John Paul II is ill

The pope's condition appears grave.

"CNN reports the rights [sic] have been given and say it indicates the situation is serious. . . .Earlier today, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope's health had worsened. 'The Holy Father has been struck during the day by a high fever caused by an infection of the urinary tract,' he said."

Let's keep praying for him.

The knives are sharpened again

This notion (I don't do "memes") is getting a lot of play in the media: that the Pope has left a de facto "living will." What they really mean is that he has said unequivocally that deliberate starvation is different from, say, declining dialysis or respiration when death is imminent.

If anyone can find a clear statement of the "more flexible earlier position," please post it here. I couldn't find it in Evangelium Vitae, but maybe I'm hermeneutically impaired. If so, please don't pull my food and water.

Terri Schiavo is dead

She passed away around 10:30 this morning.

Vermont, the next euthanasia front

The New York Times says that the Green Mountain State is considering legislation modeled on Oregon's. Last line of article calls euthanasia "a civil rights movement." Someone forgot to send Jesse the memo.

Senator Clinton "Moves to the Middle" -- of What?

This story, in the New York Newsday, recounts Sen. Clinton's "repositioning" on issues such as abortion and the involvement of faith and morals in the life of the family. This might be the middle ground between, say, Barbara Boxer and Joe Lieberman, but hardly represents the middle between abortionists and pro-life (a.k.a., civil rights) advocates.

Here’s the highlight of the article:

"Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and nearly half of those are terminated," Clinton said. "Making contraception more accessible and affordable is critical to reducing the number of unintended pregnancies."

Clinton, who strongly favors abortion rights, went on to call her proposal a place "where people on both sides of the abortion debate can come together to reach common ground."

I don’t doubt Ms. Clinton is very bright and understands that the most unswerving pro-lifers aren't looking to contraception to avoid "unintended pregnancies." On the contrary; her language represents a broken, upside-down view of the role of sexuality and its blessings. Many pro-lifers understand that sexual union between a husband and wife is a reflection of the triune communion of God and our chance to participate in God's gift to us through sacramental marriage and the distinctly conjugal expression of love. When a child is the result of this love, it is as joyous and profound as the universe itself is recreated at the creation of another new body and soul. I'm sure there are other pro-lifers who take other views, such as the equal protection of every person (regardless of physiology or mortally-dependent relationships) under the Constitution. The pro-life movement is rich in understanding the significance of life and its creation. Until eschaton, fallen man will engage in extra-martial sex, it is naive to suggest otherwise. Dispensing jimmy caps isn’t a true or “mid-way” remedy. It's an encouragement to dissolution of the integrity of being; it's a trajectory in the wrong direction.

So then, in a faint echo of Kerry’s attempt to legitimize a Catholic schism in the American Church, is the real goal the splintering the pro-life movement? As we’ve seen in the past, only the abortionists and the mainstream media buy this "new again, old again" position. Remember Jocelyn Elders’ "Every child a wanted child?" Remember which crowd bought that nonsense?

Long Past Time to Act in Sudan

ABC News: Report: Darfur Death Toll Nears 300,000: "The death toll in Darfur has been underestimated and is likely to be near 300,000, British lawmakers said Wednesday, calling the international response to the human tragedy 'scandalously ineffective.'"

No, It's Not About Terri Schiavo Anymore

James Taranto, at Best of the Web, points to this brilliant piece by Mary Johnson, editor of Ragged Edge, a disability-rights magazine:

No; it's not about Terri Schiavo. And it hasn't been for quite awhile.

It's about us.

It's about each of us who thinks "I wouldn't want to live if I were a vegetable." It's about each one of us who thinks, as one blogger wrote, that Michael Schiavo has been "chained to a drooling sh--bag for 15 years."

But it's also about those of us who are those vegetables, those drooling sh--bags. Those of us who want to live but know we're a burden to our families. Those of us who fear "do not resuscitate" orders. Those of us who use ventilators, and who use feeding tubes. And those of us who can communicate with clarity only through artificial means. . . .

There isn't a single disability rights activist I've heard from who is happy that things ended up at such a sorry pass, and who isn't afraid that this will make liberals hate them even more than they now do.

Recurring in the conversations I've held with friends and loved ones on this topic is the notion, "I wouldn't want to be such a burden. . ." Those of us who wish to bob our heads in pleasant agreement may continue to do so but the implications of our tepid acquiescing strikes deeper than most care to think. Who volunteers to become a burden, outside of pathology? I vaguely recall the taboo suicide once held, too.

