Sierra Faith

New Home

2005-04-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

Sierra Faith has moved.

Please take a peek.

Don't Give Up on Me!

2005-04-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is the battle cry of those working to save baby Charlotte Wyatt from government sanctioned death by apathy.

Prayers are needed for this family as they fight their government for permission to keep their daughter alive.

MediaCulpa notes:

Eighteen months ago, Charlotte was born premature, with severe health problems. She had to be resuscitated three times. (She is not on a resuscitator, although she does get help from an oxygen tent.) Six months ago the hospital caring for Charlotte sought permission not to resuscitate her again -- over the vehement objections of her Christian parents-- and a British High Court judge ruled on the side of the hospital.

The hospital said that Charlotte was deaf and blind. But she can now see and hear.

The hospital said that Charlotte would die of an infection over the winter. But she's still alive.

Now hospital sources "admit the 18-month-old baby may live on for 'a considerable time' — potentially years rather than months."

First, this snippet from the BBC:

Doctors said Charlotte has "no feelings other than continuing pain", and earlier the court had heard how experts believed her life was "intolerable".

Now, contemplate these compelling thoughts from Baroness Chapman of Leeds:

My parents were told that I would be blind, deaf, unable to communicate and have no noticeable mental function. Doctors and practitioners do get it wrong. We need to ensure that people have the opportunity to prove the medics wrong. Although protected from the Bill as a child, there would have been two or three occasions after childhood where, from a purely medical perspective, treatment could have been withdrawn from me. The Bill ignores the fact that people have a basic right to life; that issue cannot and must not be ignored.

You can visit Charlotte's photo album and web journal.

Slobokan has a helpful blog history as well.

Both ProLifeBlogs and BlogsForTerri are publicizing the case as well.

Benedict XVI and Cats

2005-04-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

I knew I liked this Pope.

First, this from Germany:

"I went with him once," said Konrad Baumgartner, the head of the theology department at Regensburg University. "Afterwards, he went into the old cemetery behind the church.

"It was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him. They knew him and loved him. He stood there, petting some and talking to them, for quite a long time. He visited the cats whenever he visited the church. His love for cats is quite famous."

And, this from Australia:

Barry Hickey offers a charming insight into the new Pope - as told by the parish priest at the Vatican. Joseph Ratzinger, so the story goes, is in the habit of taking his late night stroll around the Vatican gardens. After saying The Rosary, he feeds the stray cats in the gardens.

The Catholic Archbishop of Perth concludes with a brief summation of the new pope : "I think you have a man who in his heart is good and will be sympathetic to people with problems and troubles, but who is not going to be shaken on fundamental truths."

And fundamental truths do not change with daily polls.

House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

2005-04-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

There are many who are working feverishly to divide this nation.

Hugh Hewitt has the latest example from Senator John Kerry.

Forces outside the mainstream now seem to effortlessly push Republican leaders toward conduct that the American people really don't want in their elected leaders, inserting the government into our private lives, injecting religion into debates about public policy where it doesn't apply. . . . Will Republican senators let their silence endorse Senator Frist's appeal to religious division, or will they put principle ahead of partisanship and refuse to follow him across that line? . . . Are we going to allow the Majority Leader to invoke faith to rewrite Senate rules to put substandard, extremist judges on the bench? . . . When you have got tens of thousands of innocent souls perished in Darfur, when 11 million children are without health insurance, when our colossal debt subjects our economic future to the whims of Asian bankers, no on can tell me that faith demands all of a sudden that you put the Senate into a position where it is going to pull itself apart over the question of a few judges. No one with those priorities has a right to use faith to intimidate anyone of us.

Over a few judges.

Who, by the way, decide if someone is to live or die [When in doubt, the answer is you shall die -- Ed.].

Or, whether my property belongs to me or the government [The government, of course -- Ed.].

Over a few judges.

Did Senator Kerry just say the Judicial Branch of our government is not really that important?

It is not obvious to me what this incomprehensible speech is saying except one thing: Senator Kerry and his comrades most desperately want to enforce a religious Test for appointees, and orthodox Christians need not apply.

If The Left lose the Judicial Branch, they have no means of implementing their worldview (OK, they still have the US Senate where the GOP does not have a clue what it means to be in the majority).

By conspiring to enforce a Constitutionally prohibited (Ariticle VI, Clause 3) religious Test, Kerry, et al., must engage in nauseatingly Orwellian rhetorical gymnastics to make folks think a religious Test is not being applied.

The only way this can be done is to vilify those with whom you disagree to the point that Americans will not consider disqualification to be part of any religious Test, but rather good sense judgement by those who will not allow orthodox Christians to hold office.

Who is going to call these orthodox Christian abusers to account?

Is leadership today defined as taking action only if sufficient support is read in the blogosphere?

This is not leadership.

And there are depressingly few leaders in the Legistlative Branch of our Federal government today.

Alas, we get what we vote for, but we also have the opportunity to get what we demand.

If the people need to lead their representatives, we have the technology to calibrate them on a daily basis.

Benedict XVI and the Inexpressibly Lonely

2005-04-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

A thinker will lead the Catholic Church.

As many have been saying, he certainly does not lack a paper trail.

Excellent resources (among very many) on today's announcement:

• Kathryn Lopez is a one lady information center covering the good, bad and the ugly.

• The Anchoress is simply a delight, and having fun keeping a scorecard.

• Roman Catholic Blog is new and a must visit -- just keep scrolling and celebrate this day of Joy with our Catholic Brothers and Sisters.

• Hugh Hewitt is, well, Hugh Hewitt in his relentless pursuit of media bigotry.

• Don Singleton also has a nice roundup of commentary.

I'm particularly fond of Professor Bainbridge's response to Andrew Sullivan's rather, how shall we call it, narrow thinking.

Cliff Notes version:
So why is Sullivan so worked up? Here's his real gripe in his own words:

... the impermissibility of any sexual act that does not involve the depositing of semen in a fertile uterus ....

It's always about sex with Andrew, isn't it?

Will the Church grow smaller as many now predict?

Benedict XVI has already covered this ground (remember, he is a thinker, and will probably always be miles ahead of others who like to think of themselves as thinkers) and is not afraid:

The Church, then Cardinal Ratzinger said, will
become small, and will to a great extent have to start over again. But after a time of testing, an internalized and simplified Church will radiate great power and influence; for the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely…and they will then discover the little community of believers as something quite new. As a hope that is there for them, as they answer they have secretly always been asking for.

[F]or the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely.

This is why Benedict XVI is now Pope -- he gets it.

Respect for Law

2005-04-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have written on this topic in the Schiavo context, but we also see the weakening of the respect for law, its makers, interpreters and executive in the context of citizenship.

La Shawn Barber cuts to the chase in two simple paragraphs:

As you may know, the Senate is voting today [It failed -- Ed.] on George Bush’s amnesty-for-illegal-aliens scheme. The so-called AgJobs bill will, among other things, direct “the Secretary of Homeland Security to grant qualifying alien agricultural workers (and their spouses and minor children) temporary resident status and subsequently lawful permanent resident status upon the fulfillment of specified agricultural work and residency requirements,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Let that sink in. The person in charge of the security of our nation will grant “temporary resident status” to people who didn’t bother going through legal channels to get here. Criminals, in essence, will be rewarded by the Department of Homeland Security for breaching the security of United States!

(Even the Govanator agrees.)

Is this really a floodgate for the disrespect of law we want to open?

Politicians usually think near-term, but they do not see (or do not care) about the long-term implications for the rule of law and how Joe Citizen views the law.

If breaking the law is rewarded, what does that mean?

Touch of Peace

2005-04-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Stones Cry Out shares a powerfully moving celebration of life.

There are many things that Jessica will not be able to do in her life. To some, Jessica should never have been born.

Please take a moment for this quick read to find out why our Darwinian Death Culture is wrong.

Oh, so wrong.

What is Illegal?

2005-04-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

Detaining illegals?

The Arizona Republic has additional details:

Patrick Haab, the Army Reservist arrested for holding seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint at an Arizona rest stop, says he is overwhelmed and encouraged by an outpouring of legal, financial and moral support.

Schiavo Politics

2005-04-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

Being vigoriously pursued by Howard Dean and our Democrat friends.

Professor Bainbridge asks the Rhetorical Question:

I wonder what the left and its MSM allies will say now that the head of their party - not some unknown staffer - is pledging to use the Schiavo tragedy for political gain:

"We're going to use Terri Schiavo later on," Dean said of the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after her feeding tube was removed amid a swarm of political controversy. ... "This is going to be an issue in 2006, and it's going to be an issue in 2008," Dean told about 200 people at a gay rights group's breakfast in West Hollywood .... (LA Times)

PowerLine also takes note.

Democrats for Death just doesn't sound like a vote getter to me. Perhaps I'm politically tone deaf.

Isn't it lovely to see the Chairman of the Democrat Party jazzed about someone's tragic and government-sanctioned death?

UPDATE:

Not only is George Felos planning to get richer from the fact Terri Schiavo is now ashes, his former wife is planning to cash in as well.

Quoted from her release: “Upon the release of the autopsy report, she can analyze the results and weigh in on the important matters of how--by reason, not emotion--the "persistent vegetative state" diagnosis of Terri Schiavo was arrived at, and why.”

The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation would like to take this opportunity to point out that not only was Ms. d’Angelis co-counsel to George Felos during the guardianship proceedings on behalf of Michael Schiavo, she is not qualified to interpret or analyze a Medical Examiner’s report. She is only licensed as an attorney and as a massage therapist.

Ms. d’Angelis is the former owner of lovinglawsuits.com and the author of “Pancha Karma - A Life Changing Experience”.

She aided George Felos in bringing forth a petition to remove ‘artificial life support’ from Terri Schiavo that originated in 1998 though current law at that time did not provide for the removal of a feeding tube under Terri’s circumstances.

Pancha Karma?

These folks are real sweethearts.

UPDATE II:

The release of the Florida Department of Children and Families reports should be a comfort to Michael Schiavo, but the reporting to date is superficial at best -- media fatigue or are there inconvenient facts remaining?

I would love to be wrong, but why don't the media snuff out such questions as those raised here?

Until more substantial reporting is published, I'll have to settle for:

DCF investigators said they made unannounced visits to Woodside Hospice and interviewed the facilities' doctors before clearing the cases.

"She appeared to be well cared for and here were no signs of any medical problems or distress,'' one 2003 DCF report noted.

"During the time Mrs. Schiavo has been a patient of hospice, the spouse has always been courteous and very compassionate toward his wife,'' the investigator continued. "They (staff) have never heard him make any statements pertaining to wanting her to die. He is rarely alone with her when he visits and has never compromised her care.''

The DCF investigators noted that Michael Schiavo did not have the freedom to spend money in his wife's medical trust fund without court approval. . . .

But where is the debunking of other claims:
Carla Sauer Iyer worked as a caregiver for Terri Schiavo and the story she tells is incredible. She claims that she reported Michael Schiavo to her supervisors and police for injecting Terri with Insulin in an effort to deepen her comma or bring death to her quicker. She states she was fired from her job when she reported these and other allegations to proper authorities. And viewers, according to Carla, a police report was filed.

If all of this is pure nonsense and fabrication, I'm sure the State of Florida has evidence that Carla Sauer made it up.

Right?

UPDATE III:

Tim Blair makes it simple to understand:

CASE ONE: The fight over removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube “is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats ... This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.”—Republican legal counsel Brian Darling in a memo first reported on March 18.

Result: Much left-wing rage, many on the right embarrassed, Darling resigns.

CASE TWO: “We’re going to use Terri Schiavo later on. This is going to be an issue in 2006, and it’s going to be an issue in 2008.”—Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, April 15.

Result: Pending.

Quiz Time

2005-04-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

Which Christian Theologian Are You?

John Wesley here.

Public Education is a Disgrace

2005-04-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to administrators who allow developmentally disabled children to be sexually assaulted and do nothing to stop what they know is a crime.

Incredible:

POSTED: 2:25 pm EDT April 12, 2005
UPDATED: 9:11 am EDT April 13, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A 16-year-old disabled girl was punched and forced to engage in videotaped sexual acts with several boys in a high school auditorium as dozens of students watched, according to witnesses. . . .

The girl was forced to perform oral sex on at least two boys, according to statements from school officials, obtained by The Columbus Dispatch.

Part of the alleged assault was videotaped by a student who had a camera for a school project.

School officials found the girl bleeding from the mouth. An assistant principal cautioned the girl's father against calling 911 to avoid media attention, the statements said. The girl's father called police.

Her father said the girl is developmentally disabled. A special education teacher said the teen has a severe speech impediment.

Catch this outrage (emphasis added):

Also, the principal, Regina Crenshaw, was suspended and will be fired for not calling police, school officials said. And three assistant principals were suspended and will be reassigned to other schools.

If the assistant principals were aware, they should be fired immediately.

And, they should never be allowed near a public school position of responsibility ever again.

Absolutely incredible.

UPDATE:

Captain's Quarters comments section has some even more infuriating details (from The New York Times):

When the father arrived, he asked whether the school administration was going to call the police, [Special Education Teacher] Mrs. Upshaw said in her statement. "[Assistant Principal] Mr. Watson said, 'No, we don't want to do that. We don't want the police,' " she told the investigators.

The father then stepped into the hallway and called the police on his cellphone.

Mr. Watson and other administrators told investigators that the principal, Regina B. Crenshaw, had also advised the father to avoid calling the police, the investigation report says. Mrs. Crenshaw recommended that the father return the next morning and report the incident to a police officer who was usually stationed at the school but who was not there on March 9, the report added.

"Do not call the police; let our officer handle it tomorrow, and you will be happy with the results," Mr. Watson said Mrs. Crenshaw told the father, the investigation report says.

I'm speechless. . . .

Now, the article also suggests Assistent Principal Watson (and other administrators) reported the action was consensual.

Color me stupid, but first of all, that is irrelevant. This is a school, not some adult playground.

Secondly, color me really stupid, is it consensual when she is beaten and her mouth is bleeding?

And, she told her special education teacher minutes after the incident?

UPDATE II:

Comments (including those of my compatriot in South Africa, Cousin Nancy!) have rightly observed that this does not happen only in public schools. I will not argue the obvious, that we are all sinners and capable of unspeakable horrors, but I will argue that those who cannot escape the public school system have no choice.

I think we can all agree that the fact that, as of this writing, Assistant Principal Watson has not been fired is inexplicable.

Wizbang! and Blue State Conservatives are exasperated as well.

UPDATE III:

Weekend update from the AP:

The district said it will fire Principal Regina Crenshaw and has suspended three assistant principals. Police have not said who will face charges, but a city attorney said school officials could be prosecuted along with the alleged assailants.

Witness statements to school investigators paint a picture of a slipshod response to the alleged assault, which came on the heels of other problems. Earlier in the day, administrators had to deal with an assault on a Somali student and a report that a student had a concealed weapon [Did the students know the school policeman was out for the day? -- Ed.]

Just after noon, the girl said four boys grabbed her by the arm. Students said one assailant punched the girl in the face and she dropped to her knees. One of the boys told her, "If you scream I'll have all my boys punch you."

She was forced to perform oral sex on at least two boys, according to statements from school investigators.

A student who had a camera for a school project videotaped the alleged assault, illuminated by light from a cell phone. Another witness said at least 15 people were in a room that looked into the auditorium because they had heard what was happening.

When some students eventually went to look for an adult, the boys involved in the alleged assault fled.

Police have not said how many boys may be charged, but plan to give their evidence to prosecutors early this coming week. Potential charges could include delinquency counts of rape and pandering obscenity, said spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio.

The boys, who have not been publicly identified, are not expected to return to class this school year, district spokesman Andrew Marcelain said.

Whether school administrators will be charged is unclear. State law requires officials to immediately report cases of abuse to law enforcement or face up to 30 days in jail and a $250 fine, said City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr.

However, he said officials would be charged only if someone filed a complaint. So far, no complaint has been filed. An attorney for the girl's father would not say if he planned to file one.

The father is probably waiting to see if the Assistant Principals are fired.

If not, he would have significant motivation to file charges.

65th Christian Carnival

2005-04-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

Enjoy.

Showcasing thoughts from a Christian perspective.

Previous submission can be found at the 64th Christian Carnival.

Where Does America Stand?

2005-04-13T00:44:00.000-07:00

America's unfortunately dynamic stance on Life can be found several places around the blogosphere, but Blogs For Terri and Pro-Life Blogs are great starting points.

Mae Magouirk Updates:

• The Life-and-Death Struggle over Mae Magouirk.

• BlogsForTerri Exclusive: Judge Donald Boyd's Complete Response VERSION 2.

Terri Schiavo Reflections:

• How "Terri's case" was Handled in Argentina.

• Misdiagnosing PVS - Cranford and Terri Schiavo.

• Lawmaker proposes bill in response to Schiavo death.

• Pravda: Terri is Gone, I hope liberals are happy.

Euthanasia Updates:

• Euthanasia of Infants by Doctors Responsible for Nearly Half of Newborn Deaths in Belgium.

• The Ugly Face of Euthanasia.

• Before You Sign . . . On the Dotted Line.

Stem-Cell Updates:

• Big Companies Initiate Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

• Massachusetts Gov. Vows to Veto Embryonic Stem Cell Bill.

• Stem Cell Bill Fails in Seattle.

Abortion Updates:

• Hospital admits abortion at 34 weeks.

• UN Steps Up Vigorous Call for Universal Access to Abortion.

Culture of Death California Update

2005-04-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

California Panel OKs Right-to-Die Measure.

By STEVE LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- A legislative committee Tuesday approved a measure modeled after an Oregon law that would allow the terminally ill to end their lives with a doctor's assistance.

The bill cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee after more than a dozen hours of testimony and debate spread over three hearings. It now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and finally to the floor. The Senate would then have to take up the legislation.

Euphemism Watch:

Democratic Assemblywoman Patty Berg said the bill was "about autonomy."

"It's about providing a safe venue for patients to have a conversation with their doctors, a conversation that a huge majority of Californians say they would like to be able to have if they are ever put in a position to do so," she said.

