Abortion, babies and body parts going to science, Dr. Mary Gatter’s got her hands full when it comes to people who are using this side of medical science to allege that Planned Parenthood is “selling” body parts from abortions. Before we get into an uproar, consider what is actually said in the video.
Dr. Gatter does talk money but even with the interviewer encouraging her to “ask for more” and that the amounts she’s quoting to cover administrative expenses are “way too low,” Dr. Gatter does not rise to the bait. She clearly states in the video that the money is to cover the costs of the process. She also discusses patient consent.
She also discourages the interviewers who want her to use a different process in order to better preserve body parts saying that though she doesn’t necessarily agree, describing different procedures as different as a specious (superficially plausible but actually wrong) argument, Planned Parenthood has an agreement with patients that their procedure and they will be treated the same whether they agree to donation or not.
She also admits that she’ll have to check with others in the organization and that she wants an outline of the proposal to consult with other affiliates and with the leadership in Planned Parenthood. Distasteful but simply a political ploy by those who are anti-abortion to make an argument to defund Planned Parenthood making the story more grisly than it should be in our current American healthcare environment.
For purposes here, I think the issue is interesting because it shows a dangerous shift in our ideas of which lives matter even by pro-lifers, using money as the hammer to force some to do what government or pro-lifers want.
Let’s start with the facts. It is illegal to sell tissue but covering the costs is NOT illegal, that’s why the interviewer was trying to get Dr. Gatter to say more than the $50, $75, $100 amounts she was discussing. For anyone with a brain you know that using someone’s office space for any reasons runs more than that, let alone a medical facility. I mean, we’re not talking about the illegal sale of body parts which we already know is not running $50, $75, or $100, we’d have to add lots of zeros to those numbers.
By the way donating your body to science is OK in the US and though making money from such donation is prohibited, it doesn’t always require your consent AND it’s being marketed as a way to save money on a funeral (look up just that: SAVING MONEY ON FUNERAL WITH BODY DONATION).
Also in many places in the US SOMEONE ELSE can donate your body to science (LOOK UP: THIRD-PARTY BODY DONATION).
The problem that we’re ignoring is that placing a value on human life is problematic and ultimately leaves both government policies and right-to-lifers choosing money as the lever to force or discourage some action or inaction which is no better than double-talking insurance companies that have for decades argued that they don’t influence or make decisions, they simply decide how their financial products will help pay for such services.
Considering that no sane person believes that using money as a barrier is anything but the same as supporting or discouraging a decision, the money argument is a means of discerning our ethics…What we reward, what we punish. And both Obamacare and right-to-lifers in this instance who frequently assert some moral high-ground are really no better than any other group treating people differently based on money. It’s not about right-to-life for Obamacare or those attacking Dr. Gatter, it’s about right to SOME lives.
What’s surprising is that our morals have become so fluid that there’s no similar uproar about the dangerous legalized trend of Obamacare to determine which lives matter through the reward of money for health services, availability of those services, and the imposition of starker choices by the medical community for the sick on whether treatment is worth it.
Similarly, an attempt by right-to-lifers to DEFUND Planned Parenthood will not result in the end of abortion, but simply the end of Planned Parenthood since over 60 percent of abortions are performed outside of Planned Parenthood which is usually an option used by the less rich.
It’s hard to see outside our own area of interest but consider how many pro-lifers are also pro death penalty, making their ideological choice of acceptable termination of life. Choosing which life they support.
Whatever the justification, these right-to-lifers are closer to Obamacare than they’d like to admit indulging in their human interpretation and inclination to choose which lives matter and which don’t.
Obamacare is the same, using rewards and punishments in the form of money to indicate the Administration’s choice of which lives matter and which matter less, the “innocent lives” and “guilty lives,” that fall short of an “ethic.”
Obamacare uses this hypocrisy of the “innocent” and “guilty” lives also as a convenience for an agenda, to save the government money.
Consider the “guilty” lives, people who “choose” to smoke or get old, who are charged more for health insurance because of their status. Statistics support it. Saving government money supports it. So, Obamacare supports it, take more money from the smoker and the old folks because they might cost more in medical care…Penalizing smoking and age.
Now, if you’re lucky enough to be an illegal drug user, morbidly obese, or genetically unlucky enough to have a chronic condition then you win under Obamacare, your life is worth more even though you likely will “cost” as much if not more than your smoking aging counterpart.
