Author: Ophelia Benson

At the early morning airport.

It’s surprising how many people take the first #2 bus in the morning, which sets off at 5:03.

I will see some of you quite soon.

Travel anxiety. I always. I always think I’ll forget everything, and miss the bus, and miss the plane, and miss the other plane, and leave all my stuff on the plane, and get sucked into the engines.

The Irish bishops have spoken up. Just as they spoke up when all that terrible stuff about child rape by priests and the moving of child-raping priests from job to job instead of reporting them to the law was coming to light despite decades of effort to keep it hidden. They say the same thing now as they said then. They’re very very very sad.

The death of Mrs. Savita Halappanavar and her unborn child in University Hospital Galway on the 28 October last was a devastating personal tragedy for her husband and family. It has stunned our country. We share the anguish and sorrow expressed by so many at the tragic loss of a mother and her baby in these circumstances and we express our sympathy to the family of Mrs. Halappanavar and all those affected by these events.

See? They’re saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Now will everybody please shut up and leave them alone?

But first let them explain. It wasn’t their fault. They have it right and the people who think University Hospital Galway should have evacuated Savita Halappanavar’s uterus at once instead of waiting three days until the fetal heart stopped – those people have it wrong.

In light of the widespread discussion following the tragic death of Mrs Halappanavar and her unborn baby, we wish to reaffirm some aspects of Catholic moral teaching. These were set out in our recently published Day for Life message on 7 October last, available on www.chooselife2012.ie.

– The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother. By virtue of their common humanity, a mother and her unborn baby are both sacred with an equal right to life.

And if the “baby” happens through some strange accident to be inside the mother and in the process of dying because the mother is miscarrying – then that “equal right to life” means the doctors just have to fold their hands and do nothing while infection rages, until the “baby” no longer has a heartbeat.

– Whereas abortion is the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely immoral in all circumstances, this is different from medical treatments which do not directly and intentionally seek to end the life of the unborn baby. Current law and medical guidelines in Ireland allow nurses and doctors in Irish hospitals to apply this vital distinction in practice while upholding the equal right to life of both a mother and her unborn baby.

Right. That’s what they did. So Savita Halappanavar is dead. She’s another sacrifice on the altar of Catholic “moral” conceit and presumption and interference.

Amy did an interview of Carrie Poppy about Women in Secularism. There are a lot of pictures taken by Amy so you can see with your own eyes how horribly bullied Carrie is being by the dreaded FTBullies who of course include the Skepchicks and also Rocket. Rocket is being super mean and Carrie is just crushed.

Have you been influenced by any women in the secular or skeptic communities? If so, who and why were they influential?

I don’t agree with everything anyone says (you know, because I’m a human with a unique brain that’s not exactly like anyone else’s brain), but I’ve at various times been moved by Eugenie Scott’s courageous and exhausting work fighting anti-science in the classroom, Sharon Hill’s tireless skeptical gumshoe work, Sadie Crabtree’s amazing talk at TAM9 wherein she spoke on effective skeptical outreach, Rebecca Watson’s humor and insight, Claire Knowlton’s disarmingly honest and challenging work on Selfish Blogger (where she calls on people to give up as much money and time as they can to those in need, on humanist grounds) and you, Amy Davis Roth, who once said to me “the only reason to get into skepticism is to help people.” Hear hear.

There are also countless women involved locally who work, often thanklessly, out of the spotlight, and are always inspirations. Some examples I see every day are Stacy Kennedy, Wendy Hughes, Taylor Proctor, Alice Pine, Louise Monaco, and on and on.

Stacy and Alice! I have been influenced by them too likewise.

Read it all and check out Rocket being a bully.

Dr Jen Gunter tells us about ectopic pregnancies and Catholic medical “ethics.”

A pregnancy has trophoblastic tissue, which is aggressive, like cancer, because the walls of the uterus are thick. The walls of the fallopian tube, on the other hand, are thin. Alert readers can tell where this is going.

These mini Ms. Pacman-like trophoblasts chew up the relatively flimsy fallopian tube tissue, damage blood vessels, and catastrophic bleeding ensues. The pregnancy can literally blow a hole in the side of the fallopian tube.

