www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Terri talking to her dad...3/18/2005

Terri talking to her dad.

http://www.churchbulletin.com/terri.htm

Dave got it from Family Life Council and her dad was on Hanity and Colmbs tonight talking about it. I had to listen and turned it off at first then a little later I was able to listen.

Here is the address for the whole thing
http://www.frc.org/FILE/NW05C05.html

Of course there is a some debate going on over it.

Pani,

I think the issue is not that she is or is not responding, i.e., talking. The point is, can she survive without the feeding tube. If she can be fed and can survive then she is alive. If not, God will take her home.

I doubt that much of a case can be made that she is talking based upon that tape.

Dan L

The fact sadly, is that her 'devoted' husband will not allow any active treatment - and in this case that also includes feeding whether it be Oral or parenteral or by gastric tube.

No-one actually knows whether she can be nourished orally - they are not allowed to try.

Gracious me - if what I have read elsewhere is correct she is even denied the comfort of the Sacraments .

Prayers for Terri continue - this is so very very sad

Anhelyna

The last time Terri's feeding tube was removed Michael Schiavo would not allow her priest to administer the Viaticum because of a stated danger of choking.

Prior to this removal of the feeding tube, apparently, her family and priest were told that she could recive the Viaticum so long as the Blessed Sacrament was administered through her feeding tube and not by mouth. Again for the stated purpose of avoiding the danger of choking.

There is much irony in denying her reception of the Eucharist by mouth for fear that she will choke while she is in the process of dying by dehydration and starvation.

As to whether or not Terri received the Eucharist, I do not know as even our local news casts (which often contain smaller details not seen in the national news) have not addressed the issue and I have not seen any statements by her family about this.

It is a very sad situation.

I pray that this is the last time Terri is forced to endure such physical torture.

I don't think he is afraid she will choke. I think he is afraid they will find that she CAN be fed orally and then he won't be able to legally kill her.

Tammy

I agree, Dan - responsiveness is really not the issue at all. I know I really cannot look into the hearts of the people involved and we know only circumstantial things about the parents and the husband and their disagreements and that doesn't enter into it.

A person has a right to a dignified, natural death and our church has recognized that - part of recognizing a right to life is to recognize a right to die a natural death. A person whose natural death is being prevented by technology may have that technological barrier removed - in ALL such cases, though, the person in that situtation IS dying, but the totally natural act of dying is being forestalled through technology.

The fact is that Terri Shiavo is NOT dying. Taking away her sustenance (food and water) will KILL her and will deny her a dignified, natural death - the type of death all human being have a right to. It is, therefore, immoral and unethical to remove her feeding tube.

There is a huge moral and ethical difference between stopping extraordinary measures to ALLOW natural death to occur and actively intervening to KILL a person through starvation.

Sadly, we are victims of our own life-saving technologies in some ways. In Terri Shiavo's situation her cardiac arrest was long enough in minutes that singificant brain damage was able to occur. The first minutes in trying to resuscitate a person are critical. After several years in a PVS, a person's chances dwindle to nil - at least, on paper - it is unlikely there are any higher functions or cognitive abilities left. But, still, they are alive and therefore worthy of all protection and prayers.

I do believe in miracles. I had a cousin in a coma for a long period who was expected to wake up with all kinds of paralysis and horrible side effects. She was in a horrible accident with horrible head and neck trauma and paralysis. She "awoke" on Easter a couple years ago and her progress amazed everyone from then on. A coma is very different from a PSV, of course, but my cousin was fine. Her doctors gave us all good advice - i.e., pray and wait - and they would do the same, while they waited for any hope of change. You would never know what happened to her to see her - it was truly miraculous.

Pray for Terri Shiavo. And pray for the other people involved in this whole tragedy. They need our prayers. And pray that someone in the judicial system can grasp the simple different between allowing a person to die and killing them, because that difference is key in all this.

I agree with you, Tammy.

I think that is exactly what they fear.

But their official reason is the danger of choking. I guess they're so blinded by their own agenda that they cannot even see the irony.

Choking on Eucharist is a possibility but only if you are thinking in the natural. I think it is impossible to choke on the Body of Christ since the Eucharist is for healing, not destroying, it could never choke. Look at the saints throughout history that only received the Eucharist daily and nothing else at all. But in the natural if that was truly the concern, then she would not choke on the Precious Blood.

On Fox this morning the nurse that took care of her for several years in the ninties in the one of the nursing homes was on. She said they set Terri out by nurses station and she communicated with everyone. They also fed her puddings, jello, along with other soft foods through a baby bottle, she was swallowing on her own.

