A New Eugenics

I have posted about eugenics in the past. The word eugenics is a compound word formed by the merging of two Greek words for "good" (eu) and "genes" (genics). Note the common prefix of "eu" (good) also used in the word Euthanasia ("good death").

In the past, eugenics included (but not restricted to) the practice of abortion and forced sterilization procedures. Today, it is taking on a whole new face. Frighteningly, what used to be deemed fascist - almost torture - is now something voluntarily embraced by the unborn's strongest ally - their parents.

In 1992, the March of Dimes conducted a survey. Their poll concluded that 11% of parents would would abort a fetus if their genome showed a predisposition towards obesity! Four out of five parents said they would abort a fetus if the child was going to grow up with a disability. 43% said they would use the genetic engineering available to them to enhance their child's physical appearance.

That was 1992 - this is 2008. What do these statistics look like now after 15 years of media influence? Films that glorify assisted suicide are handed Oscars for Best Picture -- when such tales, 50 years ago, would have sent our grandfathers to the battlefield and physicians to prison.

These March of Dimes statistics were found on page 183 of the book, "Does God Need Our Help? Cloning, Assisted Suicide, & Other Challenges in Bioethics" by John F. Kilner and C. Ben Mitchell. The book is a part of the Vital Questions series put out by the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. They also have a website and a daily (free) downloadable podcast. Their website is: http://www.cbhd.org/

"The word "compassion" comes from the joining of two Latin words meaning "suffering with" - which is precisely what we stop doing when we encourage or participate in assisted suicide or euthanasia" (Kilner & Mitchell, p. 134). [Author's note: or abortion or genome-influenced genetic interference].

Right to Life or Duty to Die

Al Mohler contributed to the duty to die discussion back in August in his article entitled, A Threat to the Disabled...and to Us All.

"Disability rights activists understand that this same logic threatens persons with disabilities. When does the argument for a right to die morph into an argument for a duty to die? The question is not merely a matter of intellectual interest. It is a question of life or death."

To read the article in its entirety, click here:
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=983

Here are some other articles of "interest"
http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art_medicalfascism.html

This is another Mohler article reporting that Down Syndrome births are down 90% due to abortion: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=943

Here is a terrifying quote from the article linked above.

"We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said, according to The Telegraph, a British online newspaper.The clinic director said he would be willing to try for permission to test for any genetic factor that would produce severe distress in a family.When asked about hair color, Grudzinskas said, "If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits. [Hair color] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it."

First Face Transplant

The BBC is reporting the first face transplant has occured in France.


Excerpt from the article:
The woman had lost her nose, lips and chin after being savaged by a dog. In the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face. Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face.


Here is CNN's report

Here is MSNBC's report
(Includes some drawings)

Here is New Scientist's report

Here is Yahoo News' report
(Discusses ethical concerns of procedure)

Down Syndrome Testing & Abortion

Al Mohler and Hugh Hewitt have both recently reported on their blogs some disturbing new trends in genetic testing, Down Syndrome, and Abortion.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported on Thursday that a fetal screening test for Down Syndrome has been developed that can detect Down Syndrome as early as the first trimester of pregnancy.

Or, to quote a corresponding article in the Washington Post: A first trimester screening test can reliably identify fetuses likely to be born with Down Syndrome...

The word "likely" really shakes me.

Instead of pouring all of this money and research into developing screening tests, why doesn't the medical industry pour that money and research into curing Downs?

Hat Tip: JT

Disabilities and Abortion

A friend sent me a link this morning to an article entitled, The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have. The writer of the article has a grown daughter with Down's Syndrome and is tackling the tough issue of prenatal testing used to weed out children with Disabilities from the general populous.

I could say a hundred different things right now. There are so many downsides to a world without disabled children! Even now, with all of its flaws, America has a lot of facades -- even our freeways and trash dumpsters have to be situated in the midst of planted flower beds. In a world of poverty and suffering and war and terror, America is the Disneyland of the planet. We look around at the pretty flower boxes and children laughing and perfectly manicured lawns and smiling caricatures and sno cone machines and think, "This is reality."

