"This person suffering from hereditary
defects costs the people 60,000
Reichmarks during his lifetime. People,
that is your money. Read 'New People'."
Posted on 04/22/2005 10:18:32 AM PDT by amdgmary
WASHINGTON(BP)-Disabled Americans feel vulnerable in the wake of Terri Schiavo's death and need societal and legal changes if their lives are going to be protected, leaders of two disability organizations said.
In the hours after Schiavo died March 31, both Joni Eareckson Tada and Diane Coleman said the brain-damaged Florida woman's death and the events leading to it do not bode well for other severely disabled people unless some changes are implemented.
Schiavo, 41, died nearly two weeks after the tube that provided her with food and water was disconnected at a state judge's order. For years, her parents and her husband had been in a legal struggle over whether she should live or die. Acting as her guardian, Michael Schiavo, her husband, gained court approval for the removal of the tube, saying she did not want to live in a severely disabled state, though no written direction from his wife existed.
Though Tada said she prays God will use Schiavo's example "to stave off this terrible culture of death and give us a fresh re-energizing to build a culture of life," the popular evangelical Christian author and speaker also said her death "alarms me deeply."
"The death of Terri Schiavo will adversely impact literally thousands of Americans who have severe mental incapabilities whose legal guardians might not have their best wishes at heart," Tada said on the April 1 radio broadcast of Focus on the Family.
Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, told Baptist Press, "[W]hat we are seeing here is the dismantling of the constitutional rights of people in guardianship. No longer will there be the presumption for life.
"The social presumption that [Schiavo] would be better off dead appears to have influenced the decisions in the case," Coleman said. "We feel threatened by this, almost as if there is a cognitive test for personhood under the law."
Joni and Friends is a Christian ministry to the disabled that Tada started in 1979. She became a quadriplegic in a diving accident at the age of 17. Her testimony of God's work in her life has become well-known among Christians throughout the world.
Coleman, a lawyer, founded Not Dead Yet in 1996 to combat assisted suicide and euthanasia on behalf of the disabled. She was disabled at birth and has used a wheelchair since she was 11.
Both of their organizations agree some steps need to be taken to protect the rights and lives of the disabled. They recommend, in statements on their Internet sites, there should be:
• Federal review in state cases of contested decisions about withdrawing feeding tubes when there is no advance directive or personally chosen guardian.
• State-by-state reform of laws governing guardianship and healthcare decisions in order to protect against involuntary euthanasia.
• A moratorium on the removal of food and water from severely disabled people when the latest diagnostic procedures are unavailable.
In all, Not Dead Yet has listed eight steps on its Web site, www.notdeadyet.org, that it says need to be taken to guard the disabled. Joni and Friends also calls for a change in terminology in a statement on its site, www.joniandfriends.org. Society must stop using the phrase "persistent vegetative state," Tada said.
"There's just too many people with significant disabilities who have been called vegetables, and this must stop," Tada said on Focus on the Family, which was taped the day Schiavo died. "That is beyond demeaning. It is dehumanizing, and when people with significant disabilities are labeled like that, then the discussion all too quickly next turns to death, pulling their feeding tube or warehousing them in a hospice.
"Something else that has bothered me as I have listened to the national media - everybody has been talking about whether or not Terri is 'going to get better someday,' as though that fact was a criteria for her life," Tada said. "However, millions of Americans with disabilities will 'never get better' by today's standards, and we believe that a quality of one's life should never be a criteria to put them to death. Life is the most irreplaceable and fundamental condition of what it means to be human. It's a gift of God, the Author of life; and disabled people, no matter how significant their handicapping condition, have that right to life."
Coleman told Baptist Press her organization would not have filed three friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of Terri Schiavo had she chosen her husband as her guardian and made clear her intentions regarding her care. The court's willingness to grant the guardian his request in the Schiavo case contrasts with reports of parental abuse and neglect when society expects the government to intervene, Coleman said.
"Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not so valued [as are children]," Coleman said. "We share a social devaluation that is so strong that most people are sure we are living a fate worse than death and that they would never want to live" that way.
"[W]hat we've learned like any other minority group, you might say, is you can't trust majority culture... In some cases you can't even trust your own family ...," she said. "While many caregivers are wonderful and value us, not all do.
