(The Corner) – I did a radio interview yesterday warning that I expected Canada to, one day, allow euthanasia as a “treatment” for serious mental illness.

Today, I find out it already happened. A court apparently allowed a mentally ill woman to be euthanized. From the CTV story:

In the case of E.F., court documents show the 58-year-old woman told the court she was “suffering intolerable pain and physical discomfort,” and “that her symptoms were irremediable.”

She said she suffered from muscle spasms, digestive problems, immobility and periods of insomnia. She said she was exhausted from her suffering, as well as depressed and fully mentally competent yet unable over eight years to find any effective treatment. CONTINUE

(Live Action) – A heartbreaking op-ed published in the Australian edition of the “Huffington Post” claims that the author’s mother, Elayn, should not have died by suicide. The answer to the predicament, according to author Nikki Gemmell, is euthanasia. Gemmell argues that if euthanasia had been available in Australia, her mother’s suicide could have been prevented.

“Elayn had had painful feet for years, after a childhood of ballet classes and decades of wearing the most fashionable high heels,” Gemmell explained. “It all came back to haunt her in her seventies. A year before she died she had an operation to fix her foot agony. It made the situation worse, much worse.” Elayn was in so much pain that she had to rely on a walking stick and could no longer drive; she had lost much of her independence.

“She was facing a future of pain, stuck in her flat and relying on all the madly busy people around her with their crazy-busy lives. She was terrified of ending up in a nursing home. Of losing control of her life,” Gemmell wrote. CONTINUE

(Brad Mattes/Life Issues Institute) – Physician assisted suicide legislation has been making the news recently. Legalized euthanasia in Canada, Netherlands, Belgium and other European nations have also generated headlines.

However, a silent, rampant killer is intentionally claiming lives of far more patients each day in America’s medical facilities.

This quiet, legal killer is taking the lives more Americans than all the assisted suicide deaths combined. It’s the withdrawal of food and water from patients whose lives are deemed “futile” by hospitals, nursing homes and hospices throughout the nation.

Food and water delivered by tube instead of mouth was once deemed “basic and ordinary care” but is now viewed as “extraordinary medical treatment.” Further, it’s legal in all 50 states to withhold food and water when it will directly result in the death of a patient. CONTINUE

(Technically Delaware) – On October 2, 2010, the lives of Corey Beattie and those close to her changed forever. Beattie, an aspiring chef, was involved in a serious car accident, which left her with a traumatic brain injury.

As a way of coping with the tragedy, good family friend and Philadelphia filmmaker Jonathan Ristaino came up with the idea to document Beattie’s progress and follow her journey.

Ristaino began filming Beattie in 2012. After five years of ups, downs, triumphs, and tribulations, he will screen his finished piece, Brain Crumbs, on April 22 at Penn Cinema in Wilmington. CONTINUE

(The Corner) – Euthanasia/assisted suicide is NOT about terminal illness. The issue is about normalizing killing as a response to human suffering.

Sure, the initial sales pitch would restrict doctor-administered or prescribed death to the dying. But that’s just to get people comfortable with the concept. Once a society accepts the principle, logic quickly takes it to a broad euthanasia license.

Canada is a prime example. Before the Supreme Court imposed a national euthanasia right on the country, the debate was all about terminal illness. But now that euthanasia is the law throughout the country, the push is on to allow doctors to kill the mentally ill who ask to die. CONTINUE

(National Catholic Reporter) – More states are considering assisted suicide legislation, although few seem to be making inroads in adding themselves to the five states and the District of Columbia where it is legal.

A bill in Alaska closely modeled after Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which took effect 20 years ago, was the subject of a legislative hearing April 6. But lawmakers in a divided Legislature are in session for only 90 days, and coming to agreement on a state budget appeared to be taking up lawmakers' time.

