The new Archbishop of Canterbury warned against "pinning hopes on individuals" to solve all of society's problems in his first Easter Sunday sermon.
Justin Welby said a "hero leader culture" in which all trust was placed in one person only led to false hope.
Failing to recognise human failure in any organisation was "naive", he told worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral.
"Put not your trust in new leaders, better systems, new organisations or regulatory reorganisation," Welby said.
"They may well be good and necessary, but will to some degree fail.
"Human sin means pinning hopes on individuals is always a mistake, and assuming that any organisation is able to have such good systems that human failure will be eliminated is naïve."
He said: "Human fallibility recognised, God's sovereignty trusted -- these are also the only stable foundation for human beings in society."
The leader of the world's 80 million Anglicans pointed to newspaper reports on Friday that only 40 percent of churchgoers are convinced that he can resolve the problems of the Church of England.
"I do hope that means the other 60 percent thought the idea was so barking mad that they did not answer the question," Welby said.
In a radio interview before the sermon, the archbishop said the Church of England must show it can manage disagreement "gracefully" over issues such as women bishops and gay marriage.
Welby said the Church faced the "challenge" of showing society that its members can hold different views but still remain "gracefully and deeply committed to each other".
Only once it could show it was capable of reconciling different viewpoints could it be a "sign to the world" of peace and reconciliation, he told Premier Christian Radio.
Welby, a 57-year-old former oil executive who was only ordained in 1989, was enthroned on March 21.
One of his predecessors as Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, on Saturday accused Prime Minister David Cameron of making Christians feel marginalised because he had backed the legalisation of gay marriage and other policies.
Carey spoke out following comments Cameron made at a pre-Easter reception for faith leaders at which he urged them to oppose "aggressive secularisation".
"It was a bit rich to hear that the prime minister has told religious leaders that they should 'stand up and oppose aggressive secularisation' when it seems that his government is aiding and abetting this aggression every step of the way," Carey said.
But Cameron used his Easter message to hail the "incredible role" played by Christian churches and organisations in Britain and across the world.
"As long as I am prime minister, they will have the support of this government," he said.
As Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed court motions to enact Ohio’s six-week abortion ban, a motley bunch of protesters gathered near the Ohio Statehouse on Friday in a tiny sliver of shade cast by the William McKinley statue.
They held signs declaring “abortion is healthcare” or “abortion is a human right.” Another read “our democracy, it is broken.”
Cheri Wells stood next to her one-year-old daughter, Lux, who was strapped into a stroller.
“I brought my daughter down here because this absolutely has everything to do with her, too,” she said.
“It’s taking away her rights to overturn Roe vs. Wade, as well,” she said. “I mean, it’s all about controlling women, period.”
Advocates surge ahead
Advocacy groups and leaders for and against abortion spoke out on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the nationwide right to abortion included in Roe v. Wade.
Religious and anti-abortion groups praised the decision that overturned abortion legalization that had been in place since the early 1970s, and continued their push for prohibitions in Ohio.
“Ohio Right to Life encourages our pro-life legislative majorities and Governor DeWine to be ambitious and end abortion once and for all in our great state,” said anti-abortion lobby Ohio Right to Life’s president Michael Gonidakis.
The anti-abortion groups have state leaders on their side, as Gov. Mike DeWine promised backing for the six-week ban that has been tied up in federal court, and Attorney General Yost put the wheels in motion for that ban to become effective.
In a motion filed less than an hour after the Dobbs decision was released by the U.S. Supreme Court, Yost’s office asked to dissolve the injunction that kept the state abortion ban from going into effect in 2019 when it was passed by the Ohio General Assembly.
“Because there exists no just reason for delay, defendants respectfully request this court immediately dissolve the preliminary injunction and dismiss this case,” Yost wrote in the motion to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Later Friday night, a court granted the motion, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed an executive order permitting the Ohio Department of Health to set rules for the law.
Those in the pro-abortion realm are not sitting on their laurels after the much-anticipated decision came through.
In a Friday afternoon press call, members of Planned Parenthood of Ohio said while the ruling had been expected, even before a draft opinion leaked to the public, the results were no less devastating.
