My good friend, Wesley Smith, debated Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV on March 24, 2005, as Terri Schiavo lay dying in a Florida hospice.

He then wrote about that exchange five days later in the National Review Online, and had everyone, including Rush Limbaugh, who read his article on the air, buzzing. Wesley effectively “outted” Mr. Allen and his ascription to “personhood theory.”

Notably, Ronald Cranford, M.D., “Dr. Death” himself, wrote about this back in 1987 and recanted his theory on the witness stand during the 1997 Conservatorship of Wendland trial in the San Joaquin County Superior Court. But now the concept has again reared its ugly head:

Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person?

Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don’t think complete absence of awareness does.

So that same night, I was asked to appear on Scarborough Country on MSNBC to “debate” Mr. Allen. Overall, it wasn’t much of a debate. Our airtime was brief, even as planned, but became more abbreviated in the wake of Jesse Jackson’s surprise appearance in Pinellas Park, Florida, that day. Still, our short on-air exchange was very educational — and horrifying.

(Aternate site at which to watch the video.)

Here’s the transcript:

Now, for 12 days, Terri has been denied food and water, as she is starving to death and she is also being dehydrated. Now, starvation is obviously a crime in Florida under any other circumstance. It’s even a crime to starve an animal to death. So, why is removing a feeding tube an acceptable way to end a life?

With me now is Bill Allen. He’s the director of the program in bioethics,law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida College of Medicine. We also have attorney Janie Siess. She argued a 2001 California case that set a precedent on
this matter.

Let me begin with you, Bill. You heard Jesse Jackson talk about how this was immoral, how it was unacceptable. Obviously, emotions are running high. A lot of Americans, myself included, don’t understand why it’s ethically OK to deny food and water to this woman. Explain it to us, if you will, from a medical bioethics argument. Why is this the most humane thing to do?

BILL ALLEN, BIOETHICIST: Well, because if Terri doesn’t, if Mrs. Schiavo doesn’t want this, then her wishes should prevail. And it’s not food and water. It’s an invasive procedure that requires an operation to give her fluids and nutrition, that she can’t swallow. And it shouldn’t be called starvation. It’s wrong to call it starvation. If this were withdrawal of a ventilator, you wouldn’t call it suffocation if it’s an appropriate withdrawal.

SCARBOROUGH: Would you put on the same level keeping nutrients, keeping food and water or whatever you want to call it from a patient the same thing as a ventilator or a respirator, where you have got a machine plugged in that is basically doing the work of lungs or other organs?

ALLEN: Yes, because it’s not the complexity of the medical procedure that matters. It’s whether the person finds it to be more of a burden than a benefit. And many people find feeding tubes to be that way.

My own grandmother, the nurses said you could hear her screaming all over two floors when they put the feeding tubes down her nose. And then she sat up and pulled them out when they left the room. So, they came in and tied her wrists down. She sat up and reached down to her wrist with her nose and pulled them out again.

I think that’s humane. If somebody regards it as something that they don’t want, that is what is inhumane. So, it doesn’t matter whether it’s feeding tubes or dialysis or a ventilator or even aggressive antibiotics. If it’s a form of treatment where the person believes that the benefits aren’t – are outweighed by the burdens of the treatment, they should be able to refuse it.

SCARBOROUGH: Janie Siess, let me ask you your response to his statements and also response to a lot of articles I have been reading talking about how humane it is, what a gentle death starvation is. “The New York Times,” in fact, had that in a headline just last week. Is starvation, is the deprivation of nutrients, of water a peaceful way to die, as some are claiming?

JANIE SIESS, ATTORNEY: Well, I am not a doctor, but Ronald Cranford, the same neurologist who is involved in this case, testified in my case in California.

And he described graphically, the process of death, and it was anything but calm or peaceful. It was gruesome. It was horrific. And it involved pain. Now, the other thing that we need to remember here is that we are not talking about a ventilator for Terri Schiavo, and we are not talking about ending her life in a matter of a few minutes when you remove that ventilator. we are talking about a woman now who is in the 12th day of a gruesome, prolonged death.

