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‘Right’ to be Dehydrated Key Right to Die Strategy
LifeSiteNews ^ | 9/21/06 | Hilary White

Posted on 09/21/2006 1:51:58 PM PDT by wagglebee

TORONTO, September 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At last week’s Toronto conference of the international Right to Die movement, speakers laid out the course of the movement’s strategy for legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide around the world.

Of particular note is the emphasis on the “right” to be starved and dehydrated to death, especially for patients suffering from dementia or cognitive disabilities.

Seeing a “catch-22” in the dementia and euthanasia problem, the Right to Die movement says the problem is that some, while unwilling “to end life prematurely,” know that “it requires mental competence to take personal responsibility for choosing a peaceful death at the right time.” The difficulty is that when a patient is incapacitated by dementia and unable to make his wishes known, family members may intervene to stop dehydration deaths.

Removal of nutrition and hydration tubes has become a key issue in the Right to Die movement’s campaign. Dr. Stanley Terman warned conferees that the wishes of the family, often manipulated by the “religious right” is a threat to securing the right to be killed by dehydration for dementia patients.

Dr. Terman, a psychiatrist specializing in end-of-life family counselling, said the solution is a plan that “satisfies desires to avoid a life of dementia,” and yet protects family members from having to take steps to end the patient’s life.

Terman also pointed to the increasing costs of keeping dementia patients alive, echoing the running eugenic theme of the conference in favour of euthanasia as a cost-cutting measure. Terman is the author of a book, “The Best Way to Say Good-bye” that explains how patients can ensure they will be dehydrated to death if experiencing dementia.

Terman, with a number of other speakers, pointed to Wesley J. Smith, the lawyer and writer on bioethics issues, as a force to be reckoned with in the euthanasia debate. He stated that if a patient wishes ensure that he will have food and fluids withdrawn then he needs to read his (Terman’s) book. If he wishes to prevent the withdrawal or withholding of food and fluids then he needs to read Wesley Smith’s books.

Another major theme of the Right to Die strategy is the issue of autonomy as a criterion for deciding end of life questions. Robert Raben, a political organizer and advisor explained how the Right to Die movement was attempting to convince politicians that their position was politically positive.

Raben says he is convinced that their message must be: “Who Decides?” meaning that the decision to end or sustain life must be in the hands exclusively of the patient.

The “autonomy” issue, he said, will play well in the US culture of individualism and “choice.”

In modern bioethics thinking, autonomy is often given as a key indicator in the determination of “personhood”. Many bioethicists argued that because Terri Schiavo’s disability had reduced her autonomy that she was, in effect, already dead.

Another speaker, Steve Hopcraft, the political organizer for the recent California campaign to legalize assisted suicide, said that the movement must work to ban the word “suicide” from its lexicon.

Hopcraft explained the results of the polling data from the California campaign. He is convinced that even though they failed to get the bill passed into law, that in fact they were so successful it is inevitable they will pass a law.

Focus groups found that when the questions were framed as issues of “suicide” or “assisted suicide,” the public was less receptive. When they used terms such as “aid in dying” or “end of life choices” they gained 15% in their polling. Media, however, were not cooperative and refused to change the language.

Hopcraft said that at the next round, the movement would frame the debate on themes of “patients rights,” “senior citizens issues,” and the “right to choose.

Conference speakers included a who’s who of the euthanasia and right to die world, including George Felos, the lawyer who drove the court battles to kill Terri Schiavo; Derek Humphry, Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Final Exit Network USA; Lord Joel Joffe, a member of the British House of Lords, and sponsor of a bill allowing physician aid-in-dying which is currently before the UK Parliament; Dr. Rob Jonquière, a leader in the Right to Die Society of the Netherlands.

Also in attendance was Evelyn Martens, the British Columbia woman who was acquitted of two assisted suicides in 2004 and Lesley Martin, New Zealand's most notorious euthanasia advocate who was convicted of the attempted murder of her mother; and Dr. Philip Nitschke MD, founder and director of Exit International, Australia.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cultureofdeath; cultureofdisrespect; dehydration; emotewithmeagain; eugenics; euthanasia; letskill; moralabsolutes; prolife; terrischiavo
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Another speaker, Steve Hopcraft, the political organizer for the recent California campaign to legalize assisted suicide, said that the movement must work to ban the word “suicide” from its lexicon.

