Book Review: Tolkien in the Land of Heroes

Tolkien in the Land of Heroes : Discovering the Human Spirit by Anne C. Petty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This has been sitting on my nightstand for a couple of months and was a quite enjoyable read for me. It was the subject matter and the critical analysis of the themes and rivulets of thought that comprise Tolkien's literary legendarium that was most interesting to me. The author presents her analysis of the core themes of the fall of humanity, despair, hope, and heroism in the face of unqualified optimism that extends from his legendarium into our modern world. It is also a useful cliff-notes for Tolkien's extensive extra-LOTRs writings found in the Silmarillian that comprise the Creation of the world in the singing of the first song and the discord that some of children of Ilúvatar (Father of All) introduced at the first singing of the song, and how that discord introduced the fall into every strain and tendril of the Music of Life. The author then expounds her impressions and analysis of how the themes of good and evil, hope and despair technology and pristine nature, etc., run throughout Tolkien's grand works, how they may have been interpreted in the days of the two great world wars, and how modern (or post-modern) society has treated these themes in reaction to the longevity of Tolkien's legendarium.


I don't usually read books on literary analysis, but this one was quite good (although some might find the PhD-dissertation style employed by the author a little dry) and was quite inspiring--introducing some new thoughts about the Fall of man, Creation, Hope, and the Human Condition that I hadn't considered before in reading Tolkien's and Lewis's works. I would classify this as one book that rose above escapist leisure and enriched my imagination and understanding, and for that I would say it was worthwhile.


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Book Review: American Assassin by Vince Flynn

American Assassin by Vince Flynn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this audiobook over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a prequel to the Mitch Rapp series that is quite boilerplate and somewhat formulaic. That's not to say that it wasn't somewhat fun to read though. I usually like having more political/global twists, and there was no really compelling villain to drive the story--only a bunch of bumbling or practical provincial ideologues. The other Mitch Rapp books are much better. Extreme Measures is a good thriller and neoconservative policy illustration, Consent to Kill is probably the most emotionally compelling, and Memorial Day is very good as well. All of those are much better than this one.


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Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the reasons I like Heinlein's earlier works is because of its clear-eyed youthful skepticism and sense of wonder. Starship Troopers integrates general science/engineering principles and math in a way that is interesting and inspiring for the young teenager. I do wish more books like these were suggested to high-school students.

Heinlein is also quite political in his writings, and uses philosophy to enrich the social context of the book. Here, Heinlein introduces a principle that only those people who are willing to sacrifice, to "put one's body in between one's home and the war's desolation" are deserving of The Franchise (the right to vote and serve in public office). I am sympathetic to this viewpoint, although I don't think it's a viable replacement for the American basis of Franchise--however, it did make me think about how detrimental franchise imposition in places like Brazil and Australia where people are required by law to vote might be since it would probably sway politics towards demagoguery and lessen the influence of people who are genuinely motivated to vote and participate in public life. Heinlein is no strict ideologue, though. He makes a point that certain political philosophies are designed to meet the needs of a people or society, and that society generally deserves the political systems that it enacts. If that society has no morals or civic virtue (e.g., like those of our founding fathers' society), then we can't expect an American-style political system to 'work' in such a society.

It was an interesting book and I understand it is very different in many important respects from the movie (which I have not seen). For example, there is no reference to coed showers and bunking for soldiers, and the male-female relationships very much reflect the respect for sexual differences of the time in which it was written (late 1950s); although it does vary in its idea of gender roles in the economy (e.g., women were pilots because they were inherently more qualified to be pilots then men because of certain womanly characteristics such as gentleness, etc.).


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Book Review: Fortress NHS

Fortress NHS: A Philosophical Review of the National Health Service by David Seedhouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a probing look into the philosophical underpinnings of the British National Health Service. It fairly treats the subject from the perspective of potential intent of the original framers to the end result; revealing the arbitrary nature of socialized medicine with its eventual intrinsic self-interest to emphasize supposed basic foundational principles such as Need, Quality, Equality, and Cost (the latter being more of a concern to the ministers of health than those ministered to), and on the other hand to obscure the methods or end-results of those philosophies in practical application through an opaque leviathan bureaucracy that is blind to the vision of its mission and stone-deaf to any criticism of the outcomes. The former occurs through the inherently arbitrary ‘eye-of-the-beholder’ nature of the foundational principles, and the latter is achieved through a system that is designed to “stop up all channels through which protest are meaningfully heard” (hence the book’s title). The unhappy consequence of such squelching of information is brazen corruption and naked exploitation that is veiled by pseudo-technical happy-talk that is targeted to frustrate Reason and meaningful reform. This is not an unpredictable result of any kind of organization that has been entrusted with a large proportion of a nation’s wealth and has a strong self-interest to retain control of that wealth.

