Worksheet 1

Ql You started swimming and doing back flips:A. When your mom was 6 months pregnantB.9 weeks .C. 8 monthsO. Forgetlhe hack nips, you can't even doa good belly-flop

2If you keptgrowing all 9 months as fastasyou didduring yoursecond month, youwould have been born as big as:A. Arnold SchwarzeneggerB. An M·llankC. Apair ofoverfed elephants

3When did you most likely feel painfor thefITSt time?A.When Ihey cuiyour umbilical cordB, When your mom was7weeks pregnantC. t\fler a big lunch in a cafeteria

4By the timeyour mother found out she waspregnant, you were:A. Atiny speck smaller than lheperiod at theend ofa sentenceB. ~ miniature human with arms, legs and a heartbeatC. Aball ofcells thesize ofa marble

5Your mother says you started to kick andpoke her:A. 3 months into the pregnancyB. AI 4 monthsC. Never mind when you started, when areyou going toslop?

65 months into the pregnancy you got a lotofhiccups because:A. Your mom was pigging oulonpickles, ice cream, pizza and sardinesB. You swallowed amniotic fluidC, Your diaphragm was being formedl), You couldn't rind a bag 10 put over your head

7Before you were-born, yourskin was:A. As wrinkled asa California RaisinB. As waxy asa statue from Ripley's Beliete IIor NOI museumC. Bolh oftheabove

8When did you start using your brain?A. Wben your mom was 8 months pregnantB. When shewas 10days pregnantC. If you slill haven', started using your brain, go ontothe next question

9When was the colorof your hair determined?A. Al conceptionB. 3 months into the pregnancyC. Only your hairdresser knows for sure

10 5 months before you were born, your heartpumped enough blood every dayto:A. Overflow a coffee mugB. Fill half a lank ofa FirebirdC. Fill an olympic size swimming pool.

11 When did you first start looking like either aboy or a girl?A. The seventh month ofpregnancyB. The endofthesecond monlhC. When thedoctor announced to\-11ur parents, "It'sa..."

12 If yourmother smoked while she waspregnant, you may have beenborn:A. Overweight and overdueB. Underweight and prematureC. With ~lIow teeth and a nagging cough

13 How,premature can a baby be bornand stillsurvive?A. 4 weeks earlyB. 8 weeks earlyC.16 weeks early

14 When did you begin to look like your momand dad?A. When your mom was 6 months pregnantB. When }Ullr mom was 4 months pregnantC. Who cares when il happened-does anybody know a good

plastic surgeon?

Worksheet 2

Case #1

Lawyer: The crime to be heard is murder in self-defense committed by

Defendant: Yes, I killed the man I have been accused of. I was returninghome from a movie one evening at about 10 p.m. My 2 children were in thecar with me. As we drove up to our garage, a man dressed in dark clothesjumped out of the bushes and held a knife to my back. He threatened to killboth my children and me if I didn't do as he said. He made a lunge for myyounger daughter and I was able to get out of his grasp and grab the knife. Idon't know where I got my strength, but I pulled the knife from his hand andstabbed him. I called the police and the man died later that evening. I killedhim because I was afraid he would murder my children.

Lawyer: had a good reason to kill the robber. Three lives werein danger and he/she had to act to protect himself/herself. We ask the jury tomake a decision on the case.

Worksheet 3

Case #2

Lawyer: The first crime to be heard is murder committed by ------

Defendant: I admit I killed my friend from school. We had been friends for 2years. But then I found out that my friend's father had been in jail forrobbery. I discovered that my friend's mother had been married twice beforeand had never even fmished high school. All of a sudden I felt soembarrassed to be his/her friend! If my parents knew that my friend had thistype of background they would be really ashamed of me. I didn't wantanyone to know that I had been friends him/her. So I killed my friend.

Lawyer: You see, had a very good reason to kill his/her friend. Theembarrassment that a friendship like that would have caused wouldhave been too much to bear. It could have emotionally scarred him/her foryears. Noone should have to endure a shameful situation like that. We askthe jury to make their decision on this case.

Worksheet 4

Case #3

Lawyer: is the defendant in the following case ofpremeditated murder.

