Update (3/18/05): If you’ve landed here through an Internet search, please see the latest post on Terri Schiavo.
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On March 18, barring a court order to the contrary, Michael Schiavo’s wish will come true. The judge said he’s no longer “comfortable” trying to keep Terri alive. He washes his hands of the whole mess:
The judge wrote that he was no longer comfortable granting delays in the family feud, which has been going on for nearly seven years and has been waged in every level of Florida’s court system. He said the case must end….”The court is no longer comfortable granting stays simply upon the filings of new motions,” Greer wrote. “There will always be ‘new’ issues.” (Source)
Judge Greer’s got better things to do. March Madness must be on the horizon.
See the Schiavo category for links and background information.
Bloggers for Terri: Digital Brown-Pajamas, Blogs for Terri (and the saga of the censored/rejected ad that was subsequently accepted) Pro-Life Blogs, PoliPundit, Anchor Rising…
Terrisfight.org got so many hits, the site was knocked offline.
Read all about the pledge drive.
Update (10:17 p.m.): Michael Savage is going off. Liberals will hold vigils for murderous thugs on death row, thugs who are receiving the due penalty of their errors, but when an INNOCENT brain-damaged woman whose husband has two kids with another woman and may have put her in this state is facing death by starvation, they’ve got nothing to say. The greatest cause is protecting INNOCENT human life. Where are the feminists? Where are the Mumia Abu-Jamal clowns? (Visit the site of slain Officer Daniel Faulkner to clear the stench.)
What freaks they are, the whole lot of them.
Jody is more hopeful (and calmer) than I am. Please visit her site.
Update II (2/26):
Dr. William Burke, a neurologist in St. Louis describes the process: “A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining . . . death by dehydration takes 10 to 14 days. It is an extremely agonizing death.”Dignified? If you did that to your pet dog, you’d be locked up for animal cruelty. (Source)
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What a terribly dark day it will be for our country if Terri is FORCED to starve to death via a US court order.
I’ve read most of the arguments pro and con and I can’t fathom why the husband just doesn’t walk away and let her parents take care of her. (Parents said they will let him keep the money)
I hate to speculate, but I think her husband may fear Terri’s staying alive. I think he abused Terri. I don’t know if he caused her present condition. But he doesn’t want past abuse to be brought up.
Strangley, yesterday I wrote the judge was going to do a “Pontius Pilate” on us and was his hands because he did not want to set a precedent.
My last words on that were “Judge Greer should remember what history thought of Pontius Pilate”.
Obviously, he has forgotten.
Judge Greer and Pontius Pilate: What an appropriate analogy.
Lashawn, I guess I have a more optimistic take of this whole thing. Last Friday Terri was going to begin to starve to death in 3 days, this Friday, it’s 3 weeks. Now we have more time to call our legislators, more time to change public opinion. We still have hope, Terri is still alive. Here’s my post about it if you’re interested: http://stealthebandwagon.blogspot.com/2005/02/3-week-stay.html
The state legislature has a bill (hb701) in progress that would protect Terri and others like her, maybe this will be enough time for them to pass it!
I firmly believe that if someone chooses to die, the state should not keep them alive against their will. A decision to ask to be left to die in certain circumstances is between the person concerned and God. We have no right to interfere in an adult’s choices for his life.
It is also clear that there is no conclusive evidence about what Terri Schiavo’s wishes are. In the absence of such evidence (ie. a clear signed and witnessed statement) we must assume that she chooses life. To do otherwise is to commit murder.
This is just so disgusting. What is the rocket science with these judges? Just tell the husband he is a money grubbing, disgusting adultery… yank his guardianship, so the parents can file for divorce on her behalf and he done with it.
And yes I said adulterer because he did take an oath that for “in sickness” and in health.
Now we see why God has a plan for how we are suppose to choose a mate.
His “common law” wife must really have her brain screwed on tight knowing that he would leave her high and dry also.
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting
Guess I should calm down before typing
This is one of those moments when you feel powerless to stop the forces of evil. And what some are trying to do to this woman is the very definition of evil.
Still, we are not powerless because at our disposal is the power of prayer.
Pray for Terri if you feel powerless otherwise. God is listening.
Jody may be calmer than you (as well as eloquent) but sometimes calm doesn’t get results. I agree with your take on this including your lividity.
The decision makers rarely listen to the quiet calm…they mistake the silence as apathy.