Excellent idea, because what they are now talking about is clearly MURDER!

1 posted on 09/21/2006 1:51:59 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: cgk; Coleus; cpforlife.org; Mr. Silverback; narses; 8mmMauser

Pro-Life Ping.


2 posted on 09/21/2006 1:52:33 PM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: 69ConvertibleFirebird; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; Antoninus; Aquinasfan; BIRDS; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]

More proof that the Culture of Death was using Terri Schaivo as a "test run" for their macabre agenda.

3 posted on 09/21/2006 1:53:42 PM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: wagglebee
Just like they did to Terri Schiavo. No wonder it sounded familiar - if only because the precedent has already been set.
.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

4 posted on 09/21/2006 1:54:24 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: wagglebee

Right to Die? Let's start with those who attended the conference and see if anyone changes their mind.


5 posted on 09/21/2006 1:55:32 PM PDT by teacherwoes (To a liberal diversity is finding different people who agree with them)
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To: wagglebee
"Terman also pointed to the increasing costs of keeping dementia patients alive,..."

That's what it's all about -- balancing the books for the socialist medical "care" system.
6 posted on 09/21/2006 1:55:40 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: goldstategop
I think Terri was the stolen election to establish a precident.
Condemned inmates have three drugs administered to calm, relax, eliminate pain and conciousness and then die ... the inconvenient are forced to be aware of their state and, perhaps unable to raise any objection .. painfully dehydrated.

Just try to go two days with no water, coffee, pop, juice, tea .. whatever ... your mind screams to be watered.

7 posted on 09/21/2006 2:00:06 PM PDT by knarf (Muslims kill each other ... News wall-to-wall, 24/7 .. don't touch that dial.)
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To: wagglebee

I cannot even begin to express just how evil this agenda is.


8 posted on 09/21/2006 2:00:08 PM PDT by scory
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To: teacherwoes
Right to Die? Let's start with those who attended the conference and see if anyone changes their mind.


TORONTO, March 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The World Federation of Right to Die Societies is having its 16th biennial conference in Toronto and is featuring George Felos as a keynote speaker. Felos was the "right to die" activist lawyer that propelled Michael Schiavo's case through the courts to have his disabled wife Terri starved and dehydrated to death.
Calling him "a nationally recognized expert in right-to die cases, and lawyer for Terri Schiavo, the Canadian euthanasia and assisted suicide group, Dying with Dignity, has booked Felos to speak at the conference opening in Toronto September 7. Speaker topics will include, "Nudging the Law - How to Move Legalized Aid-in-Dying Forward."

Felos is a major shaker in the effort to make euthanasia legal in the US. His years as the lawyer who fought off the Schindler family's attempts to save Terri's life made him an international star in the "right to die" movement.

But Felos is more than just a lawyer with a cause. He has been described as a New Age guru and has authored a book titled, "Litigation as Spiritual Practice" and his autobiography describes his bizarre spiritualist beliefs including in reincarnation. He claimed to have received mystical locutions from Terri before her court-ordered dehydration death.

He told the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, in 2001, "I believe that Christ was God incarnate and was resurrected. But, by the same token, I believe that there were other incarnations of God as well."


http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06032403.html
9 posted on 09/21/2006 2:03:09 PM PDT by Deo volente
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To: goldstategop

10 posted on 09/21/2006 2:03:47 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: wagglebee

But it's euphoric, don'cha know?


11 posted on 09/21/2006 2:04:23 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: wagglebee

If this is too inhumane to do on terrorists, then why is it okay for everyone else. Dehydration is not a pleasant way to go.


12 posted on 09/21/2006 2:04:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Funny, I clearly remember being told how "euphoric" it was and how "beautiful" it made the person look./sarcasm off


13 posted on 09/21/2006 2:09:13 PM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: Deo volente
Felos wrote that God told him, "You are more powerful than you realize."
pg 182, George Felos's book, "Litigation as Spiritual Practice" (Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2002)
14 posted on 09/21/2006 2:11:27 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: wagglebee

The distinctive stench of evil.


