by Alliance VITA | January 14, 2021 | News, Euthanasia and Suicide
In France, on 12 January 2021, in a large-scale operation, a dozen Pentobarbital traffickers were arrested.
Pentobarbital is a barbiturate previously prescribed for use in anesthesia and as a sleeping pill (for its hypnotic properties). It is known to be addictive, and in high doses it causes cardiorespiratory failure. In France, pentobarbital has been banned for medical use in humans since 1996 and is now used exclusively to euthanize animals. Nonetheless, Switzerland and Belgium allow its use for assisted suicides, and in the United States, it is sometimes used to execute death row inmates.
The investigation began in 2019 when the US authorities delivered a list of the persons receiving this product in France. This barbiturate is very popular in the pro-euthanasia networks,
These new arrests are a follow-up to over a hundred raids carried out in October 2019 where 130 vials of pentobarbital were confiscated from 135 buyers. One may recall that this same product was used by Chantal Sébire to end her life.
The suspected traffickers are activists of the pro-euthanasia association “Ultimate Freedom», and are mostly psychologists, teachers or physiotherapists, aged between 60 – 80 years old.
According to Europe 1 news: ” Last year the prosecutor’s office in Paris opened a judicial investigation on the grounds of smuggling goods which are dangerous to public health, illegally practicing the profession of pharmacist, and advertising products or methods for committing suicide. »
by Alliance VITA | December 22, 2020 | News, Gender
On December 1, 2020, in a landmark decision, the High Court in London rules against treatments that block puberty.
The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who began treatment with puberty blockers at age 16 to appear masculine.
Today, Keira Bell’s life is very complicated since she is regularly thought to be a man. She feels trapped in between two genders at the same time and cannot have children. Her lawyer said adolescents “do not fully understand the nature and effects of hormone inhibitors.”
The court’s decision will inevitably affect the Tavistock Clinic and Portman NHS Trust which run the UK’s only gender identity clinic. This “Gender Identity Development Service” allegedly prescribed treatments to minors, sometimes as young as 10.
The issue the High Court addressed included limiting a minor’s consent to experimental treatment with either unknown or little-known long-term consequences. No reliable information is available on the physical or psychological consequences of these puberty blockers, on the person’s future relationships, on the surgical procedures involved, on the risks of infertility, on any evidence of real effectiveness, nor on the explicit danger of stopping puberty.
Widely covered by the British media, the ruling for “the Bell case, which was heard by the High Court in London, will have global implications for Europe’s thriving healthcare sector, whose profits depend on continuing to attract an increasing number of children to the system”.
The European Institute of Bioethics states that “The importance of this warning can only be underlined in the context of a growing craze for transgender children and adolescents, especially in the UK.”
In June 2020, Abigail Shrier, an American journalist for the Wall Street Journal, published a book on the transgender craze that is particularly seducing young girls.
In an interview with Le Figaro on December 16, 2020, she declared: “Online ‘influencers’ are largely responsible for spreading feelings of inadequacy about one’s own body and encouraging the idea that any perceived failure of perfect femininity means that a girl is probably transgender.”
by Alliance VITA | December 22, 2020 | News, Family
Two recent reports of child trafficking have yet again illustrated the necessity for greater vigilance on a worldwide basis.
Child Trafficking in Kenya
Revealing the existence of a huge child trafficking network in Kenya, the first episode of a BBC documentary entitled ” Babies for Sale on the Nairobi Black Market,” was aired in November 2020.
In 2019, Director Peter Murimi, with co-authors of the investigation Joel Gunter and Tom Watson, were intrigued by local newspaper ads about missing children. They found that women with financial problems are coerced into selling their babies or are robbed. The infants are then resold by intermediaries to couples hoping to have a child; or, what is spine-chilling and horrifying: to people who organize sacrificial rituals of infants.
This is a thriving market due to the excessive pressure exerted on women to be mothers in this country. Maryana Munyendo, director of “The Missing Child Association”, explains: “As Africans, we have the cultural idea that to keep your marriage, you need to have a child, and on top of that, you also need to have a boy. If you don’t, you go back to the village where they treat you as barren, a dry piece of wood. So, what do you do to save your marriage? You steal a child.” Sometimes even those who are as equally vulnerable as the mothers, steal and sell infants.
All the illegal paperwork is carried out in hospitals, including issuing false birth certificates. The documentary noted that “the police voiced great concern that local public hospitals, children’s homes in Nairobi and senior medical staff are involved, in collusion with child smugglers.”
After the first episode was aired on November 15, 2020, seven people were prosecuted for child trafficking. The day prior to the broadcast, Kenya’s Minister of Labor and Social Welfare announced that tough measures against this inhumane form of trafficking would be enforced. Nonetheless, according to some individuals interviewed, these remarks are only for the sake of appearances, since the government has known about these facts for a long time without ever acting.
Illegal Adoption Practices in Switzerland
In a second child trafficking incident, involving Switzerland, an official apology was given for failing to prevent illegal adoption practices. On December 14, 2020, the Swiss Federal Councilor Karin Keller Sutter voiced deep regret for the misconduct involving 900 Sri Lankan children adopted in Switzerland between 1973 and 1997.
