Posted on 03/26/2005 10:22:59 AM PST by wto8585
When Life Becomes an Inconvenience--Jan Markell Olive Tree Ministries, Inc. www.olivetreeviews.org
Semi-Weekly Review of the News - March 21, 2005
I have a built-in radar system that registers a warning when it comes to "mercy killing." My Jewish grandparents fled a section of Russia about ten years before Hitler came to power as they sensed trouble was in the wind. This heritage actually caused me to research the Holocaust and write a best-selling book about it, "Trapped in Hitler's Hell" available through my Web site or print newsletter.
In October, 1939, Hitler ordered "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled, mainly children. The sentiment was to eliminate "life unworthy of life"--kids who would become an inconvenience if they lived. The deaths would soon include adults who were also inferior, feeble, or just too much trouble.
The Nazis made decisions without diagnoses or medical records. They were a part of a barbaric system, and yet when the death camps were finally liberated, many felt that such atrocities were finally thrown on the ash heap of history. They don't understand human nature or the Bible: Only when Satan is cast into the pit will evil end. In the meantime people who stand for righteousness are doing all we can to check it.
No, America isn't Nazi Germany! Yet what is happening here makes me very uncomfortable. Terri Schiavo wants to live. Her parents want to take care of her. But Terri is an inconvenience to her husband and "the system" has favored him thus far. But this battle isn't just for Terri. It's a battle to stop America from going further down a slippery slope that disregards human life. If America's leaders, doctors, lawyers, and judges, allow her to die in the terrible "prescribed manner"--by starvation and dehydration--have we sunk to the level of barbarians?
Terrorists have gotten better treatment and a greater outcry than Terri. Two terrorists killed over 240 people in Africa in 1998. They were brought to America for trial and after seven months of court pleading, their lives were spared in spite of the fact that they had been planning to destroy us indiscriminately.
Timothy McVeigh was a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. He was given a quick, painless, lethal injection that brought almost instant, peaceful death.
Criminals and terrorists at Abu Grhaib prison were humiliated by a few bad apples in the U.S. military and the world collectively excoriated America at the inhumane abuse of these men.
Civil liberties' activists are characteristically set into hysteria the moment an al-Qaida terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without dinner.
Do you get the point?
If Terri Schiavo is executed--and yes, that is a proper word--next week or next year, how much better are we than the savages we are fighting in the war on terror? If America and the world have pity and mercy on thugs and terrorists and not on a defenseless woman who has not had a proper diagnosis or treatment (thanks to her husband), I shudder to think of the repercussions that could come upon our nation.
Also keep in mind that this could come upon you some day as well if "pro-death" activists speak more loudly than "pro-life" activists. Pro-life judges cannot even pass the confirmation process anymore. In America only half the states will impose the death penalty, but strangely, the kind of "progressive thinking" that brought about the near abolition of the death penalty now champions euthanasia and abortion. The Left claims to stand up for the underdogs in life, but I sense they follow the pattern of Ezekiel 33:31: "With their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain."
What is characteristic of a last day's culture is culture decline which the Bible predicts. Good will be called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20). Evil men will be "seducers, waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (II Timothy 3:13). But who would ever have thought that such perilous times would have come to a simple hospice room?
In our evil generation God is also moving mightily because some people are remaining "salt and light." There is still time for good to trump certain aspects of evil. The end is not yet. God sees the heart of the righteous and is merciful.
To better understand this "slippery slope," visit my Web site, www.olivetreeviews.org, then visit the category of "Culture Decline."
Awaiting His return, Jan Markell You may pass along these items or have folks sign up on the "Home" page of my Web site, www.olivetreeviews.org. We update "Current Headlines" twice a day and you can access radio programming under "Radio Archives" for the last two years. Our March-April print newsletter, "Understanding the Times," is now out and is free for one year to U.S. residents. Please remember us prayerfully and financially. Contact: Olive Tree Ministries, Box 1452, Maple Grove, MN 55311.
It's not enough to think Terri Schiavo should be fed (Michael's lawyer's little press conference was a doozy today--I never knew food and water were considered extraordinary medical procedures...wives, take note!)--you have to want the most basic agreement of our society to be torn up and flushed down the tubes, or else you're one of THEM!
I keep seeing Donald Sutherland in the last scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with poor Veronica Cartwright as the last sane person...
bump
He denied her rehab, after he won the court judgment.