Upon coming into the room after her husband left one day, Terri was cold and sweety. They found a an insulin bottle in the trash can. Her husband had injected her with insulin under her breast, thighs, and arms. She had no sugar level. The nurse called the police dept. and filed a report and the nursing home filed a report with the state agency. They were able to pull Terri out of it, but the husbands words to them were not nice at all.

It was interesting. They had a doctor on at the same time, he stated that she has definately digressed if that was the case. His opinion and thoughts were considerably more cautious than when they interviewed him before the nurse was on.

Pani Rose

DTBrown posted this if you missed it please read it. It is wonderful and makes some sence out of this travesty...

Bishop Wenski: "The Passion of Terri Schiavo"

https://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=001994

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Carole. I was commenting that I think the husband is a liar. I also suspect he has lined the pockets of that Florida judge. Why else would the judge deny trying to feed her orally?

Years ago I watched a movie about Karen Ann Quinlan. She was comatose and on a respirator and her parents were fighting to have her taken off and allowed to die naturally. That was in the days before all this "right-to-die" agenda. In the end, the decision was made to try one more time to take her off the respirator slowly so she could breathe on her own. Although previous attempts at this had failed and they always had to turn the respirator back on, this time it worked and she breathed on her own. She ended up living in a coma to a ripe old age.

Wouldn't taking Terri Schiavo off the feeding tube but feeding her orally be the same thing? She would no longer be kept alive by artificial means, but would be alive naturally. She would be kept alive the same way as the rest of us are.

But the husband doesn't want that. And I'm betting he bribed the judge to make sure it doesn't happen.

My 2 cents worth.

Tammy

RE: Terri Schiavo

I am extremely disappointed with the news stories (but not surprised) and how they are implying that an appointed judge, and not an elected state legislature, governor and US Congress, can decide whether Terri can live.
1. They bill this as a "Right to Die" subject, but isn't it really a "Right to Kill?"
2. Do we have a Republic form of government, or a Judicial Autocracy?
3. Are there any Constitutional rights granted to those who cannot speak for themselves?
4. Is this the future solution for the Social Security Crises? ("Dispose" of the excess recipients?
Let this sad story be a lesson to everyone to NEVER SIGN a living will when you are admitted to a hospital-- 10,20, 30 years later it may be used against you. (BTW, Terri Schiavo never signed one.)
I am very disappointed with the apparent direction of this nation, however I must remind myself that "with the faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move a mountain." Please pray for our leaders and our Judiciary.
As we approach the Resurection during Holy Week we are reminded that the darkness precedes the dawn and the "Sun."
Seeking the comfort of my heavenly Mother,
Deacon Paul

Friends,

I'm finding this whole issue very depressing. It makes me rather fearful for our own coutry. I see in many of my Theology students at the University a real smugness about the Church's position on almost any subject. There is a belief that is fairly broad that "I can be a Catholic and be an Atheist and can ignore or even ridicule anything the Church teaches including the issues of abortion and "mercy" killing. It's our body and it's not the Church's business what we do with it."

Anyway, let's keep each other in prayer. Danger lies ahead, but so does God's care. Let us not be distracted by the threatenings of the devil.

dan l

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Our Gospel reading for last night, Holy Tuesday, was most timely (as it frequently is).
It seems to me that all we need to say about Terri has already been spoken.

�Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'
'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' �
Matt 25: 41-42, 44-45

Deacon El

The first question is the key one. Morally, even if Terri Shiavo had said "I WANT my feeding tube removed," can a medical person do that and be morally correct? I would say no, as I'm sure would most of you. Doing that is killing her. You cannot morally ask people to kill you through starvation and the person asked cannot morally carry it out. (But you could ask them not to resuscitate you in the first place or to permit you to die by removing machines prolonging your death directly.)

There are cases where a person's desire to die can be carried out with moral and ethical correctness. For example, I knew a 29 year old who was one of the unlucky ones who did not recover from Hodgkins disease. She required aggressive treatments and tried everything to live - and she almost made it - but the treatment destroyed her lungs and left her dying in the end. She was, quite frankly and quite definitely dying and needed machines to keep her heart and lungs going at all. She asked, in writing when she knew of her deteriorating state, to be kept from natural death only so long as she was conscious and just long enough to say good-bye and be tended to by clergy - but she desired to be let to die without aid of machines. Her wish to die naturally was one that could be morally made and carried out.

