covici@ccs.portal.com (John Covici) (12/29/90)
Index Number: 12588
Hi all out there. I am reprinting below a call by the Club Of Life
(U.S.) concerning the Mary Beth Cruzan case.I want to first
interpolate some comments of my own.
If we don't stop this death lobby immediately, all the gains of the
ADA will be as nothing; we won't be around to enjoy them. Already
there have been several cases where, due to the media pro-death
propaganda and the lack of government support, people have requested
the same kind of starvation we see in the present case. This is the
very mentality that Hitler used to get rid of the mentally ill, the
handicapped and other "useless eaters". This is very alarming to me,
because given the present moral climate, I would not have been
allowed to live. I was two months premature and handicapped (not
sighted) and today who knows whether someone in my circumstances
would have been allowed to live at all. This cult of death which is
permeating our country -- this equasion of a human life to some kind
of cost/benefit annalysis must be stopped at once or this country and
this Western Civilization of which it is a part will have shown a
lack of moral fitness to survive, and surely it will not survive.
I have no gift for writing -- I am just trying to convey the truth in
this matter in the best way that I can.
I urge everyone to call this rehab center in Missouri and give them
the backbone they need to defy the Nazi court order and keep this
woman alive. Also it wouldn't hurt at all to give your local
representatives some backbone also. I urge people from all around
the world, not just the United States to take part in this effort.
don't know if we can stop this crime, but I do know we must stop this
death lobby.
Press Release
Club of Life Denounces Court Decision on Cruzan
LEESBURG, December 21 (EIRNS)--U.S. Club of Life president Nancy
Spannaus issued the following statement here today.
"With the Missouri court decision to allow the deliberate
dehydration and starvation of Nancy Cruzan, the United States has
gone a giant step closer to paganism and fascism. This is a
horror which must be reversed immediately, if our country is to
have the moral fitness to survive.
"Amidst all the pro-death brainwashing by the media, certain
salient facts should be remembered. Nancy Cruzan is not brain
dead, nor even dependent upon machines for vital life functions.
Nurses who cared for her intensively found her responsive in some
ways. Lastly, there is no way to tell whether or not she could
have recovered from her `vegetative' state, because in the effort
to kill her, she has not received the kind of active care that
could conceivably have reversed it.
"What the court, Cruzan's family, and the hideous ideologues
at the Hemlock Society have succeeded in doing, is in getting
legal license to murder this woman by starvation and dehydration.
The only comparison to what she will go through, is what the Nazi
doctors did in their experiments, or the Romans did in leaving
their `unwanted' children out to die.
"One wonders what it will take to bring our nation back to
the morality under which every human life is considered sacred.
We have gone from public policies of abortion on demand, to
letting continents like Africa starve to death, to genocidal air
raids on civilians in Panama, to policies of food and medicine
embargoes against nations like Iraq. At the same time we are
bringing these same policies home, into murdering our handicapped
and old.
"If the American population tolerates such actions as this
against Nancy Cruzan, we will soon be permitting the starvation
of the millions of older Americans who are in nursing homes. We
will decide it is `better' for them to die, rather than live in
the conditions which we have chosen to put them in.
"I call on all moral Americans to reject these Nazi, pagan
policies, and reassert the right to life. A nation that enshrines
the `right to kill' is itself on the road to self-destruction."
Dec. 21--PRO-LIFE GROUPS REBUFFED IN CHALLENGE TO COURT-ORDERED
STARVATION OF NANCY CRUZAN. Two separate appeals to both a
Federal court and the Missouri Supreme Court, calling for an
immediate injunction to stop the court-ordered starvation of
Nancy Cruzan, were turned down today. A group called Lawyers for
Life appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which had written a
wonderful opposition (later overturned) to the Cruzan family's
request to starve their daughter, who has been in a severely
disabled state since an accident in 1983. Operation Rescue
appealed to the Federal Court of Appeals in Kansasa City. That
court said that Operation Rescue had no standing in the case;
only Attorney General William Webster could take action at this
point. Webster completely withdrew from presenting any opposition
to killing this patient or any patient in Missouri by starvation
and dehydration.
Operation Rescue presented evidence, actually an affidavit
from a priest who visited Nancy and stated that three different
times she responded with trembling and squeezing his hand when he
begged her "say something Nancy, or they will starve you to
death". Another witness says that after a news program reporting
the case surrounding her family's request to have her starved to
death was shown on the television in the patient's room, the
patient shuddered and went from a calm state to an extrememly
aggitated one.
Demonstrators continue to pour into Missouri to protest
outside the Missiouri Rehabilitation Center where the 32-year-old
Cruzan is being killed. The hospital downgraded her state to
"deteriorating.
Dec. 21--HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS TO PATIENTS LIKE NANCY CRUZAN WHEN
THEY ARE STARVED AND DEHYDRATED TO DEATH. In 1985, Massachusetts
Judge David H. Kopelman ruled against killing Paul Brophy, who
like Nancy Cruzan, was said to be in a "perisistent vegetative
state" and whose family wished him starved. Judge Kopelman
detailed exactly what starvation death entails.
"If food and water are withheld...prognosis will be certain
death from starvation, or more probably from dehydration which
would occur within...five days to...three weeks.
"During this time, Brophy's body would be likely to
experience the following effects from lack of hydration and
nutrition: (a) His mouth would dry out and become caked or coated
with thick material. (b) His lips would become parched and
cracked or fissured. (c) His tongue would become swollen and
might crack. (d) His eyes would sink back into their sockets. (e)
His cheeks would become hollow. (f) The mucosa (lining) of his
nose might crack and cause his nose to bleed. (g) His skin would
hang loose on his body and become dry and scaley. (h) His urine
would become highly concentated, causing burning of the bladder.
(i) The lining of his stomach would dry out causing dry heaves
and vomiting. (j) He would devlop hyperthermia, very high body
temperature. (k) His brain cells would begin drying out, causing
convulsions. (l) His respiratory track would dry out, giving rise
to very thick secretions, which could plug his lungs and cause
death. (m) Eventually his major organs would fail, including his
lungs, heart, and brain.
"The above described process is extremely painful and
uncomfortable for a human being. Brophy's attending physician was
unable to imagine a more cruel and violent death than thirsting
to death."
Finally, Judge Kopelman says, "A society which rejects
euthanasia, the selective killing of the unfit, insane, the
retarded, and the comatose patient is morally obligated to
sustain the life of an ill human being, even one in a peristent
vegetative state."