Working Wednesday: What is LIFT?

We've mentioned LIFT in the previous two posts, and now it's time to say more about it.

What is LIFT? LIFT is a ministry of compassionate care to the chronically or terminally. Through LIFT, volunteers are trained to visit individuals and provide non-medical assistance. The circle of care also extends to loved ones who are often the individual's primary caregivers and who face pressures that can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining.

LIFT volunteers report to a Care Coordinator and meet regularly with each other for encouragement and support. They help their care recipients by ministering in simple, creative, and practical ways:

• Run errands
• Walk the dog
• Help with housework
• Bake a cake
• Bring fresh flowers
• Read the Bible out loud
• Shovel snow
• Help with correspondence
• Do yard work
• Drive patient to the doctor's office
• Be a friend
• Listen
• Bring encouragement

LIFT is an ideal outreach of the local church -- to church members and people in the community. It also sends important messages to the world at-large: 

1. Human life is sacred
2. God is sovereign over life
3. Jesus Christ conquered sin and death
4. God's people serve others through compassion ministries

Learn more:

What is LIFT? from Life Matters Worldwide

Related:
LIFT on our website
LIFT FAQs
The messages LIFT sends
How not to flinch in the face of suffering

Postscript: An award-winning movie -- Amour -- advocates euthanasia and shows why ministries such as LIFT are needed.

Monday musing: We wouldn't do that to a dog!

Time was when pet euthanasia was used as a rational for people euthanasia. The logic went something like this: If we can put a dog or cat out of its misery, why can't we do the same for humans?

[For examples of this sentiment, see the following articles: Pro-euthanasia ads air on Australian TV, Is euthanasia for the living or the dying? and Dutch Euthanasia.]

While the pro-life side appreciated the ever-so-slight acknowledgment that human being deserve better treatment than dogs and cats (that was the intent, right?), we reject the rationale. Human beings stand above the animal world as imagers of God. (Genesis 1:26-27, 9:2-4; Psalm 8:6-8)

The death of animals is morally neutral, while that of humans requires scrutiny. In Genesis 9:5-6, God made animals accountable for the death of humans, not the other way around.

 "Better" treatment of human beings, in our view, involves easing suffering -- through  palliative care and hospice ministries that affirm every patient's worth as valuable to God -- not ending it by killing the sufferer. Our LIFT program trains Christians to do that for fellow-church members and others.

So now it's amusing to read about a new twist on the argument. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, dying pets are receiving palliative care rather than euthanasia. In 'It's Just a Dog. Get Over It.', Jessica Pierce writes about how the line is being blurred between pets and other family members. Owners are shelling out big bucks to provide pets with care from one of the approximately 75 veterinary hospice services available around the country.

"Once euthanasia was the default response to an animal's mortal illness. Not any more. . . . Working together, pet owners and veterinarians can often maintain a good quality of life for an animal long after we might, in past times, have simply euthanized it."

Will this mean the end of the euthanasia-for-people argument? Will euthanasia advocates now say, "If we can give pets life-affirming care like hospice, why can't we do the same for humans?" One would hope so, yet it would be sadly ironic that it would take uber-love for pets to get us to view people from the proper perspective.

It's too late for those who have been legally euthanized in places such as Belgium and the Netherlands. And in Oregon and Washington state. (Click the above links for the latest statistics.) Here's some commentary from those who have digested the figures:

• There have been 5,500 cases of euthanasia in 10 years of legal euthanasia in Belgium. The European Institute for Bioethics raises serious questions about the practice, including how intertwined it is with organ retrieval for transplants. Wesley Smith says Belgium has gone "off the moral cliff."

• The Netherlands prize their euthanasia efficiency, but Dr. Bernard Lo questions the extent of government oversight in a recent Lancet article, (volume 380, issue 9845, pages 869-870, 8 September 2012, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61128-3). Alex Schadenberg says euthanasia there is "out of control."

• The Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation bemoans the steady increase in numbers of physician-assisted suicides in Oregon and the lack of transparency in the process. (This seems to be a common theme.)

• Washington is the latest arrival to the euthanasia scene, but it appears to be surpassing Oregon in numbers, according to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Church. 

Postscript: Get ready for the next assault on the sanctity of human life -- plant rights! See also Pea Personhood? and (for the inevitable twist) Why Did We Ever Start Calling Patients “Vegetables?”