La Shawn,
The good thing about my specific breed of liberalism is you won’t see me at ANY candlelight vigils. I find that consistency to be quite fair. Perhaps it’s my laziness.
I don’t know what God has in store for Terri, but I can only pray that, whatever happens, He will hold her in the hollow of His hand and comfort her soul and her spirit. And grant comfort and mercy to her parents who have fought a valiant fight. And grant that her husband will be led to repent of his attitudes and seek forgiveness. This is such a sad and heart-rending situation.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, for we are sinners.
“Liberals will hold vigils for murderous thugs on death row, thugs who are receiving the due penalty of their errors, but when an INNOCENT brain-damaged woman whose husband has two kids with another woman and may have put her in this state is facing death by starvation, they’ve got nothing to say. The greatest cause is protecting INNOCENT human life. Where are the feminists?”
Where is Jesse Jackson?
A few years ago, Jesse Jackson went to Oklahoma to protest the execution of a murderer.
If Jackson thought that a murder’s life should have been spared, then why doesn’t Jackson protest the pending execution of Terri Schiavo?
Is it because Jackson has something in common with Terri’s husband? Both Jackson and Michael Schiavo have produced offspring as a result of committing adultery.
Jackson is supposed to be a civil rights activist. Isn’t the right to live the most basic of civil rights?
La Shawn, Rush’s substitutes hammered about Terri this past week, and Glenn Beck has been doing it for years. He’s a long-time Terri advocate. The Florida govermental sites all have e-mails, fill their boxes folks! The slime ball she was married to was offered a deal by her folks; sign over guardianship, and you can keep the money from the settlements, we won’t charge you…he still refuses. I agree with the commenter who thinks he could be responsible for her condition. Her girlfriends contend she was going to ask for a divorce the night she went into a coma. When they say “justice is blind”, does he/she have to be stupid too?
Dennis Prager often comments that liberals usually make decisions based by feelings. Here is another case. The judge is “uncomfortable” so he is willing to let Terri be starved to death and have her parents watch in agony. When Terri has finally starved to death, let us hope that the poor dear sensitive judge no longer has to feel “uncomfortable.”
For a long time I didn’t pay attention to this case or troubled myself to look at the documents and affidavits filed in court.
Now that I have, I am horrified and I wrote a long post on the subject. When someone hasn’t executed a health care proxy, and the default health care agent is a spouse, extra care must be taken that the spouse has the best interests of the patient in mind. Michael has a financial and personal interest in Terri’s death, therefore he should not be allowed to have the final say.
His conduct, in every respect, has been despicable.
God bless her family for fighting so hard and so long.
Hi, LaShawn.
Thanks for keeping the Terri Schiavo case on the front burner of attention. People have got to know about this.
Yes, the silence of the compassionate is deafening.
As I undersand it, Terri is brain-damaged, but not a vegetable, and has been abused and neglected by her husband.
So why the silence? My guess: because certain people want to shoe-horn this case into a “right-to-die-death-with-dignity” issue.
The problems with that are (1) the only witness to Terri’s burning wish to die with dignity is . . . Michael Schiavo, whom the Schindler family has been resisting every step of the way; (2) even if she did wish to die, THERE IS NO RIGHT TO SUICIDE, assisted or otherwise. For that is what would/will happen here: NOT a letting die by foregoing extraordinary means of treatment, but a causing death by withholding ordinary ones.
I have to say I find this appalling and maddening. Michael Schiavo seems to have a stake in Terri’s death that goes beyond the grieving husband’s respect for his wife’s wishes.
Ugh.
Adrian
Thanks, Adrian. Welcome back.
If this is indeed ordered, that so-called husband of hers should be shackled to her bedside from the moment the tube is removed until she draws her last breath. If the guilt didn’t kill him, we’d have proof he was indeed the spawn of Satan himself.
DLE, thanks for the reminder to pray. I have felt so frustrated, maddened, and head-bangingly mad at my helplessness. I cannot believe I live in a country where this could happen.
We have a child who is severely brain damaged. She has an IQ of about 35. When I read what the ‘compassionate’ say when they talk about how ‘nobody would want to live this way,” and I look at my happy, joyful, though very brain damaged daughter, I just want to grab her and run hide. Spare us from this kind of ‘compassion.’
deputyheadmistress,
I sympathize completely. I have 2 children with similar disabilities, permanent and profound. The concept of the state or anyone else deciding when an innocent should die is unbearable.