Defendant: I am accused of killing my aunt and it is true that I did it. Butplease hear my good reasons and you will understand. It was just discoveredthat my aunt couldn't live by herself anymore and I am her only relative. Shewould have had to come and live with me and I just can't afford it. I'm acollege student with only a part-time job. I only make enough money tosupport myself and couldn't find a cheaper place to live. My aunt wouldhave required some extra care which costs money -- not to mention the extrafood and clothing she would need me to buy for her. No, it just wasn'tpossible for me to support her on my salary so I gave her an overdose ofsleeping pills to kill her.

Lawyer: It is obvious that had a perfectly acceptablereason for the crime. For fmancial reasons, it was impossible for him tosupport his/her aunt and therefore made it necessary for him/her to end theaunt's life. We ask the jury to make a decision on the case.

Worksheet 5

Case #4

Lawyer: The next case involves a murder committed by -------He/she is accused of murdering a co-worker.

Defendant: Well, I didn't go to college for 8 years to let someone else ruinmy career! This so-called co-worker was new and needed all kinds of help.She was really imcompetent and I spent most of my time doing her work. Ihave been trying to get a promotion for the last year and need to put in a lot ofextra time and effort if I want to succeed. This new co-worker came along atthe wrong time and could have ruined my promotion. Nothing's going tostand in my way. You see, my career is the most important thing to me. Ihad to get her out of the way before she ruined all my chances. Sure I killedher, but what was I supposed to do? Lose my job or take a lower payingone!?!

Lawyer: We ask the jury to make a decision in this case.was clearly justified in killing his/her co-worker because that person stood inthe way ofhislher career. No one has the right to thwart another's success.

Worksheet 6

Case #5,I

Lawyer: This case is a little different, jurors. It's a case of animal abusecommitted by _

Defendant: I killed my dog but I'm sure you'll agree that it was the rightthing to do once you hear me out. He was a pretty good dog -- a GoldenRetriever that was friendly but a good watchdog. But gosh! Did you everrealize how much work a dog is? I couldn't go out with my friends everynight like I used to. I had to come home and let the dog out. My social lifesuffered a lot! The dog would jump on my date's dress and mess it up. Icouldn't go away for the weekend. The dog would have accidents on myfloor or chew up a rug and I would have to clean up the mess. I never knewdogs were so inconvenient! I couldn't stand the thought of beinginconvenienced any more so I took the dog out and shot him. My neighborsfound out and called the police. Why should that be a crime? It was my dog.

Lawyer: Although it is against the law to knowingly hurt or kill pets I thinkthe jury will understand the extreme circumstances of this case. Who couldtolerate such inconvenience as has suffered? We ask the juryto make a decision on the case.

Worksheet 7

Case #6

Lawyer: We have one more case concerning , a teacheraccused of murdering one of his/her students, named Joey Wilson.

Defendant: Well, you couldn't exactly call Joey a "student". He wasmentally retarded and really couldn't learn much at all. Yeah, I know hisparents loved him, but really, when you look at it objectively, what use washis life anyway? I could see that he was never going to learn to read andwrite, he needed help getting dressed and eating, his special schooling wasgoing to cost the state a lot of tax money.... Aren't we all really better offwithout him? He wasn't going to contribute anything to society. It just got tobe too much of a burden to have him in the classroom. I figured I was doingall of us a favor to get rid of him. We have too many people in the world likethat already. Who's going to miss one more?

Lawyer: Joey Wilson's life obviously had no value. He was mentallyretarded, hardly even a real person. This shouldn't even be classified as amurder. We ask the jury to make a decision on the case.

/

Worksheet 8

I

To illustrate what this "one child" policy means to the women whose bodies are governed by it, I offer thefollowing eyewitness account. It was written by a Chinese physician, a woman named Yin Wong. Thestory was published originally in Reader's Digest in September 1995. You will never forget what you areabout to read.

