(By Dr. Paul Byrne / RenewAmerica) – Mirranda Lawson is a two-year-old girl who choked on popcorn about one month ago (May 11). Within a few days, the doctors and hospital were presenting to the parents that Mirranda was "brain dead." However, they could not confirm "brain death" without doing the crucial and lethal apnea test.

Mirranda's parents wanted the ventilator to be continued, but the doctors and the hospital wanted to stop Mirranda's ventilator for 10 minutes. This is called an apnea test, and it can only make Mirranda's condition get worse and possibly kill her.

We were in court on Thursday, June 9. After the judge heard the testimonies, the judge said he would rule on Friday, June 10. His ruling was that the doctors and the hospital could carry out the testing and evaluation at their discretion. CONTINUE

(By Kathleen Parker / Syndicated Columnist) – It was inevitable that we would one day seek ways to kill ourselves with society’s blessing. California recently joined four other states – Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana – that allow terminally ill patients to commit suicide using doctor-prescribed drugs.

Criteria under the California law include that the patient has a terminal disease, would likely die within six months, and is of sound mind and can self-administer the "medicine." Thanks to medical advances that can extend life beyond what some find acceptable, resulting in unnecessary suffering, many think it’s their right to die with dignity using medications legally prescribed. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – With the recent birth of their son Alexander, Katie and Ryan Buck of West Des Moines, Iowa have experienced doctors stealing their hope for the life of their child. The Bucks did not know that Alexander was growing inside of Katie with the rare chromosomal abnormality of Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome. When Alexander was born, he struggled and fought for life. Doctors knew something was affecting him so they did some testing and diagnosed Alexander with Trisomy 18. Life threatening illnesses, diseases, and conditions have been in existence all throughout human history. Many people have overcome these obstacles and lived long lives.

Doctors have been amazing instruments in helping to eradicate and defeat many of these problems like rabies, small pox, infections, and many others that have plagued mankind. However, there is an infection in the medical community among doctors and nurses that has spread across this country…Hopelessness. It’s not a germ or virus, but it acts like one and takes over its victims. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – Recently, a New York Times article titled, First Rise in U.S. Death Rate in Years Surprises Experts, reported that the 2015 death rate in the United States rose for the first time in a decade.

Although the research did not attribute the rise to any one reason, in particular, it did state that the rising death rate could signal a decline in the health of the nation. We know that many Americans don’t necessarily lead healthy lifestyles, but there is deeper reason to be concerned.

In my many years advocating through the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, I’ve come face-to-face with the reality that our medical system often prioritizes their profit over their patients. While it’s true that hospitals, the chief organs of our medical system, are necessary institutions and save untold lives, they are also the number one cause of unintentional deaths in adults—resulting in something close to 800,000 deaths annually. This means hospitals are the leading cause of death for American adults. Not heart disease. Not cancer. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – Ella Frech is an 11-year-old who uses a wheelchair. She also is a professional female wheelchair skater (WCMX), currently ranked number two in the world. Like many pro-life and disability rights advocates, Frech is upset about a new summer romance flick, “Me Before You,” that she said promotes assisted suicide for people like her who have disabilities. Frech wrote a strong column for Aleteia this week, rebuking Hollywood for promoting a film that romanticizes a disabled man’s suicide.

“This could have been a great movie. It could have been the love story of two people and one of them just happens to use a chair,” the 11-year-old wrote. “It happens all the time. The people in love don’t think about the chair. It’s the other people who think it’s a big deal.” CONTINUE

(LifeSiteNews.com) – There are many in-depth analyses of assisted suicide and euthanasia flying about the Internet as the debate heats up in the Canadian Parliament and Senate. I’ve written several myself. Today, however, I want to give twenty summarized reasons for why people should reconsider euthanasia. Canada’s media - with notable exceptions like the National Post’s Andrew Coyne - have consistently promoted assisted suicide, with the result that many of the consequences and implications have not been adequately considered:

1. Assisted suicide suggests that for people to “die with dignity,” they must die faster. The underlying insinuation of the “Death with Dignity” movement is that those who do not opt for an expedited exit are not dying with dignity. CONTINUE

(NRO) – The California media are atwitter with my state’s new assisted suicide law. And they are touting a death doctor named Lonny Shavelson who is opening a practice in suicide prescribing–for only $2000, if one decided to obtain the prescription.

