janelle

Press Misrepresents Catholic Teaching on End of Life Issues

NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The prominence of the Terri Schiavo case has brought unprecedented media attention to the Catholic Church's teaching on end-of-life issues. But media portrayals of Church teaching are often inaccurate and misleading, according to two prominent Catholic ethicists.

Father Thomas Williams, dean of the theology department of Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, and Richard Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, both said the Church makes a distinction between ordinary and extraordinary care. The first is always required while the second is not.


"The Church teaches that we have a moral obligation to support life," Doerflinger said. "That obligation has limits. People talk about ordinary and extraordinary means. That just means that when the efforts to sustain life start doing more harm than good to the patient the moral obligation ceases to apply. Even then you should never abandon a patient and never deny them the basic care owed to everyone because of their human dignity."
Father Williams quotes from Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life, when trying to define extraordinary means.

"The Pope uses two sets of terms. For treatment to be considered extraordinary death must be 'imminent and inevitable' and the treatment would result in 'precarious and burdensome prolongation of life,'" he said. An example might be a cancer victim who, after several rounds of treatment, has found chemotherapy to be ineffective and foregoes the treatment in order to avoid its side effects.

Father Williams and Doerflinger said that in some instances it can be extremely difficult to determine the difference between extraordinary and ordinary care and that in such instances people must follow their conscience. But both men said the Schiavo case is clear cut.

"From a Catholic perspective, this is an open and shut case," Father Williams said. According to Doerflinger, "food and water should always be seen as basic care," a teaching made abundantly clear in an address by Pope John Paul II in March, 2004, he said.

A recent article in the Washington Post, "Catholic Stance on Tube-Feeding Is Evolving," tried to paint the papal pronouncement, that food and water are basic care, as contrary to the Catholic tradition. The article placed great stock in the teachings of two Spanish theologians of the 16th century, Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo Banez, as proof that the Pope has formulated a novel teaching.

Banez "wrote that a sick man could refuse food without risk of committing a mortal sin if he had no hope of survival," the Post reported, and Vitora established "the guideline that 'ordinary' means of medical treatment were obligatory, but 'extraordinary' means - methods that would cause great pain or burdens - were not required."

Father Williams says the two Spaniards are actually consistent with the teaching the Pope John Paul: "What they said does not mean that one can refuse to consume food for any length of time or refuse food that would save one's life. What they mean is that if you are dying and the food would make you sick to your stomach or you would die anyway, you can refuse the food."

But even if Vitoria or Banez were at odds with the Pope, it would not mean that the Pope has made up a new teaching.

"The fact is that you can find theologians on any point - even the most settled of moral doctrines like abortion, euthanasia, contraception - who disagree. That does not mean there is doubt or division or that there is not a Catholic position. The Church doesn't work that way. That's why we have a magisterium," said Doerflinger, who was interviewed for the Post story.

He also said the article failed to bring up the many statements calling food and water basic care that preceded the Pope's address. "Up until then it had not just been 'conservative' theologians versus 'liberal' theologians. There had been a number of Vatican documents. And there had been statements by the Pro-Life Committee of the US Bishops Conference that is chaired and run by cardinals and archbishops. "

janelle

The Secular Media and Death

Vincent Fiore
Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Terri Schiavo's life-and-death struggle is nearly over. For 15 years, she has lived in a world that only she was privy to, while her consciousness, reality and reason were debated around her and across the United States.



After 15 years, dozens of judges, scores of doctors and specialists, a flurry of legislative bills, the president and Congress convening on a Sunday night – everything but God Himself intervening – those with the power of life and death over Terri Schiavo chose death.

Terms like "permanent vegetative state," "minimal consciousness" and "liquefied cortex" became familiar among the public, as did real-life heroes and villains in a real-time Shakespearean play.


But hey, so what? There are thousands of people who go through this every day, right? We have been "mercifully ending people's lives" for years. That's what a hospice is for.


I do not want to go down the road of blame in regard to Terri Schiavo and her still-legal husband, Michael Schiavo. Nor do I care to condemn the ruling judge in this continual heartbreak, George Greer. Neither will I blame the Florida Legislature, Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress, nor God.