But it is not reality. Disabilities are, among many other things, mercy to a dying world. When we look at quarter of a million dollar houses and bright red Corvettes, we think, "What a wonderful world!" When we see children with disabilities, we are reminded, if even for a moment, that life doesn't always run according to our plans. For a brief moment, our false sense of reality is shaken - we are forced to realize we live in a fallen world where people get sick, people suffer, and where all of us will eventually die.

In America, those thought are all buried beneath layer upon layer of funny T.V. shows, restaurants, Krispy Kreme donuts, new cars, vacations, paychecks, and shoe shopping. Name your distraction - we all have a million of them.

It is not wise, nor healthy, nor beneficial to go through life never realizing that we are sailing on a sinking ship. Reality is a good thing to taste now and then. Never thinking about death or growing old will only make those inevitable fates all the harder to deal with when they happen to you, and they both will.

I believe that God has a thousand good purposes behind Disabilities. The one I am highlighting here is only one of them. But let me tell you, from a personal standpoint -- anytime I think life is designed around my having fun or being comfortable - or that God is designed around making me happy -- all I have to do is look in a mirror and see a face full of scars to be reminded that life is much deeper and more difficult than the American media would have me believe.

Interacting with children and families with Disabilities is difficult. By that, I mean, that it takes more thought and care to meet their needs. It can be intimidating. There is always risk of offense or saying something foolish or something wrong. There is the temptation to rudely stare or ask probing questions that are too personal. And there is the gut-wrenching empathy that we must wrestle with for days after the encounter as we wonder why some people are called to suffer so much in this world.

But these are all good things, despite being difficult or uncomfortable. Learning how to deal with people compassionately, learning how to judge a person on the inside rather that the outside, learning how to weep with those who weep -- these are all good, character-building, Christ-like attributes, and Disabilities is one place in the world where we can find a place to nurture those characteristics and behaviors.

Scripture says that God chooses the weak and despised things of the world to shame the wise. We would do best to follow God's lead. And by His grace, we will learn to value the things that He values.

Self-Evident Truth

A friend of mine has just launched the website for her ministry: Self-Evident Truth. She is still adding the finishing touches to the site, but it is up and running. Please go and take a look!

From the website:

Abortion hurts. Education empowers.

SET’s motto is: “The humanity of the unborn is evident.” It is our goal to help others understand the horror of abortion, and to equip pro-lifers to help others understand that as well. The reason that abortion is so horrible is because the unborn are fully human. Abortion kills that human life.

SET focuses on:

Education. People aren’t able to make a wise decision about anything without first learning the facts about the decision facing them. Our goal is to open the eyes and minds of young and old alike to the facts surrounding abortion. How can we possibly do that?

We’ve developed an educational display focusing on little known, yet vitally important, facts about abortion. We believe that if people are open-minded enough to accept the facts, then they will choose what is best for them and their baby, namely, not aborting.

Senate Bill Euthenized

The Joni and Friends website is reporting the termination of Senate Bill AB 654 and AB 651 - two attempts to help legalize Physician Assisted Suicide.

Sacramento - Physician assisted suicide bill AB 651 has died in the state Senate and will not be further pursued this year by its authors, Assembly Members Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine.

An article appearing in the Los Angeles Times today (7/12/05) stated that bill proponents were "still struggling against steady religious and cultural currents." This refers to those of you who responded to action alerts, got petitions signed, met with legislators and staffers in district offices, wrote letters to the news media, picketed, made calls, and in many other ways made it clear that most Californians do not want physician assisted suicide.

In the LA Times article, Berg and Levine state they will revive the issue in January. Ms. Berg continues to rely on a Field poll which earlier this year showed 70% support for physician assisted suicide.

A Perfect World?

Hat tip to JT for sending me a link to this article in Christianity Today.

The article was written by the mother of a special needs child who is living with her family in France. Down's Syndrome is becoming virtually extinct in France due to advances in ultrasound technology and legalized abortion. In the article, the mother considers a world completely void of disability.

Here are some excerpts:

I tried to imagine a society devoid of people with disabilities. What if any and all babies with special needs were to be eliminated? What would a society look like if everyone were "normal," if we never had to make provisions and exceptions for people who are deaf, blind, mute, or lame?

