Reprinted by permission of The Christian Post
By Lawrence Jones
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Dec. 09 2008 05:55 PM EST
Montana has become the third state to allow physician-assisted suicide.
A state judge ruled last Friday that a mentally competent person who is terminally ill has a right to die by assisted suicide.
In her ruling, Judge Dorothy McCarter stated that the “Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity.”
The court's ruling allows physicians to provide life-ending medication to such patients without facing criminal prosecution.
The decision makes Montana the third state to legalize assisted suicide. Washington voters approved the practice on the November ballot and Oregon began the practice in 1997.
Robert Baxter, 75, who brought the case, died late Friday without learning of the ruling. He suffered from a deadly form of leukemia and was sleeping when his family received the phone call Friday from Baxter's lawyer, Mark Connell, with the judge's ruling, Montana's News Station reported. He never woke up and died later that day.
His family told Montana's News Station on Monday that even though their family couldn't benefit from the assisted suicide ruling, they hope other families will.
Other plaintiffs in the case, including Compassion & Choices, an organization which supports "dying and end-of-life choices," welcomed the ruling.
But pro-life groups have denounced the ruling as opening the gates for "suicide-on-demand" in Montana.
"Anyone who survives on medication will be entitled to assisted suicide, and there are no safeguards ensuring that persons requesting suicide are not suffering from a treatable mental illness.," commented Denise Burke, vice president of legal affairs for Americans United for Life.
Assisted suicide is voluntary but other forms of euthanasia may not be.
"This ruling begins the descent toward euthanasia and even a duty to die in Montana," said AUL president and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest.
"We have already seen cases in Oregon where patients are denied state insurance coverage for life-saving treatments and are told instead the state will pay for their suicides. Assisting someone in committing suicide is never a compassionate choice."
State Attorney General Mike McGrath said he expects the state to appeal the ruling. During Baxter's hearing, his office said a decision about assisted suicide should be decided by the state legislature, not the court system.
According to Montana's News Station, McGrath says it's a complicated constitutional issue and the Supreme Court should rule on it.
Copyright 2008 The Christian Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Court Ruling Makes Montana Third State to Legalize Assisted Suicide
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Archbishop Burke: Democrats Risk Becoming Party of Death
From Reuters comes word that former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, who now leads the Vatican’s Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, didn't pull his punches when he recently described the Democrat Party as a "party of death" recently.
According to the Reuters piece, in June he told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the DNC
risked “transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues.” He then attacked two of the party’s most high profile Catholics — vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion.
He said Biden and Pelosi, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way.”
How true!
The only disagreement I have with Archbishop Burke's statement--and I don't know if this was paraphrased by Reuters or Avvenire, or if Burke actually used the word--would be that "risked" is obsolete. The Democrat Party already has transformed itself into a party of death.
The DNC embraces a position of hostility toward children that elevates contraception almost to the level of a sacrament. In other words, their public policy advocacy is, in practice, hostile toward the creation of new life.
The DNC embraces abortion on demand for no other reason than "I don't want it." This has resulted in the deaths of nearly 50 million children in the past 35 years...and the DNC vociferously and relentlessly fights to maintain that right to kill every unborn child possible in perpetuity. As a party, they embrace even the totally barbaric "partial birth abortion"...and the banner-carrier of their party, Barack Obama, even defended infanticide.
The DNC officially promotes embryonic stem cell research which destroys human life, while ignoring the dozens of successes of adult stem cell research which does not destroy human life.
The DNC embraces euthanasia and the killing of the weak, disabled and old. Their vociferous defense of the murder of Terri Schiavo a few years ago stands as the most shameful example of their embrace of death...for others, that is.
The DNC also embraces homosexuality in all it's forms and manifestations. Homosexuality is a practice which by its very nature can never result in the creation of life--even when both sets of reproductive organs involved function perfectly. And by normalizing, encouraging and even celebrating a practice which is characterized by much greater risk of AIDS, STDs, depression, substance abuse and suicide, the DNC is encouraging even more death.