Shavelson is a coward who once witnessed the murder of a disabled man by a Hemlock Society zealot and did nothing. Media misses that entirely. But here’s the point. Shavelson has been a part time or contract ER doctor for his medical career. He is not a specialist in cancer, ALS, or other terminal conditions. CONTINUE

PHILADELPHIA, June 8, 2016 // Bishop Robert N. Lynch, of the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg in Florida, is retiring. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network takes this time to reflect on Bishop Lynch's legacy as it relates to Terri Schiavo, inarguably the most internationally recognized person to have lived under his protection and perhaps the most morally significant cultural "teaching moment" during his tenure at the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo and president of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, reflected: “As a Catholic myself, any criticism I offer of Bishop Lynch is rooted in my love for, and obedience to, the role of any bishop in shepherding the faithful. That being said, Bishop Lynch has been a poor moral leader who has confused and misled the people of his diocese about my sister and the meaning and consequences of her state-sanctioned death. The worst thing that can happen when you’ve got your hand out for help is for someone to spit in it. In my family’s experience, Bishop Lynch was like the man spitting in the hand of a person in need.”

“When my family pleaded for simple advocacy,” Schindler continued, “or for simply a public acknowledgment that it was wrong to deprive my sister of food and water, Bishop Lynch instead offered weak platitudes that served to endorse an estranged husband's death wish for his wife. Michael Schiavo had not only abandoned his marital promise to Terri, ‘in sickness and health,’ but he had estranged himself from her and our family by living and having children with another woman. For any faithful Catholic, it was plain to see that Michael was living in an adulterous relationship—while at the same time actively seeking to end his wife's life. For Bishop Lynch, however, these realities were of no consequence.”

“I’ll never forget one of his boldest statements, issued in the weeks leading up to my sister’s death,” Schindler continued. “He didn’t call for mercy for Terri, or for the continuation of basic care, but, unbelievably, for my family and those fighting for my sister to ‘step back a little and allow some mediation in these final hours’ with those seeking to end my sister’s life. They were only her ‘final hours’ because men like him regarded her right to life as negotiable rather than absolute. It remains a spiritual struggle for me to come to terms with what this man did and failed to do as my bishop during the most brutal years in my sister’s life.”

“Bishop Lynch visited my daughter just once, for a few moments,” Mary Schindler, Terri’s mother, said. “And at a key moment in my daughter’s legal defense, Bishop Lynch allowed a local priest named Fr. Gerard Murphy to testify—against my daughter. Fr. Murphy admitted his testimony was contrary to Catholic teaching, and that he had permission from Bishop Lynch to share it. As a mother, I take comfort in the fact that God knows all the ways that Bishop Lynch failed my daughter.”

In contrast to Bishop Lynch’s statements, St. John Paul the Great's 2004 allocution, or teaching statement, spoke specifically to Terri Schiavo's situation, explicitly stating Catholic teaching on the moral necessity of providing food and water as a simple requirement of ordinary care.

In Catholicism, marriage is understood to be a sacred covenant, a sacrament blessed by God as much as a relationship between two people, and critically, a lifetime commitment "in sickness and in health." At the age of 26, Terri experienced a still unexplained collapse while at home alone with Michael Schiavo, who subsequently became her guardian. After a short period of time, Michael lost interest in caring for his brain injured, but otherwise healthy, young wife. Terri was not dying, and did not suffer from any life-threatening disease. She was neither on machines nor was she “brain dead.” To the contrary, she was alert and interacted with friends and family—before her husband subsequently abandoned his wedding vows, warehoused her in nursing homes, and eventually petitioned the courts for permission to deliberately starve and dehydrate her to death. Michael finally testified, after many years of legal maneuverings against the Schindler family, that his wife had told him prior to her accident that she would not have wanted to live in a brain injured condition. This hearsay evidence led to Terri’s right to life being portrayed as a “right to die” or “end of life” issue. On the order of Judge George W. Greer, Terri was deprived of water and food and after 13 days, Terri died on March 31, 2005 of dehydration.

