The Abotionist: How the dehumanizing slide begins and ends

THE ABORTIONIST: How the dehumanizing slide begins and ends Written primarily for Christian medical students worldwide Philip G. Ney, MD, FRCP (C) July 14, 2003 Medical Education Social Factors Child Abuse and Neglect and Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome Personal Choices Seminal Experiences The Knowledge of Good and Evil The Ardous Trek Back Prevention Summary Following the Second World War there was considerable discussion on how and why a good Lutheran lad ended up in the SS gassing innocent people at a concentration camp. It was soon discovered that he was subjected to a program of progressive dehumanization that made it increasingly easy for him to view selected people as less than human, and then to cruelly kill them. A similar dehumanizing process applies to a Christian young person who starts off with high ideals to become a physician working for the benefit of poor people. By the time he graduates as a young doctor, he can be well down the path to becoming an abortionist or a passive observer to the frequent ‘termination’ of innocent unborn children. Surely, comprehending this change is one of the most difficult tasks in understanding human nature. Though the following factors apply most poignantly to the doctor who ends up being an abortionist, to a greater or lesser degree, they can apply to many physicians. I believe these factors apply, not all in every case but most in most instances. The most dramatic case is the young student who hopes to become a medical missionary and ends up as a cynical Ob/Gyn making millions in the abortion industry. There are many more instances of good “Christian” doctors who “personally don’t believe in abortion” but refer for an abortion many young women for whom they “really feel compassion”. There are still more godly doctors who by observing and/or not protesting abortions have been compromised by abortion and thereby lost their capacity to protest. Ignoring the weight of scientific evidence showing no benefit and deep damage, these doctors still become pillars in the church. They readily justify their passivity because “I don’t feel ‘called’ to oppose abortion.” How can this happen? There is the subtle shaping influence of medical education. (I write as a professor, having taught for 40 years in five very good medical schools.) There is the crooked guiding influence of society, which takes advantage of the early dehumanization to the medical student as they become inexpensive labour doing dirty jobs. There are the guardians of the medical profession who fail to apply the usual controls of medicine to the practice of abortion. Of course there are the student’s own choices which become progressively wrong choices. Finally, there is the critical experience of the student that initiates a cascade of compromises. Medical Education Competition. So many young people with high ideals hope that one day they are smiled upon by their gods, or by God, and attain a privileged position of student in a reputable medical school. Too often the desperate competition forces them to neglect the development of their maturity through sticking to their principles, in favour of somehow achieving high marks and a good score on the MCAT. Kindly Mentor. Having arrived in the hallowed halls, they feel so appreciative and so impressed by their initial contact with senior students and professors that they let their guard down. They are given a kindly mentor who promises to stick with them and be their guide, all the while giving them little of the harsh truth. Of course they are reassured that their opinions will be listened to. But the student feels too shy to say what he really believes in the context of this wise person and a gallery of even more wise professors standing behind him. Approving authority. Medical education appears to be so well coordinated, smooth running and uniform in its opinion that the medical student soon believes that there isn’t any other opinion. What the authority approves of, must be right. Legal. Not only is a medical school authoritative, it is granted many rights, privileges and legality by the government. The government represents people. Most students have an inherent belief that democracy is right and therefore if it is approved by the elected government and legal, it can’t be wrong. Control. The control of a medical school is both harsh and gentle. The harshness is examination marks that determine whether the student passes or fails. Even more control is exerted through the smiles, nods of approval and commendation that every medical student seeks, especially those who received very little approval in their childhood. Disregard of ethics. Although medical schools teach ethics they always do it as moral relativism, especially “quality of life”. Ethics are no longer the strict wise guide given by ancient physicians. Modern ethics are what the “ethics committee” decides. The committee is made up of all sorts of people who have no stake in the outcome for any particular patient and their family. The members of the ethics committee like to see themselves as extra wise and perceptive. They are not. Generally, they would rather hear themselves pontificate than put themselves in the patient’s bed. Recruiting. The student’s senior colleagues have a great deal of influence. What they do is what the young student would also like to do some day. The senior students, who by now have made