Medical condition of 'fear of young children' bad-mouthed by self-serving school district

As to the legalities of this case, it's a matter of record that the teacher with the phobia, being  of advanced years and work experience, shoud not have been shuttled around from one school to another, and to a school of younger-aged students.  Already, the district administrators show themselves to be a calloused lot.  More than that, once they became aware of the teacher's health issues, the administrators shoud have forthwith accommodated her needs.  They were not unreasonable.  She had performed her services dutifully and well.  So it's not really her motives that shoud be questioned, but those of the administrators who wanted to "squeeze out" the experienced teach, and put the money into the technology and technician they had in mind.  An online course in French still requires a technician, so this is a case where the administrators were promoting not just a new form of hi-tech pedagogy but were favouring someone in the technical field to replace someone with lots of inter-human teaching experience.

As to the phobic condition to which the teacher was subjected, apparently thru much of her life, we now make room and practice accommodation for persons with Disabilities, is a mtter of professional insensitivity to begin with.  The profound ethical dimensions of the administrators failure in sensitivity to a person who had served long and well, and ineptitude in not accommodating once her condition became known (known because she was forced to reveal her medical record in order to not suffer the injustice that the school district was hell-bent on adminstrating).  To this injury, the school district was in error further to stigmatize the lady by publicly using devious rhetorical devices on her: "She wants money," says the spokesman, trying to undermine her integrity by assigning his version of her motive to sue.  What woud be wrong if she wants money?  Money is a typical way in our system of rectifying an injustice and humiliation and loss of self-esteem thru the process launched by district in putting her in conditions where her phobia was bound to undermine her teaching.  And let's face it, the district spokesman is still trying to intimidate her.  It's clearly, however, the district that is trying to enrich itself with money that woud far more justly go to this teacher.  When the district says the teacher woud have gotten 89% of her salary by retiring, it shows itself to be calculating for its own budget and projects with her gone.  The 89% woud come from a very different financial source (an insurance plan) than the annual budget of the district.  In other words, the district wanted her money for its program, and from its venal perspective considered that she woud get a good deal, that woud cost them nothing.  And that's the point.  The district played with the health and self-respect of the long-serving and experienced teacher in order to get salary funds that woud otherwise go to her.  The district criminally overlooked the teacher's pride in her work, while she did indeed need the environment she had had where she was able to manage her phobia and other physical and mental health issues.  And the district squeezed her out, in order to squeeze the funds for her salary for purposes that simply erased her as a human being (yes, with rare phobia) and as a good teacher.

-- Albert Gedraitis

myFoxdc.com (Jan15,2k13)

Ohio ex-teacher sues, 

says she fears young kids

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Posted: Jan 15, 2013 11:23 AM ESTUpdated: Jan 15, 2013 2:33 PM EST

By AMANDA LEE MYERS
Associated Press

CINCINNATI (AP) - A former high school teacher is accusing school district administrators of discriminating against her because of a rare phobia she says she has: a fear of young children.

Maria Waltherr-Willard, 61, had been teaching Spanish and French at Mariemont High School in Cincinnati since 1976.

Waltherr-Willard, who does not have children of her own, said that when she was transferred to the district's middle school in 2009, the seventh- and eighth-graders triggered her phobia, causing her blood pressure to soar and forcing her to retire in the middle of the 2010-2011 school year.

In her lawsuit against the district, filed in federal court in Cincinnati, Waltherr-Willard said that her fear of young children falls under the federal American with Disabilities Act and that the district violated it by transferring her in the first place and then refusing to allow her to return to the high school.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Gary Winters, the school district's attorney, said Tuesday that Waltherr-Willard was transferred because the French program at the high school was being turned into an online one and that the middle school needed a Spanish teacher.

"She wants money," Winters said of Walter-Willard's motivation to sue. "Let's keep in mind that our goal here is to provide the best teachers for students and the best academic experience for students, which certainly wasn't accomplished by her walking out on them in the middle of the year."

