Replies

"You're getting confused by relying on Matthews. The argument was, I believe, that Terri usually followed Vatican opinion on pro-life stuff, and would have believed that she was putting herself in danger of damnation by wanting to disobey the Pope's recent speech on artificial nutrition and hydration. That is, the argument is that Terri would not have wanted to die, since such a wish goes against her religious beliefs."

This is my understanding of the meat and truth of this issue, as well, gbcdoj. Matthews RARELY gets thinks straight. And on the off chance that he *does* ever know truth that goes against his favored spew, he purposefully misleads, twists, and omits. Sometimes laughingly. Most times transparently.

And I wanted to add one more thing. A parent would be beside themselves with the terrible thought that their dying child has it in their head that they are doomed for damnation in the child's going against his/her stated and heartfelt spiritual and afterlife beliefs.

A parent of a dying child (especially one that has gotten NO sleep, fumes run, and is in the constant world eye,) is so fraught with sadness and worry and wish beyond wish that they could transfer/take away the pain of their dying flesh and blood, that the parent gets consumed with helplessness and worry and pain that the child has such awful thoughts (in this case, eternal damnation,) on his/her mind while going through such agony and the absolute torture of the death process. And this particular death process is WORLDS worse, in that Terri was not dying on her own--her death was extraneously and to some degree, unwittingly brought ON her.