Free Republic

Part 1 Materialism focuses attention on material security and quality of life in this world, yet the continued consistent application of the ideal of a high quality of life finally results in a devaluing and loss of life. That was the message of speakers at the L'Abri Fellowship conference on Life and Liberty, held Feb. 13-14 in Rochester, Minnesota, in two presentations that focused particularly on euthanasia and the history of the American eugenics movement. Henk Reitsma of the L'Abri Fellowship's Dutch facility discussed the deterioration of respect for life in the Netherlands under the impact of the legalization and...

The assisted-suicide movement is the rare self-proclaimed civil rights movement that exists to cater to the wishes of affluent Americans. On Tuesday, the California Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on SB 128, a bill to legalize assisted suicide in the state. (Proponents don't like the word suicide, so they call the measure the "End of Life Option Act.") Supporters talk of their fear of medical personnel's prolonging their lives, of pain and lack of autonomy; opponents fear that the bill's passage would represent a callous act of cultural abandonment of the sick and disabled. I don't mean to suggest...

McDonald’s announced that over 90,000 employees will receive a pay raise effective July 1, 2015. After recent employee protests and slow sales, McDonald’s appears to be raising salaries to solve employee relation problems and improve it’s image with consumers.

A New Hampshire state representative exasperated by budget cuts to programs serving disabled people has mockingly suggested the next step would be euthanasia. NH1 reports that the comment by Democratic Rep. Michael Cahill of Newmarket came during Wednesday’s budget debate. Cahill said since budget writers “are refusing to raise revenues” to fund programs for the disabled, “have you looked at euthanasia?” …

More voters say their family is worse off than better off under ObamaCare. In addition, most of those who had to change their insurance coverage because of the health care law say it cost them money. That’s according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. Overall, 42 percent say the country is worse off under the 2010 health care law. Some 44 percent felt that way last year (June 2014). […] Clearly partisanship plays a role: 73 percent of Republicans say the country is worse off under Obamacare, while just 12 percent of Democrats feel that way. Has the law...

On March 30, 2005, Terri Schiavo had her last full day of life on this earth and both her family and Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life will never forget the last moments they shared with the woman whose former husband won a court order to take her life.Terri was killed on March 31, 2005 when her former husband won a protracted legal battle against the Schindler family for the right to disconnect her feeding tube. Doctors who examined Terri say she was not in a persistent vegetative state and that her condition could have been improved has she...

March 30, 2015 (BreakPoint.org) -- In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Vacco v. Quill that there was no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Those of us here at BreakPoint recall how Chuck Colson and others breathed a sigh of relief.But a lot has changed in 18 years. What was legally unthinkable then is oh so thinkable today. And even if the Court doesn’t reverse itself, at least eighteen states and the District of Columbia are contemplating following the lead of Oregon and several European countries, most notably the Netherlands and Belgium.That’s why a vitally important Heritage Foundation paper by Ryan T....

On March 18, 2005, my sister, Terri Schiavo, began her thirteen day agonizing death after the feeding tube – supplying her food and water – was removed. Terri was cognitively disabled and had difficulty swallowing and therefore needed a feeding tube. Terri was not on any “life support”, nor was she sick or dying. Nonetheless, she received her death sentence ordered by Circuit Court Judge, George W. Greer of Pinellas County Florida. Greer’s order to remove Terri’s feeding tube was in response to her estranged husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, requesting permission from the court to kill his disabled wife....

Raissa Maritain, the philosopher and spiritual writer, died some months after suffering a stroke. During those months she lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. After her death, her husband, the renowned philosopher, Jacques Maritain, in preparing her journals for publication, wrote these words: “At a moment when everything collapsed for both of us, and which as followed by four agonising months, Raissa was walled in herself by a sudden attack of aphasia. Whatever progress she made during several weeks by sheer force of intelligence and will, all deep communication remained cut off. And subsequently, after a relapse, she...

**SNIP** For years, the state legislature has been embroiled in a mulch-year battle over a package of bills designed to push the interests of women. The bills have been held up in part because it includes a measure that would promote late-term abortions in the Empire State. Despite strenuous support from pro-abortion Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the legislature has refused to pass the package of bills because of the abortion measure. The abortion bill would allow an abortion procedure that has abortionists shooting poison through the hearts of unborn children to kill them. Now, the state Assembly has approved part of...

March 24, 2015 (NationalReview.com) -- I have repeatedly warned about articles published in medical and bioethics journals advocating killing the profoundly disabled or dying for their organs.The assault on the “dead donor rule” has now filtered down to the popular media. The Atlantic has an article advocating that dying patients be killed for their organs rather than having to actually, you know, die first. From, “As They Lay Dying:” A more useful ethical standard could involve the idea of “imminent death.” Once a person with a terminal disease reaches a point when only extraordinary measures will delay death; when use (or...