Waltherr-Willard and her attorney, Brad Weber, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Winters also denied Walter-Willard's claim that the district transferred her out of retaliation for her unauthorized comments to parents about the French program ending - "the beginning of a deliberate, systematic and calculated effort to squeeze her out of a job altogether," Weber wrote in a July 2011 letter to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The lawsuit said that Waltherr-Willard has been treated for her phobia since 1991 and also suffers from general anxiety disorder, high blood pressure and a gastrointestinal illness. She was managing her conditions well until the transfer, according to the lawsuit.

Working with the younger students adversely affected Waltherr-Willard's health, the lawsuit said.

She was "unable to control her blood pressure, which was so high at times that it posed a stroke risk," according to the lawsuit, which includes a statement from her doctor about her high blood pressure. "The mental anguish suffered by (Waltherr-Willard) is serious and of a nature that no reasonable person could be expected to endure the same."

The lawsuit was filed in June and is set to go to trial in February 2014. A judge last week dismissed three of the ex-teacher's claims, but left discrimination claims standing.

The lawsuit says that Waltherr-Willard has lost out on at least $100,000 of potential income as a result of her retirement.

Winters said that doesn't make sense, considering that Waltherr-Willard's take from retirement is 89 percent of what her annual salary was, which was around $80,000.

Patrick McGrath, a clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders near Chicago, said that he has treated patients who have fears involving children and that anyone can be afraid of anything.

"A lot of people will look at something someone's afraid of and say, 'There is no rational reason to be afraid of that,'" he said. "But anxiety disorders are emotion-based. ... We've had mothers who wouldn't touch their children after they're born."

He said most phobias begin with people asking themselves, "What if?" and then imagining the worst-case scenario.

"You can make an association to something and be afraid of it," McGrath said. "If you get a phone call that your mom was just in a horrible accident as you're locking the door, you can make an association that bad news comes if you don't lock the door right. It's a basic case of conditioning."

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20592156/teacher-with-fear-of-young-kids-sues-ohio-district#ixzz2I6NuPPRy
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Index for refWrite blogsystem, January 15, 2k13

Index for refWrite blogsystem, Jan15,2k13

rW1

refWrite Frontpage (refWrite-experimental):  featuring hot news on politics (Politicarp), economics (EconoMix), juridics (Lawt) -- usually articles selected from the 24/7 cycle, and often responded to, or analyzed in detail, or commented upon, with verve … latest International Arbitration: As part of globalization, international law is being transformed and enriched, but poses new problems for legal scholars and Alinskeets target Wal-Mart and the Bangladesh factory fires to build American union and EnviroChina: Air Pollution astronomical: If you're in Beijing, you're not breathing well, sad to say and Gun control after another massacre: Alan Keyes provides a cautionary analysis

rW2

refWrite page 2 (refWrite...page2 rW2:  pisteutics, Christianity/ies, other faiths worldwide, morals, moralities, moral communities, moralviews, mores, ethics (a science and a modal science that pertains to intimate unions, marriage, family, friendship, and even the moral qualifying factor of labour unions), education and formation (including spiritual formation), psychotherapy, science/s including natural sciences (Owlb) latest New council of churches in Egypt to face Islamists and 450th anniversary of Heidelberg Catechism and 'Allah' a good translation in Muslim cultures for 'God'? and Jon Levenson thinks re different Abrahams in Judaism/s, Christianity/ies, and Islam/s and Jewish conversion to Christ: Isaac da Costa

rW3

refWrite page 3  (refWrite...page3) rW3: academics, reformational scholarship, evolution and Intelligent Design (Owlb) latest Sociologist collects basic texts of reformational economist and Christian education for all?, Bangkok, Thailand and Video — Innocents betrayed — populations denied guns, no defense against totalitraian slawter and  ID before Darwin — Creation and evolution in James McCosh.