Some folks act like they don't know the difference between the value of life and death, even though it was clearly laid out more than 3,000 years ago.
The Democrats risk becoming the party of death? I'd say that ship already sailed a long time ago...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Universal Healthcare? Is This What Americans Want?
From the London Telegraph we have news of a proposed solution to the soaring costs of "free" healthcare. I suppose that it is true that dead people cause little financial strain on the medical system. Huge savings can certainly be realized by adopting such a plan, but think what additional savings are possible if it can be expanded to include the mentally ill, the lazy, the drug addicts, people with AIDS and other chronic and incurable diseases and other non-productive or otherwise worthless individuals. The mind boggles! Why, the Brits may actually begin to treat some acute life-threatening diseases before the patients die of natural causes!
Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'
Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.
By Martin Beckford Social Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:42PM BST 18 Sep 2008
The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.
Universal healthcare could become a reality in America if the Democrats are successful in November. I was hoping to cut down my work from two full-time jobs to maybe one and a half, but I'm going to have to re-think that. I don't want to risk being thought of as lazy or non-productive.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Obama: It Was a Mistake to Help Terri Schiavo
Barack Obama says his biggest mistake was to vote to help Terri Schiavo avoid being starved and dehydrated to death, according to LifeSiteNews.
"It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake," Obama said at the debate. "And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better ... and I think that's an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action."
Obama was referring to his vote in March 2005, when the Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent that permitted Schiavo's parents and brother to make their case before federal courts to keep their brain-injured daughter alive via feeding tube. Terri Schiavo's husband Michael, who had guardianship over her while engaged in public adultery with a girlfriend, had a state judge remove her feeding tube, dehydrating her to death, because he claimed she never wanted to live in a so-called persistent vegetative state (PVS).
Seems pretty outrageous that anyone, much less a presidential candidate, would say voting to help keep a disabled woman alive, helping her avoid the death by starvation and dehydration her husband (who was living with another woman and fathering children by the other woman) was determined to subject her to.
But then, this is par for the course for a man who vehemently refused to protect the lives of infants born alive after failed attempts to abort them.
It's also in character for a man who has pledged to torpedo the sanctity of marriage and undermine the American family.
And it's also not a surprise from someone who would go on video and pledge to gut the United States military.
How can any sane American even consider voting for Barack Obama?
I'm not big into prophetic predictions of judgment and such, but I don't see how, if the majority of Americans elects Barack Obama to the presidency, this nation can escape judgment on a truly Biblical scale.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Karen Weber: Another Terri Schiavo or Not?
Terri Schiavo's world became one of isolation at the hands of her husband. He made the decisions of who could visit her, if any at all could at any given time. He made the decisions of what therapy she might receive, though he came to reject any therapy at all. He made the decisions about any stimulation that touched her day, including whether the curtains would be open or closed or even a sound of music or voice to touch her moment.
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Terri Schiavo Documentary
Land,Gibbs in two-part documentary
on Terri SchiavoPublished June 5, 2008
AGOURA HILLS, Calif. (FBW)—Two thirty-minute television programs to air June 12 and 19 will explore the debate surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo and feature, among others, Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and David Gibbs, head of the Florida-based Christian Law Association.
Joni Eareckson Tada, whose ministry, The Christian Institute on Disability—a division of Joni and Friends International Disability Center—has produced the programs which will be broadcast globally via Trinity Broadcasting Network. Terri Schiavo is the severely disabled Florida woman who died of starvation and dehydration in 2005 after her feeding tube was removed as a result of a court order.
To be aired...
This two-part expose on the life and death of Terri Schiavo will be broadcast on TBN Thur., June 12 at 7:30 p.m. EST, and Thur., June 19, 7:30 p.m. EST. For more information, go to www.joniandfriends.org.
