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By Alex Schadenberg, Chairman, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionNovember 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Many people will have read the story of Rom Houben, the Belgium man who was diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) for 23 years, but who in fact had a condition known as Locked-in Syndrome. A person in locked-in syndrome is fully aware of all of their surroundings and they hear and remember the conversations that take place around them, but due to their cognitive disability they are unable to respond.The case of Rom Houben is significant given that many bioethicists are attempting to redefine...

A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night. Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed. He had no way of letting experts, family or friends know he could hear every word they said. Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (pictured posed by model) 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46.

Five years ago the beginning of the end of Terri Schindler Schiavo’s life was transforming America into two battle camps, which fought bitterly over to preserve the life of who Terri’s father Robert Schindler told me he lovingly called his angel, Terri or to let government let her be starved to death. Yet after five years should America just simply move on? Would you simply move on if it were your child who suddenly was incapacitated and went through Terri Schiavo’s experience? It is an interesting question because there are those in the media and even probably in your office,...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2009) — Scientists have found that some individuals in the vegetative and minimally conscious states, despite lacking the means of reporting awareness themselves, can learn and thereby demonstrate at least a partial consciousness. Their findings are reported in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience....This learning requires conscious awareness of the relation between stimuli -- the tone precedes and predicts the puff of air to the eye. This type of learning was not seen in the control subjects, volunteers who had been under anaesthesia.

I received a telephone call telling me a friend died of a heart attack. His name was Bob Schindler. His death certificate may say he died of cardiac arrest but those of us who knew Bob know he really died of a broken heart. I first met Bob, his wife Mary and their son Bobby in 2001 while I was in Charlotte, North Carolina to deliver the keynote address at the U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast. Bob and MaryÂ’s daughter was Terri Schiavo. They approached me to ask for help to save Terri from being starved and...

[This week] the pro-life movement mourns the loss of Mr. Robert Schindler, Sr., the father of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, whose fight for life captured the heart of the pro-life community in 2005. Mr. Schindler [was buried] in Philadelphia [yesterday] without the fanfare or accolades that are due a real champion who fought one of the most insidious evils of modern society — the legalized murder of the innocent. His funeral [was] not be televised on all the cable news networks, no cardinals [attended] it, and the President of the United States [[did] not deliver the eulogy — thank God. Mr. Schindler,...

Terri Schiavo's Father Dies At 71 (St. Petersburg, FL) -- The father of a woman who was at the center of a battle over "end of life" issues has died. Terri Schiavo's dad, Robert Schindler, passed away on Saturday at the age of 71. Schindler, his wife Mary, and their two other children became national figures back in 2005 while fighting to keep Terri alive on a feeding tube, against the wishes of her husband, Michael. Bobby Schindler released a statement saying he was "heartbroken" over the loss of his father and called his father "a man of integrity, character,...

MIAMI (AP) - The father of Terri Schiavo, who became a national symbol in a closely watched right-to-die fight, has died, his son said Saturday. Robert Schindler was 71. Schindler, a tireless activist through years of legal wrangling, died from heart failure at a hospital in St. Petersburg. Terri Schiavo, who courts ruled was in a "persistent vegetative state," died in 2005 after the feeding tube that had nourished her for years was removed according to her husband's wishes.

Terri Schiavo's Father Robert Schindler Dies, Pro-Life Group Mourns His Death St. Petersburg, FL -- Robert Schindler, the father of Terri Schiavo, whose former husband subjected her to a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death, died overnight. Schindler, 72, had been battling health issues and he died of apparent heart failure. http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2943.html

Obamacare and the Ghost of Terri Schiavo Why Americans Worry About The Democrats Pulling Grandma's Plug Dan McLaughlin Wednesday, August 12th at 4:54PM EDT 2 Comments NPR’s headline on yesterday’s town hall on health care by President Obama: Obama Says His Health Plan Won’t ‘Pull The Plug On Grandma’ The NY Daily News had a similar headline using that quote in this morning’s print edition, as does this Reuters item; the NY Post less delicately shortens the headline to ‘WE WON’T PULL PLUG ON GRANNY’.This is not the place the White House wanted to be in right now. Even George...

Former Florida Senate President Jim King, who sometimes fought Gov. Jeb Bush and his own Republican Party over the Terri Schiavo right-to-die battle in 2005, died Sunday after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokeswoman said. He was 69

<p>Speaking of judicial empathy, where was the empathy for the helpless Terri Schiavo as she was dehydrated to death by judicial order, without even the simple kindness of allowing the grieving parents to whet her blistering lips as she was being tortured to death?</p>

To the disgust of Florida's left-wing newspapers, Gov. Jeb Bush has tried to save Terri Schiavo from a gruesome, painful death by dehydration and starvation. Now the usual suspects in the pro-death crowd are rejoicing at the latest ruling by the Democrat-run Florida Supreme Court. But the governor said, "I'm disappointed for the moral reasons of the taking of innocent life without having, I don't think, a full hearing on the facts of what her intent was." He observed that courts can delay death sentences for decades. Will the innocent Mrs. Schiavo be accorded the same privileges granted to vicious...

