Prayers For Terri

It appears that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube has been removed.

She will be allowed to starve to death over the next 10 days, or more. My grandmother can no longer feed herself. It doesn't mean she should be allowed to starve to death. Thankfully, she has my grandfather and my mother at her side, doing anything it takes to care for her.

Starvation and dehydration. And this, they call humane? If I starved one of my dogs to death, even if it were dying, I would be put in jail. This is an outrage. It should not be allowed to continue.

Interesting also, I think, that the "spokesman" for Terri's husband is his girlfriend's brother. That's pretty sensitive. What a swell guy. Denying Terri the Eucharist...spending away the money...shacking up with another woman...refusing to just let her parents care for her..." One wonders what he must be hiding...

"Oh my Jesus, forgive us of our sins, save us from the fires of hell, Lead all souls to Heaven, Help, especially, those most in need of thy mercy..."

It is hard to pray for someone who embodies evil...though he is in most need of God's mercy.

Peggy Noonan writes about Terri, and recalls Ronald Reagan's simple pro-life logic...

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006442

Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.

But in the end, it comes down to this: Why kill her? What is gained? What is good about it? Ronald Reagan used to say, in the early days of the abortion debate, when people would argue that the fetus may not really be a person, he'd say, "Well, if you come across a paper bag in the gutter and it seems something's in it and you don't know if it's alive, you don't kick it, do you?" No, you don't.

And, does Terri fit that definition. Yup. On top of that, there is evidence that this torture will not be a "slipping away" as the pro-death contingent wants us to believe. Here, a story of a woman in a similar state (perhaps, at the time, even LESS obviously engaged than Terri is...imagine where Terri might be had her husband actually used the money he was given for her treatment for the care she SHOULD have gotten):

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=54320

"I have a unique understanding of what Terri is feeling. I could feel everything that the doctors did to me, and I could do nothing. I was at the complete mercy of others, and they couldn't hear me," said Adamson.

This combined with a report that Terri cried when a lawyer explained what was about to happen to her saddens me.

Father Rob Johansen has some details of the so-called "exit protocol" for Terri. It basically consists of cosmetic attempts to hide the torture of Terri. You can read more here:

http://thrownback.blogspot.com/2005_03_13_thrownback_archive.html#111118109408509082

Anyone reading it with a rudmimentary knowledge of medicine will recognize that in Terri's case, and the cases of many others in similar situations, the so-called "treatment" that is given is in fact not treatment at all. It is a regimen of medication intended to perpetrate an illusion: the illusion that someone is peacefully "slipping away", when in fact they are dying in a painful and brutal way.

Prayers, fasting...is there more to be done at this point?

"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world."