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First Quarter 2005
PO Box 12555, Prescott AZ 86304, 1 888 ISSUES–9 www.issuesineducation.org Bob & Geri Boyd
Life support? Persistent vegetative state?
“Terry Schiavo was in pretty good health. That’s how she was able to survive for weeks without food or water.” CNN senior medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta 3/30/05
Terry cannot feed herself but neither can a newborn infant. There were no extraordinary, life support measures being taken. She was not dying and had no terminal illness. She was not kept alive by machines.
Does this mean it’s now legal to kill those who are retarded, brain dead, or senile?
When a person is dehydrated we give them water. Food and water was available but deliberately was withheld. Why? To purposely kill her? What did she do to deserve this terrible state sanctioned death penalty?
The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are LIFE…The right to life is in our Founding Document but where did this supposed ‘right to die’ come from?
How could our courts impose such an excruciating death-by-starvation on an innocent woman?
“Starvation and dehydration are the most tortuous forms of ending a life. It’s more pain than we would put an animal, criminal or terrorist through, much less a defenseless woman. Ironically, the reason the courts want to extinguish Terry’s life is to end her suffering. Starving her to death doesn’t show compassion but shows we are on the road to hell that is paved with good intentions.” Don Powell’s letter to the editor Washington Times 4/3/05
“Withholding food and water from terrorists or murderers on death row is considered torture but starving the disabled is not. They now call murder “death with dignity.” But there is no dignity in starvation. Terry Schiavo starved to death, simply because she was severely handicapped and couldn’t legally defend herself from her estranged “husband’s” desire to see her dead.” RightMarch.com in Washington Times 3/14-20 2005.
“Are we now ready to declare the severely disabled and minimally conscious, those with Alzheimer’s or the elderly, to be unworthy of life? Will we accept a redefinition of human life in terms of quality rather than sanctity? Will we trust the courts to make these decisions? Will her death awaken the American conscience? If so, she will not have died in vain.” - Albert Mohler
“Congressional subpoenas, signed by the President, were ignored by arrogant judges. The courts are willing to let an innocent woman die, because they don’t want to let go of their power. It’s a struggle for power between the judiciary and the other two branches of government. The courts will do whatever it takes to keep their power.” Joe Scarborough TV show 3/30/05.
Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family said, "Every judge who failed to act to spare this precious woman from the torment she was forced to endure is guilty not only of judicial malfeasance -- but of the cold-blooded, cold-hearted extermination of an innocent human life. Terri Schiavo has been executed under the guise of law and 'mercy,' for being guilty of nothing more than the inability to speak for herself. I fear for the future of our nation."
And here’s a quote from Eleanor Smith, a self-described liberal agnostic lesbian, who is confined to a wheelchair because of polio: "At this point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate than an ACLU member."
There is a precedent being set: The REAL ISSUE is the legalization of EUTHANASIA!
What couldn’t be won in the legislatures is being won in the courts.
Dutch authorities are drawing up guidelines to allow doctors to euthanize children under 12 years of age, even newborns, if they have an incurable illness or ‘unbearable suffering.’ Euthanasia is already legal for 12- to 15 year-olds, subject to parental approval. What a nightmare!! DON’T YOU SEE WHERE WE ARE HEADED?
Alliance Defense Fund attorney Michael Johnson: "Perhaps for the first time in American history we have a court ordering essentially the murder of an innocent person. The injustice is staggering. A guiltless woman has been executed by the most inhumane method imaginable, while those who have worked to end her life are free "
Read the following grave warning by David N. Bass [, a 19-year-old Christian home school graduate who has written for World Magazine and AmericanDaily.com:
Our nation is consumed with the threat of terrorism. We expect our government to protect us from the maniacs abroad, but the greatest threat to our national security is judicial terrorism. It’s destroying the soul of our nation. The slow, painful, starvation death that Terri suffered is merely one part of a cancerous tumor that is eating away at the very core of American conscience. Frighteningly, many Americans are not even aware that such an egregious miscarriage of justice is taking place on their own soil. Some don't even care. Our senses have become dulled to what tyranny and wickedness really are. As long as evil is neatly tucked away in hospices or abortion clinics, we go on with our everyday lives. As long as the heinous injustice doesn't affect us, we refuse to think about it.
Are we really any less barbaric than Rome, or Nazi Germany, or have we simply learned new ways to veil our wickedness behind the curtain of science, choice and a so-called "right to die"? Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20).
Sometimes, it takes a kick in the face to wake people up to realize tyranny is on their doorstep. The starvation of Terri Schiavo should be a disturbing reminder of what an out-of-control judiciary can do when the executive and legislative branches of government are slow to deal with it. If we don't wake up, what may come next is the Final Solution at our very own door. That was the Nazi solution for the Jews.
Hugh Hewitt Payback Time, World Magazine Apr 05, put it this way:
The 12 judges of the circuit court had an opportunity to abide by the clear mandate of Congress, but they refused to even listen to the other branches of the federal government. With that display of contempt for Congress and the President, the judges have done enormous damage to the very idea of justice. The Florida judges said, with a life at stake, don’t bother. Widespread anger over increasingly imperial courts is fueling demands for political action to check this very un-American trend toward unchecked judicial authority.