compromises, begin putting subtle pressure on the young student to make compromises also. It is as if they believe that if others could join them, they would not feel so uncomfortable and guilty in their solitary times. Peer pressure. The student’s own classmates are both his best friends and his worst competitors. In either case, he wants their approval. “Hey, Jack, did you see that ‘procedure’? No? Too bad, the rest of us did.” Less love and devotion. Their love of and for Christ gets crowded out by hard work, and studying on Sundays. They forget their vow, “Jesus, if you get me into medical school I will always love and serve you,” until final exams roll around. Reasonable rationalizations. The medical student can easily get confused by rhetoric and sophistry, e.g. “compassion”, “choice”, “rights”, “equality”, “privacy”. There seems to be no pro-life professor as cogent to voice the opposite view. Of course there are but they can’t get published. Social Factors High regard. Society places physicians in high regard and rewards them well. Doctors are repeatedly offered bank loans, credit cards and real estate. There are many kinds of flattering salesmen chasing after them with preferential rates of interest for a new car, office furniture, etc. Lack of restraint. As Margaret Mead¹ points out, society has an obligation to restrain physicians from returning to pre-Hippocratic days when they had the dual mandate to either cure or kill. Power. For good and bad reasons, doctors have been given and grabbed a certain power over life and death that anybody would envy. Technology. With widening horizons developed through science and many capabilities provided by technology, physicians are in a position to do what is possible rather than do what is best for the patient and family. Salves to an uncomfortable conscience. Medicine provides itself with analgesics, hypnotics and a plethora of fun distractions that are readily available to the medical student. Once he graduates, if his conscience is uncomfortable, nobody much notices if he drinks or smokes pot in moderate amounts. Child Abuse and Neglect and Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome Our studies show a disproportionate number of those who become abortionists have experienced childhood deprivation and/or the experience of being an abortion survivor (one or more siblings were aborted). The dehumanizing experience of a doctor’s childhood mistreatment results in: Frustration in developing a beautiful blueprint. Most people who become physicians have a beautiful blueprint provided by God. They are good looking, intelligent and above average in height. The conflicts created by their early mistreatment frustrate their God-given desire to fulfill their blueprint. Neglect makes them strive for approval. The frustration of acquiescing to parent or peer pressure results in bitterness and anger. “If I can’t become who I was designed to be, why should I care what happens to the fetus.” Deafness to distress. The young medical student’s cries of distress and pleas to meet his needs often fall on deaf ears. To succeed, he turns a deaf ear to his own plaintive cries and drives himself forward. Too soon he cannot hear the piteous cries of others. Blindness. A person cannot see in others what he/she is not able to recognize in themselves. The students who were abused and neglected as children soon are troubled by deep conflicts that no one helps them resolve. Because they cannot recognize nor understand these key conflicts in themselves, they cannot perceive them in their patients. Disregard instincts. Because of their unmet needs, the young person who becomes a medical student in order to succeed most often disregards his and his species’ preserving instincts. Whenever deeply embedded instincts try to remind him that human ecology is also fragile, he knocks them on the head with, “I’ve got to be rational and get on with it.” Callous response to the helpless cry. The screams in the still night of a distressed infant, rudely awakens parents. That piercing sound penetrates the unconscious mind and evokes an aggressive response. The surging catecholamines propel the parent onto their feet ready for any fight or flight emergency. An instinctual muting mechanism will most frequently convert that rage to a nurturing response as the parent approaches the crib and more fully awakens. In the young medical student, too often their helpless cry from confusion and fear has been disregarded by others, then by themselves. It soon becomes difficult for the young doctor to hear the silent cry of a helpless little person, the preborn baby. Impatience. Because of early financial or emotional deprivation, many students have difficulty restraining themselves when there is the immediate prospect of all those wonderful material things that he can enjoy as a new graduate. After years of struggle he has become impatient to gratify his desires. Consequently as a physician, it is difficult for him to wait out the natural evolution of illness. Too often he would rather provide quick relief than a long-term cure. Waiting or patient listening interferes with his opportunity to go fishing or golfing. Abortion quickly stills the complaints of the ambivalent young woman. Had the doctor waited they would have both discovered that the desire for a baby increases throughout the pregnancy. Self indulgence. Having been recognized as smart and good-looking, the student uses these God-given attributes