One core economic principle guiding the NHS is the concept of a cost per Quality-Adjusted-Life-Year (QALY) that is designated by the Orwellian “NICE” (National Institute of Cost-Effectiveness) Counsel; which currently rests at around $U.S.35,000. Fortress NHS identifies the necessity of a QALY for this type of controlled health economic system to function, but reveals that outside of The Fortress such concepts as a ‘QALY’ do not exist. It is no more rational to speak of a ‘cost per QALY’ than it is rational to speak of a ‘cost per unicorn’. This concept of a QALY also has important implications in areas outside of a person’s health status since other factors (e.g., employment or social status, eating habits, etc.) can influence a QALY; thereby justifying even more intrusion into the personal choices of individuals and more arrogation of wealth and power to The Fortress.

Reading this book gave me renewed appreciation for the care with which we should reform our social systems in ways that concentrate enormous power and wealth into fewer hands because that power will inevitably be used to resist any meaningful change and always tends to primarily serve the self-interest and preservation of the mother-organization rather than the interest of those whom it was originally intended to serve.


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Remembering Marriage

Remembering Marriage: "

From the Oct. 18, 2010, issue of NR.

Our recent editorial making the case for preserving the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman has drawn predictably indignant responses from Andrew Sullivan, Amy Davidson (a writer for The New Yorker), and Jonathan Rauch. The last of these writers, when not sputtering, comes close to making a counterargument. The editorial, he writes, “is a mass of non sequiturs. It assumes that if marriage is ‘for’ something -- regulating procreative sex -- then using it for anything else must be ‘against’ marriage, which is like saying that if mouths are ‘for’ eating, we mustn’t use them for talking or breathing.#...#It proceeds as if ‘gay marriage is bad’ follows obviously from ‘straight marriage is good.’”



#ad#Our actual point was and is that same-sex marriage is a contradiction in terms that undermines the logic of the institution. There is a governmental interest in ensuring that as many children as possible are raised in a home by biological parents who are committed to each other and to them for the long term. There is no governmental interest in recognizing other types of adult relationships, and proponents of same-sex marriage hardly bother to try explaining what that interest could be. Sooner or later their case always falls back on the alleged unfairness of not treating committed same-sex couples as though they were married.



Imagine two brothers who, after some family tragedy, try to provide a loving household to a child. What they are doing is certainly praiseworthy, and may even deserve some forms of governmental support. But their relationship is not a marriage, and treating it as such furthers no intelligible purpose. That conclusion would not change if the men were unrelated and having sex with each other. In neither of these cases would governmental recognition of the relationship as a marriage serve either the purpose of regulating procreative sex or any other legitimate governmental purpose. Still less is there a justification for treating one of these hypothetical pairs as married but not the other.



If our critics are right, then the fact that infertile couples have always been considered eligible for marriage means that the institution has never had procreative sex at its heart, and only prejudice against homosexuals can explain why it has historically been restricted to heterosexual couples. (As for why it has in the Western tradition been restricted to groups of two, or should be so restricted now, they have no convincing answer at all and barely try to devise one.) This implicit account of the history of marriage is deeply implausible. The critics could try to argue that modern circumstances justify loosening or eliminating the link between marriage and procreation. Not, we think, convincingly: The disarray of the modern family, to our mind, argues for strengthening those links in both the law and the culture. But the critics cannot even begin to make the argument for change because they resolutely refuse to acknowledge why marriage has the form it does in the first place. They exhibit a kind of willed forgetting of basic social realities. We should decline to join them even at the price of their ignorant mockery.



— This editorial originally appeared in the Oct. 18, 2010, issue of National Review.

The Editors

"

Pew Study: A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.

Read it here

Breakdown:

Demographics

• Mormon groups make up 58% of Utah's population and 1.7% of the total U.S. adult population
  
  • 35% of American Mormons live in Utah, 13% in California, and 4% live in Texas
    
• Two-thirds (66%) are under age 50 compared to 59% of the general population
  
• Women form the Majority (56%) of Mormons
  
• 71% of Mormons are married compared to just 54% of the general population
  
• Mormons are the most likely of any religious faith to be married to someone of the same faith (83%)
  
• The only major religious faith that comes close to Mormons in having children are Muslims (Mormons reporting 3 or more children at home currently: 21%, while only 15% of Muslims have 3 or more children living at home; compared to just 9% in the general population).
  