At a March 28 hearing on the bill, Margaret Dore, an attorney from Washington state where assisted suicide is also legal, said advocates of doctor-assisted suicide are misleading the public about the real impact on society's most vulnerable. Dore, who also is president of Choice Is an Illusion — a nonprofit that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia — said the bill does not deal only with those who are dying. For example, Oregon's suicide bill lists diabetes as a "terminal illness," Dore cautioned.

In addition to Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia, assisted suicide is also legal in California, Colorado and Vermont. CONTINUE

(West Hawaii Today) – The small student body of Kuleana Education was captivated, Monday morning, as a man told his story of survival after he was nearly killed by what he called “adult bullies” in 2011.

For the past two years, Bryan Stow has been sharing a message of anti-bullying and kindness following that brutal beating after a Giants versus Dodgers baseball game in San Francisco, an attack that grabbed national headlines. He and his family have shared his story and message across California. Monday was the first time they took the presentation outside the Golden State.

Sitting in a chair wearing a San Francisco Giants jersey, an orchid lei, compression socks with his crutches resting next to him, he told students he spent nine months in a coma after suffering from a traumatic brain injury.

“After waking from the coma I had to learn how to live again,” Stow said. “I had to learn how to speak again.” Prior to the beating, Stow was a paramedic. He told the children bullies destroyed his life and hurt his family. However, the assault created six years of a new existence for Stow. “I can still work and save lives,” he told the kids. CONTINUE

(The Corner) – Back in 1993, I warned in my first anti-euthanasia column, published in Newsweek, that once killing became accepted as a solution to human suffering, eventually it would lead to conjoining the death procedure with organ harvesting “as a plum to society.”

“Alarmist!” my critics cried. “Slippery slope” purveyor, they sniffed.

No. Prescient. In Netherlands and Belgium, conjoining euthanasia and organ harvesting is now a fact on the ground–just as I warned against–and there is talk of permitting that same approach in Canada.

One of the most alarming aspects of this radical change in transplant ethics has been the shrugging silence from professional transplant organizations. Now, the idea of conjoined killing and harvesting is being presented positively in the media as a splendid way of ending the organ shortage. CONTINUE

(Washington Post) – Brain injuries are a danger in many sports, but for none more than football and its most profitable enterprise, the National Football League. The NFL is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a concussion-lawsuit settlement and has poured tens of millions into research on measuring and preventing head trauma.

Now some scientists are using an NFL-backed technology to examine blood samples for proteins that have been shown to correlate with concussion and other injuries. One of the most intriguing of these proteins, which could help create better tests for traumatic brain injury, is called neurofilament light — or, as it’s known for short, NFL.

That’s right, a protein called “NFL” may wind up helping the NFL address its most vexing medical problem.

“It's just a remarkable coincidence,” said Kevin Hrusovsky, chief executive of Quanterix, a company that has received $800,000 in grant money from the NFL through the league's “Head Health Challenge” partnership with GE. Quanterix's technology allows users to zero in on molecules with such precision that Hrusovsky likened it to “being able to see a grain of sand in 2,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.” CONTINUE

(LifeSiteNews) — A UK judge has ruled it is in a child's best interest to “die with dignity” rather than to allow his parents to seek additional medical treatment.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard want to take eight-month-old son Charlie to the United States for treatment of a rare disease. A GoFundMe account has given them enough money to do so.

But Charlie needs to remain on life support to make the trip and Justice Francis determined it is in the "best interests of the child" to withdraw his feeding tube and breathing machine.
Charlie has mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which degenerates his muscles. It is extremely rare, with an estimated 20 cases worldwide.

Great Ormond Street Hospital officials, who brought the lawsuit, argued that Charlie's life support should be cut off because his quality of life was "so poor" and experimental treatments would only “prolong the process of dying. CONTINUE

(Breakpoint) – Proponents of assisted suicide would have us believe that legalized killing is an unstoppable freight train and that those who oppose it are going to get run over.

And no wonder. Last year Colorado and the District of Columbia legalized it, while California enacted a bill that had been passed in 2015. They joined Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Montana where this great evil is now legal.