You are hearing reports that she is being given morphine. That’s for a reason. It’s because of pain. You are hearing that her eyes are sunken in. You are hearing that her skin is dry. Her tongue was too dry for them to give her the communion wafer, and she could only tolerate one drop of communion wine. That is because this woman is suffering. This is inhumane because there’s precious little evidence of what Terri would have wanted, and there is no evidence that she would have consented to this type of death. And that’s the real question. Does the person say to someone, “I don’t want to live in a disabled state?” But then the second part of that equation is, do they understand that to release them from that disabled state might sentence
them to this kind of death? And that’s the point that I hear so many bioethicists, including Mr. Allen, missing.

SCARBOROUGH: All right, Mr. Allen, I will give you the last word.

ALLEN: Well, I am not missing that point. I know plenty of people who have said, “if I have bone cancer and I am dying of bone cancer and the pain can’t be relieved adequately with narcotics, I want to refuse all kinds of artificial treatment.” It doesn’t matter what kind it is, whether it’s feeding tube or ventilator or any other kind.

SCARBOROUGH: Bill Allen, do you think she is a person still?

ALLEN: Well, I think she has lost the distinguishing feature, or she has lost the physiological ability for awareness, self-awareness, which is the distinguishing feature of human being or, if you will, even the divine image.

SCARBOROUGH: So, she is not a person anymore because she doesn’t have awareness?

ALLEN: If she doesn’t have awareness, which is the case in persistent vegetative state, yes.

SIESS: She is a person, and she has a substituted decision-maker, a guardian, her husband, who is subject to the highest possible fiduciary duty. And it is his job to see that her rights are protected, and that’s what has not happened in this case.

SCARBOROUGH: All right, Janie Siess, Bill Allen, thanks so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

So Allen’s remarks on Scarborough Country were even more shocking and dangerous than during his debate with Wesley.

Allen doesn’t claim merely that disabled persons such as Terri Schiavo lose their 14th Amendment rights because they can no longer independently exercise them, which was the gist of Cranford’s proposition.

Allen actually takes the argument a couple of steps further. He contends that Terri Schiavo, after becoming disabled, ceased to be a person.

Worse, Allen stated that it was perfectly acceptable to kill Terri Schiavo because she had lost “the distinguishing feature of being human or, if you will, even the divine image.”

“[E]ven the divine image.”

It took awhile for me to process what Allen said. And then I had to check the transcript — more than a couple of times — to be sure.

Why? Well, because the idea he was conveying is so shocking, so outside the bounds of reason for most people, and so abhorrent, I had to force myself to process the information.

But there it is in all of its stark, harsh, ugly reality: Bill Allen believes that because she was purportedly in a persistent vegetative state, unable to care or speak up for herself, Terri Schiavo “lost the distinguishing feature of being human” — she ceased to be a child of God, created in His own image.

And that is the proverbial bottom line of the death culture.

The concept is so deceptively and diabolically simple that the human mind instinctively overlooks or rejects it. If Terri Schiavo, Robert Wendland, and other disabled persons who are unable to independently exercise their rights are no longer children of the heavenly Father, created in His likeness, they are utterly expendable! From such a vantage point, there is no need to afford such disabled individuals due process or assure that their rights are judiciously protected. There is no need to wait until they actually die to begin harvesting their organs for donation.

And lest you think that Bill Allen is simply a fanatic on the fringe of current trends in bioethics, think again. Mr. Allen, who holds a law degree, as well as a Master’s degree in Divinity, is an Associate Professor of Ethics and the Director of the Program In Bioethics, Law & Medical Professionalism at the University of Florida.