"The most telling thing is [Schiavo's] guardian forbade qualified people from giving her swallowing tests, swallowing therapy" the last seven years, Coleman said. "She might not have needed a feeding tube really. A lot of people in nursing homes are on feeding tubes, not because they cannot eat but because there is not enough staff to feed them. That's the context we are in."
For Not Dead Yet and at least some other disability organizations, this is a civil rights issue, not a sanctity-of-life or culture war issue, Coleman said. Her organization is as concerned about conservatives cutting Medicaid and Medicare funds as it is about liberals wanting to kill the disabled quickly in the name of compassion, she said.
A bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide has been introduced in California, and Tada fears what happened in the Schiavo case will embolden its supporters in the state legislature.
"There will be those who will look at the situation of Terri Schiavo and turn it on its head," Tada said. "Pro-euthanasia advocates ... will say, 'Oh how awful that this woman had to linger so long toward her death. She should have been aided with a lethal injection of three grams of phenobarbital to hasten her death more quickly and more compassionately.'"
Tada said she was lying on her back as she was interviewed for Focus on the Family. She had recently recovered from pneumonia and had been mostly in bed for four or five days with a pressure sore. Shortly before the interview, a friend had fed her by hand.
"It underscored how much people like me and people like Terri Schiavo depend on strong advocates to be by our bedside to fight and to protect and to safeguard the protections around people with severe disabilities," Tada said.
I'm so sorry that your doctor was not more clear about what killed your mother.
You were treating your mother's pain. That is a good thing. It is ethical to relieve pain, even under the most strict code of avoiding euthanasia.
The intent and action were good. There might be a side effect, as all actions with effects may have side effects. But, the fine, bright line of good ethics is maintained.
On the other hand, in the case of Terri Schiavo, there was no excuse to withhold all oral feedings. It was an unethical act, with an unethical intent. There could be an ethical reason to remove her feeding tube, but it was not ethical to carry out the medical procedure with the intent to cause her death.
Quality of life is irrelevant to the right to life. However, the right to liberty and the persuit of happiness are affected by the quality of life. They are secondary to life, but relevant.
Another way to think of end of life care is that we are said to reflect the image of God. If it is impossible for us to love Him and reflect Him because of our pain, it is better to relieve our pain than not. I have never understood any call to endure suffering when it's not necessary.
The combination of an ethical act and an ethical intent were the difference between your care for your mother and the killing of Terri Schiavo.
The nurse isn't high enough in "the heirarchy" (at least at present), to make such a decision. One must be either a doctor, or may G-d have mercy on us, a lawyer, to make such a determination (/sarcasm)...
the infowarrior
Funny thing is, people like Soros and Felos and all the other death lovers seem to favor it, as long it is somebody other than themselves being killed. I really wonder if these people have the courage of their convictions, or are they just cowards who get off seeing someone else die. I think they are cowards, because if they were not they would show us all by example how much they believe in their cause by leading the way and killing themselves first. But nooooooo! They just want someone else to die to satisfy their blood-lust. Bunch of cowardly, lousy, rotten, stinking bloodsuckers and death lovers, the lot of them.
Good grief. You people are mostly against high taxes and socialized medicine. Yet you want to waste millions (per case!) sustaining vegetative persons who are beyond hope. You also claim to cherish and welcome a wonderful afterlife, yet you are deathly worried you'll have to leave this one 5 minutes early.
Fundie logic, indeed.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Gotta ping out a few more articles before I worm my way into bed...
Good discussion on this thread.
Let me know if you want on/off this pinglist.
When the phrase "quality of life" is heard, it means the proponent considers that life has no spiritual or eternal essence (generally speaking). That the purpose of human life is gone when a person is invalid, feeble, helpless or incapacitated.
If someone understands that God is the supreme, the One who decides the dates and times of every birth and death, and that every life has a divine purpose, he or she would not ever think that some lives aren't worth living.
Your case was very sad and I am sorry she had to endure her illness, but it in no way means we are justified in killing others who we feel need to die.
It is a great disservice to sick, handicapped and weak people everywhere to promote ending life and justifying it. It creates fear in the hearts of those already suffering.
People should not have to worry that every medical person and even their own families are going to kill them rather than care for them. That is the ultimate horror on top of their sad situations.