“Ohioans should not have to figure out how to safely provide health care for themselves,” said Iris Harvey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. “It’s an attack on your rights, an attack on your privacy and your freedom.”
Though abortion is now legal at six weeks rather than 20 weeks after a missed period, pro-abortion advocates maintained a message that until a court rules or another ban is put in place, abortion is still legal in the state of Ohio.
Case Western Reserve University law professor Jessie Hill, who has worked on cases defending reproductive rights, said there “are still legal moves to be made” and lawyers intend to continue pursuing options.
One way in which Hill said abortion advocates can move forward is by giving advice that is protected under the First Amendment.
“The state can not, as a general matter, ban truthful, factual information,” Hill said.
Working within the state’s legal system is also in the playbook to keep abortion legal.
“Our in-state strategy ensures that we protect the Ohio Supreme Court, which has been a backstop for securing reproductive justice,” said Rhiannon Carnes, co-founder and c-executive director of the Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund.
The group is working with partners to “implement harm reduction measures to ensure that people who need an abortion can obtain the essential health care they deserve,” according to a statement by the OWA. A “voter education plan is also” being launched as the August 2 primary and November general election approach.
“We are all coming together to build independent political power against those stigmatizing abortion and forcing their political objective on our lives and bodies,” Carnes said in the statement.
One Small Step
In the Ladies Gallery at the Ohio Statehouse, a group of anti-abortion activists held a press conference to applaud the Dobbs decision. The room, set aside to honor the achievements of women in Ohio politics, regularly hosts events of all kinds, but the setting wasn’t lost on the speakers.
Beth Vanderkooi of Greater Columbus Right to Life described abortion as a “systemic injustice” meant to discriminate against women.
“True advocates for women’s rights would work together to bring down these injustices rather than tell women that their path to equality, to liberty and to freedom, rests on the dismembered bodies of their dead children,” she said.
The organizers sought to cast Friday’s decision as a watershed achievement for civil rights, comparing it to the reversal of Dredd Scott and Plessy and invoking the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. They also propped it up as a landmark historical event on the order of the moon landing or D-Day.
“It’s one small step for babies,” Created Equal vice president Seth Drayer insisted, “one massive leap for humankind, because Dr. King famously said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
While abortion advocates prepare for their next moves, Created Equal’s president Mark Harrington said their fight was far from over. Invoking Winston Churchill, he called the Dobbs decision “the end of the beginning.”
That posture certainly means advocating for greater restrictions or even the elimination of abortion at the state level, but given Justice Clarence Thomas’ suggestion that the court should next revisit rulings on the legality of same-sex marriage and relationships, as well as contraceptives, some worry the right to an abortion is far from the only one under threat.
Despite promising continued action, Harrington distanced his organization from Thomas’ remarks.
“The idea that one justice which we may or may not agree with on these other issues, says that from the bench in his opinion, doesn’t really matter unless the court actually has a case,” Harrington said. “And there’s no future that I can see where that’s actually going to occur in the short term.”
While Harrington and others who spent years fighting abortion look to the future with the wind in their sails, people like Cheri Wells are looking ahead with uncertainty. The leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs may have undercut the shock of the decision, but the despair is just as deep.
“For some reason, in the back of my mind,” she said, “I thought someone was gonna save us.”
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and Twitter.
According to a report from Politico, while Republicans are publically applauding a decision from the conservative Supreme Court to dismantle the 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision that allowed women to get an abortion, in private they are admitting it could not have come at a worse time.
In interviews with Politico's David Siders, Republican Party campaign consultants are throwing up their hands in frustration at a ruling that will make it harder for them to do their jobs in November -- particularly as they try to bring suburban women back into the fold after four years of Donald Trump.
As one GOP adviser put it: "This is a losing issue for Republicans.”
According to Siders' report, "... according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican strategists and party officials, they just didn’t want it to come right now — not during a midterm election campaign in which nearly everything had been going right for the GOP," adding, "In Republican circles, a consensus has been forming for weeks that the court’s overturning of a significant — and highly popular — precedent on a deeply felt issue will be a liability for the party in the midterms and beyond, undercutting Republicans to at least some degree with moderates and suburban women."
