Right-Wing Blogger Accuses Diane Rehm of 'Starving Husband to Death'

NPR host Diane Rehm has given several extremely raw interviews recently about her husband John’s death last year, when he was in the last stages of Parkinson’s disease. His doctor was based in Maryland, where physician-assisted suicide is illegal, and he was unable to help him die. John chose instead to stop eating and drinking, finally dying after 10 long days.

Her husband’s death, which Rehm saw as needlessly agonizing, turned her into a strong proponent of death with dignity. She’s now advocating for terminally ill adults in Maryland to be allowed to receive “aid in dying” from their doctors.

‘”I feel the way that John had to die was just totally inexcusable,” she told the Washington Post. “It was not right.”

Tim J. Graham at right-wing garbage hole Newsbusters is a loud opponent of doctor-assisted suicide, which he disagrees with on religious grounds. He’s responded to Rehm’s recent interviews by essentially accusing her of helping to murder her husband.

Graham, who apparently missed all the stuff in the Bible about compassion towards the sick, the elderly, and widows, has written a series of incredibly cruel columns about the Rehm family, accusing Rehm of treating her husband like “a poodle or a household cat.” In his latest one, Graham opined that Rehm is angry mad she wasn’t allowed to “euthanize” her husband, adding, “Rehm is mad her husband died when she was not present. It was not then just his right to die, but her preference that he die exactly when she wanted it.” (Actually, Rehm said that if aid in dying was legal in Maryland, John could have chosen to pass away with his wife by his side, instead of while she was at home grabbing a quick shower after days at the hospital.)

Graham’s story was picked up by the anti-abortion website Life News, whose headline baldly accuses Rehm of “staving her husband to death.” And just to drive his point home, Graham also made sure to tweet something vile: