Fr. Rob Johansen asked four neurologists to review the audio tapes of Terri Schiavo and her father posted online this week and they came to the conclusion that she is not in a “persistent vegetative state.” He also posts Terri’s “exit protocol,” a document prepared by the hospice where she’s staying, that outlines her treatment after she was removed from the feeding tube.
Two things leap right out. First is the acknowledgement, despite all those who say that starving to death is painless, that Terri will require pain medication. Second is that they will perpetrate the illusion that Terri is slipping away peacefully, applying ointments to skin that is cracked and peeling from dehydration, lip balm to keep the lips from cracking, a saliva substute to prevent the mouth from ulcerating, and so on and so forth.
Everything surrounding this case seems to be building up a house of lies. This is evil in its purest form and we can’t even see it for what it is. Is this how good people felt in Germany in the 1930s?
Guillotine would be more humane.
Actually, this is how good Germans felt in the 1920s, or good Dutch in the 1970s. The euthanasia mentality doesn’t spring up overnight. You have to incrementally prepare the ground for it. Felos and Singer (and their nominal Catholic allies like Paris and O’Rourke) are merely the vanguard.
Check back in about 15 years and see where we are.
Fr. Sibley has a link to a picture of a boy in handcuffs escorted by two police officers. Apparently the boy was arrested for trying to give Terri a drink of water. He looks to be about 11.
I am seriously starting to wonder when the situation will come to serious blows. How does just war theory apply here?
I wish the hospice workers would walk out.
The civil war did start soon after the Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott was a slave … I see this as a tremendous consitutional crisis, that a judge can stand against the people as expressed in the Florida legislature, the Florida governor, the US Congress, and the President. And I wonder over and over why the police are obeying since they should be part of the executive branch. We have no more checks and balances for judges?
No, Dom – I suspect this is what Jews felt in Auschwitz. If there is a God, why does He not act? If not now, then when?
I know it’s a sin to give in to despair, anger and rage, but this entire episode has festered inside of me through this Holy Week, poisoning my devotions. I can honestly say that I don’t think I have ever hated (and yes, I mean that word) the Democrat party, its smug, death-loving press and cultural lackeys and the spineless weasels who claim to lead the Church more than I do now.
“Saliva substitute” to prevent the mouth from ulcerating.
Rather like giving a nosegay to someone in the gas chamber.
I suppose giving her body what it needs to make its own saliva would be insufficiently…compassionate.