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GUEST COLUMN
5/01/2006 Texas Execution of An Innocent Nearing By Carrie K. Hutchens Texas is getting ready for another execution. Not the execution of a criminal found guilty in any court of law, but rather, of an innocent woman. Her judge and jury supposedly being some ethic's committee associated with St. Lukes in Houston, Texas. That's right. Judge and jury is an ethics committee that hasn't shown its face to the public. How do we know it isn't made up of serial killers, psychopaths and the like? We don't. Texas law may allow for a hospital's ethic's committee to decide to terminate "futile" care. However, who decides who is on this committee? What are the qualifications? Who deems these people to qualify as an authority over such life and death matters? Who screens them? Who appoints them? Who supervises them? Who supervises the appointer? Who supervises the hospital? Is anyone held accountable or is this a free ride to kill off those deemed (by someone) as unworthy to live? Andrea Clark is a human being -- not some stray cat or dog to be put to sleep because of inconvenience or not meeting some stranger's ideal of quality of life. But it seems like there are a great many strangers in this world that are self-appointed authority on a quality that is none of their business. That's right! Absolutely none of their business. Andrea Clark is a 54 year old open-heart surgery survivor. (January surgery.) She also survived bleeding on the brain. And though "survivor" is what she has thus far proven to be -- she is being condemned for needing the assistance of a ventilator? It doesn't matter that she is neither in a coma nor brain dead? It doesn't matter that ventilator usage does not necessarily equal pending death and/or horrendous disability? Doesn't matter that ventilators are often used as a temporary care tool to help patients through a crisis? Just matters what some anonymous committee thinks is futile by their personal standards? Quality of life that is not acceptable to one, may be quite acceptable to another. Who decides? Shouldn't it be up to the person, whose life it is? (Imagine that -- a person deciding about his or her own life. What a concept.) I'm sitting here trying to figure out who ran in, grabbed other people's right to life and turned over the authority of that right to others. Just who did that? When did they do that? How did they do that? So many people started screaming about Tom Delay (for one) and his interference in the Terri Schiavo case. How dare he try to interject himself and the government in a "personal family matter"? Rational me, please. (Give me a rational explanation.) If it was wrong for the government to get involved in a "personal family matter" in the Schiavo case -- why is it then acceptable for the government and private business to get involved in a "personal family matter" in the Andrea Clark case? Terri Schiavo was killed off because the court decided it was "her wish" and wishes must be granted. On the other hand, Andrea Clark must be killed off in spite of her wishes and the wishes of her family? I guess wishes only must be granted when it is the wish of the power players in any given case. This isn't something to blow off or take lightly. To so easily kill off the helpless is definitely a sign of the times. To do so with such righteous determination is all the proof that is needed. The world hasn't simply gone mad -- it has gone murderously so! Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Other work by Carrie Hutchens: Media Contradicts Media Contradicting Media
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