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A bill allowing the starvation and dehydration of dementia and mentally ill patients against their will passed the Oregon Senate 17-13 on June 8. SB494 would remove safeguards in Oregon law that protect the right of patients to receive food and water as part of basic treatment. It would give healthcare representatives power to potentially coerce doctors into starving patients against their will.

Pro-euthanasia activists always make a great play of how their proposals to help people kill themselves are extremely modest and are bound by ‘robust safeguards’.Dignity in Dying, the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, is a world leader in this art and their new draft bill, championed by Lord Falconer, is a classic example.It’s only for the mentally competent, only for the terminally ill, only for adults they say.There will be no killing of children, disabled people or demented people. It’s all going to be strictly controlled.In fact it is only the beginning for two main reasons.The first is that DID’s position...

Almost a third of British pensioners face poverty, the same level as that found in Lithuania, according to European Union statistics. Pensioner poverty in Britain is more than a third higher than the European average. Pensioners, many of who rely on income from savings accounts, have been particularly badly hit by sharp falls in interest rates. Stockmarket falls have also reduced the value of pension schemes.

In the YouTube video, Angelique Flowers, propped up with pillows, speaks just above a whisper – but her words are strong. "The law wouldn't let a dog suffer the agony I'm going through before an inevitable death. It would be put down. Yet under the law, my life is worth less than a dog's," says Flowers, 31, in her poignant plea to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to legalize euthanasia. Flowers, a writer who has suffered with debilitating Crohn's disease for 16 years, died in August after she was diagnosed in May with advanced, aggressive colon cancer. She spent much...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) Michigan officials say assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June.

Charlie Crist Let My Daughter Die by Robert Schindler, Sr. Posted Jul 31, 2006 As most Americans know, on March 31, 2005, my daughter, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of starvation and thirst after having her feeding tube removed by court order. The sad chain of events that concluded with Terri’s death ignited a media firestorm nationally and internationally. What few saw or heard was the callous inaction of aspiring governor Charlie Crist. Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering....

ROME, Oct 5 (Reuters) - An Italian man who spent two years supposedly unconscious in a deep coma, written off by doctors as nearly-dead, awoke saying he heard and understood everything happening around him during the long ordeal, his family said. Salvatore Crisafulli, a father of four, is describing his case as a "miracle" which proves that lost causes are anything but hopeless and his recovery appeared to strengthen the hand of Italians opposed to end-of-life solutions. His brother even called Crisafulli "an Italian Terri Schiavo case" with reference to the brain-damaged Florida woman who died in March after her...

Anyone would think the Republicans had lost the 2004 elections, and the 2002 elections, and the 2000 elections. From every corner, concerned "friends" of the party rise to offer "friendly" advice. Norman Lear, who produced all those critically acclaimed issue-confronting heroine-gets-an-abortion '70s sitcoms that seem a lot more dated than "The Beverly Hillbillies" these days, has now produced a People For The American Way ad in which a man who identifies himself as a "common-sense Republican" objects to any attempt to end the Democratic filibuster of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees. As it turns out the "common-sense Republican" has so much...

Just over a year ago, when my wife, Tule, died after a short, terrible battle with advanced breast cancer, everyone said it was a mercy, and probably for the best. Gently, with kindness and compassion, they assured me that this beautiful, talented, spirited woman would not have wanted to go on living that way, lying helpless in bed, the cancer that had so rapidly spread to her brain robbing her of the ability to speak or to move, her body wasting, the light in her lovely eyes fading, fading, fading away. And in my mind I knew that they probably...

Vatican fights to keep Schiavo alive 07:46 AEDT Wed Mar 23 2005 AP - The Vatican pressed its campaign to keep Terri Schiavo alive, saying removing the brain-damaged American woman's feeding tube amounted to capital punishment for someone who has committed no crimes. In a front-page editorial, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano criticised a United States federal judge's refusal to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube. "She has no possibility of being 'restored' to a 'normal' life. Therefore Terri Schiavo must die," the editorial began. "This is ... the absurd and terrifying reason" for the judge's decision, it added....

This memo seeks to clarify several misconceptions that have been circulating throughout the media in the case of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. MYTH Terri is in a coma or comatose-like state. REALITY None of Terri’s doctors currently maintain that she is in a coma. Some doctors believe that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state while others disagree and believe that she is “minimally conscious.” Most Americans have seen footage of Terri interacting with her mother by now and it is hard to ignore the way in which she appears to light up at the sound of her mother’s voice. Important note:...

This documentary is fascinating. A man who has been in a coma and never expected to talk again, talks after 19 years of being in a coma. I hope you all get a chance to watch it....

Euthanizing terminally ill newborns, while still very rare, is more common in the Netherlands than was believed when the startling practice was reported a few months ago -- and experts say it also occurs, quietly, in other countries. Dutch doctors estimate that at least five newborn mercy killings occur for every one reported in that country, which has allowed euthanasia for competent adults since 1985. In 2002, doctors at University Medical Center Groningen helped create the so-called Groningen protocol, a list of standards for performing and reporting euthanasia of newborns with serious, incurable deformities. The aim was to encourage more...

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.

AMSTERDAM - A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives. The announcement by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives - a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates. In August, the main...

PETER Singer, once a Greens candidate and now our most famous philosopher, has changed his mind on killing babies. Good news, you might think, since this author of Animal Liberation used to say parents had a right to kill imperfect children in their first month of life. But in fact he's now told World magazine it would be ethically fine to kill even one-year-olds with disabilities. Or even to breed babies for spare parts. And Singer, now a professor at Princeton, continues his spiral into the moral abyss, by adding "there's no moral problem" with someone having sex with the...

They Are Going to Murder Terri Shiavo --Starve Her Until She is Dead Terri Shindler-Shiavo Foundation

Increasingly across America, the sick and elderly, some with terminal illnesses, are being murdered simply by withholding food and water. When a new edition of his book "Forced Exit, The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder" was published, author Wesley J. Smith couldn’t have known that America was so far down that slope that Florida courts were ordering the killing, in a most barbaric way, of a disabled but conscious woman. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, wrote the first version...

In 1990, Terri Schiavo's heart suddenly stopped. Before she could be revived, her brain was damaged and she slipped into a comalike state. In early October, the latest hearing began to determine the 38-year-old woman's fate. New Treatment is "Pointless" Her parents and their doctors say Terri is responsive and deserves to live. Her husband, who has just had a daughter by the woman to which he is now engaged, wants Terri to die. Terri received a $700,000 malpractice award in the early 1990s (doctors hadn't done enough to diagnose the potassium deficiency that led to her heart attack); husband...

Dear Friends, The story of Terri Schiavo is a case that could have major implications in the fight to preserve the dignity of life, especially for persons who are handicapped, elderly or sick. Terri's family is inspirational in their devotion to her care. I have met them several times and they have kept me informed of her plight. I usually do not send out emails with requests for donations, but I felt the need to make an exception in this situation. Detailed explanations of current and past legal events are featured on Terri's website at Terri's Website. I especially recommend...