Could it be that the special-needs, "imperfect" people have that balancing effect on society as a whole? How would love and compassion develop among people who were only surrounded by the lovely and intelligent? My children treasure nothing more than a smile or kiss, sometimes just eye contact, from their little brother. My nephew, who is a year younger than Michael, loves to help at his school with the class of students with special needs—or as he puts it, "the class like Michael." I see my husband kiss our son's often expressionless, crooked little face, and my heart nearly bursts with a love and joy that I can hardly contain.

As I pondered this potential "perfect" society, one verse from the Bible kept coming to my mind: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit" (Phil. 2:3). Parenting a child with special needs makes living out this verse a little easier.

Brain Damaged Man Wakes Up After Ten Years

Fox News is reporting this story today.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — A firefighter brain-damaged in a 1995 roof collapse had an "amazing" weekend, recognizing and speaking with his four sons and other family and friends for the first time in years, a family spokesman said Monday.

"I want to talk to my wife," Donald Herbert said out of the blue Saturday at the skilled nursing facility where he has lived for more than seven years. Staff members put Linda Herbert on the telephone.

It was the first of many conversations he had during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka said.

"How long have I been away?" Herbert asked.

***

Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.

"It's almost unheard of after 10 years," she said, "but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don't understand why."

Poles Apart

A recent Zogby poll shows that, contrary to the Fox Poll, most Americans in fact do not agree with the decision to remove nutrition from Terri Schiavo (or those like her). It seems that we have once again fallen victim to the "fuzzy math" of the mainstream media statistics.

Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.

The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.

Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.

"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.

A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.

Did Terri Schiavo Really Die a Painless Death?

A year ago, April, I began reading through the book of Genesis, six verses at a time, five days a week. I read the passage, read all the associated cross-reference passages, look up mentioned places on the map, and jot a short journal entry regarding the passage.

This evening, my passage fell on Genesis 47:13-18. How odd that I should be reading about the famine in Egypt on the day of Terri Schiavo's passing.

With that as my backdrop, the passage took on a new light. In verse 14-15 we see the Egyptians hand over every dime of their money to Joseph in exchange for grain. By verse 16-17 they are out of food and next give up all of their horses, flocks, donkey, and livestock in exchange for more grain. The food runs out again, and in verse 18, the people give Joseph all of their land and by verse 19, they have all sold their very bodies into slavery.

I think this commentary denies the euphamistic lightheartedness that recent news articles have claimed Terri Schiavo's death was calm, painless, and peaceful. Look at these Egyptians, selling their very bodies for a bucket of grain. That, my friends, is called hunger.

The story of the famine in Egypt is reminscent of another biblical story: Esau. He was so hungry that he sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. Again, it seems like extreme hunger leads people to do irrational things

It would seem that these are uneven exchanges. A birthright for a bowl of stew; life-long slavery for a bucket of grain. But is it? Food is sustanance, sustanance is life, and according to Paul in the book of Philippians, "To live is Christ." To rob a person of food is to rob them of life and their God-given opportunity to experience, fellowship with, and know Christ.

I read a book last summer entitled, Flyboys by James Bradley. It tells tales of Japanese soldiers, abandoned by Japan, weak with hunger, going mad and killing people for food. There is one particular paragraph in the book that I considered writing here to prove my point (and believe me, it would prove my point) but I just reread it now and have determined that it is far too horrific to repeat. So, just take my word for it -- you don't want to cross the path of a man starving to death.

Hunger doesn't merely lead to a growling stomache, irritability, fatigue, and one nasty headache. When deprived of food, men literally go insane. We see it in war stories, we see it in stories about planes crashing on deserted mountaintops, we see it in Somolia when food copters are highjacked, we see it in Genesis 47.

It is interesting to me that of all the names we have for bodily functions: hungry, tired, thirsty -- hunger is the only one that is the mere adjective for the real cause at work - pain. When our stomach growls, we call it hunger pains. Hunger is recognized, even in our most casual of terms, as painful.

We even catch of glimpse of this in the New Testament. Matthew 6:17-18a says, "But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting..." This verse acknowledges that going without food affects a person's attitude and appearance. Lack of food so manifests itself bodily that other people can look at you and know without being told that you have gone without food.

We see more evidence of the grueling pain of hunger in Revelation 6:8, "I looked and there before me was a pale horse. It's rider was named Death and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." Does it alarm you that hunger is listed among the short list of ways that Death will go about destroying a fourth of the earth?