Apology

The posts this morning have me thinking about the insidious methods of corruption. Evil is not content in merely being evil -- it seeks to remove all legitimacy from others as well, to drag others into guilt, and through shared guilt, eliminate the possibility of reprisal or contrary action. I am reminded of this passage from Plato's Apology in which Socrates says that maintaining his moral integrity is far more important than maintaining his own life (my emphasis added):

Let me tell you a passage of my own life, which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that if I had not yielded I should have died at once. I will tell you a story - tasteless, perhaps, and commonplace, but nevertheless true. The only office of state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of senator; the tribe Antiochis, which is my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae; and you proposed to try them all together, which was illegal, as you all thought afterwards; but at the time I was the only one of the Prytanes who was opposed to the illegality, and I gave my vote against you; and when the orators threatened to impeach and arrest me, and have me taken away, and you called and shouted, I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death. This happened in the days of the democracy. But when the oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to execute him. This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were always giving with the view of implicating as many as possible in their crimes; and then I showed, not in words only, but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my only fear was the fear of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing. For the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong; and when we came out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home. For which I might have lost my life, had not the power of the Thirty shortly afterwards come to an end. And to this many will witness.

I remember a similar story on the History Channel of an early purge of Saddam Hussein's in which he gathered the Baath Party members for a meeting, announced there were traitors in their midst, and had the party members begin denouncing each other. Then he demanded that those not found guilty of disloyalty execute those who had been, making murderers of the survivors and binding them to him in their now shared criminality.

These questions we face make moral demands upon us all. We cannot simply reply, "this is a private matter for someone else" when we, our government, our courts are implicated in these actions, when our police stand ready to bar water from a dying woman by force of arms. I fear a similar dynamic at work in living wills: we have made our wishes known! If you haven't (or can't), then I'm sorry, but we've all been good citizens who've graciously and conscientiously scripted our exits and promised not to poop on anyone on the way out. We gradually, collectively, get used to denying life to the non-compliant. At that point, the reality of our collective guilt makes changing the evil policy much more difficult.

Insidious, as I said. Thank you, Plato, for remembering.

Triumph of the Will

This op-ed deals with the unspoken assumptions of so-called "living wills":

The [Euthanasia] Society [of America] moved into full gear in the late 60's and 70's with its introduction of the seemingly innocuous living-will documents. Eileen Doyle, R. N. writes, "All of the living-will type of legislation is geared to blur the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary care. The long-term purpose of right-to-die or living-will legislation is the great propaganda value in conditioning people, state by state, to accept that they have a right-to die. In some cases such conditioning may result in a duty to die."

We play a mug's game every time we utter the words "choice" and "privacy." By elevating the desires of the autonomous will to the sole determinant of all public policy, by accepting the premise that we can only locate the basis for any morality that hopes to be publicly binding in the whims of the individual autonomous will, we invariably are driven to allow the stronger will to prevail over the weaker -- we've removed any other criteria by which we might make judgment. Every argument we make against euthanasia that shares these premises, unexamined and unmodified, can only succeed partially, as a kind of technicality on which one specific person might humbly be permitted to continue her (otherwise morally unjustifed) existence. In the long run, this is a losing situation. Yes, we certainly should grant that people should not be forced to accept medical treatment they refuse, but we speak of legal and philosophic fictions when we speak of a right to choose manner and timing of death granted to us by the Goddess Privacy.

So I guess we're someplace in the middle of that slippery ol' slope...

You know how people have been saying, "If anything good comes out of the Terri Schiavo case it's that people will take the time to sign a living will" (or something to that effect)...? Well, this article made me wonder if maybe we shouldn't rush out and start signing our lives away...

Death on the March -- More From Netherlands/Netherworld

"The Dutch Health Ministry will soon issue its opinion on a proposal to expand the country's euthanasia policy to cover infants, the mentally handicapped and the demented, a spokesman said Tuesday."

Zimbabwe

Meanwhile, democratic struggles continue in Zimbabwe: "Police vowed on Tuesday to crackdown hard to prevent violence in Zimbabwe's election and international observers said they had intervened several times to diffuse mounting tensions ahead of Thursday's vote."

Freedom has been slow coming to Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has used torture and famine as tools for maintaining his political power. Here's hoping and praying that Zimbabwe catches the wave of democratization and throws out the scoundrel.