Dear La Shawn,
Thanks for the welcome.
I’m glad you decided to continue allowing commenting, after all. Obviously, you’re the main draw here, but you do a real service by presenting a forum for discussion about important issues. I mean, MSM isn’t going to do that, so if the bloggers can, more power to ‘em.
It’s interesting to note that Rousseau introduced the notion of compassion as an explicit substitute for Christian charity. The idea was to find a way of gluing society together without obliging anyone to sacrifice self-interest. The solution: get them to feel compassion in the face of one another’s physical suffering. That sounds noble, but the problem is that (a) it tends to make physical suffering the worst evil; (b) subtly shifts the emphasis from the dignity of the other person to one’s own horror at his suffering.
Compassion is self-centered emotion at another’s physical suffering—and that kind of emotion can easily seek relief, not by helping the other, but by getting rid of him so that I feel better.
Like Clint Eastwood doing Maggie FitzGerald in at the end of the—excuse me—wretched Million Dollar Baby.
Or like the judge in the Schiavo case: “I don’t feel comfortable keeping her alive.” That’s the voice of compassion, folks. Nothing to do with Christian charity: “Greater love hath no man than this, than that he should lay down his life for his friends.” Gimme the good Lord over Rousseau any day.
Cordially,
Adrian
adrian:
“There is no right to suicide”. True, although I tend to think there should be. There are definite slippery slope, old people “not wanting to be a bother” type arguments involved here, but I consider them subordinate to my basic right as an adult to take any action I like that doesn’t impinge on anyone else.
So I strongly disapprove of those who jump off buildings or in front of trains, not because of the act of suicide, but because of the effect that their selfish choice has on the train driver or passers by below the building. If you want to kill yourself, I think you have the absolute right, as an adult, to chose to do so – just do it in a neat and tidy way that doesn’t leave a mess for someone else.
Now, it may well be a sin to commit suicide, but that doesn’t mean preventing it is good law.
Dear Sam,
There’s two levels to this question: the legal one and the moral one. When I said “there is no right to suicide,” I meant this on the moral level.
I don’t believe that, morally speaking, an adult has the right to do anything he likes as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
One of Plato’s ideas, which I agree with, is that wrongdoing always hurts the wrongdoer himself, although not necessarily in a physical sense. In other words, theft isn’t bad just for the victim. It’s also bad for the perpetrator. Not because he loses anything physically—after all, if he pulls it off, he’s richer— but because he thereby makes himself a bad person. Similarly, if you nurture the fantasy of killing an enemy, you make yourself a bad person, even if you never do it.
When I say “bad person” I mean: the kind of person whose skin you wouldn’t want to be in because, if you were, you would have to think less of yourself, even despise yourself. No one wants to be mean and contemptible and lowdown, but that is what wrongdoing makes you.
Now, I agree with you that not everything that’s immoral ought to be criminal, too. We can punish a man for burning a cross on a black neighbor’s lawn, but it would be unfeasible and downright tyrannous to try to punish him for harboring racist thoughts.
Still, the fact that we can’t reasonably criminalize everything that’s immoral doesn’t mean that what’s immoral is no longer immoral. If I’m a racist, even if I never burn a cross on anyone’s lawn, I’m just so far a bad human being.
Now, suicide, unlike racist thoughts, is something the political authority has a reasonable interest in preventing. Why?
Well, on the moral level, it’s always wrong deliberately to take the life of an innocent person. The fact that you, the victim, are also the perpetrator makes no difference. Suicide is self-murder (interestingly, the German word for suicide is just that: Selbstmord, self-murder).
Furthermore, on the legal level, the political authority has the right and duty to protect the citizens from having their lives deliberately taken if they are guilty of no crime. Doesn’t matter who the killer is, whether it’s someone else or themselves.
Thus, the political authority has a right and a duty to forbid suicide, to try to prevent it, and to block the institution of any legal right to suicide.
Notice one of the tacit premises of my argument: NOTHING justifies the deliberate taking of an innocent life, including your own. Consequently, if you’re thinking of doing yourself in, you’re not thinking straight, and so the political authority has no obligation to respect your desire to kill yourself. Just as a police officer has no obligation to respect your drunken desire to brandish the loaded gun whose ownership the Second Amendment otherwise protects (the Second Amendment presupposes you’re in your right mind).
