LIFE DIGEST: Pro-life group calls for Pitino’s firing
- Aug 18, 2009
A University of Louisville student pro-life organization has called for the dismissal of men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino after he acknowledged committing adultery and providing $3,000 to his sexual partner for an abortion she underwent.
“A man who values protecting his reputation above the life of his child is not a man the University of Louisville should ask us to emulate,” said Cardinals for Life President Lisa Just in an Aug. 13 written statement.
Also in this edition: Bioethicist: Killing, not autonomy, problem with prenatal testing, South Dakota threatens to suspend aboriton clinic’s license and Australian man gains right to starve.
“A man who turned his back on his wife, his children, his team and the University of Louisville, and then was willing to pay to have his preborn son or daughter killed in order to hide his offenses should not hold a place of honor on this campus.
“If the University of Louisville doesn’t dismiss Rick Pitino immediately, they are condoning the abortion of his child, as well as his betrayal of his family, his team and the entire campus community,” Just said.
Pitino apologized at an Aug. 12 news conference for an “indiscretion” six years ago, according to The Louisville Courier-Journal. School President James Ramsey and Athletic Director Tom Jurich announced their support for Pitino after the coach’s statement. Jurich said he expects Pitino to be Louisville’s coach “for a long time,” the newspaper reported.
Pitino told police he had consensual sex with Karen Cunagin Sypher in 2003 at a Louisville restaurant after it closed and later gave her $3,000 when she said she wanted an abortion but had no insurance, according to The Courier-Journal.
Pitino, 56, became Louisville’s head coach in 2001 after leading the University of Kentucky to the national title in 1996 and coaching the Boston Celtics for four seasons. He has rebuilt Louisville into one of the top basketball programs in the country.
Bioethicist: Killing, not autonomy, problem with prenatal testing
New non-invasive screening of unborn children may threaten pregnant women’s autonomy, German doctors say, but an informed decision does not necessarily make a right decision, a Southern Baptist bioethicist says.
Two corporations – Lenetix Inc. and Sequenom Inc. — are preparing to introduce non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD), according to an article by three German physicians in Nature Reviews Genetics.
The new form of testing will enable such conditions as Down syndrome to be detected earlier in pregnancy than before. With prenatal diagnosis, “most of the conditions tested cannot be cured or substantially alleviated,” they wrote. “In these cases, the mother’s only option is to decide whether to accept the child’s impairment or to terminate the pregnancy.”
The doctors expressed concern this new method of screening “might pose serious threats to the autonomous decision making of the pregnant woman.”
The earlier diagnosis “could increase the proportion of pregnant women opting for termination, including for non-medical reasons (such as for ‘unwanted’ fetal sex),” they said. It also will eliminate a step in the procedure, meaning a woman and a physician will have only one opportunity to discuss the diagnosis, the doctors said. “It is therefore legitimate to ask whether this diagnostic ‘offer’ can be refused, and whether an autonomous decision-making process is still possible,” they said.
C. Ben Mitchell said the doctors’ worry about autonomy is not the greatest concern regarding prenatal diagnosis.
“We’re right to pay attention to the patient’s wishes, but autonomy is not a guarantee of morality,” said Mitchell, Graves professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., and a consultant to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“That is, just because a mother makes an ‘informed’ decision to abort her child does not make it ethical,” he said. “In this case, prenatal genetic testing becomes yet another tool for the elimination of unborn children.”
Studies have shown even the current multi-step processes for prenatal diagnosis do not guarantee autonomy for women, the physicians said. They reported a German survey found 25 percent of women said they chose prenatal testing because their doctors wanted it, 36 percent said they thought it was nearly mandatory and 16 percent said they did not give their consent or could not remember giving it.
South Dakota threatens to suspend abortion clinic’s license
The South Dakota government has threatened Planned Parenthood with suspension of its license for refusing to provide state-mandated information to women considering abortion.
The state’s Department of Health warned Planned Parenthood of the possible suspension in an Aug. 7 letter, according to the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader. The organization has until Aug. 22 to provide a plan for meeting the state’s requirements, the newspaper reported.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate in Sioux Falls is the state’s only abortion clinic.
A May inspection found the clinic failed to abide by South Dakota’s 2005 informed consent law, according to the Argus Leader, by refusing to tell a pregnant woman: (1) An abortion “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;” (2) she “has an existing relationship with that unborn human being” that is legally protected and an abortion will end the relationship; (3) about the “known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors.”
It is another in a series of reports of Planned Parenthood affiliates allegedly breaking or seeking to circumvent the law. Those allegations have included the state of Washington ordering a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Spokane to reimburse about $700,000 for overbilling Medicaid and employees at affiliates in five states attempting to cover up alleged child sexual abuse.
Affiliates of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) performed more than 305,000 abortions in 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available. PPFA received more than $349 million in government grants and contracts during the financial year of July 2007 to June 2008. The organization’s total revenue was $1.04 billion during that time period.
Australian man gains right to starve
The Supreme Court of Western Australia has granted a quadriplegic, non-terminally ill man the right to starve to death.
The court ruled Aug. 14 the Brightwater Care Group in Perth is legally obligated to grant Christian Rossiter’s request to be taken off a tube providing him with food and water, The Australian reported. Rossiter, 49, received injuries to his spine when he fell nearly 100 feet in 1988.
Rossiter had told his Brightwater caregivers more than 30 times he wanted them to stop providing him with food and water, according to the report.
He has not made a decision to be removed from the feeding tube, now that he has the right to do so, The Australian reported. Rossiter said he might be convinced otherwise.
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Further Learning
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