasia. This is the English translation. The Danish suggests something closer to assisted dying: Aktiv Ddshjlp.

Background facts and law

The applicant, a retired physician, and member of an association in favour of assisted dying, was convicted of one count of attempted assisted suicide (count 1) and two counts of assisted suicide (counts 2 and 3) concerning three persons, A, B and C respectively, under Article 240 of the Danish Penal Code. He was sentenced to 60 days imprisonment, suspended. Maintaining that he had merely provided general advice about suicide, the applicant complained that his conviction was in breach of his right to provide information which is part of the right to freedom of expression under Article 10.

A had been in contact with the applicant, who had helped him obtain the required medication to end his life. But A survived his attempt.

B had become paralysed in most of his body following a stroke; he no longer found life worth living and wanted to die. He had tried to travel to Dignitas but no psychiatrist in Denmark would supply a certificate as to his mental preparedness, as required by the Swiss authorities. B therefore turned to the applicants organisation for help. He died after holding an informal farewell gathering.

C, an 85 year old woman, suffered from many infirmities but was not seriously ill. She wished to end her life and had procured the necessary pills herself.She was very frightened of the potential risk that she would fail, and she was nervous as to whether she would be able to go through with it on her own. She contacted the applicant who then passed on information from his associations lawful guide on the website. C subsequently died.

It was not in dispute that the applicants conviction had constituted an interference with Article 10. But this interference was prescribed by law section 240 of the Penal Code which had pursued the legitimate aims of the protection of health and morals and the rights of others. The main question was whether or not the application of section 240 of the Penal Code in the applicants case had been necessary in a democratic society.

There was no support in the Courts relevant case-law under Articles 2 and 8 for concluding that a right to assisted suicide existed under the Convention, including in the form of providing information about or assistance that went beyond providing general information about suicide. Accordingly, as the applicant had not been prosecuted for providing general information about suicide, including the guide on suicide that he had prepared and that had been made publicly available on the internet, but had been prosecuted for having assisted suicide through specific acts, the case was not about the applicants right to provide information that others under the Convention had a right to receive.

In the circumstances of the case, the Court saw no reason to call into question the Danish Supreme Courts conclusion that the applicant had broken the law. As regards counts 1 and 2 that court had found unanimously that the applicant had provided guidance as well as procured medications, by specific acts, for A and B, in the knowledge that they had been intended for their suicide.

[the applicant] assisted her [C] in a specific and significant way in committing suicide, and that the advice is not exempt from punishment due to the circumstance that his advice was based on a general guide that had lawfully been uploaded to the website of Physicians in Favour of Euthanasia.

Such acts were clearly covered by section 240 of the Penal Code, and implicitly, did not give rise to an issue under Article 10. It had been taken into account as an aggravating circumstance that to a certain extent the acts had been committed in a systematic manner and that the applicant had been charged on three counts, the last act being committed after he had been provisionally charged by the police for violation of section 240 of the Penal Code. The applicants old age had been considered a mitigating circumstance. Further, taking into account the email exchanges between the applicant and C, the Court considered that the reasons relied on by the Supreme Court when finding that the act fell within the scope of section 240 of the Penal Code had been relevant and sufficient.

Comment

It is not unlawful in Denmark to publish a guide to pharmaceutical methods of suicide on the Internet or elsewhere. The applicant had prepared a guide Medicines suited for suicide (Lgemidler der er velegnede til selvmord), which was available on the internet. The guide combined a detailed procedure for how to commit suicide, including a list of about 300 common pharmaceuticals suited to committing suicide, and a description of the dose required to go through with the suicide, possible combinations of pharmaceuticals and caveats about the various pharmaceuticals.

it was undisputed that the applicant could legally publish his guide Medicines suited for suicide on the internet and could encourage to suicide if not directed at specific persons. [para 58]

In the Danish Supreme Court, the applicant submitted that he had only assisted A, B and C by providing guidance and information, which was already legally accessible on the internet, and which failed to reach the threshold under section 240 of the Penal Code.

In the case of C, two of the judges in the Supreme Court concluded that the applicant had not broken the law. They found that the information given by the applicant to C from the guidance lawfully published in the internet was not of such a nature that the information could independently be considered to constitute a punishable act of assistance in her ending her life.

