By Tom Harty
Between June 11 and July 7 of 1991, both of my loving and wonderful parents died after extended illnesses. Long before these two devout Catholics became terminally ill, they had their end-of-life wishes made clear in a “living will” statement as part of their legal wills. By including the wish that they would not be kept alive with the use of any “extraordinary means of life support” as the end of life approached, they left this earth on their terms and freed their survivors of the pain of dealing with incredibly difficult decisions. It was not euthanasia! It was not suicide! It was not “pulling the plug!” This type of “living will” was in 1991 and still is today a practice that is accepted by the Catholic Church. The “living will” my parents had is exactly the same type of “end-of-life” decisions that are now being mislabeled as “pulling the plug on grandma” and coming from “death panels.”
The demagogues and small-minded political pundits making these false statements are the same political people who label Social Security as a Soviet system, Medicare as socialized medicine, and President Obama”s opening of school speech as imposing socialist ideology on children. Social Security is not a Soviet system, Medicare is not socialized medicine, and the president”s speech to school children was not riddled with socialist ideology. Those who use these socialist and Soviet labels are either stupid, or liars! More accurately they are stupid liars!
Tom Harty
Kelseyville
