Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide
(LifeSiteNews) –– Almost every morning, I’m awoken by bumping and scraping. It’s my wheelchair-bound husband on his way to the bathroom. His indoor chair is not meant to be self-propelled; he moves it by kicking his feet against the floor and hanging onto doorframes. The noise is a reminder that I must get out of bed, make my husband’s breakfast and lunch, and get his electric wheelchair out of the outdoor cupboard. Eventually I will have to get the portable ramp and lay it here and then there so that my husband can get to the street and zoom off to work. Almost six years after his brain tumor was removed, he was discovered to have spinal tumors. Like the brain tumor, they’re not malignant. But like the brain tumor, they’re inconveniently placed. And I am so, so grateful for the bumping and scraping, for they mean my husband is alive and (literally) kicking.
Reading about Margo Naranjo, a young woman left severely disabled by a careless driver in Nacogdoches, Texas, on June 16, 2020, is heartrending, particularly because I began the story at the penultimate chapter: Margo’s fiancé is now engaged to someone else, and her parents have (or had) decided to end her life by removing her clinically assisted nutrition and hydration. But that’s not how the story started. It started with hope.
Margo’s mom and dad, Cathy and Mike, have offered public prayers over social media almost every day since their daughter’s accident and written frankly about the details of her care. Unfortunately, they have now removed the four-year account from public view, which means it will be hard for almost everyone who saw that disturbing video detailing the plans for 28-year-old Margo’s death and funeral to know the whole story. I am thankful that I had time to read the beginning.
In his earliest posts, Mike is grateful that Margo survived. He is determined to be hopeful and upbeat, to trust in God, to pray for a miracle, to be grateful for all the love and support his family is receiving. He is a fan of neither euthanasia nor euphemisms. On October 18, 2020, when he was still absolutely determined to keep her alive and give her all the help she needed, Mike wrote the following:
The first couple of days after the accident I was in a complete fog. We had a trauma surgeon suggesting that we put Marge on ‘comfort care’! I can’t remember if I shared this before or not, so forgive me if you have heard this before, but I did not know what comfort care was and figured that would be good for Margo. Cathy Naranjo quickly brought me up to speed in that ‘comfort care’ is a euphemism for drugging your daughter up with morphine and letting her die.
That certainly did not help my mental state.
Desperately needing advice, Mike got the contact details for an old high school acquaintance who had become a brain injury expert:
5 minutes later I am on the phone with world-renown brain trauma specialist Dr. David Cifu. Look up his credentials – they are quite impressive. When I think of David I am reminded of that TV show House. Where Dr. House is brilliant, out of the box, somewhat eccentric, can come off a little abrasive […] but mostly a genius. I could barely get the words out of my mouth, [but] David asked me three questions [that] gave me exactly what I needed – HOPE! I was completely broken and while he made no promises, he shared his experiences and immediately rejected the notion of comfort care. For 4 months, I have been thinking about that day and how in the world do I know someone like him and even more bizarre get a phone consultation and guidance from him.
By the way, when Cathy told viewers of that disturbing video how her daughter said she wouldn’t want to be kept alive by life support, it wasn’t a convenient fiction. On November 1, 2020, when Mike was still committed to Margo’s recovery, he wrote the following:
For the first few days after the accident, Margo’s condition seemed hopeless, she was barely alive, not moving, in a deep coma, and her surgeon was recommending ‘comfort care’. I have come to despise the term comfort care as it is misleading in what the purpose is. I have shared before that it is a euphemism for drugging up your daughter and letting her die. Here is some irony- just a couple of weeks before, over Memorial Day weekend, our family was together at the beach in North Carolina, and the conversation came up about what we would want if we had to live on life support. All of us, except Cathy Naranjo (the most compassionate of the group), said we would not want to live that way and that we would want the plug to be pulled. It was also ironic that Margo had a similar conversation with Austin [her fiancé], and while we were in the Trauma Center in Tyler, [Texas] Austin shared with conviction that neither he nor Margo would want to live that way. So here I am, for about 30 plus days that she was in the coma, with the feeding tube, and on a breathing machine, begging God that I would not have to make that decision. This was the scripture that I prayed over every day. ‘Father, if possible let this cup pass before me!’ Honestly I struggled with the let Your will be done because if it was His will to take her back, I was not ready to align with that.
And Margo did move out of a coma into minimal consciousness. By August 7, 2020, she could breathe on her own. She could swallow and consume food and drink with her mouth, although all her real nutrition came from tubes; the sips of Sprite and bites of taco she was given served as part of the “sensory stimulation” aspect of her therapy. (Later, friends brought her the coffee drinks she loved before the careless driver crushed her.) On September 5, 2020, Margo went home to her parents’ house. A ground floor office became her bedroom, the living room became her rehab gym, and eventually the bathroom was turned into a fully accessible shower-room.