Ask Terri Schiavo about safe venues.

What unadulterated nonsense.

Fortunately, there are still some doctors who understand the original Hippocratic Oath:

Opponents said the bill could lead to the killing of patients who weren't terminal or didn't want to die.

"Physician-assisted suicide is the wrong answer to the right question," said Dr. Robert Miller, former president of the Association of Northern California Oncologists. "The focus should be on doing everything we can to improve care at the end of life."

Diagnoses of terminal illness can be inaccurate, he added.

Of course this AP story does not reference any of the controversy over Terri Schiavo's diagnosis as context (more context from CodeBlueBlog can be found here and here).

That might, well, provide context.

Not only do we have a living Constitution, we also have a Hippocratic Oath redefined annually by vote (emphasis added below).

The trend among many medical schools, though, is to have each graduating class hammer out an oath of its own that reflects the professional ideals of its members.

“Each class is asked to think about what the Hippocratic Oath means, what its purpose is, and how they want to articulate that,” says Nancy Angoff, M.D., assistant dean for student affairs at the Yale University School of Medicine. “There is much discussion about the nature of the oath as something that connects students to the practice of medicine and the physicians who have come before them. In that regard, they want to keep it reminiscent of the original oath as the first ethical grounding of their profession,” she says. “But at the same time they are not willing to accept all of the original words because they don’t believe all of them and they feel their integrity is at stake.”

Dr. Angoff says the democratic process of deciding on the oath’s specific wording forces students to reflect on their definition of an ethical physician. Some years the oath is simply an altered version of the original; other years, it is the unique declaration of a specific class. . . .

With so many differently worded oaths claiming the name of Hippocrates, Dr. Lasagna sticks to his suggestion that a competition be held to choose a common oath for all new physicians. “To the extent that we have everybody going their own way, we lose that thread of commonality preserved in the original Hippocratic Oath,” he remarks. “And I think that’s a pity.”

A pity indeed.

Life in the Sierra

2005-04-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Many Blessings expressed in pictures.

Simply gorgeous! Carolyn had no problems skiing down from the top of the mountain (I'll never catch up). . . .

My Babes in Blue.

Carolyn wonders if her Dada has back problems. . . .

Now she's really worried. . . .

Hurry up Dada! Time's a Wastin'!

Speaking of Time on Great Grandpa Victor's watches. . . .

Music of time. . . .

Tick, Tock, Zzzz. . . .

I promise not to bite, but I can't promise I won't lick you Hermie!

I'll scratch your back. . . .

Carolyn and Hermie reckoned one another. . . .

Please pass along to my agent. . . .

Happy or Hopeless Hell

2005-04-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

Much passion and prayer have been focused recently on life and death.

With Karol Wojtyla passing from this world to his Creator, some have suggested that while John Paul II was an admired leader and all other such effectively patronizing nonsense, he did not do much for the Catholic Church. Clearly the thinking of empirical rather than eschatological minds.

Has all of this reawakened thinking, or more importantly, a reflection on Heaven and Hell?

I do not know, but I can only have the Hope that it has.

Happy Hell can only be a place in our minds where God lets us smoke pot, engage in adultery of the mind or body, and otherwise offend His Word, and He simply pats us on the head and says, "I still love you no matter what you do." This is a place where God is Loving but not Holy. Did Jesus have to die if God is not Holy?

No.

What cultural and historical events like Terri Schiavo and the John Paul II epoch have illuminated is that there are Truths that we deny at our own peril and the peril of civilization itself.

We deny life only by playing God when there is no compelling need to do so except to placate our own selfishness rationalized through bigotry.

We also risk being intoxicated by the narcotic of narcissism when we think John Paul II was a conservative crank who would have done much more for the Catholic Church by passing out condoms and bananas.

My respect will endure for someone who celebrated Mass in the forest out of sight of the Communist Deity in 20th Century Poland. My respect will never exist for those who think it helpful for us to teach children how they can safely indulge their senses without regard to the health of their heart here on Earth and their soul for eternity.

No, I am not saying that sin cannot be forgiven. On the contrary, it is!

However, Grace is not without price, and Heaven does not exist without Hell.

Father Lombardi, in his public debate with Italian Communist leader Velio Spano in Cagliara on December 4, 1948 stated, "I am horror-struck at the thought that if you continue in this manner, you will be condemned to hell." Spano replied, "I do not believe in hell." Father Lombardi replied, "Precisely, and if you continue, you will be condemned; for to avoid being condemned, one must believe in hell."

Believing in a non-existent or Happy Hell only leads to a Hopeless Hell.

The Power of Light

2005-04-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

You have probably heard by now (unless you get your news from TV), that Mae Magouirk has been removed from the hospice and is now in a hospital.

An 81-year-old Georgia woman who went without nourishment and water more than a week was airlifted from a LaGrange hospice to UAB Hospital Saturday to begin treatment, relatives said. . . .

A LaGrange probate judge on Monday ordered three doctors, including one UAB cardiologist, to decide her future. They decided late Friday that the heart condition was treatable and had her airlifted Saturday morning, Mullinax said. . . .

"Hospice is only for the dying, and my aunt has many more years to live," [nephew Kenneth Mullinax] said. "A crime was being committed by having a person in a hospice who was not terminally ill. I hope that this never ever happens again."

Was she being starved and dehydrated?

Mae's nephew Ken Mullinax reports her cardiologist Raed Aqel, M.D. told them:

Mae is SO DEHYDRATED after her stay at Hospice LaGrange, that it will take at least two days of intense hydration therapy to get her back to a level that is acceptable to him.

Blogs for Terri has much more from Mae's nephew (as does Wizbang!).

Random rhetorical observations:

• Setting aside, for the moment, why Mae was even in a hospice in the first place, why wasn't her living will honored?

• Would Mae be in the hospital now without the Internet?

• Will we have to rely on the blogosphere to save us from an unwillingly forced death by starvation and dehydration since our justice system cannot and will not?

• How many are dying as you read this because their family members do not understand lawful options, and are being lied to by doctors, lawyers and hospices around this country?

• Why are we even fighting about this?

Because some consider the defenseless Useless Eaters whom we should help to hurry up and just die already?

After all, the Nazis asked:

Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?
--Dr. Tergesten, in the propaganda film Ich Klage an! (I Accuse!, 1941)

Culture of Death in Georgia and Belgium

2005-04-09T02:17:00.000-07:00

[Please note interesting Updates at bottom -- Are Terri supporters being played by a Democrat -- or not? -- Ed.]

It appears that Living Wills are simply a racket in Georgia (and elsewhere?) -- instead, please consider a Will to Live.

I (and many others) have previously highlighted the tragic plight of Mae Margourik who may be experiencing forced dehydrated and starvation.

This point is not clear at this time. WorldNetDaily has an important update which suggests nutrition and hydration may be taking place, but we have no independently confirmed evidence one way or the other at this time (I have also written an email to the LaGrange News reporter covering the story).

To summarize:

Mae Magouirk of LaGrange, Georgia, is currently being deprived of nutrition and hydration [see note above -- Ed.] at the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy. Mrs. Magouirk suffered an aortic dissection 2 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Though her doctors have said that she is not terminally ill, Ms. Gaddy declared that she held medical power of attorney for Mae, and had her transferred to the LaGrange Hospice. Later investigation revealed that Ms. Gaddy did not in fact have such power of attorney. Furthermore, Mae's Living Will provides that nutrition and hydration are to be withheld only if she is comatose or vegetative. Mae is in neither condition. Neither is her condition terminal.

Furthermore, under Georgia law, if there is no power of attorney specifying a health care decisionmaker, such authority is given to the closest living relatives. Mae's brother, A. B. McLeod, and sister, Lonnie Ruth Mullinax, are both still alive and capable of making such decisions. They opposed Mae's transfer to hospice, and are fighting to save her life. But in spite of the lack of a power of attorney, and the fact that there are closer living relatives who should be given precedence by Georgia law, Ms. Gaddy sought an emergency appointment as guardian from the local probate court. The probate judge, Donald Boyd (who, I am told, is not an attorney and does not have a law degree), granted Gaddy's request, thereby giving her the power to starve and dehydrate Magouirk to death, though such an action is contrary to the provisions of the living will.

Mae's granddaughter is also sole beneficiary of Mae's will.

My questions to Joel Martin at the LaGrange News:

1) Is Mae receiving hydration and nutrition presently?
- Some are reporting she is.
- Mae's nephew, Kenneth Mullinax, suggests she is not (per your and others' reports).
- What does the hospice say?

2) Is it true that Mae's granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, did not have a medical power of attorney prior to April 1, 2005?

3) Is it true that Georgia law provides that the closest living relatives shall have medical authority if there is no medical power of attorney?

4) Is it true that the probate judge Donald Boyd is not an attorney and does not have a law degree?

What is deeply troubling to me is that it appears we can negotiate the terms of a living will away as if it never existed at all.

Here is my best understanding at this time:

In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice. . . .

Two weeks ago, Magouirk's aorta had a dissection, and she was hospitalized in the local LaGrange Hospital. Her aortic problem was determined to be severe, and she was admitted to the intensive care unit. At the time of her admission she was lucid and had never been diagnosed with dementia.

What good is the law if it does not protect us? The details are still flowing on this case, but if her living will is as has been reported, we have a serious problem with lawless law in this country.

And, how rare are these occurrences of dehydration and starvation?

Not very rare at all according to Ron Panzer:

Ron Panzer, president and founder of Hospice Patients Alliance, a patients' rights advocacy group based in Michigan, told WND that what is happening to Magouirk is not at all unusual.

"This is happening in hospices all over the country," he said. "Patients who are not dying – are not terminal – are admitted [to hospice] and the hospice will say they are terminally ill even if they're not. There are thousands of cases like this. Patients are given morphine and ativan to sedate them. If feeding is withheld, they die within 10 days to two weeks. It's really just a form of euthanasia."

Fortunately, Blogs For Terri is all over this case here, here, here, here and here. Also, contact information here and here.

Do we really want people who have glaucoma and a heart problem to starved and dehydrated to death?

Meanwhile, in Belgium. . . .

Michelle Malkin has a very important update on baby killing (no, not abortion, but baby killing outside the womb after birth).

From the Lancet:
Nearly half the newborn babies who died in Flanders over a recent year-long period were helped to die by their doctors, a new study reported yesterday. Paediatricians in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium either discreetly stopped treating the babies or, in 17 cases, illegally killed them with lethal doses of painkillers.

The study, published in The Lancet, examined the deaths of every baby who died within a year of birth in Flanders between August 1999 and July 2000. The results of a survey on the causes of death were stark: paediatricians who responded to the survey admitted they had taken "end of life" decisions in more than half the cases. Most commonly, that involved withholding or withdrawing treatment because physicians believed the baby had no real chance of survival or the baby had no chance of a "bearable future".

In 40 cases, opiate pain killers were used in doses with a potentially life-shortening affect. In 17 cases, a lethal dose or lethal drugs were administered. Overall, the research yielded information on 253 out of the total of 298 infant deaths in the region over the period. The lethal doses of painkillers, which broke Belgian law, were mainly administered to babies less than a week old.

Most were premature babies with severe congenital malformations or handicaps and what was described as a poor quality of life, or very premature babies with severe brain damage. Four fifths of the doctors who completed an "attitudinal survey" agreed that "the task of the physician sometimes involves the prevention of unnecessary suffering by hastening death".

The Lancet introduces this piece via (emphasis added):

End-of-life decisions for critically ill infants Physicians are increasingly confronted with end-of-life decisions concerning critically ill babies and infants. Veerle Provoost and colleagues report that more than half of deaths among critically ill neonates and infants in a study in Belgium involved physicians making end-of-life decisions. The study also shows how three-quarters of physicians believe that making end-of-life decisions was a necessary part of their work. . . .

Did Hitler really win World War II after all?

UPDATE:

Tom Maguire has very important updates and perspective as well on Ken Mullinax.

And there may be more than the usual enmity between Mr. Mullinax and Republicans - in the last week of the 2004 race, Dem candidate Bill Fuller's house (which doubled as campaign HQ) caught fire. Per this story the police did not immediately see anything suspicious about the fire, and I have seen no follow-up; however, some local Dems suspected foul play. . . .

So, my questions for the nephew, Mr. Mullinax. . . .

Last fall, prior to the election, there were some Democrats who were concerned that Bill Fuller may have been the victim of foul play. Was his house fire of last October investigated to your satisfaction? Did you then, and do you now hold the view that your candidate may have been attacked by a fringe right wing group?

I imagine my point is obvious. Trust, but verify. . . .

The local LaGrange paper provides a more balanced view.

Straight Up with Sherri has lots more - scroll around. And here is an interesting comment, from which I excerpt this:

The details are many, but in short, the grandmother is not being denied anything, but refuses herself to eat (there never was a feeding tube).

Worth noting - according to Mr. Mullinax, Mae Magouirk has a hereditary ailment that hospitalized her sister (his mother) in 2002 (and she is not well now); it may well be that she is quite familiar with her care options and prognosis, and has been clear about her wishes in discussions with the granddaughter.

UPDATE: I am going to come up aces on this. We have exchanged e-mails; Mr. Mullinax ducked my specific question about Hilliard and Fuller, but told me that he was an aide to Paul "Bear" Bryant and Gov. George Wallace (Dem.) and has been a public servant in Birmingham and Washington for many years. I have sent off a follow-up asking Mr. Mullinax if he could focus on a yes/no response to my seemingly simple questions - did he work for Ike Hilliard and Bill Fuller?

Time will tell.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE II:

Wizbang! is on the story also with a different take than Maguire.

I just spend 20+ minutes speaking to Kenneth Mullinax, who is the nephew of Mae Magouirk. . . .

Here are some things you probably don't know unless you have followed the story closely.

• Mae Magouirk can (could) eat on her own. (to a point) Ken and his family have been feeding her Jello and she can swallow water. The problem is that she can not get enough nourishment to heal without the feeding tube.

• As of Monday she was asking if she could go home. She is (was) far from a vegetative state. The lack of food has however caused her to become "not lucid lately" as Ken put it. Earlier in the week she recognized and greeted all the members of her family who went to visit.

• David Gives [see comments below -- Ed.], who was the lead attorney in the Schiavo case, has volunteered his services.

Meanwhile, is she receiving hydration and nutrition. . . ?

Useless Legislators

2005-04-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

The weakest branch of our government -- the legislative branch.

Senator Frist states "we have a fair and independent judiciary today."

Obviously debatable, but a branch of the government that throws laws (and subpoenas) against the wall to see if they stick in the vain hope that the judiciary will heel and save a woman's life because the President interrupted his vacation is engaging in childish naivete.

Now, they want the issue of the sanctity and protection of life to go away.

Useless legislators with seemingly little passion to protect those whom they probably label Useless Eaters.

Useless Eaters

2005-04-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

More mischief -- this time in Georgia.

Is Mae Magouirk being starved and dehydrated simply because her granddaughter wants the money? We need to see the court documents and living will to confirm that Mae's wishes are being violated -- and the clock is ticking. If Mae's wishes as codified in a living will are being violated and the courts are turning a blind eye, then we have a problem that will require federal intervention.

If the law does not protect the defenseless when they have requested protection via the law (and this again highlights the uselessness of living wills), then it is time to calibrate our laws and the manner in which they are interpreted as Senator Cornyn has suggested.

This smells of the larger issue of Checkbook Euthanasia.

According to a 2002 report in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, the frequency of persistent vegetative state in the United States is 64 to 140 per million people. Thus, somewhere between 538 and 1,176 North Carolinians are probably afflicted with this condition. At a cost of about $80,000 a year per person, this translates to an annual financial burden to the North Carolina health-care system of $43 million to $94 million—enough to hire between 1,500 and 3,500 additional public school teachers.

It was easy for the media to chronicle and champion the Civil Rights Era since people were sitting at lunch counters and in the front of the bus, but how will the media champion the Disabled Rights Era when many are quietly starving and dying of thirst in hospices all over this country?

People without a voice.

Will we speak for them?

More importantly, will we demand action by our legislators to protect them?

UPDATE:

The title of this post comes from a Life Matters! post which points us to this Journal of Special Education article which highlights the evil thinking from the previous Century to today:

In Binding and Hoche's terms, [the former] were "useless eaters" whose "ballast lives" could be tossed overboard to better balance the economic ship of state. In speaking of those with disabilities, and explicitly advocating involuntary euthanasia, Binding and Hoche wrote:

Their life is absolutely pointless, but they do not regard it as being unbearable. They are a terrible, heavy burden upon their relatives and society as a whole. Their death would not create even the smallest gap--except perhaps in the feelings of their mothers or loyal nurses.

John Paul the Great

2005-04-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

Pope John Paul II certainly conserved that which is best about the Catholic Church in my opinion, but Micah Halpern suggests he was a visionary that we will remember for all the ages (Hat Tip PowerLine).

On most issues the Pope was a theological conservative. When it came to approaching Jewish issues, he was a theologically visionary.

For the Pope, Antisemitism was wrong, plain and simple, wrong. Antisemitism symbolized the Dark Ages. Given his understanding of history and the Bible, the hatred of the Jew on the theological level was totally unjustified. Moving away from Antisemitism was moving the Church, finally, out of the Dark Ages. Theologically eliminating the hatred of the Jews was the perfect symbol of the modernization of the Church. It was a move toward modernity that neither touched nor eroded mainstream theological issues like marriage, homosexuality, and abortion, issues that might shake the foundations of Church teachings. . . .

On his visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall the Pope, as tradition dictates, placed a note between the centuries old stones of the Wall. The text of the note was later made public. This is what he wrote, please note that it was addressed to "God."

God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations: We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.

Those few words explain it all.

In a few sentences the Pope transformed the Church's perspective of the Jew. Jews were moved from the world of persecution where it was accepted and even requisite to oppress them for their past and for what they had done and embraced in brotherhood. For the first time, Jews were recognized for their original contribution in setting the foundation of Christianity.

How amazingly simple and correspondingly profound.

