Florida Eliminates “Useless Eater”

…(as such human beings in the image and likeness of God were called under a notable historical regime some years back).  A reader writes:

I’ve been following your posts on human life issues, and as a fellow pro-life Catholic myself, I am very concerned, as you are, about the myriad of anti-life trends in our culture, not only with respect to abortion, but also with increasing stories in the news about government abuse of parental rights, and government sanctioned neglect of babies left to die, such as what has been going on in the UK and Canada. I am sad to say that I came across another disgusting and heartwrenching story just today – this time here on our own soils in Florida – that makes me seriously have to wonder at times if I’m really living in the United States of America or some communist country.

Reading stories like this makes me angry, and my heart goes out to that poor mother and her family. But it’s also a call for us as a people of faith to do even more to promote the Gospel and a Culture of Life, as it is abundantly clear that our society desperately needs it now more than ever.

The story really has to be read to be believed. It’s like something out of the Soviet Union. Here is Marie Freyre, who you can see was a suffering vegetable begging for sweet release from a cruel existence that could cost the state of Florida a little money.

And here is the disgusting story:

Even after Marie Freyre died alone in a nursing home 250 miles from the family in North Tampa that loved her, Marie’s mother had to fight to bring her home.

In March 2011, state child protection investigators took 14-year-old Marie from her mother, Doris Freyre, claiming Doris’ own disabilities made it almost impossible for her to care for Marie, who suffered from seizures and severe cerebral palsy. But a Tampa judge signed an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with in-home nursing care around the clock.

Florida health care administrators refused to pay for it, although in-home care can be demonstrably cheaper than care in an institution. Child welfare workers ignored the order completely.

Two months later, Marie was strapped into an ambulance for a five-hour trip to a Miami Gardens nursing home, as her mother begged futilely to go with her.

Marie died 12 hours after she arrived.

“Since the state of Florida took custody of my daughter, I would like the state of Florida to bring me back my daughter,” Freyre, 59, said at a May 9 court hearing, 12 days after her daughter died.

“They kidnapped my daughter. She was murdered,” said Freyre. “And I want my daughter back.”

The last days of Marie Freyre, chronicled in hundreds of pages of records reviewed by the Miami Herald, are a story of death by bureaucratic callousness and medical neglect.

Read the whole God-damned (I am speaking with exact theological precision, not swearing) thing. Monstrous evil was done here by faceless bureaucrats who preferred that a mother be torn from her child and that child die rather than their bean counting be interfered with. Monstrous evil. In a civilized country, this gravely wronged mother would be awarded hundreds of millions in damages and the bureaucrats who ordered this selfish cruelty would be jailed for the rest of their natural lives. If you are a lawyer living in Florida, I hope you contact this mother and, together with her, embark on extracting from the state in justice many times the pittance it would not pay out in mercy. A bureaucracy has no soul and deserves no mercy from God or man when it fails this egregiously. May the monsters who made this choice find mercy from God for their miserable souls. May the budget and the system find only pitiless retribution. And may this mother find solace from Christ crucified and her daughter find eternal light and peace in his embrace. Mother Mary, pray for every human being involved in this tragedy.