Life Matters

Commissioner Johnston reminds us of the real battle regarding Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, and the fact that in 1973 the Supreme Court of United States declared war against the practice of medicine, as well as assaulting the foundation of the law. For three thousand years medicine has always sworn that it would, 'only care or comfort, but never harm a patient.' (Hippocratic Oath)

With the passage of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v Bolton decisions, doctors were told they were free to be hired selective killers, using medicine to intentionally take a human life which until that day had been protected, in the 50 states, the life of a vulnerable unborn child.

This fundamental assault on the nature of American law and society has had grave implications. The inversion of medicine's values and abandonment of the principle that the law has a duty to defend the lives of those that cannot defend themselves, has created a cultural dystopia. In the era of national emergency and social upheaval caused by the coronavirus we are seeing the impact of these relativistic ideas and how deeply they have scarred the American psyche and value system.

Brian explains the once former crime of, "intentional medical neglect," whereby basic necessities of life: food, water, comfort care, are denied to a vulnerable patient with the goal of the patient quickly succumbing by virtue of that same neglect.

This principle was openly advocated by Governor Northam of Virginia when the laws of New York, New Jersey and Virginia were proposed to kill a child throughout all nine months of pregnancy and should the child be born alive during and abortion, to simply set it aside to decide later what to do with it. The casual dismissal of a human life as something to be thrown out alarmed the majority of Americans and awakened them to the great evil that is abortion-on-demand.

In the spring of 2020, numerous proposals and desperate assertions were put forward as necessary and utilitarian answers to the spread of the Covid-19 virus: automatic DNR orders, refusal to treat patients above a certain age, intentional abandonment of nursing homes. Thankfully, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of President Trump's principle advisers on infectious disease openly rebuked the ethicists who had been advocating such ideas.

What is critically important is to recognize the very common presence of these 'disposable human' values. It will only be with intentional and open opposition to such utilitarian values that America can restore itself once again to respecting the value of the human person. That is the job, not for a few, but for all Americans of goodwill.

In this episode Brian Johnston explores the unique worldwide phenomenon from the spring of 2020 - the Coronavirus epidemic.

Brian brings personal experience as an elder advocate, a California Commissioner on Aging, his experience on the board of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, and on the California Board of Examiners of Nursing Homes. In addition, he brings his personal experience in studying and applying lifestyle tools to address and offset the impact of aging.

In addressing the coronavirus, or any epidemic of this nature, Commissioner Johnston suggests it is critical to follow the directions of the federal, state and local authorities to prevent the spread of the illness. Perhaps, most importantly, one must make sure that personal habits prevent further spread.

But in addressing these external issues one must not forget our own responsibility to ourselves. We should not only prevent spreading the illness but as much as possible ensure that our health and immune system is equipped to fight such viruses.

Brian outlines numerous common sense approaches to personal health that apply not only to fighting viruses but also to maintaining one's health into life. Such common sense answers include regular and efficient exercise, knowing how to hydrate your own body (70% of your body is literally made of water and failure to hydrate can result in desiccated and failed organs).

Use of supplements is recommended and Brian explains some of the reasons why, given the fact that the modern Western diet does not adequately supply the nutritious vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients necessary for a healthy lifestyle.

Johnston concludes with his personal observations regarding methods for fighting other viruses in building up your personal immune system including the use of zinc which has been widely documented in fighting the common cold – which is actually a form of coronavirus!

Our obligation to the lives of others, particularly in ensuring that the laws protect those who are most vulnerable to lethal predation requires us to protect our own lives first - because every life matters.

In this episode of Life Matters Commissioner Johnston outlines the bright side of this unusual moment in history. Brian served as California Commissioner on Aging from 1995 to 1999. He also served on the State of California Board of Examiners of Nursing Homes from '95 until the year 2000.

Brian brings this experience, coupled with his active advocacy on behalf of the right to life of the vulnerable, to focus on the coronavirus outbreak of 2020.

The bright side: On the deeply personal level that all of us experience in day-to-day life, the coronavirus outbreak has brought us home. The emphasis on staying domestic and focusing on the immediacy of life in our homes is of huge significance for a busy and distracted culture.

Because of restrictions on church services, this has even required individuals to no longer view their faith as something that is exercised only in a special building. The advantage is it makes the living out of our faith that much more personal and an important aspect of our lives and family relationships.