to advantage to get what he wants. It’s all too easy. With a little charm and manipulation, he gets his own way. It becomes difficult to say no to himself or to the patient. Having been neglected as a child, he is easily influenced by a patient’s alternating charm and threats of rejection. “Okay, if you won’t refer me for an abortion, I’ll go to another doctor.” If against conscience and good clinical judgement he capitulates, he is given lots of warm appreciation, “You are a kind and compassionate physician.” Yet patients almost never say, “Thank you so much for the abortion.” Pain of Empathy. Having experienced the pain of watching siblings or other children experience deprivation, the young medical student also experiences vicarious pain watching a patient suffer. It would be so much easier to end the patient’s distress and his own discomfort with a quick “remedy” like abortion. He may have promised his long-suffering mother to always be compassionate to women, and it seems so hardhearted to ignore the pleas of a woman with an “unwanted pregnancy”. Anxiety of uncertainty. The medical student soon learns that there are many incomprehensible and imponderable problems that happen in the lives of his patients. If he could only endure the uncertainty and help patients with their struggles, many of these could be resolved. Having passed difficult examinations, he soon believes he is both smart and wise. He would prefer to solve the problem for the patient rather than with the patient because it seems faster that way. Twisted humanitarianism. Having witnessed or experienced injustice or deprivation, the young student wants to be a hero. This makes him very gullible to current cant, “Women should be given a choice over their own bodies” and “The first right of a child is to be wanted.” He doesn’t quickly recognize these are well-rehearsed, false ideals. Humans have always struggled with pain and injustice. In order to make sense of it, many would like to believe bad health is either the person’s ‘just desserts’ or that it gains them points for nirvana. A twist of Buddhist philosophy and add a bit of modern rationalizations and you get something that sounds both reasonable and kind. New Buddhism purports that life does recycle and that once you have gained enough points, you can gain the unconscious bliss of nirvana. In the meantime, to get a chance at human life you can choose your mother even if you know she will soon abort you. You will get a higher priority and better choices next time because of all the karma you got from being dissected in your mother’s uterus. Vulnerable to threats and rewards. Students trying to make it are easily influenced by the hope of graduating and intimations of becoming a medical teacher. They are very vulnerable to the imagined mockery from their peers, family and friends if they fail. Against this combination very few students can stick to their ideals without the power of Christ within them. Those students and residents who have an aborted sibling intuitively know they are alive because they were wanted, chosen by their parents to live and obligated to fulfill their father’s and mother’s expectations. They must not become unwanted for that was death to their sibling. They both fear and hate their parents for such a callous attitude. Since their life was treated as if it had no intrinsic value, it is easy to believe that the value of everyone is relative. Thus they argue that the preborn infant has relatively little value compared to the mother’s whose rights and convenience are paramount. Abortion survivors often hold their mothers with mixed regard; gratitude, “she let me live”, fear “if she can so easily kill her own unborn child, what could she do to me?”, and anger “who the h___ does she think she is deciding which one of us lives and which dies.” That intense ambivalence is displaced onto female patients. Many abortionists who seem so compassionate really hate women “because they insist I kill their baby and I hate doing it.” And many women who use abortionists for their convenience, have no respect for them and wouldn’t let them deliver their baby Personal Choices The budding physician isn’t just the hapless victim of circumstances within powerful medical institutions. He/She is still able to make choices even if a whole series of past choices have been made for him/her. Compromising for convenience. The medical student learns that it is so easy to say yes for peer and professor approval and yet so difficult to say the same thing to their own conscience. So he begins to rationalize his inconsistencies. A whole cascade of compromises soon blot out the sharp prodding from his intuitive awareness of what is intrinsically good or evil. Ignoring evidence. The student is taught in embryology that, in its very earliest form, the fetus is a complete human. It takes a deliberate ignoring of this evidence to allow killing unborn babies because “they are not yet really humans”. Ambition and rationalization. Budding doctors often say to themselves, “Once I get through medical school…” Or “Once I have my foot on the first rung of the academic promotions list, I will speak out and insist on what I know is right when I get there.” But he never arrives in a safe enough place. There is always another possible promotion. All too soon, they find themselves as Professor and Chairman, but unable to remember what their conscience was telling them as a youngster. The only way to avoid this is to