June 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This article presents the Christian attitude toward abortion before the first ecumenical council, that is, until A.D. 325. Because the New Testament does not comment on the morality of abortion, this article considers the writings of the first generations of Christians after the apostles, for they indicate that opposition to abortion (1) was shared at a time when the writers — or Christians not many generations earlier — personally knew the apostles or their first disciples and thus benefited from their unwritten teachings and interpretations of Scripture, (2) comes from a date so early that...

TALLAHASSEE -- State Sen. Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican and 22-year veteran of the Legislature, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the lawmaker's longtime spokeswoman said Saturday. “During a recent routine post-legislative session checkup, Senator Jim King was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. While Senator King plans to seek additional medical counsel and aggressive treatment, he is aware that this particular type of cancer is difficult to treat and manage, and that the outcomes are, at best, guarded," said Sarah Bascom, a political consultant and longtime spokeswoman for King, in a statement.

The little girl flung from a minivan yesterday morning in west Omaha has died, according to the Omaha Police Department. Josie Bluhm, 4, was in a 2007 Chrysler Town & Country driven by her mother when the crash occurred. Her mother's minivan was southbound on 180th Street about 7:25 a.m. Tuesday when a 2007 Ford F-150 pickup driven west on West Center Road by Eleazar Rangel-Ochoa, 27, ran a red light and slammed into it, authorities said. Josie was the most severely hurt of those injured in the crash. She suffered brain hemorrhaging and was eventually declared brain dead. Life...

  DOCUMENTARY REVEALS NEW DETAILS IN TERRI SCHIAVO CASE   By Gina Adams Story Published: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM CST Story Updated: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:34 PM CST The story of Terri Schiavo caused a nationwide uproar that garnered the attention of the worldwide media, the U.S. Congress, and even the office of the President of the United States.   The ethical and cultural implications of her case are still being felt throughout society and continue to spark debate. In the newly-released documentary, The Terri Schiavo Story (Franklin Springs Family Media), previously unexplored facts of the...

          DOCUMENTARY REVEALS NEW DETAILS IN TERRI SCHIAVO CASE By Gina Adams Story Published: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM CST Story Updated: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:34 PM CST The story of Terri Schiavo caused a nationwide uproar that garnered the attention of the worldwide media, the U.S. Congress, and even the office of the President of the United States.   The ethical and cultural implications of her case are still being felt throughout society and continue to spark debate.   In the newly-released documentary, The Terri Schiavo Story (Franklin Springs Family Media), previously...

New York, NY -- Rolling Stone magazine is coming under fire for featuring a mock interview with former President George W. Bush in its latest issue. During the interview, Rolling Stone satirizes the death of Terri Schiavo by having the former president supposedly mocking her death, even though he tried to save her life.

The tragic story of Terri Schiavo has, for most Americans, become a faded memory. But now, thanks to Ken Carpenter and Franklin Springs Family Media, the account of her heart-wrenching ordeal will forever be available to those who believe in the sanctity and value of human life. Narrated by well known Christian author and advocate for the disabled, Joni Eareckson Tada . . .

A MAN whose family was told he would die without waking has spoken his first words after almost three years in a coma. "I am better," Ilija Marinovic told his wife, Margaret. Mrs Marinovic said: "I didn't believe it because all the doctors said it would never happen." While Mr Marinovic has been "away", his daughter has celebrated her 18th birthday, his son has had a second child, his sister has died and the whole world has changed. The 57-year-old was unaware his only son, Dinko, flew from Croatia twice to see him - once expecting to collect his body....

9/11 widow Ellen Mariani(Derry, N.H.) says George W. Bush is a gangster. We talk to her and her lawyer Philip J. Berg: Ellen Mariani last saw her husband Louis Neil early on the morning of September 11, 2001, at Logan Airport, where they were taking different flights to Los Angeles for a daughter’s wedding. He hadn’t gotten his tickets until the last minute, and couldn’t get on her flight, but there were seats open on Flight 175. Neil Mariani died when that plane crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center, and after rejecting a settlement offer of...