Brian and his wife Valery have raised five children and homeschooled them all. He makes note that while the state of California's education system has been at war, politically, with the homeschool movement, there has come a sudden and drastic need for homeschooling. Governor Gavin Newsom became a public advocate for the homeschool movement in March of 2020 in order to address the dangers that the spread of the virus posed.

But there is also a darker side posed not only by the virus itself, but in some of the answers being presented.

Throughout the world and especially in Italy - which was initially the hardest hit of the European countries - it appears that seniors, as with the flu virus, are the most lethally affected. The public has been warned, and young people in particular, to avoid contact with the elderly.

In Washington State the highest mortality rate has been in certain nursing homes outside of Seattle. These hotspots encourage a definitive 'rule' of interaction: avoidance of contact with seniors.

But as Commissioner Johnston pointed out, sadly, this has already been a cultural phenomenon in the United States. The nature of our nursing home system is such that it removes any sense of responsibility or involvement with the older members of our family. Culturally, nations like Italy, even in employing nursing homes, continue to be actively involved and engaged with the oldest members of the family. Such is rarely the case in America. While there are certainly exceptions, the vast majority of nursing home residents rarely have visitors.

This decided disdain, removal and distancing from our own eventual mortality has included an embrace of voluntary euthanasia - assisted suicide in all of the Western states and in many other parts of the nation and large swaths of the medical community.

Commissioner Johnston is joined by nursing home advocate, Joyce Unangst, as they discussed their experience in a visitation of a local nursing home in 2018.

Commissioner Johnston underscores that the recent change in laws to allow and encourage the killing of the medically vulnerable is an ominous indicator of an existing abandonment syndrome which many Americans and the American culture is already routinely practicing.

Commissioner Johnston ends the program on a positive note, giving specific guidelines and suggestions as to how to continue to be involved with the senior community and to encourage others in their care and the needed respect and protection our seniors deserve.

We should continue to be involved and engaged with the oldest members of our family and community. Perhaps we should be even more engaged given the depressing quality of this pandemic. Modern technology allows for extraordinary avenues of communication and intervention even remotely. So this current crisis actually offers a great opportunity to be other-centered and actively involved, even if not physically, in the lives of the most vulnerable.

In this episode of Life Matters Commissioner Johnston outlines the bright side of this unusual moment in history. Brian served as California Commissioner on Aging from 1995 to 1999. He also served on the State of California Board of Examiners of Nursing Homes from ‘95 until the year 2000.   

Brian brings this experience, coupled with his active advocacy on behalf of the right to life of the vulnerable, to focus on the coronavirus outbreak of 2020.

The bright side: On the deeply personal level that all of us experience in day-to-day life, the coronavirus outbreak has brought us home. The emphasis on staying domestic and focusing on the immediacy of life in our homes is of huge significance for a busy and distracted culture.

Because of restrictions on church services, this has even required individuals to no longer view their faith as something that is exercised only in a special building. The advantage is it makes the living out of our faith that much more personal and an important aspect of our lives and family relationships.

Brian and his wife Valery have raised five children and homeschooled them all. He makes note that while the state of California’s education system has been at war, politically, with the homeschool movement, there has come a sudden and drastic need for homeschooling. Governor Gavin Newsom became a public advocate for the homeschool movement in March of 2020 in order to address the dangers that the spread of the virus posed.

But there is also a darker side posed not only by the virus itself, but in some of the answers being presented.   

Throughout the world and especially in Italy - which was initially the hardest hit of the European countries - it appears that seniors, as with the flu virus, are the most lethally affected. The public has been warned, and young people in particular, to avoid contact with the elderly.

In Washington State the highest mortality rate has been in certain nursing homes outside of Seattle. These hotspots encourage a definitive ‘rule’ of interaction: avoidance of contact with seniors.

But as Commissioner Johnston pointed out, sadly, this has already been a cultural phenomenon in the United States. The nature of our nursing home system is such that it removes any sense of responsibility or involvement with the older members of our family. Culturally, nations like Italy, even in employing nursing homes, continue to be actively involved and engaged with the oldest members of the family. Such is rarely the case in America. While there are certainly exceptions, the vast majority of nursing home residents rarely have visitors. 

This decided disdain, removal and distancing from our own eventual mortality has included an embrace of voluntary euthanasia - assisted suicide in all of the Western states and in many other parts of the nation and large swaths of the medical community. 