deliberately, publicly state one’s position on all sorts of issues before the temptation to suppress them arrives Personal convenience. There is no doubt in the young person’s mind that they will have less comfort and convenience if they stick their necks out on difficult issues like abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, etc. Why try to swim upstream when it is obvious that swimming downstream gets you further faster, with considerably less effort? “Besides, you can’t expect me to solve all the world’s problems. To do my best for my patients is all that is required of me. Yes, I built a nice house with a swimming pool but that’s really for the church youth group when (if) they come over.” Laziness. Young doctors soon realize that working with the patient, suffering in empathy with them, even though it might promote health in the long run, requires a great deal more effort. Now there are so many magic medications, it is much easier to prescribe than to listen. Attempting to avoid a painful delay (for the doctor) is one reason so many doctors prescribe antidepressants for grief, thereby making it prolonged and pathological grief. Unbridled curiosity. One of the features of their better intelligence is a greater curiosity. Having seen and heard of something, medical students now want to try it. Some of those who become abortionists have experienced the occult or pornography and they have lost the ability to say no to something that fascinates them. The knowledge of good and evil has never lost its appeal and they can guess they will know evil through the experience of assisting or doing an abortion. Materialism and money. It is not lost on the young doctor that he can make a good deal more money doing abortions than delivering babies. Not infrequently young obstetric residents have found their meager salaries can be greatly augmented by moonlighting as an abortionist. The love of money starts with love of ‘the good life’. The young person who has experienced poverty of material or role models is very vulnerable to always wanting more toys. Let go of prayer, praise and fellowship. It’s not as if circumstances force the student to avoid his Christian fellowship. He makes a conscious decision that it is a lower priority to remain humbly learning from the pastor who has far less education than he does. He soon begins to credit himself with success rather than constantly thanking God. It seems, at least for a while, that God overlooks his arrogance. Let go their love for Christ. When the student and the young doctor are trying so hard to be reasonable and rational, it is hard for them to listen to the still, small voice of Christ’s Spirit within them. They are taught to trust only “hard fact” which often isn’t fact at all, but opinion dressed up so well, and so often rehearsed, it sounds like fact. For example, the persuasive efficacy of medications are established with double blind studies. But there are no double blind studies. It is relatively easy for the subject to guess when they are on placebo or the trial drug. Their guess changes their expectation which influences the outcome in a big way.² The young Christian students lose their ability to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit of Christ prompting them from within. They neglect their fellowship with other Christians because they think they need to study for exams. Having stayed up very late Saturday night, they feel too fatigued to go to church. Confusion caused by current rhetoric and sophistry. Students want to appear to be intelligent so they must both learn and use the approved politically correct language. Words like compassion, choice, right, equality, privacy take on the meaning ascribed to them by the fast writing, oft-speaking philosophers of this age. These people have little profound to say but easily get the media’s attention. These words become defined by the rhetoric rather than the other way. Seminal Experiences The early dehumanizing of the idealistic young person who eventually becomes the abortionist, makes them vulnerable to a series of critical experiences which increasingly compromise who they are and what they know. Cutting up the cadaver. In the anatomy lab, the instructor should insist that respect is given to the body, but because of the peer pressure and the inner awkwardness, students cannot help but joke and laugh when a testicle or eyeball is crudely dissected and discarded. Humans have always recognized they must dispose of the human body in a dignified manner; otherwise they soon find that others disrespect their bodies. A Christian student soon forgets the admonishment of Paul that Jesus showed His great respect for the human body by making the same body whole and eternal.