Free Republic

Our 20 year old daughter needs prayers. She is severely mentally and physically disabled and had to be rushed into the hospital this morning with pneumonia/respiratory distress. Her name is Stephanie.

As some Christians from around the state prepare to flood Florida's Capitol in a show of support for Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who has been in a vegetative state since 1990, a top Vatican official said Friday that removing Schiavo's feeding tube would be ``a pitiless way to kill.'' Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's chief bioethicist, said in an interview with Vatican Radio that removing Schiavo's feeding tube would be equivalent to euthanasia, The Associated Press reported. Doctors say Schiavo is in a permanent vegetative state. While her husband, Michael, argues his wife would not want to be kept...

On February 24th, a few days before a Florida judge issued Terri Schiavo a stay of execution until the 18th of March, I wrote for the first time on a subject I admittedly knew little about in a piece titled Decision on Terry Schiavo Case Too Difficult. As I stated in that piece, I was writing in response to reader mail asking me to take a position on a national debate that I had spent little time researching. Both before and since, I have been inundated with mail from folks on both sides of the debate, most of whom, knew...

A set of ancient medical books rests on a redwood shelf in a corner: they belonged to my Grandfather, at the turn of the last century. Upon opening them, one finds the hopes and dreams of human beings committed to ending the suffering of the sick and disabled - not by killing them, but by healing them. Through all the books, like a golden thread, is the unbreakable, unshakeable ideal that Life is to be chosen over Death... Now, lay down the books, and pick up the newspaper. Read the new order, the new way of doing Medicine - the...

By John GroganInquirer Columnist Her name is Millie. She came into this world 55 years ago, a healthy, chubby baby with a shock of dark hair. Her family loved her then, and despite everything - or perhaps because of it - loves her now even more. Millie Reynolds has never spoken a word or returned a smile. Her first tentative baby steps would be her last. Just before her first birthday in 1950, she contracted viral meningitis, with sustained fevers that left her profoundly brain-damaged. The doctors said an institution would be best, but Millie's parents would not listen. They...

EDITOR'S NOTE: As public attention turns again the predicament of Terri Schiavo – the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman whose husband is seeking her starvation death – I thought it was time to remind our readers of the dangerous worldview which is driving the attempt to euthanize Terri. Below is a reprint of most of my Nov. 13, 2003, editorial published at a time when Terri’s life was in danger, as it is again. As we go to press this week, a flurry of activity in Tallahassee, Washington and the courts continue as advocates seek to save Terri’s life. Her husband claims...