Posted on 03/20/2005 5:15:38 AM PST by MisterRepublican
The newspaper that was most outraged over photos of Iraqi terrorist suspects being mistreated by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison said Sunday that the two week-long starvation-execution of Terri Schiavo will cause her "little discomfort."
"From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all," Dr. Linda Emanuel, the founder of the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at Northwestern University tells the New York Times.
"In fact, declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors," the paper maintains.
The Times also cites Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who insists that starvation victims "generally slip into a peaceful coma."
"It's very quiet, it's very dignified - it's very gentle," he adds.
Other experts not quoted by the Times, however, disagree.
Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, says that in fact, for a conscious patient like Terri Schiavo, death by starvation will be fraught with agony.
In his book "Forced Exit, The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder," Smith reports:
"A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack.
"They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I never knew that the NYT had expertise in death by starvation....well, unless you include mental starvation.
notice the word TERMINALLY It is Not the same as Chronicly nor disabled. TERMINALLY ill people loose their appetite. So do non-terminally ill people, but Brain-dead doctors need to stop judging the appetite of others, especially those who are NOT TERMINALLY ill!
Precisely my thoughts. Talk or we won't give you any water in cuba in the sunshine. We might give you food. Hot peppers until you talk then something better if you cooperate.
Hooray that you saw that too!
You are right. A very important distinction too.
OK, the libs have decided that starvation may be the one humane, non-cruel-and-unusual way a person may die. We should perhaps make starvation an execution option if too many people object to lethal injection. Quite a few death-penalty activists so object. These people have already been heard on a number of matters. After all, we can't hang, shoot, garotte, stone, or guillotine because of them. But starvation doesn't hurt a bit. They're going on record now as believing this.
Millions of starving Africans can take this message to heart.
Based on the Times' logic, we should withdraw all support for ending world hunger and Scott Peterson should be released from jail.
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