The majority of these adoptions were illegal, sometimes with infants produced for adoptions through “baby farms” where native Sri Lankan women mated with white men to have offspring with a lighter skin color. In some instances, infants were placed for adoption without the consent of their biological parents. Intermediary lawyers were paid high fees; meanwhile Sri Lankan birth mothers often received no more than a few dollars or even just a Thermos in compensation. (AFP dispatch of 12/14/2020).
In 2017 a previous councilor had opened an investigation on adoptions that took place in the 1980s and an initial report was compiled in February 2020. It attests that despite early and clear indications of illegal adoptions, the Confederation and the cantons waited far too long before taking appropriate action against the irregularities.
After acknowledging the suffering of those concerned, the Swiss authorities announced the creation of a working group with representatives from the government, the cantons, and adopted persons in search for their origins.
The Swiss Federal system might be responsible for this mismanagement since adoption practices are not centralized and vary greatly depending on the canton.
![[Press Release] French Bioethics Bill: Alliance VITA Denounces the Government’s Inconsiderate Obstinacy](https://www.alliancevita.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Senat-1080x675.jpg)
by Alliance VITA | December 16, 2020 | Press Releases, Bioethics, Bioethics Law
When they heard that the debate on bioethics will resume as early as January 19th in the Bioethics Committee, Alliance VITA denounces the inconsiderate rush job that President Macron and Prime Minister Castex intend to impose on the Senators.
While France is facing an unprecedented, multidimensional crisis, the executive continues to show inconsiderate obstinacy towards the nation and irresponsibility towards future generations.
Thanks to its listening services, Alliance VITA has experienced how crucial it is for individuals to have solid and stable benchmarks to begin 2021. We must take into account how the COVID pandemic has changed the situation. It has helped us realize that humanity is vulnerable and must be protected as well as nature.
In the face of such vulnerability and precarity, our immediate priority should endeavor to increase solidarity towards vulnerable people and to fight against loneliness and isolation. This is not the time to break the reference points which are essential for children, i.e. the necessary gender parity in the gestation process. Moreover, this past summer, how could the MPs have possibly voted to allow abortions of healthy babies up until the date of birth, instead of committing to better support pregnant women in psychosocial distress?
Make no mistake: ART “for everyone” would create a “right to a child” – and to a perfect one – and be detrimental to children’s rights. Increasingly artificial procreation techniques are diametrically opposed to the necessity of a human ecology. This also applies to increasing eugenics, not only widespread genetic screening of human embryos, but also creating human-animal chimera embryos and genetically modified human embryos.
The government supposedly favors developing policies to include the disabled, but this is incompatible with procreative eugenic methods.
Alliance VITA states:
“The government has listed ecology as a top priority, but ecology cannot be separated from protecting human integrity. The bioethics bill is omiting three urgent issues which should be regarded as national priorities: genuinely working to solve infertility problems, terminating eugenic practices, and showing respect for the integrity of the human being. We call on our senators who are on the front line of defense for the rights of the most vulnerable, to protect future generations. We urgently call for this bill to be withdrawn.”
![[Press Release] National Consultative Ethics Committee Unethical on Abortion](https://www.alliancevita.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IVG-1080x675.jpg)
by Alliance VITA | December 11, 2020 | Abortion, Press Releases
Regarding the controversial subject of abortion deadlines in France, the “CCNE” (National Consultative Ethics Committee) has just issued new recommendations stating that they see no medical objection to extending the legal abortion period from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. It points out, however, that abortion is a “particular medical procedure” that justifies retaining the specific conscience clause for health professionals.
Alliance VITA denounces the ethical inconsistency of this standpoint. With abortion rates higher than ever in France, how is it possible to imply that women have difficulty in obtaining an abortion? Isn’t it the other way round? Isn’t it difficult to avoid abortion, especially for poor women?
Nonetheless, the “CCNE” does concede that psychological consequences are more severe the later the abortion takes place. Moreover, reliable data is lacking regarding the situation of women who would like to abort beyond the deadline. Therefore the study is only based on approximate estimates of the number of women who might seek abortion beyond the current cut-off point. The study only mentions 70 cases where abortions were performed after the 12-week deadline.
With abortion rates at an all-time high in France, this situation is particularly alarming, especially since the latest statistics show that abortions are more frequently performed on the poorest women; a fact mentioned by the “CCNE”, but without specifying any recommendations on this specific issue.
Since there is a connection between abortion and being socially or economically deprived this situation should seriously concern the government.
Caroline Roux, Alliance VITA’s Assistant General Delegate asserts:
“The Covid pandemic is being used as a pretext by pro-abortion militants to waive the boundaries on abortion legislation, while the general public remains unaffected, showing little concern for the genuine anguish that pregnant women experience. More than ever, it is vitally important to provide complete and reliable information on financial aid and social assistance to women who wish to avoid abortion. This decisive information is critically lacking when women consult their doctor for an abortion. Prior to implementing any legislative changes, we call on the government to assume their responsibility: to conduct an unbiased epidemiological study of the causes, conditions and consequences of abortion, as a prerequisite for holding a public debate. »