Terri Schiavo Execution Sanctioned by Faulty Polls?
by Carrie K. Hutchens
The polls were often sited as the Schiavo case progressed. Pundits, George Felos, Michael Schiavo and pals used poll numbers to claim the American people believed it was acceptable to execute Terri Schiavo in a death by dehydration and starvation. Other polls indicated it was acceptable to remove "life support", without making it clear the so-called "life support" was in fact a mere feeding tube.
Fast forwarding to the Election of 2008, it became quite apparent that polls are faulty. Polls weren't representative of the results in many cases. Pundits seemed bewildered. Some said they were going to have to revisit the reliance upon polls when looking for an accurate prediction of outcome.
Finally, the inaccuracy of polls was utterly apparent to not only the pundits, news staff, candidates and the candidates' staff -- it was apparent to any who were watching as the election events unfolded. Finally, the obvious was made so obvious that no one could ignore it. But sadly, it was three years too late for Terri Schiavo and her family.
Prior to Terri Schiavo's agonizing death by court order, many tried to point out the problem with relying upon polls, but it didn't hit home with those it needed to hit home with. People were becoming comfortable with the judicial order for murder, because the polls were alleging the majority believed it was acceptable to remove Terri from "life support." The irony being, that even after Terri's death, many believed she had been "brain dead" and only kept alive by a respirator. Some said they believed the latter is what she was removed from, because that is what poll questions appeared to be referring to.
Absolute fact is: Terri Schiavo was neither "brain dead" nor on a "respirator."
It is good that the Election of 2008 threw the truth about the unreliability of polls into the face of the world. It's just too bad it didn't become so apparent in the Election of 2004. Had it, Terri Schiavo might still be alive today and still proving assumptions to be wrong!
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Friday, June 06, 2008
The Horrendous Killing: Death by Dehydration & Starvation
"Mr. Weber is of the opinion that Karen does not want to live as a vegetable and that she would prefer the body to take its natural course," Mr. Cameron said.
"Mr. Weber did not contest the March injunction that kept his wife's feeding tube in place, Mr. Cameron noted. If the judge determines that Mrs. Weber has the capacity to make her own choices, Mr. Weber would abide by the decision.
"There is no intent at this point to fight what's going on," Mr. Cameron said.
Martha Tatro, Mrs. Weber's mother, objects to the removal of the feeding tube and has hired attorney Joseph Rodowicz to assist in her efforts to prevent it from happening. Both Mrs. Tatro and Mr. Rodowicz are adamant that Karen Weber is responsive and deserves a chance to live. Thus, a reason the judge has issued the injunction and appointed a committee to review Mrs. Weber's condition and make a determination and recommendation.
Mr. Weber may very well have the best of intentions and be under the belief that removal of a feeding tube is a quiet, natural and peaceful way to go. (Some in Florida preach such to be so.) However, one can hope that as he gathers further and more complete information, he will come to realize that the forced and agonizing death by dehydration and starvation should never be an option considered and therefore determine that it won't be.
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Calif. Senate Considers Assisted Suicide Bill
By Alexander J. Sheffrin
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Jun. 03 2008 08:56 AM ET
It may soon become legal for doctors and nurses in California to “help” their patients die if a new assisted suicide bill passes through the state senate.
If passed, AB 2747 would allow medical practitioners throughout the state to give terminally ill patients judged with less than a year to live the option of receiving sedatives that would subject them to a form of slow, unconscious dehydration and starvation.
While House Democrat and sponsor of the bill, Patty Berg, defended the bill as a measure that would give patients “honest talk” and options about their “medical care.” Opponents of the bill say they are appalled.
"Assisted suicide by total sedation ignores the sanctity of human life and violates life-affirming medical ethics,” said Randy Thomasson, of the Campaign for Children and Families, in a statement.