Finally, I just don’t believe that ANY deliberate action we perform, however inward, doesn’t affect others. At the very least, because, how I act freely determines the sort of person I will be, and the sort of person I will be is the one that other people are going to have to be dealing with day in and day out.
Cheers,
Adrian
Keep it up LaShawn…we neeed you to keep blogging about the facts and reality. You are a great inspiration and I personally appreciate it!
One other point:
When does an act become wrong?
Many of us would answer by saying “if and only if it hurts an innocent party.” This answer, whether we know it or not, replaces an older answer that goes something like this: an act is wrong if and only if it’s somehow unworthy of a human being.
To give the newer answer, to say that an act is wrong if and only if it hurts an innocent party, is also to say that right wrong are no longer a matter of what’s worthy and unworthy of a human being.
But if that’s so, then on what grounds can we reasonably maintain that hurting an innocent party is wrong?
My point, of course, is not that it’s OK to harm an innocent party. My point is that, if we’re going to explain what’s wrong with harming an innocent party, then we can’t just say “harming an innocent party is wrong because harming an innocent party is wrong.” In order to explain why it’s wrong, we’ve got to appeal to a notion of right and wrong that’s bigger than, and of a differernt order from, the notion of inflicting harm on an innocent party.
To put it more pointedly, in order to explain why inflicting harm on an innocent party is wrong, we’ve got to use properly moral language. But that means that, when we say that acts are wrong if and only if they inflict harm on an innocent party, we’re not actually speaking moral language at all. Or, better, we are abusively using a physical phenomenon that falls under moral judgment to define what moralness consists of. We are mixing apples and oranges.
In short, I don’t buy the idea that everything’s ok so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, because, by that standard, we have no reasonably way to explain why it’s bad to hurt anyone else.
Practically this means: the more we engage in so-called “victimless crime,” the more disposed we are to engage in “victimful crime” if and when the occasion presents itself.
Adrian
Note: Suicide is not a victimless crime.
The victims when someone commits suicide are all of those who know and love the one who commits suicide, who are left with the hole in their life of the missing person. Children without parents (even children in their 30s, plus. I can’t imagine losing my parents yet.) Friends who wonder if it was something they said — or didn’t say.
Frankly, after seeing what suicide leaves behind in the wrecks of other people, I am beginning to think suicide is a very selfish action. After all, when you’re dead you don’t have to deal with your problems anymore. But you leave more problems for others to deal with.
Very sad.
It is so disturbing to me that the judge says he is “no longer comfortable granting delays in the family feud”… as if this is just the Hatfields and McCoys fighting over a pig or some such nonsense. How can the judge not see that this so-called family feud is about a woman’s LIFE??? That her HINO (husband-in-name-only) wants her dead and her parents want to save her? He’s not comfortable with granting delays, but he has no problem pronouncing a death sentence?? What a world we live in! Keep up the prayers, all!!!!
I want to say to Terri’s parents I feel your pain. I beleive that NO COURT should EVER tell a parent how to or if they can care for their child. And Michael if you are tired of caring for your wife who you promised to love in front of God and witness’s then let her parents do the right thing. Terri’s heart is beating, she is breathing and is ALIVE. She doesn’t deserve to be deprived of food. If this is allowed to happen God will punish those who harm his children. I think Michael should not be given food or water the entire time from when (if it happens) the tube is removed until she is pronounced dead.. and if he dies in the process, well that is part of the deal.. Michael you are not honouring Terri.. Let her go and let her parents do this last thing for her.. they love her far more than you ever could or will. We are all praying for you Terri.. May your parents win their fight to keep you alive !
Where shall I begin? We must be vigilant to the evils in which Mike Schiavo insists on a cremation and NO autopsy, and has very strangely denied all rehab and therapy that would allow Terri to speak.
I’ve given it my “best shot,” in which I did one better than our state’s Governor (God bless him) –Whilst he lost 7-0 inout state’s high court, my loss (and it hurt!!) -was merely 4-3 a split decision, and the chief justice (Barbara Pariente) voted for my intervention. (She recently had cancer, and perhaps was fearful of a “bad” hospital system, unchecked by the judiciary!?)
