Free Republic

It is perhaps in the nature of celebrities to champion causes they perceive to be popular. Celebrity bishops are no exception and Desmond Tutu’s support for Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill is not surprising but deeply disappointing.Dignity in Dying, the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, has assembled over 50 actors, sportsmen, entertainers, authors and other celebrities to add weight to their campaign – similar people to those advertisers draft in to provide endorsement for consumer products.The implication is that we should follow these celebrities and embrace their preferences.And there is no doubt that so-called ‘assisted dying’ resonates strongly with the spirit...

Lately, Americans have been quick to disparage other countries for their approach to life and death issues. In particular, many Americans have been outraged at the Netherlands’ policies regarding euthanasia, assisted suicide, infanticide and the killing of those with mental illnesses. As Americans, we haven’t been entirely intellectually honest in addressing why these things have become so prevalent in Europe. After all, we would never allow that kind of immorality or degradation of human life. Not in this great nation. Right? Wrong. Americans had better look again and take the time to rethink their value systems. Because if you honestly...

An American doctor argues in the latest issue of the leading journal Bioethics that artificial nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn from all patients in a permanent vegetative state – unless there is clear evidence that they want to be kept alive. Dr Catherine Constable, of New York University School of Medicine, studied bioethics at the Ethox Centre at Oxford University. She argues that the current presumption in favour of maintaining ANH is misguided. It is not in the interests of the patient nor, because of its cost, in the interest of society.However, her argument is not based upon cost,...

LifeNews.com Note:  Bobby Schindler is the brother of Terri Schiavo and he and his family now work for Terri’s Life & Hope Network to help disabled and incapacitated patients like her. The anniversary of the death of his father, Robert Schindler, was earlier this week. The passing of both Terri and my father is what helps inspire my family and the work we do at Terri’s Life & Hope Network to continue fighting for our most vulnerable every day.My father was a man of incredible strength, and loved his family so much that he essentially gave up his life...

he death of Terri Schindler Schiavo in 2005 is a distant memory for most Americans. But for the family that spent seven years fighting Terri's estranged husband and the court system to stop the starvation of their daughter and sister, recollections of the 13 days Terri lingered without food or water before finally succumbing to death remain vivid and painful. And the knowledge that other brain-damaged patients could suffer a similar fate has propelled this once-ordinary family into around-the-clock activism. "It was almost like there really wasn't an option," said Terri's sister, Suzanne Schindler-Vitadamo, when I interviewed her last weekend...

ST. PETERSBURG, June 3 / -- Today marks the end of Jack Kevorkian’s reign of terror over vulnerable and needy patients. For decades Jack Kevorkian spent his life advocating for assisted suicide, helping dozens of mostly non-terminal persons kill themselves. “It was clear that this man had a dysfunctional obsession and infatuation with death and that his true involvement in these deaths was never properly reported,” stated Terri Schiavo’s Life and Hope Network’s Executive Director, Bobby Schindler. In an October 2010 MSNBC interview with Jack Kevorkian, he was asked to weigh in on Terri Schiavo’s two-week court ordered dehydration death....

I recently read an article in the London Free Press (March 22nd) about the highly publicized Joseph Maraachli situation titled, Baby Joseph Case Becomes Political Issue in U.S. As the Executive Director the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, I was personally involved in helping Baby Joseph’s parents keep control of the medical treatment decisions that were being made for their son.Joseph was diagnosed with a brain condition that doctors believe will eventually cause his untimely death. Joseph's parents, Moe and Sana, understood that their son’s case was terminal. Their only request was for a simple procedure to be performed that...

  MUMBAI, February 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Doctors at Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital are concerned for the life of Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse at KEM who suffered serious brain damage when she was strangled and raped in 1973, and who has been cared for by hospital staff ever since. The Indian Supreme Court ordered an investigation into Shanbaug’s condition after a journalist, who wrote a book about Shanbaug, filed a petition seeking to have hospital staff discontinue feeding her.Journalist Pinki Virani said through her lawyer that Shanbaug had been “virtually a dead person” for the last 38...

There was not a dry eye in McGivney Hall's Keane auditorium Wednesday as more than 150 students watched a short video of photos and footage from the life of Terri Schiavo-a Florida woman whose tragic medical condition riveted the nation and Congress five years ago. The video presentation followed a talk given by Bobby Schindler, the late Terri Schiavo's brother and advocate from the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, sponsored by the CUA student organization Students for Life. Schindler's talk addressed the misconceptions surrounding Schiavo's death, its treatment by the media, and its ongoing impact in today's culture, in...