• 86% of Mormons are white compared to Jews (95% white), mainline Protestant churches (91% white) and Orthodox Christians (87% white).
  

Education and Income

• Mormons are solidly middle-class.
  
• Mormons are significantly more likely than the population overall to have some college education (61% compared to 50%)
  
• 38% earn between $50,000 and $100,000 compared to 30% generally
  
• Mormons are less likely earn less than $50,000 and about as likely to earn more than $100,000 compared to the general population.
  

Converts

• Converts are typically older, less well educated, immigrants, and more racially diverse.
  

Religious Practice

• A majority of Mormons (55%) say they receive a direct answer to a specific prayer request at least once a month.
  
• Mormons have just over 2x the weekly church activity compared to mainline churches (76% compared to 35%).
  
• 91% pray and read scriptures with their children compared to 63% generally.
  

• A strong majority of Mormons (88%) say there are absolute standards of right and wrong.
  
• 60% of Mormons Identify themselves as Conservative, while only 10% consider themselves to be liberal politically.
  
• 65% identify with the Republican party (15% higher than any other religious group) while 22% identify themselves as Democrats.
  
  • The only group that is more partisan than Mormons are Historically Black Churches, which are 77% Democrat
    
• 
  
• Only 22% of Mormons think Evolution is the best explanation of human life while 75% disagree.
  
• Marital status and education levels both correlate positively with conservative views in general including the size of government, abortion, and the role of the military in preserving peace.
  

The Health Care Bill

I did a little summary I did of the health-bill (with the help from some friends over at Race42008).

Expect longer waits, very diminished care, decreased innovation because there will be a large wall of separation between business R&D and the scientist/physicians who actually make the discoveries. Just imagine what would have happened if the government told the Wright brothers, or Henry Ford that they couldn't benefit from their discoveries in any way. Also, consider the fact that the top 5 hospitals do more clinical trials than the rest of the world combined. (Just imagine what France do when we stop developing their health care with American medical technology and stop defending them with our military)?

Of course, the word 'Abortion' is never written in all 1,018 pages, but you can be sure that 'family planning' isn't referring to classes on abstinence, and 'family planning agencies' isn't referring to Catholic Charities or LDS Family Services.

Also, expect that our parents will have their benefits cut. In all, about 75% of health care costs are for Chronic diseases, and costs for the last year of life account for 25-30% of Medicare expenditures. Cuts in these areas will especially affect Black Americans and other minority groups (see: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/4/188

Also, if you would like a taste of what rationed single-payer health care would look like, just google NICE (National Institute of Cost Effectiveness) the British health care rationing board. They have a metric called the QALY (quality adjusted life year) which is a rough estimate of what they would pay for an extra year of life adjusted for quality. Their estimate is that $34,400 is about the right amount to pay for a quality adjusted year of life whereas in the U.S. it is set at around $50,000 per QALY by Medicaid, but if the government takes on coverage of everybody then you can expect that their QALY standard will match that in Great Britain and you will see decreased costs, sure, but that's because all the infirm elderly people are dying from lack of care they would have received if the government was focused only on them and not on everybody; including those who would go to the doctor for any scrape or cough.

Here's a list of important issues found in the bill:

Pg 30 Sec 123 – The creation of a government health care rationing board that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 42 – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. One size fits all. No variation from this plan.

Pg 58 – Government will have real-time access to individual's finances and a National ID Health care card will be issued!

Pg 59 lines 21-24
Government will have direct access to your banks accts for electronic funds transfer.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 No company can sue Government on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Government Monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 – Doctors & AMA – The Government will decide what you can make under this plan.

Pg 145 Line 15-17
An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 146 Subsection (A) line 4: Employers must pay at least 72.5% of a full-time employees' or 65% of an employee's family health insurance. Employers must pay the proportion of health insurance for part-time employees that corresponds to their hours. (e.g., 20 hours/week = 37% coverage). Buisnesses CANNOT reduce a person's salary—expect lot's of part-time lay-offs.

Pg 149, sec. 313:
The employer may opt out and instead pay 8% of a person's salary as a tax towards the government health plan. Expect massive dumping of employees into the Government health-rationing plan.

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVERNMENT) will have access to ALL Americans financial and personal records.