The following comes from Father Frank Pavone’s most recent message to supporters of Priests for Life:

You may have seen on the news that I was at Terri Schiavo’s bedside during the last 14 hours of her earthly life, right up until five minutes before her death. During that time with Terri, joined by her brother and sister, I expressed your care, concern, and prayers. I told Terri over and over that she had many friends around the country, many people who were praying for her and were on her side. I had also told her the same things during my visits to her in the months before her feeding tube was removed, and am convinced she understood.

Terri’s brother, sister, and I read Scripture, prayed the rosary, and had times of silence during Terri’s last hours. We held her hand and stroked her head. During all that time, there was always at least one police officer in the room, watching our every move, and several more immediately outside the door. During those hours, one of the things I did was to chant, in Latin, some of the most ancient hymns of the Church. One of the chants I used was the “Victimae Paschali Laudis,” which is the ancient proclamation of the resurrection of Christ. There, as I saw before my eyes the deadly work of the Culture of Death, I proclaimed the victory of life. “Life and death were locked in a wondrous struggle,” the hymn declares. “Life’s Captain died, but now lives and reigns forevermore!”

As you may have also seen, those who killed Terri were quite angry that I said so. The night before she died, I said to the media that her estranged husband Michael, his attorney Mr. Felos, and Judge Greer were murderers. I also pointed out, that night and the next morning, that contrary to Felos’ description, Terri’s death was not at all peaceful and beautiful. It was, on the contrary, quite horrifying. She was dehydrating to death, and looked it. Her face had an expression of dread and sorrow. In my 16 years as a priest, I never saw anything like it before.

After I said these things, Mr. Felos and others in sympathy with him began attacking me in the press and before the cameras. Some news outlets began making a story out of their attacks and said I was “fanning the flames” of enmity and hatred.

Actually, there’s a simple reason why they are so angry with me. They had hoped that they could present Terri’s death as a merciful and gentle act. My words took the veil of euphemism away, calling this a killing, and giving eyewitness testimony to the fact that it was anything but gentle. Mr. Felos is a euthanasia advocate, and like all such advocates, he needs to manipulate the language, to sell death in an attractive package. Here he and his friends had a great opportunity to do so. But a priest, seeing their work close-up and then telling the world about it, just didn’t fit into their plans.

One of the attacks they made was that a “spiritual person” like a priest should be speaking words of compassion and understanding, instead of venom. But compassion demands truth. A priest is also a prophet, and if he cannot cry out against evil, then he cannot bring about reconciliation. If there is going to be any healing between these families or in this nation, it must start with repentance on the part of those who murdered Terri and now try to cover it up with flowery language.

Another aspect of the Terri Schiavo tragedy is that many people misunderstand its cause and therefore its solution. They think the problem was that Terri did not leave any written instructions about whether she wanted to be kept alive. In order to avoid any such problem in their own lives, they are now told that they have to draw up a “living will.” This is both erroneous and dangerous.

Terri’s case is not about the withdrawal of life-saving medical treatment, but rather about the killing of a healthy person whose life some regarded as worthless. Terri was not dying, was not on life support, and did not have any terminal illness. Because some thought she would not want to live with her disability, they insisted on introducing the cause of death, namely, dehydration.

So what good is a living will supposed to accomplish, aside from saying, “Please don’t argue about killing me, just kill me?”

The danger in our culture is not that we will be over-treated, but rather that we will be under-treated. We already have the right to refuse medical treatment. What we run the risk of losing is the right to receive the most basic humane care — like food and water — in the event we have a disability.

Our culture also promotes the idea that as long as we say we want to die, we have the right to do so. But we have a basic obligation to preserve our own life. A person who leaves clear instructions that they don’t want to be fed is breaking the moral law by essentially requesting suicide.

If you want to make plans for your future health care, do not do so by trying to predict the future. The reason you cannot indicate today what medical treatments you do or don’t want tomorrow is that you don’t know what medical condition you will have tomorrow, nor what treatments will be available to give you the help you need. Living wills try to predict the future, and people can argue over the interpretation of a piece of paper just as much as they argue about what they claim someone said in private.