But perhaps the biggest criticism of the bill is the argument that the bill would pressure patients who are poor and uninsured to end their life prematurely, even while a terminal diagnosis from a doctor could prove false.
“It is remarkable that the legislature is considering assisted suicide at a time when millions of low-income Californians and their families still have no access to health care. Is the legislature saying to low-income people, ‘We won't provide health care, but we will make it easier for you to commit suicide when you're at your most vulnerable and uninsured?’ Large numbers of people, particularly among those less privileged in society, would be at significant risk of harm,” Californians Against Assisted Suicide expressed in a statement.
“[L]egalizing assisted suicide would allow anxious, depressed patients to become trapped by their own request for death, and die in a state of unrecognized terror, even though the depression can be treated in most cases,” the group explained.
The current bill represents the fourth time that the California legislature has attempted to pass an assisted suicide bill. Proponents of the bill hope that this year’s version will pass because of its different wording.
“Everything that is illegal now—and that most notably includes physician-aided dying—would remain illegal. AB 2747 changes none of that. Instead, it provides a precious commodity— information (about the option of ending one’s life),” Berg said in a statement defending the bill.
CCF’s Thomasson disagreed.
“People who are ill need support, spiritual care, and counseling if they're depressed. But AB 2747 would ensure the death of innocent Californians at the hands of an increasingly unscrupulous insurance industry that regards people cheaper dead than alive,” he said.
Currently, only Oregon has an assisted suicide law in its books.
Copyright 2008 The Christian Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Protecting Life Isn't Just a Religious Value
One of the most common areas of public policy where you'll hear liberals and secularists protest the interjection of religious values is in protecting life.
Whether it's protecting unborn human life, or the lives of those some consider "not worth living," citing a transcendent religious value as a reason not to end innocent human life is sure to get the Left frothing at the mouth.
In fact, respect for human life was a key reason behind the formation of a Leftwing secularist organization going under the deceptive title of "South Dakota Mainstream Coalition."
According to a report by David Kranz in the Argus Leader, executive director Senator Ed Olson of Mitchell said that the battle over the life and death of Terri Schiavo was the catalyst for the formation of the group. The same article also quoted Olson as saying, "Many of us don't like the idea of putting specific religious beliefs into state law."
"Specific religious beliefs" shouldn't be in the law? That's an interesting statement that, while you'd probably get quite a few people agreeing with it, I don't think many people have really thought through.
Imagine for a few moments what American civilization would be like if we removed some of these "specific religious beliefs" from our laws.
How about murder in general? That's a pretty specific religious belief. The Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah both state in Exodus 20:13 (in what is commonly known as the Ten Commandments--the same Ten Commandments found in many court houses across the country and in the U.S. Supreme Court) "You shall not murder." The Christian Bible also condemns it in Matthew 15:19, right beside some other "specific religious beliefs" such as adultery, sexual immorality, theft, perjury, and slander. Hmmm. Should we throw out our murder laws because they are founded on "specific religious beliefs?"
How about another of those "specific religious beliefs" mentioned there in Matthew 15:19: theft. That one is mentioned in several places in the Bible and the Torah, too, including Exodus 20:15 "You shall not steal." Wow! That's another one of those nasty Ten Commandments. Shall we throw out our laws against theft because they're based on "specific religious beliefs?" If you think so, please send me your address and an inventory of your household contents; I could use some new furniture.
Slander? That's another one of those pesky "specific religious beliefs" mentioned in Matthew 15:19 and, lo and behold, the Ten Commandments again: "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor."
How about some perjury? We didn't think it was a big deal when Bill Clinton did it, right? After all, it's just another of those silly "specific religious beliefs" which is brother to "perjury." What? You say Scooter Libby perjured himself, and we need to prosecute that perjury? Okay, so maybe perjury can stay, despite being based on "specific religious beliefs."
I could go on, but I think I've adequately made the point. With the exception of a handful of legal areas (maybe term limits, some tax law, etc.), almost all of our laws are based on a bunch of "specific religious beliefs." Does that somehow invalidate them?