Perhaps the most revealing response from Bishop Lynch occurred when Robert Schindler, Sr., Terri’s father, wrote to the Bishop in November 2001: “At the onset of Terri’s trial, we had no inclination that our family was individually opposing the ‘National Right to Die’ movement and its powerful resources. … It is very clear, the objective of the ‘Right to Die’ advocates is to establish legal precedents in Terri’s case which will ultimately result in the death of many innocent victims. Our family has been drawn into this arena. We are committed in our fight to preserve Terri’s life. As a byproduct, we are hopeful our efforts will act as a deterrent to protect future Terris. My family again asks for your support in this battle against the ‘Right to Die’ movement.”

Bishop Lynch’s response came in the form of an October 2002 official Diocese of St. Petersburg press release: “The public discussion of Terri Schiavo’s right to life touches the lives of many people… Roman Catholic moral theology suggests that the removal of food and hydration from a patient … is justifiable only if the natural projected path of the individual’s medical condition will lead inevitably to death… Some of the members of Terri’s family believe her condition is irreversible and inevitably deteriorating towards death, while others do not. … The Church, however, will refrain from passing judgment on the actions of anyone in this tragic moment.”

No one—not even Michael Schiavo—argued that Terri was on a “natural projected path” that would “lead inevitably to death.” No one argued Terri was on a “path” to death, because no one argued Terri was actively dying. Terri was disabled, not dying. Her disability is what led Michael to argue that she “wouldn’t want to live like that.” Yet Bishop Lynch’s Diocese of St. Petersburg intentionally misrepresented both Terri’s situation and Catholic teaching. The consequences of Bishop Lynch’s handling of Terri’s case not only resulted in her death, but has resulted in others thinking Catholic teaching could somehow endorse the fatal starvation and dehydration of a vulnerable woman.

Tom Shakely, Executive Director of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, concluded: “In Scripture, Christ instructs us through fury at the money-changers in the temple of the just role of righteous anger, just as Pilate later reminds us of the scandal that is indifference to truth. Bishop Lynch’s actions brought scandal to the Catholic community during Terri’s barbaric death. Bishop Lynch’s conciliatory attitude toward the Culture of Death continues to carry a certain teaching authority due to his office, and in this sense his approach is a continuing tragedy for those seeking moral instruction on matters with life and death consequences.”

“We affirm, through our continuing mission of service to medically vulnerable persons, that food and water always represent ordinary and basic care, a necessity at the root of any life-affirming sense of human dignity.”

The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was established by the family members of Terri Schiavo to uphold human dignity through service to the medically vulnerable. This mission is expressed by affirming essential qualities of human dignity, which include the right to food and water, the presumption of the will to live, due process against denial of care, protection from euthanasia as a form of medicine, and access to rehabilitative care. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has supported more than 1,500 families and has directly advocated hundreds of cases since its founding. Visit lifeandhope.com to learn more.

Contact: Tom Shakely, Executive Director, Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, 855-300-4673, ext 3, [email protected]

(Philly.com) – The doctors and nurses, the specialists and therapists, they knew their stuff. They just didn't know Kyle. Not the way his family knows Kyle. Not the way his friends know Kyle. Not the way his former football coach at Pennsville High School knows Kyle.

"Amazed, yes. Surprised, no," Pennsville coach Ryan Wood said of his reaction to the remarkable recovery made by his former star wide receiver, Kyle Pszenny, in the one year since he was struck by an automobile while riding his skateboard. "He's built to come back from this. Not everybody is. But this kid is." Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the accident in which Pszenny suffered what doctors told his mother, Crystal Parks, was a "devastating, severe brain injury." CONTINUE

(Emily Ladau) – I usually try to read a book or watch a movie in its entirety before forming a definitive opinion, but the portrayal of the disability experience in Jojo Moyes' fictional bestseller "Me Before You" stung so sharply after just a few chapters that I could barely handle any more.

I stopped reading, returning to finish it over a year later only after being inundated with trailers for the movie adaptation starring "Game of Thrones" Emilia Clarke and "The Hunger Games" Sam Claflin. The book overflows with dehumanizing stereotypes about disability, from implications that disabled people are things no more active than houseplants, to assumptions that disability is a fate worse than death. Based on previews, it seems the movie will be just the same. CONTINUE

(Washington Post) – Stanford researchers studying the effect of stem cells injected directly into the brains of stroke patients said Thursday that they were "stunned" by the extent to which the experimental treatment restored motor function in some of the patients.