Here’s the release with links:
For Immediate Release:
Florida Supreme Court splits 4-3 on surprise last-minute filing in Terri Schiavo Case
http://prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb212613.htm
with mirrors at:
http://hometown.aol.com/gww1210/myhomepage/PressRelease02-25-2005.html
and:
http://www.geocities.com/Gordon_Watts32313/PressRelease02-25-2005.html
While many parties have become involved in the Terri Schiavo case, there has been much activity under the radar, not reported by the mainstream press.
LAKELAND, FL (The Register) Friday, 25 February 2005 – Terri Schiavo supporters have been bolstered by a surprise, last-minute filing from an unexpected source. Lakeland, Florida resident, Gordon Watts, who filed a petition for writ of Habeas Corpus with Florida’s high court on behalf of Schiavo in late November of 2003, shortly after Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed and re-inserted, has struggled against powerful interests who have attempted to discredit and dismiss his involvement in this high-profile case. Watts also has experience in the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to hear his racial profiling case today, and can be found at the court’s official website: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/04-8132.htm regarding a situation in which he was asked to leave an establishment based allegedly on his minority ethnic background.
In spite of much opposition and ridicule from mainstream media and other parties, however, Watts’ case has remained alive in Florida’s Supreme Court for over a year until this past Wednesday.
Watts, who learned of the Schiavo case in 2003 from news reports, immediately moved to file as “next friend†to challenge Schiavo’s alleged illegal detention in hospices, which, according to State Law, are only allowed to admit terminal patients, which are expected to die within six or fewer months. Watts’ filings bear many similarities to filings made by the immediate family, but have additional elements, such as the direct challenge to the placement of Schiavo in a hospice facility and the use of the writ of habeas corpus. Watts has said that the immediate family would be more appropriate to file, but seeing no one else make these legal arguments, petitioned the court, noting that he need not be “closest friend†to satisfy legal Due Process requirements for the handicapped woman, who has been denied legal representation for much of her ordeal.
Mr. Watts also took issue with the fact that court orders only spoke to the feeding tube, but that parties removed both the feeding tube and also denied natural food, the latter a felony under chapter 825 state laws.
Due to the recent developments, many parties have asked Watts to request that the high court issue a stay on the probate court proceedings while the Supreme Court justices have a chance to review his petitions on an expedited basis. This past Tuesday, Watts requested the court review his legal arguments, and late Thursday, it was learned that the court had quickly moved the previous day to issue a decision. Justices voted 4-3 to uphold a previous tentative decision to dismiss the filing based on technical errors.
Voting to dismiss, without a written opinion, were Justices Kenneth Bell, Raoul Cantero, Peggy Quince, and Charles Wells. Voting to allow Watts to continue to file on behalf of Schiavo were Justices Harry Lee Anstead, R. Fred Lewis, and Chief Justice Barbara Pariente. The terse ruling can be found on the official website at: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/disposition/2005/2/03-2420reh.pdf and is expected to be posted soon on Watts’ online newspaper.
Responding to claims that he does not have legal right to challenge Schiavo’s detention in the hospice network, Watts declares that “non-lawyers†may intervene in rare instances and quotes “The Operation and Jurisdiction of the Florida Supreme Court†by Gerald Kogan and Robert Craig Waters, the court’s current spokesperson (18 Nova L. Rev. 1151, at 624., Fla. 1994), which states that “Even detention imposed on someone by a private individual potentially can be tested by habeas corpus. The most common use is where one parent alleges that the other parent has taken custody of a child wrongfully.†Mr. Watts also cites other landmark cases to support his claim that he may intervene: State ex rel. Deeb v. Fabisinski, 111 Fla. 454; and, the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, which held that that to be a ‘next friend,’ one need only “provide an adequate explanation–such as inaccessibility, mental incompetence, or other disability–why the real party in interest cannot appear on his own behalf.â€
Some in the news media have made issue with the fact that Watts has filed other cases and labeled him as a “frivolous lawsuit†filer. Watts responds: “When, in the court of public opinion, a news writer wants to write multiple articles and deny me any coverage, I do not call him a ‘frivolous news article’ writer, and likewise, when I find several injustices, I would like to have my right to get a fair day in court to have our freedoms protected in this country of declining morals. Therefore, with everyone distracted by ‘Terri’s Law’, I think it right for me to try to help Theresa Schiavo, the person.â€
Watts, a Biology and Chemical Science honor student and alumni from The Florida State University, hopes that the combined efforts of many people can prevent the danger of placement in medical facilities in which they are prohibited by law.
