Schiavo, 41, spent a full day off of nourishment and fluids today at a hospice in the Gulf Coast suburb of Pinellas Park, Fla. Her feeding tube was removed Friday afternoon after a state judge ignored subpoenas from Congress and enforced a deadline that lawmakers had thought they could thwart by declaring her a witness who must be protected for a future hearing they would conduct at her bedside.
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Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, raged against Congress in a series of interviews, saying on CNN that the government is "getting in the middle of something they know nothing about."

Republican officials declared, in a memo that was supposed to be seen only by senators, that they believe their attention to the issue could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.
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Outside Schiavo's hospice in Florida, tension and anxiety rose among the demonstrators who have turned the roadside into a small tent city. At least three protesters were arrested early today, including a man who said he is a priest and who walked toward the hospice demanding to administer Holy Communion to Schiavo.
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Republicans acknowledged that the intervention was a departure from their usual support for states' rights. But they said their views about the sanctity life trumped their views about federalism.

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation "a great political issue" that would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."

In the past two years, [Dr. Eduard] Verhagen, the clinical director of pediatrics at the University Medical Center, Groningen, has presided over the medically induced deaths of four extraordinarily ill newborns.
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A father of three who spent years tending to sick children in underdeveloped countries, Verhagen became a pediatrician with the sole intention of saving lives, not ending them. And that is exactly what he did until Sanne was born on his ward four years ago with a severe form of Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome, a rare skin condition. In the best-case scenario, she would live until her 9th or 10th birthday and then die of skin cancer.

Her skin would literally come off if anyone touched her, leaving painful scar tissue in its place.

The top layers of mucous membranes inside her mouth and esophagus fell away any time she was fed, which was done by tube.

Verhagen tried to evoke the kind of pain he says Sanne was in. He clenched his fists and mimicked the way she balled her tiny hands. Her cry was not that of a normal, healthy baby but the shriek of an extraordinarily sick one.

And her vital signs - heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration - reflected those of a child in extreme stress, Verhagen said.
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Her parents demanded an end to her suffering, which moved Verhagen to consider euthanasia.

For his efforts to end what he calls their unbearable and incurable suffering, he has been called "Dr. Death," a second Hitler and worse, mostly by American opponents of euthanasia.
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The pope has condemned infant euthanasia and Verhagen, indirectly, for advocating it. Hate mail from the United States bombards the hospital with comparisons to the Holocaust.

"My first reaction to most of the criticism is: ridiculous, uninformed," Verhagen said. "Then the question arises in me: How is it possible that people themselves feel free to say such horrible things about other people they don't know?"

posted by Blicero : 3/19/2005 08:49:00 PM