Free Republic

Through the next seven days, RFFM.org will publish a series of columns which first appeared on the Illinois Right to Life Committee's web site. The articles, edited and written by IRLC's executive director Bill Beckman, will address issues which include the dangers associated with living wills, hospice care and issues dealing with patient's rights. This highly important series will provide readers with information a family must have, in order to make educated decisions regarding the medical care of their loved ones. It is a must read. For more information on alternatives to living wills and other life-affirming issues, go to...

CHARLESTON, West Virginia, May 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Virginia family was shocked but relieved when their mother, Val Thomas, woke up after doctors said she was dead. 59 year-old Mrs. Thomas, while being kept breathing artificially, had no detectable brain waves for more than 17 hours. The family were discussing organ donation options for their mother when she suddenly woke up and started speaking to nurses. Ethicists have strongly criticised developments in organ donation criteria that would have made Mrs. Thomas a candidate for having her organs removed before she woke up. At 1:30 am Saturday May 17,...

After reading the Personal Health column on Nov. 27 on preventing geriatric suicide, Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote: “I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage. “I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing....

For months, social conservatives have viewed Fred Thompson as a Reaganesque savior in a dreary field of GOP presidential hopefuls. But the former Tennessee senator's early days on the campaign trail have left some prominent evangelicals underwhelmed. "I'm personally not that impressed," says Paul Weyrich, a veteran strategist who cofounded the Moral Majority. One sticking point: Thompson's stance on a same-sex marriage ban. On the trail, he has declined to endorse a constitutional amendment blocking gay marriage, instead backing a broader amendment that would bar states from imposing their laws on other states. "The [marriage ban] approach has been tried...

In a case of "Whose life is it anyway?" a state appeals court ruled yesterday that a mentally handicapped woman has no say over whether she should be kept alive on life support. In the unanimous decision, a five-judge panel ruled that the 26-year-old - who says she wants to be kept on life support in the event she's felled by illness or an accident - isn't competent to make that decision. Instead, her mother, who is her legal guardian, gets to make the call - and she doesn't want her daughter on life support. A lawyer for the woman,...

Lethal barbiturate produced by members of Australian right-to-die association TORONTO -- An Australian physician attending a global conference in Toronto of right-to-die organizations intends to display this weekend what he says is the first do-it-yourself suicide pill -- made by a group of Australians with degenerative and terminal illnesses. Group members, ranging in age from 55 to 94, have taught themselves the chemistry to make a lethal barbiturate whose main component is amylobarbitone, said Dr. Philip Nitschke, executive director of Australia's national dying with dignity organization, Exit International. After a year of trials, they have synthesized the barbiturate into crystalline...

Mr. Schiavo remains furious at lawmakers in Tallahassee and Washington who intervened. Hence the creation last winter of TerriPAC, a federal political action committee aimed against politicians who tried to stop Ms. Schiavo’s death. Mr. Schiavo flew to Connecticut last month to help Ned Lamont, who defeated Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Representative Jim Davis, a Tampa Democrat running to replace Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, widely distributed a letter that Mr. Schiavo wrote after endorsing him in June. Mr. Davis was among the most vigorous opponents of intervention in the Schiavo case. Mr. Schiavo’s PAC has...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- More than a month before the start of the Florida primary, one race to watch is the battle for the Republican nomination for Jacksonville's Senate seat. The latest skirmish has candidate Randall Terry accusing incumbent Jim King of having the backing of a bikini bar. Terry, 46, who has lived in Ponte Vedra Beach for three years, will run against King in the heavily Republican district that stretches from Duval County to northern Volusia County. In a move Terry called disappointing and sad, Gov. Jeb Bush publicly announced Wednesday that he is endorsing King. King has served...

What made you want to step out in favor of Sen. King? You do this very rarely. "I've done a few but it's not the norm, I guess that's probably right. ... Tom Lee and Jim King this year did significant work in building and passing an aggressive agenda, and I'm a grateful governor. I believe when people work hard to create a shared agenda and then work hard to pass it, it's appropriate to show your appreciation." Does this represent a distancing from a conservative segment of voters? "There is no distancing from my perspective. People know where I...

WASHINGTON, July 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Executive Director of The National Pro-Life Action Center, the nation's only pro-life initiative located on Capitol Hill, has responded to the expected endorsement of Jim King for Florida State Senate by Gov. Jeb Bush. Dr. Paul Chaim Schenck, the Executive Director of the Center, which is a joint project of Catholics United for Life, Priests for Life and Faith and Action (with a combined membership of over 250,000), issued the following statement - "Shame, shame on Jeb Bush for betraying the memory of Terri Schindler Schiavo by endorsing Jim King. As Senate president,...

