Front Royal, Virginia /PRNewswire/ -- The Population Research Institute wishes to add its voice to that of the Catholic Medical Association and other groups in support of preserving the life of Terri Schiavo.

Terri Schindler Schiavo, a Catholic, forty-year old Clearwater, Florida, woman has been at the center of a determined attempt by her estranged husband, Michael, to end her life by court ordered euthanasia.

Although the media consistently portrays Terri as "vegetative," she is obviously responsive, and, though impaired, capable of meaningful interaction with her family who simply "want to take her home and care for her." Terri left no advance directions as to end-of-life decisions.

Feeding and hydration by no means constitute "heroic measures" in attempting to preserve life.

Terri Schiavo is not terminally ill.

She has a loving family able and willing to care for her.

She is able to respond to love with love.

She is a human being, deserving of the love and care her parents are gladly giving.

The evil of euthanasia consists not in letting someone die a natural death by removing extraordinary measures, but in making someone die by removal of simple humane measures such as feeding and hydration, or the administration of a lethal substance.

Removal of food and hydration would result in a cruel, painful and unnecessary death for Terri Schiavo.

Any court ordered euthanasia, apart from the great evil of ending this woman's life, would also set an extremely dangerous precedent along the already precipitous "slippery slope" on which our society is already embarked.

No human being or judicial body has the authority to determine the value or quality of another human being's life, no matter how hopeless it outwardly appears.

Suffering does not detract from the value or quality of any life, rather it often calls forth the best in us which makes us most fully human at our best.

By definition, compassion is our ability to "suffer with" another in love, not treat them as an inconvenience to be removed from our midst in the name of "mercy" or "compassion."

We therefore wholeheartedly reject any attempt to end the life of Terri Schiavo.

 

Steven W. Mosher

Population Research Institute

Front Royal, Virginia

The Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of "overpopulation."