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"Dehydration Nation" - Terri to Die |
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Wesley J. Smith's article in the Human Life Review, Fall 2003, begins: "For more than ten years, conscious and unconscious cognitively disabled people who use feeding tubes have been legally dehydrated to death in the United States. This intentional life-ending act - clamping feeding tubes and denying all sustenance - has become so ubiquitous that, generally, little attention is paid. This public indifference was shattered by the Terri Schiavo litigation, an epic legal, political, and media struggle that pitted Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, against her quasi-estranged husband, Michael Schiavo. At stake was whether Terri would live, as fervently desired by her parents, or die by dehydration as demanded by her husband. The Schiavo case is not the first food and fluids case, but it is certainly the most notorious. Widespread revulsion over Terri's court-ordered dehydration sparked a grass-roots political campaign that culminated in the Florida legislature's rushed passage of 'Terri's Law,' which empowered the governor to intervene and prevent some categories of cognitively disabled people from being dehydrated. As soon as the bill became law, Governor Jeb Bush dramatically halted Terri's dehydration in its sixth day, setting off an international uproar. (As this is written the constitutionality of Terri's law - and hence the fate of Terri Schiavo - is being litigated...)." Terri's Law has now been declared unconstitutional, and Judge Greer and Judge Baird have condemned her to death (30 April 04). Copies of Wesley Smith's examination of the whole issue are available from the Doctors' Federation.
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