I was looking around at Sen. King's campaign contributions last night and I found this: King, James E. "Jim" (REP)(STS) 01/26/2006 500.00 CHE WACKO'S TOO INC. DBA WACKO'S 3701 EMERSON ST JACKSONVILLE, FL 32207 FOOD/ENTERTAINMENT King, If you are wondering what Wacko's is, go to: http://stripclubs.naughtynightlife.com/florida/strip_club.asp?NavStateCode=FL&NavCityID=188&clubid=1963

A very sick 78-year-old doctor is dying in a Michigan prison, an anachronism left over from the 20th century. Should we let him die in prison, or do we have the decency to say, "Enough is enough. Release him and let him die at home"? The doctor is Jack Kevorkian, who was sentenced in 1999 to 10 to 25 years in Michigan's Lakeland Correctional Facility for Men. He traded his freedom for openly, shamelessly touting what he called our "right to die with dignity." He'd spent the 10 prior years brashly, illegally helping 130 terminally ill people end excruciatingly painful...

Mary Sundborg was a spirited woman of 100 ½ who had long endured advanced colon cancer and two strokes. And she knew how she wanted to die: at home, peacefully, with dignity. So with the help of her eldest son, she signed an official order specifically directing emergency responders not to attempt CPR. Then came Jan. 3, the day Sundborg stopped breathing. Her nurse, who wasn't sure at first what was happening, called 911. When emergency medical technicians (EMTs) from the Fire Department arrived at her Magnolia home, they pulled her out of bed, attached their equipment and began pushing...

Odd political bedfellows working together to change law that allows doctors to withdraw treatment, transfer patients Monday, May 08, 2006 Some unlikely political bedfellows want to change the state's "medical futility" law, saying it gives doctors too much power to make life-and-death decisions and families who disagree too little time to fight back. The law has received renewed attention in recent days after doctors in Austin and Houston sought to withdraw treatment from patients whose families wanted to keep them on life support. A collection of conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, Texas Right to Life members and disability rights...

Should terminally ill patients be allowed to end their lives? Yes, and the law should let willing medical professionals help. Yes, but doctors shouldn't be involved. No, this should be allowed.

Andrea Clark Is Not the Only One Even experienced Right to Life attorneys find the case of Andrea Clark to be shocking. Your continued efforts on her behalf are much appreciated by Andrea's family. However, Andrea is not the only person whose life is endanger. Jerri Lynn Ward (Texas Advanced Directives Blog) explains: I represent Andrea Clark and the family. I came to represent the family because I signed up on the registry of health care providers and referral groups that have volunteered their readiness to consider assisting families in the situation where the present attending physician and hospital ethics...

Michael Schiavo's statements make best case for Terri's Day movement Kevin Fobbs March 27, 2006 Michael Schiavo attempted to appear pious as he answered NBC Matt Lauer's question on what was Terri's wishes on end of life on Dateline Sunday evening. It was pure theater but what many viewers may have missed was the essence of Michael Schiavo's answer when he claimed Terri did not want to be a "burden" to anyone. Being a burden is why the court allowed her to be killed. Being a burden is now a mortal crime punishable by death. Didn't America hear the argument...

See this thread for example... The Supreme Court said states can decide if you can commit suicide with the aid of a doc (which I think is a crock) if you're sick you had better go hide!

WASHINGTON - Each December, the Family Research Council grades Congress on how it voted during the year on important conservative social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion. But this year, the group didn't even bother to score the Senate. Blame Terri Schiavo. After the public backlash that followed congressional intervention in Schiavo's end-of-life case in March, conservative social victories were just too few to count. Moderate Republicans, already uncomfortable with the rightward cant of their congressional leaders, found in Schiavo a new reason to keep their distance. And the Democrats who had helped pass several Republican priorities early this...

Terri Schiavo's husband starts a PAC devoted to defeating the Bible-thumping politicians who used his comatose wife as a football. By Michael Scherer Dec. 7, 2005 | At the height of the battle, Michael Schiavo appeared to be a reluctant cultural warrior. His wife, Terri, lay comatose, in her 15th year of vegetative slumber, connected to a feeding tube, but well beyond resuscitation. Around her hospice, a political hurricane swirled. In Terri's name, President George Bush interrupted his vacation, Sen. Bill Frist played doctor from the Senate floor, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched a flimsy criminal investigation, and Rep. Tom...