For those who find religious values cumbersome and unpleasant, remember that moral choices usually have "real world" consequences, and they usually affect other people. God wasn't trying to be a fuddy-duddy when he told us what was right and what was wrong; he was trying to warn us away from harm and heartache.
So why should a Christian or religious origin automatically invalidate efforts to restrict abortion or save disabled people from being killed for convenience? Value for innocent human life is a universal value shared not only Christians, but Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu and pretty much every religious belief--including secular humanism--that you can think of.
I think what secularists are referring to when they say they don't want to see religious beliefs in law or influencing laws is that they don't want to see religious beliefs that interfere with their pursuit of convenience or sexual license.
And that's okay if pursuing convenience or sexual license is what they want...well, not okay with God and maybe not okay with any other people affected by it, but within the context of public debate, that's okay to consider.
But if you're going to argue for it, you should be up front about why you want it and why you think it should be a good idea.
And Christians (and other people of faith) shouldn't allow themselves to be cowed or intimidated out of the public debate by lies based on an incorrect assumption that our government is supposed to be kept sanitized of religious values.
If that assumption were correct, why would the Founders have severely restricted the power of government (remember, the Constitution limits government, not people) to "prohibit the free exercise" of religion?
Why else would our first president, George Washington, have told the people of America in his Farewell Address:
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.
Morality is necessary to a healthy society; otherwise there is widespread and wanton lawlessness; disregard for law, institutions and the persons and property of others. Without it life becomes very dangerous, and an ordered civilization is not possible.
Why else would have Washington continued in his Farewell Address to tie religion and morality in close relationship:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
Religion has every right, indeed every obligation, to speak to public policy matters of such great importance as human life. There is no greater priority than the preservation of innocent human life.
Why else would the Founders have listed "life" first among those famous "certain unalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It might be said that each these unalienable rights in this list can be safely enjoyed only once the earlier items has been secured. (In other words, liberty is more important than the pursuit of happiness, and life is even more precious than liberty).
Life is, after all, created in the image of God, and is therefore sacred. Even if you don't honor this religious value, everyone can recognize that each human life is completely and totally unique; once it is extinguished, there will never ever be another like it. To view innocent human life with a cavalier attitude is the height of hubris and recklessness.
If a civilization comes to the point where it has no respect or regard for innocent human life, that is a civilization on the brink of chaos and collapse. And in a world as dangerous as ours--where many already have contempt for these values of life--I don't think we want American civilization to collapse and leave us defenseless before the bloodthirsty.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Coma Patient Who Would Never Recover Has Recovered
Have you ever wondered why some people are opposed to euthanasia, and believe that as long as there is any evidence of life, that the date of someone's death is best left up to God?
Unless you're very young, or have been on Mars for a few years, you've probably heard of the Terri Schiavo case from a few years ago. She was the woman who was hospitalized unconscious under suspicious circumstances, and was diagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS). Her husband, who had since moved on and produced children with another woman and stood to gain financially from Terri's death, lobbied the courts until they finally gave permission to starve this woman to death.
No one denied Terri had suffered brain damage, but despite videos showing her laughing, trying to talk, and responding to various stimuli, a judge in Florida determined her life wasn't living and ordered her feeding tube removed. After about 13 or 14 days, she finally died of dehydration.
Since then, we have heard of numerous cases where people in comas and vegetative states have come out, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently and fully functional.
We also continue to see more and more evidence piling up that points to life and brain activity even within PVS patients.
Now comes word from ABC News of Haleigh Poutre who was beaten into a coma by her stepfather Jason Strickland in 2005. She became a ward of the state and the Massachusetts Department of Social Services tried to have her life ended. Almost at the last minute was her death sentence by the state lifted, when her stepfather--probably trying to avoid a murder trial--petitioned the court to keep her alive, and before the state could remove her ventilator, she began breathing on her own.