That’s why I’m very pleased to tell you that reports of the demise of a culture of life have been, to borrow a phrase, greatly exaggerated. We’re starting to win again. No, this doesn’t mean we can relax, but it’s really good news—and frankly, we could use some. CONTINUE

(The Corner) - Environmentalism is going mad and becoming dangerous to human thriving and our metaphysical self perception. Last week, I wrote about rivers being declared “persons.”

Now in India, glaciers have been similarly declared to be “living entities.” More specifically, a court has declared that rivers of ice, have the “rights” of legal persons.

From the Humanosphere story:

Less than three weeks ago, New Zealand granted similar status to a river – the Whanganui. Just days later on March 20, India followed suit for the Ganga and Yamuna rivers.

Now the Gangotri and Yamunotri glaciers as well as waterfalls, forests, lake, meadows and other environmental features in the area have all been granted legal rights as “living entities.”

The glaciers are among the largest in the Himalayas and feed into the Ganga and Yamuna rivers. However, they are receding at an “alarming rate,” the judges said according to Press Trust of India, with the Gangotri glacier shrinking more than 2,800 feet in about 25 years. CONTINUE

(East Idaho News) – It took a minute for Norman Wright to register why he was on the ground. It was the afternoon of March 21, and a massive explosion had just blown Norman through a door and into a hallway inside the First Congregational United Church of Christ on Garfield Avenue in Old Town Pocatello.

“I was lying on the floor, and I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute. What the heck just happened?’” Norman said from his home in American Falls with his wife, Kathy Wright, just two weeks after the accident. Norman glanced back into the boiler room — the room he was just flung from — to see flames shooting out from where the boiler used to be.

“I thought, ‘Why the explosion?’” Norman said. As it turns out, the church’s old boiler — an appliance that hadn’t been used in over 10 years — still had natural gas being fed to it. When Norman went to work cleaning out the boiler room, there was little reason to assume the boiler was anything more than just an obsolete hunk of metal taking up space. The church had installed a forced-air heating system a decade ago. CONTINUE

(BreakPoint) -- Last year, Canada enacted a Medical Aid in Dying law. The legislation allows physicians to help gravely ill patients end their lives. Advocates of these sorts of laws justify it by using words such as “compassion,” and “death with dignity”—and many Canadian doctors agreed, saying they’d be glad to participate in physician-assisted suicide.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Canada’s brave new world of state-sponsored killing. Dozens of physicians who signed up, including many who actually provided lethal medications to patients, now want their names removed from the list.

According to Canada’s National Post, in Ontario, one of the few provinces that actually tracks this kind of data, 24 physicians have been removed permanently from a voluntary referral list of those willing to assist people who want to end their lives. Another 30 have put their names on temporary hold. Not even the Canadian Medical Association can say how many are having second thoughts—but their decisions are reverberating through the system. CONTINUE

(National Catholic Register) – Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput on April 7 will celebrate a televised memorial Mass at EWTN’s chapel in Irondale, Alabama, for Terri Schiavo, who starved to death in a Florida hospital March 31, 2005.

To this day, millions of people, including her family, believe that Terri Schiavo was a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice and further proof of the increasingly utilitarian attitude toward life in the United States.

In 1990, at age 29 and for still uncertain reasons, Terri collapsed from a heart attack while at home with her husband Michael. Because of the subsequent lack of oxygen to her brain, she suffered catastrophic brain damage and was left comatose, at least for a period. CONTINUE

(Wesley J. Smith) - Futuristic medicine is here. A paralyzed man was able to move his own arm using electrodes implanted in his brain and arm. From the Sky News story:

Bill Kochevar, 56, was paralysed below his shoulders in a cycling accident eight years ago but can now grasp and lift objects after having two pill-sized electrodes implanted in his brain.

The electrodes record the activity of brain neurons to generate signals that tell another device to stimulate muscles in the paralysed limb.