After being narrowly denied at Florida’s High Court, Watts plans to appeal to the United State Supreme Court and ask the nation’s highest court for permission to directly intervene on behalf of Terri Schiavo.
For further information, one may visit Watts web paper at: http://hometown.aol.com/Gww1210 or http://www.geocities.com/Gordon_Watts32313 or contact him at Gww1210@aol.com or 863-688-9880.
His personal website is: http://GordonWatts.com
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Keywords:
Government Government: National Government: State Home and Family Legal / Law Medical: Managed Care / HMO Medical: Nursing Politics Religion Science and Research TERRI, SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHIAVO, SCHINDLER, THERESA, ABUSE, DISABLED, ELDERLY, GORDON WATTS, GORDON W. WATTS, GORDON WAYNE WATTS, TERRIS LAW, TERRI’S LAW, TERRIES LAW, TERRIE’S LAW, TERRYS LAW, TERRY’S LAW, JEB, BUSH, GOVERNOR BUSH, JEB BUSH, GOVERNOR JEB BUSH, FLORIDA, LAWMAKERS, FLORIDA LAWMAKERS, LAW, LAWS, SCHIVO, TERRI SCHIVO, TERRI SCHIAVO, TERRI SHCHIVO, TERRY SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHINDLER SCHIAVO, TERRY SCHINDLER SCHIAVO, SUIT, LAWSUIT, GOVERNOR, FLORIDA GOVERNOR, MICHAREL SCHIAVOM EUTHANASIA, MERCY KILLING, SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO, SCHINDLER, ASSISTED SUICIDE, RULE OF LAW, JOHN ELLIS BUSH, GOVERNOR JOHN ELLIS BUSH, PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTS, GEORGE, GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT BUSH, PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT, U.S. PRESIDENT, FLORIDA SUPREME COURT, FLA SUPREME COURT, US SUPREME COURT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, U.S. SUPREME COURT, LAWSUIT, LAWSUITS, SUIT, SUITS, NURSING, MANAGED CARE
Gordon Wayne Watts http://GordonWatts.com
BS, The Florida State University, Biological and Chemical Sciences
AS, United Electronics Institute
ALWAYS FAITHFUL – To God
And God bless my friends who made me this picture.
821 Alicia Road, Lakeland, FLA, USA 33801-2113 http://HomeTown.AOL.com/Gww1210 or http://www.GeoCities.com/Gordon_Watts32313
Home: (863) 688-9880 Work: (863) 686-3411 Voice&FAX: (863) 687-6141
Gww1210@aol.com ; Gww12102002@Yahoo.com
Truth is the strongest, most stable force in the Universe.
TRUTH doesn’t bend to the will of tyrants.
Gordon Wayne Watts
Get Truth.
“First, they [Nazis] came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.” (Martin Niemoller, given credit for a quotation in The Harper Religious and Inspirational Quotation Companion, ed. Margaret Pepper (New York: Harper &Row, 1989), 429 -as cited on page 44, note 17, of Religious Cleansing in the American Republic, by Keith A. Fornier, Copyright 1993, by Liberty, Life, and Family Publications.
(Actually, they may not have come for the Jews first, as it’s far more likely they came for the prisoners, mentally handicapped, and other so-called “inferiors” first -as historians tell us -so they could get “practiced up;” But, they did come for them -due to the silence of their neighbors -and due, in part, to their own silence. So the general idea is correct: “Speak up now, or forever hold your peace.” –Gordon)
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Actually, its very easy to kill your pet, its called euthanasia or “putting down” and in many states, your pet doesn’t need to be ill to request it. However, your ability to find a vet who will do it is vet dependent. And, when it’s done humanely, what’s better, the dog choking to death as she drowns on her own blood from the treatment refractory leukemia that led to uncontrolled pulmonary hemorrhage or a few days prior to that, holding your dog closely as she dies, letting her know she is safe with you and loved by you in her final moments on this earth?