Now, after doctors said she would never recover, the girl is awake and communicating.
Here is what the "experts" said:
"Short of developing a technique for a complete brain transplant, there is no hope that medical treatment will be discovered in the foreseeable future which could reverse" her condition, a doctor said, according to court records.
How many people--like Terri Schiavo--have we, in our vast wisdom, killed when life remained? How many have we killed who might have recovered, had we not taken life-and-death into our own hands?
Young Haleigh is another case that warns us not to be so quick to discard human life. Human life is precious, created in the image of God, each person unique, and once a person is dead, there will never be another one.
If we must err, we should err on the side of preserving human life. We used to understand that, before we became so enamored with death...or so inconvenienced by those dependent on us.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Top 10 Pro-Life States
From Human Events, Americans United for Life (AUL) has released its list of the Top 10 Most Pro-Life States.
To hear some folks around here bellyache about the lack of abortion rights, you’d expect to see South Dakota at the top of the list. Well, while we’re in the top 10, we actually come in at #6
1. Michigan
2007 Ranking: 1
2. Louisiana
2007 Ranking: 2
3. Pennsylvania
2007 Ranking: 5
4. Texas
2007 Ranking: 3
5. Kansas
2007 Ranking: 6
6. South Dakota
2007 Ranking: 4
7. Mississippi
2007 Ranking: 7
8. Arkansas
2007 Ranking: 8
9. Oklahoma
2007 Ranking: 12
10. Virginia
2007 Ranking: 9
Here are the worst 10:
1. Oregon
2007 Ranking: 1
2. California
2007 Ranking: 5
3. Connecticut
2007 Ranking: 6
4. New Jersey
2007 Ranking: 3
5. Vermont
2007 Ranking: 4
6. Hawaii
2007 Ranking: 2
7. New Hampshire
2007 Ranking: 7
8. Iowa
2007 Ranking: 20
9. Alaska
2007 Ranking: 8
10. New Mexico
2007 Ranking: 9
For those of you who love abortion so much, you can move to Oregon or California and abort your heart out. Me? I like living in a state that appreciates the value of human life.
In the Top 10 Most Pro-Life, number 6 out of 50 for South Dakota isn’t too bad. But we can keep working for #1. Maybe if we get the abortion ban passed this year, we’ll get #1 next year!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Taxpayer Subsidies for a Convicted Criminal
Washington Watch Daily
Click here to listen
From OnePlace.com
Sunday, January 20, 2008
National Sanctity of Human Life Day
Today is National Sanctity of Human Life Day, and the beginning of Sanctity of Human Life week.
This day and week are set aside to ponder and respect the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, from conception to natural death.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Family News in Focus 01-17-08
How pro-life is your state?
Abortion is on the decline
Having homosexual sex in a bathroom stall is "private?"
No homosexual agenda?
Click here to listen
From OnePlace.com
Monday, December 17, 2007
Terri's Day Announced for Terri Schiavo
NEW YORK, Dec. 10 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life have jointly announced the establishment of the "International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters" ("Terri's Day"), to be observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri's death. (Full Article)
Monday, December 10, 2007
Questions About the North Country Gazette
For a year or two now, Carrie Hutchens has been investigating the background behind the Terri Schiavo murder, and she has shared much of that here at Dakota Voice. June Maxam and her publication, the North Country Gazette, have also been taking a closer look at the Schiavo fiasco, as have a number of other organizations across the country, including LifeNews.
Going back almost as long as Carrie has been writing for Dakota Voice, she has encountered periodic "resistance" from June Maxim (I don't think I've been involved in these encounters first hand, but Carrie has told me about them and has forwarded a few of June's emails to me for consideration). Carrie and I have always wondered why June seemed so hostile toward Carrie's work, when many of June's stories on the Schiavo incident were also exposing interesting information about the duplicity of those involved in Terri Schiavo's murder.