The Pope was not only eliminating officially sanctioned Antisemitism because it is wrong. The Pope was bolstering, protecting and insuring the future of his Church. He was helping the Church confront future challenges.

John Paul II. The Jew's Pope. Everyone's visionary. May his memory be blessed.

A man whose life spanned loss of mother and brother at a young age, living in Nazi-occupied Poland and, of course, Stalin.

He was a man who loved God and His people. All people.

With one kiss, the pope gave Tony Melendez what other Roman Catholic officials had denied.

Born without arms after his mother took the prescribed drug Thalidomide during pregnancy, Melendez said he had been rejected from the priesthood because he was unable to deliver the Eucharist.

So Melendez learned to play the guitar with his toes and performed a song for John Paul II when he visited Los Angeles in 1987. The pope hopped down off a stage and kissed him on the cheek.

“It’s more than the kiss. As a Catholic I’ve been able to start a ministry because of that moment,” Melendez said. “The ministry that flowed from that day, just by one song and a kiss ... he doesn’t know how much has flowed from that. He kissed me and passed on responsibility.” . . .

The pope quietly praised Melendez’s song, “Never Be the Same,” telling him “It sounds nice,” before returning to the stage to address him in front of the crowd of thousands.

“You are a courageous young man,” the pontiff said for all to hear. “And my wish for you is to bring hope to all the people.”

If you have seen the video of Pope John Paul II kissing Tony Melendez, you know how easy it is to shed a tear. It is also one of many examples where the Pope took an opportunity to elevate a performance into a sublime message.

The spontaneity. The Love. The Joy.

The Hope.

Thank you Jesus for Karol Wojtyla.

Sierra Snow

2005-04-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

Carolyn is learning to ski seemingly effortlessly.

I too took a lesson while Grandma was visiting, and had a great time.

Of course, I have to take lessons, or Carolyn will be teaching me how to ski a few years down the road.

What a wonderful day spent with family and enjoying His Creation.

You can enjoy fabulous views from Sierra-at-Tahoe into Desolation Wilderness.

A wonderful time.

The snow this year has been outstanding.

Will we be able to ski into Summer?

Ah, and the wildflowers this year will be simply glorious!

Bigoted Educators

2005-04-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

More nonsense from folks who pretend to be in a profession called education.

A federal grand jury punished a public school superintendent for rejecting a vice-principal applicant because she refused to remove her children from a private Christian school.

The jury unanimously said the constitutional rights of Karen Jo Barrow were violated and ordered former Greenville, Texas, Independent School District Superintendent Herman Smith to pay back wages of $15,000 and $20,000 in punitive damages.

My questions is, why didn't the school board fire the Superintendent for such bigotry?

Another example of a random jury having more sense than elected folks who claim to be leaders.

Home School Access

2005-04-05T01:22:00.000-07:00

Bill Hobbs argues home-schooled kids should have equal access to public school extracurricular activities such as sports, music and art.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is opposed.

One of their reasons for opposition is rather amusing:

''We have some tough academic rules,'' Carter said. ''Tracking that is an issue.''
Oh yeah, the public schools have a great academic track record of late.

However, once the state's camel's nose is inside the tent, it is hard to shoo him away:

Tracking is also an issue for home-school families who don't want public schools or others checking up on their progress and telling them what to do. In fact, support for the measure is mixed among families who teach their children at home.

''The concern in the home-school community is that they'll have to submit to some oversight,'' said Kay Brooks, founder of a home-school information clearinghouse and network in Tennessee. ''That's the big Mack truck hole — what are the eligibility requirements.''

Devin Moon, a home-school student from Murfreesboro, doesn't like the idea of playing by public- school rules.

''When we give the government this much power over home-schoolers, it's going to be used against us,'' said Devin, 16, who participates in home-school speech and debate leagues. ''Strings are going to be attached.''

He suggested that the home-school community spend its time improving the number and quality of the teams and activities it offers for students.

But some say it's not that easy. While these teams exist and they're growing, they aren't everywhere, and they don't come close to offering the same competition, experiences and exposure as the public schools.

I would be very cautious about giving the State the opportunity to knock on my home-school door.

Deadly Details

2005-04-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

I had missed this detail which resurfaced during the Terri Schiavo tragedy.

John Leo notes, in the context of discussing the abysmal performance of the news media in reporting the Schiavo case, that the US Supreme Court has already ruled that feeding tubes are life support.

The behavior of the news media: Terrible. "Pro-life" columnist Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice called it "the worst case of liberal media bias I've seen yet." Many stories and headlines were politically loaded. Small example of large disdain: On air, a CBS correspondent called the Florida rallies a "religious roadshow," a term unlikely to have been applied to Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights demonstrations or any other rallies meeting CBS's approval. More important, it was hard to find news that Michael Schiavo had provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife since 1994 and even blocked the use of antibiotics when Terri developed a urinary infection. And the big national newspapers claimed as a fact that Michael Schiavo's long-delayed recollection of Terri's wish to die, supported only by hearsay from Michael's brother and a sister-in-law, met the standard for "clear and convincing evidence" of consent. It did nothing of the sort, particularly with two of Terri's friends testifying the opposite. The media covered the intervention by Congress as narrowly political and unwarranted. They largely fudged the debates over whether Terri Schiavo was indeed in a persistent vegetative state and whether tube-feeding meant that Schiavo was on life support. In the Nancy Cruzan case, the Supreme Court said that tube-feeding is life support, but some ethicists and disability leaders strongly dispute that position.

Why is a feeding tube life support and someone's cholesterol medication not?

Because it is a certainty a person needing a feeding tube will die without it, while without my cholesterol medicine I may live longer than Winston Churchill?

What about my blood pressure medication or my medication after a heart attack -- you get the idea.

It is hard to understand how the court can claim food is medicine.

I prefer the riskier, but defining approach of Justice Scalia which Matthew Franck discussed last week. He first rips Chief Justice Rehnquist's reasoning which has led to a "right" to die -- buried in "interests" of the individual which the Court must weigh, rather than a "principle" which the Court would protect.

So the chief justice was announcing a "right" to starve oneself to death — a right of which no competent person otherwise situated like Cruzan, Finn, or Schiavo (i.e., physically and even mentally disabled but not dying) could be expected to avail himself. In light of such a patent absurdity, for whom, then, was this "right" actually conjured into being? Why, not for the competent at all, but for the incompetent, of course, so that others may act on their behalf and bring about the death that we know for a certainty they would not choose if they were competent at the time the death was to commence. Only the incompetent are fit subjects for such a death, for only they are incapable of articulating a choice and will have such a death chosen for them, and only they will go more or less quietly, having no ability to beg us for a drop or a morsel.

In short, Rehnquist's preposterously invented "right" was the Court's way of blessing a practice called "substituted judgment": the process, varying from state to state, by which parents, spouses, or other close kin establish to a court's satisfaction either that when the patient was competent, he did express a desire not to live as an otherwise healthy incompetent, or (in states a bit more lax) that if he had thought about it when he was competent, it would have been his desire not so to live. This legal practice may have made sense at first, beginning as it did with the cases of patients kept alive on respirators or other "life-support machines" who would die very rapidly of underlying causes as soon as these measures ceased, or whose suffering could be brought to an end by a simple "do not resuscitate" order in the event of a cardiac arrest. But thanks to statutes and judicial decisions, "substituted judgment" in many states in 1990 was already moving toward the withdrawal of food and water from otherwise physically healthy patients, and Rehnquist's "right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition" gave this fateful step a veneer of principle putatively derived from the U.S. Constitution.

Deadly Decision

Justice Antonin Scalia concurred in the Cruzan decision, because the result was rightly to uphold the state's power to set standards for patient care and to regulate the decision to die. But he plainly stated his divergence from Rehnquist's opinion for the Court when he wrote separately to remind us that, traditionally, "American law ha[d] always accorded the State the power to prevent, by force if necessary, suicide — including suicide by refusing to take appropriate measures necessary to preserve one's life." In the tradition the Court was unraveling that day, Scalia noted, it was fully within the power of the state to prevent suicide or assisted suicide, even by the supposedly "passive" step of refusing or withdrawing necessary sustenance, and "even when it is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that a patient no longer wishes certain measures to be taken to preserve his or her life." Of course, Scalia conceded, it is within the state's power to offer less protection than that to human life — as Missouri did in the laws the Court upheld that day — but he wrote to defend the power of the state to protect innocent human life completely, unfettered by any claims of constitutional "rights" or "liberty interests" to kill yourself by refusing nutrition and hydration.

Scalia was also alone on the Court that day in 1990 in calling killing by its right name. In an argument that has been replayed in macabre echoes in the Schiavo case, Scalia wrote that "[s]tarving oneself to death is no different from putting a gun to one's temple as far as the common-law definition of suicide is concerned." And if starving oneself was suicide, starving another was homicide: Scalia cited late 19th-century precedents holding that "[i]n the prosecution of a parent for the starvation death of her infant, it was no defense that the infant's death was 'caused' by no action of the parent but by the natural process of starvation, or by the infant's natural inability to provide for itself." As for those who think the critical factor is that Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state" or that "she would never have wanted to live that way" (and here we can assume those much disputed "facts" for the sake of argument), Scalia quoted another precedent from that era holding that assisted suicide "is declared by the law to be murder irrespective of the wishes or the condition of the party" who is sent to his death. Such precedents put paid to the notion that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment carries, hidden in its recesses, some longstanding traditional "right" to dehydrate oneself to death. And they remind us that we were once a more enlightened country than we are today, at least in this respect.

Scalia disposed handily of another bit of sophistry that has been bandied about by the "let her die" crowd in the Schiavo case. Stepping outside the purview of a judge for just a moment to speak to legislators directly (a futile gesture, since the Court had just announced a "right" he rejected), he wrote that "the intelligent line does not fall between action [e.g. the gun] and inaction [the withdrawal of a feeding tube] but between those forms of inaction that consist of abstaining from 'ordinary' care and those that consist of abstaining from 'excessive' or 'heroic' measures." It is just so in Terri Schiavo's case: No respirator can be "unplugged" for a quick death caused by her body's inability to perform its basic functions. She was the recipient of no extraordinary measures beyond hydration, nutrition, and hygiene. Her death is being brought about by the failure to meet these ordinary standards of care.

Perhaps the best summary of how euthanasia has crept into the legal mainstream can be found at Pregnant Pause.

Be prepared -- this is not easy reading for those who believe we are playing God, and that our Orwellian rationalizations to end life our becoming easier, not more difficult to make.

Indeed, as Priscilla King, RN writes:

When we decide that there is such a thing as a life not worth living, we have crossed into dangerous territory, especially when we empower anyone to make life-or-death judgments for another based on that person's estimation of his or her "quality of life." The trend in American law is clearly to allow third parties to withhold care when a person's quality of life is considered too poor to be worth maintaining. This trend should be particularly disturbing in light of the German and Dutch experiences. With so many taking up the cry of diminishing resources and increasing health care costs, with the trend to managed (and therefore limited) care, we dare not believe "it could never happen here."

UPDATE:

Blogs For Terri has an excellent round-up of thoughts regarding the consequences of the death of Terri.

From Eric Cohen's Wrong Questions Yield Wrong Answers:

FOR ALL THE ATTENTION we have paid to the Schiavo case, we have asked many of the wrong questions, living as we do on the playing field of modern liberalism. We have asked whether she is really in a persistent vegetative state, instead of reflecting on what we owe people in a persistent vegetative state. We have asked what she would have wanted as a competent person imagining herself in such a condition, instead of asking what we owe the person who is now with us, a person who can no longer speak for herself, a person entrusted to the care of her family and the protection of her society.

The Great Christian Witness

2005-04-04T02:11:00.000-07:00

Kathryn Lopez interviews George Weigel on John Paul II.

Highlights:

He was the great Christian witness of the last quarter of the 20th century, the man who took the Christian proposal to more of the world than anyone else. . . .

This was the most intellectually consequential pontificate since the Council of Trent. The Church will be digesting the teaching of John Paul II for at least a century, and possibly longer. In addition to that, and at a more personal level, John Paul inspired literally tens of millions of Catholics to live lives of radical Christian conviction. That will extend his influence far into the future.

He reminded Christians by his example that the Christian way is always the Way of the Cross. He reminded everyone that there is no such thing as a disposable human being.

No such thing as a disposable human being.

Amen.

Next Time It Will be Easier -- Who's Next?

2005-04-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

On Terri's Eighth Day of Starvation, Wesley Smith noted the case of Robert Wendland.

There have been other food and fluids cases almost identical to Terri Schiavo's. And these people had higher capacities. For example, Robert Wendland could roll a wheelchair down a hospital corridor and yet, a hospital ethics committee thought it was A-okay to dehydrate him to death. Wendland made news, but nothing like Terri Schiavo did.

Michelle Malkin points to an excellent Mark Steyn article (does he write any other kind?) on Terri Schiavo who begins by remembering the Wendland case:

Do you remember a fellow called Robert Wendland? No reason why you should. I wrote about him in this space in 1998, and had intended to return to the subject but something else always intervened . . . . Mr Wendland lived in Stockton, California. He was injured in an automobile accident in 1993 and went into a coma. Under state law, he could have been starved to death at any time had his wife requested the removal of his feeding tube. But Rose Wendland was busy with this and that, as one is, and assumed there was no particular urgency.

Then one day, a year later, Robert woke up. He wasn’t exactly his old self, but he could catch and throw a ball and wheel his chair up and down the hospital corridors, and both activities gave him pleasure. Nevertheless Mrs Wendland decided that she now wished to exercise her right to have him dehydrated to death. Her justification was that, while the actual living Robert — the Robert of the mid-1990s — might enjoy a simple life of ball-catching and chair-rolling, the old Robert — the pre-1993 Robert — would have considered it a crashing bore and would have wanted no part of it.

She nearly got her way. But someone at the hospital tipped off Mr Wendland’s mother and set off a protracted legal struggle in which — despite all the obstacles the California system could throw in her path — the elderly Florence Wendland was eventually successful in preventing her son being put down. He has since died of pneumonia, which is sad: the disabled often fall victim to some opportunist illness they’d have shrugged off in earlier times, as Christopher Reeve did. But that’s still a better fate than to be starved to death by order of the state.

ProLifeBlogs notes that Living Wills may not provide the protection from starvation and dehydration that some are claiming -- especially in California.

National Review asks Who's Next?:

There was an honest, forthright case for ending the life of Terri Schiavo. It was that her life no longer had any value, for herself or others, and that ending it — the quicker the better — would spare everyone misery. We disagree with that view, holding it wiser to stick with the Judeo-Christian tradition on the sanctity of innocent life. But the people who made this case deserve some credit for straightforwardness.

But while the public may have agreed with the removal of Schiavo's feeding and hydration tube, apparently there are limits to the public's willingness to tolerate euthanasia — and apparently its defenders recognized these limits. So we saw euphemism after euphemism deployed to cloud the issues. . . .

Next time it will be easier. It always is. The tolerance of early-term abortion made it possible to tolerate partial-birth abortion, and to give advanced thinkers a hearing when they advocate outright infanticide. Letting the courts decide such life-and-death issues made it possible for us to let them decide others, made it seem somehow wrong for anyone to stand in their way. Now they are helping to snuff out the minimally conscious. Who's next?

Now BlogsForTerri notes a Zogby poll suggesting the public does not support death by starvation and dehydration.

Are eyes beginning to open?

Emerging from Persistent Vegetative State

2005-04-01T17:26:00.000-08:00

Michelle Malkin has this encouraging PVS story from WFTV:

He's been in a persistent vegetative state for more than a month, but a popular high school basketball coach has awakened.

Bishop Moore coach Rob Graham, 33, collapsed of a heart attack in February during a championship game. When a police officer tried to resuscitate him with a portable defibrillator, the device failed and it took another 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

Doctors say they had slim hopes he'd survive. But, on Good Friday, he suddenly showed signs of recovery.

"Nurses were coming from all over, and they started getting him to follow thumbs up and sticking his tongue out and then he turned to the picture of his girls and smiled, and I'm crying with him because I can't believe it. It was a miracle," said Rob's wife Tammy.

Ah, but the doctors know everything, and Terri was just a vegetable.

The Passing of a Champion for Life

2005-04-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

Pope John Paul II has died.

As Michelle Malkin says, these words from the Pope are Words to Live By:

We are coming to the end of a century which began with confidence in humanity's prospects of almost unlimited progress, but which is now ending in widespread fear and moral confusion. If we want a springtime of the human spirit, we must rediscover the foundations of hope. Above all, society must learn to embrace once more the great gift of life, to cherish it, to protect it, and to defend it against the culture of death, itself an expression of the great fear that stalks our times.

UPDATE:

Apparently Fox jumped the gun.

Regardless, please enjoy accounts of an incredible life. Michelle Malkin has an excellent resource list, and the folks at NRO's The Corner are sharing memories and thanks for a great man.

From Kathryn Lopez:

RE: THE LIMITS OF SADNESS [K. J. Lopez]
It's a great thing he's been here as long as he has. Really an amazing life--from fighting communism, to being a thinker (way before he was someone we all knew), devotion to the dignity of human life... Thank God we've had him. And you don't have to be Catholic to be grateful for this gift of a man.

And:

A MOTHERLESS BOY [Kate O'Beirne]
I have always been struck by the Pope's tragic childhood. He was eight when his mother died and 12 when he lost his beloved older brother to scarlet fever. He lived alone with his devoted father. A priest in the parish where Karol Wojtyla was an altar boy said he saw "the shadow of early orphanage on him."

And this:

JPII & THE LIMITS OF SADNESS [Jonah Goldberg]

I suppose I'm with Ramesh. Though I am not a Catholic, I can muster many emotions at the the thought of John Paul II passing away. But grief really isn't chief among them. The man has been suffering for a long time and he has endured that suffering with greater dignity than most of us could dream of mustering. He lived a long life of great courage and conviction, acting nobly when acting otherwise would have been much easier and less dangerous. Through his actions and his example he left the entire world a better and safer place than when he left it. When his time comes, be it in hours or days or whenever, few will say he hadn't done more than his fair share. This is no tragedy. His life isn't being brought short by the hand of man. There's no cause for rage. But there's room for gratitude and the sort of remorse one feels when the world is made a little less by the loss of someone it sorely needed. So why overly grieve for a man who is surely worthy of reward in the next life?