rW4

refWrite Backpage (refWrite backpage) arts, music (Musikos, Country Gal and others), sports (Sportikos), technics (Technowlb) -- includes entertainment, movies (Movie-Man), satire and humour (Saturikos) -- and other newspotters, analysts, and columnists latest  Rafael Nadal will try to move past his injuries iin new pursuit of tennis championship and Fabulous solo dance in airport and  Bureucracies both commercial and governmental mess up InfoTech and National Hockey League's Toronto Maple Leafs kick off season Jan 20.

rW5

refWrite refBlogger Insert (refWrite refBloggers Insert) anti-censorship by govts, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and the usual culprits; news and advocacy on behalf of freedom of speech, freedom of news media, freedom of artistic and other expression including the key hub-freedom of religion and inter-religions dialogue (insert this page in your own blog!) latest Readers, bloggers, celebrities defend Chinese newspaper against govt censors  and Prof argues for UK's new laws governing newspapers and investigative journos and China fines Apple for re-sale of e-books by Chinese authors and Myanmar/Burma removes censorship (in theory) rW6 refWrite Calendar (January 2013 anno domini): a series of monthly blog entries, page by page, month by month, choose a month and scrolldown in the month you are interested in, at the moment -- events among reformational community and friends worldwide, also Business & Human Rights events, sports events now and longterm, some entertainment events, some tech events, and lots more ….latest January and February — sports (esp football/soccer], scholarly conferences [Kuyper, Heidelbert, Brit youth, Brazil Christian sport, business & human rights]  rW7 refWrite page 7 Christian Medical Observations and Ruminations latest New ways to measure doctors; good deed (NYC hospitals) and  'Suffer pain a bit' to stoip pharmacy hold-ups and North Korea's died from his 'fit of rage' and Sleep apnea robs you of oxygen to your brain and In vitro fertilization labelled just 'loss' and 'waste' rW8 refWrite page 8 Christian Labour Advocate :  latest  South African columnist contributes to background regarding Lonmin labour crisis, where hardrock drillers took up arms against police and were massacred and Forced labour in China's penal camp gets outed by inmate in box of Hallowe'en decoration bawt in Portland, Oregon, USA and Tunisia narrowly averts first general strike by main body of unions which are now at the forefront of critique and opposition to anti-democratic tendencies. Philippines Northern Samar's provincial govt enacts first local anti-child law replete with funding and South Africa's farmworkers union calls to resume strike after violence and Justice Malala, South African columnist, contributes to background on Lonmin platinum miners strike and massacre and rW9 refWrite page 9 Books mostly rW9 -- many titles arranged according to blog-entires by topic or news developments. I keep including new blog entries on new topics and book lists proffered from others -- includes  some fiction, some poem books, lots of theology, needs more balance.  we will add basic titles for Talmud (Neusner), Mishna (Neusner), and Philo of Alexandria aka Philo Judaeus (circa 25 BC- 47 AD), the Jewish philosopher who inter-acted with Hellenistic Greek-based culture, before the time of Jesus and during Jesus' life before the Cruicifixion, Descent, Resurrection, and Ascension (see a virulent anti-Christian try to use Philo against Christians, just as some Christians tried to enlist the Alexandrian in support of our faith in Jesus Christ. Also, a book on the Great Library of Alexandria, and some tie-in titles with Hellenism and its hegemony culturally before the time of Jesus and his Apostle to Hellenists, Saul of Tarsus aka Paul.  On Paul, I especially recommend Sylvia Keesmaat's book, Paul and His Story: (Re)Interpreting the Exodus Tradition, but balance Paul's treatment of Abraham (the interpreters make it a key replacement-theology text) with Jon Levenson's 2011 Abraham between Torah and Gospel (new); look also for this guy's critique of Abrahamism in current streams of inter-faith dialogue.  Keesmaat's volume is reviewed here (2001) by Brad Eastman who isn't interested in the fact that Paul relies on the Septuagint, not directly on the Hebrew Bible in recalling powerfully the exodus story to his Roman readers (Greek and Latin speaking), Jews and Gentiles in the synogogues in Rome.  A new Economics topical page has been (barely) started.  And I still want to beef up a Hellenistics page with reference to Toynbe and more deeply Werner Jaeger's Paideia (I've read the entire three volumes, as Prof Evan Runner recommended we do).  (8-)

New ways to measure the doctor's good deeds, and remunerate her or him in a better way ....

