SCHIAVO
THERESA MARIE
BELOVED WIFE
BORN DECEMBER 3, 1963
DEPARTED THIS EARTH
FEBRUARY 25, 1990
AT PEACE MARCH 31, 2005
I KEPT MY PROMISE
Michael Schiavo is a truly classy gentleman. Pity the same cannot be said of our governor.

The Church is currently trying to define exactly what “extraordinary means” means in this technological age. In fact, they recently held an international conference on the topic, and you can read more about that at http://www.vegetativestate.org/commenti.htm

However, the Vatican has been clear on the issue of withholding nutrition and hydration, quoting from the same website:

“Patients who are in a persistent vegetative state have a right to hydration and nutrition even though it must be provided through artificial means, said a leading Vatican bioethicist. Bishop Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that “with all these tubes in the veins, the nose and the stomach” too many people think of nutrition and hydration as a form of medical treatment.

“These interventions are simply care, which is obligatory to the moment of natural death,” he said at a March 16 Vatican press conference.”

However, as a former Catholic with 16 years of Catholic education, I know that not everybody adheres to the doctrines. So one might get lucky and be in a Catholic hospice where the staff values death with dignity…but I sure wouldn’t stake my life (or in this case, my death) on it.

BTW: did ya’ll know that a Catholic hospital will not honor a legally executed Living Will if it violates Catholic teachings? IE, they will not take you off life support because the Church has made it quite clear this is, as they say, “euthanasia by omission.”

I thought this had to be an urban legend but the Schiavo affair prompted me to research the matter further, since 2 of the 3 local hospitals are Catholic so I could end up there in an emergency.

The “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” promulgated by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops states:

“24. In compliance with federal law, a Catholic health
care institution will make available to patients
information about their rights, under the laws of
their state, to make an advance directive for their
medical treatment. The institution, however, will not
honor an advance directive that is contrary to
Catholic teaching. If the advance directive conflicts
with Catholic teaching, an explanation should be
provided as to why the directive cannot be honored.”
http://www.nccbuscc.org

In other words: To continue sucking at the government teat, we will help you write a legally binding Living Will, but we will not honor it if it violates our teaching…even if you’re not a Catholic.

If you check the websites of your local Catholic hospitals, usually in their Hospice or Pastoral Care section, you will see somewhere a statement that they adhere to the Directives…though in the case of my 2 local hospitals, the statement is in barely visible grey print at the bottom of the page.

And it doesn’t pertain only end of life issues: my friend needed an ovarian cyst removed, so she asked the surgeon about doing a tubal ligation while she was, as she put it “unzipped.” The surgeon said he wasn’t allowed to perform a birth control procedure at the Catholic hospital, and since he didn’t have privileges at the non-Catholic one, she’d need to seek out another surgeon! Which of course created a tussle with her insurance company when she tried to go “out of plan.”

If you are dying because you can’t afford health care, that’s your problem. You can’t expect the public to foot your bill.

If you are already dead but your body is being kept warm by machines, it’s only right that the public pay (for ever). We believe in the sanctity of life.

Got that?

Big $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Frist’s father founded the Hospital Corporation of America. Your bottom insures their bottom line.

Unfortunately it’s been estimated in past studies that up to 40% of all medical expenses are for the last year of life.

It’s hard to say, but we (as westerners) need to learn how to die and how to let our loved ones die with dignity.

We, in Oregon, keep passing the right to die law and the Federal government keeps trying to knock it down. I don’t understand what they have to gain by doing that.

I hope that someday we’ll learn how to take care of the people who need it and find some way to ease the pain of the people who won’t survive.

And learn how to tell the difference.

Seems like you’d have to sell one hell of a lot of brownies to get a new kidney, doesn’t it? How many of these people end up dying because they can’t afford medical treatment? Meanwhile, some poor soul with no hope of recovery is kept alive artificially!

And more importantly, if “right to lifers” can become so obessessed about the “rights” of one braindead woman, why aren’t they just a passionately on the frontlines of the battle for universal health care coverage? Is it because allowing people to die for lack of health care coverage is not such an overt act as pulling a plug, and they therefore do not grasp the fact that in a country as wealthy as ours, this is corporate murder by neglect?

For that matter, if Jeb has so gosh much spare time that he can be stalking Michael Schiavo, why isn’t he leading the fight for health care coverage in his own state? I suppose that allowing people to die for lack of health care is merely “letting God work in His mysterious way.”

Jeb is such an idiot.