Well, yesterday LifeNews published an article which indicates Carrie wasn't the only one getting a hard time from June:
The North Country Gazette is a New York-based web site run by June Maxam. Since her death, NCG has published numerous lengthy articles investigating key players in the debate -- including Michael Schiavo, Judge George Greer and other Florida officials who paved the way to Terri's death.
Those articles have been helpful. Unfortunately, NCG has been repeatedly attacking LifeNews.com and other news sites that report on the aftermath of the debate about Terri.
Maxam's antics began when, in 2006, LifeNews.com posted a well-written editorial she penned concerning Michael's political action committee and his efforts to defeat pro-life politicians who supported Terri and her parents.
Irate that LifeNews.com would afford her column a wider distribution, Maxam emailed a scathing letter asking that the column be removed. We complied immediately.
In an email exchange afterwards, Maxam made it very clear she was not supportive of Terri Schiavo or her parents' efforts to protect her life. Though she had written strong investigative pieces concerning the major players, she appeared to be more interested in the investigative journalism than the cause of protecting disabled people like Terri.
Maxam also publicly indicated she is not pro-life and, in a post on her web site attacking LifeNews.com, wrote, "We are not affiliated with any pro-life [or] right to life group" and added "His causes are not necessarily ours" referring to LifeNews.com's support for Terri and her family.
The LifeNews article goes on to provide quite a bit more background about June's hostility toward anyone else who writes about Terri Schiavo.
I guess we still don't know ultimately what's behind June's hostility. But we know a little more than we did, and we also know it wasn't personal toward Carrie.
Carrie, keep up the good work! It's a pity the quality of June's work is detracted from by her lack of professionalism.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Death:The False Illusion of Glamour
Official: Shooter Identified In Omaha Mall Shooting
Last Edited: Wednesday, 05 Dec 2007, 7:06 PM CST
Created: Wednesday, 05 Dec 2007, 4:10 PM CST
OSKAR GARCIA
Associated Press Writer
OMAHA, Neb. -- A man opened fire with a rifle at a busy department store Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life, in an attack that made holiday shoppers run screaming through a mall and barricade themselves in dressing rooms. Five more people were wounded, two critically.
The gunman left a suicide note that was found at his home by his mother, said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak. TV station KETV reported that the note said he wanted to "go out in style."
(Full Report)
Style? Style is the seven year old girl that risked her life to save her mother!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Whatever Happened to Common Sense at the End of Life?
I was reading Lifeissues.net and came across this excellent article by Nancy Valko, RN. It says it all so well.
"Withdrawal of treatment, "living wills", terminal sedation, assisted suicide, organ donation, etc. Currently, it's virtually impossible to escape all the death talk in the media and elsewhere. For example, if you are admitted to a hospital for almost any reason, you or your relatives will be asked if you have or would like information about documents formalizing your "end-of-life" choices.
But despite all the hype, not every situation involving end-of-life issues has to involve wrestling with big ethical dilemmas. Many times, there are relatively simple considerations or strategies that actually used to be commonly employed until the introduction of the so-called "right to die". Accurate information, common sense and a good understanding of ethical principles can cut through the "right-to-die" fog and make a person's last stage of life as good as possible both for the person and his or her family."
(Complete article)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
New Evidence of Consciousness in Vegetative Patients
LifeNews.com points to an article in the New Yorker which reveals some very startling information about consciousness in seemingly comatose or brain-dead people.
The LifeNews piece points out something that I, too, have noticed in almost every article on PVS since Terri Schiavo was murdered:
Bobby, Terri Schiavo's brother, has noticed that whatever the condition of the patient whose story is being told, the reports all have a common sub theme--the awakening, comprehension, etc. has nothing to do with Terri, meaning it was right to dehydrate her to death.
It is as these reports, to quote Shakespeare, "doth protest too much," as if there is a subliminal realization that a terrible injustice was done to her.