Friday feature: Relevant resources

I want to highlight a couple ministries that came to my attention this week. They offer resources that can help the body of Christ live out its pro-life mandate.

First, an email from Stuart Carver of Family Enterprising landed in my inbox. This ministry "promotes the foundation and strong growth of biblical households." They do this through Birth of a Family, which works alongside pregnancy resource centers to convert the opportunities they have with clients into "lasting nuclear families where fathers, mothers, and children live, grow, and play together in one home." A worthy and much-needed goal.

Stuart and his team are making an impact at one end of the pro-life spectrum while Ron Panzer, a hospice nurse, is having an effect on the other end.

Through the Hospice Patients Alliance and the Pro-Life Healthcare Alliance, he and others are working to maintain respect for the lives of dying people. They've documented some alarming trends in healthcare and offer resources for families to help them protect their loved ones. I asked to be placed on his e-newsletter list and received a nice email in response.

One of those resources is Stealth Euthanasia: Health Care Tyranny in America (a book available online). Another is The Hospice Patients Alliance Family Guide to Hospice Care, billed as "the most complete guide to hospice care available." It's available for download for a small fee.

Why are such resources needed? Because of atrocities like those described in a recent British Medical Journal (BMJ 2012;345:e7319). An anonymous doctor wrote of his/her anguish over having been forced to care for children after a decision was made to forgo medically provided feeding:

[The parents] wish for their child to die quickly once the feeding and fluids are stopped. They wish for pneumonia. They wish for no suffering. They wish for no visible changes to their precious baby. Their wishes, however, are not consistent with my experience. Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was 10 days.

Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues. I try to make these matters clear from the outset so that these parents do not make a decision that they will come to regret. I try to prepare them for the coming collective agony that we will undoubtedly share, regardless of their certainty about their decision. I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby. I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.

. . . It is draining to be the most responsible physician. Everyone is looking to me to preside over and support this process. I am honest with the nurse when I say that it is getting more and more difficult to make my legs walk me on to this unit as the days elapse, that examining the baby is an indescribable mixture of compassion, revulsion, and pain.

Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels. . . . As I am embroiled in this situation once again, the one thing that helps me a little is the realisation that this process is necessarily difficult. It needs to be. To acknowledge that a child’s prospects are so dire, so limited, that we will not or cannot provide artificial nutrition is self selecting for the rarity of the situations in which parents and care teams would ever consider it.

Related: Dehydrating Disabled Babies in UK Hospitals

Monday musing: The other pro-life election issue

As you pray over tomorrow's momentous election, remember Massachusetts. Voters there are deciding on a proposal to legalize physician-assisted suicide. They would be the third state to do so (behind Oregon and Washington).

But there are a chorus of influential voices in opposition:

• Boston Globe: No on Proposal 2
• Ted Kennedy's wife: Vote no on assisted suicide in MA
• American Nurses Association: Draft statement opposing assisted suicide/euthanasia
• Providence Journal blog: Why to vote no on Mass. Question 2
• E. J. Dionne: Liberals should be wary of assisted suicide
• NY Times opinion: Suicide by choice? Not so fast
• Ira Byock: Assisted suicide is not progressive
• Choice is an Illusion blog: Users of assisted suicide are senior with money
• Dr. Barbara Rockett: Physician-assisted suicide “in direct conflict” with doctor’s role
• Wesley J. Smith: Our dangerous obsession with 'health'
• Ezekiel Emanuel: Four myths about doctor-assisted suicide

Don't, however, be lulled into complacency! Advocates of euthanasia are persistent and will, no doubt, bring it up for a a vote again. And again and again. So pray!

This might also be a good time for more churches to look into offering LIFT, our program of respite care for people with chronic or terminal illnesses and their families. If we can help your church get started, email or give us a call: 1-800-968-6086.

Finally, a few words from Hosea 10 this election-eve:

          Sow with a view to righteousness,
                Reap in accordance with kindness;
                        Break up your fallow ground,
                              For it is time to seek the Lord
                        Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
                You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice,
          You have eaten the fruit of lies.

Postscript: A couple other last minute pre-election reads:

• Albert Mohler: A prayer for America on Election Day
• Joe Carter: 5 ways presidents affect the pro-life cause

Post-postscript: The assisted suicide proposal was narrowly defeated Tuesday.

Monday musing: May God bless every good deed and word

"May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word."