Pg 241 Line 6-8– Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. End of private, physician-directed hospitals Government tells Drs. what/how much they can own. Just remember that it's a lot easier to teach a doctor how to run a business than it is to teach a businessperson how to practice medicine.

Pg 425 Lines 4-12
Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Helping Seniors decide how and when they will die as a cost-cutting measure.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Mandatory
government consultation and implementation of living wills, durable powers of atty., etc.

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources to guide you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "Advanced Care Planning Consult" will be used more and more frequently as patients health deteriorates. A measure to help limit costs associated with costly life-prolonging medical treatments.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 "Advanced Care Planning Consult" includes an order for end-of-life plans.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which Doctors can write an end-of-life order.

PG 430 Lines Subsection (B) 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at the end of life and adjust end-of-life treatments accordingly; including restrictions of expensive antibiotics or artificial feeding/hydration treatments.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic med records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any depart or agency of the US including your data.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any "Quality measure" of HC Services as they see fit.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on Docs but not Government.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the Government with an $18 million website (recovery.org)?

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." This will include taxpayer-paid abortion (hey, if Obama is sending millions of taxpayer money to Mexico and Africa so they can have abortions, then why not Americans?). Also, how are nurses supposed to be qualified to 'increase the economic self-sufficiency or educational achievement' of children?

Pg 770 SEC 1714
Fed Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Federal government provided abortions and restrictions on state sovereignty to prevent government funds going towards abortion.

Pg 838-840 The Government will design & implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids & families expecting kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Prog. includes Government coming into your house & telling you how to parent!

PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Government control of what you eat, drink, and do.

PG 936 Government will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Perform. Standards" Tell me what to eat?

PG 1001 The Government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Pg 30 Sec 123 – The creation of a government health care rationing board that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 42 – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. One size fits all. No variation from this plan.

Pg 58 – Government will have real-time access to individual's finances and a National ID Health care card will be issued!

Pg 59 lines 21-24
Government will have direct access to your banks accts for electronic funds transfer.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 No company can sue Government on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Government Monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 – Doctors & AMA – The Government will decide what you can make under this plan.

Pg 145 Line 15-17
An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 146 Subsection (A) line 4: Employers must pay at least 72.5% of a full-time employees' or 65% of an employee's family health insurance. Employers must pay the proportion of health insurance for part-time employees that corresponds to their hours. (e.g., 20 hours/week = 37% coverage). Buisnesses CANNOT reduce a person's salary—expect lot's of part-time lay-offs.

Pg 149, sec. 313:
The employer may opt out and instead pay 8% of a person's salary as a tax towards the government health plan. Expect massive dumping of employees into the Government health-rationing plan.

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVERNMENT) will have access to ALL Americans financial and personal records.

Pg 241 Line 6-8– Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. End of private, physician-directed hospitals Government tells Drs. what/how much they can own. Just remember that it's a lot easier to teach a doctor how to run a business than it is to teach a businessperson how to practice medicine.

Pg 425 Lines 4-12
Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Helping Seniors decide how and when they will die as a cost-cutting measure.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Mandatory
government consultation and implementation of living wills, durable powers of atty., etc.

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources to guide you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "Advanced Care Planning Consult" will be used more and more frequently as patients health deteriorates. A measure to help limit costs associated with costly life-prolonging medical treatments.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 "Advanced Care Planning Consult" includes an order for end-of-life plans.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which Doctors can write an end-of-life order.

PG 430 Lines Subsection (B) 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at the end of life and adjust end-of-life treatments accordingly; including restrictions of expensive antibiotics or artificial feeding/hydration treatments.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic med records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any depart or agency of the US including your data.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any "Quality measure" of HC Services as they see fit.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on Docs but not Government.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the Government with an $18 million website?

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." Government ABORTIONS anyone. Also, how are nurses supposed to be qualified to 'increase the economic self-sufficiency or educational achievement' of children?

Pg 770 SEC 1714
Fed Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Federal government provided abortions and restrictions on state sovereignty to prevent government funds going towards abortion.

Pg 838-840 The Government will design & implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids & families expecting kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Prog. includes Government coming into your house & telling you how to parent!

PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Government control of what you eat, drink, and do.

PG 936 Government will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Perform. Standards" Tell me what to eat?