I agree that suicide or “self murder” is morally wrong, not a victimless crime, etc but what I don’t think suicide or murder is the issue here. I think the issue is rather that we have the medical capacity to support life where, in the absence of such technology and skill, it would have ceased. This is a powerful gift we have been given, but it is not without cost. I am not refering to financial burden here but rather the moral/spiritual cost of sustaining life. If, as some have posited, the cessation of extraordinary medical intervention in this case is murder and therefore, both morally repugnant and illegal, where do they stand on cancer patients who chose not to have chemotherapy. Are they committing suicide and should therefore have decisional capacity taken away? Or, the dialysis patient who choses to stop dialysis, is he commiting suicide? Or, perhaps the person with severe emphysema who chooses not to intubated though this intervention will save his life, though it may sentence him to the remainder of his life attached to a ventilator. In each case, the person is choosing to forgo a life-sustaining treatment. Is this suicide? Or, is the decision by a physician to not attempt to restart the heart of an elderly, infirm, cancer riddled patient when it stops murder? Aggressive cardiopulmonary resuscitation has the potential to save that person’s life. Or, if the patient with severe heart failure does not take his medicines knowing that ceasing such intervention will slowly cause his legs to swell and lungs to fill with fluid, suicide? Or if a daughter decides not to replace the feeding tube in her mother, who is suffering from dementia, after her mother has pulled it out, not understanding what that means, murder? If, in each of the above cases, the person making decisions is wrong, should I tie the patient down to give chemo or dialyze them, arrest the person who doesn’t take their medications, intubate the patient so he can breath against his will and shock the cancer patient until his heart restarts, or put the feeding tube back in and physically or pharmacologically restrain the patient? Furthermore, if it is an absolute moral imperative in each case to pursue to life-sustaining treatment and the decision no longer rests with the individual or their loved ones who know them best, why continue the charade of informed consent and patient choice? Let’s have a great big bureaucracy, (church, state, physicians, nurses, I don’t care who) that determines what is right and just do it all whether the patient want’s it or not and irregardless of its benefit to the person as a whole. People die, it is the end result of living. But I caution anyone to snatch life from the jaws of death without first thinking what the life saved gets in return. Is it selfish to accept death when it comes? Or rather is it selfish to force someone to stay when it is their time to go?
Actually, its very easy to kill your pet, its called euthanasia or “putting down” and in many states, your pet doesn’t need to be ill to request it. However, your ability to find a vet who will do it is vet dependent. And, when it’s done humanely, what’s better, the dog choking to death as she drowns on her own blood from the treatment refractory leukemia that led to uncontrolled pulmonary hemorrhage or a few days prior to that, holding your dog closely as she dies, letting her know she is safe with you and loved by you in her final moments on this earth?
I agree that suicide or “self murder” is morally wrong, not a victimless crime, etc but what I don’t think suicide or murder is the issue here. I think the issue is rather that we have the medical capacity to support life where, in the absence of such technology and skill, it would have ceased. This is a powerful gift we have been given, but it is not without cost. I am not refering to financial burden here but rather the moral/spiritual cost of sustaining life. If, as some have posited, the cessation of extraordinary medical intervention in this case is murder and therefore, both morally repugnant and illegal, where do they stand on cancer patients who chose not to have chemotherapy. Are they committing suicide and should therefore have decisional capacity taken away? Or, the dialysis patient who choses to stop dialysis, is he commiting suicide? Or, perhaps the person with severe emphysema who chooses not to intubated though this intervention will save his life, though it may sentence him to the remainder of his life attached to a ventilator. In each case, the person is choosing to forgo a life-sustaining treatment. Is this suicide? Or, is the decision by a physician to not attempt to restart the heart of an elderly, infirm, cancer riddled patient when it stops murder? Aggressive cardiopulmonary resuscitation has the potential to save that person’s life. Or, if the patient with severe heart failure does not take his medicines knowing that ceasing such intervention will slowly cause his legs to swell and lungs to fill with fluid, suicide? Or if a daughter decides not to replace the feeding tube in her mother, who is suffering from dementia, after her mother has pulled it out, not understanding what that means, murder? If, in each of the above cases, the person making decisions is wrong, should I tie the patient down to give chemo or dialyze them, arrest the person who doesn’t take their medications, intubate the patient so he can breath against his will and shock the cancer patient until his heart restarts, or put the feeding tube back in and physically or pharmacologically restrain the patient? Furthermore, if it is an absolute moral imperative in each case to pursue to life-sustaining treatment and the decision no longer rests with the individual or their loved ones who know them best, why continue the charade of informed consent and patient choice? Let’s have a great big bureaucracy, (church, state, physicians, nurses, I don’t care who) that determines what is right and just do it all whether the patient want’s it or not and irregardless of its benefit to the person as a whole. People die, it is the end result of living. But I caution anyone to snatch life from the jaws of death without first thinking what the life saved gets in return. Is it selfish to accept death when it comes? Or rather is it selfish to force someone to stay when it is their time to go?