Gov. Jeb Bush was the ONLY POLITICIAN AND LEADER IN FLORIDA that did anything to keep Terri alive and you trash him and George Bush at every opportunity. Remember, he had a law made and kept her alive 2 more years until your Florida people had it declared unconstitutional.
I support your efforts and agree with your views - EXCEPT WHEN YOU START TRASHING GOV. BUSH AND PRES. BUSH.
They are constrained by laws but you refuse to see that your laws need to be changed and instead just want to show your thanks to Gov Bush and Pres Bush for the efforts they put forth by totally ignoring their efforts and trashing them.
I often wonder if that is the purpose of your posts - to bring discredit on Gov. Bush and Pres. Bush on FreeRepublic.
Wait a minute. Gov. Bush did not kill Terri - the Florida Senators did that by not voting for a law that would save her.
Gov. Bush is a catholic, is a leader and has every right to attend.
Why must you people turn against the best the GOP has to offer in your anger over Terri?
You will cause a split in the Terri/euthanasia prevention supporters if it becomes an anti-Bush group.
This article is right on !!!!!!!! Thanks.
And you - sir - are in the wrong party - you believe as the dems do.
Apparently, you believe in murder if people are costly.
OK, how costly are you? Do you smoke? Do you drink?
I am ashamed that people on FR would willfully kill others because they resent the cost of them. Just who do you think you are? God's Accountant?
Think what you do when you give man the freedom to kill those he does not love, because there are many men that do not or will never think you worthy of any taxpayer money.
I agree with you 100%. It's insulting that any disabled American would say such a thing. Just do what everybody else in America has to do. Unbelievable.
Ok, this is a wakeup call.
Do we all want to worry all through our 70's, 80's, 90's that any and all are trying to kill us?
This goes for the young ones too because the society they create will provide that same creation or worse for their 70's, 80's. (Don't think they will make it to the 90's).
(Posted by mercyme - Florida end-of-life panel decisions/law-since all decisions become automatic law if the panel wishes)
They also state that advanced directives providing for treatment should not carry the same weight as directives withdrawing care, and advanced directives should not compel the physican to provide them, regardless if the patient needs them (Doty). Doty is part of the Florida Bioethics Network as well as Project Grace. One of the changes in the law in CB/CB/SB 2228 includes the Bioethics Network as part of the process of withdrawing care. "
See what utter depravity can be promoted by creating laws to allow others to kill without penalty and by allowing a "panel" to make laws instead of legislators doing the jobs they are paid to do - make laws.
I think a few of these doctors need to be investigated. It will at least bring all out into the light of day and we can watch them scatter for darkness like the rats they are.
You know - I remember my shock years ago when I heard a doctor I worked with laughingly tell this story (my respect for him tumbled to the bottom after hearing it)
He was on-duty in a hospital as an intern/physician (?). A woman was in the process of dying and he was to stay with her and then have her body taken to the morgue. He watched the clock, watched the clock and since it was time for him to leave and he had a date, he just pinched her air line to speed things along.
And, this is a man you trust with saving your life and the lives of your family? It turned out he was a good doctor and did save many lives - but, underneath it all, he was too willing to play god.
His comments about Terri? "We can keep alive a shell of nothing but we can't.............
yeah, that's it. look at my saved threads. I helped Jeb get re-elected. I can't believe that he's not all that. What have I learned because Terri was not protected by her president or governor, money talks.
Isn't that still pending? Or, is grandma now in safe hands with her sister?
That proves the point that you can make decisions when you are 50 for what you think you want at 80 - but when 80 gets here, you are not that unhappy and still want to live.
People forget that what we enjoyed at 20 we would detest at 30, 50 likes .........but 70 wants ...........
We seek a comfort level at any age or circumstance. If it hurts, we don't like doing that. We like doing this instead.
Again, why you can't turn life and death decisions over to man. Man has no more wisdom than what he thinks at that state of life he is in. He has no idea of what another "wants" at a different stage and has no right to take their decision away from them.
Man is also not God who has all wisdom, all love and is Master of His plan. Man is subject to greed, hate, revenge, and is totally selfish. Some are good, some are evil and we give the right of life and death to the selfish, evil, manipulators as well as to loving relatives.
Judge Greer seems to have a lot of power for a puny probate judge. Greer is not a judge, he's a master politician. He needs to be investigated. He is a judicial despot.
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