Guest Opinion
By Mary Ann Kreitzer

I spoke to a friend this morning whose father was murdered by terminal sedation (a.k.a. “palliative” care). Her father suffered from Alzheimer’s and his mind was pretty well gone, but physically he was in great shape. He and his wife lived with one of my friend’s children, who took him for a long walk every day and knew how to manage all his grandfather’s moods. They were good buddies. My friend lived nearby and spent as much time as possible visiting her parents and enjoying her father’s company.

But the rest of the family (including my friend’s mother, who had power of attorney) decided to put him in a nursing home where he was difficult to control because he wanted to be released. My friend told me that every time she went to visit him he was trying to escape—pulling at every door and even the bookcase, looking for a way out. Three nursing homes and several months, later he pretty much gave up. When she went to see him, he would be sitting in a wheelchair slumped over and drooling. He got an infection and ended up in a hospital “palliative” ward, where he was denied food, water and antibiotics. Within several months, he went from an elderly man who was walking two miles a day with his grandson, to dead from dehydration and terminal sedation. It was Terri Schiavo and Hugh Finn without the publicity.

My friend considered trying to get guardianship at one point, but she was familiar with the earlier cases and knew it would be a lengthy legal battle and the result would be the same. He had also deteriorated so much she didn’t think he could recover. With a number of young children still at home, she didn’t think she could deal with the fight. So here was a faithful daughter (and her husband) willing to care for both her parents until they died, who had to watch while her faithless siblings and her mom murdered her father.

Welcome to the realities of the culture of death.

Terminal sedation is abortion for the elderly. You have dementia and get pneumonia? Like Rahm Emmanuel says, never let a crisis go to waste. See it as an opportunity for a quick exit. No antibiotics and terminal sedation. Abortion completed. Your loved one is healthy but brain damaged like Terri Schiavo and Hugh Finn? No problem. Starvation, dehydration and terminal sedation. Call it late-term abortion.

You think I’m exaggerating? The New York Times ran an article in December on the practice. It is common in hospice programs. Hurry the patients along for the peace of the family and to empty the bed. Saves everyone anxiety, money and hassle. Except, perhaps, the patient. But he is drugged, so whatever objections he may have had, you’ll never have to hear them.
Sometimes, as in my friend’s case, though, things aren’t that smooth. Far from bringing peace to families, it brings terminal strife and family breakdown. And in the case of my friend’s mom, will children who killed their father hesitate at doing the same thing to the their complicit mother? After all, she had no objections to killing Dad; so how can she object to her own quick exit? It’s for the children (and their inheritance?).

I wish I could say this is the only case I know of the deliberate murder of elderly parents, but it isn’t. It’s common practice in some hospices, with or without the complicity of the families. Situations like my friend’s are also becoming more and more common as the baby boomers, who often gave their children nothing in the way of faith, face the results of their hedonistic lives. “Hey, Mom put me in day care for most of my childhood and aborted my siblings; I’ll put her in a nursing home and pull the plug as soon as possible.” So much easier for everyone.
The worst part, however, is that while the body is being killed, the souls of the killers are dying as well. How does God Who said, “Honor your father and your mother,” look at the deliberate murder of parents? It is mortally sinful! And that’s the greatest suffering for my friend. She would like to see her family in heaven, but fears that this life on earth may be the only common ground they ever share.

Please pray for all those in danger of death today from terminal sedation and for those who will carry it out and enable it. It’s a soul killer for sure! You can call it quick and painless, but in the end, the palliative care ward, like the abortion mill, is literally hell on earth.

Mary Ann Kreitzer is president of the Catholic Media Coalition and Les Femmes (a lay Catholic media apostolate in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia), as well as editor of Les Femmes’ quarterly newsletter, the Truth.

In tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama unambiguously proclaimed that he will “stay the course” on nationalizing health care. Despite public polls, despite massive public demonstrations, despite historic reversals at the polling booth – Obama has called his party to follow him over the cliff and enact “health care reform”.

It is so irrational as to be downright scary.

Perhaps Rep. Smith is right when he calls President Obama “abortion obsessed”. Because of all the special interest groups at the congressional trough – the most dedicated to ObamaCare is the Abortion Lobby. They know that passage of this monstrosity means a huge windfall for the baby-killing industry. More importantly, enactment of ObamaCare will mean a substantial increase in the carnage brought upon us by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe.

In light of that sober threat, Idahoans must press our Legislature to take pre-emptive action. We must urge the Legislature to enact SB1270, which provides conscience protections for our medical professionals. (Is it not obvious that, by protecting their rights, we are really protecting ourselves?)

That bill is now before the Senate State Affairs Committee.

We must also urge the Legislature to enact HB 391 – introduced by Reps. Clark, Luker and Labrador. This bill asserts our liberties under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution to make our own health care decisions.

The time to defend your family is now. Let your legislators know you are paying close attention.

Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are still working overtime to bring their health care revolution home. While the Massachusetts senate defeat obviously stunned them for a bit – all signs indicate that the grave threat to America’s future has by no means passed.

It remains to be seen if they can find a desperate path forward. But we must remain vigilant. One Democrat consultant explained it this way: The Democrats are in a position similar to bank robbers when the alarm rings. What do you do? You’ve already broken in the bank, already flashed your hardware. Logic dictates that you take a minute to collect the money before hoofing it down the street.

It is in that context that we moved forward this week with legislation in Idaho to protect the conscience rights of Idaho medical professionals – nurses, physicians, pharmacists, physicians assistants.

ObamaCare threatens not just to greatly expand abortion – it fails to protect our doctors and nurses from being compelled to participate in procedures they know are morally wrong. ObamaCare expands abortion while creating new pressures to prematurely end the lives of seniors and the disabled.

Given our great dependence upon doctors and pharmacists and nurses – it is fairly obvious that, by protecting the integrity of these vital professions, we are actually protecting ourselves and our families.

We need your help.

SB1270 is now pending before the Senate State Affairs Committee. We would greatly appreciate your help in encouraging members of that panel to support our legislation.

Please take a moment to send an email to the following legislators in the next couple of days.

Chairman Curt McKenzie
Sen. Monty Pearce
Sen. Denton Darrington
Sen. Robert Geddes
Sen. Bart Davis
Sen. Joe Stegner
Sen. Russ Fulcher

We are also most anxious to have your prayer support as we wage battle to protect the gift of Life.

The election of Scott Brown yesterday to the U.S. Senate is nothing short of a miracle. History buffs tells us that it has been some 60 years since a Republican was elected to the Senate from that bastion of liberalism. But that is the least of the historic indicators.

Start with the fact that this was “Ted Kennedy’s Seat”. Add the overriding dynamic of federalized health care, purported to be Kennedy’s dying request of the Democrat establishment, and you have a pretty large barrel of political gun powder. The people of Massachusetts took the dare and lit the fuse, providing real hope that ObamaCare is so much scattered debris laying about the White House.

As of this writing, the White House has not issued a public reaction to the explosion. No doubt the spin masters are earning their checks. Yet one can safely predict that any form of denial or minimizing of what happened will only further diminish Obama. He ought not try a replay of his phony answer for the huge Republican wins in New Jersey and Virginia. Hopefully, he will take the public rebuke like a man and hold himself accountable to this blatant expression of public disgust with his plans to nationalize health – particularly his immoral drive to expand abortion through public subsidy.

But there is such an irrational obsession with “passing health care reform” that one can’t predict the official Democrat reaction to Brown’s victory.

As we await their response, we can do so with renewed hope for our country. It seems that the Lord has once again extended His mercy to America.