I posted an update about Mrs. Jones recently letting you all know that she had been moved to a long-term nursing facility. I learned yesterday that she has passed away. Texas Right to Life announced it, which I quote in full:
HOUSTON – Carolyn Jones passed away Tuesday from natural causes following her high-profile battle with the Texas 10-Day Rule. In May, a hospital committee pulled the plug on Carolyn against her family’s will, but she lived without a ventilator or dialysis for over 60 hours until escaping the hostile hospital in a private ambulance in the dead of night.Carolyn stopped breathing early Tuesday morning at the long-term nursing facility in which she resided and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Hours later, Carolyn passed away peacefully – on God’s time, not on a countdown forced by a hospital committee or at a time prescribed by state law.Carolyn’s husband and daughter, Donald and Kina Jones, labored tirelessly to protect her from death imposed by the 10-Day Rule. The Jones family is grateful for countless concerned well-wishers and supporters who sent love as well as donations to Carolyn’s aid. The generosity of people from across the United States afforded the Jones family 43 extra days to cherish with their wife and mother whose life would have otherwise been cut short in May. Texas Right to Life is honored to have played some small role in aiding Donald and Kina as they endured this tragic circumstance.Texas Right to Life requests prayers and privacy for the Jones family, and we pray that Carolyn is at rest now with our Heavenly Father.
I, like Texas Right to Life, am very grateful that Mrs. Jones was able to pass away in her own time, with appropriate care maintained, and not because her care had been prematurely withdrawn in order to hasten her death. I am grateful that she was given more time with her family and they with her. That is how it should be for every patient and family. No one should have their death hastened against their will by the withdrawal of care.
What this family went through to allow that to happen because of the state of Texas law is diabolical and must be stopped. And, for those who accuse those of us who oppose TADA of trying to keep "corpses" alive (appalling, disgusting language I've heard repeatedly, even during testimony by a Catholic hospital administrator "ethicist" in opposition to the reform efforts this session), and including by the Usual Suspects: NOTE that when it was Mrs. Jones' time, it was her time. No one denies that. But it should not be someone's time because a doctor or hospital decided to take away their effective life-sustaining care in order to hasten their death because they didn't think that life was worth living or had value. This is a distinction with a difference. What TADA allows doctors and hospitals to do is eugenics and euthanasia, which are not moral or ethical. Nor should this practice be legal.
Let us pray for the repose of Mrs. Jones' soul and for comfort to her family in their time of loss and grief. As we say in Orthodoxy: Memory Eternal! ☦
I will now add her to my diptychs for the reposed, as I have Chris Dunn, other actual or would-be victims of TADA, my own family members, friends, etc., as is the practice of Catholics and Orthodox alike.
Let us also offer prayers of thanksgiving for Texas Right to Life and those who worked to help the Jones' - whether they donated, prayed, helped in the transfer of her - or did some combination of things; the other families put in harm's way by this law (and it's happening continually); and those that utilize it. We must never cease to be grateful and thankful. Perhaps you could even make a donation to TRTL in honor of Mrs. Jones. Let us also pray incessantly for this law to be abolished one way or the other.
Thanks for reading!
