Contact: Tom Shakely, Executive Director,
Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, 855-300-4673,
tshakely@lifeandhope.com

PHILADELPHIA, April 13, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Alfie Evans, a precious infant with an undiagnosed condition requiring a ventilator. Vincent Lambert, a disabled non-terminal adult who simply needs assisted food and water. European courts have ruled in two separate decisions that both Alfie and Vincent are to die. Alfie, by court order to physicians to deny oxygen to the infant against the parents wishes. Vincent, by court order to deny him food and water, starving him to death at the request of his wife. Vincent faces almost precisely the same fate as Terri Schiavo did.

To some, it might seem strange that some of the only voices for sanity in either case have come from the Catholic community. First, in Alfie's case, the offer to take the child and care for him in a Vatican hospital. And second, in Vincent's case, where Elio Sgreccia, a cardinal and bioethicist who defended Terri many years ago, is again pointing out the potential for recovery, this time for Vincent to recover from his present condition. He has stated clearly that Vincent "is not terminally ill and may still live a long time when treated with care." Denying Vincent food and water would be a violation of the man's basic human rights, Sgreccia plainly says.

"What we are witnessing is the increasing power of a global euthanasia mentality," reflected Bobby Schindler, President of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network. "Those who advocated for so-called 'limited' or 'reasonable' allowances for euthanasia in certain instances, or for assisted suicide, know that inevitably the 'limits' fall away once the primary reason for euthanasia captures the minds of a culture. And that primary reason is, in essence, the attitude that we need a way to remove undesirable persons whom those in power decide have a 'quality of life' insufficient to justify their existence."

"In practice," warned Schindler, "the right to euthanasia will always be primarily a right for the state to euthanatize its most vulnerable citizens."

The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network upholds human dignity through service to the medically vulnerable.