Commissioner Johnston is joined by nursing home advocate, Joyce Unangst, as they discussed their experience in a visitation of a local nursing home in 2018.

Commissioner Johnston underscores that the recent change in laws to allow and encourage the killing of the medically vulnerable is an ominous indicator of an existing abandonment syndrome which many Americans and the American culture is already routinely practicing.

Commissioner Johnston ends the program on a positive note, giving specific guidelines and suggestions as to how to continue to be involved with the senior community and to encourage others in their care and the needed respect and protection our seniors deserve.

We should continue to be involved and engaged with the oldest members of our family and community.  Perhaps we should be even more engaged given the depressing quality of this pandemic. Modern technology allows for extraordinary avenues of communication and intervention even remotely.  So this current crisis actually offers a great opportunity to be other-centered and actively involved, even if not physically, in the lives of the most vulnerable.

Dr. Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace. He was the only actual scientist on their entire board. Eventually, he determined he had to leave the organization. They refused to listen to his objective scientific facts regarding the use of chemicals, biological principles, and self-evident observable facts. He takes direct and explicit exception to the widespread ideological assertion that mankind is harming the earth and is the cause of global warming.

The last straw straw for Dr. Moore was their repeated return to the premise that human beings are in fact the enemy of the planet, that human beings are inherently bad. This is the opposite premise of the value of each and every human life, essential principles guiding the idea that there is a 'right to life.'

Dr. Moore's studies led him to conclude exactly the opposite of Greenpeace's pervasive message. He has seen and demonstrates the fact that human beings are in fact the real answer to societies' challenges and any of the environment's problems.

If not for the advance of Western Civilization on the planet we would still be living with dirty water, and malarial conditions. The lifespan of not only human beings, but all animals and nature will be greatly threatened without human involvement. Dr. Moore believes that human beings are not the problem, but are, in fact, the real solution.

Dr. Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace. He was the only actual scientist on their entire board. Eventually, he determined he had to leave the organization. They refused to listen to his objective scientific facts regarding the use of chemicals, biological principles, and self-evident observable facts. He takes direct and explicit exception to the widespread ideological assertion that mankind is harming the earth and is the cause of global warming.

The last straw straw for Dr. Moore was their repeated return to the premise that human beings are in fact the enemy of the planet, that human beings are inherently bad. This is the opposite premise of the value of each and every human life, essential principles guiding the idea that there is a 'right to life.'

Dr. Moore's studies led him to conclude exactly the opposite of Greenpeace's pervasive message. He has seen and demonstrates the fact that human beings are in fact the real answer to societies' challenges and any of the environment's problems.

If not for the advance of Western Civilization on the planet we would still be living with dirty water, and malarial conditions. The lifespan of not only human beings, but all animals and nature will be greatly threatened without human involvement. Dr. Moore believes that human beings are not the problem, but are, in fact, the real solution.

In this episode of Life Matters, Commissioner Johnston discusses the tendency of pro-abortion and anti-life advocates to use higher law against the principles of the right to life, inverting logic and defying their own appeals to conscience.

Two recent examples are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's condemnation of the President attempting to hold accountable the illegal gang MS-13. She insists that he referred to all illegal immigrants as animals. But she intentionally twisted the words of the President, as he was clearly referring to this particular El Salvador and criminal game.

President Trump was appealing to a very basic principle of society: that individuals who use the desire to control and rule over others by violent force, or appealing to their own lower nature and seeking to employ the baser elements of humanity, or lower nature, is the reason that laws exist, to restrain those that use brute force and the "law of the jungle" to get their way in society.

Similarly, actor Joaquin Phoenix made a passionate appeal to justice and a sense of higher law, to address our entire society. Phoenix rightly pointed out that selfishness and self-absorption is a bane of modern society. He appealed to a sense of responsibility and justice in his speech accepting the award for Best Actor at the recent Oscar award ceremony.

Phoenix was clear that personal feelings can cloud our understanding of the principles of justice and a higher law to which society must be accountable. Unfortunately, he immediately gathered a collection of perceived emotionally difficult social questions - from animal rights to sexual diversity and other contemporary confusing issues based in individuals' feelings.

While appealing to a higher law, Phoenix, like so many others, defies that very principle in relegating the idea of injustice as being based on individual feelings. This is a common thread amongst those who rely on disordered thinking and emotionalism to establish their standards of right and wrong.

