Through Michelle Malkin, I read this excerpt from Smut: A Sex-Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough by Gil Reavill posted at NRO. Mr. Reavill is fed up with the constant, indiscriminate, public airing of sexual content that makes it impossible to protect children. When I read this, I was reminded of something from Corrie Ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place.

When Corrie was a young child, her class at school read a poem with a section that “described “a young man whose face was not shadowed by sexsin.” Corrie asked her mother what this meant, but this being the turn of the century, such matters were not publicly discussed and Corrie’s mother merely blushed.

Corrie later went on the train with her father to Amsterdam. Her father was the proprieter of a shop that sold and repaired clocks and watches. He went to Amsterdam regularly to buy watches and parts.

During the return trip, Corrie turned to her father and asked, “Father, what is sexsin?”

Her father didn’t answer at first. After a long silence, he stood up and pulled his heavy traveling case filled with watches and parts and set it on the floor. He turned to Corrie and asked, “Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?”

Corrie tried, and finally had to admit to her father that it was too heavy for her to carry. Her father then said:

“Yes. And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”

Corrie then writes: “And I was satisfied. More than satisfied–wonderfully at peace. There were answers to this and all my hard questions–for now I was content to leave them in my father’s keeping.”

If only we could be as wise as Corrie Ten Boom’s father.

UPDATE (4-29-05):

Wizbang has the story about the father in Massachussetts who is trying to protect his six-year old child from information too heavy for a child of that age to carry. The school administrators trying to load young children with information beyond their capability to carry should be required to read Corrie Ten-Boom.

For some sailboat racing blogging, go to my sailing blog, Son of a Son of a Sailor. In the meantime—Whoo Hoo!

Sherri at Straight Up With Sherri is reporting that Mae Mogouirk’s guardian has had Mae’s Alabama family escorted from Mae’s room by security guards who remain guarding the room. What is the purpose of this? I can see no good faith purpose.

This will isolate Mae from those who want her to recover and LIVE. Can one purpose be to demoralize Mae to destroy her will to recover by making her believe that no one wants her to live?

Is it an act of revenge against the family who put a stick in the spoke of Gaddy’s plans to cause the death of her grandmother via starvation and thirst?

This brings to mind the story in the Old Testament of King Solomon’s judgment in the case of the two women laying claim to the baby. King Solomon applied a test which incontrovertibly revealed which woman was the mother. One of the women, motivated by resentment, cruelty and indifference to the life of the baby, assented to Solomon’s suggested judgment of splitting the baby in half.

Mae’s guardian has demonstrated that she is driven by petty resentment, cruelty and indifference for the well-being of her grandmother.

Judge Boyd needs to excercise the wisdom of Solomon in this case. Beth Gaddy has demonstrated that she does not act in the interest of her ward, Mae Magouirk.

Mae Magourik is an eighty-one year old woman who was placed in hospice by her granddaughter. The granddaughter ordered that Mrs. Magourik be deprived hydration and nutrition. Ms. Magourik has a living will requiring that she not be deprived of hydration and nutrition unless she is comatose or in a vegetative state. She’s neither. She, apparently, also has not been certified as terminal (meaning that her life expectancy is six months or less). Thus, if she is receiving Medicare, the hospice is in violation of Federal laws against defrauding the government.

Further, the granddaughter did not have a healthcare power of attorney–though she misrepresented this fact to the Hospital and the rest of the family. She provided the Hospice with a financial power of attorney–and the Hospice acted at her direction in contravention of federal and state law. I say that because, under Georgia law, the siblings have precedence over the granddaughter for making health care decisions.

The siblings and nephew discovered her ruse when the attorney for the Hospice looked at the file and discovered that the paperwork did not allow the granddaughter to make treatement decisions. The family traveled to Georgia to remove Mrs. Magouirk from the hospice in order to get treatment for her in Alabama. Also, the hospice would not insert a feeding tube until the family signed some paperwork. While the family was waiting for the attorney to arrive with the paperwork, the granddaughter went to the local probate judge and obtained emergency guardianship and a temporary restraining order preventing the family from moving Mae from the hospice.

The above facts can be found here, here and here.

As I’ve said before, I represent long term care providers. There are many people in nursing homes who have never signed powers of attorney. They are admitted, often with dementia but no legal ruling of incompetency. The responsible party (often children or siblings or other relatives) make treatment decisions or proxie decisions about advance directives. Guardianships are rarely obtained because they are expensive to obtain and maintain. Sometimes nursing homes can’t even find a family member willing to take on the responsibility of making treatment decisions. This leaves decisions about treatment and DNR orders in the hands of physicians.

When Michael Schiavo attempted to downplay the significance of withdrawing tube feedings by saying this is a common occurrence–he is correct. It is happening in health facilities throughout the country. Until Terri Schiavo, it was hidden.

Many in the health care profession think nothing of it. They have been trained in darwinistic pragmatism which holds the reductionist view that there is no value in life beyond the physical. If the physical is impaired–there is no quality of life in their view.

According to a commenter at the Anchoress, the local La Grange reporter in Georgia, Joe Martin, is laughing at those who call him asking that he dig deeper into the story about Mae. He is claiming that this is a “family matter.”

Do not be fooled by the claim that treatment decisions are just “family matters.” This is propaganda designed to cover those in the health care profession who desire autonomy to practice in a way that would horrify most of us if it were out in the open:

“Those who think hospice is the safe alternative to open euthanasia have been outfoxed. The euthanasia society has run circles around the well-meaning but naive right to lifers. So whether euthanasia is legalized openly or ‘back-doored’ through hospice, euthanasia is here, and it has been here for a long time. The National Right to Life Committee has known about the hospice killings for years, yet has refused to expose these killings.“

The reality of confining decisions like this to “the family”, is to subject grieving families to the manipulation of health providers who hold beliefs about “the quality of life.” It allows family members with unscrupulous motives and conflicts of interest to disregard the right to life of individuals–even in cases where there is a living will or advance directive requiring treatment.

Our government was designed to protect the rights of our citizens. We would not define a Muslim family’s desire to perpetuate an “honor killing” on its children as a “family matter.” We would not let a family discipline its children by causing serious bodily harm and term it a “family matter.” We would not let a husband beat his wife to death and call it a “family matter”.

Starving and thirsting a grandmother to death is not a “family matter”. It is a matter for our legislatures to address. This time, they need to get it right. Hydration and Nutrition should not be defined as “medical treatment”. Health providers should not have such total control over the health policies of our government. We need to loosen their grip.