It seems compassionate to support a woman dying of a progressive illness who doesn't want to leave it too late to commit suicide. In fact, it is compassionate to no-one but ourselves to promote her death instead of the good care which helpless people deserve. We are not really doing ourselves a kindness, either, by deciding that a human life has no value. If Debbie Purdy, and others like her, can be put on the list of people society can do without, so can we all.

Monday, March 31, 2008 will be the first International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and all of our vulnerable brothers and sisters, say the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life. That date is the third anniversary of Catholic housewife Terri's death after 13 days of agonising starvation and dehydration at the hands of her husband Michael Schiavo and Florida local judge George Greer for the "offence" of being severely brain-damaged.

On March 31, individuals are invited to learn about Terri and pray for people whose lives are threatened as hers was. Churches are asked to hold memorial services for Terri and to teach their congregations about everyone's inherent dignity and worth. Educational institutions are invited to dispel the pro-death lies about Terri and to educate society about the rights of people who are disabled.

read more

The most robust opponents of assisted suicide--and the most effective in my view--are disability rights advocates. They understand well that legalizing assisted suicide is a gun aimed at their hearts. An opinion column by one Ian Mulgrew of the Vancouver Sun underscores the threat. He urges that the child murderer Robert Latimer be freed. Latimer killed his daughter Traci, because she had cerebral palsy. From the column:

Born with a severe form of cerebral palsy, his daughter Tracy was a 12-year-old who weighed barely 40 pounds, had no mobility, suffered unrelenting pain and endured five to six epileptic seizures a day. She had little more than a newborn's consciousness. Doctors at the time of her death were preparing to install a permanent feeding tube in her stomach and to remove her thigh-bone to relieve the pressure on her hip, dislocated because of the metal rods already implanted in her spine to correct the damage done by her bedridden condition...

read more

'She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her'
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

A Delaware father is fighting his ex-wife, the medical establishment and the court system for the life of his 23-year-old daughter, left brain-damaged by a 2006 drug overdose, in a case with striking parallels to the 2005 death of Terri Schiavo in Florida.

"She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her," Randy Richardson told the Wilmington, Del., News Journal of his daughter, Lauren Marie Richardson.

She was injured by a drug overdose in 2006 and has never recovered fully from the brain damage she suffered, he said. Court records reveal she was pregnant at the time and was kept on feeding tubes and a breathing machine in Christiana Hospital until her baby girl was born in February 2007.She's no longer in need of the breathing machine, and now a court order has been issued, and appealed, that could allow the removal of her feeding tube, and her resulting death, the newspaper reported.

read more

From Wesley J. Smith

I think Bobby Schindler is right.

There have been a lot of stories of late about how supposedly vegetative patients could understand, or of "miraculous" awakenings by people who doctors were sure would never react consciously again. Bobby, Terri Schiavo's brother, has noticed that whatever the condition of the patient whose story is being told, the reports all have a common sub theme--the awakening, comprehension, etc. has nothing to do with Terri, meaning it was right to dehydrate her to death. It is as these reports, to quote Shakespeare, "doth protest too much," as if there is a subliminal realization that a terrible injustice was done to her.

The latest almost unbelievable example is in an otherwise interesting and important (and long) piece in the New Yorker, byline Jerome Groopman. After describing how supposedly unconscious people have been misdiagnosed, the author quotes an unnamed neuroscientist about Terri. From the story:

A neuroscientist showed me a video on the Internet of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who spent fifteen years in what most doctors agree was a vegetative state--tests revealed almost no activity in her cortex--and whose death, in 2005, provoked fierce debate over the rights of severely brain-damaged patients. (Schiavo died after the Supreme Court rejected her parents' appeal of a judge's decision approving her husband's request that her feeding tube be removed. An autopsy showed extensive brain damage.) In the video, a man's voice can be heard praising Schiavo for opening her eyes in response to his instructions, and the neuroscientist told me that he was impressed until he muted the sound. "With the sound off, it is clear that her movements are random," the neuroscientist said. "But, with the voice-over, it is easy to make a misdiagnosis. (My emphasis.)

The above stills are from the video in question. It deeply touched my heart and it is seared forever in my memory. In that video, Terri is asked by the examiner to open her eyes. At first, nothing. Then, within ten or so seconds, her eyes flicker, she opens them, and then opens them so wide her forehead wrinkles. It is clearly an intentional response to the question.

But if you turn the sound off, there is no question to hear--and voila, her opening her eyes with clear intention can now be dismissed as merely "random movement." But a random movement under those circumstances would be to move her head from side to side or lick or lips. But when she opened her eyes, and so intently, precisely as requested, you have to work hard to make it "random." So, to make sure we don't see the terrible wrong that was done to her, we just turn off the sound.

As I said, unbelievable. But do read the larger piece. It is well worth the time.

In a statement today, Elspeth Chowdharay-Best, Hon. Secretary of Alert said:

"'Dignity in Dying' (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) has sent out advice with their new Advance Decision by which signatories refuse 'treatment' in hospital if they should lose capacity.

"They say correctly that in order to ensure that an existing Living Will is binding under the Mental Capacity Act 'you must write the following statement in the section referring to the refusal of life-sustaining treatment: The decisions set out in my living will apply, even if my life is at risk as a result.'

read more

Dr Jacqueline Laing, of the Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute at London Metropolitan University, said of the Mental Capacity Act which comes into effect on October 1:

There are sound reasons to believe that the Mental Capacity Act, by endangering those who cannot speak for themselves, is incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights and other international instruments. By requiring doctors, on pain of an assault charge, to dehydrate non-dying patients to death and even perform non-therapeutic research and tissue removal at the behest of unaccountable third parties, this Act allows the basest of motives to override the rights and safety of the most vulnerable.

read more

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)

September 29, 2007 Saturday
Letters to the Editor

SIR - With the impending implementation of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) I feel some concern as to the potential for human rights abuses that it allows, in particular over the withdrawal of fluids and nutrition based merely on hearsay and the delegation of power to consent or instruct withdrawal of nutrition to third parties.

With the implementation of this Act, we will be condemning some of the weakest members of our society to death by dehydration. Working as a doctor in a large general hospital I have seen many people die. I have no idea whether patients in their final weeks can fully understand the sensation of thirst, but I do observe that they look more comfortable and at rest when having their hand held by a loved one, and show distress when being turned or moved.

read more

An excellent piece from BBC's "Look East" concerning the deliberate dehydration of the elderly resulting in their death.

Read the Original here

By Peter Saunders
Care Not Killing Alliance

The Care Not Killing Alliance has warned Parliament, the public and the media not to be misled by a report published today that downplays the risk to vulnerable people posed by the legalisation of euthanasia. The warning comes amidst fears that fresh attempts will shortly be made to legalise the practice in Britain, most likely beginning with Scotland, which is seen as a soft target by pro-euthanasia advocates. Dr Peter Saunders, Campaign Director of Care Not Killing, warned:

read more