Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation Applauds US Bishops for Reaffirming Obligation to Care for Defenseless
US Bishops Affirm Pope John Paul II's 2004 Allocution on the Moral Obligation to Care for and Show Compassion for All People Like Terri
Contact: Bobby Schindler, Terri's Foundation, 727-490-7603, info@terrisfight.org
ST. PETERSBURG, FL., Nov. 18/ -- By overwhelmingly approving a revision to the directives that guide Catholic heath care facilities on the moral responsibility to feed and hydrate those persons labeled to be in a "vegetative" or even comatose state, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) affirmed the Catholic Church's two thousand year old teaching that all human life is sacred and deserving of our care, no matter its condition. Terri's Foundation wishes to extend its sincere thanks to the USCCB for reaffirming this fundamental truth. (For the official USCCB press release go to: http://www.usccb.org)
Catholic health care directives were written long before Pope John Paul II's March 2004 address on "Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State." In this 2004 address, Pope John Paul II made clear that even persons severely injured, compromised or otherwise limited in his or her abilities, still retain their "fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care." The Pope also stated that, "the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act."
"Our fight continues every day to defend the lives of vulnerable persons threatened by laws which now have redefined feeding tubes as 'artificial life support' and also 'medical futility' laws that allow hospitals, nursing and hospice facilities and family members to abandon our fellow human beings to a torturous death by starvation and dehydration or by any other means," stated Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother.
"Our goal is to defend the rights of the severely brain-injured, the disabled, the elderly or anyone at risk of being needlessly killed, in the hope of preventing what happened to Terri from ever happening to another. And it is our hope that the Catholic community will respect this incontrovertible truth confirmed by the USCCB yesterday."
Terri's Foundation (www.TerrisFight.org) is dedicated to promoting the Culture of Life, embracing the true meaning of compassion by opposing the practice of euthanasia.
