A Year Since Court-Ordered Death of Innocent Terri

As a nurse since 1972, and a nursing assistant before that, I have been caring for many different people with head injuries and strokes, cognitively and developmentally disabled caused by many different things (some genetic, some from birth, some from accidents such as falls, vehicular crashes, etc).

I have also cared for many dying patients over the years.

There is a huge difference between the two.

Disabled people do not deserve to be murdered by starvation and dehydration. They deserve the best care that we can give them, meeting them at the level that they are at, and trying to assist them to any level higher that they can achieve, regardless of how long it takes.

Terri Schindler Schiavo was not dying when court orders were issued to remove her G-tube and worse, to not give her anything by mouth. One year ago today, that court order was carried out. Terri died after 13 days of dehydration, 13 days of starvation, in spite of the fact that her parents and siblings wanted her to live, and fought hard for her to be able to do so.

The world watched while she was being killed. The world also watched while the Holy Father was dying a 'natural' death.

There is a difference.

While her family wanted her alive, her unfaithful husband, who had already been 'intimate' (his testimony under oath in deposition and court testimony) with at least three women, including one, Jodi, with whom he had already had two children. While he tried to convince the world that this was what TERRI wanted, others who knew her strongly denied it.

Terri was not brain dead, nor was she a vegetable. A human being can become disabled, but they can NEVER become anything less than a HUMAN BEING. Terri was a disabled woman who had every right to life. She had a right to be fed and given liquids.

JPII spoke out against killing Terri, as did other Vatican officials. As did several Bishops in the USA. While JPII's statements are powerful, Bishop Vasa's was direct, short, and to the point. Bold sections are this writer's emphasis.

The Catholic Church teaches that hydration and nutrition are simply water and food. These must always be provided as long as the food or water itself or the method of delivery is not unduly burdensome to the PATIENT. There does not appear to be any indication from Terri that the provision or the method of provision of food and water is burdensome to her.

The one 'burden', which so many seem so determined to lift from her, is that one thing that allows Terri to continue to be a living breathing human person, life itself. Life itself cannot be the burden from which we in the Catholic Church seek to deliver the faithful. This is the Assisted Suicide attitude.

Life is a grace and a blessing and yes the living of that life does entail some burdens, sometimes great burdens, but the solution can be neither murder nor suicide - these are offenses against life itself and the Lord who gives it.

Terri is alive. She is kept alive by the same things that keep me alive - Food, water, air. Her disability deprives her of the ability to ingest these things, it does not deprive her of the ability to digest them. She may well die in the future from an inability to digest food but it would be murder to cause her death by denying her the food she still has the ability to digest and which continues to provide for her a definite benefit - life itself.


Related Tags: Terri Schindler Schiavo, Death by Court order, Disabled, G-tube, Tube feeding, Bishop Vasa