"A QUESTION OF DUTY"

The hospital in southern China was busy in the early morning of December 24, 1989. As a 24-year-oldspecialist in obstetrics and gynecology, I had performed two Cesareans and a difficult forceps delivery.My supervisor had put me in charge of that night's shift-a new and frightening responsibility. I wasexhausted and hadn't eaten for about eight hours. Yet when I finally got to the doctors lounge at 1 a.m., Iwas too excited to eat or sleep.

Instead, Ilay in bed marveling at the three new lives I had welcomed into the world. And I thought of myfather. He had chosen a profession that, in China, paid little more than twice the wages of a street sweep­er: he was a doctor. He would often say, "The most noble work a person can do is saving lives."

My father was a beloved figure in our province, famous for his humility. He wore a workingman's clothesand carried his instruments in a cheap vinyl bag with a broken zipper. His reflex hammer was an ancientmodel with a wooden handle. He refused to throw it away. "Tools don't make a doctor," he told me,"knowledge and compassion do."

Now at last growing drowsy, I remembered that it was Christmas Eve. Like millions of Chinese, my

parents were Christian. I thought of the times we had celebrated this holy day together: decorating a tinytree, singing "Silent Night"-quietly, so our neighbors wouldn't report us-and hearing my fatherwhisper the story of the Christ child. I'll call him on Christmas morning, I thought as I dr,ifted off tosleep.

I was awakened by a knock at the door. It was the midwife who handled routine deliveries. "Come!" sheshouted. "We need you to take care of something!"

As I rushed after her, I heard the crying of a newborn baby. When I reached the delivery room, a bedrag­gled woman was struggling to sit up in bed. "Don't! Don't!" she shouted in a local dialect.

The midwife, a girl of 20 with a ponytail and bad acne, began drawing iodine from a clear glass bottlethrough a three-inch needle into a large syringe. She told me that the woman's abortion had gore awry.The mother, eight months pregnant, already had one child-a second was forbidden under China's strictpopulation-control law. Arrested and forced into the hospital by the local Family Planning Office, themother had been injected with rivanol, an abortifacient drug. "But the baby was born alive," said the mid­wife. The cries were coming from an unheated bathroom across the hall.

"I asked the orderly to bury it," she continued. A small hill nearby served as an unmarked graveyard forsuch purposes. "But he said it was raining too hard."

The full import of this moment became clear to me. As the obstetrician in charge, I had the duty to ensur­ing there were no abortion survivors. That meant an injection of 20 milliliters of iodine or alcohol into thesoft spot of the infant's head. It brings death within minutes.

The midwife held the syringe out to me. I froze. I had no hesitancy about performing first-trimester abor­tions, but this was different. In the year since joining the hospital staff, I had always managed to let moresenior doctors perform the task.

On the bed next to me, the child's mother looked at me with pleading eyes. She knew what the needlemeant. All women knew. "Have mercy!" she cried.

With the mother still protesting, I went across the hall to the bathroom. It was so cold I could see mybreath. Next to a garbage pail with the words DEAD INFANTS scrawled on the lid was a black plasticgarbage bag. It was moving, and cries were coming from inside. Kneeling, I told the midwife to open thebag.

I had imagined a premature newborn, hovering between life and death. Instead, I found a perfect 4 1/2­pound baby boy, flailing his tiny fists and kicking his feet. His lips were purple from lack of oxygen.

Gently, I cradled his head in one hand and placed the fingertips of the other on his soft spot. The skinthere felt wonderfully warm, and it pulsed each time he wailed. My heart leapt. This is a life, a person, Ithought. He will die on this cold floor.

"Doctor!" the mother screamed from across the hall. "Doctor, stop!"

The midwife pressed the glass syringe into my hand. I felt strangely heavy. This is just a routine proce­dure, I argued with myself. It isn't wrong. It's the law.

All at once, the baby kicked. His foot caught the barrel of the syringe and pushed it dangerously near hisstomach. I jerked it away. This is Christmas Eve! I thought. I can't believe I'm doing this on ChristmasEve!

J-)

I touched the baby's lips with my index finger. He turned his head to suckle. "Look, he's hungry:' I said."He wants to live."

I stood up, feeling faint. The syringe slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor, splattering thebrownish-yellow liquid on my shoes.