While the research involved only 18 patients and was designed primarily to look at the safety of such a procedure and not its effectiveness, it is creating significant buzz in the neuroscience community because the results appear to contradict a core belief about brain damage — that it is permanent and irreversible. The results, published in the journal Stroke, could have implications for our understanding of an array of disorders including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and Alzheimer's if confirmed in larger-scale testing. CONTINUE

(NRO) – Canada’s utter capitulation to the culture of death has been a wonder to behold. A twisted, nihilistic wonder, but a wonder. The current debate isn’t whether the government’s bill to legalize is too loose, but too strict. But at least one hospital has declared total non-cooperation. From the CBC story:

"In February, Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith said Covenant Health would not allow patients to end their lives with the help of a doctor in its facilities. Associate health minister Brandy Payne confirmed Monday that physicians and other health-care workers will not be forced to take part in this procedure if it goes against their beliefs." CONTINUE

(todayonline) – I was 30 and working as an assistant head at the Economic Development Board when I had a stroke in 2011. One Sunday morning, as I was washing my motorcycle, I felt a sudden pressure in my head and collapsed in the car park. That was where the security guard on duty found me and immediately called for an ambulance.

I had suffered a sudden hemorrhage in the brain from an arteriovenous malformation — an abnormal tangle of blood vessels — that had, until then, shown no symptoms. The bleeding occurred within the parietal lobe of the right hemisphere of my brain, severely affecting movement and sensation on the left and dominant side of my body. CONTINUE

(NRO) – The euthanasia movement has always been about finding words and terms to mask the harshness of killing as a response to suffering. Indeed, the word “euthanasia”–good death–did not originally refer to killing. Rather, it meant dying peacefully in a state of grace.

Now, the suicide fanatic Faye Girsh–former head of the Hemlock Society–reporting from a convention of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, says the psychiatrist that brought euthanasia to the mentally ill in Netherlands has coined an obscuring word to replace “euthanasia” in the movement’s lexicon. CONTINUE

ROSEVILLE, Calif., May 23, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Israel Stinson was transferred out of Kaiser Roseville Medical Center on May 21. He has been taken to another hospital and is currently receiving care. To protect Israel's privacy and security, we are unable to disclose where he is, but we can say that in order for Israel to receive the care he needed, he had to be transferred by air ambulance outside the United States.

After examining Israel, a neurologist and a pediatric specialist at the new hospital have agreed that Israel does not meet the criteria for brain death. Also, an EEG performed earlier today shows some brain activity. Israel is finally being treated as a live patient. CONTINUE

(ABC4 Sports) - Park City's Jamie Crane-Mauzy was on top of the world. She was one of the top slopestyle skiers in the world. Jaime competed in the X-Games and had her sights set on the Winter Olympics. But in April of 2015, Jamie was competing in Whistler, Canada, when she under-rotated attempting a double backflip, and slammed her head on the snow.

"Somehow the whiplash of my head, the way I hit it, I hurt my right brain stem," she said. "So, my entire right side was paralyzed, and my brain started bleeding in eight spots." Jamie stopped breathing, and had to be intubated on the mountain. She was in a coma for 10 days. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – Even in an era of seemingly endless media sources, when an item appears on one of the networks, it has traction. Take CBS Sunday Morning. Correspondent Lee Cowan does a terrific job in telling the more- common-than-we-think story, in this case of Dylan Rizzo, who was involved in a devastating car crash in 2011 when he was 19.

Rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, “Within an hour neurosurgeons had removed the left side of his skull and part of the right to make room for his brain to swell,” Cowan explained. Not unexpectedly he slipped into a deep coma. When he did awake he “had transitioned into what’s called a vegetative state,” where his eyes were open but he was unaware (or seemed unaware) of his surroundings. CONTINUE

(Daily Mail) – A judge has granted a one-week extension for a toddler to be kept on life support to give an appeals court time to weigh in. Two-year-old Israel Stinson was admitted to hospital at the beginning of April after suffering a severe asthma attack. After being a placed on a ventilator and still struggling to breath, he was officially declared brain dead by doctors.