WESTFIELD, Mass. -- Allison Avrett's photos show her daughter Haleigh as a smiling little girl with brown bangs hanging over her squinting eyes. Those pictures were taken before Mrs. Avrett gave up Haleigh for adoption five years ago, and long before the purported beating that landed the 11-year-old in a hospital attached to the ventilator and feeding tube. Now, with Haleigh's doctors saying she will never recover from her vegetative state, the child is at the center of a life-and-death legal struggle.

Dear Concerned Supporters Of Terri Schiavo: Please take time look at the following report. REPORT: IN DEPTH: ANALYSIS: HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FACTS IGNORED TO PUT TERRI SCHIAVO TO DEATH/ Forty Thousand Word Critique Of What Was Done To Terri Schiavo: Basic Knowledge; Basic Reasoning; Ignored Biological Facts; Ignored Medical Knowledge; Absence Of Biological Facts And Medical Knowledge; Absence Of And Destruction Of Evidence, Both Physical And Medical. There are many, many more points in the actual report. Some pages may seem similar to pages you have read before, but there are also many pages that go into depth with biological and...

In making a point about the importance of having a living will, ex-President Bill Clinton remarked that religious Americans are apparently hypocrites for having a fear of death. "It's interesting to me that we always proclaim – especially certain numbers of us – that we're the most religious big country in the world," said Clinton. "It may be true, but we also seem to be the most reluctant to get to heaven."

Quality-of-life issues weigh on many patients' minds in the aftermath of the Terri Schiavo case. Schiavo, the Florida woman at the heart of a heated right-to-die debate, suffered severe brain damage in 1990 and was kept alive on life-support until her husband ordered her feeding tube removed this March -- over the bitter objections of her parents. The story struck an American nerve. "People tell me now: 'I don't want to be like that woman in Florida.' They don't remember Terry Schiavo's name, just 'that woman in Florida,' " Owens says. "It has started people thinking about what they would...

TALLAHASSEE - The Republican Party of Florida will pay a gambling company $48,000 in hopes of sparing four lawmakers a possible ethics problem after they took a two-day trip to Toronto at the company's expense. The GOP said it will pay $48,000 to Magna Entertainment Corp., which chartered a jet from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport on July 12 and whisked the four lawmakers to its company headquarters in Canada. Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who urged the party to act, promised an inquiry by Senate lawyers. Two Pinellas lawmakers were on the trip: Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole, and Rep. Frank...

So, Mr. Chief Justice, will it be us or them? Given his first case, we'll know soon enough if new Chief Justice John Roberts is with us or them. It's a control case, a who's-in-charge case. Us or them. The people of Oregon -- me and you, 'cept they live there and we live here -- have twice affirmed through referenda that if a mentally-with-it dying person wants to skip the last part, it's OK for the doctor to prescribe and the pharmacist to fill a fatal prescription. The Oregon Legislature, being the servant of the people that it is,...

Vague Commerce Clause precedents give free rein to personal preferences.Last June the Supreme Court said regulating interstate commerce can involve seizing marijuana from patients who grow it for their own medical use, even when state law permits such cultivation. If so, it may not seem a stretch to claim that regulating interstate commerce can involve stopping doctors from writing barbiturate prescriptions for terminally ill patients who plan to take lethal overdoses, even when state law permits such prescriptions. The Bush administration's attempt to nullify Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, the focus of a case in which the Supreme Court heard...

"While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well." -- Matthew 13:25-26The culture of life landscape looks like the field in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. Changes on the Supreme Court might produce an end to Roe v. Wade; Terri Schiavo's starvation death raises the Grim Reaper of passive euthanasia. As Schiavo's starvation is a given, and Court changes only a possibility, the weeds appear to be taking over. Commentators have wondered: Has the ghost of...

Woman ends 'right to die' food protest By Richard Savill (Filed: 13/08/2005) A 28-year-old terminally ill woman who went on hunger strike as an act of voluntary euthanasia has ended her protest after 19 days because of intense pain. Kelly Taylor had waited nearly 10 years for a heart and lung transplant, but was taken off the list two years ago after doctors told her the risks were too high. She began her protest because she believed starvation was the only method of death that would not leave her husband, Richard, liable to prosecution for assisted suicide. Her plight attracted...

No matter how often we hear the standard lecture about how liberal Californians are, events like this (Nancy Vogel, LAT) continue to call commonly held wisdom into question, even as such news passes by unnoticed: "The Death With Dignity Act cleared two committees but was never brought up for a vote on the Assembly floor. [Assemblymember Lloyd] Levine said 33 of the 80 lawmakers had committed to vote for the bill — short of the necessary 41." Sure, some of the polls say that most Californians have favored assisted suicide for years—but if this is the case, why hasn't state...