This is how women die from ectopic pregnancies, they bleed to death. Although thankfully this is very uncommon as we have ultrasounds that identifies these pregnancies very early on, surgery or medication to treat them, and blood transfusions just in case.

The recommended treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is surgical removal or systemic methotrexate (a cancer drug that kills the rapidly dividing trophoblasts, which are in many ways like cancer cells). According to the latest Cochrane review (Interventions for tubal ectopic pregnancy, 2009) there is insufficient data to support expectant management, i.e. watch and wait is not standard of care.

But the Catholic church doesn’t care what is standard of care. It cares about the sacred trophoblasts.

Yes, some Catholic ethicists argue that the catholic “Directives” preclude physicians at Catholic hospitals from managing ectopic pregnancies in a  way that involves direct action on the embryo. So a woman can have her whole tube removed (an unnecessary procedure that could reduce her future fertility), but she can not have the pregnancy plucked out (as is done with the standard therapy, a salpingostomy, where a small incision is made in the tube and the pregnancy removed) and she most certainly could not have the methotrexate.

How common is this practice? Well, it is pretty sad that someone had to study it. According to a study from 2011 by Foster e. al., (Womens Health Issues, 2011) some Catholic hospitals refuse to offer methotrexate (three in this study of 16 hospitals). The lack of methotrexate resulted in changes in therapy, transferring patients to other facilities, and even administering it surreptitiously. All of these expose women to unnecessary risks, expense and are, quite frankly, wrong.

I’m glad to hear it’s only 3 out of 16. I hope that number is representative. It ought, however to be zero. None.at.all.

It amazes me that with ectopic pregnancy, such a clear-cut case of life of the mother with therapies well supported in the literature, that any physician or hospital could have any other moral or ethical agenda than delivering the right medical care.

Putting religious beliefs ahead of urgent/emergent medical care in never right and I shudder to think how the management of ectopic pregnancies would change should a national personhood amendment pass.

It’s a stinking outrage, and I’m doing what I can to get it on the agenda of secular and atheist and humanist organizations.

Hey, those Florida Humanists feeding the homeless? There are parts of Florida that frown on that kind of thing. And by “frown on” I mean “criminalize.” Orlando for example.

Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result.

Goddam class warriors.

From the Humanists of Florida:

Lakeland, Florida

Humanists Help the Hungry

Today, on Giving Tuesday, the Humanists of Florida Association (HFA) is proud to announce its new initiative: Humanists Helping the Hungry. The HFA is seeking donations to support Secular Humanists throughout Florida who are in financial need. This fund will go towards providing the basics, especially food, to those who need it most.Donations are tax deductible.   We will be providing gift cards from local supermarkets for those that qualify for the program.  Applications are available in the link below.

Please consider giving $100, or about the cost of what your family would spend on a nice dinner. It is a most humanistic way to say “thank you” for your own well-being.

Stand by your fellow Secular Humanists in Florida and donate to make a difference in their lives.

To donate to the fund on-line:
www.bit.ly/donateHHH

To donate to the fund by check:
Make it out to the Humanists of Florida and designate it for “HHH”
Send to the HFA at PO Box 5072, Lakeland, FL 33807.

To make an inquiry about receiving a grant for yourself or another:
www.bit.ly/applyHHH

For more information, please contact
EllenBeth Wachs, President
at info@floridahumanist.org or 321-300-6545.

Now that’s really funny. The things people dream up!

Richard Sanderson ‏@RichSandersen

Anyone else reckon @CarriePoppyYES resigned from #JREF because of the abuse from #FTBullies?

Right?

What abuse? And if there were any abuse, why would it prompt Carrie to resign from JREF? It would be like resigning from your job at NASA because someone tailgated you on the Evergreen Point bridge. It would be like quitting a job at The Mayo Clinic because the counter person got your order mixed up at an Albuquerque McDonalds. It would be random, dude.

It’s like the #FTBullies hijacking all over again. Let’s just blame #FTBullies for everything – the weather, food we don’t like, bad movies, traffic, Rush Limbaugh, everything.