The better solution is to appoint a health care proxy, who is authorized to speak for you if you are in a condition in which you cannot speak for yourself. This should be a person who knows your beliefs and values, and with whom you discuss these matters in detail. In case you cannot speak for yourself, your proxy can ask all the necessary questions of your doctors and clergy, and make an assessment when all the details of your condition and medical needs are actually known. That’s much safer than predicting the future. Appointing a health care proxy in a way that safeguards your right to life is easy. In fact, the National Right to Life Committee has designed a “Will to Live,” which can be found at www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/index.html and which I recommend highly.

Today, my friends, I will fly back to Florida to be with Terri’s mom, dad, and siblings and to preach at the funeral mass that will be held for her at 7:00 p.m. this evening. I will again convey to them your best wishes, and if you want to relay a personal message to them, you can send it to terri@priestsforlife.org and I will pass it along personally.

I don’t know about all of you, but I am just plain weary of hearing about, thinking about, talking about, contemplating death.

The world spent the past two weeks on two deathwatches, the likes of which I don’t recall ever observing before.

First, of course, there was the murder of Terri Schiavo. The world watched in stunned disbelief as Terri was dehydrated and starved against her will, against the will of her loving parents, and to the dismay of life-affirming people around the globe who had never met her, but took her into their hearts upon learning her fate.

I’m sure that, as they mourn now, it is small comfort to Bob and Mary Schindler, and their surviving children, Bobby and Suzanne, that their beloved Terri died a martyr’s death and will be remembered as the woman who woke up a nation to the insidious agenda of the death culture. My prayer for the Schindlers is that they do find peace in the years to come as Terri, through her experience, saves many other disabled persons’ lives.

For Christians around the world, the experiences of a woman named Mary Schindler, unfolding before their eyes during Holy Week, were a striking parallel to another woman named Mary who watched her beloved child murdered during that same week more than 2,000 years ago. The images of Mary Schindler being led in and out of that hospice, and publicly pleading with Michael Schiavo for her daughter’s life are forever burned into my memory. How many times during those 13 long days did you feed your own children or sit down to a meal yourself only to find yourself thinking about Terri and her family?

Easter morning was bittersweet for worshippers — including me — who gathered to celebrate the empty tomb of Jesus even as Terri still lay suffering in her hospice bed. For Catholics, Easter was also a time for concern, as the Pope was unable, for the first time since his 1978 election, to address the faithful gathered in Rome. But Christians also worshipped that day with the confidence that both Terri and the Holy Father would, like the two robbers crucified with Jesus were promised by the Lord himself, be with Him in paradise when their earthly ordeals ended.

Terri’s suffering mercifully concluded on Thursday, March 31, 2005.

How ironic that on the very same day Terri was released — indeed, just a couple of hours after her death — the spiritual leader of the largest church on earth, who had spoken out on Terri’s behalf, decrying the fate to which her estranged husband consigned her, himself suffered physical setbacks that would culminate with his own death today.

Did God use these two people who, aside from their Catholicism and deep faith, appear to have had absolutely nothing in common, to teach the world a valuable lesson about death?

If so, he first showed us a death that was untimely, unjustified, unmerciful, undignified, unwanted, prolonged.

And then, in stark contrast, he showed us a death that was timely, merciful, dignified, welcomed.

The London Times reports that Pope John Paul II knew that believers were gathered in St. Peter’s Square below his apartment windows. He told his aides, “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me, and I thank you.” They believe he was referring to the many young people who were standing vigil.

The Pope was also apprised of and understood the gravity of his condition. He knew he was dying and chose to do so in his own home, rather than a hospital. He asked for the story of Jesus’ crucifixion to be read to him and “made the sign of the cross at each text,” according to his spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. He reportedly told those around him, “I am happy and you should be happy too. Do not weep.”