John Leo on the Bright Line We Just Dimmed

The Rev. Richard Neuhaus ... wrote, "Thousands of ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable, until it is finally established as the unexceptional." The Schiavo case is a breakthrough for persuading the public to lower the bar on moral constraints. Once we had a bright line between pulling the plug on patients kept alive by life-support systems and killing people like Terri Schiavo who are not on life support but merely being fed through a tube. Requiring clear evidence of consent is no longer required.

See the rest here.

Killing Joe Ford With Kindness

Joe Ford, a Harvard undergraduate with cerebral palsy, writes in the Harvard Crimson on what the Schiavo case shows about American culture today.

"The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency."

And this bracing passage:

"Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people."

Read it all.

Privacy Kills

Time's lead on the Schiavo story:

"The way Terri Schiavo's private tragedy has become a political issue in the U.S. estranges many people in Europe."

Boy, let's parse that one: first, the Schiavo case, where a woman has been the subject of countless public court cases, held at various public facilities (hospices, hospitals) and commented on by untold third-parties, was somehow "private," presumably until Congress "politicized" it. George Felos's association with the Hemlock Society, Dr. Cranford's advocacy of euthanasia for Alzheimer's patients -- those somehow shouldn't be taken as indicative of political or ideological axes to grind. Second, of course those Europeans are so much more sophisticated than we Bible-thumping naifs here Stateside.

I do recommend the article -- there's a quote from Rocco Buttiglione applauding the efforts of Congress.

David Brooks in Torment

David Brooks is such a noble soul, but sometimes he seems new to these "social conservative" arguments, and he doesn't quite get them. When Robbie George says "Always to care, never to kill," I don't think he's equating "care" with extraordinary means of prolonging life. Care can include food, comfort, hygiene, and respect; it doesn't require machines. Nor do I think the Terri Schiavo case necessarily involved extraordinary means. There are sworn affidavits on file that say she still has her swallowing reflex. If that's true, she should have been spoon-fed when they pulled the tube. It would have been time-consuming, but "ordinary." Feeding someone who can swallow food is never an extraordinary means; nor is it "prolonging" life. It's basic decency; it's sustaining life, and we do it for our small children, elderly parents, and other dependents in need. No one's advocating greater use of machines that go bing -- except the people who make those machines. Brooks says he has been "agonized" over this case. I believe him. But he doesn't need to be agonized. This is not a hard case. And George's argument is not saying what Brooks says it says.

Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit

The British Medical Journal had a study on false diagnosis of PVS in 1996: "The vegetative state needs considerable skill to diagnose, requiring assessment over a period of time; diagnosis cannot be made, even by the most experienced clinician, from a bedside assessment. Accurate diagnosis is possible but requires the skills of a multidisciplinary team experienced in the management of people with complex disabilities. Recognition of awareness is essential if an optimal quality of life is to be achieved and to avoid inappropriate approaches to the courts for a declaration for withdrawal of tube feeding. "

Dr. Cranford came to his PVS diagnosis after a single 45-minute examination session.

How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo

In How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo at The Weekly Standard, Eric Cohen locates the crux of the Schiavo tragedy in a misplaced emphasis on autonomy: "Treating autonomy as an absolute makes a person's dignity turn entirely on his or her capacity to act autonomously. It leads to the view that only those with the ability to express their will possess any dignity at all--everyone else is 'life unworthy of life.'"

Well worth reading.

Welcome, Treefrog

Thumos now has a second contributor. Thanks for giving in to my begging and joining, treefrog.

The Joy of Starving

I'm amazed that all good forces seem impotent in this Schiavo affair. This isn't a hard case, by any stretch. And her dh is incapable of eliciting any real sympathy from anyone. Yet here we are. Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about how it's not so bad to starve to death, after all (www.post-gazette.com/pg/05083/476836.stm). How could a satirist even begin to treat this material? Can it really be just what the sound-byte feminists say it is -- all about abortion? Is abortion-on-demand the fundamental value from which we derive all other policy and principle?

ABC News: More News They Refuse

ABC News has another story on the Schindler family's setbacks. We call your attention to this passage on page 2:

"Jeb Bush and the state's social services agency filed a petition in state court to take custody of Schiavo and, presumably, reconnect her feeding tube. It cites new allegations of neglect and challenges Schiavo's diagnosis as being in a persistent vegetative state. The request is based on the opinion of a neurologist working for the state who observed Schiavo at her bedside but did not conduct an examination of her.

The neurologist, William Cheshire of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, is a bioethicist who is also an active member in Christian organizations, including two whose leaders have spoken out against the tube's removal.