Also – seriously – Carrie hasn’t had any “abuse” from Freethought bloggers. Really.

In October Archbishop William Lori explained how good the church had been about the whole thing and how nicely it co-operated with the police and how all right everything was really so everybody please dig deep and put a lot of money in the plate.

The archdiocese conducted its own investigation to identify other possible victims and was in regular contact with the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s office, sharing information that it learned during the course of its investigation. Merzbacher was convicted in June 1995 and sentenced to four life terms plus 10 years. Plaintiffs filed civil claims against Merzbacher, the Catholic Community School, and the archdiocese in 1994. Those claims were dismissed by the courts.

Because of course the archdiocese was above reproach, always, no matter howmuch.

Surprisingly, readers are allowed to comment there. The comments are blistering.

JeanOctober 20, 2012 at 14:00 PM

The A of B did not work with the Baltimore Police Department on this case. Information was given to the AofB from a victim and was kept, never shown to the police and when the victim requested the info back…all of a sudden it can’t be found? Coincidence? I think not.

Christina Kovacs Stalnaker October 20, 2012 at 14:19 PM

Once again, these articles attempt to rewrite the history of terror at the Catholic Community Middle School of South Baltimore. The fact remains that the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Sister Eileen Weisman, as well as Father Herbert Derwart knew of the abuse during Merzbacher’s employment. We know that they were informed by a teacher during my three years in that torture chamber from 1972 to 1975. The teacher resigned after being told to remain silent. As well, Sister Eileen, herself, witnessed instances of rape and abuse with her own eyes. Students were threatened with sexual abuse, beatings, guns, and knives, along with being put into Shepherd Pratt for uttering one word. Also, why did it take eight years after the Merzbacher’s case to remove Sister Eileen as principal from the Cathedral School?

Katrina ArmstrongOctober 20, 2012 at 18:19 PM

The mere thought of the possibility of John Merzbacher being released from prison is outrageous. The notion that he would even deserve to be offered a plea bargain after the lives he has destroyed is ridiculous. We unfortunately seem to be living in a society where the perpetrators of such heinous crimes are obviously protected more than the victims. While I was not a sexually abused by him, John Merzbacher abused everyone he came in contact with…in one way or another. His demeaning daily comments to those who turned out to be his victims left me horrified and I was petrified to go to school.

Mary LewandowskiOctober 20, 2012 at 22:31 PM

It never ceases to amaze me how the Archdiocese of Baltimore continues to trivialize the trauma and abuse that occurred under their unGodly watch in the 1970′s. Children were tortured, raped, molested and verbally and emotionally abused every day while they allowed John Merzbacher to run the Catholic Community Middle School. They allowed the devil’s son to run their Catholic school and chose to turn their heads to the countless complaints, suspicions and even their own eye witness to his numerous criminal acts against children.

And more. It’s horrifying.

H/t AnneMarie

Because if you botch it he could bleed to death, that’s why.

A four-week-old boy “bled to death” after a home circumcision carried out by a nurse, a court has heard.

Goodluck Caubergs died the day after nurse Grace Adeleye carried out the procedure without anaesthetic, Manchester Crown Court was told.

…

Mrs Adeleye, of Sarnia Court, Salford, was paid £100 to do the operation as Goodluck’s parents did not know the procedure was available on the NHS.

It is alleged the defendant, who is also a midwife, left a “ragged” wound that bled and her post-operative care was inadequate.

All that for a procedure that isn’t medically necessary in the first place.

Speaking of the…oddities of the Catholic church, there’s one order in Australia in which 70% of the bros are suspected of child abuse. Seventy percent.

Up to 200 victims have sought compensation from the St John of God order  after alleging they had been abused in special schools and homes run by the  brothers in NSW, Victoria and New Zealand.

Last week a Melbourne inquiry into child abuse heard allegations that  Brothers had drugged and pack-raped boys at their operations in Victoria.

Claims were also made that two boys had allegedly been beaten so badly they  were thought to have died but their deaths had not been reported to  authorities.