I told the midwife to carry the baby into the delivery room and get him ready to go down to IntensiveCare. "I'll ask the supervisor for permission to treat him," I said. I felt certain that the senior obstetrician,a woman in her late 50s with two children, would never harm this child.

It was almost 2 a.m. when I knocked at the supervisor's office. Her voice was groggy with sleep. Openingthe door, I quickly explained: "We have a baby boy who was born alive after a rivanol abortion. May Isend him to IC?"

"Absolutely not!" she said from her bed. "This is a second birth!"

"But he's healthy," I insisted. "Could you please come take a look?"

There was a pause, then she replied angrily, "Why are you asking me this? You know the policy!"

Her tone frightened me. "I'm sorry," I said as I shut the door.

In staff meetings, the supervisor had frequently reminded us how important the birth-control policy was.Usually she would disclose that someone in a neighboring hospital had been jailed for allowing the birthof a child without a government permit. But recently there had been a chilling incident involving ourorderly.

He was a taciturn, shabby man in his 50s, whose sole job was to bury infants. He was paid 30 yuanapiece. Burying four infants a day, on the average, the orderly earned more than twice the salary of a doc­tor. "Why so much?" I once asked a colleague. "Because no one else will do what he does," she replied.

When I pressed for details, she told me that in cases of abortion failure, the man sometimes had to burythe infants alive. "No matter what happens," she explained, "the birth control policy must be obeyed."

Weeks after I learned this, a midwife sent the orderly an aborted fetus, which he stored temporarilybeneath a stairwell. While the orderly was out, the baby revived and began to cry. A visiting policemandiscovered the child and questioned my supervisor. She told him the infant was only an illegal childawaiting burial. The officer apologized for interfering.

At the next staff meeting, the word went out: "Don't send the orderly any fetuses that might be alive.Give the injection."

Now, filled with foreboding, I headed back toward the delivery room. A man with the weather-beatenface of a peasant grabbed my arm. "Doctor," he pleaded, "this is the son we've always wanted. Please donot kill him!"

I continued down the hall and entered the bathroom. The baby was still lying on the floor. "Why didn'tyou do what I instructed?" I asked the midwife.

"Who is going to pick up this baby?" she replied. She meant a baby that was not allowed to live.

As the midwife looked on in astonishment, I gathered up the crying baby and hurried into the deliveryroom. I laid him in an infant bed.

Under an ultraviolet heat lamp, with the help of oxygen tubes that I taped under his nostrils, his handsand feet soon turned pink. Carefully I wrapped him in a soft blanket.

The midwife prepared another syringe-this time with alcohol-and placed it on a tray next to the new­born's bed. "Don't do this!" the mother cried again. Grasping the bed rail, she tried to haul herself overthe edge. I hurried to her side.

"Calm down," I said, easing her back onto the pillow. Whispering, I added, "I don't want to harm yourbaby-I'm trying to help."

The woman began to cry. "Dear lady," she said softly, "I will thank you for the rest of my life."

Just then, the midwife came over with the clipboard. "What should I put on the report?" she asked. Thelast entry read, "I :3Q-born alive." The chart was supposed to be updated before the midwife went home.

"Don't write anything," I answered curtly. Exasperated, the midwife left.

I looked at the baby. His cherubic face was ringed by a halo of black hair. This life is a gift from God, Ithought. No one has the right to take it away. The thought became so insistent that I had the impression itwas being said by someone else. I wondered: Is this how God talks to people?

For the next two hours I stood vigil over the child. Gradually he ceased whimpering and fell asleep.

Finally, I went to see the supervisor again. "I'm sorry," I told her, "but I can't do this. I feel it's murder,and I don't want to be a murderer."

The supervisor's voice exploded: "How can you call yourself an obstetrician? Take care of the problem atonce! Don't bother me again!"

With my heart beating wildly, I returned to the delivery room. The baby was still asleep, but when Itouched his mouth he wakened to suckle again. "Still hungry, little one?" I whispered. My eyes filled withtears.

