Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post recently participated in an online chat. He was pressed about why he considered Terri Schiavo’s situation to be similar to the death of Tom DeLay’s father:

Evansville, Ind.: You said, “As I wrote last week, there have been many, many cases like this (including, we now know, that of Tom DeLay’s father), that didn’t rate a paragraph in the paper.” But DeLay’s father’s had a brain hemorrhage and broken ribs; he needed a tracheotomy and ventilator to assist his breathing; and his body was full of infections. Terri Schiavo’s vital functions are working perfectly well; she simply needs a feeding tube because she cannot swallow on her own.

Unlike Terri Schiavo, he was in a state of steady deterioration and at death’s imminent doorstep within days of his accident. Unlike the Schiavo case, there was a family consensus among the DeLays and no dispute over what the father would have wanted. Moreover, DeLay was not the primary decision-maker in the family’s choice to withhold heroic treatment. That role fell to his mother and another brother and sister.

Why say they’re similar?

Howard Kurtz: Similar in this respect: The family had to make a decision on whether to end the life of a seriously ill person with no realistic hope of recovery. Obviously the medical details of every case are different, and in some cases family members are in agreement and in others they’re not. But the question, which the Schiavo case has underscored, is whether family members, in consultation with doctors, get to make the decision, or whether government gets to intervene.

There is one very vital difference between Terri Schiavo’s case and that of Mr. DeLay which Mr. Kurtz and his ilk are glossing over. Mr. DeLay was about to die within a number of days in spite of any efforts to the contrary. Terri Schiavo was in no danger of dying as long as her basic needs for food, water and air were met; needs shared by every human being on this planet.

Anyone who attempts to downplay this difference is either woefully ignorant, completely lacking in critical thinking skills, or they have an agenda. Those who are ignorant or thickheaded can be pitied. It’s those with an agenda who are dangerous. Their underhanded attempts to create a so-called “Right To Die” for those who are not actually dying is nothing more than demanding the power to have the weak and disabled “put out of our their misery for our their own good.”

There is a vast difference between ceasing to struggle when a battle has already been lost and actively killing someone who is not engaged in a battle for their life.

When death cannot be stopped, continuing treatment can only cause harm. That is the premise of a legitimate right to die. For example, a patient suffering from incurable cancer cannot be saved by doing chemotherapy. If they’re given chemo anyway, not only is the patient still dying, they’re also made more miserable by chemotherapy’s side effects.

When death is not near, as in Terri’s case, having a doctor stop food and water violates the cardinal rule of medicine: “First do no harm.” Without this rule in place, we set the practice of medicine back 2,400 years to the time before the Hippocratic Oath; a time when doctors might not have the patient’s best interests at heart.

Without a solid prohibition against taking life, it is one small step to move from a “Right To Die for the Living“ to a “Duty To Die” and society killing the unwanted and defenseless without regard for their “wishes.” This mistake has been made in the past with devastating consequences. I pray that our country realizes the danger of this path before we also reenter the meat grinder of history because we ignored its lessons.

(Also be sure to read this article on euthanasia.)

(HT: Michelle Malkin)