Paul encouraged believers in the 1st century with these words (2 Thess. 2:16-17), and they bless our hearts today. Life Matters Worldwide's mission statement echoes the thought:

Helping the Body of Christ articulate the biblical pro-life message in word and deed.

Word and deed. Proclamation and practice. It's an over-arching theme in Scripture, Old and New Testaments. The prophets were famous for challenging people who professed to have faith in God to also help the suffering person -- or at least stop participating in their oppression. Isaiah 58:1-11, Jeremiah 7:4-7, Zechariah 7:9-12, and 8:16-17 are just a few OT passages that come to mind.

James completes the thought in 2:12-17: 

"Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

From our earliest days, this organization was founded on the principle that "it's not enough to say abortion [or now assisted suicide] is wrong, we must also offer alternatives." There are many ways to do that. We've made it an aim to express our beliefs in actions that establish and sustain pregnancy care centers as effective Gospel outreaches. And, through LIFT, to help Christians offer practical and spiritual support when church members are chronically or terminally ill. 

Whatever you do for Christ today, may God encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word!

Related article that may hurt to read: Pregnant and homeless on the doorsteps of a Christian megachurch

Palliative Sedation Not = To Terminal Sedation/Euthanasia

Wesley J. Smith: The pro-euthanasia crowd intentionally and wrongfully conflates palliative sedation – that is sedating a dying patient at the end of life who is experiencing intractable pain or symptoms – with both euthanasia – fast killing the patient – and terminal sedation – slow killing the patient by inducing coma and withdrawing food and water. A good piece in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy (201 2;26:30-39) shatters that lie. First, it notes that in palliative sedation, the point is to use the least amount of sedative to accomplish the needed palliation. From “Review of Palliative Sedation and Its Distinction From Euthanasia and Lethal Injection:”

Ideally, the level of palliative sedation is provided in a fashion that is titrated to a minimal level that permits the patient to tolerate unbearable symptoms, yet the patient can continue to periodically communicate…The three most common levels of providing PS include mild, intermediate, and deep. When mild sedation is used, the patient is awake and the level of consciousness is lowered to a somnolent state, withverbal or nonverbal communication still possible. With intermediate sedation, the patient is asleep or stuporous and can still be awakened to communicate briefly. The third level is deep sedation, which refers to the patient being near or in complete unconsciousness and does not communicate verbally or nonverbally. Besides regulating the degree of sedation, palliative sedation may also be provided intermittently or continuously…

The points to take away from the above are 1) palliative sedation is individualized to the patient’s needs, 2) the point isn’t to end the life of the patient, and 3) levels of sedation may vary in the same patient from time to time. In contrast, euthanasia kills the patientwith a lethal injection. And “terminal sedation” is merely the imposition of coma and withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, sometimes without actual medical need and/or to make it easier for care givers–as in the much abused Liverpool Care Pathway in the UK.

Postmodernism and Disability?

Joni & Friends: Everyone seems to be talking about the dangers of postmodern thought and its influence on our world, but how is it impacting special-needs families? What difference does it make to a person with a disability? Your elderly parent with Alzheimer's? Or your granddaughter born with multiple disabilities? Listen in on Joni Eareckson Tada's perspective on this special interview recently aired on Chuck Colson's Breakpoint.

When we think of the pro life movement, abortion is usually the first topic that comes to mind. But people with disabilities are also targets of an increasingly utilitarian society that's turned its back on biblical truth. During this half-hour interview, BreakPoint welcomes a tireless and brilliant defender of disability dignity, Joni Eareckson Tada, the recipient of this year's William Wilberforce Award

Blurring the lines, shortening the playing field

It's football season, and those yardages are very important. What would you think if your favorite team's arch-rival fudged the lines a bit in their favor? That's exactly what Pat Robertson suggested for a man whose wife developed Alzheimer's disease. She's as good as dead; divorce her!

It's also what Canadian judges did when they threw out a murder conviction of a woman who killed her baby shortly after birth. It was just a very late, "fourth trimester" abortion.

The latest edition of Life Matters is ready for download from Baptists for Life. It's all about the beginning and end of life — and how those lines keep getting blurred by new technology, medical and scientific “advances,” and tough circumstances.

Where Do The Candidates Stand on Life?

» Where Do The Candidates Stand on Life?: The National Right to Life Committee has published a brand new comparison piece of announced candidates for the office of President of the United States who have scored a minimum of 3% in a national poll.

