8mm
Posted on 09/14/2007 1:21:59 PM PDT by wagglebee
Contact: Jerry Horn, Priests for Life, 540-220-0095
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, welcomed the brief statement from the Vatican today clarifying that patients in a "persistent vegetative state," even when they are not expected to recover, are not to be deprived of food and water.
"Naturally, this brings to mind the case of Terri Schiavo," said Fr. Pavone, who was on Terri's short visitor’s list and was at her side in the final hours of her life. "Her autopsy said that she died of dehydration. She did not die from natural causes or from any illness. She was killed." Fr. Pavone added, "Let's not confuse Terri's case with the legitimate withdrawal of medical treatment. While there is such a thing as a worthless treatment, there is never such a thing as a worthless life."
Priests for Life, in cooperation with the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, has proclaimed March 31 each year as "Terri's Day" and has prepared special prayers and suggested activities and educational resources for Churches and families.
Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.
Amen!
Pro-Life Ping
Ping
Well said Fr Pavone, true defender of the weak.
Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
Indeed, food and water should never be considered artificial life support.
That is a wonderful statement. All people are made in the image of God, and all people are worthy of life and care.
Food and water are ordinary means; not extraordinary means.
“NOT a painless death: (1) Depriving food and water from profoundly cognitively disabled persons like Terri who are not otherwise dying, a process that causes death by dehydration over a period of 10-14 days. As I will illustrate below, this may cause great suffering.”
http://www.cogforlife.org/wesleysmithschiavo3.htm
A counselor by phone used tough love and told Terri to stand up because there are some people that want to kill her. Terri tried desperately to stand up! The fact that Terri survived several starvation attempts (removal of her feeding tube), and untreated infections (Michael would not allow her antibiotics, because he wanted her to die) also shows her will to live.
Dear Supporters of Terri Schiavo,
Tori Schmanski is a very pretty 17 year girl. A couple of years ago, she was involved in a car accident which resulted in a near drowning in which she suffered an anoxic brain injury.
For over 2 years the family has given therapy and rehab and Tori has undergone stem cell therapy in China.
Tori is still greatly disabled and similar to Terri.
The web site the family has set has been quite popular and has numerous updates. The family has set up a healing campaign with tee shirts, candles, and other things urging to pray for Tori.
Tori’s case I feel is most significant in the fact that Tori has suffered an anoxic brain injury just like Terri did.
This is significant because TBI patients tend to fare better in recovery than anoxic brain injury patients.
That being said, how Tori recovers is much more accurate comparsion to Terri’s case.
The web site allows people to post comments about recent blog entries.
Those who were heavely involved in the effort to save the life of Terri Schiavo should contribute and post their feelings and words of encouragement to the family on the board.
The family needs all the support they can get which why they created this web site.
Some may remember Laura Laughlin. Laura Laughlin was another young beautiful girl who suffered a brain injury as result of a car accident.
She was quite disabled and based on the video footage on her web site seemed less responsive than Terri Schiavo.
The husband created a web site for her to gain support: http://www.lauralaughlin.com/
The web site gained a lot of attention and a remark was made that it was one of the most comprehensive web sites about a person with a brain injury.
Unfortunately, Laura Laughlin died earlier this year.
It is unknown on whether or not she was starved and dehydrated to death like Terri but there was talk before her death the husband was considering removing her feeding tube.
I don’t know if he did or not.
However, the husband has done good work recently with his foundation to research brain injuries: http://www.lauralaughlinl6.org/
The husband was not conflicted like Michael Schiavo was.
The Internet seems to becoming in essential and vital tool for people with brain injuries.
These web sites make it possible to solicate help both financially and medically for their disabled loved one.
Unfortunately, when Terri was injured, the Internet was only in its infancy.
Nevertheless, a web site could still have been set up to get medical and financial help for her condition.
Perhaps this might have been a good use of her guardianship fund to set up a web site in her name to improve her condition.
So take the time to study Tori’s web site and send encouraging or helpful comments or information to the Schmanski family.
They need all the help they can get.
There are several other web sites to chronicling the life and care of several of brain injured patients that need help too. Again, these people have suffered anoxic brain injury which is key.
http://www.getwellkathleen.us/index.htm
http://www.justiceformichael.com/
http://www.mackenzieroecker.org
God Bless you all,
James
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/mar/05033108.html - Terri’s death was euthanasia according to a renowned antieuthanasia specialist.
