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Proponents of medical killing invariably couch their defence in terms of “safeguards”. This might seem plausible enough in theory – but practical experience is quite another matter.
As practical experience shows, once the laws are passed and the Rubicon crossed, “safeguards” are very quickly watered down. In the Netherlands, for instance, “safeguards” have rapidly evolved from “adults with imminent terminal illness and intolerable suffering”, to children, and “on request”.
Even theoretically, as the Australian Medical Association pointed out in relation to Victoria’s legislation, the very fact that the law had to be hedged with so many “safeguards” showed just how inherently dangerous it is.
A recent case in America highlights just what kind of danger.
George Pickering the Third suffered a massive stroke last January. Doctors diagnosed the 27-year old as “brain dead,” and the hospital ordered his life support progressively shut off in a fatal procedure they call “terminal wean.”
But George’s dad, George Sr., felt in his gut that his son could make it, despite the terminal prognosis. His son just needed more time.
Nevertheless, doctors told the family that George had no hope of recovery. Both George’s mother and his brother agreed to take George off life support. Hospital staff even notified an organ donation organization that George’s organs would be imminently available.
Young George was just hours from being gutted alive and left to die. So, his father acted.
George Sr. took a gun into Tomball Regional Medical Center, barricaded himself in with his son and began a three-hour standoff with staff and police, seeking to give George Jr. more time on life support.
Even after he was disarmed, the father remained barricaded in, and even threatened staff and officers, to buy George time on life support.
Then, after three hours, George Jr. surprised everybody –except his dad– by squeezing his father’s hand, on command, three times…After feeling his son show signs of life, and hospital staff and officers acknowledging the signs of life, George Sr. surrendered peacefully.
George Sr. Fully acknowledges that his actions were illegal and dangerous. He’s willingly taken his punishment – nearly a year in jail. He’s also been vindicated.
George Jr. recovered completely. “When you see him now, he is a picture of health,” Smith said. “I don’t think he would have survived but for the fact that his father slowed the process down.”
George Pickering’s case highlights a creeping culture of paternalistic technocracy, where bureaucrats, judges and doctors are taking it upon themselves to make all manner of life-altering decisions for people, especially children and the elderly. Whether it’s overriding a father’s opposition to gender transition for his child, or killing elderly patients who are literally fighting to the death.
“Almost every day we see our rights to make medical decisions for our loved ones eroding,” Bobby Schindler of the Life and Hope Network, told LifeSiteNews. Schindler is the brother of Terri Schiavo, who died after her life support was removed in 2005, even though she showed slight signs of responding to her mother, doctors testified that Terri was in a “minimally conscious state,” and the judge deciding whether to remove life support admitted that Terri responded to her mother, though not consistently.
“Sadly, it resorted to a father having to use the threat of violence to afford time for his son to have that chance to improve,” Schindler commented. “While violence is never the answer and cannot be tolerated, one can understand the unconditional love parents have for their children and wanting nothing more than to give them the chance to recover.”
lifesitenews.com/news/dad-from-three-hour-armed-hospital-standoff-that-saved-his-sons-life-is-fre
This is not the only such case, either.
Last week, Madeleine Gauron, a Quebec woman identified as viable for organ donation after doctors diagnosed her as “brain dead,” surprised her family and physicians when she recovered from a coma, opened her eyes, and began eating.
lifesitenews.com/news/brain-dead-quebec-woman-wakes-up-after-family-refuses-organ-donation
https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/10/govt-euthanasia-bill-contradicts-suicide-prevention-strategy/ https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/08/politics-in-full-sentences-free-speech-partnership-schools-euthanasia/ https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/06/euthanasia-high-fiving-the-reaper/