This article represents a big shift, at NYC's municipal level, from the easy-quantification way of paying  medical doctors in hospitals, to a system that is evaluative of the work of each doctorto determine how much financial reward he or she shoud get.  I see room for new forms of abuse in this paradigm, but I favour it because the old way was a shambles in inequity and iniquity.  What's more, "the new law could change longstanding relationships, giving more power to some of the poorest and most vulnerable patients over doctors who run their care."  I wrote about this from personal experience in the early days of this blog:  my six-part series near the launch of this blog, and which I can't find at the moment.  There doesn't seem to be an archive of back posts.  In any case, please read this NYT article by Anemona Hartocollis, as it may portend the future of medical remuneration of doctor's and nurses everywhere.

— Albert Gedraitis


New York City:  
Doctor's will get paid more for good care, less for lousy care

by ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Published: January 11, 2013

In a bold experiment in performance pay, complaints from patients at New York City’s public hospitals and other measures of their care — like how long before they are discharged and how they fare afterward — will be reflected in doctors’ paychecks under a plan being negotiated by the physicians and their hospitals.

The proposal represents a broad national push away from the traditional model of rewarding doctors for the volume of services they order, a system that has been criticized for promoting unnecessary treatment. In the wake of changes laid out in the Affordable Care Act, public and private hospitals are already preparing to have their income tied partly to patient outcomes and cost containment, but the city’s plan extends that financial incentive to the front line, the doctors directly responsible for treatment. It also shows how the new law could change longstanding relationships, giving more power to some of the poorest and most vulnerable patients over doctors who run their care.

“I would expect that we’re going to see this become more and more prevalent in compensation arrangements,” said Alan Aviles, president of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the city’s 11 public hospitals and is the country’s largest public health system, handling more than 1 million emergency room visits a year.

The corporation’s plan would make doctors’ raises dependent on their performance on quality measures. The details are being negotiated with the doctors’ union, but both sides expect to reach an agreement that incorporates the idea.

Read more ...

New York City's Mayor prescribes "suffer pain a bit" to stop pharmacy hold-ups

I coudn't  believe the crassness of the Mayor of New York City when questioned about new restrictions on the prescriptons of painkiller drugs by doctors.  First, he uses "death" as an example of suffering, but it isn't — not if you have painkiller prescription drugs up to and thru the moment of death.  After death, the body does not suffer, it dissolves.  So, why is the Mayor mixing apples and oranges?  Suffering of the body is not his to dish out, not his to encourage.  Only a sadist thinks that way.  Those in pain shoud not play masochist to his sadism.

Of course, I do realize that holdups of people coming out of pharmacies is a distinct problem in New York City, but in certain neiborhoods and not across the whole of Gotham.   The mayor'ss solution is no solution for those of us who don't have his kind of wealth.  He never has to go see a doctor or a pharmacy, in the first place, he can easily pay to have them come to him; or if he has to go to a pharmacy, he can take an armed guard or a squadron with him.  We can't.  So when he says that we can "suffer a bit," we must let him that we know that his plan to use us in that way is not acceptable.  He has to be fair to everybody, and he isn't succeeding with these S&M routines he's subscribing to the citizens in pain.

— Albert Gedraitis


Observer.com Politicker London UK (Jan12,2k13)

Bloomberg slaps down criticism of Painkiller Restriction Plan

By Colin Campbell 1/11 9:32am

Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city officials unveiled a new initiative to limit supplies of prescription painkillers in the city’s emergency rooms as a way to combat what they described as a growing addiction problem in the region. Some critics, as documented by The New York Times, however, felt the move would unnecessarily hurt poor and uninsured patients who use emergency rooms as their primary care doctor. Needless to say, Mr. Bloomberg was not swayed by this line of argument.

