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In a personal telephone conversation on March 11, between Terri Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, and actor/director Mel Gibson, Gibson encouraged the Schindler family to “never give up and continue to pray.” Shortly after the telephone conversation Gibson sent a fax to the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation saying with he “support(s) the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Schindler to save their daughter, Terri Schiavo, from a cruel starvation. Terri's husband should sign the care of his wife over to her parents so she can be properly cared for."
John Wessells, author of “Conversations With The Voiceless,” said that he worked with many people in situations similar to Schiavo’s. “It's especially helpful with the Terri Schiavo case for people to get more of an understanding of what these people go through—that there are people inside these bodies,” Wessells said. Despite the sentiment, Terri Schiavo’s legal options eventually ran out. A federal judge on March 22 refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, denying an emergency request from the brain-damaged woman's parents. The parents' lawyer quickly filed a notice with the federal appeals court, but that court also refused to reinsert the feeding tube. The last days of Terri Schiavo’s life were filled with drama and irony. At the insistence of her parents, and over the objections of Michael Schiavo, Terri Schiavo was given last rites and communion—a drop of wine, but no bread—on Easter Sunday. Pro-life protesters held a vigil outside her hospice, but even on Easter, a day of great hope for Christians, hopes that her feeding tube would be reinserted diminished. In an ideological war played out on a national stage, it was eerily appropriate that the final battle in her family’s struggle to keep her alive came on the night of March 30 before the highest court in the land. But the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case. The next morning, just hours after that decision, Schiavo died of organ failure brought about by dehydration and malnutrition, at age 41.
An increasing number of states are moving to protect pharmacists and other health care workers from being forced to violate their consciences while discharging their professional duties. Legislation to grant conscience protections moved forward in at least 11 states in 2005. At least 15 pharmacists in the past year have wound up in court for refusing to dispense pharmaceuticals that contradict their moral convictions. Some are Protestants who refuse to dispense “emergency contraception” and RU-486; others are Catholics who object to birth control. Steve Aden, chief litigation counsel for the Christian Legal Society, which is defending or working with a half dozen pharmacists, said the key issue is “whether humans have a conscience.” Some would look at the Dutch practice of euthanizing children and conclude that some humans do not. David Stevens, M.D., executive director of the 17,000-member Christian Medical Association, condemned the Dutch practice in response to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine documenting the practice. "The tragic irony is that Dutch doctors once risked their lives to oppose the Nazi euthanasia program,” Stevens said. “Dutch euthanasia doctors today indignantly contrast their motives with the Nazis', yet there is little difference in the final result between the involuntary euthanasia of Dutch infants and non-consenting adults and the Nazi euthanasia program, he said. In a statement released March 10, Stevens claimed that Dutch doctors “kill 1,000 patients a year without their consent.” The article, "Infant Euthanasia in the Netherlands" by Eduard Verhagen and Pieter Sauer, also appeared in the March 10 issue of the well-known medical journal. But it was not all bad news in the fight for life in 2005. Virtually every organization that tracks the number of abortions—whether pro-life or pro-choice—is reporting declines in the number of abortions being performed annually. And on Nov. 30, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two major abortion cases—the first to be heard in five years, and the first since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court. Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England involves a New Hampshire law which makes minor girls wait 48 hours to obtain an abortion, and then only after notice is given to at least one parent. The law was challenged by Planned Parenthood because it does not include the so-called "health exception," which is generally interpreted broadly to include such things as depression, a tactic which effectively guts laws designed to restrict abortion. In the other case, NOW v. Scheidler, justices heard for a third time why federal racketeering laws should not have been applied to the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago, headed by veteran pro-lifer Joe Scheidler. Cathy Cleaver Ruse, senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council, said the arguments went well for Scheidler's side. "The court spent a lot of time trying to determine whether this racketeering law ... would require that money or property be extorted. It is, after all, an extortion law," she said. "(The National Organization for Women) is claiming that any violent act that may affect interstate commerce violates this racketeering law. But the court didn't seem to think that was very reasonable.” The outcome of these cases could make a significant difference to the pro-life movement—and validate Christian activism on the political process. EP News
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