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Terri Schiavo took 13 days to die.
Michael Schiavo was Terri's husband
who won the court case to 'allow' her to die. |
Now that it's legal to kill an unborn child in Oregon for the entire nine months of pregnancy, for free too, Oregon lawmakers are moving on to the elderly suffering from dementia.
The State Senate passed a Bill - SB494 - in the last legislative session. This re-interprets Advance Directives made by the patients when they were in health.
In this (also called a Living Will) there is an option to check a box labelled 'I do not want tube-feeding'. This is usually interpreted to mean that if a patient is in a 'vegetative state' (a term I dislike but it's common usage), they don't like the idea of being 'kept alive' by being fed through a tube going into their stomach. Every patient is encouraged to make an Advance Directive, and many check this box. But what's very clear is that it says: TUBE-FEEDING.
Oregon Nursing Home resident Nora Harris suffers from early onset Alzheimer's disease. She is awake and eating. Maybe she has forgotten how to feed herself, or her fine motor skills have declined, for she is fed by spoon. When she was well, she had checked the above box, and her husband brought a case to court in an effort to stop the spoon-feeding. The Judge in the case regretted that she could not grant his application. I read a sad account of what Nora is now compared to the vibrant, intelligent librarian she once was. Yes, it is tragic - but what's even more tragic is that her husband and daughter don't seem to understand the kind of horrible fate she will have if she dies from thirst and hunger. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know - read a couple of books about shipwrecked sailors. It's horrendous. But, you argue, the patient will get 'comfort care.' Yeah, morphine to dull the pain of every organ, every cell in the body slowly breaking up. Morphine makes you thirsty! 'But they'll get their mouths cleaned!' Mouths? What about the thirst in every cell, billions of cells, every one cell crying out - 'Water!'
Stop trusting doctors on this! They have lost their commitment to Life, and starving a conscious and hungry patient to death is absolutely horrendous. It reminds me of the Nazis who, not wanting to spend resources feeding POWs in the Ukraine , locked them up without food or adequate water and left them to die. Sorry, same thing, even if patient gets so-called 'comfort care.' The body slowly breaking down for lack of food and water must be one of the most prolonged and painful deaths.
It took Terry Schiavo 13 days to die. 'It wasn't peaceful. It wasn't painless,' her brother, Bobby Schindler said. 'It wasn't
Death With Dignity.' Later, Bobby had an artist make a sketch from his memory of what his sister looked like as she lay dying. This woman died a horrible, horrible death. (And doctors will tell you to check that box that says 'No Tube-Feeding'!) Bobby Schindler is President of
Life and Hope Network.
After Bill Harris lost his case, Oregon State decided to re-examine Advance Directives and the Senate introduced a bill which in fact, if it became law, would mean that a patient's intent in checking the 'no tube-feeding' box could be interpreted to mean no artificial feeding - or,
no help with feeding.
This fills me with horror. As a young nurse in Galway Regional Hosptial (UHG now) it was my duty and my privilege to 'feed the helpless' on the wards. These were generally elderly, they ate and had appetites, some had dementia or were 'confused', some were younger had serious physical handicaps. In the morning, they got porridge and bread and tea from a feeding cup. Lunch was mashed potato and mince meat and vegetables, dessert was a soft pudding, or jelly and ice-cream, always a clean plate! Their teatime was scrambled egg, mashed sausage, or some other easily digested food. Everything washed down by tea, of course. There was one elderly lady in St. Camillus' Hospital in Limerick, some years later when I worked there for a while - she was over ninety, had dementia, slept all day, and had a wonderful appetite! She was awoken for her meals, was fed by a spoon, and appeared to relish every morsel. Then she went right back to sleep again. To our amazement she had no pressure sores or tender areas on her elbows or heels, her complexion was like a young persons' and we used to say it was because of her good nutrition.
SB494 would stop patients like this from living. One might as well drive them to the High Desert in Central Oregon and leave them there.
Thankfully SB494 did not get to it's 2nd Reading, in the House, because the legislative session ended. But if it comes back, it will be under a new name. It may come back.
Oh beautiful Oregon! The pioneers who crossed dangerous rivers and snowy mountains didn't settle here so their descendants could be starved to death by their own children!
I read some of the submissions from the public, and was disturbed to see the signature of one Catholic sister from Providence Hospital in Portland, approving this Bill. It seems that the Catholic Church does not see Danger coming. I've no doubt this Sister thinks the ethics committee would not do anything inhumane. Very, very naïve. She no doubt trusts the professionals, but
we can no longer trust the medical profession to give an opinion in favour of Life. We have had many, many lessons on that.
