Speech given March 14, 2005, to the Florida House Judiciary committee

Survivor of a double brainstem stroke – unable to stand, she now stands for life; unable to speak – she now speaks out.

They wanted me to die. They did. They told my husband it would be better for him – to let me go. It would be better for the children – to let me go. They said it would be better – for me.

I was unable to move – just lying there. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even blink my eyes – But I was alive! I could hear - every - word - they - were - saying. “Shall we unplug her? Remove life support? We could just let her go. She will be out of her misery and we can go home.” And they were saying all this within five - feet - of - my - bed. Were they inconsiderate? Calloused? No. They considered me comatose – unconscious – a vegetable – – – carrots don’t have feelings.

They assumed I was already dead. Except one pesky detail – my heart kept beating – stubborn – like me. It just didn’t know when to quit.

Obviously I should die – or at least allowed to die – and if I did not do it on my own — well, maybe a little push would help. But we won’t have to worry about unplugging her – if we don’t plug her in, in the first place. So let’s just not treat her – and she – will die – on her own. But there was one small flaw in their reasoning – how do you “let someone go – If they don’t want to go? You aren’t letting them go – you are killing them. And I wanted to live!

I have come here from a great distance to speak for the millions disabled Americans living not only in your Florida or even in the United States, but in the entire world. Disabled people do not wish to be treated as special human beings; we merely wish to be treated as human beings.

Doctors make mistakes, everyday in Florida and throughout the United States. Lawyers and Judges make mistakes. Thank God we can correct human errors on a routine basis, most of us get second and third chances all the time. But if you allow someone to die, the game is over, there are no second chances.

At first the doctors told my husband, that I could not live through the night and they told him to contact a cemetery to purchase a burial plot. When I did somehow manage to live through the night the doctors told my husband that I could not possibly obtain a level of quality of life that would make saving my life justifiable. The doctors were wrong, my husband was right and so I am here to tell you about myself.

I was totally locked into my body, unable to speak, unable to move any muscle in my body. I was on life support and received all my food through a tube, at one point in time my tube was turned off for eight days and I suffered all the pains and agonies of starvation. I was in excruciating pain, in silence. I was on the inside screaming out; I DO NOT WANT TO DIE. DON’T STARVE ME. I WANT TO LIVE, FEED ME SOMETHING.

When they inserted a feeding tube into my stomach, thinking I could not feel. I could feel everything but I could do nothing. I felt everything they were doing. I felt every cut, every second. I had no way to communicate. The only one able to speak for me was my guardian.

I wanted to live and I feel I deserved my chances. I had a wonderful husband who fought for me day and night. When he realized I was in there and aware, he put a sign above my bed to alert people; this is a human being lying here, please treat her as a person, she understands everything being said to her.

Fifty years ago when Pastor Martin Niemueler looked back on his part in greatest orgy of murder the world has ever seen, he said.

“They came for the Jews and I said nothing, because I was not a Jew.

They came for the Catholics and I said nothing, because I was not a catholic. When they came for the workers, I said nothing because I was not a worker. When they came for me there was no one left to stand up for me.

What will you say when they ask you what you did when they came for the disabled, the feeble and the infirmed. Will you say nothing until they come for you or your children?

They have already come for me and I am still here. Now, mind you no one meant me any harm. Yet the good wishes of the foolish and the evil can bring death.

The measure of a society is how they treat the least of us. What we do to the helpless marks our souls forever. What we allow to happen to the disabled. Labels us forever. You have heard me, could you as a panel, kill me?