GOP strategist John Thomas explained, "This is not a conversation we want to have. We want to have a conversation about the economy. We want to have a conversation about Joe Biden, about pretty much anything else besides Roe."
A former GOP congressman agreed and stated, "The only thing [Democrats] have got going for them is the Roe thing, which is what, 40 years of settled law that will be changed that will cause some societal consternation. And can they turn that into some turnout? I think the answer is probably ‘Yes.’”
Politico's Siders wrote, "The problem for Republicans with the Roe decision is that it’s giving Democrats something to grasp onto in an otherwise bleak year — the kind of issue that may animate some lower-propensity voters, including young Democrats, to turn out in November, and blunt the GOP’s appeals to independent voters, a majority of whom also support Roe, according to Gallup."
GOP straegist Dave Carney concurred, telling Politico, "You go to any diner in America, and nobody’s talking about this."
"Already, Republicans are wincing at the consequences," the report states. "In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democrats have been pummeling the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano, for a position opposing abortion rights that includes no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. In Georgia, another swing state, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, is facing similar criticism. In a message that Democrats will likely repeat for months, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock issued a fundraising appeal on Friday afternoon with the subject line: 'Our opponent says he wants a total ban on abortion.'"
Without the ability to feel pain, life is more dangerous. To avoid injury, pain tells us to use a hammer more gently, wait for the soup to cool or put on gloves in a snowball fight. Those with rare inherited disorders that leave them without the ability to feel pain are unable to protect themselves from environmental threats, leading to broken bones, damaged skin, infections and ultimately a shorter life span.
In these contexts, pain is much more than a sensation: It is a protective call to action. But pain that is too intense or long-lasting can be debilitating. So how does modern medicine soften the call?
As a neurobiologist and an anesthesiologist who study pain, this is a question we and other researchers have tried to answer. Science’s understanding of how the body senses tissue damage and perceives it as pain has progressed tremendously over the past several years. It has become clear that there are multiple pathways that signal tissue damage to the brain and sound the pain alarm bell.
Interestingly, while the brain uses different pain signaling pathways depending on the type of damage, there is also redundancy to these pathways. Even more intriguing, these neural pathways morph and amplify signals in the case of chronic pain and pain caused by conditions affecting nerves themselves, even though the protective function of pain is no longer needed.
Painkillers work by tackling different parts of these pathways. Not every painkiller works for every type of pain, however. Because of the multitude and redundancy of pain pathways, a perfect painkiller is elusive. But in the meantime, understanding how existing painkillers work helps medical providers and patients use them for the best results.
Anti-inflammatory painkillers
A bruise, sprain or broken bone from an injury all lead to tissue inflammation, an immune response that can lead to swelling and redness as the body tries to heal. Specialized nerve cells in the area of the injury called nociceptors sense the inflammatory chemicals the body produces and send pain signals to the brain.
Common over-the-counter anti-inflammatory painkillers work by decreasing inflammation in the injured area. These are particularly useful for musculoskeletal injuries or other pain problems caused by inflammation such as arthritis.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve) and aspirin do this by blocking an enzyme called COX that plays a key role in a biochemical cascade that produces inflammatory chemicals. Blocking the cascade decreases the amount of inflammatory chemicals, and thereby reduces the pain signals sent to the brain. While acetaminophen (Tylenol), also known as paracetamol, doesn’t reduce inflammation as NSAIDs do, it also inhibits COX enzymes and has similar pain-reducing effects.
Prescription anti-inflammatory painkillers include other COX inhibitors, corticosteroids and, more recently, drugs that target and inactivate the inflammatory chemicals themselves.
Aspirin and ibuprofen work by blocking the COX enzymes that play a key role in pain-causing processes.
Because inflammatory chemicals are involved in other important physiological functions beyond just sounding the pain alarm, medications that block them will have side effects and potential health risks, including irritating the stomach lining and affecting kidney function. Over-the-counter medications are generally safe if the directions on the bottle are followed strictly.