In a country like America, where well more than half of us are obese, and we have so much food that we eat simply because we are bored, we may never be able to truly grasp this concept. But, it would seem to me, that going without food is about one of the cruelest forms of punishment man could possibly inflict upon another human being. It would have been more humane to have wheeled Terri Schiavo in front of a brick wall and killed her via a firing squad.

It scares me to be living in a country where I start to blog about our legal system and end up talking about one of the four horsemen of the Apocolypse.

Raised From the Bed

JackLewis.net has posted an impressive list of patients declared PVS who at some point after diagnosis were revived.

Here is a brief synopsis of a man who revived after eight years in a coma:

Conley Holbrook A 26-year-old man, comatose since he was beaten eight years ago (11/27/82), regained consciousness and gave authorities the names of his alleged attackers. The recovery occurred while Conley was being treated for pneumonia at Lexington Memorial Hospital in High Point, North Carolina. "I was astonished," his mother said. "I never gave up on him. This is just a miracle. It's good to have him home talking." ("Beaten man beats coma, fingers pair of suspects", Press-Telegram (AP Report), 3/6/91.)

After ten years:

Earl Lanning

In 1978, a then 52-year-old Michigan man suffered a brain hemorrhage and remained in a semi-comatose state for 10 years. In March 1988, he suddenly became "very lucid", began to speak and remembered much of what happened before he was stricken. Doctors said that steroids changed Earl's condition: "They have been able to reduce the swelling of his brain But his primary nurse at the Veteran's Care Facility in Grand Rapids credits a good part of his recovery to a nurse's aid who "talked to him constantly while caring for him." ("Earl Lanning revives from ten-year coma", Penasee Globe, 3/23/88, Vol. 103, No. 27.)

Another eight-year PVS case:

Unnamed Patient

A 45-year-old Wisconsin man who had spent 8 years in a vegetative state awakened after being injected with Valium during a routine dental procedure March 12, 1990. The man has been awakened a number of times since then with injections of Valium. A former airline pilot, the man was injured in a car accident. When medicated, he can remain fully conscious for up to 12 hours at a time and is able to walk and perform complicated math calculations. ("Doctors puzzled by man's recovery from vegetative state", The (Fargo-Moorhead) Forum, 3/29/90, p. A17.]

Interestingly, the majority of these patients awoke after a two-month time frame, which I presume is a lot more hopeful than a decade or more. But, interesting information all the same.

Show No Partiality

I was reading the latest Fox News poll that claims 59% of Americans think removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was an "act of mercy." As I was reading the article, my eyes drifted to a side bar. Right there, on the very same page, right next to the statistics of Americans who believe Schiavo's life was not worth living, is a photo of the ailing Pope with the tagline, "Half of Americans say they have said a prayer for the Pope." Hmmm...

The article clarifies that, in fact, 51% of Americans have prayed for the ailing Pope's health.

Terri: Had a feeding tube
Pope: Has a feeding tube
Terri: 41 years old
Pope: 84 years old
Terri: Not on life support
Pope: Breathes with the aid of a breathing tube
Terri: Did not have ability to communicate verbally
Pope: Is losing his ability and cannot speak much now

From this scenario, 59% of Americans were routing for the demise of Schiavo, but praying that God will restore the Pope to health. Is there some reason why we couldn't have prayed to God to restore Terri to health? Isn't reviving a 41-year old women from a brain disorder more feasible that preserving the life of a man who is nearing the end of his life and will eventually, inevitably die?

Here's where it gets even more amazing. 34% of Americans believe that the ailing Pope is still an effective leader and should continue in his role as Pope and not step down and retire. Unbelievable! An 84-year old man on a respirator and feeding tube who can no longer speak or get out of bed can still effectively lead and shepherd the global Catholic Church, while Terri Schiavo, in a similarly unproductive state of being, was sentenced to death.

If removing Terri's feeding tube truly was an "act of mercy" shouldn't the Pope, of all people, be the recipient of mercy? And if you consider it sacrilege to even speculate about removing a feeding tube from the Pope, then doesn't that add further weight to the argument that removing a feeding tube is in fact not an act of mercy at all?

Aren't the lives of Terri Schiavo and the Pope - both created in the image of God -- equally important to the Lord? James 2:1-5 offers us some sobering insight into our of partiality.