³ Watching an abortion. “Hey man, come and watch this. You will find it interesting. Besides which, you’ll need to know something about this when you get out in practice.” The resident persuasively invites the student to watch while he performs an abortion. It doesn’t take much intelligence for the student to realize that he is watching the murder of an innocent little person. If he doesn’t try to stop the murder or at least protest, or at the very least leave the scene, he is a contributor to an innocent person’s death. He should have emphatically declined or protested at the first invitation. Now he has difficulty defending any type of pro-life position in a discussion because he has been compromised. His arguments are weakened by his weak resolve and he knows it. Assist an abortion. Once a procedure is well under way, medical teachers often ask if the student would like to finish it. The student feels so proud, even when he realizes that this procedure is the destruction of a baby. Solo abortions. Any physician feels more confident when he has acquired a new skill which he can use with verve and good effect, leaving little observable damage. By the time he becomes a resident, so many compromises have been made, so many inconsistencies readily justified, the student abandons his ideals and becomes cynical; more interested in power and money than what’s good for the patient in the long run. The point of no return. God built into humans an essential species-preserving instinct which deters humans from killing each other. This aggression muting drive changes the rudely awakened mother or father from rage, “Stop that terrible noise now!” to soft nurture, “ah, the sweet little thing” of their infant in distress in about ten seconds. This instinct also makes it hard for soldiers to shoot each other. However once a man kills another man or a parent murders a baby that instinct is severely weakened and that change cannot usually be reversed. Once a doctor has terminated a child, he cannot trust his aggression and cannot be trusted with other helpless patients. The Knowledge of Good and Evil The world’s best super salesman of evil convinced Adam and Eve that, rather than gradually getting to know God quietly walking about in a beautiful garden, the best way to become someone of importance and do anything worthwhile with their lives was to gain the knowledge of good and evil, the fastest way possible. Adam and Eve’s fatal choice has affected us all. I could get extremely angry at them, but on reflection, I discover that I would probably make the same choice. Why, because I do. Rather than quietly communing with God in a lovely place, I often desire instant knowledge from TV or computer website. The sad fact is that ever since Adam and Eve, when we obtain knowledge, we find that it is both good and evil. Can you think of one thing humans have discovered that cannot be used for good and evil, e.g. dynamite? No one knows this contradiction better than the abortionist. In the morning, this physician kisses his wife and children goodbye, leaves his upper class home and reports to work where he struggles hard to deliver and keep alive ‘wanted’ babies of every size, shape, age and condition. The afternoon he spends aborting the same size and shape babies because they are not ‘wanted’. He knows the highest joy of any physician, to deliver a baby. He knows the deepest horror, to kill an innocent child. How can he do that in the same day without affecting himself and his family? Literally he cannot. Trying to maintain these contradictions will destroy him.⁴ The Ardous Trek Back Very few physicians have any idea how difficult it is to reverse this whole dehumanizing process. Only by the amazing grace of God have some been enabled to stop and turn around. That story is to be told later, the destructive effects from that awful contradiction – the knowledge of good and evil. Prevention Every physician knows that prevention is worth many more ounces than cure. To prevent the dehumanization of medical students is more effective, more efficient. Every physician should spend as much time preventing illnesses as he does treating them, otherwise he can legitimately be accused of promoting the very disorder he is ostensibly trying to eradicate because by treating he gains so much prestige and money. Nobody has the final answer on how to stop the dehumanizing road to the depravity of aborting babies. However, maybe I’ve lived long enough and studied the issue in depth enough to make a few recommendations. Applied in the young student and physician’s life, they may help prevent the slide toward dehumanization that eventually ends in doing abortions. I strongly recommend: Love the truth. Search diligently, both in scripture and in science for what is true. Don’t be bamboozled by fancy preachers or medical teachers, or so-called double blind studies. Be skeptical without being cynical, and rejoice every time you gain a new insight. Lest you lose these God-given insights, keep a little book handy. In it you will write revealing thoughts when they occur; not later, you’ll forget. You’ll be so glad years later that you did so. Reading them, you realize that you discovered critical kernels of truth that will astonish you. Love the Word. Keep reading the Bible. It’s beyond profound. The people who were inspired to write it had insufficient appreciation of the significance of what they were writing. There is always something more to be gleaned, no matter how many times you read the scripture. Don’t attack the bible like you would an anatomy textbook. Ask the Spirit to guide you, and ingrain you with the truth even when you forget the exact words. Don’t study on Sunday. Preserve time for God and He will abundantly bless you, even hint at what may be on the next exam. Commit yourself to an ethical position publicly, and live according to that ethic. No, Hippocrates didn’t have the best ethic. Remember he was 300 years or so before Christ. If you are not happy with some of the ones that are available, including “My Declaration for Life” (see www.messengers2.com), work out your own. Pin it to your wall, and tell others about it. They will help you stick to it. “Hey Mac, I thought you said you were “………..”