Tea at Trianon: Harvesting Organs in "Defective" Babies

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Harvesting Organs in "Defective" Babies

From the Stream:

At the annual meeting of the British Transplantation Society in Glasgow, it was revealed that the National Health Service, Britain’s government-run health care system, will start asking expectant mothers whose babies have fatal defects that they should keep them full-term — not to respect their lives, but in order to harvest their organs. In the UK, many mothers abort their babies upon learning about birth defects. However, Britain is facing a shortage of body parts for transplantation; there are currently over 7,000 people on the organ waiting list, with three dying every day. Dr Trevo Stammers, director for bioethics at St Mary’s University, London, condemned the practice. “It is a ghoulish suggestion that can only undermine public confidence in transplantation — one of the greatest medical advances of my lifetime,” he said. “Raiding the bodies of children born only for their organs will further tarnish the profession.” Babies with the brain defect anencephaly would be recommended for harvesting. In many cases, the baby would be born brain dead and kept alive by artificial ventilation while its organs are harvested. However, not all babies with anencephaly end up dying. Angela Morales and Jaxon Strong both survived after birth in 2014. Now their parents work to increase awareness of the fact. Jaxon’s parents wrote on a website, “He can hear, see, can say words, has learned to use a pacifier, smile, laugh, and is working on the ability to eat on his own and use his arms and legs to learn to crawl, sit and hopefully one day, even walk on his own.” (Read more.)