Here's what I do know: There is not a single person who stands on the face of the earth today that can tell you what Terri Schiavo's wishes were regarding the situation she tragically found herself in. There is no proof. There is no paper that tells us what it is. We will never know.


We have the words and demands of Terri's estranged husband, Michael, who called for her death, as compared to the words and pleas of Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who begged for her life.


When legitimate questions were asked as to the actual awareness of Terri and her quality of life, the laws that govern a compassionate society deemed it "merciful" to starve her to death, something you could not legally do to a dog.


The mainstream media have trumpeted Terri Schiavo's death like some clarion call to ideological arms. Editorials and stories abound within the pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. These stories essentially look to pacify a concerned yet media-manipulated public regarding the questions that surround Terri's tragic life and excruciating death, and excoriate the Republican Party for trying to give her a final chance at life.


These colossi of secular liberalism view the fight to save Terri Schiavo as a battle between good and evil, the evil here being the "Christian right." They further view this as a blow, in particular, to George W. Bush and his "moral values" base.


But as with everything today, the struggle over Terri Schiavo's life was poisoned with politics. Witness the forged "talking points" memo that was supposedly written by Senate Republicans regarding Terri Schiavo, but in reality was penned by someone on the left side of the Senate aisle and distributed to an eager media.

(www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7935)


The Los Angeles Times editorialized on the "Stalinist" politics of the Bush White House and immediately linked this fight for Schiavo's life to the "new front in the abortion war." The Times makes plain its disgust for people who would champion life above all or, as stated, those who would turn supposed "religious dogma into law under the right-to-life banner."

(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,3594216.story)


The New York Times displays this business-like affair with Terri's death quite easily. Consider the story published March 20, 2005. The headline reads "Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death." In this story, the Times quotes doctors as saying that Terri Schiavo is "probably not experiencing anything at all subjectively," in regard to being starved to death, and further makes the surrealistic observation that "declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors."

(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/na.../20death.html?)


If most people tended to end their lives by stabbing themselves repeatedly, the above statement would mean something. In Terri Schiavo's case, she is the one being denied, and not the one denying.


Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said this about starvation: "They generally slip into a peaceful coma. It's very quiet, it's very dignified – it's very gentle."


So I guess the pictures of millions starving in Africa year after year were really nothing to get anxious about. Heck, we can starve the 3,500 prisoners on death row and save the taxpayers the expense of food, water and the "humane" lethal injection that ends their lives.


The pro-death media have even gone so far as to think of the Supreme Court's refusal to review the Schiavo case as a legacy-enhancer for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, even tying it to his eventual death:

"Five years ago, Rehnquist allowed politics to trump principle in the disgraceful decision of Bush vs. Gore. Fate has given him a chance for (frankly) a different lead on his eventual obituary. We hope he seizes it."

(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,4970478.story)


The left will never admit that they lost the 2000 presidential election, anymore than they will ever admit that as an institution, they are far and away so morally bankrupt as to try to hide their rush to embrace the death of Terri Schiavo as a product of "federalism" and "justice."


Soon Terri's long fight will be over, but the fight against the media, and the activist courts they love so much, begins in earnest. Terri Schiavo's media-blessed and court-assisted killing has opened the window into the autocratic and activist underpinnings that drive these two debased institutions.


After witnessing this rush to death enacted by a power-hungry judiciary and enabled by a morally depraved liberal media, the real deciders of America's future – namely, the people – must wade into battle and reassert their will. The judicial branch was never intended to make law, but only interpret it. The media are supposed to report news, and not shape it to fit their ideal of society.


It is "We the people" who decide, and not "We the judges decree."

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City. He receives e-mail at: Anwar004@aol.com

Kyla Kym

OMG!!! I can't believe they are doing this to her!!! That has got to be painful! How cruel!!! Her family is having to watch this and they will have these horrifying memories in their minds for the rest of their life's! I'm just horrified by this. How could they rule such a thing! It would have been more humane to have held a pillow over her face and gotten it over with quick if they just felt like they couldn't tollerate having Terri on the face of this earth anymore.