'via Blog this'

Mercy Killing Defense Claim Will Be Tested

Mercy Killing Defense Claim Will Be Tested - WSJ.com: Lawyers for a Manhattan executive charged with murdering her 8-year-old son are attempting an unusual defense: They claim Gigi Jordan had no choice but to kill the boy, and was completely in her right mind when she did it. Ms. Jordan's team has asked a judge to let it proceed with an "altruistic filicide" defense against charges she fed her son, Jude, a fatal cocktail of pills in a $2,300-a-night Midtown hotel room in February 2010.

Related: Mercy killing to prevent child abuse

'via Blog this'

Euthanasia, Immortality, and The Natural Death Paradox

Natural death as a concept binds us in the shackles of paradox. To make choices around death seem to violate a natural law to which we’ve all unconsciously agreed. None of us know when our time will come, but don’t try die too soon, and don’t try live too long. Death, it seems, is too important a decision for us to make. Like many anti-enhancement arguments, the answer is all too familiar: the most critical choices – those that impact our basic genetic code, what type of children we have, and how we die – ought be left to chance. 

Transhumanism is, in large part, an opposition to the mentality that creates the paradox of death. Death by natural causes is not good, it’s just no one’s fault. But in a world where so much death is caused deliberately, maliciously, and pointlessly, a death by natural causes can seem not just a mercy, but a blessing. Thus, we have come to cherish and value that which is but a morally neutral necessity.

When another person chooses our death against our will, that is a moral wrong.
Death by natural causes is morally acceptable because we cannot choose otherwise. But it is not morally good. 

Volitionally and autonomously choosing when one dies, now there is a moral good. There is no reason the circumstances of one’s biological make-up and environment that determine one’s expiration date must be abided by. If technology can allow us to stop short in the face of years of suffering or overcome an untimely gentle passing for another 20 years, why not? 

A fetishization of natural death should not hold us hostage to the quality and duration of our lives. IEET

Dr. Death dies

Kevorkian's actual motives in pursuing his assisted suicide campaign were grotesquely utilitarian. He believed that nearly anyone who wanted to die should have access to euthanasia, writing for example, that the Jonestown victims should have been allowed to be dispatched by a professional euthanizer. . . . Indeed, the point of his whole campaign was to ultimately fulfill his ghoulish obsession to experiment on the bodies of people he was euthanizing. So, how did such a clearly disturbed man, whose views were (and still are) so clearly out of the societal mainstream, come to be viewed positively by large segments of media and society?

. . . I think there are several factors at work. First, we live in an era that extols and admires the social outlaw. Second, a large segment of our increasingly secularized society disdains moralism, fixed principles of right and wrong involving individual behavior, and dreads anything that smacks of "judgmentalism." These phenomena seem particularly potent when someone defies values deemed to reflect Judeo/Christian religious dogma, such as the general disfavor of suicide. Third, giving moral support to the suicides of ill and profoundly disabled people who want to die arises naturally in an era in which the emotional narrative and Oprah culture drive public opinion.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "compassion" has become the great justifier for breaking laws and violating social norms. Once Kevorkian stopped talking openly about obitiatry and began proclaiming that he was motivated by his care for suffering patients—even calling himself "Dr. Life" in an interview with Barbara Walters—everything changed. To the Source

Remembering the Real Jack Kevorkian

Remembering the Real Jack Kevorkian | Daily News | NCRegister.com: We should not speak ill of the dead, we are told. . . . But not speaking ill does not mean avoiding the truth. Nor does recounting facts constitute a casting of aspersion. Moreover, Kevorkian was a proud atheist who frequently stated — and acted on — his intention to force society to tack into the wind of his own dark desires. He never recanted his beliefs. This article allows him to speak for himself.

Jack Kevorkian's Death Reminds How Disabled Need Better Options

Jack Kevorkian's Death Reminds How Disabled Need Better Options | LifeNews.com: While some euthanasia advocates have sought to distance themselves from his bizarre positions and tactics, his tragic legacy illustrates the dangers to the most vulnerable when compassionate, humane responses to depression or disability are replaced with death as an acceptable final solution.

Editor: BFL developed LIFT in answer to Kevorkian and other advocates of death.