President-elect Barack Obama has nominated Thomas J. Perrelli to be associate attorney general, according to reports. You may remember Perrelli, managing partner in the DC office of Jenner & Block, from a few years back. Perrelli represented Michael Schiavo in the landmark right-to-kill case that paved the way for Mr. Schiavo to terminate the inconvenient life of his wife, Terri.

Washington, DC -- Barack Obama has named the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department. Thomas Perrelli, who won an award for representing Schiavo's former husband, had severed on Obama's transition team. Full story at: http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2685.html

He has received death threats regularly and was once asked by his pastor to change churches. For years he and his wife wouldn’t leave the house without bodyguards at their side. The pressure got to be so bad that the couple eventually stopped going out at all, unless it was absolutely necessary. But if you ask Judge George Greer about the experience, he’d tell you it was all in a day’s work. The 16-year veteran of the bench was the adjudicator tasked with hearing the highly publicized case of Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman whose husband applied in 1998...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The highest court in Italy has granted the right to a disabled woman's father to kill her via euthanasia by removing her feeding tube. Eluana Englaro has been in what doctors term a so-called vegetative state following a car accident and has received food and water via a feeding tube.Englaro has been the subject of the latest battle similar to the one Terri Schiavo's family waged to prevent her former husband from denying her food and water.She will now be starved and dehydrated to death in the same painful manner that took Schiavo's life over...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Several pro-life leaders are hoping the majority of Americans who take a pro-life position on abortion will re-charge and re-energize following Tuesday night's election defeats. They say the pro-life movement must prepare themselves to take on a pro-abortion president and renew educational efforts."We have long known that the work of advancing a culture of life is not a short-term project," Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest told LifeNews.com."Recall that William Wilberforce fought against the slave trade for 45 years before he ultimately prevailed in his defense of life," she said."In 2008, it is clear...

Still breaking....

Los Angeles, October 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Saturday, September 27, the Mexican superstar of Latin America, Eduardo Verastegui, and several of his friends joined the 40 Days for Life prayer campaign outside Family Planning Associates, an abortion business at 601 S. Westmoreland Avenue. He went there for two reasons: to help mothers and their unborn children, and warn people about the number-one abortion celebrity, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).Verastegui is cofounder of L.A.-based Metanoia Films and lead actor in the company's first feature film, Bella (http://www.amazon.com/Bella-Eduardo-Ver%C3%A1stegui/dp/B0014...), which premiered in American movie theaters last October.Until November 2, citizens of 179 cities in...

In speech to Planned Parenthood in July 2007, said he would sign Freedom of Choice Act to enshrine Roe in federal law By Peter J. Smith WASHINGTON, D.C., February 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Barack Obama, the young, dynamic contender for the US Democratic presidential nomination, is continuing to send strong signals to members of his party that he is the strongest anti-life candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. At the last Democratic debate before the March 4 primary showdown in Texas and Ohio that could effectively decide the Democratic nominee, both Sen. Hillary Clinton - a fierce abortion supporter who...

In 1990, Theresa Schiavo, an American citizen, had a cardiac arrest that caused irreversible brain damage which led to a persistent vegetative state diagnosis. A few years later, this diagnosis became a source of conflict over the interruption of artificial nutrition. The "Schiavo Case" was widely discussed from a medical, ethical and social standpoint in the United States and elsewhere. . . . [A]n article to be published in the September 23 issue of Neurology, . . . examines the media coverage featuring this famous case. The study reviewed American daily newspapers that were most prolific about this story: the...

St. Petersburg, FL -- Terri Schiavo's mother Mary Schindler has uncovered a note that Terri wrote back in 1984 when she married her husband Michael. Now remarried to someone with whom he had an affair before Terri's death, Michael won a court order to take her live despite pleas from her family. Terri's brother Bobby Schindler tells LifeNews.com about the note. Complete story at: http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2440.html

LAUREN RICHARDSON - YOU CAN HELP!By Judie BrownIt has been a source of ongoing sadness to read of the difficulties Lauren Richardson’s father has had over the course of the past several months. For those of you who are not familiar with her case, Lauren overdosed on heroin on August 28, 2006. She suffered oxygen deprivation and, as a result of the overdose, is now in a coma and unable to speak out for herself. At the time of the overdose, Lauren was expecting a baby. Her parents honored what they knew would have been her wish and did all they could to...

In 2001, the Schindler family — the parents, brother and sister of Terri Schiavo — formed the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation to try to save the life of their loved one who, as her brother, Bobby Schindler, said to me recently, "was deemed unworthy of life because she was cognitively disabled." The judiciary and the press did not agree with that justified accusation that Terri was cruelly starved and dehydrated to death. The foundation continues. "We fight daily," Bobby Schindler emphasizes, "to shed light on the fact that having a disability of any kind does nothing to diminish a person's...