During trials held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr Kochevar raised a mug of water to his lips and drank from a straw… Mr Kochevar, from Cleveland, said…”For somebody who’s been injured eight years and couldn’t move, being able to move just that little bit is awesome to me.”

Fabulous! This wonderful success story required researchers engaging in what I call the “grim good” of animal research, including conducting experiments on monkeys over many years to test safety and methodology. CONTINUE

(Bobby Schindler / LifeNews.com) – Every year, I write to honor my sister, Terri Schiavo, on March 31st, the anniversary of her death, and reflect on the state of our nation when it comes to the treatment of our medically vulnerable.

For those who do not remember, Terri, at the age of 26, experienced a still unexplained collapse while at home alone with her husband, Michael Schiavo, which resulted in a severe brain injury. Despite widespread characterizations that suggested she was near death in the years after her injury, Terri was not dying, and did not suffer from any life-threatening disease. She was neither on machines, nor was she “brain dead.”

Sadly, after a few years of caring for Terri, Michael, who was Terri’s guardian, lost interest in his brain injured, but otherwise healthy, young wife, and eventually petitioned the courts for permission to deliberately starve and dehydrate her to death.

On the order of Judge George W. Greer, Terri was deprived of water and food, and after 13 days, she died on March 31st, 2005 of severe dehydration. CONTINUE

After nearly two weeks without food or water, Terri Schiavo was finally at peace after suffering a slow and inhumane death by starvation and dehydration. Terri's feeding tube was removed on March 18, 2005 by order of Judge George W. Greer after Terri’s estranged husband, Michael Schiavo successfully petitioned the court for permission to starve and dehydrate his wife.

The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marked Terri’s final, horrific days not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Terri Schiavo Dies in Florida Hospice

Published: 3/31/2005

(FOX News) - Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged Florida woman at the heart of an epic legal and political battle that launched a national debate on end-of-life issues, died Thursday morning. The 41-year-old woman died in her Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice at 9:05 a.m. EST, nearly 14 days after doctors removed the feeding tube that had kept her alive for 15 years.

Her husband, Michael Schiavo, held her in his arms as she took her final breaths, his attorney said. George Felos declined to describe in detail his client's wife's death, but said: "It was evident to everyone around him, the profound emotion and loss for Mr. Schiavo. It was clear to everyone he loved Terri deeply and her passing was a tremendous loss for him."

Later Thursday afternoon, Terri Schiavo's father, sister and brother spoke sorrowfully at a press conference. Schiavo's mother, so prominent during the increasingly desperate fight to keep her daughter alive, did not attend.

"As a member of our family unable to speak for yourself, you spoke loudly," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby. "We know that God loves you more than we do. You must accept your untimely death as God's will," he said, addressing his late sister. Speaking to the family's supporters, Schiavo's sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, said, "We assure you you can be proud of this remarkable woman who has captured the attention of the world." CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Terri Schiavo's Mom Pleads: 'Give My Child Back'

Published: 3/30/2005

(CNN) -- The mother of Terri Schiavo made an impassioned plea to her daughter's husband Tuesday night, calling on him to "give my child back to me."

Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed the afternoon of March 18 under court order, and doctors have predicted the brain-damaged Florida woman would die in the next few days. Her mother, Mary Schindler, uttered two sentences at a news conference: "Michael and Jodi, you have your own children.

Please, please give my child back to me."The mother was addressing Michael Schiavo and the woman he has been living with since the late 1990s -- Jodi Centonze -- with whom he has two children. CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Jesse Jackson, in Florida, Lends Support to Terri Schiavo

Published: 3/29/2005

(BP) – Calling the Terri Schiavo situation “one of the most profound moral and ethical issues of our time,” civil rights leader Jesse Jackson prayed with her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and their family March 29 while spending a few hours outside the hospice where the disabled Florida woman is in her 12th day of a court-ordered starvation.