Accordingly, the minority found that the applicant should have been acquitted on this count of violation of section 240 of the Penal Code, in conjunction with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the right to receive and give information. In this respect they referred to the judgment by Strasbourg delivered on 29October 1992 in cases 14234/88 and 14235/88, Open Door and Dublin Well Woman v. Ireland.

Three of the judges the majority found that there was a distinction to be drawn between the legal general guide available on the internet and the specific information provided by the applicant to C. In their view, the applicants specific advice was suited to a greater extent than the general guide to intensifying Cs desire to commit suicide.

The Strasbourg Court considered extensive comparative law evidence about assisted suicide. It noted that in a number of countries, euthanasia is criminalised, whereas assisted suicide is lawful in other countries in certain circumstances. The latter countries are Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Estonia and Finland.

Assisted suicide is not criminalised in Sweden, but the Swedish Parliament recently adopted an amending Act making it a punishable act in certain circumstances to encourage or otherwise exert influence on another person to take his or her own life. In pursuance of this amending Act, any person who incites or otherwise exerts influence on another person to take his or her own life is punished for encouragement of suicide or negligent incitement to suicide.

This is the vital distinction that Stephen Sedley makes between encouragement, and assistance, two concepts that are disastrously conflated in English law.

Rather than recognise this fundamental difference, the law continues to inhibit the entitlement of a sane individual to draw a line under a life that may well have been fulfilling and worthwhile but has now become unbearable, by threatening to prosecute and jail anyone who regardless of motive gives them the help they need to end it. (LRB, October 2021)

In Switzerland, Germany and Austria assisted suicide is lawful. In Switzerland assisted suicide is offered by various organisations although it is (of course) punished by imprisonment or a pecuniary penalty if the person assisting in the suicide is motivated by self-serving ends. In Germany, assisted suicide was decriminalised as a consequence of a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court. Similarly, assisted suicide was decriminalised in Austria since 31 December 2021 as a consequence of a decision made by the Constitutional Court of Austria.

It is noteworthy that neither Austria nor Germany had to wait until their respective parliaments grasped this nettle; their courts got on with a humane and modern update to existing law without undue delay or fuss. In this country there have been various attempts via Private Members Bills to allow assisted dying for adults with a terminal illness. Baroness Meachers Private Members Bill, which successfully passed itsSecond Readingin the House of Lords on 22 October last year, has yet to be debated in the Commons. What constitutes a terminal illness is open to question however and as a result an arbitrary criterion of six months has been put into place. As Sir Stephen points out,

Its here, too, that the principal legislative alternative to the present blanket prohibition on assisting suicide the six months to live test encounters a tripwire. As the Court of Appeal pointed out in Noel Conways case, the prospective lifespan of a terminally ill patient is not a fact capable of exact ascertainment: it is inevitably an educated guess. Most of us know of cases where a patient has died within days of, say, a one-year prognosis, and of other cases where the patient has long outlived the prediction. This is one reason the proposal to confine assisted suicide to patients with six months or less to live in other words, to reduce it to a right to an accelerated death has become a hostage to fortune, bogging the argument down in wrangles about predictability and enabling its opponents to sidestep the bigger issue of the right of a rational patient to put an end to indefinite and unbearable suffering.

Sadly it looks as if we are going to continue to see the game of buck-passing on this issue between courts and parliament, country and region, national courts and the Strasbourg Court, for decades to come. Strasbourg says that the subject of assisted suicide concerns matters of morals, something which speaks in favour of a wide margin of appreciation in the present case. But surely morals are the central concern of the Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms and its enforcement body in Strasbourg? The assertion that differences between signatory states (the comparative law research is set out in paragraphs 26 to 32 of the judgment) prevents the Court from intervening simply because Member States of the Council of Europe are far from having reached a consensus on this issue (para 60) begs the very question of what the Convention, and the Court, are for.

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Conviction of doctor under assisted suicide prohibition not in breach of Convention - UK Human Rights Blog

MEMPHIS, TENN. (WATE) A report from theNashville Humane Associationshows the director of the Lauderdale County Animal shelter admitted to shooting animals instead of putting them down with drugs.