Corticosteroids like prednisone block the inflammatory cascade early on in the process, which is probably why they are so potent in reducing inflammation. However, because all the chemicals in the cascade are present in nearly every organ system, long-term use of steroids can pose many health risks that need to be discussed with a physician before starting a treatment plan.
Topical medications
Many topical medications target nociceptors, the specialized nerves that detect tissue damage. Local anesthetics, like lidocaine, prevent these nerves from sending electrical signals to the brain.
The protein sensors on the tips of other sensory neurons in the skin are also targets for topical painkillers. Activating these proteins can elicit particular sensations that can lessen the pain by reducing the activity of the damage-sensing nerves, like the cooling sensation of menthol or the burning sensation of capsaicin.
Certain topical ointments, like menthol and capsaicin, can crowd out pain signals with different sensations.
Because these topical medications work on the tiny nerves in the skin, they are best used for pain directly affecting the skin. For example, a shingles infection can damage the nerves in the skin, causing them to become overactive and send persistent pain signals to the brain. Silencing those nerves with topical lidocaine or an overwhelming dose of capsaicin can reduce these pain signals.
Nerve injury medications
Nerve injuries, most commonly from arthritis and diabetes, can cause the pain-sensing part of the nervous system to become overactive. These injuries sound the pain alarm even in the absence of tissue damage. The best painkillers in these conditions are those that dampen that alarm.
Antiepileptic drugs, such as gabapentin (Neurontin), suppress the pain-sensing system by blocking electrical signaling in the nerves. However, gabapentin can also reduce nerve activity in other parts of the nervous system, potentially leading to sleepiness and confusion.
Antidepressants, such as duloxetine and nortriptyline, are thought to work by increasing certain neurotransmitters in the spinal cord and brain involved in regulating pain pathways. But they may also alter chemical signaling in the gastrointestinal tract, leading to an upset stomach.
All these medications are prescribed by doctors.
Opioids
Opioids are chemicals found or derived from the opium poppy. One of the earliest opioids, morphine, was purified in the 1800s. Since then, medical use of opioids has expanded to include many natural and synthetic derivatives of morphine with varying potency and duration. Some common examples include codeine, tramadol, hydrocodone, oxycodone, buprenorphine and fentanyl.
Opioids decrease pain by activating the body’s endorphin system. Endorphins are a type of opioid your body naturally produces that decreases incoming signals of injury and produces feelings of euphoria – the so-called “runner’s high.” Opioids simulate the effects of endorphins by acting on similar targets in the body.
While opioids can provide strong pain relief, they are not meant for long-term use because they are addictive.
Although opioids can decrease some types of acute pain, such as after surgery, musculoskeletal injuries like a broken leg or cancer pain, they are often ineffective for neuropathic injuries and chronic pain.
Because the body uses opioid receptors in other organ systems like the gastrointestinal tract and the lungs, side effects and risks include constipation and potentially fatal suppression of breathing. Prolonged use of opioids may also lead to tolerance, where more drug is required to get the same painkilling effect. This is why opioids can be addictive and are not intended for long-term use. All opioids are controlled substances and are carefully prescribed by doctors because of these side effects and risks.
Cannabinoids
Although cannabis has received a lot of attention for its potential medical uses, there isn’t sufficient evidence available to conclude that it can effectively treat pain. Since the use of cannabis is illegal at the federal level in the U.S., high-quality clinical research funded by the federal government has been lacking.
Researchers do know that the body naturally produces endocannabinoids, a form of the chemicals in cannabis, to decrease pain perception. Cannabinoids may also reduce inflammation. Given the lack of strong clinical evidence, physicians typically don’t recommend them over FDA-approved medications.
Matching pain to drug
While sounding the pain alarm is important for survival, dampening the klaxon when it’s too loud or unhelpful is sometimes necessary.
No existing medication can perfectly treat pain. Matching specific types of pain to drugs that target specific pathways can improve pain relief, but even then, medications can fail to work even for people with the same condition. More research that deepens the medical field’s understanding of the pain pathways and targets in the body can help lead to more effective treatments and improved pain management.