And Fairfax Media has obtained documents revealing that in the 1960s and  1970s dozens of boys were brutally assaulted at Kendall Grange, the order’s school for mentally and physically impaired boys at Morisset on the NSW central  coast.

Michelle Mulvihill is a psychologist who was employed by the order to meet victims.

Dr Mulvihill, who is based in Sydney, worked with the order for nine years  from 1998, sitting in on meetings involving negotiators from the order and 150  victims in NSW, Victoria and New Zealand.

But she says she quit the job in 2007, fearing that suspected paedophile  Brothers still wielded too much power in the order and were interfering with  victims’ compensation and treatment.

On Sunday she described the order as hosting Brothers who were responsible  for “the worst examples of child abuse I have ever heard of” and said of the 40  to 50 Brothers who had been in the order around the time she was involved, about  75 per cent had been the subject of allegations.

Another scene out of nightmares.

H/t Ian MacDougall.

Tomorrow in Oxford – a panel discussion on circumcision. The event is organised by Oxford Atheists, Secularists and Humanists.

John Dalton: John Dalton is the lead researcher at NORM-UK, whose mission statement is, “To advance the education of the public in all matters relating to circumcision and other forms of surgical alteration of the genitals, including alternative treatments and offering information and advice on such matters.” The organisation has a very informative website at http://www.norm-uk.co.uk/ . Mr Dalton will speak about Principles of Consent and Autonomy in Relation to Circumcision.

Dr Antony Lempert: Dr Lempert is chair of the Secular Medical Forum, http://www.secularmedicalforum.org.uk/ “Our main objective is to limit the harm done to patients by the imposition of other people’s religious views on them. We seek to present a secular opinion on present-day medical and health care practices throughout the UK.” Dr Lempert will present the medical case against circumcision, “The Secular Medical Forum believes that genital surgery (such as male circumcision) should only ever be performed on children where there are compelling medical indications.”

Rabbi Eli Brackman: Rabbi Eli Brackman is Oxford University’s Rabbi. Rabbi Eli’s blog at http://www.oxfordchabad.org/ his frequent speakers, events and discussion groups, and his (unusual amongst non students in Oxford) ability to use Facebook, have very much made him a recognisable feature of the wider Oxford scene. Though the majority of Oxford’s circumcisions are carried out by Muslim practitioners, Judaism is the faith most closely associated with circumcision and is also most likely to suffer persecution and stigma.

Brian Earp: Brian Earp is an Oxford Philosopher, Psychologist and Ethicist, who writes for the Practical Ethics blog, including posts about circumcision.  Brian Earp can also be found on YouTube, challenging Sam Harris and US Ethics Professors, as well as impressive musical theatre performances.

I would go to that if I could.

Update: more information on the event’s Facebook page.

Tuesday 27th November, at 7.30pm. Exeter College, Saskatchewan Room

The jaw drops.

The Catholic-school teacher had a pre-teen student pinned to the ground in his Baltimore classroom, the girl’s blouse open and her chest exposed when the doorknob suddenly turned and the school principal — a nun — burst in.

The screaming girl thought she was about to be rescued, according to court records that describe the scene at the Catholic Community Middle School in Locust Point. But Sister Eileen Weisman, who had a key to the room, merely chastised the teacher, John Joseph Merzbacher, for locking the door.

“[Weisman] looked down and her exact words were ‘John, oh John, I told you never to lock the classroom door,’” Linda Tiburzi, who described the incident in a civil court deposition in the mid-1990s, said in a recent interview. “And then she looked at me and said ‘I never want you staying after school again.’ … That’s all she said, that’s all she did, there was nothing, there was no investigation, there were no questions.”

That’s the school principal.

That incident is one of several outlined in court documents, analyzed in a Baltimore Sun investigation, indicating that Weisman and other Catholic officials were aware of the lay teacher’s sexual abuse of students in the 1970s but did not report it until Merzbacher was criminally investigated in the 1990s.

Recent accounts from more than two dozen former pupils and a review of hundreds of pages of documents describe several situations in which critics claim the church had opportunities to protect schoolchildren from Merzbacher, but did not notify police of the allegations against the teacher.

John, oh John, never lock the classroom door.