Who says New York doesn’t have the death penalty.

Just yesterday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court said that Dorothy Livadas had to die. The request to extend the one-week stay of her execution was denied.

Her crime?

Living too long.

It’s time to pull the plug.

She’s one flip of the respirator switch away from slipping away, one quiet little suffocation is all that stands between her and the great beyond.

And the hospital would like to see it happen sooner rather than later. That’s why its lawyers went to court to pull the plug.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Dorothy Livadas has lived a long and sometimes colorful life. Ensconced in a big East Avenue mansion, she kissed Jimmy Carter on the lips, hobnobbed with bigwigs and always spoke her mind. For 50 years, in publications near and far, the former social worker and journalist was frequently published in the letters section, opining on one thing or another. Earlier in her life she toured the country and the world representing, with her husband, Greek Americans, but for the last couple of decades she has been, for all intents and purposes, a dowager, a venerable woman of fire and refinement.

But time has done to her what it will do to us all, and for most of a year she has been in what her doctors call a vegetative state.

And at 97 they say enough is enough.

The problem is, her daughter doesn’t agree.

Ianthe Livadas says her mother is still there, that there are facial expressions sometimes that she recognizes, that are her mother’s soul, not just her mother’s body.

Dorothy Livadas made her daughter her health care proxy, and gave her her power of attorney. Ianthe Livadas is Dorothy’s flesh and blood and her legal guardian.

Or at least she was until she stopped going along with the hospital.

When the doctors said Dorothy should be unplugged and her daughter said she shouldn’t, the hospital unleashed its lawyers and took Ianthe to court.

Where she was stripped of the powers her mother had given her. The judge turned those over to a Catholic charity, a division of the local diocese, which promptly gave the order to unplug her.

Since then it’s been a legal fight.

A fight which now seems to be approaching its end.

Since Ianthe had her rights taken by the courts, the family home has been almost foreclosed upon, the utilities were turned off – even though Ianthe was living in it – and just this week there was a burglary.

And through it all, Ianthe has frantically fought to keep her mother alive.

Which is understandable. People typically love their parents, and want them to live. And sometimes love engenders an unfounded hope. Sometimes people want things that are not possible or realistic.

And Dorothy Livadas may be, for all intents and purposes, already dead.

But it is morally inconceivable that the decision to end her life should be made by anyone other than her family. This is not a matter of science, medicine or law, it is a matter of flesh and blood. It is not and will never be the business of doctors to overrule the wishes of an incapacitated person’s loved ones.

This is not an issue of when life ends or what life is worth sustaining, it is not about whether you or I would want to be kept alive under these circumstances, it is a matter of the primacy of the family. What is involved here is a battle over the power of life and death, a litigated war to determine whether a diploma and a state medical license trump the prerogatives of kinship.

This is not truly a pro-life fight, it is a pro-choice fight – with the principle under attack being who gets to make the choice. It is quite likely that the decision of the doctors – to unplug the ventilator – is the “right” choice, but the fundamental and determining fact is that it is not their choice to make.

This case illustrates an encroachment of the power of the institution and the state on the rights of families. A New York court has said that Ianthe Livadas is powerless to stop a hospital from unplugging, and consequently killing, her mother. That means that anyone – including you – can similarly be deprived of the right to make health-care decisions for their family.

And that must not be tolerated.

There probably aren’t any bad guys in this matter. Doctors don’t spend their young adulthood in school so they can kill people. They enter their profession to save life and alleviate suffering. They are angels, not devils. It is absolutely likely that the actions of the doctors in this matter are intended to render relief, protect dignity and administer mercy. They quite likely are doing what they think is best for Dorothy Livadas.

And all end-of-life situations like this are both trying and morally difficult. Heaven help anyone who has to go through this, for themselves or a loved one – or a patient.

But amidst the ethical, medical and spiritual confusions associated with ending treatment and inviting death, one principle must ever be true: The choice is that of the conscious patient or, when that patient is incapable, of that patient’s proxy or family.

And in a state whose courts are forbidden to kill killers, those courts should also be denied the power to kill enfeebled old ladies.

The decision, morally, must belong to Ianthe Livadas -- even if she makes the wrong decision.

Because blood is thicker than a medical degree.

- by Bob Lonsberry © 2008