The Alaska Supreme Court has granted a motion sought by an attorney working with the Alliance Defense Fund to keep life support systems operating for a patient who could die within minutes of those tubes being removed.
The little-reported case bears some similarities to the extended battle waged by the family of Terri Schiavo, on whom WND reported extensively, to prevent her death by starvation and dehydration.
She died in March 2005, two weeks after a federal judge ruled her husband could order doctors to withhold food and water. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, battled unsuccessfully through Florida’s state courts and federal courts to spare her life. She was not on artificial life support but needed a feeding tube to eat and drink, a measure her husband opposed.
In the Alaska case, the names of the family members have been withheld so far. But the Alliance Defense Fund confirmed one of its attorneys sought and obtained an order from the state Supreme Court requiring Providence Hospital to keep life-support tubes for the woman.
“Ending her life support could result in her death within minutes or days,” the ADF announcement said.
“No on should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is worthless. A man is caring for the wife he loves; it’s not the hospital’s job to end her life,” said ADF Senior counsel Joe Infranco. “We are pleased with the court’s decision to allow this woman to continue receiving her treatment, respecting the wishes of the patient and her husband over those of hospital bureaucrats.”
The ADF said the hospital “asserts that the woman’s medical treatment does her no good and that keeping her alive violates its ‘ethical’ standards.”
Her husband filed suit against the hospital and Javed Kamali, a physician there, to keep medical staff from removing the life support apparatus.
“Having severe medical problems shouldn’t be a death sentence,” said another ADF-allied lawyer, Kenneth Kirk. “Judging a patient’s worth by subjective ‘quality of life’ standards is dangerous. The decision on whether to remove life support for this woman rests with her and her husband alone.”
As a result of the court ruling in the case, a temporary restraining order against the hospital entered by a lower court will remain in effect until a further ruling, the ADF said.
A priest who was with Schiavo during her final hours later told WND that many in society don’t understand the difference between a futile treatment and a futile life.
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said even healthy people, if brain-injured, are in danger under the current case precedents.
“Terri left no indication that she wanted to be deprived of food and water. Yet the courts insisted that this happen. Nor was Terri lacking a family ready to care for her, without complaint. Yet they were not allowed to,” he said.
Since Schiavo’s death, the Schindler family has set up the Terri’s Fight foundation to help disabled and elderly patients get medical and legal care and other assistance they might be denied.
“Many people fear that they will be given all kinds of machines and medicines against their will,” Pavone told WND. “What they should fear is exactly the opposite, namely, that even when they indicate that they want appropriate treatments, these will be denied them.
“Laws vary from state to state,” he said, “but one of the most dangerous flaws in the law is that which considers food and water to be ‘medical treatment’ rather than ordinary human care. When we return from a meal, we don’t say that we just ‘returned from our latest medical treatment,'” he said.
Those who advocate a “right to die” needn’t worry, Pavone said. “You won’t miss out on it.”
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Another Terri Schiavo: Husband battles family
Obama regrets intervening to save Terri Schiavo
Dad, mom fight over starving brain-damaged daughter
‘No such thing as a worthless life’
WorldNetDaily has reported the Terri Schiavo story since 2002 – far longer than most other national news organizations – and exposing the many troubling, scandalous, and possibly criminal, aspects of the case that to this day rarely surface in news reports. Read WorldNetDaily’s unparalleled, in-depth coverage of the life-and-death fight over Terri Schiavo, including over 150 original stories and columns.