Western Civilization has advanced in bringing great freedom and prosperity, has ended slavery. [A recent Reuters news story (Feb. 2020) states that this work is not yet done, that half of the nations in the world still have not banned slavery.] Western Civilization has established justice, on the basis that there is a higher law to which all societies and other cultural standards must be held accountable. The right to life was proclaimed by America's founders as the pre-eminent and essential element of a just society. It is not a passing feeling. It is a self-evident truth. "To ensure these rights governments are instituted among men."

In this episode of Life Matters Commissioner Johnston interviews Lydia Gutierrez, a California schoolteacher and member of the California Teachers Association.

Lydia outlines the extremely dangerous nature of a current phenomenon in the public school system: the establishment of school-based clinics by Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is a third-party, outside agency with very clear cultural and ethical messages for children. Planned Parenthood promotes, and in many cases provides abortion for minor children without parent's knowledge or consent.

Once introduced into a school setting, this outside, third-party agency has complete privacy and government protected secrecy for any conversations or interaction with the minor student. These counselors are not functioning in the same manner as a school counselor, school psychologist, teacher, or principal. In fact, even the school employees are not allowed to know or be privy to the interaction between the student and the Planned Parenthood employee. The parent is not allowed to know the nature of the relationship between the student and the Planned Parenthood employee.

In December 2019, Planned Parenthood established fifty school-based clinics in the Los Angeles County school district. These clinics are directly aimed at circumventing parental involvement, and inculcating an ethical and moral view, as opposed to the actual purpose of the educational system: equipping students to use their intellectual capacities.

In this episode of Life Matters Commissioner Johnston replays the speech of President Trump at the rally and March for Life in Washington, D.C. In addition to the entirety of the President's speech, Brian also explains the true significance of the Weldon Amendment, which the President requested be applied to the state of California on January 24, 2020.

The Weldon Amendment prohibits a state from forcing private-party insurers to pay for and promote abortion. Many have mistakenly thought that it in someways cuts government funding for abortion, or in someways limits the actual practice of abortion. It does not. It is, in fact, a conscience clause for private individuals and private insurance companies.

The State of California, and Governor Newsom's insistence that not only should the state pay for abortion with California tax funding, but also force any private individuals and private insurance companies to also promote and pay for abortion is a draconian use of raw political power.

The famous Roe versus Wade and Doe versus Bolton twin-decisions of January 22,1973 are a black mark on American history. Since 1974, pro-life individuals from across the nation have gathered in Washington, D.C. on that anniversary. They have gone from the ellipse at the White House (often hearing a speech from the President and others) and then they march up to Capitol Hill.

The reason this is done is because an unjust law went into effect on this anniversary, the right to life was suspended by those twin decisions, and American citizens come as concerned individuals to their nation's Capital. We gather in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the innocent child and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Legal protection must be restored for the unborn.

In subsequent years there have been many other walks assembled in the emulation of the March in Washington. In California, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego have all established local walks as a local substitute for the D.C. March For Life, but they have gradually taken on a slightly different character from the D.C. March.

First of all they do NOT direct people to hold accountable their elected representatives who either will vote to protect or to kill these children. Several of these walks prohibit that discussion in order to have a happy, celebratory event. This lack of civic responsibility and accountability by pro-lifers has come at a great cost.

Secondly, many of these walks now focus their walk on tangential issues of an emotional and perhaps religious nature, and some explicitly and openly are redefining what the right to life actually is.

This has led to a confused and generic concern over abortion, but specifically prevents an understanding of why pro-abortion legislators must be held accountable. With that direction it makes it impossible to restore the legal standards they are continuing to destroy.

The "Do More Than Walk" campaign was devised by a California Prolife volunteer in order to make the symbolic "efforts" of walking around in a California city have much more significance and impact. "We don't want to just make a statement, we want to make an impact."

She decided to get pledges for her walking - much as a jog-a-thon does and direct those pledges to the California Prolife Education Fund, which educates on the real facts regarding abortion and the need to protect the unborn child through the law. This also allows pledgers a tax-deduction. Most importantly, she is also continuing to exercise for her own health and the sake of her own life but wants to continue exercising the rest of the year and wants to do that on behalf of those who can't speak for themselves.

She's brilliant!

You should exercise too, you know. We need you around!

You can also join in by going to Californiaprolife.org and signing up for the "Do More Than Walk" campaign. You get the exercise you need to lengthen your life, and you'll make a difference on behalf of the lives of others who cannot speak for themselves.