Suddenly I felt terribly alone. I thought of my father. Would he support me? Despite the early hour, Iwent to the pay phone in the lobby and dialed. Both parents listened at one receiver as my words pouredout. "I keep hearing God's voice," I told them. '''This is a life,' it says. 'You cannot be part of a murder.'''

When I finished, there was a long silence. Finally, my father spoke. "I am proud of you," he said.

"I am, too," said my mother, crying softly. "But you must be careful! Don't write anything down or leavea record. The Party may want to make an example of you."

I understood. During the Cultural Revolution, when I was eight years old, my father was arrested for sav­ing the life of an official who was considered a "counterrevolutionary." My father had been exiled to thecountryside while my mother was sent to a labor camp. My four-year-old brother and I were left withneighbors. Those years had been hard. I remembered my mother's stories of torture and starvation.

My determination wavered. Then my father spoke again. "You are a child of God, and so is this baby," hesaid simply. "Killing him would be like killing your own brother."

I hung up and hurried back. The delivery-room door had been locked, and the baby's father was poundingon it and screaming, "Don't kill my child!"

.-'.'

-:

I ran into the delivery room through a side door. There, beside the baby's bed, my supervisor stood with asyringe, feeling for the soft spot. The infant's blanket and oxygen tubes had been stripped away. He wascrying violently. "Don't give that injection!" I shouted as I seized the syringe.

"What are you doing?" the supervisor yelled. "You're breaking the law!"

Instead of fear, I felt a sense of peace. "This child committed no crime," I replied. "How can you killhim?"

The supervisor gaped at me. Lowering her voice, she said ominously, "If you continue to disobey, youwill never practice medicine again."

"I would rather not be a doctor than commit murder," I said. "I would rather waive my right to have myown child than kill this one. Then a thought occurred to me. "Why can't I just adopt him?"

"You have completely lost your senses!" the supervisor cried. After she left, I swaddled the baby againand replaced the oxygen tubes. He quieted down and his color returned.

At 8 a.m., the hospital administrator arrived at work and was told what had happened. He summoned meto his office. "Why are you unwilling to do your duty?" he demanded. "Are these people friends of yours?Did you take money from them?"

"I don't even speak their dialect!" I said angrily. "And you can search me for money if you want."

Minutes later, a senior bureaucrat from the local Family Planning Office walked into the room and took afolder out of an expensive attache case. He began to read the text of a local directive on birth control:"Those who obstruct Family Planning officers from performing duties shall be subject to punishment ... "

When he finished, he looked at me and said sharply, "Do you realize it is illegal for this baby to live?"

"None of us has the right to decide that," I said.

The man grew angry. "We are talking about government policy here. You have broken the law!"

"I don't feel I have."

"Very well," he said even!y. "Let's you and I go and give the injection."

"No!"

"You admit, then, that you are breaking the law? If so, I have the right to have you arrested right now!"

Desperately, I searched for an out. I had been on call more than 24 hours and couldn't think clearly. I feltqueasy. "I am off duty," I said weakly. "My shift is over."

"Not true," he said. "You haven't finished your tasks."

"Please," I said. Then I began to cry. My legs buckled, and I fell to the floor. The last thing I rememberwas a spreading blackness before my eyes.

When I came to, I was lying outside the doctors lounge. It was almost noon. The baby! I leapt up and ranto the delivery room.

)

Worksheet 8 -- Questions

The tiny bed was empty. "Where ...?" I asked the midwife.

"The man from Family Planning ordered us to give the injection," she replied, averting her eyes.

Despite all my efforts, the little boy had been killed.tv

1. What was the danger for the doctor if she didn't give the baby the fatalinjection?

2. Why did she refuse to do so even though she fully understood the danger?

3. How did the parents of the newborn baby feel?

4. What qualities did the doctor is who wrote the article exhibit?

5. What are your feelings about the Chinese one-child policy?

6. In one word, describe your reaction to this article.

•

Worksheet 9Project Ideas

Prepare a debate for and against abortion or assisted suicide.

Write a poem or song about one ofthe topics.

Design a poster telling of the negative aspects of abortion or euthanasia.

Write an imaginary dialogue -- a girl considering an abortion andyouconvincing her not to.

