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I have been reading your posts on this subject for sometime now.

I will say up-front that I disagree with you.

Why? Sir, I respectfully suggest that you strap yourself to a bed for two weeks. Then have a guard or nurse deny you food and water for those weeks.

This is a form of torture regardless of the state of the human you propose to do it to. Judge not this form of murder least YE be subjected to it. Would you starve and dehydrate your child to death? Would you do it to your wife? Would you support doing it to incapacitated individuals in nursing homes who have suffered strokes or some other form of debilitation? How about your parents? How about your sick cat or dog? How about your healthy pet? Would you allow your wife to kill your pet this way?

Before you answer these questions, get away from the fact that we are talking about Terry Schivo. Just answer this.

Shal it become State Policy in the State of Florida (or any other State) to put to death anyone by starvation and dehydration? Is this an acceptable form of Death Penalty for anyone in such a State that has a policy of putting convicted criminals to death, to be subjected to Execution in this manner rather than by Lethal injection? Use this as a baseline. Is it good enough for a criminal?

Wait again before answering.

There are hundreds of infants that are currently dependent on feeding tubes for a myriad of reasons. Is it acceptable to simply remove those tubes and with-drawl water because those tiny beings have no means of communication? Some of those children remain dependent on those tubes until 5 or 6 or even older yet, because they have not learned to eat in their early youth due to their medical conditions. Shal we give to their parents or next of kin the rights to remove those, thereby killing them slowly? They can walk and talk, reason even! But they can not swallow. Do they deserve to die for that? Or do we have the compassion to do what we can for them, give them time to learn and the therapy they need to learn those skills? Do you have the compassion to recognize that even a "vegetable" (you can include infants on feeding tubes here as well, because they can not communicate, therefore they are merely burdens with no known future capabilities) may well be able to regain some of the functions they once had or may devlop in the future?

You may well think that this is a "Political" matter. One in which the Federal Government has no part. I believe you are wrong. Our Federal Government represents ALL of us regardless of State affiliation. We ALL have the right to include such sweeping moral decisions as to the definitions of Murder and simply allowing someone "pass on". There is not a single thing wrong with this Nation as a whole, coming to the Conclusion that withholding food and water is NOT an acceptable means of ending a person's life. A person can make that decision for themselves, a Living Will, or by anorexia or what ever as a personal DECISION. When it comes to making that decision for another person, it is not only immoral, it is inhuman. It is a betrayal of our collective humanity, not to mention all of the precepts that we hold as a Nation. If it can be argued that death by lethal injection given to a person under the age of 16 is immoral, wrong, illegal, and governed by decisions made by the Supreme Court, then it is no leap at all to say that starving someone else is even more so. It is no leap at all to say, if you can not excute a criminal under that age of 16, you also can not excute someone who is so severely disabled as to be unable to communicate his or her wishes regarding their own continued life.

I hope that I have given you something to think about. Our Government was founded on the principals set by the Founding Fathers, that we might well need to change and modify that Government as society changed and evolved. With out a doubt, this is an area most worthy of changing and or including in the very fibers that make up this Greatest of Nations. We espouse the rights of Freedom and Liberty, to live life as one wishes rather than as one is dictated to. If this truth is self evident, then we must act to protect, nourish and enrich life. Otherwise, we are a Nation of Hypocrites.

Which shal it be?

Judge not before YE be Judged.