Perhaps the answer is simple, because it is human to do so.

Lastly, an email follow-up:

JP II & THE LIMITS OF SADNESS [Jonah Goldberg]

Lo[ts] of this sort of email:

Jonah,

Although I am not Catholic in exactly the same way you are not Catholic, I think I will take the time to grieve Pope John Paul II. Because it is human to do so, yes, but also because after being constantly reminded over the past couple of weeks how less than ordinary most of us are, it makes me sad and lonely to lose someone that is extraordinary.

More, I'm sure, throughout the day at The Corner

UPDATE II:

Jawa and Hyscience provide more details on how earlier reports were mis-reported.

A tip from Hyscience who tells me that earlier reports based on mistranslation. Word was 'dying', not 'died'

And Kevin at Wizbang! calibrates us all:

As Vatican watchers will tell you there is a protocol for announcing (or rather signaling) the death of a pope. It doesn't involve The Drudge Report or the Kentucky Lake Times...

UPDATE III:

We lose a great man on this earth.

UPDATE IV:

Don Singleton has a great photographic history.

Better Dead than Disabled?

2005-04-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

You may remember an earlier post I shared where Charmaine Yoest told us of an earlier civilization more advanced than our own in caring for the weak and disabled.

Another central theme: Food is not Medicine.

Here are more thoughts from a wise mother (and a friend of my Sister) who, like many of us, cannot comprehend the thinking that leads to and encourages the devaluing of life in our many forms of Glory:

As the mother of a child who not only is fed by a feeding tube, but also a central line for the last 8 yrs, I am appalled by what has happened to Terri. My mother in law is also fed by a tube, so for our family, tube feedings are very typical and normal. And in no way can they be considered life support. We all need to have nutrition and hydration to live, and a feeding tube, nor even a central line to provide the nutrition is really not all that uncommon nor is it as complicated and technical as many in the media and elsewhere make it seem.

There are thousands of people who are living full and meaningful lives while using various alternative ways to maintain nutritional status. There are also thousands of disabled persons in our communities who have fought incredible odds to survive and have quality of life.

Terri Schiavo was not given the opportunity to show what she could do, the day that her husband refused any kind of rehabilitation for her. God gives us all a meaningful life, and I find it so terribly sad that her husband could not look past her injuries to see the possibilities. At least to give her the chance to prove that there WERE possibilities.

Sometimes my children say to me "I can't" or "It's too hard", or "I will never be able to do that". I work with them, and despite the negative feelings they have, eventually they are instead able to say "I CAN" or " I Did it!". Do the disabled in our communities and our lives not deserve the same opportunities to at least try, or be given the chance to see what they can do? Terri was not given that chance, and I fear for our society that so devalues life when it is not "normal" or "typical". Where are we going in the future, when it seems so many feel "better dead than disabled".

Terri's husband may not have been able to clearly see the possibilities for her future, or maybe there was something more sinisiter at work. I do not know the answer, but Mr. Schiavo does, and so does the Lord.

I pray for the Schindler family, who saw Terri as more than a person in a vegetative state, they saw her for her possibilities. And I pray for this country, that somehow good can come from this, and that disabled people everywhere are seen not as to be pitied and to let die because of their disablities, but seen as human beings, created by God, and allowed to thrive and grow in whatever situation they may be.

Better Dead than Disabled -- vile thoughts ~~we had extinguished after spilling much blood~~ from the last century.

UPDATE:

National Review Online asks, Who's Next?

Hat Tip ProLifeBlogs.

UPDATE II:

Blogs for Terri is determined to fight for our future.

The answer to Who's Next? must be nobody.

It will take much prayer, time and effort, but we need to demand a Disabled Rights Era.

UPDATE III:

More Right-to-Starvation nonsense from Chris Matthews while on the Don Imus Show:

The parents... the father seems to be having, I hate to say this, a good time. I don't know why, maybe it's the focus, maybe he's giddy with sadness of the tragedy that has been going on for so long.

Michelle Malkin has pictures of Terri's dad "having a good time."

Kevin at Wizbang! raises an eyebrow as well.

Disabled Rights Era

2005-03-31T18:51:00.000-08:00

We need to start the Disabled Right Era.

The Civil Rights Era was a mixture of the law changing minds, but even more importantly, a movement where the heart informed lawmakers and eventually the law to be Right and Just.

My argument is that while the Americans with Disability Act continues to do much good (as well as enable much silliness), it obviously does nothing to protect people like Terri Schiavo.

These fundamental rights should be incorporated into our Civil Rights laws, but until then, we need to continue to highlight the plight of those considered by many as disposable (with Orwellian language as window dressing to make us feel comfortable and pleased with ourselves).

It is my Hope and Prayer that the many groups who worked together in the valiant attempts to save Terri's life, will continue to work together to this end.

This is a non-partisan issue, and if kept that way, will have significant impact on state houses and Capitol Hill alike.

Peace to Terri and her family.

Many hearts have been broken.

But, many eyes have been opened, and we must fight for those who cannot protect themselves.

Peace vs Anger

2005-03-31T15:28:00.004-08:00

Thoughts of Peace from the Schindlers at Blogs for Terri.

The Schiavos on the other hand plan to deny the Schindlers access to the burial:

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Terri Schiavo's ashes will be buried in an undisclosed location near Philadelphia so that her immediate family doesn't show up and turn the burial into a media spectacle, a member of the Schiavo family said Thursday.

"If Mike knew they would come in peace, he would have no problem with it," Scott Schiavo, Michael Schiavo's brother, said during an interview at his home.

After an autopsy, Michael Schiavo plans to have his wife's body cremated and her ashes brought to Pennsylvania, where she grew up. Scott Schiavo said the ashes would be buried in a plot left by an aunt and uncle, but the family does not plan on providing the specficic location for the burial - underscoring the bitterness of the dispute.

And Michael Schiavo's actions speak louder than any words to the contrary:

Scott Schiavo expressed relief that his sister-in-law's ordeal was over, and anger at those who have attacked the Schiavo family.

"This isn't over by a long shot, We're going to get our name right," he said. "The world is going to know who Mike was, they're going to know Mike wasn't a beast."

Pray, do tell.

I will be the first to admit I was wrong.

UPDATE:

Hyscience is exasperated too.

Was Her Last Thought "I Thirst"?

2005-03-31T08:10:00.001-08:00

So asks Ken Masugi who has been providing excellent historical context on Terri Schiavo's place in American history at The Remedy.

This post takes a look back in time at how the Culture of Death has permeated the Supreme Court and some of its more famous Justices.

Consider the line of cases involving not just the so-called "right to die" (see my post yesterday) but also the treatment of the mentality disabled. Here the infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell case, which justified sterilization of those regarded as mentally ill, should be recalled. Thanks to a thoughtful reader for this quotation, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote the opinion. (Holmes is a hero to many judicial conservatives, which shows one the problem of restoring constitutional government.)

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.... Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Are we more distant from the social darwinism of this opinion now than then?

I agree with Ken:

The consequences for the American legal system will continue, long after the last tsunami story fades away. Here we need serious reflection on the place of the Declaration of Independence in American political and moral life. This is in large measure a fight over the meaning of life and liberty and what can and should be done in their name.

What have we done, or more precisely, what have we let happen?

Rest In Peace

2005-03-31T07:12:00.000-08:00

Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo has died.

Unconfirmed reports are that her parents were not allowed to be with her at the time of her death.

UPDATE:

Blogs for Terri reports:

Michael Schiavo threw the Schindlers out of Terri's room - trusted source. (I can't post the rest of the message, and am biting my tongue to keep from saying what I really feel)

UPDATE II:

The Associated Press has confirmed Terri's parents and siblings were not allowed to be at Terri's bedside at the time of state-sanctioned death.

Bigoted Supreme Court

2005-03-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

Supreme Court permits Terri's death.

Over thirty years ago the Supreme Court decided the Constitution permitted the taking of life within the womb, and now they have stamped their imprimatur upon the extermination of the disabled. The Supreme Court is unfailing in finding new ways to take life, but cannot spend any time thinking about what it means to protect life.

We have made this bed, and many innocents will continue to be killed in our nation because we pretend we can know what life is worth living.

Again, I recommend Joe Ford's piece.

Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots.

As a nation at one time we were slaveholders, then we discriminated against the descendents of slaves, but now we are more enlightened.

Now we only engage in the "painless extermination of the miserable," be they unwanted infants or the inconvenient.

OK, we don't have the "painless" part down yet, since we crush the skulls of the unwanted infant and for some unexplained reason inject morphine into a vegetable that we are told cannot feel pain.

Do you ever feel that you live in the world of George Orwell's 1984?

After all, we are being told ad nauseum that death by dehydration and starvation is peaceful and beautiful.

I've never found Auschwitz peaceful or beautiful.

No Surprise

2005-03-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

11th Circuit confirms Terri's Death Sentence.

Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review Online suggests:

Check out this concurrence by Bush I appointee Stanley Birch, which declares the congressional act trying to save Terri Schiavo's life to be unconstitutional. Some of the rhetoric about congressional intemperance seems to me to be intemperate itself (as well as self-glorifying).

A single judge can decide the facts which order the death of an innocent in America.

The shining light on the hill just got a great deal darker.

UPDATE:

And Jesse Jackson swings and misses as well.

UPDATE II:

Captain Ed is miffed by the judicial arrogance as well:

Talk about judicial arrogance! Not only did the Eleventh Circuit openly disregard the law written by Congress, this justice arrogantly tells the other equal branches that the only branch guaranteeing a free people is the one not accountable to the will of the electorate. Bear in mind that none of the courts that reviewed this case after the passage of the emergency legislation found it unconstitutional; that at least would have put the court on record. Instead, the judiciary simply and contemptuously disregarded a law which to this moment remains legal and valid.

If Birch thinks that this law constitutes such a serious threat to the Republic, then the court should have ruled it unconstitutional. However, that would have meant a hearing on its merits, which the 11th Circuit cravenly refused to provide. Birch instead reacted in keeping with the hyperinflated notion of the judiciary in modern times as a superlegislature with veto power over actions taken by the other two branches without any due process whatsoever.

Birch's comment demonstrates that this out-of-control judiciary constitutes the main threat to the Founding Fathers' blueprint. They have set themselves up as a star chamber, an unelected group of secular mullahs determining which laws they choose to observe and which they choose to ignore. The arrogance of this written opinion will resonate through all nominations to the federal court over the next several years. It will motivate us to ensure that judges nominated will start respecting the power of the people's representatives to write and enact laws, and the duty of the judiciary to follow them or to specify their unconstitutional nature in the explicit text of the Constitution itself.

In the meantime, perhaps the Senate may want to read this opinion closely and discuss impeaching Justice Birch for his inability to apply the laws of Congress as required. This statement should provide all the proof necessary.

CodeBlueBlog Challenge

2005-03-30T00:03:00.000-08:00

Award-winning medical CodeBlueBlog is getting tired, "Real Tired," of people playing neurologist and bioethicist for the media.

[H]ave you had enough of bioethicists for a while? Why is it they all have the same opinion and they all start out their spiels by saying "this is a tragic case for everyone involved..."

The Doctor is putting his money where his mouth is:

To prove my point I am offering $100,000 on a $25,000 wager for ANY neurologist (and $125,000 for any neurologist/bioethicist) involved in Terri Schiavo's case--including all the neurologists reviewed on television and in the newspapers who can accurately single out PVS patients from functioning patients with better than 60% accuracy on CT scans.

I will provide 100 single cuts from 100 different patient's brain CT's. All the neurologist has to do is say which ones represent patients with PVS and which do not.

If the neurologist can be right 6 out of 10 times he wins the $100,000.

Will anyone take the challenge?

Are neurologists experts at CT interpretation?

In a word, No:

Then there's the infamous Dr. Ronald Cranford, who has the double-whammy credentials of neurologist AND bioethicist (have you had enough of bioethicists for a while? Why is it they all have the same opinion and they all start out their spiels by saying "this is a tragic case for everyone involved...") who also defined Terri's CT of the brain as being as bad as he's seen.

So What Have You Seen?

I've watched a steady stream of neurologists, bioethicists, and neurologist/bioethicists from Columbia, Cornell, and NYU interviewed all week on Fox and CNN and MSNBC. They all said about the same thing, that Terri's CT scan was "the worst they'd ever seen"or "as bad as they've ever seen."

Here's the problem with these experts: THEY DON'T INTERPRET CT SCANS OF THE BRAIN. RADIOLOGISTS DO.

*Oh*

You see, a neurologist will look at the CT of the brain of one of his patients, but this is entirely different from interpreting CT's of the brain de novo, for a living, every day, without knowing the diagnosis and most times without a good history. In addition, whereas I heard Dr. Crandon say he's "seen" a thousand brain CT's... well I've interpreted over 10,000 brain CT's. There's a big difference.

When I look at a CT of the brain every case is a new mystery about a patient Idon't know. I must look at the images, come to a conclusion, dictate my findings and report a conclusion. This becomes a part of the official legal record for which I am liable. I bill Medicare for a CT interpretation and am paid for this service.

Neurologists do not do this. They don't go on the record, alone, in written legal documents stating their impressions about CT's of the brain. The neurologist doesn't get sued for making a mistake on an opinion of a CT of the brain THE RADIOLOGIST DOES.

An observation born of experience:

I have seen several neurologists -- in the printed media and on television -- put up a Representative CT of the brain of a normal 25 year old female and contrast this with Terri Schiavo's CT. This is a totally spurious comparison. No one is disputing that Terri Schiavo does not have the CT of a 25 year old female.

What I'm saying is that Terri Schiavo's CT could be the brain of an eighty or ninety year old person who is not in a vegetative state. THOSE are the CT scans we should be showing next to Schiavo's, because in THAT case you would see similar atrophy and a brain much closer to Schiavo's.

This is a must read medical blog.

Pro-Life on the Left

2005-03-29T23:43:00.000-08:00

Tom Maguire has a round up of known liberals speaking out on behalf of Terri.

This is great news.

Nat Hentoff of the Villiage Voice has been pro-life for years, and his passion hasn't waned.

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

Next, Liberals For Terri discuss the award-winning medical CodeBlueBlog question: IS THIS REALLY TERRI'S CT?

Blogs for Terri has been doing a great job in making the fight for Terri's life non-partisan.

Must See Video!

2005-03-29T23:12:00.000-08:00

This is incredible.

Anyone who sees this cannot pretend Terri is in a Persistent Vegetative State (and more evidence that Greer is unfit to hear this case).

Obviously, the video was taken before her forced starvation and dehydration.

Please spread the word and see other videos at Blogs for Terri.

Cruel Joke or Miracle in the Making?

2005-03-29T22:59:00.000-08:00

Kathryn at NRO asks:

Is this some kind of cruel joke? On the 13th day of her starvation and dehydration?

More here and at Blogs for Terri.

Pope May Need Feeding Tube

2005-03-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

Thankfully he doesn't live in Florida.

Confused

2005-03-29T22:14:00.000-08:00

Why is it that now even National Geographic is telling us that Terri cannot feel pain if she is in a Persistent Vegetative State (aka PVS), and yet she is being administered morphine?

And get these whoppers in the last two paragraphs of the National Geographic article:

According to Bernat, hospice nurses and doctors say that terminally ill, dying patients who do not eat or drink do not suffer. "They are given mouth care—moistening of dry mouth—and sometimes medications if they are restless. But they usually die very peacefully," he said.

Despite the general consensus that people in a persistent vegetative state feel no bodily pain, Schiavo's caregivers at Woodside Hospice recently began administering the painkiller morphine to her. "Since some relatives claim she is not in PVS, this practice reassures them she will not suffer," Bernat said.

First, how many times do we need to scream from the rooftops that Terri is not terminally ill?

The ignorant reporting on Terri continues to bewilder.

Second, the last paragraph implies that Woodside recently decided to start the administration of morphine when, in fact, an Exit Protocol has existed since at least 2003.

What is wrong with my thinking:

If she is PVS, she cannot feel pain.

And yet, she is being given morphine.

The contradiction might imply that she is not in a PVS and hence being killed by the actions of Michael Schiavo and the State of Florida.

The National Geographic had better stick to pictures of elephants in Africa. Anything else is clearly beyond their ability to be accurate.

UPDATE:

Will an autopsy tell us if she is feeling pain?

More on Morphine

2005-03-29T12:53:00.000-08:00

More folks are beginning to ask the obvious question I (and others) noted earlier:

Why does Terri Schiavo need morphine -- she's a vegetable, right?

Well, No.

Ramesh Ponnuru points to observations and questions being asked at Liberty Files.

Morphine has only palliative value. It can only relieve pain and add comfort. But why on earth would a brain-dead person whose expedition towards the hereafter is described by Felos as "very peaceful. She looked calm..." require relief of pain? They claimed earlier that her alleged persistent vegetative state and alleged absence of cerebral activity precluded any experience of pain.

. . . [W]hat is one to make of Felos' claims that Terri is exhibiting "light moaning and facial grimacing and tensing of arms," which was the reason the morphine was administered? A response to the pain and suffering of starvation? Or yet another flippantly dismissed "involuntary reflex action"? But then why administer the morphine?

Whatever we make of this development, it cannot in the least be interpreted to be in any way consistent with any of the diagnostic statements made by the Schiavos. And so it seems that Terri's life and death have become a painful means to wicked, self-serving ends for these men. To Michael Schiavo it was a means to a financial end (the settlement cash) which he could not have touched had he simply divorced Terri. And to Felos, a right to death advocate, she may simply be one of the eggs you have to break to make an omelet.

The more I read about Felos, the more I see him as "a shill for the creepy right to die movement."

UPDATE:

Folks are asking questions about Greer and how he was assigned the case, etc.

I also do not see a conspiracy regarding Greer's assignment, but I do see Felos tragically cleaning the Schindler's clock in the courtroom.

Contrary Views

2005-03-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

United Methodist pastor Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping has a rational view of the Schiavo perspective.