“We understand that in most cases this type of recovery will take years,” Mike or Cathy wrote on September 28, and in his November 1 message Mike expressed his gratitude that he had not decided to let Margo die :
I am so thankful that I spoke to Dr. David Cifu who gave us a reason for hope, and I am not sure what the turning point was, but there was something in Margo’s eyes that told me that indeed this cup had passed and I would not be making that decision. I cannot begin to tell you what a burden that was and what a relief it was when those thoughts were driven away from me.
What it was that finally robbed Mike and Cathy of their hope, I do not know. I didn’t have time to read their whole account before they restricted access to it. What I did grasp were the daily challenges of Margo’s care, the gratitude for stellar medical professionals, the anger at incompetent ones, the nightmare of American medical insurance, the joy when Margo appeared to communicate, the disappointment when she had setbacks, and the indescribable grief of having lost the girl as the Naranjos had known her.
On November 29, 2020, Mike wrote:
I am counting on full restoration and each night I pray that while she sleeps God will heal the connections in her brain and that in the morning, she will tell me she loves me. Each [night] I pray that it will be this night that it happens. The first thing I do in the morning after I wake up is go to her bed to see if she is going to speak to me. I pray that like in Cana, Jesus will turn this water into the greatest wine ever. Lastly, I pray that Margs will complete her mission on earth, that her book is unfinished, and that she will be able to tell her own miracle.
My eyes filled with tears when I read that, for I have told my own miracle. On October 12, 2017, my husband had make-or-break surgery on the tumor clinging to his brainstem. His surgeon had hitherto avoided it, as the operation could have left him with catastrophic injuries. He did so only because my husband was sliding into a coma. When I walked into the ICU the next day, I didn’t know if my husband would recognize me then or ever again. But although he had a respirator jammed down his throat, he was able to mouth the words “I love you.”
And I am so, so sorry that the Naranjos have not yet experienced this miracle and perhaps never will. I am also sorry that not everyone who was horrified by their plans to end their disabled daughter’s life has expressed themselves as kindly as they might have had they read the story of their years of care.
LifeSiteNews didn’t have time to find and tell the whole story when we asked readers for their prayers for Margo; we had only the penultimate chapter, and the matter was literally a question of life and death for a very disabled woman who groaned as her mother described her death and funeral plans. Presumably because of the public outcry, those plans were put on hold.
Suddenly a dad and mom who wrote with gratitude of the widespread support they had received for years are experiencing a tsunami of disapproval. It must hurt; criticism of my choices for my stricken husband certainly hurt me. Friends and fans of the family have expressed fury against these pro-life johnnies-come-lately online. But as I wrote above, it’s a question of life or death. The girl the Naranjos knew and loved for 24 years may never come back, but the woman for whom they have poured out everything for the last four is alive and has a right to her life.
One of the horrors shared by both abortion and euthanasia is that they touch upon the most personal aspects of a woman’s, or a couple’s, or a family’s life. In the cause of the weakest of human beings, be that an embryo or a woman so disabled she cannot lift a cup to her mouth, pro-life people must ignore voices—especially inside our own heads—shouting, “Mind your own business!” The “least of these brothers” is our business. We must, as the Scriptures the deeply Christian Naranjos have served so well say, “rescue those being dragged off to death” (Proverbs 24:11).
But that doesn’t mean that we are exempt from understanding where Margo’s parents are coming from. To read the beginning of the story is to appreciate how much they love their daughter. What we pray is that they will spare the life of the woman she has become.
To end, here is the very beginning of the story as Mike told it:
On June 16th [2020], Margo Naranjo was on her way to a friend’s house around 6PM. She was sitting at the light at an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed she started to go through the intersection when a pickup truck [ran] the red light at 63 mph and smashed right into the driver’s door. Here is where the miracles and blessings begin. She should have been killed by the impact however there was a trained EMT nearby, who mobilized her until the paramedics could [get] there. She was brought to Nacogdoches Hospital where they determined her injuries too severe to treat there, so they airlifted her to a Level One Trauma Center in Tyler. She was in a coma and in ICU for the two weeks she stayed in Tyler. On July 1st she was moved to ICU at UTSW in Dallas. Where she remained in a coma and in ICU for three weeks. When she upgraded to PVS (persistive vegetative state- where she is today) she was able to begin rehabilitation. There we met the most caring and loving therapists in the world who treated Margo like their sister and friend. On September 5th she came home to continue resting, healing and therapy. She continues to make steady progress and while she is very far from meaningful recovery, we believe in the Grace of God and we know Margo is a fighter. We believe she sees and hears everything but is trapped inside and can’t communicate. That will come in time.
Please pray for Margo and her parents. And if you contact Mike and Cathy, remember that, despite the upbeat tone they have used to talk and write about Margo, they have suffered for over four years. Please write from a place of love. “A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Proverbs 15:1)
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide
