Posted on 04/01/2005 4:15:09 AM PST by cpforlife.org
You blinked, you missed it. The pro-life community just switched positions; it now supports assisted suicide!
In their vital fight to save Florida’s Terri Schiavo from being starved to death by judicial decree, they foolishly hinged their position on the absence of a “written directive.”
If the Hemlock Society had tried to pass a federal law legitimizing assisted suicide, pro-lifers would have stopped them. But pro-life leaders have so often compromised on “Thou shall not murder,” they no longer realize when they’re making concessions.
They tried desperately to pass the Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act which, for the first time ever in federal law, would have legitimized state assisted suicide laws permitting “the withdrawal of food or fluids” simply with “a written advance directive valid under applicable law.” It's okay for dying people to die, it's not ok to kill them.
Morality does not require ventilating and pumping fluids through a virtual corpse that has no brain activity, but starving someone to death is wrong.
With this development, the pro-life movement would have people looking to “pull the plug,” and when finding no plug, go ahead and assist in suicide by starvation because of a “written directive.”
And now that even pro-lifers are sliding down the slippery slope, when the culture of death wants to prevent the suffering of starvation and administer a mercy-killing lethal injection, who will be left to argue?
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Here's where the issue lines are drawn, IMHO.
I'm not for the withdrawal of food and water, however, that does not mean that one inserts a feeding tube into every patient that refuses food.
When the elderly are failing, or when a terminally ill person is failing, they will often begin to reject food and water.
IMHO, inserting a feeding tube at that point would prolong their suffering.
And once that tube is inserted, then you have to deal with the legal issues of removing the tube. We have the medical technology to keep people alive by artificial means. Should we do it in every case? I don't think so.
Heard Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer years ago at a seminar. They were discussing Karen Ann Quinlan. Koop said something that has stuck with me..."don't start what you cannot stop" in reference to life prolonging measures.
I don't believe in assisted suicide, I do believe that if a person wishes to refuse life prolonging medical procedures (I'm not talking about offering food and water, I am talking about surgically inserting a tube), they should be allowed to die without a feeding tube.
That these issues crop up in the Christian community sometimes puzzles me. The fact that a person may want to go to a "better place" should not puzzle Christians, and I don't see why they would impose a feeding tube on someone who is terminal and wants to refuse it.
Of course, none of this has a bearing on Terri Schiavo, because her wishes were not known, except by "heresay" from an unfaithful husband.
Most used the argument that if Terri had a WRITTEN living will then it would have been 'different'.
So then it all hinged on the written will and not on ending a life that seemingly could have gone on for decades?
I disagree. The agrument that I heard overwhelmingly from the pro-life crowd was that "We don't starve people to death in this country for any reason".
That is exactly what is going to happen next.
They will even have the gall to call it "Terri's Law".
He's probably right. But I'm not sure what we could have done. As it is, half or more of the public is unsympathetic. If we said a feeding tube could NEVER be pulled--and I probably support that position--too many people wouldn't take us seriously. And people will find a way to link this to socialized medicine. God have mercy!
Point well taken. You are correct and I believe the author in no way wanted to imply that ALL in the Pro-Life movement are now Pro-assisted suicide, most in fact are not. Though sadly a growing contingent of lifers are starting to capitulate, primarily in the political end of the movement.
ping....
Important read!
thanks for posting this...
you bet
# 12 completes the point IMO
I disagree with you. Have you ever had and loved a dog or cat? Would you consider leaving it at the Vet clinic while it starved to death at the end of it's life? What could be more compassionate then painlessly ending it's suffering. No one doubts the motive of ending a beloved pets life this way--we should be able to do it for people as well IMHO...
Why was only one man, Judge Greer, the determinant of the facts in Terri's case?
In most other cases, it is a jury that determines the facts. Certainly the facts in all capital cases are determined by a jury.
Qualified individuals can make wise judgments. An individual can also make horrific judgments. Our society has determined that groups of individuals are more likely to be wise. That is why we have city councils, company boards of directors, and jury trials. Groups of people tend to be "less imperfect" than single individuals.
Setting aside personalities, as distasteful as they appear to be, having only one person determine the facts seems to be the central failing of the judicial system in Terri's case. For the future, that failing could be solved by legislative action.
thanks for the ping tutstar, and your post, cp.
We've gone far from our Christian roots as a nation. Suffering is part of life, sometimes in dying and often experienced throughout the course of someone's life.
Should I be shown the mercy of those who choose to end suffering because I go through every day in pain?
2 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
In a free country, people's lives are their own -- they do not belong to the government or to busy-body "pro-lifers". "Pro-lifers" who want to interfere with people's rights to choose euthanasia or assisted suicide are first and foremost anti-freedomers; they're only "pro" your life if you live it and end it the way *they" want you to.
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