. Take up your cross daily. Engage in public debate. Don’t duck criticisms and try to pretend you’re just like everybody else. With Christ’s Spirit inside you, you are distinctly different. Given half a chance, it will show. Paul writing to Timothy says, “Anybody who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” It’s the norm. No, this is not paranoia. It’s a sad observation that people neither like the truth, nor the truth-bearer. Most people never did, never will. Truth shakes a person up. Nobody likes being shaken out of their comfort, or lethargy, or their assumptive form world. Be better. Use self-discipline and study hard. Take advantage of God’s guiding, prompting Spirit. Determine your blueprint and take up Christ’s yoke. You notice He says that it fits comfortably, even though you’ll have to pull pretty hard. People expect you to be better, not only in marks but in conduct, in graciousness, and letting other people take first crack at the microscope or the library book. There are many reasons why being a Christian will make you a better observer and therefore a better scientist. Pick your mentor and model. Use good advice and find a unique, courageous Christian physician. You will seldom find them among the elite. They are better known for their tendency to irritate people. They are often gossiped about. Yet usually there is a grudging respect that is seen in the number of patients that are referred to them. In short, find yourself some outrageous, humble Christian kook and let their conduct really madden you. “Don’t be so stupid, you’re gonna get yourself killed.” No, I am not advocating terrorism, I am advocating radical love. Not taking life, but laying down your life so that others can live. Inform yourself. There is only one truth. Eventually science and theology have to agree. You will find there is an amazing amount of evidence that will support your Christian faith. This is becoming increasingly true not only in astrophysics but in psychology. There is an amazing amount of evidence to show the pro-life ethic works, not only for the individual mother, but for society’s economic good. Don’t compromise. This is an evil world and it is impossible to be always right. Christ didn’t expect us to choose between right and wrong; He expected us to choose between good and evil.⁵ Therein lies a huge difference. Remember also, money doesn’t make money. If you are making money with investments, it may be on the back of some sweatshop labourer or some prisoner. The higher the earnings of your investment, the better the chance it’s dishonest. Even your wonderful low-price purchase may represent the hard work of somebody who doesn’t have a reasonable crack at all the benefits you take for granted. Find a partner. Find a true-blue friend who is already going your way and if possible, marry him/her. You’ll find that it avoids many temptations. It isn’t a good idea to marry someone in the same field; you can’t help but compete. Yes, Scripture did say woman was made as a help-mate for man. It sounds old-fashioned, but seems to work well, even in the most modern context. Before you marry, make sure you think it through. You must grow up first, then commit and then become well bonded.⁶ See the world through your own eyes. It may seem wonderful to accurately regurgitate what your teachers inculcate; however, there is a lot they don’t know and have never experienced. They are seldom open about their ignorance. Short-term missionary activities give you many opportunities to see the world without first having to be taught what to see. Keep focused. State where you’re going and why when you’re still young and idealistic (God’s ideals). Don’t forget, who you become is much more important than what you achieve. Who you are is what goes to heaven. Nothing that you achieve will get there. If God wants you at the top, it will happen, though it may be through an unusual, more painful route. Remember the stories of Joseph and Daniel. Give Praise and thanks for everything. God loves a cheerful thanker. It is so much easier to give to somebody who is appreciative. Never pat yourself on the back. Everything you have and know comes from God. Whenever you make plans, always say “Deo Volente”. Summary If you are not on the dehumanizing slide that leads to doing or referring for abortions, thank the Lord but be very careful. If you have started to slide, repent and recant. If you have already gone too far, join the Society of Centurions.⁷ In Christ and through the SOC’s seminars there is hope and healing. Note: I have used ‘he’ and ‘him’ throughout this paper for convenience. I’m well aware that in most schools, at least 50% of students are women. References 1. Ney, PG. A Consideration Of Abortion Survivors. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 1983 Spring; 13(3):168-79. 2. Ney, PG, Collins C, Spenser C. “Double Blind, Double Talk or Are There Ways To Do Better Research”, Med Hypotheses 1986 Oct; 21(2):119-126.. 3. Ney, PG. Who is a person of truth…(website coming soon). 4. Ney, PG. The Centurion’s Pathway Pioneer Publishing: Victoria, B.C. 1997. 5. Luke 6:9, The New Living Translation Bible. 6. Ney, PG. The Wedding Feast http://www.messengers2.com/articles/marriage/The_Wedding_Feast.htm 7. Ney, PG. Triangles of Abuse: a model of maltreatment. Child Abuse Negl. 1988; 12(3): 363-373. 8. Contact the Society of Centurions at PO Box 27103, Langford RPO, Victoria, B.C. V9B 5S4.