In the report from January, Terry Kissell told a Humane Association employee that he had been shooting animals to euthanize them because their paperwork had issues and their euthanasia solution was expired.

A detective with the Lauderdale County Sheriffs Department said he began investigating the shelter in Ripley in March after he received a complaint about six dogs being shot at the facility. However, he could not find any evidence to back it up, and charges were never filed.

Detective Micah Middlebrook said that Kissell admitted to shooting and killing one dog, but said he did it because the dog was aggressive and charged him.

At least two rescue groups said the husky was very friendly and not vicious.

It was not aggressive. It was Snowball, said Amber Reynolds withHalfway Home Animal Rescue. I have pictures of him hugging me, loving on me.

The Lauderdale Animal Shelter was temporarily closed in 2015, and a part-time employee was suspended after a local rescue group found a live puppy in a freezer.

Debbie Flowers with Ripley Animal Rescue said she came to the shelter to take pictures of puppies and heard several had been euthanized. Flowers said she checked the freezer and noticed one still had a pulse.

Reynolds said last week, she found one dead puppy and two live puppies in a dark, cold closet at the Lauderdale County Shelter and was told the dead puppy was put in the closet because it was dying.

It was colder than it was outside, said Reynolds. The puppies didnt have a blanket. They were just lying on the plastic crate floor.

Lauderdale County Mayor Maurice Gaines said he didnt know about any puppies being left in a closet and said 99% of the claims made against the shelter were false.

I think there was an issue where a vicious dog was put down, said Mayor Gaines. He was investigated. Everything was dropped.

Rescue workers said they found out dogs were being shot after Kissell was suspended and said an employee who shared pictures of Kissell with the dog and gun was fired.

The mayor would not say if Kissell had been temporarily removed from his job.

In the report, the Humane Association employee said all of the dogs in the shelter appeared to be in good health. However, she said the kennels and dogs were wet, and the shelter had no medical records to prove the dogs had been vaccinated or de-wormed.

CASA Transport and Halfway Home both rescue dogs regularly and say the Kennels are sprayed down with water while the dogs are inside them and said some dogs have not been out of their cages in several months.

Things we see are urine burns on the dogs that we pull because there arent beds. They are lying on the wet floor in their own feces and urine most of the time, said Brittnie Battle withCASA Transport.

Battle said she has tried to rescue as many dogs as possible but says she has been banned from the shelter since posting aTik Tok videoasking the community to support their local shelter.

We are pulling dogs every week. So unless we are able to do that those dogs stay there, said Battle. Him shutting us out is a death sentence for the rest of the animals coming in.

We asked the mayor about the report from the Nashville Humane Association but have not heard back from him.

Read the original here:

Humane Association says Tennessee shelter put down dogs by shooting them - The Hill

Pain can flow only as deep as the heart can love.

Even though we know that the lives of our pets are short compared to our own, we tend to avoid thinking about losing them.

Courtesy photo Dr. Mavi Graves tending to a patient.

We actually grow stronger attachments with our pets than with other people, said Adam Clark, a social worker and affiliate member of the faculty at the Institute for Human-Animal Connection in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. The security and authentic affection we get from them is different than any human relationships, which come with strings attached. We dont think about what to do if an animal gets sick, runs away, or how to cope.

In general, there are three options to help pet owners and their pet with the pets end-of-life journey: letting the pet die a natural death at home, a pet hospice program, and euthanasia, although in some situations all these options are available through pet hospice care.

It can be a prolonged or very short journey, said Mavi Graves, a veterinarian with Caring Pathways, which provides end of life care for pets and support for their owners. They service the Denver and Northern Colorado area, and have an office in Berthoud.

We are available 24/7 and provide in-home euthanasia, in-home pet medical consults, tele-advice appointments, in-home hospice care and cremation, burial and memorial keepsakes, she said.

Its a sacred time in a pets life and we want to do right by them.

It helped me tremendously to know having a vet come to the house was an option, said Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist and author of several books on pets including The Last Walk, about her dog Odys end of life journey and her struggles to do the best she could to help him.

