Posted on 03/31/2005 3:01:46 PM PST by gopwinsin04
The Vatican denounced the 'arbitrarily hastened' death of Terri Schiavo on Thursday as violation of principles of Chirstianity and civilization, and a cardinal described her end as a 'death sentence executed through a cruel method.'
Pope John Paull II was informed of Schiavo's death, Cardinal Renato Martino, a top Vatican official said.
'[This is] Nothing else but murder, Martino said, adding that he was speaking on the case according to the teaching of the pope.'
The pontiff had spoken in the past on behalf of providing food and water, even through artifical means, to patients like Terri Schiavo.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in the first statement from the Holy See on the case, 'An existence was interrupted. A death was arbitrarily hastened because nourishing a person can never be considered employing exceptional means.'
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I don't ask this out of hostility, but I wonder why Mr. Walls and Cardinal Martino saw fit to make these statements. Did they (specifically) make them when that Dutch doctor published his piece (in, I think the New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA) proposing an infanticide protocol? Did they speak this time because a reporter asked them? I'm surprised that such high Vatican officials would see fit to comment on this, and I wonder if it has anything to do with how they see the influence of the US in world affairs.
The difference is that a recommendation of protocols is just that, a scholarly abstraction.
In this case, a flesh and blood human being was purposely deprived of water until she died, and the state did nothing.
The Vatican is re-asserting a continuous, consistent policy of protection of innocent life.
I don't know why, untenured, but I'll give you this prediction: you will see a majority of states quickly revise their laws to more carefully define "living wills" and what constitutes "life support" or "heroic means," and I personally think it will be on the more liberal side of these definitions rather than the conservative side. In other words, I'm betting feeding tubes will be considered "heroic" measures more often than not.
But IIRC the author said that he had already done it several times.
How can I, as a part of the legal system, as a believer in the American way of life and a Christian, possibly begin to explain what happened here to my seven year old daughter? That a helpless woman who had done nothing was ordered to be killed by the courts in a hospital and that the doctors didn't save her?
.......'All the Sound and Fury'.......as trees fall in the dark forest.....?
....Winston,.....with a 'bottle'......'Under the Chestnut Tree'.......
.....A.P.'4891' After the Pyramid......
The Vatican has been the loudest and most constistent voice for life in the world for a century, opposing abortion, opposing artificial birth control because (a) it commoditizes sex and leads to the commoditizing of human beings, and (b) fails sometimes and leads to abortion, opposing the death penalty, opposing war.
Right now, the Pope himself is living off of a feeding tube, while the American government murders a helpless woman by withdrawing hers and placing armed guards around her to make sure she dies of thirst.
It's a singular case that has captured the attention of America and the world, and it is the single most dramatic confrontation of the pro-life and pro-death forces in the world today.
The pro-death forces one, and the Vatican rightly focused on it and said so.
AMEN!
State detained 47 Americans who wanted to give water to Terri.
"State detained 47 Americans who wanted to give water to Terri."
If this happens again, there needs to be an organized pro-life movement that will send in thousands of people to peacefully, but firmly, walk forward to be arrested.
In India, when Ghandi's movement well and truly took hold, the lines of Indians who came forward to take the blow stretched for miles. And with every blow delivered, the British lost one more potential ally forever.
Nothing like that could be done this time, because there is no real organization for it. Also, it was reasonable to expect that the Governor or the President would use the forces they control to bring the whole sorry thing to a close. But they went AWOL.
I note that the Republicans in Washington are crowing about "holding the people responsible for this accountable".
That's nice grandstanding.
But just pass the damned Nuclear Option.
That is the response.
Not more chickenhawk posturing. We don't believe the posturing anymore. We demand specific acts and results, not more bloviations from cowards.
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