Notice this statement from the article which, to me, defies rational thought. It references several videos of Terri Schiavo (that few people have seen) clearly showing her responding to stimuli and trying to communicate.
In the video, a man’s voice can be heard praising Schiavo for opening her eyes in response to his instructions, and the neuroscientist told me that he was impressed until he muted the sound. “With the sound off, it is clear that her movements are random,” the neuroscientist said. “But, with the voice-over, it is easy to make a misdiagnosis.”
I find it hard to believe that an educated person could make a statement like this. When you don't observe the stimuli, it would probably be pretty easy to assume any response was "random," especially if that's what you wanted to believe. Such an irrational statement almost certainly indicates a strong unwillingness to be objective.
I fear that some people are so heavily invested in maintaining the fiction that Terri Schiavo was a brain-dead vegetable (because for those who supported the removal of her feeding tube to admit otherwise would be to admit they gave approval to the murder of a disabled woman who couldn't defend herself), that it will be difficult for the truth to come out, even as we learn more about the brain and human consciousness.
I mentioned "startling" information about consciousness earlier. The New Yorker article examines a "tennis experiment:"
Owen’s final experiment was the most ambitious: a test to determine whether vegetative patients who seemed able to comprehend speech could also perform a complex mental task on command. He decided to ask them to imagine playing tennis. (“We chose sports, and tried to find one that involved a lot of upper-body movements and not too much running around,” he said.) First, he took brain scans of thirty-four healthy volunteers who were instructed to picture themselves playing the game for at least thirty seconds. Their brains showed activity in a region of the cerebrum that would be stimulated in an actual match. “This was an extremely robust activation, and it wasn’t difficult to tell whether somebody was imagining tennis or not,” Owen said. He then repeated the experiment using one of the vegetative patients, a woman who had been severely injured in a car accident. The woman had to be able to hear and understand Owen’s instructions, retrieve a memory of tennis—including a conception of forehand and backhand and how the ball and the racquet meet—and focus her attention for at least thirty seconds. To Owen’s astonishment, she passed the test. “Lo and behold, she produced a beautiful activation, indistinguishable from those of the group of normal volunteers,” he said. (Another vegetative patient, a man in his twenties, also passed the test, though Owen, having learned that the man was a soccer fan, asked him to imagine playing that sport instead of tennis.)
Here's the "startling" part:
Doctors can also miss signs of consciousness in vegetative patients, according to the British and American studies. Ten months after Owen and his colleagues completed the tennis experiment with the vegetative woman, she was brought back to the imaging center and placed in an MRI machine. “We were absolutely dismayed, because we scanned her and there was nothing,” Owen recalled. The team tested the woman again the next day. This time, in response to a command to play tennis, her brain showed normal activity in the regions that mediate arm movements. Owen now repeats scans for each patient, conducting them twice a day for three days.
I don't recall the specific details about how many MRIs were run on Terri Schiavo; I seem to recall at least one, early in her illness.
But is it possible, just possible, that someone might have missed signs of consciousness in Terri? Given an objective analysis of those videos of Terri, I would have to conclude that such signs were almost certainly missed...or intentionally ignored. What might additional MRIs, or tests not even devised yet, have revealed about the level of her awareness? The videos show she was able to visually follow a moving object, smile, try to talk, and generate other responses; what else might science have revealed about her awareness, had science been applied to her case?
I have little doubt that rather than science, opinion and agenda were applied to Terri Schiavo's case. The agenda of euthanasia proponents? The agenda of someone who wanted to get an inconvenient wife out of the way? The agenda of those who also want the freedom to get inconvenient relatives out of the way? You'll have to be the judge of that. As for me, I think the evidence points strongly to the accurate conclusion.
The question for the future: will we face up to our agendas and the agendas of others and place the value of human life above them, or will we continue to avoid the truth and our own culpability in a travesty?