Rehab was working before that.
He won't allow her to be tested using better tests or examined by a neurologist. They're killing her based on outdated 9 year old tests, and an exam by a neurologist who advocates killing of Alzheimer's patients.
There is so much here that is bad, books will be written on it.
No..I suggest we get her out of the bed that Micheal put her in and into a wheelchair like many other happy Americans are today.
The way that she was before Micheal decided she wanted to die before he didn't.
I will never understand how some can justify any of this.
The parents have tried to become her guardian and save her, all attempts have been denied.
They aren't trying to save her because she is vegetative, they are convinced she is not. They spend far more time with her than the neurologist who spent 45 minutes with her 9 years ago.
How many boomers should worry? Can the fact a person is a democrat be used as an admission by act as to not wanting to be "kept alive"?
According to judge greer, yes it can...
The reasoning is exactly the same. There is not one slightest difference. Both are occasions where the killing was considered a mercy killing.
Useless Eaters, an award-winning presentation in which the comparisons are shown.
I have worked as a medical professional for over 25 years and watched as the culture changed from one of support for the disabled to one of victimization.
The German euthanasia of the disabled came about through a collusion between the medical establishment and the courts, which is exactly what we are seeing today.
The Germans used film to change the cultural viewpoint into one that accepted that some lives were not worth living. Today we have two films winning numerous awards and both are about disabled people seeking death - The Sea Inside and Million Dollar Baby. In both of these films, life as a disabled person is sold as agonizing and miserable. Death is a release from misery.
Studies have shown repeatedly that most people in the circumstances of those in the film do not rate their quality of life as lower than the the rest of us, however.
Finally, a utilitarian society is already here, for the most part. Just as in Germany, the costs of caring for those who were/are disabled is being discussed in the medical journals. The disabled are being viewed as potential organ suppliers - some are putting forth the idea that chronically ill and brain damaged children should be used for harvesting of organs - before they die, to boot.
The definition of death itself is being changed, for the first time since 1967. Suggestions have been made that the brain damaged should be used for medical experiments.
To read the medical journals today is a chilling experience. Wesley Smith explained in one of his books how the cultural debate on change would move from the professional journals to the public. Years ago I used to post about what was taking place in expensive publications, and there was only a small response here. What you are seeing now on FR is the occasion of the public realizing where we are headed.
If you want more evidence, please ask.
The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
Oh it is going to get a lot worse, wait until talk radio takes the air on monday. I would not want to be Jeb Bush monday. Conservatives are livid with rage.
Actually it is not irrelevant. The reason this is true is because in most states there is a law stating that a person with PVS is considered terminal and therefore an ideal candidate for being dehydrated to death.
The problem with the diagnosis is that it cannot be made from a test of any kind, but is a highly subjective diagnosis. In past court cases similar to this one, patients who used wheelchairs were diagnosed with PVS and sentenced to be killed by a court, as they are killing Terri.
"The British study is one of the largest and most comprehensive investigations on PVS to date. Its findings are similar to an earlier U.S. study which found that, of the PVS patients who were referred to the Healthcare Rehabilitation Center in Austin, Texas, 38% were not vegetative at all and actually responded to stimuli upon subsequent examination."
"All 17 misdiagnosed patients were found to range in cognitive ability from level 5 (aware but severely impaired) to level 8 (nearly normal) on the Rancho Los Amigos scale. [BMJ, 7/6/96]
In a BMJ editorial, Minneapolis neurologist Ronald Cranford pointed out that the quality of life of the 17 misdiagnosed patients was still questionable. "I would speculate," Cranford wrote, "that most people would find this condition far more horrifying than the vegetative state itself, and some might think it an even stronger reason for stopping treatment" (i.e., food and fluids)."
Both PVS and feeding tubes are being used as tools for killing the costly disabled in our society. Many of those killed with a diagnosis of PVS was eating and drinking to some extent on their own, but was put on a feeding tube anyway.
Currently there is a new wave of extensive publications about the terrible "dangers" of feeding tubes. It is almost amusing to see. After 100 years, suddenly the use of these tubes is a great peril to patients.
I will guarantee you that in a short time, feeding tubes will become almost non-existent. I have already listened to physicians explaining to the spouse of a disabled person how a feeding tube would be a dangerous choice.
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