Starvation and Dehydration is not pleasant:
“The body attacks itself; fat, cartilage, muscle, all are sacrificed. The tongue swells and cracks, making swallowing difficult. The mouth dries out, becoming caked or coated with thick deposits. The mucous membranes in the nose dry out causing nosebleeds. The stomach lining dries, causing dry heaves and/or vomiting. Uncontrolled diarrhea could also result. The patient feels the pain. Body temperature increases. Brain cells dry out and die. Seizures start. The skin hangs loose, dries out, cracks, becomes inelastic and scaly. The eyes recede back into their orbits. The cheeks hollow out. The body slowly shuts down. The weakness becomes so extreme that the head cannot be raised. Consciousness is lost. The major body organs shrink and eventually give out. Death occurs. The process takes 1 - 3 weeks.”
This is a General description.
According to one neurologist:
“A conscious [cognitively disabled] person would feel it just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death.”
According to Dr. Cranford, a doctor who supported starvation and dehydration:
“After seven to nine days [from commencing dehydration] they begin to lose all fluids in the body, a lot of fluids in the body. And their blood pressure starts to go down. When their blood pressure goes down, their heart rate goes up. . . . Their respiration may increase and then . . .
the blood is shunted to the central part of the body from the periphery of the body. So, that usually two to three days prior to death, sometimes four days, the hands and the feet become extremely cold. They become mottled. That is you look at the hands and they have a bluish appearance. And the mouth dries a great deal, and the eyes dry a great deal and other parts of the body become mottled. And that is because the blood is now so low in the system it’s shunted to the heart and other visceral organs and away from the periphery of the body . . .”
According to Kate Adamson who was starved and dehydrated for a time:
O’REILLY: When they took the feeding tube out, what went through your mind?
ADAMSON: When the feeding tube was turned off for eight days, I thought I was going insane. I was screaming out in my mind, “Don’t you know I need to eat?” And even up until that point, I had been having a bagful of Ensure as my nourishment that was going through the feeding tube. At that point, it sounded pretty good. I just wanted something. The fact that I had nothing, the hunger pains overrode every thought I had.
O’REILLY: So you were feeling pain when they removed your tube?
ADAMSON: Yes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. To say that—especially when Michael [Schiavo] on national TV mentioned last week that it’s a pretty painless thing to have the feeding tube removed—it is the exact opposite. It was sheer torture, Bill.
O’REILLY: It’s just amazing.
ADAMSON: Sheer torture . . .
In preparation for this article, I contacted Adamson for more details about the torture she experienced while being dehydrated. She told me about having been operated upon (to remove the bowel obstruction) with inadequate anesthesia when doctors believed she was unconscious:
The agony of going without food was a constant pain that lasted not several hours like my operation did, but several days. You have to endure the physical pain and on top of that you have to endure the emotional pain. Your whole body cries out, “Feed me. I am alive and a person, don’t let me die, for God’s Sake! Somebody feed me.”
Unbelievably, she described being deprived of food and water as “far worse” than experiencing the pain of abdominal surgery. Despite having been on an on an IV saline solution, Adamson still had horrible thirst:
I craved anything to drink. Anything. I obsessively visualized drinking from a huge bottle of orange Gatorade. And I hate orange Gatorade. I did receive lemon flavored mouth swabs to alleviate dryness but they did nothing to slack my desperate thirst.
When Terri was starved and dehydrated in 2003, an extensive exit protocal was designed for her to deal with effects of starvation and dehydration:
The caregivers were given orders to compensate for certain phyciological effects the could happen to Terri Schiavo including:
Menstrual cramps
Compromised Skin integrity
Dry lips and mouth
Difficulty breathing - Gasping for breath
Terminal agitation - Uncontrollable twitching
Grand Mal Seizures.
http://www.blogsforterri.com/archives/2007/03/100_hours_of_st_1.php
In another right to die case, one judge distented when the effects of starvation and dehydration became apparent to him:
Judge Lynch (Paul Brophy case) on dehydration:
The removal of a nutrition and hydration tube, wrote Judge Lynch of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, would likely create some or all of the following effects before death.
The mouth would dry out and become caked or coated with thick material.
