Posted on 09/05/2006 4:45:45 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
8mm
(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 2.)
Ping.
Thanks for the update.
Huh? To my knowledge while physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, euthanasia is illegal in all US states. Am I missing something??
They just use a different name or term in other states. In Texas for example, it falls under the Futile Care law and in Florida, Terri Schiavo set the example for being killed legally, like it or not, all in the name of her supposedly wishing to be dehydrated to death for thirteen days.
My own Mom died in Oregon and I am still not sure if she weren't helped along, probably with legal sanctions.
8mm
It maybe be illegal but it happens.
Technically illegal, but difficult to prove in a court of law if both the so-called physicians and the so-called family conspire together to murder the helpless individual in question.
Last March (?), I sent Haleigh a birthday card. It had the kind of picture on it that would make a little girl smile -- a big silly elephant in a funny pose. Maybe somebody tucked it away for her and she'll see it when she gets better. (I can hope, can't I?) She WILL get better, with reasonable care and family love. Say a prayer for Haleigh, she's not safe yet.
thanks for the PING. It is amazing to know how this poor child is doing! Great news she is coming around. I hope she makes more recovery and is able to live a normal life someday soon.
Wideawake's comment was correct, but you can also look at it as a futile care case. Somebody has to make the decision to terminate medical care when the patient is beyond help and hope. The Massachusetts DSS, having custody, went to court to do just that. As discussed in other threads, we think they had ulterior motives for doing so, and at the very least, were extremely careless about verifying the futility of Haleigh's condition. In fact, the girl had snapped out of her comatose condition and was improving and responsive before the DSS went to court to stop treating her. It is appalling that they petitioned the court to kill her at that point.
Incidentally, children have a far better chance to recover from brain injuries than adults. It is normal to give them extra time and therapy, not to pull the plug in a hurry.
And that's the problem; people are too quick on the draw. Why are they so eager to kill people? Don't they realize it could be THEM next time?
I am sorry about your mother and certainly hope she was treated with the respect she and your family deserve.
I am not the one watering down the word, "euthanasia". The ones who are implementing euthanasia are watering it down, using softer terms that sell. But the effect is just the same. In the case of Haleigh, the officials wanted to euthanize her plain and simple. In the case of Andrea Clark in Texas the authorities wanted to euthanize her despite protests to the contrary and they used the softer term, "futile care" as their tool. Rather than interpret the term "futile" as treatment which would not help, they interpreted the life of Andrea as futile. That is how we are seeing them work.
A review of past discussions of Haleigh's dilemma makes clear the DSS intent and attempts to cover up the true nature of their deeds.
There is a difference between futile care, and futile lives. DSS determined that Haleigh's life was futile. There was nothing futile about her care. It was doing what it was designed to do. And DSS recognized this. What they didn't recognize was that Haleigh has as much right to live as anyone else. They intended to euthanize her, by depriving her of food and water, and giving her morphine. That is euthanasia.
There is such a thing as futile care. The state attempted to say that the care of this girl was futile as she was in a vegetative state from which she would never recover. Ends up that she was not, so in this case the care was not futile. You can't conclude from this that such care is never futile. The withdrawal of futile care is not euthanasia.
Futile care is that which is not helping the patient. Stopping all care because a doctor thinks one's quality of life isn't worthy of care is murder.
"Euthanasia" is itself a euphemism coined to sell murder.
It usually boils down to money. The common case is saving the cost of care, especially the heavy costs typical for people near the end of their lives. Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm stated the matter plainly, saying that seniors have a DUTY to die. This kind of thinking infects all socialized medicine because in those systems, care must be rationed. It looks as if the elderly are hogging the care.
However, things don't work that way in private medical markets, which allocate resources differently.
Money plays a huge role in organ transplant cases (which is what I suspect was afoot in Haleigh's case). Here you not only escape the cost of care, you may make a six-figure profit selling the organs. The only trick is, you have to declare the patient brain-dead (a new definition of death invented at Harvard in the 1960s in order to make organs more accessible for transplantation).
Cases where money is not involved at all? Well, there are always a few sociopaths like Ted Bundy, Jack Kevorkian and George Felos, who kill for thrills or for the fun of it.
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