  NEWS ALERT! Brain-Injured Wife Goes Without Food or Water for Seven Weeks September 17, 2010 (Statement from Terri's Life & Hope Network) - It has been 49 days since Trisha Duguay has gone without any food or water after her feeding tube was removed. Her husband made this decision shortly after Trisha had unsuccessful surgery for a brain tumor that was discovered just after the couple was married.The family has started a Facebook page to lend support to Trisha and her family titled, "From Bride to Angel." So far, over 4,000 people have supported the family.While what is...

March 31st will mark the five-year anniversary of the needless death of my sister, Terri Schiavo. It is difficult to believe this much time has passed since that horrible event which will be forever seared into my memory. I wish I could say things have changed for the better since my sister’s death or that people with cognitive disabilities are now better protected in response to the horror she had to endure. Tragically, however, it seems the rights of the brain-injured, elderly and others are still being violated. All one has to do is look at what happened just last...

St. Petersburg, Fla., Feb 4, 2010 / 08:32 pm (CNA).- Reacting to news of a breakthrough in brain scanning technology, Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler is calling for a halt to removing hydration from brain-damaged patients who are thought to be in a persistent vegetative state. An “unscientific, inaccurate” diagnosis of unresponsive patients is being used as “a criterion to kill,” Schindler charged. Schindler was responding to news that researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the University of Liège have used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map a patient’s brain activity while he was...

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His most recent book is the Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. This opinion column originally appeared in the Church Report.Terri Schiavo continues to prick our collective conscience, our sensitivity to the way she died -- deprived of all food and water, even the balm of ice chips for nearly two weeks -- as raw today as on the day she drew her last breath five years ago next March. Usually, the trauma remains...

WASHINGTON – A proposed revision to the directives that guide Catholic heath care facilities would clarify that patients with chronic conditions who are not imminently dying should receive food and water by “medically assisted” means if they cannot take them normally. “As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally,” says the revised text of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” proposed by the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. “This obligation extends to patients in chronic conditions...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP)--I envied Terri Schiavo for her father, Bob. There were times I thought: What a waste, she doesn't know how good she has it. Not like it was her fault, but if only she knew. But of course she knew. From all the firsthand accounts and the vivid description of my friend David Gibbs, the attorney who fought for the right of Bob Schindler's daughter to live, Terri herself knew what it was like to feel the whiskered face of her father rough up against her cheek and tickle her until she smiled. She knew when he...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The Terri Schiavo Story, a highly-regarded documentary on the life and euthanasia death of the disabled Florida woman, continues to rack up new awards. Meanwhile, the Schindler family continues to help disabled patients whose lives are threatened by doctors or families. Schiavo was killed in a painful starvation and dehydration euthanasia death over the course of nearly two weeks when her former husband won a court order to kill her and the documentary presents facts that the mainstream media distorted.Earlier this year the Terri Schiavo Story won the 2009 Jubilee Award at the San Antonio...

I spent a lot of time watching news coverage of President Obama’s recent speech at Notre Dame. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my sister Terri’s two-week ordeal that took place at the hospice facility where she was killed in March of 2005. The was so much that was eerily similar—from the amount of media present and the pro-lifers who were there in prayer, to the dozens of people who were arrested for protesting against what was taking place. Along with so many other Catholics, I found it profoundly disturbing that President Obama was not only invited to speak...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The Schindler family attended a special Mass on Tuesday, which marked the fourth anniversary of the painful starvation and dehydration euthanasia death of Terri Schiavo. Ave Maria University, a Florida-based Catholic college, hosted the mass, which saw the entire Schindler family attend.Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri's parents, joined their other children Bobby Schindler and Suzanne Vitadamo for a ceremony in Terri's honor.As the Schindlers prayed with participants for other disabled people who face the same euthanasia concerns, they placed a picture of Terri on her wedding day on the altar and joined more than...

  DOCUMENTARY REVEALS NEW DETAILS IN TERRI SCHIAVO CASE   By Gina Adams Story Published: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM CST Story Updated: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:34 PM CST The story of Terri Schiavo caused a nationwide uproar that garnered the attention of the worldwide media, the U.S. Congress, and even the office of the President of the United States.   The ethical and cultural implications of her case are still being felt throughout society and continue to spark debate. In the newly-released documentary, The Terri Schiavo Story (Franklin Springs Family Media), previously unexplored facts of the...

ROME, February 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Eluana Englaro, who is often referred to as “Italy’s Terri Schiavo,” was transferred late Tuesday night to a hospital that has agreed to participate in her killing by removal of her food and hydration tube. Television news coverage showed a group of pro-life activists gathered outside the clinic in Eluana’s home town of Lecco at about 1:30am, as an ambulance took her away, some shouting “Eluana, wake up!” and “Don’t kill her!”Eluana Englaro, 38, suffered brain damage in a car accident in 1992 and has since been in a state of diminished consciousness....