Surely, had Terri welcomed death, as Michael Schiavo insisted, she would have given up soon, rather than holding on for a full 13 days. Her father and siblings talked of her fighting for life when they visited her, responsive almost until the end, struggling for air.

In contrast, it is reported that the Pontiff lay peacefully and serenely in his bed, his breathing shallow but unlabored. From Friday evening until his death, “the Pope lay for most of the time with his eyes closed. Among the prayers that were recited at his bedside were the words, ‘Leave this world, Christian soul’ and ‘Let the angels in the heavens welcome you and accompany you to the throne of the highest’.”

The London Times concludes, “[a]t no time did the Pope show any fear of death.”

Terri died the kind of death that no rational human being would volunteer for: painful, prolonged, agonizing both for her and the people around her. The true meaning of “euthanasia” is “good death.” Terri was indisputably euthanized, even though her death was anything but “good.”

The Pope, on the other hand, died, by all accounts, a truly good death. Serene, accepted but still on his own terms (in his own apartment) and, as we are taught in Ecclesiastes, in the right season. (“To everything there is a season . . . “)

The question now is this: Will we all learn from what we have observed over the past 2 weeks from these 2 very different deaths and make sure that the mistakes that led to Terri Schiavo’s murder are never allowed to be repeated?

Read what my dear friend, Wesley J. Smith, believes Terri’s legacy can be.

The following comes from Toronto Free Press:

by Judi McLeod, Editor
Thursday, March 31, 2005

Every time a rock is lifted in the Terri Schiavo tragedy, another conflict of interest comes slithering out.

The conflict-of-interest potential in the right-to-die connections among current figures involved in the case are only outdone by the Woodside Hospice board of director’s conflict of interest reality.

There’s the death-is-beautiful, right-to-die activist Michael Schiavo attorney George Felos.
Don’t make eye contact with Felos, who claims he can ascertain a person’s desire to die by “looking into their eyes” and letting their spirits speak directly to him.

A jumped-up volunteer at Woodside Hospice, Felos became chairman of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, which runs Woodside, and only came off the board about a year after Michael Schiavo placed his estranged wife there.

Then there’s Dr. Ronald Cranford, handpicked by Michael Schiavo to examine Terri and on whose say-so Terri was categorized in “persistent vegetative state”. Cranford is the MD who officially ordered Terri’s feeding tube removed on March 18. A neurologist, Cranford testifies in cases such as Terri’s around the country, always pumping the dehydration and starvation side. He was 1992’s featured speaker for the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society, which was renamed The Choice in Dying Society. (WorldNetDaily).

Cranford nicknamed himself, “Dr. Humane Death”.

A bioethicist, and a pioneer in euthanasia and right-to-die issues, Dr. Humane Death is a fully-fledged member of The Choice in Dying Society.

At least Cranford is not a board member of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.

Mary Labyak, CEO of Woodside Hospice has direct ties to the Euthanasia Society of America and Hemlock for Hospice, described by Hyscience.com as “an organization that seeks to accelerate the dying process.”

Everett Rice, former Pinellas County Sheriff (1988-204) endorsed Judge George Greer for reelection in campaign ads. Rice, a former board member for the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, hired Michael Schiavo while Schiavo’s guardianship proceedings were being heard in the courtroom of his longtime friend, Judge George Greer.

Senator Jim King, who originally upheld the passage of “Terri’s Law”, was a board member of Woodside.

Then there’s Gus Michael Bilirikis, Florida State representative 1998-2000 and between 2001-2003, who was on the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast board of directors.

As a county commissioner, Judge Greer was a working colleague of Barbara Sheen Todd (county commissioner) for eight consecutive years. Sheen Todd is also on the board of the hospice where Terri lingers.

Judge Greer’s fellow judge, Judge John Lenderman is the brother of Martha Lenderman, on the same board.

The mainline media has not reported on the myriad conflicts of interest connected to the Terri Schiavo tragedy, although any one interested can read about them on the Internet.