Yes.Not only does a person have a right to die, but such a right is between God and the person, and woe be any Constitutional claim otherwise, and so it was that wise men, the Founding Fathers, never entertained that our Constitution should lay the government's hands upon the matter.
Can the government put a person to death?
Yes.In criminal cases, the Constitution provides the authority for the Congress to make laws establishing the penalties for heinous crimes, that punishment being up to and including death.
Can the government put a person to death using cruel or unusual punishment?
No.The Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Thus, neither the federal government, nor the states, have the Constitutional authority to put a person to death by cruel or unusual means, and that includes torture, which itself includes, starvation. On that note, the United States of America has at length fought against such miserable ends.
That is why, for "capital crimes," the death must be swift in the United States.
Now come the "legal experts" at university and in the "liberal media," who claim that the federal government and the states, have the power to kill an incompetent ward, that is, put that human being to death by starvation, regardless of the cold, hard, fact that starvation is recognized in our laws and under the rule of law, as being torture.
This matter is a concern for all Americans; it is a Constitutional issue.
There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes our governments with the power to put to death a person for any reason whatsoever, by tortuous means.
Yet the 'legal experts" at university and in the "liberal media" are advocates of a government by judiciary that is self-absorbed of such deadly powers, enough that it shall have in their view, the "legal grounds" --- no matter how diabolically wrenched from extra-Constitutional space --- with which they can sanction that infants, whose mothers have chosen that their infant die and not be born, will, as "incompetent wards" under the grip of their mother's "legal guardianship," be helplessly subject to said "judicial activist courts' 'decisions'" that they be put to death by starvation.
No woman will need to resort to "partial birth abortion;" that will not be required, and a law banning "partitial birth abortion" will be meaning-less.
I am against "partial birth abortion," and I am against "partial life abortion" with the following two exceptions; either:
a) when you have expressed an affirmative statement of intent in writing to not be kept alive as an incapacitated ward, by artificial means other than food and water; orb) when you have expressed an affirmative statement of intent in writing to not be kept alive as an incapacitated ward, by artificial means including your clear understanding that your "end may be by starvation, and so be it."
You must have three witnesses to your writing, and it must be notarized.
God help you.
May God forgive me.
I will respect such a properly expressed wish to die.
Yet Terri Schiavo made no properly expressed wish, and her husband's behavior that indicated his lack of knowing such a wish, that he effectively relied upon to convince a court that she wished to live and thereby she, not really he, won the cash award from the lawsuit ten years ago, supports this argument.
The reasonable doubt that is the right of the people, so that we err on the side of life, must be upheld.
I think that Michael Schiavo's treatment of his wife, strongly indicates criminal intent and ill will toward her. Such behavior as his, is not care-full; he has not cared about her.
He has not stood by his wife; rather, he appears to have attempted to cover up his harmful (to her) activities even to the extent of formulating an alibi: a new relationship with another woman, including two children, in order to establish that he is not a wife beater.
The women of this forum, who have surmised that the new "wife" is at risk, and not aware enough yet to know this, I suspect, have nailed him.
My friend may not survive the year, and it appears that the time she has left will be far from pleasant.
I brought lunch over to her on Wednesday and we spent the afternoon talking about her present, and her uncertain future.
During the conversation she said something that will always stay with me: ‘I believe that one of the most difficult parts of this illness is watching the effect my deterioration has on my family. And there may come a time when two things happen – I may no longer be able to stand the progressive effects of the disease, and I'm afraid I may want someone to help me leave this world if that happens, and if I believe it would be best for my family for me to do so.’ We discussed sad thought process at length.
We also talked about Terri Schiavo, and we agreed that:
According to most accounts, Terri’s husband has proven by his behaviors over the past thirteen years that her welfare, and her family’s (perhaps not legal, but certainly moral) rights were nowhere on his list of priorities.
Since the feeding tubes were long ago inserted into her body, whether she wants to continue living is a matter only between her and God. Under the current circumstances (in which she is unable to make or voice that decision), no one else has a right to take steps to terminate her life.
The government, and the legal system, almost always choose the path that will hold them the least culpable. ‘Allowing’ her to now die by removing her feeding tubes would have caused an excruciating death. But it would have been a death in which the medical profession and the legal system contributed only passively. Causing her death by painless lethal injection (not that I am advocating that, mind you) would have been much more humane for both Terri and her family. But the medical profession and the legal system would have had to shoulder responsibility for contributing actively to her death. A medical professional would have had to insert the syringe, with the consent of the court. And her death would not have been through ‘natural’ means (how grotesque that starvation is considered ‘natural’).
Wouldn’t want that on their consciences, would we? It’s okay to declare that her death is the desirable outcome, but it’s not okay to allow her to die without pain and agony – because the method to accomplish that would be somewhat uncomfortable for lawyers and judges.
But we must remember who, after all, is served by the legal/justice system in this country.
Answer: lawyers and judges, and those who share their personal agendas (and whoever else happens to benefit from their arbitrary, self-serving maneuvering).
My friend’s statement, ‘I'm afraid I may want someone to help me leave this world,’ is a desire that we are generally not allowed to have fulfilled. It is a wish that Michael Schiavo claims his wife also expressed to him, should she ever be in the condition she is in now. But Michael Schiavo’s words are not worth the breath expended to speak them. And Terri and her family deserve more respect, consideration and empathy than a man like Schiavo is capable of mustering. A dying or incommunicative person’s welfare should be overseen by those who have exhibited love and concern for her. Not by a person simply deemed ‘legally’ responsible.
Laws are not only fallible, but they are quite often based on irrational -- yet convenient -- foundations.