Most pet owners dont know how to read signs of pain, or how to figure out what resources there are to relieve discomfort. When her book on pet loss came out she was flooded with responses from people who had lost an animal and were deeply traumatized, she said.

You dont have a hospice like you do with a human, you dont have any of that support. Youre on your own. It can get really burdensome.

Neither the vet nor the family have all the tools that can help take them through these complicated and emotional decisions, said Amir Shanan, a certified hospice and palliative care veterinarian.

Pet hospice care involves pet owners and a professional team working together to decide and do what is best for the animal, understand the animals quality of life and quality of the dying process experience, provide medical intervention as needed and as often as needed, and provide support for the pet owner(s).

Most of hospice is about the journey, said Shanan, about learning to live with and accept the uncomfortable uncertainty in the journey, distinguishing between what bothers us as caregivers versus what bothers the animal, and helps us define destination: a good death. The ultimate goal for the owner is for them to have the least regrets and be able to look back and know they did make good decisions.

Many pet owners hope their pets will pass away in their sleep, said Graves. For some, euthanasia is not an acceptable solution, perhaps because it is inconsistent with their religious beliefs.

Caring Pathways will provide a comfort care packet for these pet owners, she said, although they do not support natural death because of the suffering that can be involved.

Mother Nature is not kind, she said. Death can be brutal.

Caring Pathways will provide medications and heavy sedatives in these situations.

They will put the pet into a deep sleep if they are in the active phase of dying, she said. It will help them transition to death naturally.

Its not always easy to tell when is the right time to euthanize an animal when that is an acceptable option. A veterinarian can help the owner make that decision.

To me, euthanasia is a choice to prevent or end suffering, said Clark. Its a quality of life decision.

Many pet owners feel it is too soon and prolongs the decision until a crisis occurs, he said, resulting in more pain and suffering for the animal.

Its a sacred and precious time. Its better to let them go on a good day than a bad day. They can have treats and look in their familys eyes, said Graves.

Planning ahead for euthanasia can be helpful for the family and the pet. Some people create beautiful final memories by completing things on a bucket list that their pet will enjoy. Some bring a favorite toy for an animal to have during the process, so the animal will die happy, said Coleen Ellis, a self-described Pet Loss Pioneer who travels around the world to give talks on pet loss.

Encourage children to write a letter and read it to the animal and bring treats in, she said. Gives them an opportunity to ask questions, and gives them honest answers, lets them do their own ritual if they like, and lets them know its okay to be sad, she said.

Ellis encourages pet owners to give their surviving pets an opportunity to say goodbye too.

Its profound to watch what happens. Some wont leave the body, some show emotion and some dont, they may lay on their dead companion or try to bury them by pushing dirt over on them. Encourage them to see the deceased pet, to confirm the death through their sense of smell. Then let them do what they want to do.

See the article here:

"A sacred and precious time" - Part 2 of a series on pet loss - BerthoudSurveyor.com

I'm pleased to announce that the 2021 First Things annual report is now available. The following is my letter to our readers and supporters:

Its often easy to see what we oppose. Were against woke tyranny. We reject the culture of death. We parry the unmerited claims that strong religious voices in public life run counter to liberal principles and Americas constitutional traditions. We are against tiresome claims about the arc of history and their threadbare second cousin, the outdated theological program of relevance.

I could go on. Theres a great deal of ruin in the contemporary West, and were right to oppose bad ideas and destructive trends. But if we define ourselves only by what we oppose, we risk losing sight of what we are for.

The salt of the gospel gains its savor from what it affirms, not what it opposes. The same holds for the salt of natural truths, which ask us to say yes in addition to no. Opposition to abortion arises from an affirmation of the sanctity of life. Rejection of same-sex marriage is rooted in our yes to the biblical vision of the natural and spiritual fruitfulness of the union of a man and a woman.

In 2021, the First Things editorial staff met on a number of occasions to talk about what we affirmand how to bring those affirmations to life in our pages. Heres a snapshot.