In a stunning profile of George Felos -- the attorney who helped Michael Schiavo put his wife Terri to death -- an author and famed theologian shows the weird side of the crusading right-to-die lawyer. This is certainly a story the mainstream media ignored. Writing in Crisis magazine, Benjamin Wiker, co-author of "Architects of the Culture of Death" and a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, uses Felos' own words to expose his oddball views. Wiker is no friend of Felos' views. He writes of Terri's Shiavo's death: "Cold blooded murder," sanctioned by the state of...

Just when it seemed that every liberal commentator on the Terri Schiavo case was starting to sound like Barney Frank, the great Joan Didion published a long and remarkable article on the case in the quite far left New York Review of Books of June 9. Frank, of course, took the occasion of last week's Schiavo autopsy results as yet another opportunity to denounce Republicans as "this fanatical party willing to impose its own views on people." For those of you still somehow unaware, "imposing their views" is a semiofficial Democratic meme or code phrase meaning "religious people who vote...

Autopsy highlights: (my comments in parentheses) T11 endplate fracture (?correllates with bone scan) Renal scar (right) Heart normal (no evidence of "heart attack") "Manner of death: Undetermined" Dr. Stephen Nelson, Neuropathologist, in a report contained within the autopsy report: "The persistent vegetative state and minimally conscious state are clinical diagnoses, not pathologic ones. The neurophysiologic findings of the persistent vegetative state have been well described in the medical literature ... yet there are no similarly published neurophysiologic descriptions specific to the minimally conscious state". "In diffuse axonal injury this abnormality is usually due to a shearing injury after acute trauma"....

AB 651 (FORMERLY AB 654) Physician Assisted Death (Berg, D-Eureka and Levine, D-Van Nuys) Using a procedural ploy, called “gut and amend”, the authors of the physician-assisted suicide bill avoided certain defeat of AB 654 during the last week of the mid-session deadline. Instead of placing the bill before the full Assembly for a vote, authors Patty Berg, (D-Santa Rosa) and Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) pulled the bill and took AB 651, a bill that has already passed the Assembly, gutted (removed) the language from that bill and replaced it with language from AB 654. By using “gut and amend”...

A bill to legalize assisted suicide in Vermont has died for the second consecutive legislative session. A House committee held a hearing on the bill but dropped the issue when other lawmakers indicated its prospects were severely limited. The House Human Services Committee held a public hearing and took two days worth of testimony, but lawmakers in favor of making Vermont the second state in the nation to legalize the practice will have to wait until next year. The gavel fell on the legislative session on Saturday and lawmakers will be headed back to the state capital to deal with...

by Barbara A. Olevitch, Ph.D Other Articles by Barbara A. Olevitch, Ph.D A Right-To-Die Fairy Tale 06/06/2005 Let's analyze a right-to-die fairy tale. You have probably heard this one. It is going around. In This Article...At the Bedside of Life and DeathMortality Is Not PredictableThe Interpretive Framework At the Bedside of Life and Death In the old days, before people became foolishly arrogant because of life-saving technology, they were wiser about the human life cycle and about the inevitability of death. When Grandpa took to his bed, they brought food to him, but when he stopped eating, they wisely realized that...

Just heard on Fox....so sad.

 Reflections on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide  [Q and A on Euthanasia]    -- Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life 1. Do we have a "right to die?"When people ask me about the "right to die," I respond, "Don't worry -- you won't miss out on it!" A right is a moral claim. We do not have a claim on death; rather, death has a claim on us! Some see the "right to die" as parallel to the "right to life." In fact, however, they are opposite. The "right to life" is based on the fact that life is a...

Ironically, if Terri Schiavo's feeding tube had been reinserted and she had been allowed to live on, it would have done very little damage to the purported "right to die." It would have set no precedent for cases in which a patient has left written instructions, in which a patient's heart is unable to beat or lungs are unable to breathe without the aid of a machine, in which a patient was already suffering a terminal illness, or in which a patient's closest family members are united as to what the patient wanted. What made Terri's case stand out was...

A better way than a gun? Had he lived in Oregon, the terminally ill man who shot himself in the head at Oak Glen Home in Coal Valley last month wouldn't have needed the gun. There would have been no need for someone to put himself or herself at risk of criminal charges by slipping him the weapon. There would have been no possibility that other residents would be harmed by the bullet after it exited his head. There would have been no trauma for the nursing home staff. Instead, he could simply have asked that he be prescribed a...