I simply do not have his faith in our Judicial System, but I do appreciate his rational discussion (even if he does try to steal a base in his description of us "err on the side of life" folks).

Professor Bainbridge notes that we cannot compare the Federal intervention in the Civil Rights era to the Schiavo case since the Executive was enforcing court orders in the 50's and 60's, not proposing to ignore them as would be the case for Jeb or W.

Which, in the end, simply proves Joe Ford's contention that we are bigots against the cognitively disabled, else Jeb or W could have moved to rescue Terri.

Will we ever have a Disabled Rights era?

Felos: Fool, Fanatic or Fiend?

2005-03-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

James Taranto's Opinion Journal Best of the Web today suggests perhaps a mix of all three.

Possibly the creepiest moment in the Terri Schiavo saga came Saturday afternoon, when George Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, appeared at a press conference without his client. Felos described having visited Mrs. Schiavo, who at that point had gone eight days without food and water. "Frankly when I saw her . . . she looked beautiful," Felos told the assembled reporters. "In all the years I've seen Mrs. Schiavo, I've never seen such a look of peace and beauty upon her."

OK, we understand "peace": She's not suffering, she would have wanted to die, etc.--of course Felos is going to make that argument. But beauty? Felos is aestheticizing this poor woman's death, after having helped bring it about? That's just weird.

It turns out that Felos's weirdness goes deeper still. In a 2003 article, Florida Baptist Witness editor James Smith looked at Felos's 2002 book, "Litigation as Spiritual Practice." Felos's views on the "right to die" are informed by a "syncretistic" spirituality that "mixes diverse religious traditions--including generous citations from the Bible and references to Jesus Christ--creating a composite of his own spiritual worldview."

Smith quotes at length a story from Felos's book about Estelle Browning, the subject of Felos's first right-to-die case:

As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began to feel light-headed as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I could drift into sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened awareness.

As Mrs. Browning lay motionless before my gaze, I suddenly heard a loud, deep moan and scream and wondered if the nursing home personnel heard it and would respond to the unfortunate resident. In the next moment, as this cry of pain and torment continued, I realized it was Mrs. Browning.

I felt the mid-section of my body open and noticed a strange quality to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she screamed I heard her say, in confusion, "Why am I still here . . . Why am I here?" My soul touched hers and in some way I communicated that she was still locked in her body. I promised I would do everything in my power to gain the release her soul cried for. With that the screaming immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my head again, the room resumed its normal appearance, and Mrs. Browning, as she had throughout this experience, lay silent.

And this guy has never lost any court case involving Terri's life.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

UPDATE:

Patterico has thoughts as well.

Disabled Bigotry

2005-03-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

My heart aches more for Terri, her family and our nation after reading this article written by Harvard student Joe Ford who happens to have severe cerebral palsy.

Many of the right-to-die crowd do not understand (or do not care, and against these people we must be consistently vigilant) that their beliefs have intellectual roots in Nazi Germany (even if they comfort themselves with Orwellian language).

“Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”

—a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

Joe Ford speaks plainly, and we all must ask ourselves if he speaks truthfully.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

Our country has learned that we cannot judge people on the basis of minority status, but for some reason we have not erased our prejudice against disability. One insidious form of this bias is to distinguish cognitively disabled persons from persons whose disabilities are “just” physical. Cognitively disabled people are shown a manifest lack of respect in daily life, as well. . . .

The result of this disrespect is the devaluation of lives of people like Terri Schiavo. In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she—ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one—“would not want to live like this.” In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might “get better”—that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called “mental retardation”) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

Essentially, then, we have arrived at the point where we starve people to death because he or she cannot communicate their experiences to us. What is this but sheer egotism? Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, this is obviously an attempt to play God.

Not Dead Yet, an organization of persons with disabilities who oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, maintains that the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo will put the lives of thousands of severely disabled children and adults at risk. . . . Not Dead Yet exposes important biases in the “right to die” movement, including the fact that as early as 1988, Jack Kevorkian advertised his intention of performing medical experimentation (“hitherto conducted on rats”) on living children with spina bifida, at the same time harvesting their organs for reuse.

Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

As Schiavo starves to death, we are entering a world last encountered in Nazi Europe. Prior to the genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and Poles, the Nazis engaged in the mass murder of disabled children and adults, many of whom were taken from their families under the guise of receiving treatment for their disabling conditions. The Nazis believed that killing was the highest form of treatment for disability.

As the opening quote suggests, Nazi doctors believed, or claimed to believe, they were performing humanitarian acts. Doctors were trained to believe that curing society required the elimination of individual patients. This sick twisting of medical ethics led to a sense of fulfillment of duty experienced by Nazi doctors, leading them to a conviction that they were relieving suffering. Not Dead Yet has uncovered the same perverse sense of duty in members of the Hemlock Society, now called End-of-Life Choices. (In 1997, the executive director of the Hemlock Society suggested that judicial review be used regularly “when it is necessary to hasten the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a suffering, severely disabled spouse or a child.” This illustrates that the “right to die” movement favors the imposition of death sentences on disabled people by means of the judicial branch.)

"Favors the imposition of death sentences on disabled people by means of the judicial branch."

Joe Ford concludes by referring to Terri's "Exit Protocol".

In the midst of her starvation, Terri will most likely be treated for “pain or discomfort” and nausea which may arise as the result of the supposedly humane process of bringing about her death. (Remember that Schiavo is not terminally ill.) She may be given morphine for respiratory distress and may experience seizures. This protocol confirms what we have learned from famines and death camps: death by starvation is a horrible death.

This apparently is what it means to have “rights” as a disabled person in America today.

Hat Tip: PowerLine.

I will support Blogs for Terri and Not Dead Yet in their efforts to change the law and provide protection for the defenseless.

Morphine? I Thought She Is a Vegetable.

2005-03-28T02:29:00.000-08:00

Incredible:

Under normal circumstances, considering how well hydrated and nourished Terri has been due to receiving the balanced nutritional elements in enteral feedings, it would seem reasonable for Terri to live for another week, or so. However, what was reported by her family tonight, has presented my worst fears. Terri's breathing has changed and has recently become very labored. I am assuming this is happening so quickly because of the possible initiation of Woodside's "exit protocol." A protocol which delivers to her nebulized morphine, a narcotic which suppresses respirations. The "exit protocol" was obviously written to enhance her death process. Woodside claims morphine was to be administered to provide her with so-called "comfort" measures. Odd, however, they would find it necessary to administer morphine to a patient who [Michael] Schiavo and [George] Felos have declared all along has no pain, is without any feelings, and is "brain dead."

Hat Tip: Winterr's words via Blogs for Terri where I also found this devastating question:

How can any civilized country allow a judge to prohibit oral feeding????

I simply do not know.

Daughter

2005-03-28T02:17:00.000-08:00

Susan Konig writes:

When I saw The Passion of the Christ, the moment that affected me the most was Mary trying to get to Jesus as he labored under the cross through the streets of Jerusalem. A disciple led her through the back streets past the crowds to her son and the whole time I'm thinking, what will she say when she gets to him? What could anyone say to someone who is suffering so much, who is so seemingly without hope? When she finally reaches him she says the perfect thing — the words any child wants to hear from his mother, "I'm here." . . .

I've been thinking about this a lot lately — I'm writing this on Good Friday. Watching Terri Schiavo's tragedy unfold in front of the world, I think of the videotape where her mom moves her daughter's head to be able to look into her face and suddenly Terri's eyes brighten and she seems to smile. Her mother, Mary Schindler, is there saying, "I'm here."

What else is a mother to do? . . .

Her parents . . . have no such barriers to their interest in their daughter's well being. And they have not been visiting an unconscious person all these years. They have interacted with the disabled person their daughter has become. Being able to touch her, to nurture her, and to get a smile or a sound from her seems to have been enough for the woman and her mom and dad.

Your child is always your child. And the thing that a parent can do for a child as long as they live is to always be able to tell them, "I'm here."

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:

Terri allowed communion. If she had not been, would federal marshalls have intervened?

The Law is a Ass

2005-03-28T01:02:00.000-08:00

So says Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.

Jack Dunphy discusses common sense in his National Review Online piece.

If Terri Schiavo were able, she would go to the nearest telephone, dial 9-1-1, and tell the operator that people are trying to kill her. Police officers would respond, and they would take whatever action was necessary, up to and including laying down their own lives, to ensure that no harm came to this innocent, defenseless woman. If the perpetrators were identified, they would be arrested and prosecuted, perhaps to receive very lengthy sentences in prison. She cannot make that phone call, of course, but those who love her have made it for her, crying out to any and all who might have the authority to stand in the path of what now appears inevitable: the very public starvation and death of Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo.

How on earth can this be? . . .

The details of the case have been exhaustively reported here on NRO and elsewhere, but Ms. Schiavo's fate can be traced through a nearly impenetrable cloud of legal rulings, page upon page of citations and references and footnotes, all of it laced with words like movant and respondent and all the other esoteric terms that seem to flow so freely from the lips and pens of lawyers and judges. It is this specialized language that allows those employed in the law to imagine themselves superior to the rest of us, the unwashed of the lower orders, to whom such language is foreign. And it is this language that the various lawyers and judges will hide behind when Terri Schiavo dies, when all their writs and motions and petitions have flown from office to office and courthouse to courthouse before floating down and congealing into a massive pile of recyclable rubbish.

We have certainly bumbled our way into this nightmare -- a nightmare created not by common sense, but tactically by the inaction of those who could have exposed and halted Terri's torture by enforcing Congressional subpoenas, and strategically by those who have acquiesced in the rise of the Imperial Judiciary and the devaluation of marriage.

Regarding the tactical errors, I strongly support turning the heat up on Congressional leaders who did nothing to enforce their subpoenas (so if I ever get one, I too can thumb my nose at the House and Senate, right?).

Elk Saved from Starvation

2005-03-26T08:21:00.000-08:00

And yet the the United States of America starves an innocent woman.

If only she were an elk:

After consulting with acting [Division of Wildlife Resources] director Miles Moretti, the five living bulls were shot to avoid a slow death from starvation.

We have not even begun to comprehend the path we have chosen.

(Thanks to National Review Online's Kathryn Lopez.)

Court Making Sausage, er, Law

2005-03-24T03:48:00.000-08:00

The Florida Supreme Court and feeding tubes.

Let's take a step back. Statutes are one form of law in Florida, but there is another form of law that's higher: the Florida Constitution. In 1980, Florida's citizens amended Florida's constitution to add a right of privacy to Floridians' fundamental rights. The Florida Supreme Court addressed this right in the 1990 case In re Browning. Florida's high court determined that the constitutional right of privacy includes the right to decline any medical treatment, including the use of a feeding tube. The court said:

Courts overwhelmingly have held that a person may refuse or remove artificial life-support, whether supplying oxygen by a mechanical respirator or supplying food and water through a feeding tube. We agree and find no significant legal distinction between these artificial means of life-support.

Questions

2005-03-24T02:49:00.000-08:00

I'll lead with my wife's question:

Terri had a stroke, and her husband who claims she didn' t want to live that way, sues the doctor for malpractice (he kept her alive for all of this). He gets a lot of money to get her rehabilitated, never uses a cent to do the rehabilitation, then he sues to pull her tube. I can' t figure out how a judge makes any sense of all this.

Obviously a rhetorical question since it is emminently unanswerable when you try to reconcile with Greer's rulings.

A Michelle Malkin reader asks:

If left to fend for themselves, advanced stage Alzheimers patients will starve just like Terri S. Is that an acceptable course, if the husband says so now?

I would also add a longer list of people with conditions ranging from cerebral palsy to autism to chronic pseudo-obstruction, i.e. anyone who does not meet someone else's quality of life definition, anyone who requires enteral or parenteral nutrition, etc. Where does it end?

Patterico asks:

Do you oppose an attempt to feed her liquid, to see if she can swallow it on her own? If so, why?

This by the way, may be the question that provokes Governor Bush to Executive action.

Patterico keeps 'em comin':

What is the difference between providing federal habeas review for Terri Schiavo, and providing it for someone sentenced to death in state court?

A question interesting to those interested in the law -- the comments section is interesting.

Tom Maguire notes the disabled community are asking tough questions (and not getting answers):

To [disabled] people, the case of whether Mrs. Schiavo should be kept alive looks very different. And who better to understand the issue than those whose lives hinge on the same question?

As Rick Brookhiser noted today, the slippery slope argument is definitely in play, and it is "Time to take a stand."

This time Tom Maguire doesn't ask an explicit question, but wonders:

Maybe We Need A "Futile Blogging Law"

He goes after bloggers trying to make political hay over W's signing of The 1999 Advance Directives Act in Texas. Tom notes the open, inclusive process by which the Texas law came about and does ask: "Has that happened in Florida?" Uh no. The courts have defined the rules in Florida. Not an open nor inclusive process by any stretch of the imagination.

CodeBlueBlog asks a medical question (Hat Tip: Blogs for Terri):

Does Terri Schiavo Have Hydrocephalus?

Oh, how the cascading questions can overwhelm.

Next, two questions on the theme of pain simply wrench the heart.

First Blogs for Terri note an NRO Corner item that is an answer to the question: Does Terri feel pain?

Doctor says Terri is Aware and Feels Pain.

Patterico demolishes the insipid Los Angeles Times and their claim that dehydration and starvation bring euphoria.

The L.A. Times has a story today about how much fun it is to be starved and dehydrated to death. I kid you not. The story describes the “characteristic sense of euphoria that accompanies a complete lack of food and water.”

Euphoria.

There is zero mention of the perspective provided by Kate Adamson, who was mistakenly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, had her feeding tube pulled, and lived to tell about it. I told you about Adamson’s experience the other day, in this post. Among other things, she said:

When the feeding tube was turned off for eight days, I was – thought I was going insane. I was screaming out don’t you know I need to eat. . . . [T]he hunger pains overrode every thought I had. . . . It was sheer torture . . .

Where is the question you ask? Simply, does the LA Times really believe the nonsense they are printing on dead trees? Where are the environmentalists when you really need them? I digress. . . .

More Phony Polls

2005-03-24T02:36:00.000-08:00

I was about to comment on the latest polls, but Rick at Stones Cry Out has done the heavy lifting.

Questions 8 and 9 mention "feeding tube" and not "life support," but notice these phrases: Q8: "doctors say brain activity has stopped" and Q9: "in a coma with no brain activity."

Questions 8 and 9 clearly do not describe Terri's condition as she is NOT brain dead. She is severely brain damaged and large portions of her brain have atrophied, but the phrases "brain activity has stopped" and "no brain activity" are not accurate in Terri's case. I suggest that this is important because of the survey's question progression.

Nowhere in the survey is it explained that "persistent vegetative state" does not mean that "brain activity has stopped" or that the patient has "no brain activity." In other words, the questions leading up to the questions specifically about Terri's case seem to be hinting that Terri is brain dead when she clearly is not.

Mischief if you ask me.

Imperial Judiciary

2005-03-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

Both Rush and Laura Ingraham (who clerked for Justice Thomas) have been extraordinary in their support of Terri.

Rush and Laura have been particularly pointed in their challenge to our judiciary, as well as the sophistry being employed by those arguing that it is OK for Terri to be killed

I've expressed my concerns previously. Samples here, here, here and here.

Ken Masugi of The Remedy provides this interesting legal tidbit from a friend:

However, it is clear from the dissent that the All Writs Act gives federal courts power to issue an injunction in an unusual case like this without going into that test. Plus courts have inherent equity power. In addition, the district court judge and the majority on appeal keep invoking the "substantial likelihood" language of their precedents when in fact it is also taken to mean "substantial merit" which obviously is a lower standard.

Note that the original Senate bill included terms requiring the court to issue an injunction, but this was deleted at the insistence of Senator Carl Levin. As enacted the law says "may" issue the injunction.

The dissenting judge, Wilson, also noted the intent of Congress that the case be heard as a new trial, de novo. To effectuate the intent of Congress, and in view of the All Writs Act and its inherent equitable power, the court should grant the injunction.

Also note it was impossible for any of the judges to decide whether the case has substantial merit in such a short time, given the voluminous record.

The majority in the appellate decision make a number of nasty asides against the dissent, and also complain that a new trial would take months or years -- which they have no problem doing with appeals by death row inmates.

Clearly the majority is engaging in willful denial of Congress' intent; their opinion is written in a mean spirited, hair splitting tone....

Greer is simply a symptom of a larger disease infecting our judiciary including our Federal system including the Supreme Court.

Not only do our courts now make laws, but they thumb their nose at their two co-equal branches in Terri's case.

It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court disses both the Legislative and Executive branches.

Unfortunately, I have little doubt they will disappoint me.

UPDATE:

Hugh Hewitt also shares his exasperation here and here.

UPDATE II:

I've yet to be convinced that Greer is corrupt, but I do believe he possesses an arrogant pride unbecoming of a judge.

More Media Lies

2005-03-24T01:22:00.000-08:00

Powerline shows once again why they were names 2004 Blog of the Year by Time.

They broke the Dan Rather Memo Scandal, and now they have once again caught the Legacy Media holding a fake memo.

At least that's what everyone (including me) will say until they can produce the memo which reportedly shows Republicans licking their chops over the political hay to be made by the dehydration and starvation of Terri Schiavo. If someone did write the memo, they should be fired, but ABC needs to prove such a memo exists.

Sorry, but I can't believe a known lying profession until they provide proof.

Catch this nonsense (and hold your nose at the spelling):

the memo discussed a republican bill and was distributed to repulbican senators. That's what we reported. we are obviously not going to divulge our multiple sources. I appeciate your questions, but believe you are approaching this from the wrong end. We asked numerous sources - all confirmed that senators had received the memo in conjunction with one of the bills on the floor. For three days none of those sources has given us any reason to think there is more to the memo than a particularly naked expression of the politics of Shivo case.

As Hindrocket notes:

[T]he network admits that it knows nothing about who authored and distributed the memo.

The arrogant stupidity of these clowns never ceases to amaze.

Blindness

2005-03-24T01:13:00.000-08:00

Can a legally blind judge be effective in the Schiavo case?

