Extremists' behavior in Marine's death deserves much more media attention

I've written about this before, in a perfunctory sort of way, but is is one of those stories that continues to eat at me, for a whole range of reasons.

It surfaced in Madison last week, when a so-called "pro-life" group savaged the grieving family of a Marine who died after being critically injured in Iraq.

The group, Pro-Life Wisconsin, charged Hospice Care with murdering him, because it followed his directions in a living will and allowed him to die.

His name was Chad Simon, and he was a Marine staff sergeant from Monona. He suffered a severe brain injury while serving in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded, injuring Simon and killing three other Marines from his Madison-based Reserve unit.

This military website,BlackFive, has the whole tragic and moving story about what the Simon family went through in the nine months after he was injured last November. If you read the linked Journal Sentinel story about his death, you will find:

The Simons were active in their church and coordinated the church's Sunday school classes.

"Chad was just devoted to the Bible, devoted to living out God's word," friend Matt Meyers said.

You will also find that this religious Marine, knowing the risks of his mission in Iraq, had left instructions about what to do if he were unable to make his own medical decisions.

Regina Simon had a feeding tube removed from her husband about two weeks ago, in accordance with wishes he expressed before he was wounded, said the Rev. Jeff Mannel, pastor at Madison Church of Christ, and a close family friend.

"He did have a living will, and it was very explicit," Mannel said. "There was nothing to question."

Nothing to question, that is, unless you were Pro-Life Wisconsin, a holier-than-thou group of extremists who issued a vile press release which said:

Sgt. Simon died on August 4th, but he did not die from his injuries. Instead, he was intentionally dehydrated to death by the hospice center charged with his care.

"Sgt. Simon was a victim of two different faces of the culture of death. He was certainly a victim of international terrorism, but he was also a victim of America's rapidly decaying system of 'hospice' care," said Peggy Hamill, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. "Sgt. Simon died of dehydration, not from any sort of brain injuries. Sgt. Simon was rendered handicapped by the bomb in Iraq, he was murdered by those who were in charge of his medical care."

Sgt. Simon had filled out a "living will" stipulating that he did not wish to receive food and water if he were rendered permanently incapacitated.

Then, incredibly, the group goes on to plug its own power of attorney for health care, one that says no one can ever make a decision that will cause your death.

In an e-mail to its subscriber list, Pro-Life Wisconsin accused the media of a coverup:

For the most part, the secular media white-washed Sgt. Simon's death. Both the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal (sic) and the Madison Capital Times mentioned that Sgt. Simon was sent to hospice care, but they conveniently neglected to mention that his injuries were not life-threatening. [Surgeons had removed two-thirds of his skull, and he had been unconscious for nine months.]

When they discussed the cause of his death, they both reported that he died of injuries sustained from the roadside blast in Iraq. Of course, that is plainly false. Sgt. Simon died of dehydration, not from any sort of brain injuries. Sgt. Simon was rendered handicapped by the bomb in Iraq, he was murdered by those who were in charge of his medical care.

Perhaps one of the most tragic aspects of this whole episode was the role that his own living will played in determining his fate. Sgt. Simon had evidently filled out a "living will" stipulating that he did not wish to receive food and water if he were rendered permanently incapacitated.

Julie Grimstad, Pro-Life Wisconsin's expert on End of Life issues has given several presentations on the dangers inherent with so-called living wills. Sgt. Simon's death is a perfect example of how these documents can be used as death licenses. "When you fill out a living will, and you check these little boxes, you may be signing your own suicide note," said Julie. "This may be legal, but it's most certainly immoral."

Julie sees cases like Sgt. Simon, where there is a living will supposedly stipulating that food and water be withheld, as a first step toward euthanizing the disabled.

"Killing people in a medical setting lends an air of legitimacy to this cruel and inhumane way of eliminating disabled people whose lives are deemed 'not worth living.' Terri Schiavo and Chad Simon are cases in point."

When Hospice Care threatened a lawsuit, the group retracted and rewrote its press release to eliminate the murder charge, but would not apologize. The highly quotable Peggy Hamill had nothing to say to the Capital Times.

I, too, fault the media coverage. When a group like Pro-Life Wisconsin makes claims that outrageous, I'd say the media has an obligation to report them. Maybe some editors decided this group was just looking for publicity, so they weren't going to give them any. If that's what happened, it was a judgment call -- bad judgment.

This is a group that wields a lot of influence in the state Capitol and endorses candidates for office. Twenty-five members of the current legislature were endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin in their campaigns last year.

They act as though they are a mainstream group, when they are clearly lunatic fringe. But unless the media reports on this kind of misguided, loathsome activity, the public will be in no position to make a judgment.

Maybe this got more attention in Madison than I realize, but it appears to me that Susan Lampert Smith was the first to blow the whistle on them in a Wisconsin State Journal column, where she wrote:

Jack Schuster, the family's attorney, said Regina Simon made the decision after much soul-searching. A judge OK'd the removal of the feeding tube.

"It was all done legally. If they want to debate the morality, who are they to judge?" Schuster asked. "Hospice provided the highest level of loving care. To accuse them of murdering him is the height of immorality."

Schuster said Regina Simon wondered why Pro-Life, "if they were really so concerned about my husband, why didn't they contact the family before he died?"

Well, because it's not about Chad Simon.

It's about a group of publicity-hungry hard-liners that lost its favorite poster girl when Terri Schiavo died this spring.

It's not like their allies didn't try to stir the pot. Someone from the Alliance for Life Ministries sent e-mails to the Madison media before Chad Simon died, making allegations about his care.

We ignored them.

I'd like to ignore this, too, but it's so egregious.

The Milwaukee media has managed to ignore the story. Not a word about the outrageous claims by Pro-Life Wisconsin, as far as I can find.

This is one of those times when you can appreciate the power of Repubican radio. (A friend says we should quit calling it right-wing radio or talk radio or conservative radio. Let's just call it what it is. Republican radio.)

Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Say some liberal group was criticizing the doctors for keeping him alive despite his wishes in the living will, in which he asked to be allowed to die.

It would be all over Republican radio and in all likelihood would be a national story, with Rush, O'Reilly and the rest of the rabid Republican rat pack all over it, keeping it alive and fanning the flames. Remember Terri Schiavo? How could we forget?

They'd talk about it long enough that even the Journal Sentinel might decide it had to do a story to let the public know about Pro-Life Wisconsin, its ideas and its tactics. If people knew this story, I think they would have no trouble deciding who holds the moral high ground.