S.A. hospital won't cut off man's life support Web Posted: 04/30/2005 12:07 AM CDT Nicole Foy - Express-News Medical Writer An agreement was reached Friday that ended a standoff between the family of an East Texas man and a local hospital that planned to remove him from life support. Spiro Nikolouzos, critically ill and in a persistent vegetative state, will be returned to Avalon Place, a long-term care facility that came to his aid after a Houston hospital also decided to end life support. Nikolouzos was transferred from Avalon to Southeast Baptist Hospital at the end of March after he...

San Antonio hospital set to remove man from life support 04/28/2005 Associated Press A man in a persistent vegetative state whose family battled with a Houston hospital to stop his removal from life support is set to be removed from support Tuesday at a San Antonio hospital, his family said. The family of Spiro Nikolouzos, 68, has vowed to keep him on life support and is trying to get him moved back to the nursing home where he was sent after leaving the Houston hospital. A nursing home official said Thursday they would take him back. "I'm not going to...

-snip- A St. Cloud area man who suffered a brain injury in an April 8 altercation at a St. Cloud nightclub died Tuesday afternoon, more than a week after he was removed from life support. Justin W. Smiley, 28, of Sauk Rapids, died about 1 p.m. at the St. Cloud Hospital, his aunt, Pam Heldt, said Tuesday. "We're feeling a lot of relief right now that he's finally at peace," Heldt said. -snip- Janelle Kendall, the Stearns County Attorney, said an autopsy is scheduled for today. She said her office is awaiting the results of the autopsy before making a...

LONDON - Rejecting a bid by the parents, a British judge on Thursday upheld a court order allowing doctors to let a critically ill baby die if she stops breathing — a move doctors say is the only humane way to end the child's suffering.

Clearwater, FL - The volunteers with the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation were astonished to learn of the behavior of former Dunedin, Florida Attorney Constance d'Angelis. d'Angelis is the former wife of George Felos, legal representative to Michael Schiavo. In a press release issued through PR Web, titled "Lawyer Who Presented CT Scan & Medical Evidence in Court Analyzes Autopsy Results in Terri Schiavo Case" Ms. d'Angelis claims she will be available to interpret the anticipated Medical Examiner's report on the late Terri Schiavo. Quoted from her release: "Upon the release of the autopsy report, she can analyze the results and weigh...

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43807 Thursday, April 14, 2005 MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATHHappy ending for 'grandma'?Feuding family makes agreements on Ora Mae Magouirk Posted: April 14, 20055:30 p.m. Eastern By Sarah Foster © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Mae Magouirk It appears there will be a happy ending to the story of Ora Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow whose family has been at loggerheads over her medical care, visitation privileges and whether she should be "allowed to die" but now is reaching agreements on key issues. Today, attorneys on...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A legislative committee Tuesday approved a measure modeled after an Oregon law that would allow the terminally ill to end their lives with a doctor's assistance. The bill cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee after more than a dozen hours of testimony and debate spread over three hearings. It now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and finally to the floor. The Senate would then have to take up the legislation. Supporters said the measure would give people with no more than six months to live the choice to end their lives with a self-administered drug prescribed...

“.... the real news is that there are hundreds and thousands of angels of death in our nation, working quietly “underground,” so to speak, and physicians and nurses know this is going on. The news is that many patients who are not actively dying are being killed, not cared for, in hospice agencies.” (Courtesy of The Hospice Patient Alliance, a hospice watchdog group) She was born with CP…needed lots of care and special treatment. G-tube, Trach, central line, PIC lines, IV, non ambulatory, needed body casts just to hold her trunk up as she had no ribs…typical for a disabled...

To: Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 4:01 PM Subject: NewStarvingCaseinGeorgia.PressRelease.Mullinax(205)408-7598 Media Release For Immediate release! To: All media, and supporters of life. From: The Family of Mae Magouirk Date: April 6, 2005 Contact: Kenneth Mullinax Shiavo case revisited in Georgia Mae Magouirk…not comatose …not vegetative …not terminal Why is Hospice LaGrange, Ga. withholding nourishment? (LaGrange, Georgia) Mae Magouirk is being withheld nourishment and fluids and the provisions of her Living Will are not being honored at the Hospice-LaGrange, (1510 Vernon Street, LaGrange “Troup County” Georgia, 706-845-3905) a subsidiary of the LaGrange Hospital in LaGrange Georgia. Her family is desperately seeking...

Terri Schiavo Judges Won't be Targeted, Senate Leader Frist Says by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told reporters on Tuesday that he's not interested in having the Senate go after judges who violated a federal law Congress passed mandating that Terri Schiavo's starvation death be stopped and allowing her parents to take their lawsuit to federal courts. "I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," he said, according to a Reuters report. Frist admitted the federal review of the case "was not as complete as we would like," but he...