That rebellion against the robes will get its first display in the vote to end the Democrat’s many filibusters of the President’s nominees to the federal circuit courts. Those Republicans who vote against that rule change will end their political ambitions and may be announcing their retirement.
· DeLay Promises Action: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay charged that the federal judiciary had "thumbed its nose" at Congress in the Terri Schiavo case and ignored the Constitution in ordering her death. Then he made this promise: "The Congress of the United States for many years has shirked its responsibility to hold the judiciary accountable. No longer!" DeLay added: "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the Congress and President." Stay tuned!
· Senator Rick Santorum said, "Courts in this country look at legislation passed by Congress as advisory; not as statutes." He also said Congress needs to address this judicial activism problem. Article III of the U.S. Constitution says that Supreme Court justices and inferior courts "shall hold their offices during good behavior." Congress needs to determine if a federal judge such as the Clinton-appointed federal judge, James Whittemore, who had nothing but contempt for the law passed last month by the U.S. Congress - "Terri Schiavo Law" --and signed by the President, ignored this standard of behavior as set forth in the Constitution.
· Senator Santorum said, "For this judge (Whittemore) to ignore the "Terri Schiavo Law" is tantamount, I believe, to an offense that should be discussed in Congress.... This judge snubbed his nose at Congress, he should be held accountable for it." "
Focus of evil by Alan Keyes
Those of us who have been in the thick of battle against the culture of death have argued for many years that the judiciary's willingness to allow murder in the womb would lead to murder in the world at large. Now our analysis has been verified by the judiciary's stubborn and ruthless advocacy of the right to kill a childlike disabled person named Terri.
We should have foreseen their ambition when they abused their authority to drive God and prayer from our schools, from our public events, from our public places and monuments. William Penn was right when he said: "If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants," and on the bench those tyrants have now appeared.
The judicially mandated murder of Terri Schiavo warns us that by their tyranny they seek to dominate and destroy our moral being as a people, and prepare us – as leaders of the Weimar Republic prepared the German people – to tolerate or be the instruments of the worst kind of atrocities.
Then, as now, the corruption of conscience began under the specious pretext of saving disabled people from the supposedly oppressive burden of living out their lives. If the death of one innocent helpless person counts for nothing because it is sanctioned by the formal appearance of legality, then the death of millions counts for nothing when it appears in the same disguise.
The judicially mandated murder of Terri Schiavo shows that it is already deeply in our midst. Already we find the guards who will deny food and water to those shriveling with starvation; already we find the jurists and media hounds who will order their destruction; already we find the public officials who acknowledge the injustice but do nothing, when their sworn duty is to defend and protect constitutional right.
Nazi Germany is not the only historical illustration of the fact that evil, once licensed by the specious pretext of legal formalism, sets no boundaries to its atrocious appetites. This latest judicial atrocity is a clarion sign and warning to America. As a people, we must awaken and heed its meaning.
We must rediscover the constitutional tools with which we can defend our moral being. We must rally around leaders willing to understand and make use of them. We must now resolve that the suffering of Terri Schiavo – and the long agony of her parents– will not be in vain. Terri's innocent life was at stake but so is the moral life and future liberty of our whole people. Alan Keyes
A Cup of Water for Terri
By Douglas W. Phillips President of Vision Forum Ministries.
Terry was starved to death by court order. Remember the court ordered her to die even though she breathed freely without life support and smiled and responded to human interaction. Remember also that 59% of evangelical Christians told TIME Magazine that they believed it was acceptable for her to be starved and dehydrated. (Amazing! May God help us!)
Our generation is presiding over the single greatest legal and cultural attack on the biblical family in the history of Christendom. For the first time in the recorded history of the West, a generation of children is emerging which may never know a world in which marriage is recognized as one man and one woman for life. The ethical chaos and war on the family seems to know no boundaries. We are now told that it is merciful and dignified to starve women and children -even our very parents -simply because they are dependent, infirm, disabled, or handicapped. We are daily confronted with ever-more horrifying legal triumphs of the proponents of the culture of death and their relentless war on the weak.
How this generation of pastors and parents respond to the murder of Terri may be one of the most important legacies we leave to our posterity. We must confront these issues head on, or we will risk searing the collective conscience of American Christians regarding the sanctity of life, thus opening a philosophical and legal floodgate of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and privatized eugenics and the ruthless killing of the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, and the unwanted members of our society.
An innocent woman has been cruelly tortured and murdered contrary to the law of God, the law of the land, and the law of the state. Those individuals most complicit in the torture and murder of Terri have diabolical agendas. (Please read the following carefully.)
Human life is special because we are made in the image of God. Life begins at conception and continues as long as the soul remains in the body. The Bible teaches that to be “absent from the body [is] to be present with the Lord” (II Corinthians 5:8).
So-called “brain dead” men and women with functioning organs are very much alive, and their souls remain connected to their bodies. As long as a soul remains in the body, a human is “alive” and worthy of protection with the God-given right to life.