The JPFO weighs in:

The JPFO weighs in: ( Why the Terri Schindler Schiavo Case Matters )


ALERT FROM JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP
America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization

March 29, 2005

JPFO ALERT: Why the Terri Schindler Schiavo Case Matters

JPFO does not take an official position on issues such
as the "right to die" or when it might be ethical to
disconnect a brain-dead person from artificial life-
support.

But JPFO does care deeply about how governments use
power against defenseless innocent people. The genesis of
JPFO came with the observation that the Nazis rendered the
Jews and others powerless by enforcing "gun control" laws.
Our first book, _"Gun Control": Gateway to Tyranny_, was the
first major work to prove the connection between German
victim disarmament laws and the destruction of 12 million
victims in concentration camps. Our documentary film,
_Innocents Betrayed_, proves the same kind of genocide
formula applied to seven other major genocides and
countless other horrors. How governments treat defenseless
people is among our top concerns.

A New "Justification" To Kill

In the Terri Schindler Schiavo case, the courts
accepted her husband's claim that Terri told him (before
her severely disabling injury) that she never wanted to be
kept alive in a severely brain damaged state. Decades
later, the courts held that Terri's wishes, as expressed by
her husband, must be carried out by starving and
dehydrating her to death.

The evidence we have heard indicates that Terri is not
brain dead. She is not totally unconscious; according to
eyewitnesses, she does respond to human stimuli. She is not
connected to life support machines. She has been in
otherwise good health and has been successfully sustained
via feeding tube for over 14 years.

What has happened in the Florida and federal courts
signals a major shift in how Americans will permit
governments to kill people. Make no mistake: by forcibly
prohibiting Terri's parents from feeding and caring for
her, the government is killing Terri just as surely as if
government agents blocked a mother from feeding her baby.

The justification given for killing Terri is that her
husband testified, many years after the fact, that it was
Terri's wish to die. Terri is powerless to contradict her
husband or to express a new wish. His oral testimony about
her statement was enough now for the courts to order her
death.

Notice further: the courts have decided to not to give
Terri's life the benefit of the doubt. A written "living
will" or "advance directive," signed by Terri, could be
conclusive proof of her wishes. Here the courts are going
by the recollection of an oral statement many years ago.
That recollection could be wrong, it could be fabricated,
it could be confused, it could be out of context. All of
these "could be's" are valid reasons to raise doubt.

At the same time, Terri's parents are willing to feed
Terri and keep her alive in their care indefinitely.
Although currently the costs of Terri's care are borne by
the government (taxpayers) via Medicaid, there are numerous
individuals and groups who have stated they would donate
the money needed for Terri.

So, we have a defenseless innocent person being killed
by government order because her husband says she said she
wanted to be killed, even though there are people who are
willing to keep her alive at their own expense. The
government is giving the benefit of the doubt to killing,
not to saving a life.

Not A Question of Liberty

Unlike the abortion issue in which some people argue
that the unborn child "is not a person," the issue in
Terri's case involves most certainly a "person." Thus, the
government's decision to kill Terri moves the discretionary
power out of the area of "privacy" and into the light of
public scrutiny.

We do not see Terri's case as involving the exercise
of her right to refuse artificial life support, because she
did not take the steps to make clear that she wanted to
exercise that right. We are profoundly concerned that
courts (and apparently many Americans) consider it
acceptable to kill a defenseless disabled person on the
say-so of a spouse given many years after the disability
occurs.

Religious Tradition Values Innocent Life

Even before the Ten Commandments were declared, there
was the unambiguous law against unjustly killing fellow
human beings. In the book of Genesis, in the sacred Torah
for Jews (and part of the Old Testament for Christians), it
states: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his
blood be shed; for in the image of G-d has G-d made man."
(9:6, NIV).

The book of Deuteronomy, also a sacred Torah book,
transmits the clear message: "This day I call heaven and
earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you
life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so
that you and your children may live." (30:19, NIV).
Deciding to starve Terri to death means to choose and
inflict death, and not the death of oneself, but the death
of an innocent other person.


Starvation Is A War Crime

We recall that Nazi doctrines authorized the killing
of disabled people to purify the race and because the
victims lacked a good "quality of life." Killing innocent
people because others say those people lack a good "quality
of life" is unacceptable, and no government in America
should be allowed to make such a decision. Moreover,
starving people is a war crime under the Geneva Convention
and is considered barbaric torture by human rights
organizations worldwide.

Large numbers of prisoners were systematically starved
to death in the concentration camps under Nazi and Imperial
Japanese control during World War II. Nobody called those
starvation deaths "humane." It astounds us that courts in
America could order a starvation death of an innocent
disabled person.

Doubts Should Favor Preserving Life

When there is a doubt about a question of saving a
life, the benefit of the doubt should weigh in favor of
volunteers willing to preserve a person's life -- not in
favor of the very late testimony of someone who wants a
person dead.

Several American courts have nevertheless now ruled
that positively killing a conscious disabled person, who
was convicted of no crime, is authorized under law and must
be carried out. There is no way to spin this outcome as a
victory for personal liberty or the rule of law. It's a
government killing of an innocent, taking place in clear
view of the world. We at JPFO oppose the killing of Terri
Schindler Schiavo.