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The Jefferson Post

If you starved a sick dog or cat to death in North Carolina, you would be arrested. Your picture might end up in the newspaper, and people would shake their heads at such cruelty to a helpless creature.

Starve a pet, and it’s a crime. Starve a person—if they are in a "persistent vegetative state"—and it’s "medical science."

Rep. Virginia Foxx, in an interview Tuesday, characterized what is happening this week to Terri Schiavo as "just murder." We agree.

The physicians involved in Schiavo’s care assure us that she is not uncomfortable as she ends her first week with no water or food. They assure us that, even though, as the wire services have reported, there are no medical studies of whether that is true or not. Maybe they want to assure themselves, and not think too hard about an oath they took as they became doctors.

There is a time when artificial means of prolonging life should end. It is always an agonizing decision and it should be made based on the written wishes of the person involved. Failing that, it can be hoped that the person’s family members can reach an agreement as to his or her care.

Another case this week, this one in Houston, was perhaps more astonishing than the Schiavo case, but received less attention.

Sun Hudson was born five months ago with a rare form of dwarfism that is almost always, if not always, fatal. Most victims of this genetic disorder—in which the lungs do not develop properly—die within hours of birth.

His mother thought he had a chance. His doctors did not.

Under a Texas law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush in 1999, the doctors had the right—after a review by an ethics panel—of denying the child care. They did so, went to court and the judge ruled against Wanda Hudson. She held her baby as the breathing tube was removed, and he died.

We are dangerously close to a line that we must not cross. It has been crossed before, most recently in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Over a period of years, beginning with a post-World War I tract by two scientists, the disabled—including mentally and physically handicapped people, as well as those chronically ill—were first demonized and then gradually portrayed as criminals. An ugly phrase, translated literally as "useless eaters" was finally adopted by the government. These "useless eaters" became the first victims of the government, even as the persecution of Jews began.

Terri Schiavo was not suffering. There is a difference of opinion between family members as to whether she can make any progress or not. She is not on life support—she is having assistance with eating. Is that enough reason to end her life, especially by starvation and depriving her of water?

You would not do that to a dog.