My will states that I am not to be kept alive artifically in the event of catastrophic illness. Life, for me, is moving about under my own steam, communicating and basically enjoying the time that I am here. It is essential, now that we have the technology to prolong life when it would not naturally continue, that each and every person put in writing what their wishes are in this regard. The Terri Shiavo case makes this abundantly clear.
Mario:
I responded to this question below, under “Breaking News: Terri Schiavo, etc.”
No one here is espousing a maximalism that would mandate aggressive treatment to prolong any and every life whatever the cost.
No one here is denying the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means of treatment.
(As I understand the distinction, it has nothing to do with the technical complexity or costliness of the contemplated treatment, and everything to do with whether or not it is merely staving off an imminent death that would happen anyway for other reasons.)
What we’re saying is that, given the facts, the Schiavo case is NOT analogous to the ones you cite, so that the remnoval of Terri’s feeding tube is tantamount to murder.
Now, we may have gotten our facts wrong. But, even so, this wouldn’t change for an instant the principle that is at stake here, which is twofold:
(1) There is a distinction between legitimate refusal of treatment and suicide/murder;
(2) Deciding which one a particular case falls under is NOT simply a matter of determining the wish of the suffering person.
If that were all that was needed, then there would be no need to make any distinction between legitimate refusal of treatment and suicide/murder.
Adrian
Simply put, there are several levels of which all those in favor of Terri dying have it all wrong.
First and foremost is the doctor’s creed to “Do No Harm,” something many get confused over as they assume a god-complex through their egos.
Second, the assumption cannot be made that Terri wants to die simply because the husband says so. Any assumption otherwise, without due investigation of his motives and intent is not due diligence in enforcing the law. There is not written agreement stating Terri’s wishes. Like Adrian said earlier, in this absence, you must continue to allow her to live.
Third, death by dehydration is a horrific and tortuous way to pass away. She will wither away, and while she won’t be able to communicate, there will exist in her a wondering of what is happening to her, who is doing it, and why it is happening. We possess an innate desire to LIVE, and our natural inclination is to fight for that right. We cannot assume that she will not fight nor desire to live further.
Finally, the judge is dismissing this because of convenience, not because a final ruling on all matters has been made. His actions are reprehensible and reminds us that there are pernicious and evil people entrusted to be our “leaders.” Woe are we whose justices, those charged with upholding the rule of law, are more concerned with expedience than doing what is right and/or just. This is the trend of liberally elected and appointed judges. Expedience is not a part of justice. Justice is too great a value and ideal to be circumvented and spit upon simply because the judge has grown weary. He needs to read some Isiah 40 and gather his breath.
Thansk LB for continuing to keep this one on the front burner.
i just don’t understand how our goverment can starve a human being to death. it sure looks inhumane to me. this is what america is gone to, the dogs
Why do we have so much compassion for terrorists, mass murderers, rapists, child molesters, etc. and none for an innocent person?
You talk about cruel,and inhumane punishment, what is starvation – a walk in the park?
Animals [and rightly so] are treated better than they are planning to treat Terri. If she has to die, why can’t it be humane like we do for every other animal?
Her husband is despicable. Why not pull his plug?
He’s trying to murder his wife.
hi i think see should be able to live in peace would you want to spend your intire life like that? I for one know that i would not want to live like that.
think long and hared about what your saying.
If he is her ESTRANGED husband…. what does he care? Let her live. Let her parents take care of her. Its ashame that people step to these measure’s. I will pray for her. God Bless her always. But.. to her husband, “What goes around, comes around”.
My thought is that I wouldn’t want to lay around in a bed as many years as Terry has. There is no quality of life that she is living now. Through the years couples know what the wishes of the spouse are and if anything changes their lives, then it is time for the other to follow through with these wishes.
I don’t feel the the government has the right to get involved with what is going on in one’s life. They are here to run the country with its problems. I maintain that this situation is a personal one – one that many people disagree with but given their situation would they do the same thing or stand guard over a body that breathes with the help of a machine. That isn’t any quality of life.
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