It's not clear if Powerline's Hindrocket knows that Greer is legally blind, but he asks an important question:

I think that the biggest reason why so many people have been passionately engaged in the Terri Schiavo case is the video footage that millions have seen. I think pretty much anyone who sees it thinks--she's not dead. Severely disabled, yes. Dead, no. Deliberately starving her would be a terrible thing. That's how I reacted to it, anyway. . . .

There may have been a time in my life when I had more faith in experts and studies than in my own eyes. But that was a long time ago.

It's not clear to me if anyone who can't keep his dates straight would believe his lying eyes.

Nose Stem Cells

2005-03-24T00:57:00.000-08:00

Great news -- stem cell research from Down Under.

Professor Alan Mackay-Sims, deputy director of the Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapy at Griffith University, says he has been studying smell and the unique properties of the cells he found in the nose.

"Essentially cells in the nose are replaced throughout adult life - that lead us to think there would probably be a stem cell up there, and the base of this regenerative process," he said.

He says unlike embryonic stem cells, nose cells could theoretically be harvested throughout someone's life.

"We found cells that could turn into lots of cells that you wouldn't normally find in the nose, like liver or heart or muscle, so these cells apparently have the ability similar to embryonic stem cells to generate other kinds of cells if they're given the right opportunity," he said. . . .

"It's great to think that one could have one's own cells for any kind of cell transplantation therapy.

And here's the really good news -- Australia may be taking the lead in replacing the need for embryonic stem cell research.

Prime Minister John Howard may also take up the study as he prepares to argue the case against embryonic stem cell research when he meets state premiers next week. . . .

The research was partially funded by a $50,000 grant from the Catholic Church's Archdiocese of Sydney.

Sydney Archbishop George Pell has welcomed the findings, saying he will refer the work to the Vatican, as it would appear to provide an alternative to embryonic stem cell research.

Oh yeah, Christians are afraid of science. . . .

Counter Evolution?

2005-03-24T00:25:00.000-08:00

Have researchers at Purdue University found evidence countering the theory of evolution?

Wired reports:

Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when their predecessors carried genetic flaws.

The conclusion by Purdue University molecular biologists contradicts at least some basic rules of plant evolution that were believed to be absolute since the mid-1800s, when Austrian monk Gregor Mendel experimented with peas and saw that traits are passed on from one generation to the next. Mendelian genetics has been the foundation of both crop hybridization and the understanding of basic cell mutations and trait inheritance.

In the Purdue experiment, researchers found that a watercress plant sometimes corrects the genetic code it inherited from its flawed parents and grows normally like its grandparents and other ancestors.

Scientists said the discovery raises questions of whether humans also have the potential for avoiding genetic flaws or even repairing them, although they said the actual proteins responsible for making these fixes probably would be different in plants.

Details of the experiments appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Flash -- Jeb Doing What the Courts Won't

2005-03-23T13:44:00.000-08:00

Blogs for Terri has this update:

he Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, just completed a press conference with Tampa Bay media. He says that the Department of Children and Families, through Adult Protective Services are conducting an investigation of abuse against Terri Schiavo. As part of that, a neurologist by the name of Dr. Cheshire, observed Terri, lengthy videos of her and her case record. He has concluded that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. Rather, he felt she was minimally conscious if not functioning higher.

Needless to say, this is cause for tremendous alarm with Terri not receiving nutrition and hydration in more than 5 days.

There is a 3.45 pm hearing on this matter. Developing...

Why didn't the courts do this?

Prayers are needed.

No Crutches for the Crippled in America Today

2005-03-22T23:43:00.000-08:00

11th Circuit denies food and water to Terri.

Blogs for Terri will have further details as they are received.

Reading the news just after posting this was rather sobering.

For the first time in my idealistic life, I'm ashamed of my country.

Crutches for Crippled Children

2005-03-22T23:39:00.000-08:00

Ignorance reigns, and Charmaine Yoest teaches:

There in the plexiglass display case, in Mesa Verde National Park are two crude crutches from our stone-age past. We spent yesterday exploring the cliff dwellings of pre-historic Pueblo Indians -- they built their homes in the sides of sheer rock walls. They did not have the wheel; they did not have feeding tubes. They had to climb cliffs to get into their homes.

But they did fashion crutches for crippled children.

If you have ever screamed at the TV or Radio when ignorant folks discuss Terri, you are not alone.

Today, a federal judge has declined to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. This is impossible to believe. . . .

[V]ery smart people are getting this issue all wrong. And it revolves around one simple, central point:

It's hyperalimentation, not hyperventilation.

What's "hyperalimentation?" It's food offered through a tube. . . .

There are two ways to do this -- enteral and parenteral feedings, by gut and by intravenous catheter -- a feeding tube into your stomach with pureed food or an IV catheter into your arm with a nutrient admixture. Terri receives food through a simple hose into her stomach.

Here's the key point: food is not medicine.

Yet another Civilization Gut Check:

It must have been quite a burden for the prehistoric cliff dwellers to care for a crippled child. Climbing was an essential part of their lives; and their lives were consumed with survival in a way we cannot imagine except through visiting a dig. They certainly had easy ways to dispose of inconvenient people -- the cliffs loomed.

Yet still, they sat in the dirt and lovingly crafted a crutch.

How is it possible that these pre-historic people were more civilized in this than we?

Easily the best piece I've read today. Read the whole thing and thanks to Kathryn.

What Is Going On II?

2005-03-22T23:11:00.000-08:00

This day has been long for many, but too long for Terri.

While are sclerotic court system counts the angels dancing on pinheads, and while counting, partakes in hydration and nourishment, Terri lies dying.

The more I read of "Judge" Greer and his opinions, the more obvious it is to me that he is a man who should have left the bench long ago.

Patterico discusses a ruling which may likely cost Terri her life. Greer, when required to find "clear and convincing evidence" that Terri wanted to die, dismisses the testimony of a witness because Greer can't keep his dates straight. It would seem that our laws would require the burden of proof to be upon those wanting death, not life. But, our laws do not favor life, at least not seriously since 1973.

Sickening.

It is more sickening to read Greer's paean to Michael Schiavo when reconciled with the affidavits of additional nurses reporting Michael Schiavo withheld medical treatment for Terri.

"I know that Terri did not receive routine physical therapy or any other kind of therapy. I was personally aware of orders for rehabilitation that were not being carried out. Even though they were ordered, Michael would stop them."

And, of course, the Lazy Legacy Media continue to lie and tell us that Terri cannot eat and is on "life support":

"At least three times during any shift where I took care of Terri, I made sure to give Terri a wet washcloth filled with ice chips, to keep her mouth moistened.

"On three or four occasions I personally fed Terri small mouthfuls of Jello, which she was able to swallow and enjoyed immensely. I did not do it more often only because I was so afraid of being caught by Michael."

And there are people pretending to be serious and argue that those arguing that Terri be given food and water are destroying the sanctity of marriage.

What is even more laughable is that the Legacy Media take these people and this argument and Michael Schiavo seriously.

Prayers and Peace

2005-03-22T01:15:00.000-08:00

Prayers for the grieving families in Minnesota.

Mark Roberts was moved almost to tears on today's show as we discussed the Minnesota murders. That's his pastor's heart, grieving for those who grieve. Too few people will be so moved. That's the core of the problem, I think. Too few people really care that human life is being snuffed out left and right.

Hugh also notes:

The judge considering Terri's case has a very heavy burden. Pray for him as well.

And Peace for Terri Schiavo.

Push Polling Your Way to Murder

2005-03-22T01:03:00.000-08:00

Captain Ed takes apart the ABC News Poll which shows 7 in 10 want Terri dead.

[A] look at the questionnaire shows that ABC News completely misrepresented Terri's medical condition, which undoubtedly impacted the responses given. Question 2, which asks the central question, claims that Terri is on life support:

2. Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible. Her husband and her parents disagree about whether she would have wanted to be kept alive. Florida courts have sided with the husband and her feeding tube was removed on Friday.

What’s your opinion on this case - do you support or oppose the decision to remove Schiavo’s feeding tube? Do you support/oppose it strongly or somewhat?

Terri has never been on life support.

As Wizbang! asks:

Once again, the people who want her dead are willing to stretch the truth to kill her. Why? If they were doing the right thing why do they have to lie to defend their actions?

A question for the ages.

Backwards

2005-03-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

For those who enjoy creative writing, James Lileks is a treat.

His Monday Thoughts are a great read (and he will take you "Where No Man Has Gone Before").

His Culture of Life vs Death War visual makes me want to scream, "Hit the brakes -- Now!"

But you never think you have need of any chocks until you're in the truck, and you realize it's rolling down the hill. Backwards.

Intolerable Life

2005-03-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

Killing Terri is the blunt title of an article by another member of The President's Council on Bioethics, James Q. Wilson, The James A. Collins Professor of Management and Public Policy Emeritus at the University of California Los Angeles, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Professor George of Princeton discusses Lives Unworthy of Life while Professor Wilson explores the Intolerable Life theme.

The intolerable life argument has support from many doctors and bioethicists. They claim that a person can be "socially dead" even when their brains can engage in some functions. By "socially dead" they mean that the patient is no longer a person in some sense. At this point their argument gets a bit fuzzy because they must somehow define what is a "person" and a "non-person." That is no easy matter.

Professor Wilson also discusses living wills, and answers a fundamental question I've been wrestling as I prepare a living trust and will.

But scholars have shown that we have greatly exaggerated the benefits of living wills. Studies by University of Michigan Professor Carl Schneider and others have shown that living wills rarely make any difference. People with them are likely to get exactly the same treatment as people without them, possibly because doctors and family members ignore the wills. And ignoring them is often the right thing to do because it is virtually impossible to write a living will that anticipates and makes decisions about all of the many, complicated, and hard to foresee illnesses you may face.

For example, suppose you say that you want the plug pulled if you have advanced Alzheimer's disease. But then it turns out that when you are in this hopeless condition your son or daughter is about to graduate from college. You want to see that event. Or suppose that you anticipate being in Terri Schiavo's condition at a time when all doctors agree that you have no chance of recovering your personhood and so you order the doctors to remove the feeding tubes. But several years later when you enter into a persistent vegetative state, some doctors have come to believe on the basis of new evidence that there is a chance you may recover at least some functions. If you knew that you might well have changed your mind, but after entering into a PVS you can make no decisions. It is not clear we would be doing you a favor by starving you to death. On the contrary, we might well be doing what you might regard as murder.

There is a document that is probably better than a living will, and that is a durable power of attorney that authorizes a person that you know and trust to make end-of-life decisions for you.

Thank you Professor.

Again, read the whole thing and Hat Tip to Kathryn Lopez.

Lives Unworthy of Life

2005-03-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

National Review Online interviews Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.

This is clear thinking at its best.

What we must avoid, always and everywhere, is yielding to the temptation to regard some human lives, or the lives of human beings in certain conditions, as lebensunwerten Lebens, lives unworthy of life. Since the life of every human being has inherent worth and dignity, there is no valid category of lebensunwerten Lebens. Any society that supposes that there is such a category has deeply morally compromised itself. As Leon Kass recently reminded us in a powerful address at the Holocaust Museum, it was supposedly enlightened and progressive German academics and medical people who put their nation on the road to shame more than a decade before the Nazis rose to power by promoting a doctrine of eugenics based precisely on the proposition that the lives of some human beings — such as the severely retarded — are unworthy of life. . . .

In any event, it is clear that the only reason for Michael Schiavo's decision is that he considers Terri's quality of life to be so poor that he wants her to be dead. He claims that she would want that too, which I don't grant, but even if he's right about that, we should treat her like anyone else who wants to commit suicide. We rescue, we care. We affirm the inherent value of the life of every human being. Our governing principle should be always to care, never to kill.

Professor George also provides an enlightening discussion of federalism, one sentence of which sums it up in my mind.

The fact is that, under color of law, Michael Schiavo is seeking to deprive Terri of sustenance because of her disability. Under federal civil-rights statutes, this raises a substantial issue. It cannot be waved away by invoking states' rights.

Read the whole thing.

Failing Western Civ

2005-03-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn reminds us:

But, on reflection, if the Islamists are banal in portraying the next world purely in terms of sensual self-gratification, we're just as reductive in measuring this one the same way. America this Holy Week is following the frenzied efforts to halt the court-enforced starvation of a brain-damaged woman for no reason other than that her continued existence is an inconvenience to her husband. In Britain, two doctors escape prosecution for aborting an otherwise healthy baby with a treatable cleft palate because the authorities are satisfied they acted "in good faith."

Western Civilization Gut Check.

The Netherlands is currently failing (as is America in my opinion):

You can read similar stories in almost any corner of the developed world, except perhaps the Netherlands, where discretionary euthanasia is so advanced it's news if the kid makes it out of the maternity ward. As the New York Times reported the other day: "Babies born into what is certain to be a brief life of grievous suffering should have their lives ended by physicians under strict guidelines, according to two doctors in the Netherlands.

"The doctors, Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J. J. Sauer of the University Medical Center in Groningen, in an essay in today's New England Journal of Medicine, said they had developed guidelines, known as the Groningen protocol."

Ah, the protocols of the elders of science. Odd the way scientists have such little regard for scientific progress. It's highly likely that many birth defects - not just the bilateral cleft lips - will be treatable and correctible in the next decade or two. But once you start weighing the relative values of individual lives, there's no end to it.

Classic Steyn: "Odd the way scientists have such little regard for scientific progress."

Indeed it is.

What Is Going On?

2005-03-21T19:34:00.000-08:00

Andrew McCarthy is rightfully concerned and asks:

But what possible good reason is there for not ending the ongoing starvation and dehydration forthwith?

He explains what is meant by de novo review.

The law passed by congress and signed by the president last night provides that in a lawsuit such as the one Terri’s parents have brought: “the District Court shall determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings. The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted.”

McCarthy also explains why the right thing to do is to protect the innocent during this process.

De novo review regardless of what went on in the state courts should mean it is a brand new ballgame – the federal court owes no deference to any of the matters raised or ruled on in the state courts. Given the voluminous nature of the record generated in Florida, there is no way this case can be decided quickly if it is to be reviewed responsibly. Terri Schiavo would be dead in the time that would take. So, manifestly, the only proper thing for the judge to do was to order the feeding tube replaced forthwith the minute the case was filed. If Terri’s parents lose their case, the tube can always be removed again. But if Terri dies while the judge is spinning his wheels, she and her parents can never be made whole.

So, just what is going on?

What is this Clinton appointee doing -- and has he eaten dinner tonight?

I'll bet he's even had something to drink.

Imagine if this were a death penalty case and a law got passed staying the execution until a new judge could completely review the case. Imagine also that this law had gotten passed while the capital defendant was being walked by jailers to the execution chamber. Does anyone think the authorities would keep walking the defendant to the lethal injection table, strap him in, and begin the execution while waiting for the judge to perform his de novo review?

Of course not – the very first thing that would have happened would have been the immediate return of the capital defendant to the safety of his cell. The status quo would be preserved without prejudice to either side, and with the knowledge that if the judge later ruled against the defendant there would be plenty of time later to walk him back to the death chamber and get on with the execution.

Why is this hard? You can argue about how the judge’s de novo review should be decided. But what possible good reason is there for not ending the ongoing starvation and dehydration forthwith?

I have no idea.

America is learning a very important civics lesson.

Will we (and our representatives) pass the test? Or will we continue to hand more and more power to fewer and fewer people -- the courts?

How to Defeat a Home-Schooler

2005-03-21T03:08:00.000-08:00

Don't allow them to compete against you.

La Shawn is miffed.

Home-schoolers are making government school kids look so dumb that officials have surreptitiously changed the rules so home-schoolers won’t be eligible to compete.

From The Union Leader:

Prior to this year, the Savages said, it was possible for home-schoolers to take part by competing in local competitions held at schools, an option denied to public school students attending a school not hosting a local bee. This year, though, the rule was changed so that home-schoolers could only compete through contests which home-school associations had set up. . . .

"We're trying to reach out to all different groups to make sure the kids can take part," Elden said.

"Reach Out" and disqualify someone -- especially those pesky home-schooled kids who keep winning.

What petty bureaucrat stayed up all night to think of this?

Incredible.

Only Judges Can Decide?

2005-03-21T02:18:00.000-08:00

Michelle Malkin has posted her Monday early morning Terri updates.

Ugh:

Yet again, Schiavo's fate now rests in the hands of a judge. It is not known when the judge will rule . . . .

I've stated my misgivings on this Judges Only strategy as well.

I prefer the more robust approach.

Michelle also links to Liberals for Terri -- a site with a bite.

A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

"Why are all of the links on this page for right-wing websites?"

Exactly. That's what I've been asking myself for month. Why isn't there anyone out there except LCM willing to stick up for the Schindler family or give a hoot about the incriminating behavior and medical and legal fraud committed here? It's mystifying.

UPDATE:

La Shawn notes the continued Hope as well.

From The White House

2005-03-21T01:26:00.000-08:00

Statement by The President:

Today, I signed into law a bill that will allow Federal courts to hear a claim by or on behalf of Terri Schiavo for violation of her rights relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. This presumption is especially critical for those like Terri Schiavo who live at the mercy of others. I appreciate the bipartisan action by the Members of Congress to pass this bill. I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.

Will it all be in time?

Prayers of Wisdom for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

NY Times Flips and Endorses Torture

2005-03-21T01:15:00.000-08:00

OK, so it's my headline, but keeping up with The New York Times these days is a bit of work, but Tom Maguire of Just One Minute is keeping score.

Thank heaven for experts! Well, as various states rule out specific methods of execution for capital crimes on the basis that it is cruel and unusual, it is good to know that we can always fall back on "death by dehydration", with the endorsement of the NY Times.

And remember, the next time you overhear someone saying "I'm dying of thirst", just answer, "Yeah, ain't it great!"

Drudge [and Family Research Council have] Audio

2005-03-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

Of Terri from Friday, March 18, the day the starvation started.

UPDATE:

DRUDGE RADIO to present audio of Terri Schiavo responding to her father on Friday, immediately following the removal of her feeding tube.... Check local listings...

