Deregulating 'rent-to-own':
Bad news for Wisconsin's poor

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

Last fall, Americans and people around the world watched in disbelief as thousands of men, women, and children clung to rooftops or waited helplessly in horrid conditions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The disbelief gave way to questions as we asked how it had come to that. Why, in a land of plenty and advanced technology could so many of our neighbors find themselves in such desperate circumstances?

There is no simple answer. But the TV images and other accounts of that disaster made it painfully clear what happens to those who lack resources when they are left exposed to life threats from which the rest of us are insulated.

Some of these threats take the form of natural disasters. Others are man-made.

Here in Wisconsin, our state is poised to expose its poor and economically vulnerable to predatory lending practices previously regulated by our laws. Legislation to loosen the regulation of "rent-to-own" businesses is on the verge of becoming law.

Disclosing information

Rent-to-own agreements are among what many refer to as "predatory lending practices" that exploit those in difficult financial circumstances. Located primarily in low-income neighborhoods, they extend credit in ways most of us would not tolerate for our families or ourselves.

Currently, Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that treats rent-to-own transactions like credit transactions and requires the disclosure of interest rates. That will change if Governor Doyle signs the legislation that is currently sitting on his desk.

The pending legislation will roll back state law and exempt rent-to-own operations from disclosing their annual percentage interest rate, or APR.

It is true that disclosing the APR on a loan does not guarantee that customers will know what they are getting into since it is still possible to conceal the true cost of an item.

However, it is significant that in the time that rent-to-owns in Wisconsin have been obligated to disclose APRs there have been far fewer complaints from consumers than in other states.

Opposed bill

The Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) opposed the bill, as did many other advocates who work with the poor on a regular basis.

The WCC's opposition to this proposal is based in large part on the practical experience of those in Catholic agencies, such as Catholic Charities and St. Vincent de Paul who regularly minister to families in economic need.

Staff in these agencies advised us that rent-to-own agreements and other transactions that burden people with high interest rates and expensive loan agreements are major causes of financial hardship for low-income families.

Could set precedent

The bill also serves to weaken the Wisconsin Consumer Act by permitting self-help repossession and shortening the default period. Should rent-to-own companies be able to avoid the provisions of the act, it is only reasonable to expect that others who lend and sell merchandise will seek their own exemption.

It is a tragic fact of poverty that those who are least able to pay for goods often end up paying the most. This is especially true when our public policies compound the tragedy by making it easier to engage in transactions that exploit that vulnerability.

Our nation did not deliberately set about to abandon the poor and vulnerable people on the Gulf Coast to the fate that befell them by passing a National Indifference Act. We did so one step at a time, one policy at a time, and one rationalization at a time.

The proposal to deregulate the "rent-to-own" industry is an example of one of the steps by which a society abandons its needy.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

No tubes for me:
Making informed end-of-life decisions

		Making Sense  Out of Bioethics  Fr. Tad  Pacholczyk

When discussions about end-of-life treatments come up, people will often say something like this: "I don't want to be a burden to anyone. No tubes for me. I just want to go quickly and peacefully."

People are attracted by technology and what it offers when they are sick, but they also have fears about it when they are in a weakened or vulnerable state.

They imagine becoming trapped in a situation where they aren't allowed to die but are held in a kind of suspended animation by machines. They also worry that their pain may not be managed well.

	• Fr. Tad Pacholczyk to speak in Madison

Sometimes they may feel pressure from family members that they shouldn't "stick around" too long. These kinds of fears and concerns, however, need to be scrutinized carefully, because they can prompt us to act rashly and think unclearly when it comes to making concrete treatment decisions.

Ordinary treatments

In making end of life decisions, the important question is whether a proposed treatment is likely to be ordinary or extraordinary. Ordinary treatments are required as part of our duty to take care of our health. Extraordinary treatments, on the other hand, are optional.

The process of weighing whether a treatment is ordinary or extraordinary was concisely summarized back in 1980 in a passage from the Vatican's Declaration on Euthanasia:

"In any case, it will be possible to make a correct judgment as to the means by studying the type of treatment to be used, its degree of complexity or risk, its cost and the possibilities of using it, and comparing these elements with the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources."

Thus ordinary treatments will offer a reasonable hope of benefit to the patient, are not excessively costly, and are not unduly burdensome.

Taking antibiotics to fight an infection would generally be an ordinary treatment, since it would be effective in combating the infection, would not be unduly burdensome or expensive, and would be a low-risk procedure.

In order to decide whether a treatment is ordinary, we must also look at the particulars of the patient's condition, and not merely focus on the treatment, the medical device, or the medicine itself.

So if a person were imminently dying from cancer, with but a few hours of life remaining, and the physician discovered that he had an infection in his lungs, the use of antibiotic medications would generally be extraordinary and optional in these circumstances, since their use would be largely ineffective to the patient's real-life situation.

Prayer and effort

Weighing and determining whether a treatment is ordinary or extraordinary is not always a simple and straightforward task.

It often requires some struggle and searching. I recall once helping a woman whose 82-year-old mother was in a nursing home with Alzheimer's.

We spoke by phone every few weeks as the condition of her mother would change. She would ask, "Do I have to put Mom into an ambulance and take her to the hospital every time something goes wrong? It causes such stress and anxiety at her age."