I am a lawyer and I do not believe we have a judicial autocracy - I cannot believe that. However, what we do have are laws that do not necessarily match the natural law and that do not necessarily match what the "just" is. That is the tragedy of all human justice systems - they are imperfect. This disconnect between man's law and higher law is, it seems, going to kill Terri Shiavo.

Natural law theorists are pariahs in intellectual circles. Look at all the brew-ha-ha over Clarence Thomas years ago, a man who believes in natural law theory - look how hard some people worked to discredit him. A man who believes in a higher form of justice is a rare man indeed - of course, that is exactly the rare kind of men who wrote the founding documents of this great country. We just like to forget that. Human rights are "inalienable" and we are "endowed" with them by God...not by man and not by the whims of kings, presidents, judges, politcal correctness, expediency or just plain politics.

Morality and law are not necessarily the same thing - and all the courts focused on was whether or not Terri Shiavo would have wanted her feeding tube removed in the event she ended up in a PVS. They determined she would have wanted that. The law allows removal of the feeding tube in that circumstance, but a higher sense of morality would not permit it in any event because it is killing the person and not just letting them die a natural death.

I would not necessarily discourage people from making their wishes known w/r/t being permitted to die a natural death if it comes to it, although I would urge extreme caution because of the disconnect between law and morality here. You go in a hospital and you take big chances. I would discourage them from doing it in a hurry when they are admitted to a hospital - I personally would not sign one of those admission documents.

I have seen many versions of "living wills" that are morally correct, but were generally prepared by individuals with the help of their families and their lawyers. The problem is that to do this properly one needs some degree of medical, scientific, moral and legal sophistication that many of us probably do not have. Every situation is different and it is too hard to guess the specifics of what would happen should the worst occur. And, of course, the kicker is you have a trust the person(s) you ask for as your future guardians to make those decisions for you in the gray area that inevitably exists.

It is so horrible - not only are we victims of are imperfect human justice, we are also victims of medical technology that was designed to help but that sometimes backfires. I'm sure the paramedics who responded to Terri Shiavo's husband's 911 call could not be sure how far gone she was when they resuscitated her.

A few years ago, when my own father suddenly was stricken, my first thought was, "Good Lord, how LONG did it take the paramedics to get there?" If you take too long, brain damage can and likely will set in. Minutes are precious. I was more terrified that my father would be left in PVS, esp. since I had followed the Curzon case closely. I knew, because he told me a couple times (my dad was a vet who had lost many friends as a young man in the Air Corps) that when he "went," he wanted it to be quick and peaceful and he said he had no desire to be revived to linger as vegetable. But had he been revived against his wishes, our moral duty would have been to leave him in a state he did not want to come to.

Although I loved my father more than any human being I have ever known, I could not help but feel some sense of peace for him when I found out that the paramedics, who got there after many minutes, were unable despite all their efforts to get him started. Paramedics are good people - they try hard - one of the guys who responded was a friend of my father's and was so broken up. We had to console him. My brother, a doctor, felt the same peace for him, I did. We also felt a sense of peace that our father, who was a daily devotee of the Rosary, the Blessed Mother, and St. Teresa of Avila, died quickly and pretty peacefully on the anniversary date and time of the Lourdes miracle. My father believed in that vision and I am sure that as he died it gave him a sense of peace and hope and dignity.

Even when we miss people we love, we get to take comfort when they die a good death. I weep for the parents of Terri Shiavo, because they will not have this comfort. This is a horrible human tragedy.

Pray for Terri Shiavo. She is not dying, she is being killed. Pray for the people who allowed this to happen and for the conversion of their hearts and minds. Pray for her parents and family.

At the beginning of the month, I posed a general question, asking what is the responsibility of Catholic judges in the case of a conflict between law and the moral teaching of the church.
https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001882#
The question was criticized for, among other things, a lack of specificity.

I think this case provides a specific example. From the Touchstone article I linked to yesterday (Culture of Death thread) it is clear that the Florida law specfically identifies feeding/hydration tubes as extraordinary measures (therapeutic obstinacy) that are permissibly terminated in cases considered irreverible, and that such laws have already been found acceptable by the SCOTUS. The article also noted and linked to statements from the Vaticn, a part of which I posted, that are in diametric opposition to this stand.

What is a Catholic judge obligated to do if Terri's case, as it is, comes before him:

a) adhere to the law
b) wash his hands of the case by resigning, or
c) rule in accordance with the moral teaching of the church rather than the law - i.e., assume an activist (judical autocrat) role?

If a Catholic judge decides to take course a), would this be grounds for excommunication?