UPDATE II:

Family Research Council has posted the audio

UPDATE III:

Updated sources of the audio at Blogs for Terri.

The Intelligence of the Radical Left

2005-03-20T18:48:00.000-08:00

Another brilliant supporter of the Radical Left leaves a comment regarding this Sierra Faith post (WARNING: Not for little eyes).

What can one say in light of such overwhelming intellect?

I love how the kooky kristians have their panties in a knot over terri s. you guys are funnier than the sunday comics. you don't give a rat's ass about iraqis being murdered, marines being maimed. but you are horrified at letting a woman who has effectively been dead for fifteen years die.

earth to kristians: mary was a wh---. jesus was a b-----d. get the f--- over it.

Just What is Torture?

2005-03-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

National Review Online's Andrew McCarthy asks more obvious questions.

After the feeding tube that sustains Terri Schiavo was removed on Friday afternoon, National Review's John Miller asked a question (on NRO's weblog, The Corner) which was penetrating in its trenchant simplicity: "If somebody put a pistol to [Terri] Schiavo's head and pulled the trigger — you know, to give the "dying process" a little nudge — would the shooter be guilty of murder under Florida law?" Well, given that we've had no small amount of propaganda from right-to-die activists about the purported humaneness of letting Terri wither and die, why doesn't someone just shoot her — or at least administer the procedure employed to execute in capital cases. It would, after all, be quicker and thus more humane, right?

It is not being done because its crude blatancy would too obviously spotlight that what's happening here is cold-blooded murder. Terri is not a person who is brain dead or a corpse being sustained by artificial means. She is alive and merely needs nutrition, like any child or incapacitated adult needs food and water. She will not be dead unless someone actually takes action to kill her. . . .

The starvation and dehydration process will cause Terri extreme, sustained physical and perhaps even mental suffering. Throughout the months of Abu Ghraib fanfare, the mainstream media, the American Civil Liberties Union, and some congressional Democrats — while contending that a Justice Department memorandum had shamed the United States by purportedly authorizing the use of torture against terrorists — repeatedly reminded us that the legal definition of torture, at least under federal law, is "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control." (18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340(1).)

That is plainly what Michael Schiavo and his helpers are committing. They have her in their custody, they are preventing anyone from providing her assistance, and though she is alive and in their care, they are denying her nutrition, which will gradually cause her immense discomfort and distress. They will putter, naturally, that it's not their intention to inflict pain but to effectuate Terri's purported "choice" to kill herself. But even if we accept this claim at face value, it speaks to motive not intent.

Legally, the two are critically different. The bank robber doesn't get out from under by claiming: "I needed the money to pay for mom's surgery." His crime is intentionally stealing the money from the bank — that he purports to have had a noble reason for the robbery is irrelevant to the issue of whether he is guilty of the robbery. Similarly, people who withhold needed nutrition knowing it will cause severe pain and eventual death obviously intend the consequences of their actions. It is not a defense to a charge of torture or murder to say the victim would have wanted it that way — even in the highly unlikely event that the victim really would have wanted it that way.

Federal torture laws apply only outside the U.S. Domestic torture is generally a state matter. Not surprisingly, Florida has an anti-torture law — not to mention murder and murder-conspiracy laws — directly applicable to Terri's situation. And it is much more expansive than the federal provision. . . .

If a federal judge told the CIA: You should feel to starve and dehydrate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed until he tells you everything he knows about the 9/11 plot, would anyone contend that that was a lawful order? Would anyone claim that the judge had the authority to override U.S. anti-torture laws? Of course not — the streets would be rife with angry protesters and the editorial pages with stinging condemnation. So why are we acting as if we must simply abide a similar order from a state judge in Florida that has no purpose other than to cause enduring pain and eventual death? . . .

It is time to ask: What is the legal rationale for the judicial allowance of torture in Terri Schiavo's case? If there isn't one: (a) Why is it happening, and (b) Why isn't someone in handcuffs?

Read the whole thing -- it has more punch than my shortened version above, but you get the feel of the question: Just what is going on?

LA Times Supports Polygamy Too

2005-03-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Who Knew?!

Stephen Brainbridge exposes advocacy masquerading as reporting.

The LA Times ran three articles on Terry Schiavo this morning. (One, two, three.) (And I'm not even counting the related one that basically asked why the Pope won't hurry up and die.) Almost all of them quoted Michael Schiavo complaining that his rights were being abused. Not one, however, mentioned Michael's conflicts of interest - wanting to get remarried, wanting to collect on Terry's life insurance, and so on. So much for objective reporting.

UPDATE:

Marianne corrects me on the laws of Florida (and see the link on the history and consequences of why Michael Schiavo is not a bigamist in the eyes of the law).

Exit Protocol

2005-03-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

Father Johansen wrote this great piece on what can and should be done for Terri.

Now, he has provided the details of dehydration and starvation that Terri is experiencing now.

This is difficult reading:

In her research, Ms. Ford found a document titled "Exit Protocol" in Terri's file. The document is on Hospice of the Florida Suncoast "Patient Care Notes" stationery, and is dated April 19, 2001. This document lays out, in clinical detail, the procedures to be followed in bringing about Terri's death by starvation and dehydration.

. . . Upon discontinuation of enteral feeding the following signs/symptoms may or may not occur. The following is a brief list of symptoms for which to monitor and recommended interventions. . . .

3. Monitor symptoms of pain/discomfort. If noted, medicate with Naproxen rectal suppository 375 mg Q8* prn.

Wait a minute! George Felos, Michael Schiavo, and all the other advocates of feeding-tube removal have been saying repeatedly that dying by denial of nutrition & hydration is "peaceful" and "painless". They've both said so in interviews and press conferences, such as on Larry King Live. So if dying by denial of nutrition and hydration is, as Michael said, "painless and probably the most natural way to die", then why is medication needed for pain and discomfort?

Hat Tip: National Review Online's The Corner.

UPDATE:

Another source.

Schiavo Sources

2005-03-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

For those trying to capture context with the flurry of news surrounding Terri Schiavo, there are many good sources, but I'll recommend two.

Blogs for Terri is an excellent resource for on the ground reporting and context and reaction to events both at the hospice (this is a must read) as well as in the Legacy Media, both print and electronic.

National Review Online's The Corner. Kathryn Lopez has been providing outstanding and appropriately passionate updates on the machinations in Washington, DC. Her discussions and updates have drawn in the incomparable Mark Levin regarding such topics as Federalism and the squealing presently coming from the Radical Left on this case. This is a great source for real-time civics. You'll learn a great deal.

Classic Levin:

The idiocy of the Left with their phony federalism arguments cannot be overstated. It underscores how completely devoid of arguments they are to support government-ordered starvation. And Ramesh is exactly right on another score, i.e., the issue of death (or life) is already a federal matter, as highlighted by the Left's favorite institution -- the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Did the New York Times reverse course today and argue that Roe usurped state authority? Not the last time I checked. The Florida legislature and governor attempted to resolve this some time ago. The Florida Supreme Court stopped them. As I see it, Congress is coming to the aid of state elected officials. Moreover, Congress can and should say that the federal constitutional issue here is the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and it need not cite foreign law to prove that government-ordered starvation meets the test. I am, however, unconvinced that federal court jurisdiction, which is what Congress is fighting for, is the answer.

What If

2005-03-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

Terri Schiavo Dies?

Lee Duigon asks:

Before Terri Schiavo dies of starvation and thirst, there are two questions that must be answered.

1. Even if we were to concede, for the sake of argument, that this woman is irreversibly and totally vegetative, what possible objection can there be to her parents assuming custody of her and, at their own expense, taking care of her?

2. Are the members of the United States Congress so faint-hearted, feeble, and foolish that the best they can do is to get another judge involved in this case? . . .

Why should her parents not take care of her? There is simply no reasonable answer to that question.

Congress, meanwhile, has intervened--but only by kicking the case upstairs to a federal judge.

This is shameful. These are the people's elected representatives. From them we want decision, not a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. . . .

After this case, after Terri Schiavo dies according to a judge's fiat, where do we draw the line and tell the judges where to stop? What power, if any, is to be withheld from them?

Read the whole thing -- it's a quick read.

Do I Know My Country?

2005-03-19T23:42:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful night in Tahoe (even with the avalanche howitzer blasting away as I type), and it has been a beautiful day.

Beautiful snow began painting the pines and firs this morning and our granite boulders and manzanita brush remain blanketed.

I had the joy of making a snowman with Carolyn and the family of a former highschool classmate of my wife.

I gave Carolyn a bath, and always most precious, read the Bible to her as she fell asleep. She knows about Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham (Father Abraham, Had Many Sons!), Moses. It is a Joy to have her say their names to complete the sentences being read to her. And, to hear her say "Jesus." . . .

You may wonder about my Terri Schiavo All The Time thoughts recently.

I'm an unabashed idealist. God gave me that gift before I knew the Gift that God gave me in His Son.

I look at history, and I look at evil in history.

I know that God is in control, but that is quite different from doing nothing.

Those who are not Christians and make this argument are not serious people -- if they were, and since they worship reason, they would have to ask why any Christian bothers going to work, going to the grocery or even eating food, after all, God is in control, right? Nonsense.

Similarly, many ask why these Holy Rollers are not protesting the death sentence of Scott Peterson. Again, ignorant people saying ignorant and silly things. There are many Christians who are against the death penalty, and who do protest and work against it. Only silly people would expect someone to be both in Florida and Redwood City, California at the same time (many worship reason, but choose to ignore their god when it proves inconvenient -- a not uncommon fault of man). This is not to say that there are no strong theological arguments for the death penalty. I merely wanted to highlight ignorant silliness.

Here is the rub:

Why are Christians risking loss of liberty and property through arrest to save the life of an innocent Jewish woman?

Because God and His Word come before anything else, and God commands us to protect the innocent.

Why aren't NOW and other supposed women's groups clamoring for the preservation and healing of Terri?

It's pretty simple, they side with a husband's right to kill one of his wives -- the wife of greatest inconvenience. Sure, they'll wrap a nice bow around it and call it "Right-To-Die," but again, they are supporting the uncorroborated claims of a man. They cannot escape that simple (and apparently meaningless to them) fact.

Being Smart and being Wise are not the same.

This is not Smart:

There have been a few arrests. One man from out of state approached the front door of Hospice with Communion for Terri and asked the Hospice personnel to deliver it to her. He was hauled off. Another man, whom I don’t know, crossed the police line in front of Hospice with a symbolic cup of water and chunk of bread. He was hauled off.

However, it is Wise and Right. It sheds light on our society's present priorities.

I don't know my country right now, but I love her. And that is why this is so painful on two levels. First, we are mocking God, and second, we are mocking the deaths of those who have fought to give us the Right To Life.

Did soldiers die in Germany, and are soldiers dying today so a "Judge" can starve a woman in Florida?

To be fair to the "Judge," the "Husband" can stop this senselessness now.

But he will not, and only God (in addition to Michael and his cohorts) knows why.

Polygamy Legal in Florida

2005-03-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

As long as you want to starve one of your two wives.

· Even though Terri’s husband has started a family of his own with another woman and their two children, he refuses to end his marriage to Terri or relinquish her care to her immediate family.

Either there is no such thing as Common Law marriage in Florida, or "Judge" Greer has decided to vanquish Michael's polygamy not by punishing Michael Schiavo, but by starving his first wife.

Why is our Justice System so fundmentally, and unalterably stupid at times?

UPDATE:

Marianne, thanks.

Marianne points out that common law marriage has not been Florida law for probably 10 years.

More on the devaluation of marriage.

Let Her Live

2005-03-19T22:29:00.000-08:00

Or, as I was about to write on Friday, God Before GOP.

Congress heard many voices over the past several weeks. The pleas have reached a crescendo, and Peggy Noonan said what many of us have been thinking.

At the heart of the case at this point is a question: Is Terri Schiavo brain-dead? That is, is remedy, healing, physiologically impossible?

No. Oddly enough anyone who sees the film and tape of her can see that her brain tells her lungs to breathe, that she can open her eyes, that she seems to respond at times and to some degree to her family. She can laugh. (I heard it this morning on the news. It's a childlike chuckle.) . . . She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life . . . .

Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.

But a "Judge" claims she should starve to death.

"Judge" Greer is legally blind. How can he make an informed decision without seeing videotape of Terri Schiavo?

Sorry, I'm just not that Politically Correct to see how he can, and I say this in his defense. If he could see the tapes and still starve her to death, then, well, the man is simply blind in another more important sense, humanity.

And Yes, I've read paeans to "Judge" Greer. One simple question, if this "Judge" would allow acupuncture for someone with a living will, why does he not allow therapy for a woman who does not and shows much greater signs of sentience?

It appears his pride is at stake, and for that reason alone, he should recuse himself. He has decided not to, but the United States House of Representatives and Senate have stepped in to move this to another venue, the Federal courts.

It will be very interesting to see how our Federal courts reconcile Michael's actions with Terri's Civil Rights:

· Terri Schiavo may be the victim of ongoing negligence and injustice. She has been denied therapy and rehabilitation by her guardian since 1991. Florida’s guardianship laws REQUIRE that these necessary services be given to her.

· In 1992, Terri’s husband Michael won $1.7 million in negligence lawsuit under the pretext of funding her rehabilitation and care. He testified, “I believe in the vows that I took with my wife. Through sickness, in health, for richer or poorer. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm going to do that.” Since that time, Terri has received no rehabilitation, all beneficial forms of stimulation (e.g. music) have been prohibited and basic health care, such as treatment for a life threatening urinary tract infection, has been purposefully withheld at Michael’s direction.

· Even though Terri’s husband has started a family of his own with another woman and their two children, he refuses to end his marriage to Terri or relinquish her care to her immediate family.

· Terri’s “collapse” has become controversial after a previously unavailable bone scan surfaced in 2002 which revealed multiple fractures consistent with a traumatic event. To date, no investigation has been conducted to determine the source of Terri’s injuries, but a radiologist gave a sworn statement that the date of those injuries would fall within the period of her mysterious collapse.

· Advancements in the understanding of brain activity and misdiagnosis and the recent recovery of a patient after 20 years in a persistent vegetative state, further calls into question any decision that would end the life of Terri Schiavo.

I pray Terri's case will be heard by Wise judges, not smart judges. Smart judges can write and decide almost anything. What we need at this time is Wisdom.

Again, Peggy Noonan said it best:

So Congress: don't kick it. Let her live. Hard cases make bad law, but let her live. Precedents can begin to cascade, special pleas can become a flood, but let her live. Because she's human, and you're human.

A final note to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You have to pull out all the stops. You have to run over your chairmen if they're being obstructionist for this niggling reason and that. Run over their egos, run past their fatigue. You have to win on this. If you don't, you can't imagine how much you're going to lose. And from people who have faith in you.

Bill Frist and Tom DeLay and Jim Sensenbrenner and Denny Hastert and all the rest would be better off risking looking ridiculous and flying down to Florida, standing outside Terri Schiavo's room and physically restraining the poor harassed staff who may be told soon to remove her feeding tube, than standing by in Washington, helpless and tied in legislative knots, and doing nothing.

Issue whatever subpoena, call whatever witnesses, pass whatever emergency bill, but don't let this woman die.

They've taken an important step. Will they take all the necessary legal steps to beat back the insidious and odious Culture of Death?

Pray for Wisdom and Courage for all in positions of leadership.

And pray for the hearts of your fellow countrymen.

Much Remains to be Done

2005-03-19T18:36:00.000-08:00

As you may now know, the House and Senate have reached a compromise on restoring Terri Schiavo's hydration and nutrition.

Near the end of this AP article was this troubling paragraph:

GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the measure was "narrowly targeted" and did not set a precedent.

And why not set a precedent? Although a shameful compromise (and compromise is the definition of politics), it is a significant victory in a crucial battle in the larger Culture War.

Terri's case is very different from those who sign living wills and do not desire heroic treatment in terminal cases.

Only an uncorroborated claim by her estranged husband has forced her into living without therapy that has been life-changing to so many people. He can certainly no longer claim she still wants to die.

The evidence that she wants to live is far greater than anything her husband has explained.

This stopgap is important, but much remains to be done to further the Culture of Life. Obviously, Congress needs to address the absurdity that many like Terri do not have the protection afforded a terrorist.

But in the end, as Christians know, and as W has said before, only "changing hearts will change our entire society."

We have fought too many wars and spilled significant blood to ensure that the state would never kill the unwanted.

Now is not the time, as our friends on The Left are wont to exclaim, to turn back the clock.

Wonderful Thing, a Subpoena

2005-03-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Subpoenas have been issued.

PRESS RELEASE:

Press Release, MARCH 18, 2005, 11:45 AM

THE HOSPICE HAS JUST NOW BEEN SERVED WITH FEDERAL SUBPOENAS ASKING THEM TO NOT REMOVE FOOD AND FLUIDS FROM TERRI SCHINDLER - SCHIAVO.

A LETTER FROM CONGRESS HAS ALSO BEEN ISSUED TO BOTH MICHAEL AND TERRI FOR THEM BOTH TO APPEAR ON MARCH 28, 2005 AT 10:00 AM FOR AN INVESTIGATION TO TAKE PLACE INTO NON-AMBULATORY CARE.

Captain Ed is all over this. Wonderful Thing, a subpoena.

[David Gibbs, attorney for Terri's parents] said that despite her brain damage, she would be able to travel. A statement from the office of [Senate] Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on Friday said the purpose of the hearing was to review health care policies and practices relevant to the care of non-ambulatory people.

Frist's statement noted that it is a federal crime to harm or obstruct a person called to testify before Congress.

Things are moving mighty fast today.

Prayers and phone calls are needed.

We Treat Terrorists Better than Terri

2005-03-18T07:58:00.000-08:00

The world is upside down.

National Review Online has been providing outstanding moral calibration pieces on Terri Schiavo.

Yesterday I mentioned Father Johansen's stunning revelations from a host of neurologists including the showstopping quote from Boston University's Dr. Peter Morin. Upon learning what has not been done for Terri, he paused and said simply, "That's criminal."