One time when her mother got a urinary tract infection, she ended up sending her to the hospital for treatment. After some discussion, it had become clear that making that ambulance trip would mean providing a bridge to healing for her mother, bringing her to another plateau in her condition, and hence would be ordinary treatment. When the urinary tract infection came back again a few months later, she had her taken to the hospital a second time.

But after several more months passed, her mother's condition suddenly deteriorated further. She had several small strokes in addition to a serious bowel obstruction and kidney problems.

I remember how at a certain moment during one of our phone conversations, as we were reviewing her mother's condition, it became clear to both of us that we had crossed a line into new territory.

We saw that it was becoming an extraordinary intervention to put her elderly and demented mother into the ambulance again and try to treat her more recent and more serious maladies.

Whenever we would discuss her mother's health on the phone, she would say, "I want Jesus to take her at the time HE chooses, and I want to be a good daughter to my Mom up to the end."

It was becoming clear that her mother was in fact reaching the end of the line, and further interventions would no longer be obligatory, that Jesus was indeed ready to take her. She felt able to let her go at the proper moment.

The whole process of figuring out when her mother had reached the point where further interventions and hospital visits were extraordinary had been nested in a lot of prayer, consultation, and struggle on the part of her daughter.

Precisely because of that prayer and effort, as the end approached, she knew she had taken the appropriate steps along the way and had no regrets after her mother passed on.

Surrendering to grace

At the end of our own lives, each of us should have the liberty of spirit to be a "burden" to our loved ones and our family. That's what love means.

When each of us was born, we were a "burden" to our parents for many years. Our parents and grandparents should feel no pressure about "quick exits." They should know that their family and friends will be there for them, loving them and journeying with them into the mystery of death.

Our parents and grandparents should never feel constrained to decline ordinary treatments. When tubes will serve as an ordinary bridge to healing for them, they shouldn't feel pressured to declare: "no tubes for me." Tubes can sometimes be required as part of our duty to take care of the health and life which we have received as a gift from God.

Each of us would like to have an easy, peaceful death. Each of us is entitled to good health care and pain management as we die. But giving in to an undue fear and concern about tubes, suffering, and pain can cause us to fail to appreciate the graces that come at the end of life.

Above all we must be willing to accept, to surrender, and to turn ourselves over to the Lord's plan, knowing that He will grace us in our final days and hours through any sufferings we may have to endure before our journey comes to its completion in Him.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

Relationships:
Built just on pleasure create sadness, not joy

		A Culture  of Life  Fr. Eric Nielsen

As a young man I went on a motorcycle trip through Corsica at the same time that the Italians were on their school break.

The beautiful winding roads of this Mediterranean island were filled with young Italian men on motorcycles with their lovely Italian girlfriends gracefully sitting behind them. At night they would enjoy the night life of the island and in the morning I would see them at the campgrounds we shared.

Unhappy sight

It was not a pretty sight. While their boyfriends slept in I watched the girls coming out of their tents, hair in a mess, tight clothes that looked not quite put on right, and long faces as they prepared something for breakfast. I didn't speak Italian, but the short words spoken back into the tent did not seem like gentle wake-up calls.

On the third morning of the trip I noticed a young woman in front of her tent looked different. Her hair was neatly combed and held back by a headband, she was comfortably dressed, and she looked happy as she started to collect the things necessary for breakfast. What made her so different, I wondered? Like the rest she had crawled out of the same little tent pitched next to a motorbike.

What made her so unusual, I noticed, was her wedding ring.

Unlike the other girls who were traveling and sleeping with boys who had given them little commitment, this young woman had a man who loved her enough to make a permanent commitment to her. It was a vivid, visual symbol of the difference between a relationship built on pleasure and one built on a lifelong promise of love.

No responsibilities

One of the results of a contraceptive society is that young people can easily pursue a sexual relationship without the responsibility of commitment.

Rare is the young man or woman who does not desire a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, and what seems equally rare is the young person in such a relationship who is ready to be married.

This is a very bad mix for it leads to relationships built more on a selfish desire for instant physical and superficial emotional pleasures rather than on a wise and authentic pursuit for genuine and comprehensive marital love.

With couples habitually forging their intimate relationships with such mutually selfish practices, it is no wonder so many marriages end in failure.

Furthermore, it is our fault that young people lead this type of destructive lifestyle because we do little to stop it. It seems we would rather see them graduate from college, pursue a good career, develop some wealth, and keep their options open, than marry too young and be "burdened" with children.

Thus we condone things such as vacations together on un-chaperoned trips with the only stipulation being that no one gets pregnant. And we give them such sage advice as, "don't get married too early."

Let's be honest, very few people will have the skills and opportunity to find a great measure of satisfaction in their careers, while most people, by simply following God's plan for them, can find great happiness in their marriages.

Rethink principles

We need to rethink our principles.

Open-ended youthful relationships may look intriguing, but in the end they mostly bring about misery.

The sacrificial love of marriage is what brings true lasting joy, and only those serious about getting married have the necessary intentions and dispositions to form a serious dating relationship.

Our expectations for our children should be clear and firm. For their own long-term happiness we expect nothing short of complete chastity prior to marriage and long-term relationships only when the intention for marriage is clear and foreseen.

Fr. Eric Nielsen is pastor of St. Mary Help of Christians Parish, Sullivan, and St. Mary Parish, Palmyra.

This column is syndicated by www.OneMoreSoul.com