Ronald Cranford of the University of Minnesota, a neurologist who was among those who made a previous diagnosis of Schiavo, said 'there isn't a reputable, credible neurologist in the world who won't find her in a vegetative state.'"

Hmm. William Cheshire is obviously working out his "Christian thing," expressing his narrow, parrochial biases, right? After all, this unbiased Cranford doctor says that every unbiased expert would agree with him. Perhaps ABC can report that Cranford is the author of this, a passionate plea for removing feeding tubes from not only PVS patients, but also Alzheimer's patients.

ABC mentions that an expert who says Terri is not in a PVS is a member of "Christian groups" (cue scary music), but hides the fact that the most damning witness for Robert Schiavo is a doctor who is an outspoken advocate for starving the demented.

Unreal.

Hollywood Pro-lifers (Both of Them) Come Out for Terri

Mel Gibson, Patricia Heaton Get Fired Up Over Euthanasia Battle

More Bad News

Schiavo Bill Fails in Fla. Senate

Florida Gov't Bureau Seeks Food and Water for Terri

Florida Department of Children and Families is seeking to keep Terri alive by presenting new medical testimony that she is not in a PVS. The appeal goes to . . . . Judge George Greer.

ABC Poll

Here are the details on the poll that ABC used to say Americans overwhelmingly want Schiavo's tube removed. It's practically a textbook case of poll bias. Here's the first question:

"Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible. Her husband and her parents disagree about whether she would have wanted to be kept alive. Florida courts have sided with the husband and her feeding tube was removed on Friday.

What’s your opinion on this case - do you support or oppose the decision to remove Schiavo’s feeding tube? Do you support/oppose it strongly or somewhat?"

1. Terri was not on "life support," she was being given food and water.
2. Some doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible. Many others disagree on both points. Many also claim she has medically neglected.

More of the same. ABC has been disgraceful on this story.

The LA Times is Also Using the Schiavo Case to Start the Pope Death Watch

More glee at the eventual death of the pope.

Jeb Bush Urges Legislature to Take Action Again

Gov. Jeb Bush is working the Florida legislature again.

To borrow Michael Ledeen's phrase:

Faster, please.

Blogging the CT Scan of Terri's Brain

Props to K-Lo on The Corner for finding this excellent blog: a medical blog which analyzes Terri's case. The writer is a radiologist. His analysis of the CT scan from 1996 is worth-reading. All of which begs the question: where's the MRI? Why rely on technology that is over 30 years old, when imaging has made such strides since then?

Terri's Case Goes to Supreme Court

It looks pretty grim. The appellate court just denied the Schindler's pleas. Terri's only chance is the Supreme Court. It's a long shot.

Material Girl

We hope the "material" isn't C4: Bin Laden's niece plans pop career

Favorite quote: "Everyone has a black sheep in the family." Yeah, Cousin Tommy grows orchids!

Oh, yeah, and Uncle Osama killed thousands of people from all over the world.

Will No One Rid Me of this Turbulent Priest?

The Schiavo case is unleashing a lot of spirits of widely differing qualities and alignments. To witness the less seemly spirits in action, we present CNN on the Pope and the Terri Schiavo case:

Nobody at the Vatican is drawing parallels between Schiavo's condition and that of the ailing pope.

Apparently, though, CNN is comfortable doing so. Read on:

Still, the debate over Schiavo's fate has once more raised questions no one inside the Vatican can answer: What would happen should the pope become incapacitated? Should he one day require artificial means to breathe, eat and drink, how long should these machines be used? And, who would make the decision to pull the plug?

Is it just us, or do we detect a faint note of longing? This is the sound of an editorial team longing to give two plugs a tug, and one of them is only hypothetical and hasn't even been hooked up yet.

Schiavo's Parents File New Federal Appeal

ABC News: "TAMPA, Fla. Mar 22, 2005 -- Contending that Terri Schiavo is 'fading quickly,' her parents urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to order the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube reinserted and provide enough time for them to pursue claims that her rights are being violated. "

L'Osservatore Romano says Schiavo condemned to 'an atrocious death'

L'Osservatore Romano says Schiavo condemned to 'an atrocious death': "Terri Schindler Schiavo has been condemned to die 'an atrocious death' in a society that is 'incapable of appreciating and defending the gift of life,' said the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano."

NPR : Petra Haden Takes on Standards, and the Who

NPR : Petra Haden Takes on Standards, and the Who

Been listening to Petra Haden's new recording: "Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out." It's an acapella cover of the classic Who album. It's pretty cool. Check it out.