We affirm beauty in art, intelligence in literature, and wisdom in tradition, publishing essays and reviews that bring before readers images, books, and activities worthy of their admiration: Gary Saul Morson on The Brothers Karamazov, Algis Valiunas on Charles Dickens, Bruno Chaouat on the sweet nostalgia of Chateaubriand, and Elizabeth Corey on Kims Diner and books for children. Our gaze is not uncritical, but our aim is to refine our love with critical judgment, not to dampen its yes-saying ardor.

We affirm moral truths. It is not sufficient to condemn abortion, euthanasia, and other grievous evils. We need a vision of human law guided by natural law and legislation that aims to promote the common good. These are contested notions, and rightly so. When we publish John Finnis or Hadley Arkes, we know that their arguments invite counter-arguments. But if we are to move beyond what we are against, then a substantive vision needs to be ventured, a yes needs to be proposed.

We affirm the tranquility of order, especially between the sexes. This is especially difficult to translate into a concrete proposal for society, given that so much has been disrupted by the sexual revolution. All the more reason, therefore, to applaud Scott Yenor and Mary Harrington, whose articles last year (Sexual Counter-Revolution and Reactionary Feminism) may not be the last word on what kind of culture we want to build for our children and grandchildren, but are at least a first word.

And we affirm Gods benevolent and life-giving power. Its not just that we believe modern conceits of autonomy are misguided and often destructive. When those conceits about autonomy infect theology, they impede our obedience to God, which is the royal road to true freedom. Whether Patricia Snows memoirs of conversion or Carl R. Truemans theological trumpet blasts, First Things exists to champion the triumphant yes of Gods love, which evokes from us the yes of faith.

Againstism. Thats what I call the no-saying temptation that is satisfied with opposition. This temptation shirks responsibility for leadership. I pledge to you that we will resist this temptation. First Things is published so that we can assume our roles as leaders, an imperative if were to bring sanity (and perhaps a smidgen of sanctity) to our confused, disordered, and increasingly tense and anxious societies. And to be leaders, we must build upon the very best of our inheritanceartistic, political, moral, and theologicalto venture a vision for a better future.

Read the entire annual report soon online. If you wish to receive a hard copy, drop us a line atft@firstthings.comand we'll put one in the mail for you.

R. R. Reno is editor of First Things.

First Thingsdepends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.

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What We Affirm | RR Reno - First Things

During the past few years Gratiot County Animal Control has seen a significant uptick in the number of dogs and cats that have been saved from euthanasia.

During his annual report to the County Board of Commissioners, Animal Control Director Tom Clark noted the shelter had a save rate of 99 percent in 2021.

Our numbers were fantastic, he said. It was not too many years ago that the number was down in the 60 to 70 percent save range.

Last year the shelter took in 203 dogs, of which 62 were adopted and 137 reclaimed by owners. Only three were euthanized.

There were also 87 cats taken in with 83 adopted, three reclaimed and just one euthanized.

The biggest change for the shelter has been in the number of cats it now deals with.

In 2017, the shelter took in 496 cats with only 197 being adopted or reclaimed, while 144 had to be disposed of, according to Clark.

Cats are by far the hardest animalsto find homes for, he said. We have several organizationsin the area thatspecialize in finding homes for cats because of this reason.

Among those are Gratiot Animals in Need and Dalis to the Rescue.

Both sponsor low-cost monthly spay and neuter clinics for cats.

For the GAIN clinic the shelter contributes an average of $10 per cat to help keep the cost low. The cats also receive rabiesshots.

Last year alone we contributed through our (budget) donation line item $2,020 for the feral cat project. Clark said.

Animal Control also started a new program last year with a veterinarian from Grand Rapids who comes to the shelter once a month to spay and neuter between 50 and 60 cats each trip.

If you look at the numbers thishas dropped the total intake significantly, Clark said.

In addition, the shelter no longer accepts cages full of cats, he added.

We only take in cats that we know that we can move, Clark explained. Sometimes this can be a little controversialbut we do not have to put otherwise healthy, although maybe not adoptable cats down.

The shelter also runs a Home-to-Home program where an owner of a dog or cat cansend in a photo and descriptionof theirpet, along with a phone number.

We post it on our Facebook page where a potential adopter can call the owner directly and view the animal in a natural home setting, Clark said.

