“Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”

—quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

Here in Houston, a woman has been scheduled to die by St. Luke’s hospital because the medical ethics committee has deemed her life “miserable, and not worth living.” She is 54, fully cognizant, insured, and wants to live. Her family wants her to live. The hospital does not. They will remove her from life support on April 30th. Such an intent is a death sentence, because Houston hospitals have a policy that once the medical treatment of a patient has been deemed “medically futile”, no other hospital in the area will accept transfer of that patient to their facility.

Frankly, I thought this was a hoax when I first read about it. But I’ve found some local news coverage of it, which somewhat indicates it’s not – though the information is still primarily from the family.

The first conservative blogger to pick this up was Right Wing News, who found this sad story posted, of all places, by a DU’er in the Democratic Underground. As you can imagine, the DU’ers are a little confused about how to handle a forced euthanasia case. When it was Terry Schaivo, they couldnt wait to see her die. But now that it’s one of their own, well…umm…suffice it to say, they’re conflicted. Melanie Childers is the DU’er who posted the story hoping for help from her fellow DU’ers. It’s not been exactly forthcoming, so the conservative blogs have stepped into the gap. See the list below for other sources of coverage.

This story was brought to my attention by a friend who is very ill himself, in the hospital, and heavily medicated. And now he’s scared. What will happen to him if an ethics committee arbitrarily decides he’s in too much pain or “unfixable” and therefore his life isn’t worth living?!

Such a worry isn’t relegated to only those who have health problems. The sanctity of life is no longer sacred to our society and health professionals. The inalienable right to life – as guaranteed by the Constitution – is not a mere commodity to be debated by the medical community!! They have no right to pick and choose who lives or dies.

Remeber that quotation by Martin Niemoller, “First they came for…” I’ve since re-worded it:

First they came for the inconvenient unborn –
but I was already born, so I said nothing.

Then they came for Terry Schaivo –
but I was not brain damaged, so I said nothing.

Then they came for Andrea Clark –
but I was still healthy, so I said nothing.

Then they came for me, because I was too old –
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Andrea Clark’s sister is trying very hard to distance her case from the Schiavo case. I don’t blame her, Schiavo’s case ended in disaster! But despite Childers’ protestations, they are very much the same – both Terry and Andrea’s lives have been judged worthless by other, healthier human beings. The culture of death that is espoused by Liberals everywhere has made sure that those condemned to death have no choice in the matter, because their lives are inconvenient, too costly, or in some other way, deemed not worth living. As DANEgerus commented over at RWN:

The irony…is that the Terri Schiavo debacle has made it so much more difficult.

Do you think any Congressman might intervene?

Politics only mattered for Terri because her husband could profit and recruited activists to back his claims that Terri’s family, friends and faith didn’t matter…

Denied choice… Terri’s loss clearly damages this woman’s… choice.

RWN has another update. Texas Rainmaker has another round-up with tons of contact information. Other conservative bloggers carrying the story are Wizbang, Sister Toldjah, blogHouston, Michelle Malkin, ProLife Blogs, IMAO, Lifelike Pundits, My VRWC, BlogsforTerri, Chez Diva, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Lone Star Timesand Blue Crab Boulevard. So far. There will be more – many more. Help spread the word.