15 posted on 09/21/2006 2:21:28 PM PDT by Graymatter (TV-free and clean for 3 years, 4 months.)
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To: goldstategop
if only because the precedent has already been set.

No coincidence there. The precedent was set, and is now being aggressively invoked.

Nothing that happened in Largo, Florida, last year happened by accident. It was too purposeful, too orchestrated, too relentless and steamrolled with too much momentum over every good (and constitutional) principal to be by accident.

I can't say why, but somebody, somewhere, wanted that precedent set. Since there is no reasonable purpose for doing so, exactly what sort of mind(s) are are we dealing with?

16 posted on 09/21/2006 2:24:10 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand ("...peace is the result of victory...")
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To: wagglebee

Call it what you like. but I've never heard of a person whose actual preference was to be dehydrated to death slowly. Those who wish to be dispatched when their physical and/or mental condition reaches a certain point, want a lethal injection or other quick and guaranteed-painless means. It's appalling to me that legislators and courts are willing to authorize death-by-dehydration, but will not authorize death-by-injection. They're willing to say that in some cases it's appropriate to make a decision to stop keeping someone alive (which I happen to agree with), but then don't have the decency to see to it that it's done in a way which eliminates the possibility of any suffering on the part of the dying person, and minimizes the anguish of relatives of friends. Death is guaranteed either way -- why pretend that there's some ethical superiority to standing by passively and ensuring that it happens slowly?

If you take a terminally ill and apparently unconscious pet to the vet, having made the decision that it's life is no longer worth living, the vet does not have the legal option to just leave the animal lying in a cage without IV hydration/nutrition and just wait a few days until it dries up and dies. So why does anyone think it's okay to do that with people?


17 posted on 09/21/2006 2:28:18 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker
If you take a terminally ill and apparently unconscious pet to the vet, having made the decision that it's life is no longer worth living, the vet does not have the legal option to just leave the animal lying in a cage without IV hydration/nutrition and just wait a few days until it dries up and dies. So why does anyone think it's okay to do that with people?

That's a very good question, and an excellent thing to remember if discussing this issue with liberals - especially the vegetarian/animal rights types. I will never understand how people think it's OK to starve or dehydrate someone to death - absolutely, inhumanely cruel...
18 posted on 09/21/2006 2:42:40 PM PDT by LibertyRocks (Liberty Rocks Blog: http://libertyrocks.wordpress.com)
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To: wagglebee
My Grandma (step actually, my Grandpa was a widower) died of Alzheimer's. She went to a nursing home when Grandpa could no longer take care of her. Grandpa drove to town every day for years to spend the day with her, until he could no longer take care of himself and had to go into the nursing home himself.

Grandpa was not a talkative man, and did not show emotion. But he showed me by standing by the only Grandma I ever knew what love was when so many would have just left her to die. When I hear so many talk of "death with dignity" and killing of those who can not contribute to society, it angers me beyond what I can say.

Life is sacred. If you make the measure of what a life is worth how "productive" someone is, then we as a society will soon face a horror that will make the genocides of the 20th century look like a schoolyard scuffle.
19 posted on 09/21/2006 3:08:28 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: nickcarraway
Nutrition/food and hydration/water should continue to be viewed as compassionate and ordinary medical care and humane treatment. Anytime “personhood” is withdrawn from a human being their legal protections are eroded and other members of society who may, themselves, be deemed inconvenient, unwanted or imperfect, will lose the right to life and religious expression. Because a person in a unconscious condition may not want to commit a sin of the gravest proportions by foregoing treatment to effect their own death in defiance of their religious faith. Everyone is entitled to right of religion and faith and the "voice of conscience" even if the they are incapacitated by dementia, or unconscious or unable to make their wishes known, their right to life and Faith should be absolute and to assume different is a violation of universal rights.
20 posted on 09/21/2006 3:51:29 PM PDT by FreeRep
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