X-Message-Number: 22162
From: "aschwin de wolf" <>
Subject: The Rev. Jerry Falwell on LEF / Alcor
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 09:34:52 -0400

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030707-090423-3152r.htm

Choose life, not drug importation

By Jerry Falwell

The battle to safeguard human life has been raging for decades, creating
strong alliances built on shared values and common passions. Yet, for those
in the pro-life movement, it is essential not to lose sight of the big
picture when innocent lives are being threatened. When I see even strong
pro-life voices in Congress grappling with an issue that threatens life, I
want their supporters to know it.

Importation of foreign drugs into the tightly protected U.S. market is one
of those issues. The idea is that, since medicines can be cheaper outside
the country, we should bring them back into the country at that lower price.
Sounds simple, but unfortunately, drug importation is about much more than
getting cheap prescriptions. It's also partially about easing access in our
country to abortion drugs like RU-486, euthanasia drugs and "life extension"
drugs of questionable merit and potentially harmful effect.

Would drug importation make non-FDA approved drugs legal, or put
prescription drugs in the hands of those without prescriptions? No.
Would it make it easier for those who crave deadly drugs to get them?
Unquestionably.

The issue centers on a piece of legislation known as the Pharmaceutical
Market Access Act. According to news accounts, the bill is scheduled to come
to a vote within the next two weeks. It would serve to essentially open the
floodgates to drugs from outside the country, allowing drugs with unknown
origins, production methods, packaging guidelines and transportation
standards into the American prescription drug supply.

Some of them will be real pills, on which another country's socialized
health care has imposed a lower price. But some will be counterfeit, some
copied and some even poisoned. Once these drugs hit the American drug
supply, there is no controlling where they go and whom they impact. What's
more, ratcheting open the walls that protect our market for medicines means
that those who want to import bizarre and unethical medications will have
that much more opportunity to do so.

Consider those supporting drug importation off Capitol Hill, and that
perverse motivation becomes clear.
For instance, drug importation advocates regularly cite research from the
Alcor Life Extension Foundation in their arguments. But the so-called Life
Extension Foundation (LEF), ironically, is a rabidly anti-life organization.
It has cited RU-486 as an "anti-aging" medication that once just missed its
top 10 list of life-extending drugs. LEF has demonstrated its disregard for
human life not only by advocating cloning but embryonic stem cell research
to reverse the signs of aging. Those who support taking the lives of unborn
children to support the selfish desire to live a longer and fuller life are
not the allies we hope to see advocating public policy changes for America.

That is only the beginning, however. LEF also conducts bizarre cryogenics
experiments. They are reported to have the body of baseball slugger Ted
Williams frozen for eventual reanimation. The president of the organization,
Saul Kent, likewise froze his mother's severed head, prompting a three-year
investigation into the possibility that she was euthanized. And they traffic
in untold numbers of questionable "life-extending" medications that are the
subject of numerous federal investigations - raising a significant question
about their motivations for advocating drug importation.

Supporters of drug importation are also relying upon a new book by Katharine
Greider, "The Big Fix." But Ms. Greider is not only an abortion advocate but
also a booming voice of support for drugs such as "the morning after pill"
and various other quick "medical" abortion solutions using drugs from RU-486
to chemotherapy agent methotrexate to ulcer-prevention drug misoprostol.

By deliberately applying fetus-threatening medications to pregnant women,
"medical abortions," she writes, "offer a level of privacy and - in these
uncertain times - safety not available with surgical procedures." What is
more, she argues "some women actually find themselves waiting to undergo a
surgical abortion until the seventh week of pregnancy."

Chilling sentiments like these underlie Ms. Greider's arguments for drug
importation. Her focus and the focus of her research is on abortion's
convenience - not on restricting access to use of drugs for abortion until
their safety is established by the FDA, let alone on protecting the unborn.

The fact is that both the LEF and Ms. Greider have as priorities opening
American drug markets as wide as possible. These are not the allies that
pro-life members of Congress should be working with on issues of such great
pith and moment. Their priority is not cheaper drugs for our seniors - the
priority of the well-meaning members of Congress who support drug
importation - but instead, to get easier access to abortion and to bizarre
and untested therapies outside the country.

Those concerned about innocent human life, as well as those concerned about
the lives of anyone who takes medications in America, should call on
pro-life members of Congress to stand by their commitment to life and to
reject the misguided research of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and
Katharine Greider.

    The Rev. Jerry Falwell is the chancellor of Liberty University in
Lynchburg, Va.

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