PG 1001 The Government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Sanford was having an affair in Argentina

Sanford was having an affair in Argentina

Very disappointing

The End of Hippocratic Medicine

It is troubling that I write about the assault on conscience legislation that was intended to protect doctors and health-care workers from retaliation based on their opposition to abortion, sterilization, and euthanasia. This fight wasn't started by those in the Pro-Life movement, but by extremist ideologues who are trying to force an abortion mandate on thousands of doctors who feel that elective convenience killing of fetuses and the elderly is wrong. These same abortion lobbyist, interestingly, also have a vested interest in the billions of dollars that they receive from government to perform abortions and abortion-related services in the U.S.

Turning doctors into vending machines for quick-fix immoral solutions to tragic mistakes will further plunge the profession into a status of a mere skilled technicians of whom you always have to worry that somebody else (e.g., the government) isn't paying more for your death than you are paying for your health.

Here's some illustrative quotes from a recent NEJM article that was published today:

"Health care providers — and all those whose jobs affect patient care — should cast off the cloak of conscience when patients' needs demand it."

The snarky use of the word 'cloak' here implicates malicious and covert intent on the part of doctors who refuse to take part in abortion. It's part of an ideology that has made it a moral right to be able to kill one's offspring, and assumes that anybody who disagrees on the grounds conscience or morality must have an underlying malicious intent (since, of course, abortion is perfectly moral and a righteous shibboleth of 'modern,' 'civilized' society).

Or ironically: "We have created a state of "conscience creep" in which all behavior becomes acceptable."

And then come out the hyperbolic reductio ad absurdum scare tactics:

"Taken to its logical extreme, the rule could cause health care to grind to a halt."

The author concedes there are reasonable grounds for Right of Conscience laws such as avoiding conscription into the military, but the elective abortion of a down syndrome child is simply too much tolerance; a tolerance that risks the total collapse of healthcare globally.

Crispin Sartwell a Pro-Choice Atheist said this in the Los Angeles Times last fall:

"The extent to which an institution seeks to expunge individual conscience and moral autonomy is the extent to which it is totalitarian and dangerous. The idea that I resign my conscience to the institution or to the state is perhaps the single most pernicious notion in human history. It is at the heart of the wars and genocides of this century and the last."

It was doctors who led the eugenics and genocide movements in Nazi Germany; doctors who met the prisoners at Auschwitz and signaled to the right or to the left. I hope the profession never violates the moral conscience of its members, but if it does then Medicine will aquire the distrust and reprobation that it will deserve. I am sorry to find myself in this sad state, but I am confident that Doctors and Patients will stand up together to oppose this possible oppressive action by the Obama administration.

Some Background information:

• CMDA Informal Member Survey: 25% have been discriminated against - lost a job, lost a promotion or lost an educational opportunity; 40% have been pressured to violate their conscience, 90% say the problem is getting worst.
  
• Right of Conscience is guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
  
• The present laws are being ignored since there is no provision to enforce them.
  
• Pro-abortion groups are attempting to force healthcare professionals to participate in activities they are morally opposed to or leave medicine. These regulations are needed more than ever.
  
• A medical referral means you endorse the competency, ethics and integrity of the doctor you refer to, believe the procedure is necessary and that you have entered into a professional relationship. Patients don't need a referral to find someone to do an abortion, just a phone book.
  
• Healthcare professionals of conscience have not been doing objectionable activities in the past so these regulations will not limit access for patients. The greatest danger to patient access is to force out of work up to a quarter of healthcare professionals.
  
• You provide full and accurate information to patients even when they request something you won't do. You treat them courteously.
  
• Professional and other ethical statements support your position.
  
  • American Medical Association - AMA reaffirms that neither physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of personally held moral principles.
    
  • World Health Organization - The physician should be free to make clinical and ethical judgments without inappropriate outside interference.
    
  • Canadian Medical Association - The CMA stresses that physicians who decline to participate in abortion should not be discriminated against, and emphasizes the need to respect the rights of conscientious objectors, especially those in training for obstetrics and gynecology, and anesthesia.
    
  • European Convention on Human Rights - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes… freedom …to manifest his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
    
• This is more than the issue of abortion. Should we force pacifist to kill or doctors to participate in executions? What about forcing them to participate in physician-assisted suicide where it is legalized?
  

There is much more information on Freedom2care.org and CMDA's websites. Act today, don't delay. You may submit more than one comment as you address different parts of HHS's request.

Interview with CMDA President about Doctors being forced to perform Abortions

Listen to an interview Dr. David Stevens had with News Radio 550 WSAU's Pat Snyder and Tom King regarding the concern over the resending of healthcare right of conscience.

Click here to access .mp3 file