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janelle

Injury Report Prompted Schiavo Cremation Plans

Michael Schiavo decided to have his wife's body cremated after her parents' lawyers obtained medical records showing she had sustained broken bones, a nurse who cared for Terri Schiavo is now claiming.

"He wanted her cremated after the bone fractures and dislocations were found," nurse Carla Sauer Iyer, who cared for Terri in the mid-1990s while she was at the Palm Gardens Convalescent Center, told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity on Friday.


"He immediately went to court and [said he] wanted her body cremated at that time," she said, "after we got hold of the records that proved there were dislocations and fractures."
A 1991 report on a bone scan performed on Terri Schiavo states:

"There are an extensive number of focal abnormal areas. ... These include: multiple bilateral ribs ... both sacroiliac joints ... both knees and both ankles."

Radiographs reveal "compression fractures" of the spine and right femur. ... "Compression fracture presumably traumatic," the report says.

Nurse Iyer said she recently contacted Palm Gardens to encourage co-workers who also cared for Terri to speak out - but said they have been muzzled.

"The administrator had gotten them together and they talked about what happened with Michael," Iyer told Hannity. "The people who have worked with Terri who are still there, they cannot talk to reporters - they would be terminated."

janelle

Rabbis Plead for Bush to Intervene

Rabbi Yehuda Levin has issued the following statement on behalf of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada:

"We urge President George Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush to take immediate, decisive action to save the life of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. We appreciate the pro-life statements of President Bush and Governor Bush. Yet, their efforts have thus far not been successful. We therefore urge the President and Governor Bush to take immediate and decisive action - either jointly or separately - to save the life of Terri Schindler-Schiavo before it is too late.



"When evil becomes 'legally' sanctioned by government, it rises to a higher order of evil - that of Sodom. Legality does not dictate morality. The Almighty dictates morality.
"America is being tested. Will we pass or will we fail?

"Perhaps some feel that everything that could be done has been done. But our holy Torah, the Word of G-d, says otherwise: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' We all know the answer."

YankeeMary

To start with it isn't called arguing, well it is if you get angry so apparently you are getting angry because my opinion differs from yours. No I do not think her parents have her best intrest at heart, if they did they would refuse to allow her body to be abused as it has nor would they go against her wishes. And I can assure you that if you do not change your opinion to match mine, it is no problem. I find it funny that because you and others don't agree with Micheal and what he is doing it is considered wrong, but you agree with her parents and what they are doing that makes you all right. I see this entire situation as simple as Medical evidence vs. Feelings/emotions.

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The more you complain, the longer God makes you live.

YankeeMary

Thanks for finding a link...I knew I had read it somewhere.

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The more you complain, the longer God makes you live.

YankeeMary

I imagine what he meant was in the week prior to actually dying those were the things they were experiencing.

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The more you complain, the longer God makes you live.

YNKYH8R

That is her parents choice.

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ARMPIT

janelle

And what if her parents want her to live. Would they then be seen as abusing her?

YNKYH8R

The first eight days she was off the feeding tube this was all pretty interesting. Now, this has turned into such a three ring circus that if I hear Terri Shiavos name one more time on tv I'm going to get phyiscally ill. I wish this would all just end. It all goes around in one big circle. now we've got people comparing Terri to Alzheimer patients, Christopher Reeves, Dogs, Children with Tortes Syndrome, and who knows what else.
People are being Tazered, arrested, Jessie Jackson is involved. If this thing keeps going they're going to start asking questions of people on a red carpet somewhere.
They'll name the Hospice, a street, and if she's lucky a road after her; surely a foundation. Then laws will be written, and judgements passed, protests, sit in, marches, and demonstrations. Threre will be a Time Life movie, two (no) three books. T-shirts, bumper stickers, this will never end.
And then (ten years from now) Pope John Paul the THIRD will make her a saint. (Patron saint of the disabled)
And of course some day my children are going to turn to me and ask, "Whose Terri Shiavo?" AAAARRRRGGGGGG!!!

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ARMPIT