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, do not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing the fine clothes and says, "Here's a good seat for you," but you say to the poor man, "You stand there," or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him?

Al Mohler Weighs In

Even as Terri Schiavo edges closer and closer to death, the questions posed by this tragedy represent long-term challenges for this culture and its moral conscience.

These questions will not go away, even as the headlines and media attention inevitably subside. Issues of life and death confront us all, and the court-mandated death of Terri Schiavo will, I believe, go down as a landmark on America's moral landscape. Her death will either lead to a recovery of moral sanity or a further slide into a moral abyss. Several vexing questions frame where this culture is headed.

That was the into paragraph to a three-part article series written by Dr. Al Mohler. In these articles, Mohler takes up the following questions:

· What does this mean for the culture?

· What does this mean for the future?

· What does this mean for the courts?

· What does this mean for conservatism?

· What does this mean for other patients?

· What does this mean for doctors?

Click here to read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

(Hat tip to JT)

Liberal Agenda Now on Life Support

Opinion Journal has been following the Schiavo case from a political perspective. Very interesting.

Who'll Remember Terri Schiavo?--II

Yesterday we speculated that the Terri Schiavo case may help Republicans and hurt Democrats among voters who suffer from disabilities, who have obvious reasons to look skeptically at claims that a low "quality of life" makes life not worth living. We actually visited this issue last year: In September, we noted that President Bush was doing surprisingly well in a Harris Interactive poll of disabled Americans. He led John Kerry 48% to 46%. A similar poll a month earlier had given Kerry a 50% to 40% lead.

Our thought then was that disabled voters were put off by Kerry's clumsy exploitation of the wheelchair-bound Max Cleland, but blogger Ed Jordan offered a better theory, which we noted the following week: that the swing was owing to the Florida Supreme Court's striking down a law designed to save Mrs. Schiavo's life. As Jordan wrote, "there is good reason to believe they are sensitive to the fact that liberals like Senator Kerry want to give them the right to die, while conservatives like President Bush want to give them the right to live."

More reason comes in a Nov. 9 press release from the National Organization on Disability:

In a dramatic shift in support toward a Republican presidential candidate, a clear majority of voters with disabilities chose George W. Bush over Sen. John Kerry in last week's national election. According to a survey conducted by telephone between October 29 and November 1, 2004 by Harris Interactive, likely voters with disabilities preferred President George W. Bush over Senator John Kerry by 52.5 percent to 46 percent. . . .

In past presidential elections, people with disabilities have consistently supported Democrats over Republicans by solid majorities. According to Harris Interactive, in 2000, Vice President Al Gore was preferred 56 to 38 percent by likely voters over then-Governor George W. Bush. Bill Clinton carried the disability vote 69 percent to 23 percent over Senator Dole in 1996, and 52 percent to 29 percent over President H.W. Bush in 1992.

NOD's president, quoted in the release, ignores the Schiavo issue and tries to explain the shift in terms of the same issues that affect all voters: terrorism, greater GOP turnout, high turnout among the elderly, who have a disproportionate rate of disability.

This seems unpersuasive. Overall, voters swung from a 0.5% Democratic plurality in 2000 to a 2.5% Republican one in 2004, a shift of three percentage points. The disabled, according to the NOD poll, went from an 18% Democratic plurality to a 6.5% Republican one--a shift of 24.5 points, and of 16.5 points after the Florida Supreme Court acted to bring about Terri Schiavo's death.

To be sure, there is a good deal of imprecision in these polls. They have a small sample size (253 disabled likely voters in the last pre-election survey), and the definition of "disability" leaves considerable room for interpretation. But the shift is so striking, it's hard to discount--and hard to explain except as a response to issues of particular concern to voters with disabilities.

Food For Thought

According to the press, needing to eat food in order to live now qualifies as "life support." Technically, yes, I guess being dependent upon nutrition is "life support" in the most literal semantic definition. However, with that liberal definition, we must acknowledge that every human being on the globe is then "on life support."

Notice the way Fox News further blurs the lines in an article they posted on their home page this morning.


Many More Cases Like Schiavo's
Data suggest thousands are taken off life support each year


Notice how the headline leads us to believe that there are many more cases like Terri's, but the tagline specifies that, like Terri (supposedly) these similar cases are people being taken off of life-support. When in reality, Terri Schiavo is not on life support!

