Posted on 01/03/2006 2:43:26 PM PST by cyn
// Ted (Stith) has passed away. Just got an email from NCG. //
WHAT?
any further info?
It's horrific! I can't believe that a doctor whose charge it is to care for and heal people can (with a clean conscience) kill them by refusing nutrition and fluids! I hope the images of the suffering haunt them the rest of their lives!
Just imagine how many must be dying this way that we 'don't' hear about.
How sad about Ted. I just don't have words at the moment. Imagine, his own son.
Here's a link to a thread about Wesley J. Smith's recent article in the National Review Online.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1569375/posts
from Wesley J. Smith's article link posted above:
http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw/smith200602010816.asp :
. . .In most states, exhibiting consciousness is not a defense against dehydration for profoundly impaired patients. Indeed, cognitively disabled people who are conscious are commonly dehydrated throughout the country. So long as no family member objects, the practice is deemed medically routine.
How can this be? The simple answer is that tube-supplied food and water — often called "artificial nutrition and hydration" (ANH) — has been defined in law and in medical ethics as an ordinary medical treatment. This means that it can be refused or withdrawn just like, say, antibiotics, kidney dialysis, chemotherapy, surgery, blood pressure medicine, or any other form of medical care. Indeed, removing ANH has come to be seen widely in medicine and bioethics as an "ethical" way to end the lives of cognitively disabled "biologically tenacious" patients (as one prominent bioethicist once described disabled people like Terri Schiavo and Haleigh Poutre), without resorting to active euthanasia.
Defining dehydratable people
It wasn't always so. It used to be thought of as unthinkable to remove a feeding tube. Then, as bioethicists and others among the medical intelligentsia began to worry about the cost of caring for dependent people and the growing number of our elderly — and as personal autonomy increasingly became a driving force in medical ethics — some looked for a way to shorten the lives of the most marginal people without violating the law or radically distorting traditional medical values. Removing tubes providing food and fluids was seen as the answer. After all, it was argued, use of a feeding tube requires a relatively minor medical procedure. Moreover, the nutrition provided the patient is not steak and potatoes, but a liquid formula prepared under medical auspices so as to ease digestion. There can also be complications such as diarrhea and infection.
Having reached consensus on the matter, the bioethics movement mounted a deliberate and energetic campaign during the 1980s to change the classification of ANH from humane care, which can't be withdrawn, to medical treatment, which can. The first people targeted for potential dehydration were the persistently unconscious or elderly with pronounced morbidity. Thus, bioethics pioneer Daniel Callahan wrote in the October 1983. Hastings Center Report, "Given the increasingly large pool of superannuated, chronically ill, physically marginalized elderly it [a denial of ANH] could well become the non treatment of choice."
.... (end excerpt)
I shudder to think about the magnitude of this wretched way to treat people. Where is the compassion or dignity in dying like this? There is none.
The euthanasiasts are enjoying all this. They use "biologically tenacious" to describe someone who clings to life, indeed, fights to stay alive, through catastrophic conditions, as though doing that is a bad thing.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/
Nice guy, huh? Time to call US Congressman Dave Weldon, MD. Toll free to congress is at www.conservative-spirit.org (see capital bldg for phone number)
Until I see an obit on Ted, I'm not going to say that he passed away.
I'm calling Doctor Congressman Dave Weldon, Fl
Oh my. Peace be upon him and all.
Quote of friend Kathy who was barred from his hospice death room.
We are talking about death worshippers torturing people to death.
Truly, this makes me ill. To not give him food or water by mouth, especially when he requests it, is criminal. Even by Florida statutes. Yet that seems to matter not. Are there any good hospices left? Or have they all gone the way of the death merchants?
Thanks for the pings everyone. I have a positive feeling about Haleigh's condition.
What happened to Ted Stith Sr is apalling. Selling off his posessions before the man was dead? Insult to grave injury. Ted Jr might want to find another community to live in. The locals don't seem to be amused.
CORRECT PHONE NUMBER FOR CONGRESS: #1-877-762-8762
thanks for the february segway
Great graphic and so true!!
I got it from June, that's good enough for me.
One of the organizations that I contacted about Ted was Priestsforlife.org
I received a reply from someone who thanked me and told me she would inform Father Pavone.
Sadly, it is too late for Ted, but we should remember to contact Priests for Life the next time someone needs our help, as Father Pavone did all he could to help Terri.
What we really need, of course, is legislation.
Prayers for Ted. I feel so sad, as many of us do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.