Judge Whittemore Refuses to Intervene in Schiavo Case

washingtonpost.com: "The judge said the 41-year-old woman's parents had not established a 'substantial likelihood of success' at trial on the merits of their arguments. Rex Sparklin, an attorney with the law firm representing Terri Schiavo's parents, said lawyers were immediately appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to 'save Terri's life.'"

Note the use of scare quotes at the end.

"Not the Correct Set of Jurisdictional Rules, But a Decent Set of Moral Imperatives"

Kathryn Lopez, who has been admirably and dogged pursuing the Schiavo story on the Corner, puts a link there to an excellent piece by the insightful James Q. Wilson at the American Enterprise Institute:

This is a tragedy. Congress has responded by rushing to pass a law that will allow her case, but only her case, to be heard in federal court. But there is no guarantee that, if it is heard there, a federal judge will do any better than the Florida one. What is lacking in this matter is not the correct set of jurisdictional rules but a decent set of moral imperatives.

That moral imperative should be that medical care cannot be withheld from a person who is not brain dead and who is not at risk for dying from an untreatable disease in the near future. To do otherwise makes us recall Nazi Germany where retarded people and those with serious disabilities were 'euthanized' (that is, killed). We hear around the country echoes of this view in the demands that doctors be allowed to participate, as they do in Oregon, in physician-assisted suicide, whereby doctors can end the life of patients who request death and have less than six months to live. This policy endorses the right of a person to end his or her life with medical help. It is justified by the alleged success of this policy in the Netherlands.

But it has not been a success in the Netherlands. In that country there have been well over 1,000 doctor-induced deaths among patients who had not requested death, and in a large fraction of those cases the patients were sufficiently competent to have made the request had they wished.

Not Good

Judge makes no immediate ruling in Schiavo case: "Armed with a new law rushed through Congress over the weekend, the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents pleaded with a judge Monday to order the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube reinserted.
U.S. District Judge James Whittemore did not immediately make a ruling after the two-hour hearing, and he gave no indication on when he might act on the request."

The Definition of Chutzpah

You may have heard the following definition of chutzpah: a boy kills both his parents in cold blood. Arrested and brought before the judge, he throws himself on the mercy of the court -- as an orphan.

James Taranto at Opinion Journal's "Best of the Web" reminds us of that old joke with an excellent deconstruction of the "marital rights" argument:

Till Death Do Them Part?

. . . According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.

The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forgo love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife, and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard.

But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive.

George F. Kennan, R.I.P.

Missed this obit of George Kennan, the architect of American post-war/Cold War foreign policy.

ABC News: Poll: No Role for Government in Schiavo Case

ABC News reports on a poll that indicates the American public strongly supports Michael Schiavo, wants Terri's feeding to end, and thinks Congress shouldn't intervene. We'll see. Color us dubious: if there's one thing Congressmen and Senators can do, it's count. If this were a real vote loser, we wouldn't have a near-unanimous passage in the Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House.

Judge George Greer and Wife-Beating Cases

For background on George Greer, the Florida judge who has repeatedly denied the Schindlers the permission to care for their daughter, Terri Schiavo, this article in The Empire Journal is worth reading:

When Helene Ball McGee if Dunedin, Fla., turned to Greer for protection against her abusive husband, Bobby Lane McGee in March, 1998, Greer rebuked her plea for help, saying that he wasn't "convinced that her life was in imminent danger."

In asking for the court order, she told Greer that her husband forced himself on her sexually, burned her belongings and said she was possessed by the devil. Greer ruled that she didn't have "enough proof" that her husband was violent because she said he had not been physically violent----yet.

Two weeks later, Helene McGee was dead, stabbed to death.

There's much more. Please read the complete article. Where is NOW on this?

Keeping Things in Perspective

While the Florida courts attempt to starve a woman, it's good to have activists try to limit euthanasia among pets. From Boulder, CO: "But 15 percent of the 7,600 animals the Boulder Humane Society takes in each year will be euthanized. That's not bad compared to the national euthanization rate of about 63 percent, local officials say. In some shelters, as many as 75 percent are killed.
Still, some activists and former volunteers say the numbers don't jibe with the shelter's motto that it finds homes for 100 percent of adoptable animals. They think that claim misleads the public into thinking the shelter is a no-kill facility. They say what's 'adoptable' is subjective and question how the shelter draws the line. "

Here's an idea: let's see if Terri is "adoptable" before we starve her. There is a family in St. Petersburg that would make an excellent candidate.