Vatican City - The Roman Catholic Church condemned on Monday legal attempts in the United States to allow a brain-damaged woman to die after 15 years in a semi-vegetative state, saying "the agony of Terri (Schiavo) is the agony of humanity"."Who can, and on what grounds, decide who should be allowed the 'privilege' of living?" the official Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano asked rhetorically in a commentary on the case, which has become a political issue addressed personally by US President George W Bush.
"The slow and terrible agony of Terri is today an agony of the meaning of God ... the agony of the love shown by whoever is able to care for whoever is the most vulnerable. It is the agony of humanity," the paper added.
* * * Schiavo - who was "on the brink of death from hunger and thirst" - was being denied not just medicine, therapy or palliative treatment, but "for the most elementary reasons of humanism something which would not be refused to the most wretched individual", food and water, the paper said.
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Thank you for posting this, Nic. It is truly beautifully written.