Richardson case like Terri Schiavo’s; meanwhile, Canadian doctors want to euthanase elderly man

I have been reading about Terri Schiavo again after learning of two new cases on the Jus Me Again blog.
   I was against the removal of Terri’s feeding tube. I’ll come right out and say that now. However, I did not believe Michael Schiavo should have been vilified the way he was by some people. I believe he did what he thought to be right and what he thought Terri had wanted. I do feel he might have been swayed by the medical “establishment”.
   Among my reasons is that medical science cannot give us any determination about a person’s spirit, although I know this inquiry is irrelevant to those in the field. Another major reason is not against medical science itself but against some who apply it. Healthcare is too often founded on monetary considerations, not about right and wrong.
   Before the technology that kept Terri alive had been invented, wouldn’t many families have prayed that they had something like that?
   And now that we do have defibrillators and more modern scientific technologies, we are ignoring them and saying, ‘Let them die,’ and getting courts to divorce themselves from the spiritual element.
   After Terri’s feeding tube was removed, she took another 13 days to join the Lord. That doesn’t sound a lot like someone who had just given up the fight and was ready to be outta here. And before I get criticized, I do know what it’s like to look after someone you love who is battling something that medical science regards is terminal.
   There are too many cases in my family where western medicine had given up on someone, but eastern medicine and prayer had not.
   The latter usually win.
   My grandfather’s advanced liver cancer was cured by praying and by quickly rushing him herbs from Hong Kong to drink as a tonic. The two weeks the “experts” gave him turned out to be 21 years.
   We hear of cases like this in my family regularly enough for me to place less faith in some of the medical judgements that are made.
   I accept that the cases I have confronted are different, but I believe my experience allows me to at least imagine what I would do more clearly.
   I commented today that having differently abled people in our lives shows whether we can be God-like:

There are a few ways to look at the disabled. The first is that they give us the opportunity to experience an element of Godliness. I purposely use the Father’s name here. He does not judge any of us and loves us all equally. Knowing people who society classes as ‘disabled’ or differently abled is a training ground for seeing if we can remove our prejudices and extend the same love to them. The second is to understand that on a spiritual plane they are equal to us. None of us can say that a disabled Christian is any less a Christian or has any less of the Holy Spirit running through him or her. This can be extended to other religions or to atheists as God views us all equally on that spiritual level.

   If we forget first principles and judge things on money, then we have already taken the wrong direction.
   Twenty-three-year-old Lauren Richardson in Delaware is facing a Terri-like situation. While the reason Miss Richardson lies in hospital is clearer—she had a heroin overdose—I am not here to judge her lifestyle.
   Her mother, Edith Towers, thinks that her daughter wouldn’t want to live this way and managed to get a court order, while her father, Randy Richardson, is fighting it.
   Ms Towers says that her daughter told her that she did not want to live like Terri Schiavo if she found herself in the same situation. Again, we cannot blame her for trying to carry out what she believes are her wishes. And we would again be wrong to vilify her as many did with Michael Schiavo.
   While in her “vegetative” state, Lauren Richardson gave birth to a healthy baby girl last February.
   I do not think it is right for Ms Towers to prevent her daughter from seeing her own child, which is what the press has reported. You never know what reaction a mother might have to her own child. Lauren Richardson needs to be given at least this simple chance.
   A pro-life video shows that Lauren seems to react to family members and her dog.
   Meanwhile, a Manitoba case involving an 84-year-old man who suffered brain damage is also being fought.
   Samuel Golubchuk suffered a brain injury after a 2003 fall. He contracted pneumonia in October. The medical staff want to dehydrate him to end his life.
   Mr Golubchuk is an Orthodox Jew and does not believe that his death should be hastened, so there is no doubt about what he wants.
   In January, he regained consciousness and his doctor recorded ‘Awake’ on his chart.
   The Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons has guidelines that say it’s not up to the patient or the family, but the doctor, so apparently we can forget Mr Golubchuk’s views and the fact that he is awake and alive.
   This Canadian case is ridiculous, in my view, and it seems that Canada is perfectly willing to introduce euthanasia. Germany started off with euthanasing the disabled in the 1930s. It grew from there.
   Please blog about this if you want to help either Miss Richardson or Mr Golubchuk. There’s no way in heck I’d let some doctors kill me off if I were in their shoes. And for the record, while my father has said it would be horrible for someone to be a vegetable, he is as spiritual as I am on these issues.