But this is just the beginning. Medicare, which both parties want to gut as an “entitlement” ignoring not only how much money individuals have paid into Medicare over the course of their lives but also ignoring the predictable result of leaving seniors without access to affordable medical care as they get older, well, that’s OK with many people, including the right-to-lifers. Here the get-out-of-morality-free card is the claim that our government can’t afford it. Really?
If money’s that tight why not go after fraudulent payments which are estimated in the billions (unknown could be 100 times more since there is no vigilant enforcement or investigation into fraudulent Obamacare payments) that this month the GAO again considered? (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-705T)
Or, how about the costs of the government class and money paid to administer Obamacare which are conveniently omitted from the calculations of “Costs of Obamacare” (see government explanation that it can’t keep track of those costs in March 2015 by the CBO).
As in the current Planned Parenthood situation which ultimately seeks to DEFUND and therefore hopefully destroy the organization, DEFUNDING medical treatments by disallowing them or restricting their coverage under Medicare is an effort to end those lives deemed NOT WORTH IT, older Americans. It’s the old insurance company argument of WE DON’T MAKE MEDICAL DECISIONS, WE JUST DECIDE WHICH ONES OUR PRODUCT WILL SUPPORT, which leaves millions unable to afford needed treatments, procedures and medications.
But our new approach will leave no one unscathed. While forcing everyone to purchase health insurance and disguising the forced purchase as a means of ensuring that those with chronic conditions are not denied health insurance coverage, there are some sinister, cowardly and grisly aspects of Obamacare.
Consider the no-limit approach to how much people will pay in copayments, coinsurance and deductibles making treatment for needed medical services out of reach for many individuals (unless they’re on Medicaid which for those covered provides near-free health insurance AND near-free medical services).
And as far as those older people? Well, having identified that medical care in the last year of life is very expensive (Look up the articles about medical costs during the last year of life), Obamacare and our society now support choosing NOT to treat during that last year of life by talking odds with patients and encouraging them not to destroy their estates for well, quite frankly, a life not worth it.
So let’s have some right to life support rallying the American public against the CMS proposal that intends to PAY physicians for talking odds and whether care is worth it for older people.
Last I looked physicians can’t tell the future and make plenty of mistakes (which by the way are the THIRD leading cause of death in the US (Yeah, look that up, ‘MEDICAL ERRORS THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH’). Physician as fortune teller and being paid as a physician for playing that role? Too bad older people aren’t cuter, maybe the right-to-lifers would defend their lives.
Maybe people can be persuaded by knowing that though it’s the old people first, it’s not only the old people who come into IS YOUR LIFE WORTH IT assessment. You can read about the American Medical Association’s statement of End of Life Care (SEE: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/about-ethics-group/ethics-resource-center/end-of-life-care/ama-statement-end-of-life-care.page?). You’ll notice there is no age restriction to the “talk.”
Remember last year? As reported in December of 2014, in an article in lifemattersmedia.org, “Medicare Declines To Reimburse Physicians For End of Life Discussions in 2015,” we were reminded, “Similar proposals were removed from the Affordable Care Act in 2010 after political opponents associated advance care planning sessions with ‘death panels.’”
But Obamacare has given the Federal government unfettered clearance to pursue its goals and now less than a year later, the proposal is being raised again to “…reimburse medical practitioners for end of life conversations with seriously ill and elderly patients…” (http://www.lifemattersmedia.org/2014/12/medicare-declines-reimburse-physicians-end-life-discussions-2015/). Not only to have the discussion of whether your life is worth it but to be PAID for having the discussion with you.
Obamacare has codified the grisly matter of saving government and insurance companies money by making individuals determining whose life is worth it and whose is not by using money as a lever to manipulate individual health decisions. Unfortunately, those arguing to DEFUND Planned Parenthood based on Dr. Gatter’s video are doing the same thing…Using money as a hammer to force only those who don’t have enough money to pay for a private abortion (less than 40 percent of US abortions are performed by Planned Parenthood).
Obamacare has brought weighing the value of a human life into sharp focus in America and it turns out that rich lives are worth more than others…Perhaps not a surprise, but hardly justifying the smug self-satisfaction with the “benefits” of the PPACA that have been shoved down our throats by the President and his sycophants.
Moving forward, rather than joining in this lives worth it, lives not worth it debate, the right-to-lifers should not be permitted to lose track of their purported support of life by engaging in their own lives worth it, lives not worth it assessment. Our current ethic is we’re all pro-life SOMETIMES, hardly an ethic at all.
The current issue about Planned Parenthood is not about abortion, it’s about disposition of human remains and as noted it’s never bothered anyone before that such disposition occurs in the US all the time even being marketed as a means of saving burial expenses.