Write a letter to the President expressing your views on abortion oreuthanasia and what you think he should do as far as laws concerning theseIssues.

Write a drama concerning one ofthe issues.

Conduct four interviews with different people (not Sunday School classmates,teachers or family members) about their views on abortion or euthanasia.You must develop the questions, conduct the interview and record the results.Choose people whose view you don't already know.

Write and record a radio talk show concerning one ofthe issues.

Create a handout or brochure (for mass distribution) designed to convinceothers that abortion and euthanasia are wrong.

Worksheet 10

Kevorkian and His Poisonous Gas: By Eric M. Chevlen

When the coroner was called to examine the body, the first thing he noticed was the bright pink blushof the cheeks. It was not the glow ofhealth. It was the artificial pink that only carbon monoxide givesto its victims. And in Oakland County, Michigan, death by carbon monoxide suggests only oneperpetrator: Jack Kevorkian.

As an expert in cancer pain management, I was called on by the prosecutors to review the medicalrecords ofone of Kevorkian's victims, obtained from a police search of the unlicensed pathologist'shome. I also reviewed the.videotape that Kevorkian had made ofhis interview with the victim, shortlybefore his death by inhalation of poisonous gas.

I thought I had grown used to seeing death. But the deaths that I have seen so often were far differentfrom the images that flickered in this amateur videotape. The deaths I have witnessed were almostalways those of people whose pain was controlled, people surrounded by family, often literally holdingtheir hands as their lives slipped away. This death, with Kevorkian's aid, was to be little different fromputting the family dog to sleep.

The videotape seemed to be filmed in a cheap hotel room. In it I saw a man with advanced myeloma(bone cancer) asking for assistance in suicide. He appeared to be a textbook example ofdepression inthe face ofmedical illness and inadequately treated pain: the flat voice, the lack ofeye contact, themoving description of how life no longer yielded any pleasure, and even the veiled contempt heexpressed for his own disability. I have seen many such patients in my career. In every case, the requestfor suicide was a symptom of a depression, a treatable complicationof cancer. In every case, propertreatment of the patient's pain, accompanied by emotional support and occasionally antidepressantsresulted in reversal of the wish to be killed. As I watched the taped interview, I felt like shouting at theeerily jovial "doctor" on the screen, "He's depressed, you idiot! Treat him, don't kill him!"

But of course I already knew that hours after the videotape was made, the myeloma patient had joinedthe long list of those who had died "in the presence of' Jack Kevorkian.

The taped interview itself reminded me ofcarbon monoxide. Just as carbon monoxide is colorless andodorless, resembling healthy air, so this encounter between Kevorkian and his victim had thesimulacrum ofa genuine medical interview. But when Kevorkian asked the victim whether or not hehad been experiencing pain, it was not with the intent to find a better medicine to treat it. It was tojustify the use of the carbon monoxide he had obtained even before meeting the man. When Kevorkianasked about the victim's anguish and wish to die, it was not to assess or relieve the obvious depression.It was to document that his "assistance" was given only with the victim's consent.

The trial too has-carried the taint ofcarbon monoxide. The judge's initial instructions to the jury weresuch a distortion of the law that an appellate court ordered her to change them even while the trial wasstill in progress. And the defense attorney, whose rudeness to witnesses and arrogance had led somecourtroom observers to liken him to an "overgrown schoolyard bully with a bad haircut," argued with astraight face that

Kevorkian's purpose in supplying the poison gas had not been to kill, but rather to relieve pain andsuffering. It all seemed like law and pretended to be a search for justice, but, like carbon monoxide,was but a perversion ofwhat it struggled to resemble.

Somehow all this facade and mimicry is perfectly appropriate for a trial that revolves around thequestion of euthanasia. For euthanasia itself, in its promise of "a good life, a good death," appears to bethe rose, but in fact is the serpent beneath it. Euthanasia does not put an end to burdensome treatment:it puts an end to burdensome people. It does not seek to relieve pain and suffering; it seeks to eliminatethe desperate person whose inadequately treated pain and depression has led him to want suicide.Euthanasia does not care for the disabled; rather it shows contempt for them by saying that their livesare not worthy of living.