“The city hospitals we control, so … we’re going to do it and we’re urging all of the other hospitals to do it, voluntary guidelines. Somebody said, oh, somebody wrote, ‘Oh then maybe there won’t be enough painkillers for the poor who use the emergency rooms as their primary care doctor,’” the mayor said on his weekly radio show with John Gambling. “Number one, there’s no evidence of that. Number two, supposing it is really true, so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect … There’s nothing that you can possibly do where somebody isn’t going to suffer, and it’s always the same group [claiming], ‘Everybody is heartless.’ Come on, this is a very big problem.”

In the same interview, Mr. Bloomberg stressed the initiative’s simple rationale is to prevent extra pills from piling up in the cabinets of New Yorkers who no longer need them, where they can pose a health risk if they’re abused.

“We talk about drugs, heroin and crack and marijuana, this is one of the big outbursts–and it’s a lot worse around the country than it is here. It’s kids and adults getting painkillers and using them for entertainment purposes, or whatever field of purposes, as opposed to what they are designed for,” he explained. “If you break a leg, you’re going to be in pain, nothing wrong with getting something that reduces the pain. But if you get 20 days worth of pills and you only need them three days, there’s 17 days sitting there. Invariably some of the kids are going to find them, or you’re going to take them and get you addicted.”

Mr. Bloomberg also argued the number of pain pills currently being prescribed had even contributed to an uptick in violent crimes outside of pharmacies from robbers looking to steal the drugs.

“You see there’s a lot more hold-ups of pharmacies, people getting held up as they walk out of pharmacies,” he explained. “What are they all about? They’re not trying to steal your shaving cream or toothpaste at the point of a gun. They want these drugs.”

North Korea's deceased leader Kim Jong-Il 'died in a fit of rage' December 17, 2011

This item of political news is also a medical story about obsession, failure, and lethal rage -- one coud argue a form of suicide.   May the Lord preserve his son, the new leader Kim Jong-un, giving him a heart of compassion and a sense of justice for all his people.

-- Albert Gedraitis

Chosun Ilbo (Jan7,2k13)

Kim Jong-il 'died in fit of rage' 

over failed dam-construction project

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died in a fit of rage on Dec. 17, 2011 after being briefed about a serious leak at a hydro-electric power plant, a source claims. The plant in Huichon, Jagang Province was built to supply about half of the power needs of the capital Pyongyang. 

"After being briefed about the leak, Kim Jong-il lambasted officials and ordered them to repair it," said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. "He rushed to make an on-site inspection of the facility unable to contain his anger and died suddenly."

North Korea announced on Dec. 19 last year that Kim died of a heart attack caused by stress and overwork while on a train on his way to a field inspection.

The Huichon power plant was one of the poster projects of the reclusive state's hopes to become a "powerful and prosperous nation." Construction began in March 2009, with Pyongyang boasting that it would resolve the chronic power shortage of the capital. Kim visited the site twice in 2009, four times in 2010 and twice in 2011. His son, incumbent leader Kim Jong-un, has already been four times.

Due to their incessant pressure, construction was completed on April 5 this year, just three years after groundbreaking and around seven years ahead of schedule. But the rush led to faulty construction, and cracks appeared on parts of the dam, which is 100 m high and 555 m long and capable of storing 850 million cubic meters of water.

"It wasn't just a crack. The safety of the entire dam was in question," the source said.

Stress about the trouble at Huichon was apparently the last straw after Kim learned that steel and textile manufacturing plants, also touted as key projects, had serious defects as well.

A report on Dec. 22 in the official Rodong Sinmun daily (Pyongyang, North Korea; see also Columbia Journalism Review  in regard to online English edition) , four days after Kim's sudden death, supports the story. "Once again our general quietly boarded a train headed to the northern part of the nation," it said. The northern part includes Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Jagang provinces. 

