12-November-2003 -- Catholic World News Brief
Tallahassee, Florida, Nov. 12 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has asked an appeals court in Florida to throw out a case by Michael Schiavo charging that the law enacted to allow the governor to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was unconstitutional. Meanwhile, Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd defended Terri's Law in court by noting the legislature's superiority to the courts in deciding law.
"The Legislature's role in establishing public policy is paramount and its role in regulating the actions of the other branches is significant," said Byrd's brief.
In related news, the Bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, has issued a strong statement defending the right to life of the severely disabled Florida woman. Bishop Robert Vasa stated clearly, "The Catholic Church teaches that hydration and nutrition are simply water and food."
Of note, Bishop Vasa has studied the Church's position on such matters in depth as his diocese is in Oregon which has legalized doctor-assisted suicide.
The statement released Saturday says:
"These must always be provided as long as the food or water itself or the method of delivery is not unduly burdensome to the patient. There does not appear to be any indication from Terri that the provision or the method of provision of food and water is burdensome to her.
"The one 'burden', which so many seem so determined to lift from her, is that one thing that allows Terri to continue to be a living breathing human person, life itself. Life itself cannot be the burden from which we in the Catholic Church seek to deliver the faithful. This is the Assisted Suicide attitude.
"Life is a grace and a blessing and yes the living of that life does entail some burdens, sometimes great burdens, but the solution can be neither murder nor suicide-- these are offenses against life itself and the Lord who gives it.
"Terri is alive. She is kept alive by the same things that keep me
alive-- food, water, air. Her disability deprives her of the ability to ingest
these things, it does not deprive her of the ability to digest them. She may
well die in the future from an inability to digest food but it would be murder
to cause her death by denying her the food she still has the ability to digest
and which continues to provide for her a definite benefit-- life itself."