However Israel's parents believe their son is alive and are fighting to move Israel from California to New Jersey where the laws on what determines brain death differ, Fox40 reported. U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller, in Sacramento, had rejected a request by the boy's mother, Jonee Fonseca, for Kaiser Permanente Medical Center to keep her son on life support until she could find a new facility for him, CBS News reports. CONTINUE

ROSEVILLE, Calif., May 11, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is a statement from Jonee Fonseca, Israel Stinson's Mother:

It has been well over a month now that my fiancé and I have been fighting for our two-year-old son Israel's life. Doctors at Kaiser Roseville Medical Center declared Israel "brain dead" after an asthma attack left him unconscious. Israel has been on a ventilator since April 2 and was declared brain dead on April 14—almost a month ago. Within 24 hours of being admitted to Kaiser, the hospital wanted to remove our son from life support. They said Israel would only live for a few days and his heart would soon stop beating. We were prepared to accept his death once his heart stopped. But one month later, Israel has proven the doctors wrong. He is a fighter! CONTINUE

(Daily Mail) – A former victim of child sex abuse has ended her life under Dutch euthanasia laws because she could not live with her mental suffering. The woman, in her twenties, was given a lethal injection after doctors and psychiatrists decided that her post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions were incurable.

It went ahead despite improvements in the woman's psychological condition after 'intensive therapy' two years ago, and even though doctors in the Netherlands accept that a demand for death from a psychiatric patient may be no more than a cry for help. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – The Netherlands 2015 Euthanasia report indicates that euthanasia deaths continue to increase. According to the 2015 report, there were 5561 reported euthanasia deaths in 2015 up from 5306 reported euthanasia deaths in 2014. Since 2006, there has been a 289% increase in euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands. There is also an increase in the number of euthanasia deaths for people with dementia and for psychiatric reasons.

There were 109 people who died by euthanasia based on dementia in 2015, up from 81 in 2014 representing a 34% increase. There 56 people died by euthanasia based on psychiatric reasons in 2015, up from 41 in 2014 representing a 36% increase. Similar to the 2014 report, there were only 4 cases referred by a Regional Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission for investigation. CONTINUE

(Not Dead Yet) – A clear and welcome ruling came down Tuesday, May 3rd, from the NY Appellate Division in an assisted suicide case in which NDY filed a friend-of-the-court brief joined by ten other national and state disability organizations. The Court found no constitutional right to assisted suicide. Below is an excerpt from the 36-page decision:

[P]laintiffs rely on two papers that purport to offer empirical evidence that Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, now in effect for over 20 years, has not invited the fears articulated by people opposed to aid-in-dying, such as an adverse impact on vulnerable populations, and the difficulty in distinguishing whether a wish to end one’s life is driven by a desire to control one’s death, clinical depression, or something else. However, even were a finder of fact to determine that aid-in-dying is "workable," the issue before us transcends mere practical concerns. CONTINUE

(NRO) – Maintaining the concept of "death" as a biological, rather than sociological, event is one of the few remaining impediments to exploiting the most weak and vulnerable among as mere natural resources.

If death can be "redefined"–an ongoing project in bioethics–to include the end of the subjective concept of being a "person," then the unborn–supposedly, not yet persons–and those who through injury or illness have lost the ability to express personhood, can be deemed dead, or perhaps better stated, as good as dead. CONTINUE

(LifeNews.com) – There is more good news this week in the case of a 2-year-old California boy who a hospital wants to take off life support against his family’s wishes. On Monday, a federal judge ruled with the family, allowing 2-year-old Israel Stinson to stay on life support, according to the Pacific Justice Institute, which is representing him.

The judge’s order will stay in place until May 11, attorney Erin Mersino said. Though the hospital declared Israel "brain dead" a few weeks ago, he has since been observed reacting to his mother’s voice and touch, according to Life Legal Defense Foundation, which also is representing Israel. CONTINUE

PHILADELPHIA, May 3, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- In the latest issue of Newsweek, Aimee Swartz contributes her startling and welcome voice in reporting on medically vulnerable patients "living on the edge of consciousness."

In her reporting, Swartz tells the story of Maggie Worthen -- a young college-aged woman whose story is so similar to Terri Schiavo's as to be uncanny. Like Terri, Maggie collapsed and became unconscious, unable to speak or move. Like Terri, Maggie initially recovered with the assistance of a ventilator and the benefit of time. Like Terri, Maggie relied on a feeding tube after recovering the ability to breathe naturally, without machines. CONTINUE