Kim Jong-il apparently ordered those responsible to be severely punished.

Kim Jong-un [son and successor of Kim Jong-Il] did not attend a ceremony on April 5 marking the completion of the Huichon power plant, apparently to show he was still aggrieved over the project which led to his father's death.

But other questions about Kim senior's death remain. For instance, it took North Korea over 51 hours to announce Kim's death, twice as long than it took to announce his father and nation founder Kim Il-sung's in 1994. This raises suspicions that the North was trying to hide something.

At the time, intelligence officials said satellite images showed Kim's personal train never left Pyongyang on Dec. 17, raising suspicions that the official story that he died aboard the train was a lie.

Also, Kim Jong-il was famous for his nocturnal lifestyle and normally got up around noon, so at the time pundits speculated that it was unlikely he was on a train in the freezing morning, which is bad for patients with a weak heart.

Sleep apnea robs you of proper rest, denies you oxygen to your brain and to your metabolic system; don't serttle for less than you need and what you're worth

I've interspersed in this commercial article what I know from experience.  I'd thoroly check out both kinds of devices mentioned, and also the new plastic product designed by a dentist that you put in your mouth to reset your jaw overnite.  I saw that one on TV, and again I'm suspicious of the claims made.  Your case of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may be too severe for either the mid-price device pictured, or the cheap-price device you place in your mouth.  Check them all out, doing a sleep over in a sleep clinic strapped to censors that measure your condition and tape you overnite.  It will also record how many times a nite your feet kick involuntarily.   If you need the more expensive kind that I have been using for years, find the money for a well-made product.  Mine was made in Germany.  In any case, it's nice to have a good sleep after hours at the computer blogging the news on the 7/24 news cycle.

-- Albert Gedraitis




How life works - a commercial enterprise (Jan7,2k13)

A new solution that stops your snoring 

and lets you sleep

If you’re like most Americans you probably don’t get eight hours sleep each night.

But, if you also constantly feel exhausted, experience headaches for no obvious reason or have high blood pressure, you could have a more serious problem.

That’s because these can all be the result of snoring—which is, in turn, the most common symptom of a potentially serious health problem—obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). [I have severe OSA. AG]

While most people think of snoring as a minor annoyance, research shows it can be hazardous to your health.  That’s because for over 18 million Americans it’s related to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). People who suffer from OSA repeatedly and unknowingly stop breathing during the night due to a complete or partial obstruction of their airway [without my device, I wake up 500 times a nite].  It occurs when the jaw, throat, and tongue muscles relax, blocking the airway used to breathe.  The resulting lack of oxygen can last for a minute or longer, and occur hundreds of times each night.  [Lack of oxygen from OSA means less oxygen for metabolism, and adds up in what is called a "sleep deficit' that can go on, over a lifetime -- somehow further deficit must be prevented, and make-up sleep shoud occur when the hours are cut short -- by swing shifts, anxiety, stress, and other sleep-deficit producing conditions of life. AG]

Thankfully, most people wake when a complete or partial obstruction occurs, but it can leave you feeling completely exhausted.  OSA has also been linked to a host of health problems including:

• Acid reflux
• Frequent nighttime urination
• Memory loss
• Stroke
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Heart attack

People over 35 are at higher risk.

OSA can be expensive to diagnose and treat, and is not always covered by insurance.  A sleep clinic will require an overnight visit (up to $5,000). [This is a preposterous figure -- unless you are moving into a luxury swuite in some hotel-like swanky clinic; the figure is intended to scare people into buying this debvice.]  Doctors then analyze the data and prescribe one of several treatments.  These may require you to wear uncomfortable CPAP devices [there is some necessary adjustment to make, and a CPAP machine is not the answer for everyone -- I've used a CPAP -- continous pressure air pump for 20 years and I love it -- AG] that force air through your nose and mouth while you sleep to keep your airways open, and may even include painful surgery.  [A CPAP machine doesn't require painful surgery, and has nothing to do with surgery; but if you need surgery, get it!]

