Life Matters
Living Will--No! Will to Live--Yes!
by Earl E. Appleby, Jr.
CURE's Statement of Purpose recalls that two Advisory Board members
who lived in coma for decades "taught us volumes about the will to live, infinitely preferable to the living will."
As I observed in "Life...Choose It or Lose It!" (HLI Reports, July 1992):
Those who have signed the misnamed "Living Will" have already chosen death, however unknowingly. "The Will," as the Washington
Post's, B.D. Colen (no closet pro-lifer) writes, "would authorize the murder of virtually anyone who filled out a Will,
lost consciousness for a period of time, and would in some way be incapacitated on regaining consciousness."
Living Will victims cited by Colen include "a person who suffers a stroke, loses consciousness
for a few days, and then regains consciousness and recovers to walk with a limp," "the person who is confined by accident
or illness to a wheelchair, although he may be perfectly normal in every other respect," and "the person who suffers a partial
loss of sight or vision."
"But are these candidates for what is clearly euthanasia?" he asks. "They may not think they are, but
if they have filled out Living Wills," he concludes, "they are completely at the mercy of whomever may be responsible for
their health, welfare, or affairs."
The Right to Die Society hailed legalization of the Living Will by the California Natural Death
Act of 1976 as "a good crack in the ice," boasting, "Its educational effect on the physician-patient relationship cannot be
overestimated." To survive this "education" you must learn the truth and act upon it. That's why the E in CURE symbolizes
education.
"In its brevity, the document is appealing," writes attorney Bowen Hosford, "but it is vague." (Making
Your Medical Decisions, Ungar, 1982)
Its key sentence is this: "If...the situation should arise in which there is no reasonable expectation
of my recovery from extreme physical or mental disability, I direct that I be allowed to die and not be kept alive by medications,
artificial means, or 'heroic measures.'"
Hosford provides this first-hand account:
A heart attack almost killed Lyndon Johnson long before he took the oath as president in the airplane
in Dallas. Later, in an auditorium at the National Institutes of Health, President Johnson told an audience of 500 about the
vigor with which he intended to promote health research. He reached out as if to embrace us in the audience and gave us a
grin so big that it crowded his eyes and forced them to squint.
When he ended his talk, the audience stayed in place for security reasons. The president was scheduled
to leave by a side door, near the stage. I had freedom to roam because I was helping reporters and television crews, so I
left my aisle seat and walked fast toward the rear of the auditorium.
There was a noise behind me, and I looked around. President Johnson was striding up the center aisle,
almost atop me, grabbing hands of people seated to his left and right,outwalking his Secret Service escort. I, who once had
a heart attack myself, jumped aside to get out of his way.
There was a man who still had no reasonable expectation of recovery, which is the language of the Living
Will.
Hosford, a nontreatment advocate, continues:
The document is also vague in identifying the treatment that it would forbid. The words medications, artificial
means, and heroic measures are sweeping. Artificial, for example, could mean a wooden tongue depressor.
Artificial means, Dr. Raymond Voulo warns, include "food and fluid the most basic necessities of life."
(The "Living Will" and Euthanasia, ALL)
"Heroic," Hosford advises, "could vary in meaning according to which hero applied the treatment." Does
it mean the heroic or extraordinary means used by Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and Rev. Joseph Fletcher, President Emiritus
of the Right to Die Society, to save their lives?
Adds Americans United for Life (Death With Dignity and the Living Will, Horan & Marzen, AUL):
Such loose treatment invites self-serving definitions of artificial treatment--what is extraordinary
treatment may change radically in any case over the lifetime of the declarant.
In "The Physician's Responsibility Toward Sacred Human Life" (Linacre Quarterly, November 1986),
Dr. Paul Byrne and ten distinguished pro-life colleagues conclude:
- Extraordinary Means Death
Ordinary and extraordinary means...have come to provide a pretext for coercive persuasion to accept the
imposition of yet another euthanasia subterfuge i.e., passive euthanasia and,failing that for its involuntary application.
"Extraordinary," a pro-life leader laments, "is an extremely slippery term. What is extraordinary?" (Death,
Dying and Euthanasia, University Publications of America, 1980)
Father Robert Barry, Dr. Paul Byrne, Prof. Charles Rice, and I state in "Life God's Extraordinary Gift"
(Eternal Call, Pentecost 1992):
We are united in assessing prevailing applications as pernicicous, prolific abuse of this elastic, elusive
standard with deadly consequences for those on the euthanasia hit list the aged, the infirm, and impaired....
Extraordinary means often represents the Catholic baptism of quality-of-life bioethics and means death
for the defenseless victim.
Do not let the victims of modernist mendacity include you or your loved ones!
The Church canonizes saints "who practiced such heroic virtue that they are worthy of emulation by the
faithful." Honor the witness of these holy men and women of God by practicing heroic virtue which manifests "cheerful endurance
of great suffering and unflinching confidence in God in spite of all human expectations."
"The euthanasians," Human Life International's Father Paul Marx reminds
us, "abuse words magnificently to their own ends." (Quality of Life, Guild of St. Luke, Ss. Cosmas and Damian, 1975)
While the specific wording of the myriad versions of the Living Will vary, their murderous intent remains the same. Further
examples of the deadly deceptions used in these suicide pacts include:
- Life-Sustaining Treatment
Living Wills that reject life-sustaining treatment, attorney James Bopp, Jr., of the National Center for
Dependent Persons, advises, means "food and water can be withdrawn, assuring death" to those Living Will advocates deride
as the biologically tenacious, i.e, survivors of previous euthanasia attempts.
The Child and Family Protection Institute reports (Understanding 'Living Will' Legislation, Janaro,
Family Policy Insight, March 1986):
There are in inherent amibiguities in any attempt to produce a general definition of terminal illness;
these ambiguities enable right-to-die advocates to manipulate such a general definition in order to obtain de facto legal
protection for...euthanasia.
In its anti-life brief in the Cruzan case, Concern for Dying, a prime promoter of the living will confesses:
The determination of exactly when a patient becomes terminal and prognostication of the proximity of death
is so medically inexact as to be meaningless.
Man is terminal from conception, but in prognosis euthanasia terminal becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
and a medical death sentence.
It would take a book--not a brochure--to list the lies anti-lifers use
to deprive you of your life and soul. Euthanasia is just plain murder which lies like right to die, death with dignity, passive
euthanasia, natural death, prolonging the dying process, letting nature take its course, futile treatment, DNR, artificial
nutrition and hydration, the gift of life, brain death etc., must not be allowed to obscure.
If you signed a living will, tear it up! Be sure to destroy every copy. If you know someone who signed
one, give them a copy of this brochure.
This is not enough to protect your life. That requires a mandatory treatment directive the Life Support
Directive, the opposite of the living will. For your free copy, contact CURE today.
