Posted on 03/29/2005 7:27:36 AM PST by Daisy4
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Beware of So-called Living Wills! From Flip Benham with comments by Steve Mashburn "You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13
Sunday afternoon Flip and I discussed the current crisis in Clearwater, Florida with Terri Schiavo and the issue of so-called “living wills.” It is our firm conviction at Operation Rescue/Operation Save America that “living wills” are extremely dangerous and should be viewed by Christians with extreme caution. We are opposed to “living wills” because God Himself is opposed to them.” He is sovereign. He is the One who determines who lives and who dies – not us!
We are not talking about artificially keeping a person alive who is on a respirator and who is brain dead. We are opposed to heroic measures to keep a body alive while the spirit has already departed. However, giving a person food and water through a tube is not a “heroic action.” It does not resuscitate a person who is brain dead. A person giving a directive to remove a feeding tube when they can otherwise live on their own is asking the rest of us to assist them in suicide. God would never have us murder you!
We understand terrible situations in which a person may be brain dead, unable to respond at all and the body kept alive only by machines with no chance of recovery. Such cases require prayer and good medical counsel as the decision to remove the machines may very well be God's will. Terri Schiavo is not anywhere near such a situation, yet her crisis is being used by the “right to die” crowd and other enemies of life to create a rush for everyone to obtain a “living will” or other advanced directive.
Beware Christians! This deception is from the pit of hell and is even catching dear friends in Christian leadership such as Dr. James Dobson in its claws. Take heed how you hear brothers and sisters. God help us, especially our leaders in Christian and secular media!
Too see this danger we need to look no further than our dear sister Liz Thomas who several weeks ago spent a couple of weeks on a respirator to keep her alive in intensive care. Doctors gave Liz no chance for recovery yet this precious mother of 10 and wife went home with her family this past Friday after three months in the hospital. A “living will” stating that no heroic action be taken could have been wrongly interpreted and used by unscrupulous doctors to take Liz's fate into their own hands even over her husband Rusty Thomas's objections.
The Hemlock Society must be dancing with glee, their hands raised in the air as even Christian leaders on Christian air waves tell us all to go to an attorney and have a “living will” drawn up. After years of battling Jack Kavorkian in court cases, attorney Constance Cumby stated at a lecture in Wichita, KS, “a living will is a dead give-away. If I need air, I want to be given air. If I need food and water, I want to be given food and water.”
Constance Cumby is right! We live in a society where doctors routinely tell new parents that their baby is handicapped with little chance to live or at least live a normal life and it would be best if they let doctors disconnect the respirator or let the baby die of starvation. I cannot count the number of Christian parents that have told me these doctors' evil counsel while their children are alive and blessed today. The abortion industry pulls in millions through such pre-natal counseling – Just look at Wichita abortionist George Tiller. Terri Schiavo has been God's wake up call to America.
The culture of death that surrounds us today is dangerous. In Holland elderly people are terrified of going to the hospital for even minor reasons. In a State where murder by assisted suicide is legal, any two doctors can determine your quality of life, outlook for the future and you can be legally murdered. If you don't think it can happen here you are wrong. You quite possibly might be dead wrong in the not too distant future. Indeed the groundwork is being paved now through “living wills.”
I am a quadriplegic with Social Security Disability as my only income and Medicare & state Medicaid pay for me to receive home based health care in my own home and community. Each year in keeping with state law the SRS visits me and reviews my eligibility and needs. One question they ask every single year has haunted me for the past decade. That question is this. “Do you have a living will or any advanced directive?”
Why do you suppose the State wants to know if I have a “living will” and to what end? Could it possibly have anything to do with state law requiring me to give a copy of any such document if I receive state Medicaid funds? Medicaid & Medicare only pay 35–45 percent of doctor and hospital bills. Considering that sky-rocketing costs of both Medicare and Medicaid were targeted for cuts even by President Bush this year, I would say the State has a vested interest in directing what health care services I and other persons with disabilities receive. State lawmakers are no different.
Faced with a choice of much higher taxes or cutting off health care funding to the elderly and infirm, which do you think the generation of abortion on demand will choose? The compassionate conservatives in the Republican Party argue for cuts to heath care for poor adults over higher taxes. The slippery slope that abortion started us down is about to pick up speed if Christians do not speak up and act now.
One need look no further than the plight of Terri Schiavo for convincing evidence of an imminent Final Solution plot for the future in America. Death has become the solution for those individuals that may inconvenience us in America from abortion to the disabled. Now add the specter of “Living Wills” in which doctors determine your chances of recovery and “quality of life” then decide whether you or I die. A simple case of pneumonia requiring a few days in the hospital on a respirator could be a death sentence for you made possible by drawing up a “living will” by none other than you yourself!
As the persecution of Christians in the media, a growing number of courts and a hostile society ignorant of God's Law grows even less tolerant of born again Christians, we need to know that like in Nazi Germany we are very likely a target in the crosshairs of God-haters. The State will be looking for opportunities to rid society of unwanted Christians. Lawyers are drawing up those excuses to murder those we inconvenience and a few of our Christian leaders are unwisely and unknowingly advising us to give the State the legal means and permission.
Oh dear Christian can you not see the danger in such open “living will” documents? Doctors, lawyers and judges are being quoted in the media saying that non-heroic methods such as supplying food and water classify as a reason to murder someone. Perhaps you would prefer not to live that way but you have absolutely no right to ask us to murder you. No matter what our nation's courts decide God still calls helping another person commit suicide murder. God's court is Supreme and there is no appeal beyond Him. Christians especially need to avoid such legal documents and use extreme caution in such prior decisions with our loved ones. Do not let a "living will" be your dead give-away.
"Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." Proverbs 14:7
Link to article
http://www.operationsaveamerica.org
"We are opposed to “living wills” because God Himself is opposed to them.” He is sovereign. He is the One who determines who lives and who dies – not us!"
No...as soon as we step in with procedures that 'unnaturally' prolong life, e.g. a respirator [and surgery?], we are determining who lives and dies, not God.
Although some would say he determines everything, including living wills.
I want a living will that tells them to FEED ME!! If someone cuts off my food/water, I will haunt their dreams every night.
they are saying avoid living wills at all cost...
but living wills don't only have to say kill me? What if my living will says that I want to be fed and kept alive until God takes me? Then is it still a sin to have one?
I hate when people generalize that all things are wrong or right. There are some absolute wrongs and rights but some things are left to our judgement and free will. Anyone who claims to have all the answers is either lying or mistaken.
Oh dear Christian can you not see the danger in such open “living will” documents?
Yes...on the internet, I found one living will that was general in nature, with small blanks where you would just mark an "X" beside the prepared statements. Then I found another one that had space to give specific details below the prepared statements. Be careful which one you choose and above all, make sure it is valid in your particular state.
Maybe not an issue, but I'd think long and hard about being an organ donor in certain states. I can imagine some MD finding out that a patient has agreed to be an organ donor. I just get concerned that a doctor could "help things along", so to speak.
This is nonsense. The writer should be embarrassed.
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