Fortunately, there is now a comfortable, far less costly and invasive treatment option available.  [I think the copy writer meant "noninvasive option.] A recent case study published by Eastern Virginia Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine concludes that wearing a simple chinstrap while you sleep can be [but is not necessarily] an effective treatment for OSA.

The chin strap, which is now available from a company called MySnoringSolution, works by supporting the lower jaw and tongue, preventing obstruction of the airway.  It’s made from a high-tech, lightweight, and super-comfortable material.  Thousands of people have used the MySnoringSolution chinstrap to help relieve their snoring symptoms, and they report better sleeping, and better health overall because of it.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in the UK — is it just 'loss' and 'waste' ?

Is it 'loss' and 'waste' and 'industrial numbers'?, this contemporary medical and technological development whereby women without children who want a child, one or more, but otherwise may have some compliction in getting pregnant, or who may simply but strongly prefer a child consanguinous with herself.  Some critics of IVF, like Lord David Alton (not formally a member of a party in the Britain's upper house, but what is called a 'crossbencher') and lawyer Andrea Williams (dynamic leader of several valuable Christian political and cultural causes in England), arrogantly compare the natural desire for a consanguinous child with the compassion-driven desire to adopt or foster a child (of course, fostering is in many juridictions a source of income, and some more-or-less stay-at-home moms make a living off fostering several children at a time).  In my view, on the other hand, all three paths are positive, if not always, yet potentially for those women (and husbands or lovers or anonymous sprem donors) who make a choice either of three ways in this matter.  Why the desire for a consanguinous child, "blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh," shoud suffer such an ignominous and discrciminatory put-down from either lord or lady, is beyond my Christian comprehension.  Alton and Williams seem to be consumed by a discriminatory passion (irrationality) and an invididous desire of their own, to social engineer (rationality technologically driven in its own way).  Like all social planneers, they strenuously object to loss and waste, according to their own parameters.  Yet, while IVF medical technology is indeed just that, it isn't dominated by controlling women's desires, and the choices of technical-medical assistance they can nowadays make between IVF impregnation and birth (you don't hear of a deeply chosen IVF procedure where over her 9 months a woman then reverses course and instead of the birth of her child then chooses an abortion).

Now in the case of Alton's and Williams' social engineering rationality where the desire for IVF consanginous birth is to be re-directed to second and third and perhaps fourth options of adoption (open only to certain classes of persons and couples in her view) and fostering (where a pecuniary motive enters in, except for the very rich perhaps) and, of course, working in an orphanage (which they don't have the courage to mention).  In comparison to such socially-engineered re-direction of parenthood for a woud-be mother who has difficulty in actually getting pregnant, let's consider nature.  As Carl Sagan pointed out, nature is supremely profligate in many species in generating eggs in super-abundance above what nature (God's creation) permits to be born or grow past infancy.  The ratios of eggs to births to self-sustaining young is astounding, and it implies that loss and waste are natural.  So, natural-law theorists have a problem moving from technological solutions (rationality) to biotic-psychic natural patterns (irrationality, nonrationality, prerationality modally speaking — Herman Dooyeweerd).  This points to an underlying antinomy in thinkers like Alton and Williams  — stout advocates of social engineering to get a woman's desire for a consangine child off-track and re-directed toward adoption and fostering (both very worthwhile and praiseworthy endeavours, but neither without their own inherent problems, along with those of consanguinity).

I hate to think of the nightmare called to mind by the spectre of a bureaucracy of crats devoted entirely to persuading or conditioning potential mothers with consanguine desires being re-channeled to socially-perferred adoption and fostering.  It too much calls to mind the parallel of a bureaucracy devoted to talking mothers into abortions in such agencies as Planned Parenthood.  The coercive tilt of all such bureaucracies around life and death (the medical professions, for instance) overlooks the stark fact that the employees of such institutions all have a vested interest in keeping their industrial numbers up. (I leave aside here the whole problem with single mothers raising fatherless child/ren.  Sometimes, it's better to kick the natural father or a step-father out of the house and one's life, than to permit the perpetrator to continue abuse. But only select women can afford to do so.  And then there's their loneliness. Yet, fatherlessness, motherlessness both remain shadow phenomena for which an as-yet not-totally engineered society must seek ameliorative methods of halfway solutions, manned and womanned by social workers, another bureaucracy devoted again to keeping their own numbers up and keeping up the numbers of their caseloads.)