Andrew McCarthy has followed up with a piece comparing the treatment of Terri to our treatment of terrorists.

He has argued (as well as leading liberals) that there are extreme cases where torture may be justified.

However, that is not the point of his article yesterday, but rather, he simply notes that when he made such an argument, a legion of those on The Left chastised him.

Now he notes that that same legion of torture-haters are nowhere to be found:

As one might predict with such a third rail, my mail was copious and indignant. Opening the door by even a sliver for torture, I was admonished, was the most reprehensible of slippery slopes. No matter how well-intentioned was the idea, no matter the lives that might be saved, no matter how certain we might be about the guilt of the detainee, the very thought that such a thing might be legal would render us no better than the savages we were fighting.

Well, lo and behold, a court-ordered torture is set to begin in Florida on Friday at 1 P.M.

It will not produce a scintilla of socially useful information. It will not save a single innocent life. It is not narrowly targeted on a morally culpable person — the torture-victim is herself as innocent as she is defenseless. It is not, moreover, meant to be brief and non-lethal: The torture will take about two excruciating weeks, and its sole and only purpose is to kill the victim.

The torture argument to save innocent lives is the classic question asked in Philosophy classes, and there is the intellectually (and Christian?) pure argument that says No Torture Under Any Circumstances, and the exigent argument when you are looking into the face of a terrorist who has information that could save thousands or perhaps even millions if the information is extracted within an hour.

Anyone who claims the answer to that question is easy is not a serious person.

But Andrew McCarthy notes the obvious -- there is no moral argument for the torture of Terri Schiavo.

On Friday afternoon, unless humanity intervenes, the state of Florida is scheduled to begin its court-ordered torture-murder of Terri Schiavo, whose only crime is that she is an inconvenience. A nuisance to a faithless husband grown tired of the toll on his new love interest and depleting bank account — an account that was inflated only because a jury, in 1992, awarded him over a million dollars, mostly as a trust to pay for Terri’s continued care, in a medical malpractice verdict.

In this instance, though, deafening is the only word for the silence of my former interlocutors — -civil-liberties activists characteristically set on hysteria auto-pilot the moment an al Qaeda terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without supper by Don Rumsfeld or Al Gonzales (something that would, of course, be rank rumor since, if you kill or try to kill enough Americans, you can be certain our government will get you three halal squares a day).

Not so Terri Schiavo. She will be starved and dehydrated. Until she is dead. By court order.

Starved and dehydrated, Until she is dead, By court order.

W Supports Culture of Life

2005-03-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

I could not have said this any better.

President's Statement on Terri Schiavo

The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.

Amen, and Amen.

Once again, thanks to Blogs for Terri for keeping us updated.

Progress and Hope for Terri Schiavo

2005-03-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

National Review Online Tuesday posted a shockingly informative piece Starving for a Fair Diagnosis: Terri Schiavo is not out of medical options, but that’s the “fact” her husband wants you to believe.

Father Robert Johansen has important original reporting and many share Hugh Hewitt's observation:

Father Johansen has done real reporting among neurologists of undeniable stature and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that a rush to starve Terri Schiavo is underway.

Everyone should take the time to read Father Johansen's piece in its entirety.

It is disturbing, because it highlights the negligence of both her husband (of which much has been written, and who continues to get sympathetic treatment from the Culture of Death Legacy Media -- I emailed ABC Nightline via their Closing Thoughts site: "I assume you will interview Terri's parents tonight?"), but more importantly our justice system. A justice system which, in an ideal world, would protect the weak and defenseless such as Terri.

Again, this is difficult reading, but it is eye-opening:

Many people believe that Terri Schiavo has had “the best of care,” and that everything has been tried by way of rehabilitation. This belief is false. In fact, Terri has had no attempts at therapy or rehabilitation since 1992, and very little had been done up to that point. Terri has not even had the physical therapy most doctors would regard as normative for someone in her condition. The result is that Terri suffers from severe muscle contractures, which have caused her body to become contorted. Physical therapy could remedy this, but husband Michael has refused to provide it.

Terri has also suffered from what many professionals would regard as neglect. She had to have several teeth extracted last year because of severe decay. This decay was caused by a lack of basic dental hygiene, such as tooth-brushing. She also developed decubitus (skin) ulcers on her buttocks and thighs. These ulcers can be prevented by a simple regimen of regular turning: a basic nursing task that any certified nurse’s aide can perform. The presence of these easily preventable ulcers is a classic sign of neglect. Bob and Mary Schindler have repeatedly complained of Terri’s neglect, and have sought to remove Michael as guardian on that basis. Judge Greer was unmoved by those complaints as well.

Disgustingly negligent neglect.

These two paragraphs alone are grounds to impeach "Judge" Greer in my ignorant opinion.

Unfortunately, there is much, much more.

Father Johansen has interviewed and received commitments from 30 neurologists "who are willing to testify that Terri should have new and additional testing, and new examinations by unbiased neurologists."

This stopped me cold:

One such neurologist is Dr. Peter Morin. He is a researcher specializing in degenerative brain diseases, and has both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Boston University.

In the course of my conversation with Dr. Morin, he made reference to the standard use of MRI and PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans to diagnose the extent of brain injuries. He seemed to assume that these had been done for Terri. I stopped him and told him that these tests have never been done for her; that Michael had refused them.

There was a moment of dead silence.

“That’s criminal,” he said, and then asked, in a tone of utter incredulity: “How can he continue as guardian? People are deliberating over this woman’s life and death and there’s been no MRI or PET?” He drew a reasonable conclusion: “These people [Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Judge Greer] don’t want the information.”

Ponder the neurologist's gut response: "That's criminal."

Father Johansen continues to take apart "Judge" Greer's path to his "finding of fact that she is PVS."

He discusses the "The Cranford Diagnosis" by the expert PVS witness who also happens to be a Right-To-Die proponent.

In published articles, including a 1997 op-ed in the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune, he has advocated the starvation of Alzheimer’s patients. He has described PVS patients as indistinguishable from other forms of animal life. He has said that PVS patients and others with brain impairment lack personhood and should have no constitutional rights. Perusing the case literature and articles surrounding the “right to die” and PVS, one will see Dr. Cranford’s name surface again and again. In almost every case, he is the one claiming PVS, and advocating the cessation of nutrition and hydration.

A real sweetheart. Who would pay for this guy's advice without having a pre-purchased cemetary plot?

Let's see who is considered to be in a Persistent Vegetative State by this, uh, unbiased expert:

Dr. Cranford seems to have a knack for finding PVS. Cranford also diagnosed Robert Wendland as PVS. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could pick up specifically colored pegs or blocks and hand them to a therapy assistant on request. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could operate and maneuver an ordinary wheelchair with his left hand and foot, and an electric wheelchair with a joystick, of the kind that many disabled persons (most famously Dr. Stephen Hawking) use. Dr. Cranford dismissed these abilities as meaningless. Fortunately for Wendland, the California supreme court was not persuaded by Cranford’s assessment.

Would "Judge" Greer similarly sentence Dr. Stephen Hawking to death?

This is simply stunning.

Father Johansen concludes with observations on why legal issues have been trumping medical observations and advice for some time:

Given the difficulty of diagnosing PVS, the high rate of error, the obvious bias of the doctor whose judgment forms the basis of the judge’s ruling that Terri is PVS, and the growing outcry from the neurological community, how is it that Judge Greer’s ruling has been sustained? The answer is that in our legal system, once a judge has ruled on a matter of fact, it is very difficult to revisit such a ruling. The lawyers’ rule of thumb is that trial courts hear and rule on questions of fact, and appellate courts rule on questions of law; it’s unusual for an appellate court to overturn a lower court’s ruling because of an issue of fact. . . .

The legal system’s willful blindness to facts cannot succeed forever. The truth has a way of coming out. But will it do so in time to save Terri Schiavo? Dr. Morin said to me, towards the end of our conversation, that “the law can find a way to do the right thing if it wants to.” The problem so far is that those who have the power to do the right thing seem to have no desire or inclination to do so.

Hugh Hewitt makes the other obvious observation that is no less troubling:

The indifference of major media to the underlying facts of this case even as they obsess over the smallest detail in the proceedings surrounding Michael Jackson illustrates again the deep bias in the MSM against any story that is --in their minds-- identified with the pro-life movement. This is a real life-and-death drama, and the big papers haven't done a tenth of the basic reporting that an ordinary priest in Michigan has undertaken and completed.

Father Johansen's article is progress since Truth has the power of moral disinfectant, and National Review Online is a significant online journal.

The other progress report is that bills to give Terri and her family and supporters more opportunities to highlight medical facts which the trial "Judge" has deemed inadmissable are moving forward both at the state and federal levels.

Blogs for Terri has links and continuous updates.

US House OKs Schiavo Bill.

Let Your US Senator Know!

Florida Legislature Progress Update.

Sigh

2005-03-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

A depressing paragraph.

It’s an odd world in which a disabled Florida woman can be killed by a method outlawed as too cruel for animals, and in which she is not covered by the habeas corpus protections granted to murderers. When it comes to federal legal protection, Terri Schiavo ranks below Ted Bundy, and when it comes to protection from suffering, she ranks below an unwanted pet.

Culture of Death Update

2005-03-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

From Terri Schiavo in Florida, we move to the Lone Star State.

In Texas, family doesn't matter -- certainly a family's opinion on the life or death of children.

National Review Online's Kathryn Lopez short excerpt caught my eye and broke my heart: SUN HUDSON, R.I.P..

Ed Morrissey (aka Captain Ed) has more details and he links to the CNN/AP story.

Captain Ed challenges the assumptions embedded in the CNN/AP report:

Thanatophoric dysplasia is an unpleasant and rare form of dwarfism that occurs once in about 35,000 births in the US. CNN does not properly describe the prognosis of the disease, however. It is not always fatal, although nearly so in the neonatal stage. Usually, thanataphoric dwarves (the name is Greek for "death bearing") only live for hours, or days at the most. Once a baby gets past the neonatal stage, survival is possible, although the child will never have hope for a normal life. The limbs usually have significant deformities and the spinal column as well.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but those of us with special children harbor deep, deep revulsion at the thought of the State defining when innocent life is terminated.

I do not claim that this was an easy decision for anyone, but the Culture of Death is the easy route in these cases.

However, it is never the Right Route.

Captain Ed reminds us Texas law has a more lethal reach than European law:

That surpasses even the Groningen Protocol, which specifically calls for parental approval before euthanizing infants. Understandably, this case has its share of difficult decisions, but it's hard to understand how the court can overrule the wishes of the next of kin in making a determination to kill a child, simply because the doctors didn't want to go on treating him. Something tells me that we've stumbled over a line here, and what's on the other side has little purchase and a long fall.

Indeed.

(Please also note that I had incorrectly stated that the Groningen Protocol did not need parental consent. As Captain Ed notes in his correction, "the parents must always give their consent.")

Can Texas be more radical in their support of euthanasia than the Dutch?

Whew, this World is upside down!

UPDATE:

Be sure to read Captain Ed's Update as well.

More cases like this are coming in Texas.

Sounds like some heat needs to be applied in Austin.

Terri Schiavo Update

2005-03-14T23:37:00.000-08:00

HB 701 continues to move in the Florida Legislature.

BlogsForTerri is keeping us updated.

Dancing

2005-03-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

With Carolyn tonight was such a treat.

We were watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Carolyn and I weren't exactly thinking of the Sabine women in this context, but she does love the music and the dancing, and singing "Sobbin' Women" with delight.

We take for granted our time with our daughters and family.

Especially when others cannot even be with their daughters. Or worse, cannot be with their daughter because someone wants their daughter dead.

May we all be dancing for Joy this weekend.

Remember. . . .

2005-03-14T01:23:00.000-08:00

Time is Running Out.

Contrary to the media portrayals of Terri, she is not in a coma. Medical experts confirm that she is aware of her surroundings.

Removing Terri’s tubes kills her via starvation and dehydration, a gradual process that could take 7 to 30 days!

Terri is a healthy individual with a disability. She breathes on her own and her body operates normally. Her tubes are simply for nutrition.

If you think Terri Schiavo should have the same protections presently accorded prison inmates, take action Monday.

Senator Mel Martinez and Representative Dave Weldon, M.D., introduced the Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act (S. 539, H.R. 1151) on March 8, 2005 . The bill’s purpose is: “To amend title 28, United States Code, to provide the protections of habeas corpus for certain individuals whose life support may be withdrawn pursuant to court order, and for other purposes.” The bill recognizes the due process protection of habeas corpus appeals for disabled individuals, a protection that inmates currently have. It would enable the Schindler family to defend the life of their daughter before a federal court.

The week ahead will be filled with great spiritual warfare.

Thank God It's Not Friday

2005-03-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

We have less than a week to make Friday a day of life and Hope, and not death for Terri Schiavo.

For those not living in the State of Florida, engage your US Senator and Representative and respectfully request fast action.

Floridians also can request action in Washington, but they also have an option in Tallahassee.

Obviously, time is of the essence.

Barbara Simpson (aka The Babe in the Bunker for us Bay Area folks) states the case rather plainly in her most recent WorldNetDaily piece:

With the case of Terri Schiavo, the door to legally eliminating "the imperfect" among us has been opened. If Terri dies – as the Florida court is ordering, as her husband-in-name-only demands, as his euthanasia-supporter attorney argues – there isn't one of us who will ever be safe from the system.

Read the whole thing.

Another chilling thought:

It will set legal precedent making it possible and legally permissible for any medical personnel, any hospital or other institution, any lawyer, judge or lawmaker to decide it's time for us to die.

They will let it happen, or make it happen – makes no difference. The only thing that matters is that someone else decides your fate, the fate of your children, spouse, parents, siblings, family member, neighbor or anyone else.

And a sobering conclusion:

Terri Schiavo needs our help. This is not mercy killing. She is not a vegetable. She is not brain dead. She is a damaged human being, but she is human. If we ignore that or pretend that because she is "damaged," she has no value and it's OK to kill her, we are no better than the Nazis who picked and chose who would live or die.

We fought a world war to stop that mentality. We must not fall victim now.

Why, in the absence of any legal written document, is our judicial system erring on the side of death, not Life?

The ugly truth is, it's murder. The other ugly truth is there's often nothing you can do about it. If Terri Schiavo is killed, murder of the innocent will be locked in the law.

Papa and Carolyn

2005-03-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

Fond memories of Christmas. . . .

Carolyn having fun with the shaving cream.

Papa at least can shave his nose!

Papa and Carolyn having fun watching Hermie (off to the left out of the picture). You have to love that hair on both Carolyn and Papa!

Giddyup!

Judge Determined to Kill Terri Schiavo

2005-03-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

How else do you reduce the evidence to date?

Michelle Malkin suggests the news is bad, and it appears to be so.

However, Blogs for Terri has a different perspective.

This sentence has a great deal of truth:

DCF has authority and they don't take kindly to a judge telling them they shouldn't do it.

Bureacracies don't like to be told they cannot do something they are empowered to do.

Another example of our judiciary acting as if it has both executive and legislative powers:

More than anyone else, it will be Judge Greer that will push the tide towards the passage of Florida HB 701 because the legislature will start to see again that there is something going on. Judge Greer didn't rule that Michael can remove the feeding tube, Judge Greer ordered that tube out and that Terri be put to death. He has ordered the cessation of all medical care. He has ordered no attempt be made to feed her naturally. He has ordered that DCF not investigate the claims of abuse.

Talk about lack of judicial temperment. . . .

Starve to Kill

2005-03-08T23:17:00.000-08:00

You are a witness to my request: Do Not Kill Me.

Fortunately my wife loves me.

Terri Schiavo has not enjoyed such blessings.

BlogsforTerri notes the hope and possibilities for Terri.

The failure of her husband and our justice system to provide for her protection and to take advantage of treatments as those described below is an indictment that history will not ignore.

Dr. William Hammesfahr is an internationally recognized expert on cases of brain-injured patients. He has been identified in helping patients with chronic brain injuries from many causes actually leave long term disability, and return to work.

Terri Schiavo's injury, hypoxic encephalopathy, is a type of stroke that he treats every day with success.

"We, and others I know, have treated many patients worse than Terri and have seen them regain independence and dignity," Hammesfahr said.

"There are many approaches that would help Terri Schiavo," Dr. Hammesfahr explained. "I know, because I had the opportunity to personally examine her, her medical records, and her X-rays."

"It is time to help Terri, instead of just warehousing her," he added. "She would have benefited from treatment years ago, but it is not too late to start now.

To warehouse a human being is not an ideal of which Americans should be proud.

Revolting.

Temple Grandin Update

2005-03-07T21:53:00.000-08:00

Her Animals in Translation book is getting more attention in the Blogosphere thanks to Glenn.

Excellent Blog Review here

I've read the first chapter, and agree with this assessment:

One of the most pleasant aspects of the book is that it is completely free of any sort of political correctness. Ms Grandin writes simply (probably as a result of her autism) and there is no room for the circumlocutions that political correctness requires.

Looking forward to reading and writing a review myself.

And Yet, Terri is to be Starved to Death

2005-03-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

The Tampa Tribune reports on the Florida Department of Children and Families document listing claims of abuse by Terri's husband.

You can find the original complaint here:

The complaint accuses Michael Schiavo of abuse, neglect and/or exploitation in pertinent part, including but not limited to:

1) Failure to file proper guardianship plan or report and the impact upon the health of the ward

2) Current confinement issues at the ward’ residence

3) Failure to educate using certain therapies in violation of guardianship

4) Investigation of rehabilitation entitlements in light of technologies available

5) Denial of access to legal counsel on different occasions is a supervision issue never previously investigated and goes directly to health decisions.

6) Lack of communication/visitation is a maintenance of mental health and supervision issues.

7) Denial of legal notice to ward or ward’s own counsel

8) Experimental procedures performed without proper medical and legal procedures observed

9) Lack of manipulation of the ward’s arms causing sever contractures.

And, we have the allegations of "financial exploitation" also.

Some $750,000 that was to have been used for rehabilitative services for Terri has instead been used by Schiavo to employ attorneys to cause her death.