And in a development the afternoon of March 29 at the hospice, Thaddeus Malanowski emerged from the Pinellas Park facility and said he had been told he may not administer communion to Terri -- and was threatened with arrest if he proceeds to administer the sacrament. CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Nat Hentoff: Judicial Barbarism May End in Horrific Death

Published: 03/28/2005

(Jewish World Review) – Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer has again ordered the removal of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. As of this writing, attempts by the Republican Congressional leadership and some Democrats are being made to save her, through the courts, but the odds are long.

If she dies of dehydration and starvation, this grave injustice can affect the rights of many disabled Americans who do not have clearly written directives as to their treatment when they can no longer speak their wishes. The fundamental issue in Terri's case is disability rights — not the right to die.

Throughout all the extensive media coverage of the case, there has been only slight mention — usually none at all — that nearly every major disability rights organization has filed legal briefs to prevent what they and I regard as judicial murder. The protests are not only from pro-lifers and the Christian Right. CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Paper: Florida Officials Made Attempt to Take Custody of Schiavo

Published: 03/27/2005

(BP) – For days now, pro-lifers have urged Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush to ignore a judge's ruling and have Terri Schiavo taken into custody.

Apparently, such an attempt already took place. The Miami Herald reported Easter Sunday that agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were en route to take custody of the 41-year-old disabled woman March 24 when they learned that local police stationed outside of Schiavo's hospice were not going to let them in.

The state agents -- acting on behalf of the Department of Children and Families -- backed down, fearing a constitutional crisis, The Herald reported. The local law officers were following a judge's order preventing the seizure of Schiavo. The DCF was acting on behalf of its power under the state's adult protection law. The action could have resulted in dueling law officers, according to The Herald.

"We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in," a source told the newspaper. CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Political Corruption Alleged in Schiavo Case

Published: 03/26/2005

(WND) -- As Terri Schiavo enters what are thought to be her last hours of life, allegations of political corruption and obstruction of justice on the part of state officials raise questions as to whether the brain-injured woman’s court-ordered death by starvation might serve to cover up crimes committed against her.

Criminal probes launched by two Florida agencies looking into allegations the incapacitated woman was abused, neglected and exploited were shut down, despite investigators’ concerns. One investigation took place at the Department of Children and Families, or DCF, in late 2001.

The other was conducted by agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE, in August 2003. Both agencies are mandated by Florida Statutes 415 and 825 to detect and correct the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of the elderly or disabled adults. CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Schiavo Parents Back in Federal Court

Published: 03/25/2005

(CNN) -- Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected pleas to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo on Thursday, her parents again asked a federal judge in Florida to order the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube restored. A hearing before U.S. District Judge James Whittemore in Tampa ended after nearly four hours Thursday night with no decision announced.

Earlier this week, Whittemore turned down a request for an injunction to keep Schiavo alive. Anti-abortion-rights activist Randall Terry, who is acting as a spokesman for Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said the new motion raises "evidentiary issues that were ignored in the first crack at federal court." CONTINUE

On March 18, 2005, Judge George W. Greer’s order to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed was enforced, essentially sentencing Terri to a slow death by starvation and dehydration. It took nearly two-weeks. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network marks the final, horrific days of Terri Schiavo's inhumane death. Not only to remember Terri, but also to keep in mind the countless people who, as we speak, are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

Schiavo Parents Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

Published: 03/24/2005

(CNN) – A lawyer for Mary and Bob Schindler -- who are fighting to have their daughter Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted -- filed an appeal late Wednesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, which in the past has refused to hear the case. The parents' appeal to the nation's highest court came hours after a federal court in Atlanta twice rejected appeals seeking reinsertion of the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.

Meanwhile, Florida authorities filed a new request in state court to intervene, arguing that new information suggests Schiavo's condition might have been misdiagnosed. The Florida Senate rejected 18-21 a bill Wednesday that would restart food and hydration for Schiavo. CONTINUE