Dutch consider banning religious animal slaughter

Dutch consider banning religious animal slaughter - Friday, April 8, 2011 | 2:40 a.m. - Las Vegas Sun: In the Netherlands, an unlikely alliance of an animal rights party and the xenophobic Freedom Party is spearheading support for the ban on kosher and halal slaughter methods that critics say inflict unacceptable suffering on animals.

The far right's embrace of the bill, which is expected to go to a parliamentary vote this month, is based mostly on its strident hostility toward the Dutch Muslim population. The Party for the Animals, the world's first such party to be elected to parliament, says humane treatment of animals trumps traditions of tolerance.

Jewish and Muslim groups call the initiative an affront to freedom of religion.

Editor: This is the country that says it's okay to "euthanize" mentally incompetent patients and severely disabled newborns.

Man racked by guilt after euthanizing his wife

Euthanasia debate to launch in Canada as man admits to euthanizing his ill wife | LifeSiteNews.com: Stephan Bolton, telephoned The Chronicle Herald before going to the police, and told the newspaper he killed his terminally ill wife Barbara Jean Jollimore-Bolton on January 22.

“I don’t have an agenda. I have a guilty conscience,” he said, then described how he killed his 59 year old wife, who was suffering with Stage 4 breast cancer and in palliative care, with himself as primary caregiver. He said he gave Barbara a lethal injection of two medications — morphine and Nozinan — and would be taking the drugs to the police detachment with him.

Bolton told the newspaper his wife was very depressed, but not in severe pain, and the two had never discussed the possibility of euthanasia. Neither did he ask Barbara if she wanted to die by lethal injection. Bolton said that he has spent the last month living with guilt and now wants to take responsibility for his actions.

Evangelical leaders survey: ‘let God be God’ in end of life issues

Evangelical leaders survey: ‘let God be God’ in end of life issues | LifeSiteNews.com: A poll of the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has found a marked unity in outlook on the issues surrounding end of life care and treatment.

The poll posed the question of assisted suicide or euthanasia if the individuals found themselves faced with severe pain in a terminal illness. The survey found, “When faced with severe pain in a terminal illness, 94 percent said they would not consent to the termination of their lives,” remaining firm in their commitment to “let God be God” when it comes to their life’s end.

“This reiterates what we already know about evangelicals: They want to honor life from womb to tomb,” said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, in a press release.

Mayo Study: Withdrawing LVAD Support Is Ethical

Mayo Study: Withdrawing LVAD Support Is Ethical - Health Blog - WSJ: High-tech medical devices can raise tricky ethical questions — just consider the left ventricular assist device (LVAD). The pricey device essentially takes over the function of the left ventricle, helping a heart to continue beating when it would otherwise fail. But what happens when patients become very, very sick and are essentially being kept alive by the LVAD? Is turning off the device more akin to euthanasia or taking someone off a ventilator?

LVADs make some clinicians uncomfortable for several reasons, they write — the device seems almost like a replacement part than outside assistance, for example. Researchers write, though, that withdrawing LVAD support isn’t the same as assisted suicide or euthanasia because there’s no “new pathology” introduced to cause death. Death, when it comes (all 14 patients died within a day of turning off the device), is due to the underlying heart failure, they write. So assuming patients or their representative know the consequences of deactivating the device, clinicians should honor their wishes.

A window onto Roman bioethics

The archeologists of a 2,000-year-old Roman villa in the Thames Valley are puzzled by the discovery of a mass burial of 97 new-born infants. Forensic examination of the skeletons suggests the inhabitants must have been systematically killing the children. Archaeologist Jill Evers believes that the villa may have been a brothel. She says that without contraception or abortion, the Romans would have had to kill newborns. While shocking to modern sensibilities, infants were not considered to be human beings in the fullest sense until they were about two years old. Children younger than this were seldom buried in cemeteries, but in the grounds of domestic sites. BBC

Defending Life

Each year, AUL publishes Defending Life: A State-by-State Legal Guide to Abortion, Bioethics, and the End of Life. This annual resource manual combines our model legislation, expert analysis, and 50 state report cards into a single nonpartisan guide for legislators, policy makers, the media, and interested Americans. It comprehensively addresses abortion, protection of the unborn (in contexts outside of abortion), bioethics, the end-of-life, and health care freedom of conscience, expertly tackles legal and policy challenges for the pro-life movement, and reports on recent legislative and courtroom victories, continuing progress toward protecting life in each of the 50 states, and emerging issues and trends.