LOS MARGINADOS: David Daleiden indicted by Texas Grand Jury

domingo, 31 de enero de 2016

David Daleiden indicted by Texas Grand Jury

Tables turned on undercover pro-life activists

by Xavier Symons | 30 Jan 2016 |

In a surprise twist to the recent Planned Parenthood controversy, pro-life activist David Daleiden has been indicted by a grand jury in Harris County, Texas, on charges related to the use of fake IDs and offers to buy fetal tissue.

Daleiden could face up to 20 years imprisonment for “tampering with a government record”, a felony. He has also been charged with the attempted purchase and sale of human organs, a misdemeanour. Sandra S. Merritt, a colleague of Daleiden at the Centre for Medical Progress, was also indicted.

In a statement on Monday the grand jury said it had cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.

Daleiden’s lawyers have called the charges legally flawed and said they will ask the district attorney not proceed with the case. Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio labelled the case “outrageous”, while prominent Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly described it as a “political hit job”.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has ruled that that transgender people are entitled to sex-change surgery provided under Medicare Advantage insurers. An Air Force veteran, Charlene Lauderdale, sought coverage for her transitioning surgery in November 2014 but it was denied because it was not the proper treatment for her, as she had been hospitalised four times for psychiatric problems.

The background to this decision is instructive. For many years, Medicare refused to cover transgender surgery. But in May 2014 a HHS Appeals Board ruled that this exclusion was based on outdated, incomplete, and biased science and medicine.

It turns out that the board reached its decision in a rather unusual way. In 1981 Medicare described sex reassignment surgery as “controversial” and “experimental” and said that it should not be covered. When this was appealed in 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) declined to defend the old determination. The only evidence presented to the appeals board was submitted by advocacy groups supporting the “aggrieved party”. The CMS presented not one sentence of evidence.

Our legal system is adversarial and its integrity depends on an honest clash between opposing points of view. Why did the CMS throw in the towel? Did it really believe that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever which might question the benefits of transgender surgery? It certainly exists.

In fact, a 2014 review about research into suicide and transgender population found “an unparalleled level of suicidal behavior among transgender adults”. This was compiled by the Williams Institute, at the UCLA School of Law, an LGBT think tank, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Their conclusions are also quite sobering: “The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt, and is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.”

Bioethics must always be based on evidence. Ignoring contrary evidence, as the HHS seems to have done, not only corrupts the legal process, it could do immense harm to vulnerable people.