In none of the endless presidential candidates' debates has there been a meaningful discussion of the rights of disabled Americans. However, in the Feb. 26 debate in Cleveland, Barack Obama casually and ignorantly revealed his misunderstanding of the basic issue in the highly visible and still-resonating official death sentence of a disabled woman, Terri Schiavo. I have repeatedly called her death the result of "the longest public execution in American history." When moderator Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton and Obama if "there are any words or votes that you'd like to take back ... in your careers in public service,"...

In a recent interview in the Sunday "NYTimes" magazine, Eleanor Clift, says, re: Terri Schiavo, that her parents and supporters "did not want to accept that she could not be rehabilitated. They found enough people to fool them into thinking she could." This, of course, is completely wrong! Forget "rehabilitation." What Terri's parents and her supporters tried to stop was the MURDER of Terri Schiavo. Alas, they failed -- with no help from people like Eleanor Clift.

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor February 26, 2008 Cleveland, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death.

During a televised debate between Democrat party nominee frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were asked if there were any votes that they would like to take back. Here was Obama's choice... "When I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo," Obama said. "And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decision-making process of the families. It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped," he said. "And I think...

Cleveland, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting with a unanimous Senate to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death. In March 2005, just weeks before Terri died from a painful 14-day starvation and dehydration death, Congress approved legislation allowing her family to take its case from state courts to federal courts in an effort to stop the euthanasia from proceeding.Terri was not on any artificial breathing apparatus and only required...

In last night's democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - their last one before the Texas/Ohio showdown on March 4th - Barack Obama made a surprising (to me, shocking) statement: RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you'd like to takeback? OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decision making process of the families. It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was...

“Death has replaced sex as the taboo subject of our times,” said one of the world’s richest men and leading philanthropists, George Soros, when he launched the Project Death in America fund at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1994. It promotes euthanasia or assisted suicide, and has been succeeded by the Open Society Institute’s International Palliative Care Initiative . Soros’s mother committed suicide, as a member of the Hemlock Society . His father died a lingering death from cancer, and Soros was “disappointed” at the way the old man clung miserably to life.

A Delaware woman has become the next Terri Schiavo as her parents engage in a massive legal and philosophical debate about whether to subject her to euthanasia. Richardson is a 23-year-old woman who overdosed on heroin in August 2006 while she was three months pregnant with a baby girl. Doctors kept Lauren on life support until she delivered her baby in February 2007. Shortly thereafter, her parents began a fight that is reminiscent of the battle over Terri's life and death. As in the Terri Schiavo case, physicians have been quick to label Lauren as having a persistent vegetative state...

Bronx, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The battle over the life and death of a teenage girl in New York has drawn the attention of pro-life advocates in recent days. The fight to save Javona Peters reminds some of the struggle of the Schindler family in Florida to save the life of Terri Schiavo, a beloved daughter and sibling whose former husband eventually took her life. In this case, Peters' parents are disagreeing on whether or not to remove her feeding tube and take her life.Peters fell into a coma in October while she had a routine medical procedure at Montefiore Medical...

"Paulo Melo, 29, has been in a coma at the Royal Darwin Hospital for two weeks, after severing his spinal cord in a car crash." - read more below: doctor requested, family objected, court granted

December 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Shiavo, the young woman who was dehydrated to death in Florida in 2005, has become a prominent opponent of euthanasia since that wrenching time for his family. In a recent Challenge magazine interview with Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Schindler revealed the shocking details of the support from many prominent Catholic clergy for the court ordered removal of food and hydration from Terri. Bobby is a practicing Catholic as was his sister.   Schindler stated that his sister "was not dying, not attached to any type of...

http://www.yahoo.com/

TAMPA, Fla. - Republican Fred Thompson sidestepped a question about the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case last month, saying he didn't remember the details. On Monday he said he's uncomfortable discussing it because of his own daughter's death.snip "And this will probably be the last time I ever address it." snip He added: "It should be decided by families. The federal government and the state government, too — except for the court system — ought to stay out of it, as far as I'm concerned."

Interesting article about the awareness of vegetative patients. We are not able to post the New Yorker's content, but check out the link. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_groopman?printable=true

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- An Italian court has denied a request by a disabled woman's father to remove her feeding tube and authorize her death by starvation and dehydration. Eluana Englaro has been a coma for 15 years after an automobile accident seriously injured her and, this year, her father asked a Milan court for permission to remove her feeding tube. This isn't the first time Englaro's case had been in court. In April 2005, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court ruling to keep her feeding tube in place. That case had also been brought by Englaro's father,...