Just Because You Don't Believe Something, It Doesn't Mean It Isn't Happening

     There was a time in my late 20's when I thought conservatives and republicans were alarmists, that they were lying and making stuff up, and that they just wanted to control everyone by forcing their 'rules' on our society. 

      I remember truly not believing that third trimester abortions were actually being done.  Surely viable babies were not being aborted and let die.  I had worked as a respiratory therapist in a neonatal ICU and I had seen my share of third trimester babies develop, get off oxygen, learn to eat and go home with their parents.  I knew this talk of third trimester abortions had to be propaganda from the right; no way it was fact.

     But it was fact.  In 1988, I was working in a real estate office on the weekends, and someone had left some literature there.  It was from Right to Life or some other anti-abortion group.  I flipped through it, mostly to pass the time on that quiet afternoon, and something caught my eye.  It was talk about third trimester abortions.  I read accounts of these abortions, and I was sickened.  I was also gripped by the feeling that third trimester abortions were really being done.

     I did my own research, and I learned the truth, the truth that viable babies were being aborted, some nearly at term.  I learned who was promoting these abortions, and I learned which political party was in favor of them.  Until that moment, I was a registered, card-carrying democrat.  At the first opportunity I had, my party affiliation changed to republican because I could no longer support a party that would support the murder of viable babies.  I am not a single issue voter, but that single issue was enough to turn me away from the democratic party.

    Fast forward to today.  We often hear stories of medicine, chemotherapy, and surgery being withheld from sick, terminal and/or elderly patients in Europe's world of socialized medicine.  I am sure many people have a hard time believing that really happens.  Many people believe their government wouldn't do things like that, that their government is there to provide for them and protect them. Then a story like this comes out of the UK:

Now sick babies go on the death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan

OR

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240075/Now-sick-babies-death-pathway-Doctors-haunting-testimony-reveals-children-end-life-plan.html#ixzz2DcUKj73D

   Read the entire article, if you can get through it.  The realities presented in this article will no longer be the reality of only those on the other side of the ocean.  This will be our reality under our own nationalized health care system if fully implemented.  End-of-life decisions should be between a patient and his/her doctor.  A nationalized health care system should not be involved.  The UK and Canada are moving away from nationalized health care because they see that it doesn't work.  Why are we moving toward it?