Reading the entire article does nothing to clear up the confusion, but in fact, simply adds more to the deceptive word-smithing of these journalists. I will give the article an "A" for consistency, but a "D-" for accuracy and integrity. The writer uses "life support" as a synonym for people who have feeding tubes.

I am amazed reading this and realizing that it was written in the 21st century by an educated individual in a civilized country. It is reminiscent of the missionaries who used to speak in my Sunday school class as a child who would tell gruesome stories about savages who buried men and women alive because they were too uneducated to recognize a heart beat and would pronounce sleeping people dead simply because their eyes were closed or they hadn't gotten out of bed for a week.

Let's take a look at the article.

The opening two paragraphs say:

Terri Schiavo is not the first person to have a feeding tube removed, although the public may be left with that impression because of intense media attention and her parents' emotional pleas to have the tube reinserted.

But getting an accurate picture of how often this procedure or stopping other forms of life support takes place in the United States is extremely difficult, partly because of privacy concerns.

Notice how the article states as fact that having a feeding tube removed is just one of the many forms of life support? Since when has eating breakfast been defined as "life support?"

By the third paragraph, the transition is complete. The writer (now envisioning his sheep-like readers in a zombie-like state, eyes ablaze with spinning red spirals, both arms raised horizontally in front of them as they march blindly forward, pulling scraps of mummified cloth from their lips so their faint groans can be heard more audibly) now refers to a feeding tube as "life support" throughout the rest of the article.

Amazing. Simply stunning.

Next thing you know, people who need gravity and oxygen in order to function will be declared comatose.

Irony at it's Worse

How's this for irony, Fox News is reporting that the Pope is going to have a feeding tube inserted into his stomache due to his difficulty of swallowing. According to the definition supplied to us by the Florida Supreme Court, the aging Pope is now dangerously close to a court-appointed death sentance. Thankfully, unlike Terri Schiavo, he has friends in higher places than Florida.

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II may have to return to the hospital to have a feeding tube inserted, an Italian news agency reported Tuesday. It stressed that no decision had been made.

The APcom news agency, citing an unidentified source, said the 84-year-old pope might have to have the tube inserted to improve his nutrition since he is having difficulty swallowing with the breathing tube that was inserted Feb. 24.

APcom said the idea of inserting a feeding tube was a hypothesis that was being considered. The procedure involves inserting a tube into the stomach to allow for artificial feeding.

Earlier Tuesday, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that the pope's doctors were considering a new hospitalization next week both to perform tests on the breathing tube and to adjust his diet because of problems swallowing.

Reality Check

I have been pretty disgusted with all the reports today from the major news networks describing death by starvation as a 'peaceful' and 'painless' way to go. How stupid do they think we are? Have you ever fasted for even one day? It is excrutiating!

Raven, who runs a blog called And Rightly So is a Licensed Nursing Assistant in New Hampshire who works with patients living in a Persistive Vegetative State and other serious brain injuries. She has also personally witnessed patients die of starvation.

Here is an excerpt from her latest blog entry:

I have been asked to write about the situation involving Terry Schiavo. Since I work with people who are in the condition Terry is in, I have some things to say. I have been following this story for 5 years now and I also have been in contact with aides who have worked with Terry. It’s sickening.

When people think about COMA’S, they often assume the victim is unconscious and unaware of their surroundings. This is true in many cases, as I have described here before. I work mainly with younger people, but do “float” over to the Adult Brain Injury unit quite a bit. I see lots of Terry’s there. People like her are indeed alive; they are living breathing humans who have survived an often tragic event. Are they who they used to be? No. Will they ever be who they used to be? Probably not. Do they respond to stimuli? Yes. Do they respond to people? Yes. Do they talk? Not usually, but they make eye contact and smile and laugh. And they reach out to you. They are human beings, who tend to like the company of others and…well…like to be alive. Terry smiles a lot, and she seems happy almost all the time. She is not hooked up to any machines.