March 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The fight for life for the family of Lisa Avila, a mother of seven, continues.Avila, who has been in a coma for nearly six weeks, has been surrounded by family and friends who do not want Anaheim Regional Medical Center to remove the medical care that is keeping her alive.The hospital had planned to withdraw care on Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. local time, but chose to extend the deadline until Tuesday at noon.According to Avila's family, however, that's not enough time for their wife and mother to recover. They are insisting that she...

Conservatives often find themselves at odds with the libertarian crowd. However, is that anger really warranted? As President Reagan once said, “If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” True conservatives and libertarians, let’s not pretend there aren’t fakers on both side, all agree on the fundamentals: limited government, personal responsibility, and economic freedom. Neither group wants the government interfering in our daily lives and telling us what we can and cannot do. Now there may be slight disagreements on how that plays out in the policy arena, but we should not allow...

REMEMBRANCE of EASTER 2005 Crowd my eyes, you bevies of daffodils, And you forsythias in throngs of cheer, Dandelion galaxies and fountains of trees. Fill my mouth with the breath of hyacinths, you purple air And you roistering breeze. And you quince-buds so eager, you swelling seeds, You squirrels running stitches across the loom Of woven grasses, inflorescent weeds; Jasmine-bush, loop me with your lariats of perfume. Fill me, small birds, with your versicles, And chuckled replies. She is bleeding from the mouth and eyes. Sate me then, Sun, all dapple and spangle Crowd out all else Lade me...

It was in the early morning hours of Monday March 21st, 2005 that a Republican controlled Congress wrapped up a weekend series of sessions to pass legislation related to Terri Schiavo's case to allow federal courts to consider her right of due process. Final Senate passage of House Bill 203 came at 12:41 am and shortly thereafter President George W. Bush stepped out of his bedroom at the White House to sign the bill in a hallway. There was hope and fear surrounding the legislation. Hope from lawyers trying to save Terri's life and fear from Michael Schiavo. An emotional...

As we feared, the most egregious bill introduced this session is Senate Bill (SB) 128, a concerted effort to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Despite failing to pass similar laws five previous times in California, supporters of these so-called “Death with Dignity” laws have been emboldened by both a national effort to expand legalized physician-assisted suicide from coast to coast, and by the high-profile case of a 29-year-old California cancer patient who moved to Oregon to end her life there. While many such cases are tragic, just three states have succumbed to the legalization efforts of pro-death forces. Only Oregon, Washington and...

At the end of this month, Terri Schiavo will be ten years dead. But she is far from forgotten. Everyone reading these words knows the story, and everyone has an opinion. What began in 1990 as a private tragedy—a vivacious young woman stricken in the prime of life with a severe cognitive disability—became a source of profound cultural division, as likely to spark debate today as when the case first broke into the public’s consciousness. Why has her story remained so potent? Part of it has to do with the high-profile and vituperative legal and public-relations battle between Terri’s...

March 4, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Although there has always been contraception, its acceptance and practice by society as a whole is a relatively new phenomenon. In the first part of the 20th century barrier methods became through mass production increasingly used. However, with the advent of the hormonal contraceptive pill in the 1960s the contraceptive era, ushering in the sexual revolution, really took off.The term “revolution” is by no means exaggerated, for the result was a fundamental change in the understanding of human sexuality in society. With the pill, people thought, nothing can happen, i.e. no child could be conceived....

According to a media report out of New Jersey, a third doctor–the others are Shewmon and Calixto–has signed a declaration stating Jahi McMath is not brain dead. The family attorney Chris Dolan says he will petition the California Secretary of State to rescind the death certificate. From the N.J.com story: Dolan provided NJ Advance Media with signed declarations from four doctors, including Charles J. Prestigiacomo, director of Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery at University Hospital in Newark and chair of the neurological surgery department at Rutgers, stating that McMath isn’t brain dead.“The brain structure evidenced in the MRI is not consistent...

Newsweek has a long article–in which I briefly appear–exploring how and why the euthanasia monster broke its fetters to turn the Netherlands into ground zero for the culture of death (now seriously challenged by the even more death-enthusiastic Belgians).Reporter Winston Ross interviewed experts and the impacted on both sides of the issue, so you should read the whole thing. What I wanted to share here, are the theories about why Netherlanders have permitted euthanasia with virtually no meaningful limits.First, media propaganda. From, “Dying Dutch: Once a supporter of euthanasia, he’s now one of its most vocal critics. Among the reasons...