The(owners) have had tremendous success in finding (their pets) new homes. This keeps them out of the shelter environment.Clark has worked for Gratiot County Animal Control for 25 years, the past 18 as director. He has a staff of two, officer Emily OBoyle, now in her 11th year, and office manager Blair Woodgate, who has been there three years.

Like many others the shelter dealt with some difficult times the past couple ofyears during the pandemic.

Our department is small with only three people, Clark said. We had shutdowns and screenings coming into Animal Control. We had to be extra vigilant when we went out on complaints to try and not spread COVID to one another.

Despite that, animal control responded to 1,180 complaints during 2021, up from 766 in 2020, 954 in 2019, 1,074 in 2018 and 811 in 2017.

Continued here:

Gratiot Animal Control sees improvement in save rate - The Morning Sun

Since the legalization of euthanasia in Canada in 2016, Ive had two people tell me of their parent who would be dying in this way. These were acquaintances who did not know me well, not even my last name, and yet they shared this deeply personal information. Yet in my entire life, Ive never had even one woman mention in passing that she had an abortion.Ive never had anyone casually tell me they accompanied someone to an abortion.

Theres an interesting reality packed into that contrast: Decades-worth of intense efforts to destigmatize abortion have failed. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in the U.S. and the Canadian Morgentaler decision in 1988, efforts to normalize abortion have failed even as they have picked up steam, or perhaps precisely because of that.

Take the language game, for example, so pervasive in all debates over life. Ultrasound technology undid the spurious clump of cells argument a while ago. The latest effort calls us to reconsider what a heartbeat is. When Texas passed the so-called Heartbeat Bill in September 2021, effectively banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, we began reading reports asking whether a fetal heartbeat is the invention of pro-life mythology.

That quick fluttering muffled sound? Its not a heartbeat after all. Its cardiac activity. Doctors are partly to blame for the confusion, a New York Times journalist writes. She goes on: Many physicians whose patients are excited about a desired pregnancy will use the word heartbeat to describe the cardiac activity heard on an early ultrasound. The word has even crept into the medical literature. Even.

Then theres the growing strangeness of pro-choice activism, pushing not for abortion to be safe, legal and rare, but rather to be celebrated. Enter the movement to Shout Your Abortion using gold pendants and T-shirts. Have you never thought about a Thank God For Abortion onesie as a gift at your next baby shower?

The painful excessiveness of this is not lost on one post-abortive feminist. She feels no regret at this sad interlude in my young life. Instead, she notes that its gross when advocates for legal abortion have made this deeply serious issue into a chic lifestyle I see a pro-choice movement that has become unmoored from reality. the ugly truth is that the contemporary mainstream womens movement cannot be trusted with such a sacrosanct moral question, she writes.

For the average woman, abortion-as-sad-interlude sounds about right. Its not something to celebrate, to be proud of or to advocate for. There are countless tell your abortion story web sites out there, and if you read too many, all posted for the purpose of normalizing abortion, there is but one theme. They are just plain sad. To me, this speaks to something shared between all women: the innate knowledge that when you get pregnant, its not a potential life or a future life. Its your baby.

There is the very real possibility of Roe v Wade falling when the Supreme Court south of the border delivers a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization imminently. Its a case that will consider Mississippis ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Theres a serious chance of returning decisions about abortion to the states, rather than enforcing a divisive law at a federal level.

That Roe could end is profoundly encouraging. It signifies the pending end of (another) dark blight on our countries records though that blight continues under the Morgentaler decision in Canada, at least for now.

But I suspect any celebration would be muted. Weve lost too many countless lives. Its taken so long. It remains divisive. And there is so much more work to do. But Id feel a sincere wash of quiet relief that we are finally on the right track.

There is another sadness embedded in the opening paragraph. For as unacceptable and foreign an idea as abortion has remained over decades, the trend line with euthanasia is the opposite. With lightning speed, talking about the death of your loved one by a doctors needle is not, apparently, strange at all. Im not diminishing the anguish of this. Y

et we can still pause for just a short moment to be grateful that respect for the beginning of life is increasing before returning to protection and respect for all life, from conception to natural death.

(Mrozek is Senior Fellow at Cardus Family.)

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