The lips would become parched and cracked.
The tongue would swell, and might crack.
The eyes would recede back into their orbits and the cheeks would become hollow.
The lining of the nose might crack and cause the nose to bleed.
The skin would hang loose on the body and become dry and scaly.
The urine would become highly concentrated, leading to burning of the bladder.
The lining of the stomach would dry out and the sufferer would experience dry heaves and vomiting.
The body temperature would become very high.
The brain cells would dry out, causing convulsions.
The respiratory tract would dry out, and the thick secretions that would
result could plug the lungs and cause death.
At some point within five days to three weeks the major organs, including the lungs, heart, and brain, would give out and the patient would die.
Terri also suffered in other ways including:
Having her parents be forced to watch her wither away of a period of 13 days.
Terri’s starvation and dehydration also prevented Terri from recieving holy communion (the host) because her tongue and mouth was too parched.
In one bioethic conference after Terri’s death, Dr. Cranford remarked that to not very pleasant for vegetative patients to die from starvation and dehydration and it not very pleasent watching someone starve and dehydrate to death.
Death by starvation and dehydration is only permissable when the patient is actively dying and death is only a few hours or a few days away.
A feeding tube would also not be considered if it is causing undo pain and suffering and if the body can’t assimilate food and water.
In the Karen Ann Quilen case, her ventilator was removed because the family felt it was causing an excessive burden.
When the venitlator was removed from KAQ she did not die and she lived another 10 years in her PVS state.
KAQ had a feeding tube which sustained her for those years.
When the family was asked about the possiblity of removing the feeding tube, their answer was:
“Oh no, that is her nourisment.”
That’s the only reason they had to give.
Ping for Tori Schmanski.
http://www.michaelschiavo.org/audio/felos_press_conf_death.ram
This is a press conference by George Felos. He describes how he witnessed Terri gasping for breath for many hours before she died. Felos also noted that Terri limbs were all mottled and cold from the lack of sufficent oxygen from her heart.
Felos was very worried that the actions (court petitions and hearings) from Terri’s family would stop the death process that TERRI SCHIAVO HAD CHOSEN.
http://kutv.com/video/?id=
http://www.abc4.com/mediacenter/default.aspx?videoId=25721
Tori’s case seems virtually identical to how Terri’s situation manifested itself - That is, she became disabled and the amount of local support and theraptiac help that Terri recieved in the early years.
I can only hope that Tori’s family does not give up on her.
Tori’s situation is definitely a case that should be watched. Tori is very similiar to Terri Schiavo because she sustained the same injury. I hope the family continues to research new therapies for Tori. She is so pretty and cute. It would extremely tragic for her to be starved and dehydrated to death. The fact that she is so young and pretty makes that much difficult to fathom such a situation. The family must never give up hope. Medical science is always evolving. What cannot be cured today may be cured tommorrow.
Tori’s case is one of closest cases to Terri Schiavo I have been able to find as of yet. I just hope the family doesn’t give up on her like Michael did to Terri. The Schindlers never gave up on Terri and fought for her to the bitter end. You should post your feelings, comments, or advice on the board. You have good pro-life stances and the family might benefit from it. The family might also benefit from a strong pro-life person such as Wesley Smith (I sent him the link). His advice could really help the family.
The website is quite popular and I have seen at some times where up to 60 people are monitoring it. It seems a lot of people are concerned about Tori’s well being.
I just hate to think about reading a news story in a year that the family has given up hope and Tori has died.
She is so young and pretty. This makes the situation that much harder to take in.
The family must not give up hope.
I have posted a couple of times encouraging the family not to give up hope. I have even given the family some advice (links) on some organizations that might help Tori’s well being.
Tori and her family needs continious support both financially, medically and spiritually.
The use of internet today can really help these families cope with their current situation.
Withdraw of life support or medical treatment for someone who is merely disabled and not dying should only be considered as an absolute last resort made under the most egrecious of circumstances, especially in a case where the person is very very young.
Thanks for post #11.
And here’s more:
“NOT a painless death: (1) Depriving food and water from profoundly cognitively disabled persons like Terri who are not otherwise dying, a process that causes death by dehydration over a period of 10-14 days. As I will illustrate below, this may cause great suffering.”
http://www.cogforlife.org/wesleysmithschiavo3.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.