— Albert Gedraitis

Please see the critical note that I have interspersed into the text of the news article I found on the UK online publication Christian Concern, associated closely with the work of lawyer-activist Andrea Williams.  On another but related note, here is the opening blurb on the website IVF Canada.

IVF Canada is a free-standing surgical facility which integrates the most advanced techniques available for the treatment of infertility in both men and women. We are leaders in the field of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Our clinic offices are located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

IVF Canada (Jan4,2k13)

— Albert Gedraitis


Christian Concern (Jan4,2k13)

IVF treatment in UK results in 

loss of nearly 3 million embryos


Published: January 4th, 2013 

• | 
  • Bioethics

Official statistics show that almost 3 million embryos in the UK have been lost as a result of IVF treatment.  [IVF = In vitro fertilization]

The figures, gathered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), reveal that more than 3.5 million embryos were created through IVF since August 1991. 

Of these, almost 1.4 million were implanted in the womb but less than than 1 in 6 resulted in a pregnancy.

Nearly 1.7 million were disposed of unused, and a further 23,480 were thrown away after being placed in storage.

In addition, nearly 840,000 were stored for future implantations, with nearly 5,900 set aside for scientific research and more than 2000 for donation.

Lord Alton, a Crossbench peer, commented that embryos were being created and discarded in “industrial” numbers.

He added: “It happens on a day-by-day basis with casual indifference. This sheer destruction of human embryos – most people would not know that it took place on such a scale”.

An HFEA spokesman said: “IVF involves the creation of more embryos than are transferred to the patient so that the best ones can be chosen to start pregnancy.

“Those embryos that are discarded may no longer be needed by the individual or couple for treatment.

“In these circumstances they can decide whether to donate the embryos to a research project, another couple or ask the clinic to destroy them.”

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The above portion of the CC article is informationally valuable in itself.  However, a supplementary set of statements is taggedf onto it in the interest of the anti-abortion view of CC and its Chief Executive, lawyer Andrea Williams.  She is a dynamic force in many activist programmes in the UK that I admire and wish to encourage, not least her campaigns and sponsored court cases to enhance religious liberty in the UK -- so she certainly has a right to attach to the forgoing medical news article the materials below which amount to an embedded slant which woud deny to a woman her right to determine whether to bring to birth or not; the supplementary material follows the preset pattern of her anti-abortionism as she seeks to conceptualize it christianly. To me, this is a principial matter and the Willimas slant, tho common enuff, is an insensitive rejection of the sphere sovereignty of each woman over her reproductive organs and the outcome of impregnation, for whatever reasons are meaningful to her (that's my slant).  In this, I believe I am a good student of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd, tho with outcomes to my analysis that may not have been theirs in their own searches inprevious generations for a radically Christian philosophy.  This is not the place to debate to debate Williams or anyone else on an overly traditionalistic shortcoming. The article is not signed, so I assume it is hers, tho it refers to her(self?) in the third-person, citing as sources Life News and The Telegraph.  But with the above caveat, I set off her further presumed self-referential remarks below:

— Albert Gedraitis

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Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of Christian Concern, stated: “These new figures expose the huge scale of loss and waste that occurs as a result of IVF treatment in the UK. It’s time for this issue to be addressed.

“Embryos are not products but human lives. We cannot let our ‘on-demand’ culture affect our view of human life and allow this destruction of human life to continue.

“For every child born as a result of IVF, several human lives are lost. This price is too much to pay, particularly when so many British children are waiting to be adopted or fostered”.