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A warning from Canada to those who value life
Jewish World Review ^ | July 14, 2008 | Jonathan Rosenblum

Posted on 07/14/2008 8:23:49 PM PDT by gogogodzilla

Chaim Shmuel Golubchuk, a"h, has gone to his Eternal reward. But the issues that pitted his children Percy Golubchuk and Miriam Geller against Grace General Hospital in Winnipeg over the last seven months will long be with us.

After being informed by their father's doctors that they intended to end his life by removing his ventilation and feeding tube, the Golubchuk children sought an injunction against the hospital. They argued that their father would adamantly oppose any attempt to shorten his life, which is forbidden by Jewish law.

After the entry of a temporary injunction, the hospital pursued an aggressive legal and public relations campaign. At one recent hearing, the hospital was represented by a team of no less than seven high-priced attorneys (despite its claims that providing care for Mr. Golubchuk was draining the hospital's resources.) Three doctors resigned from the hospital's intensive care unit claiming they were being forced to violate their ethical beliefs by continuing to treat Mr. Golubchuk rather than simply hastening his death. One of them graphically described in a public letter how the doctors in the ward would be left "to surgically hack away at his infected flesh at the bedside in order to keep the infection [from bedsores] at bay."

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: canada; deathcultivation; euthenasia; golubchuk
I didn't see this posted yet. Hope I didn't miss it.
1 posted on 07/14/2008 8:23:49 PM PDT by gogogodzilla
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To: gogogodzilla
We must never subordinate the value of a human life to financial or other factors that detract from the necessity to preserve it.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

2 posted on 07/14/2008 8:55:16 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: fanfan; GMMAC

Canada ping.


3 posted on 07/14/2008 8:56:16 PM PDT by Don W (To write with a broken pencil is pointless.)
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To: goldstategop; Afronaut; American in Israel; Amerigomag; AnnaZ; Aquinasfan; Avoiding_Sulla; ...
We must never subordinate the value of a human life to financial or other factors that detract from the necessity to preserve it.

Amen.

Death cultivation is advancing at an ever faster clip. Those who we've trusted with protecting innocent human life from predators (the government) have chosen to change their focus. Now they want universal control of health care.

They claim to want to provide for the under-insured. But as this story demonstrates, they obviously want that power so they can end the lives of those they deem to be "wastrels of scarce resources."

Who gave them the right to manage those resources? With your smug silence, YOU HAVE.

Boil little frogs. Boil.

4 posted on 07/14/2008 9:08:35 PM PDT by Avoiding_Sulla (Yesterday's Left = today's status quo. Thus "CONSERVATIVE": a conflicted label for battling tyranny.)
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To: gogogodzilla

The anti-lifers will stop at nothing to implement their agenda.


5 posted on 07/14/2008 10:16:20 PM PDT by TBP
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To: gogogodzilla
The 84 year old guy was dead. All the docs wanted to do is remove the machines making his heart beat and breathe. He had no brain activity either.
All this family did is waste tax payers money. There is nothing in Jewish religion that says you have to be kept alive artificially. Dying naturally is perfectly ok.

A lame attempt to claim some fame by suggesting this was another Terry case. It was not. In her case she had a functioning brain stem which kept her heart beating and lungs breathing. She had no brain however, and finally was allowed to die naturally as well.

6 posted on 07/14/2008 10:26:31 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Avoiding_Sulla

That’s not what this case was about. This article omits a few very important facts.
He was completely brain dead, no function, not even stem function at all. It wasn’t about removing a feeding tube, it was about turning off the machines. His kidneys and liver had failed. Finally, as they were told would happen, he rotted from the inside out. Even the machines couldn’t keep his heart beating. He was dead long ago.


7 posted on 07/14/2008 10:38:02 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Nathan Zachary

I’m not going to let you get away with your blanket assertion: “This article omits[1] a few very important facts.
He was completely brain dead, no function, not even stem function at all.[2]”

Quoting an important phrase further from the article: “ The Golubchuk case, while not about “brain death” (which even the hospital admitted had not occurred), ...”

Got that? One of you is lying.

This article clearly HAS NOT omitted[1] the “fact” you most relied on for your comment. they outright contradicted you[2]. And you didn’t call them on it. You chose to claim they omitted. The fact that you didn’t call them on it suggests you can’t. That you didn’t call them liars suggests it’s not them. Maybe you hoped nobody would notice?

I’ll give you another chance. Proceed to defend your assertion.


8 posted on 07/14/2008 11:21:47 PM PDT by Avoiding_Sulla (Yesterday's Left = today's status quo. Thus "CONSERVATIVE": a conflicted label for battling tyranny.)
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To: gogogodzilla

How could three Dr’s resign from the ICU? Wouldn’t they be restricted from practicing elsewhere if they refused to fulfill the original terms of their contracts? It makes me wonder how many of them belong to the hemlock society...


9 posted on 07/15/2008 2:29:44 AM PDT by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: Nathan Zachary
In her case she had a functioning brain stem which kept her heart beating and lungs breathing. She had no brain however, and finally was allowed to die naturally as well.

Ummmmmmmm.........NOT. She had food removed... and died as a result......just like you or I would. She was responsive, could communicate.... but was "inconvenient".

10 posted on 07/15/2008 2:35:23 AM PDT by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: Nathan Zachary
Did you even READ the article?

If so, you must have missed this particular portion of it:

Dr. Leon Zacharowicz, a New York neurologist, who devoted hundreds of hours of pro bono time to advising the Golubchuk family, noted in his court affidavits that the hospital had moved to cut off life support on the grounds that Mr. Golubchuk had only minimal brain function without his having been evaluated by a neurologist or such basic tests as an EEG or CAT scan having been administered. Yet at one point subsequent to the issuance of the temporary injunction, Mr. Golubchuk was described as "awake, alert, sitting up in a chair at times, more interactive and shaking hands purposively." His children reported his shedding a tear as they recited central prayer of faith, Shema, with him on the eve of the religious festival in which Jews relive the Encounter at Sinai.

This contradicts your very claim.

11 posted on 07/15/2008 4:11:15 AM PDT by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: gogogodzilla; Don W; GMMAC; Clive; exg; kanawa; conniew; backhoe; -YYZ-; Former Proud Canadian; ...
Thanks for the ping, Don.


12 posted on 07/15/2008 4:30:24 AM PDT by fanfan (SCC:Canadians have constitutional protection to all opinions, as long as they are based on the facts)
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To: fanfan
My question regarding this case from the outset has always been the same. If as the family says that their faith forbids that they remove life support then where are the Jewish nursing facilities where these patients are cared for? By their claim you would think that there would be at least one such facility in every city and where populations are larger more than one. But I have yet to hear of one anywhere not even in Israel. If someone knows of one please tell me.
13 posted on 07/15/2008 7:52:11 AM PDT by styky (All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor)
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