I have seen some pretty sad things in my work. I have seem little children with G Tubes put to death by their parents, who had decided that their child is not living a “valuable” life. The state often has to get involved in cases like this, but with kids it’s pretty cut and dry: The parents have the final say. All ethics put aside, all arguments about what is a life and what isn’t-the very worst part of what I do is watching others die a slow death. It is horrible and I don’t deal well with it.

By removing nutrition and hydration via the tubes, patients take days to die. They literally dry out. There skin becomes dry and scaly; their lips dry out and then the mouth can no longer open. The person either rolls in the fetal position and stays that way, or they lay out flat. They no longer void and their eyes become sunk in very deep.
I won’t go into anymore details as it is kind of gross, but it isn’t a pretty thing. Usually the docs and nurses do a “terrific” job with pain killers. The dying, supposedly, feel no pain. I don’t think that is ever true. I see them moaning and I have seen little tears rolling out of their dry eyes. The last patient I witnessed being put to death like this took 3 weeks to go. How sweet.

I hate to use the term “put to death” but that is what it is. No need to beat around the bush here and don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t that simple. It’s wrong and it’s barbaric. Life is life, and anyone alive who has not made their wishes known should be allowed to live. As to quality of life, who are we to decide what that is?

The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

Fifteen years ago, Terri Schiavo's fate was nothing more than a great Sci-Fi concept brewing in the minds of Rod Serling and Dalton Trumbo. Edgar Allan Poe was considered macabre for pondering the idea of being buried alive. Face it, this sort of horror story is what you expect to find printed among Metallica song lyrics - not the front page of a civilized country's newspaper.

But this once unthinkable storyline has escaped the pages of yesterday's novel and become a reality. World Magazine has just printed an article this week entitled, "Don't Let Me Starve." The article is about Kate Adamson, a recovered stroke victim who survived a fate similar to Terri Shciavo's. It is a chilling article.


A decade ago, Mrs. Adamson, then 33, suffered a double brain stem stroke that left her completely paralyzed, unable even to blink. Inside though, she was fully cognitive, able to understand doctors telling her husband she would either die or wind up "a vegetable." She wanted to, but couldn't, scream out when "people talked about me as if I wasn't a person, as if I didn't exist. . . . It was like being trapped underground and you're praying that somebody is going to be able to find you.

During 70 days of intensive care, doctors fed Mrs. Adamson through a tube. Then her digestive system failed, forcing them to remove the tube until her body could again eliminate waste. For the next eight days, she learned what it feels like to starve.

Unable to communicate, she remembers the terror of being "on the inside screaming out, 'Feed me something! I don't want to die! . . . I'm alive! I'm a person in here! Do not let me starve!' The hunger pains were unbearable," she said. "I thought I was going insane."

On the ninth day, doctors reinserted her tube. Now at age 43, Ms. Adamson has regained most of her physical abilities and become an advocate for the disabled.

The Truth is Hard to Swallow

National Right to Life has posted this information on their website.

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:

The definition of PVS in Florida Statue 765.101:
Persistent vegetative state means a permanent and irreversible condition of unconsciousness in which there is:

(a) The absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior of ANY kind.
(b) An inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment.

MYTH
Terri is on life support. Terri requires machines to live.

REALITY
To state that Terri is on life support or that she requires machines to live implies that Terri is dependent upon what has traditionally been considered life support, such as a ventilator, heart machine, or kidney dialysis.

Terri is a healthy woman with a disability and she is not hooked up to any machines as has been widely reported. She breathes on her own and merely receives nutrition and hydration through a feeding tube, much the same as a baby is sustained by the nutrition he or she receives through a bottle.

MYTH
Terri’s parents refuse to let her go and allow her to die.

REALITY
Terri is not terminally ill — she is a healthy woman with a disability. To induce someone’s death by denying him or her nutrition and hydration is an act of starvation. Terri’s parents have asked for Michael Schiavo to step down as her legal guardian and allow them to care for their daughter.

MYTH
Terri’s case is a right-to-die case.

REALITY
This claim is disputed. Terri’s parents and siblings say that she does not want to be starved to death and are asking the courts to allow them to care for her.

MYTH
Death by starvation and dehydration is painless.

REALITY
Florida law does not allow a dog to be subject to death by starvation, so why should Terri, a human being, be sentenced to such a death?

In Wesley J. Smith’s book, Forced Exit, St. Louis neurologist William Burke said:

“A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death.”