This whole mess with Terry Schiavo is outrageous in so, so many ways. But I have one simple question… if “one man and one woman” marriage is so great and perfect, why is Congress stomping all over the traditional prerogatives spouses have to decide difficult matters like this? The GOP’s actions are an attack on the sanctity of marriage. Seriously. Thank God David and I have living wills– and durable powers of attorney– but these rights are exactly the rights that inhere in civil marriage and a great example of the rights denied to us through marriage.
In case anyone missed it, the message of the new, fasc-tastic Republikan party is this: we’re for individuals rights (and states’ rights) until you do something we disagree with, at which point we will try to control your life, micromanage your death, and make a hideous media-political spectacle of what was already a tragedy.
Let me say this very clearly to my friends and family. If anything like this ever happens to me and somehow my wishes aren’t followed, I don’t want you just to stop feeding me. And don’t wait 13 years to do something, either! I want 80cc of morphine, a bullet to the head, or whatever it takes–and wherever I end up, I’m sure I’ll see some of you there. OK? Thanks!
I said to Bob, this morning, “We need living wills.” I would be horrified if something happened and, even though Bob and I have both made it clear that we would not want to be kept alive to each other, some outside party could choose to intervene on behalf of “life.”
What about quality of life? Terry Schiavo has been in a permanent vegetative state for 16 years. Every court appointed doctor has come to the same conclusion: she’s not there anymore. Let go, mourn the woman and move on. I know that sounds cold but I believe that life is for the living. Someone in a permanent vegetative state may be technically alive, but she is not living.
Republikans, led by Tom DeLay, are using this woman and her family’s fight as a sop to the Christian Coalition and their forces of reaction. This is an excellent way to keep the news media and public attention on something that the federal government should have nothing to do with while Congress merrily goes along its way drilling in ANWR, cutting education and environmental programs and not investigating Rep. DeLay’s continuing ethics violations.
By throwing in with the “we know how to live your life better than you do” crowd, the Republikans have shown that they are no longer the party of privacy and personal responsibility. They need to go.
Adding further irony to the situation, authorities in Florida announced this morn that they are going to seek the death penalty against the fucker who killed that little girl a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t mind taking him out myself, but it is interesting that they pick and choose which lives deserve the utmost in protection…
Jay has hit the nail on the head. The same point has since been made in Slate — worth a read.
Hearsay. One plain and simple answer, hearsay. Spouse or not, you can’t just starve someone to death because of something they supposedly said after watching some program on TV.
Ever heard of fundamental rights?
On top of this, Michael Schiavo is an adulterous monster with a history of abuse whose credibility is crap. Don’t you find it a bit odd that Michael was the only one present when Terri suffered brain damage from a lack of oxygen? And as far as I’m concerned, there has technically been no marriage remaining between Michael and Terri for the last 10 years, ever since he took up with some other unsuspecting victim. I’d be very careful before I sided with this man.
One other answer for you Con Law buffs, it’s all about Article III and the 14th Amendment. This has absolutely nothing to do with the 10th Amendment.
You thought the nation was covered by red states this last time? Your new liberal culture of death is coming back and will kick your ass in upcoming elections.
http://www.zimp.org/
Hearsay??? Bill Frist and the other doctors who have “diagnosed” her by watching a video take “hearsay” to new depths. And Thomas, I’m not too scared about the 2006 elections with poll numbers like this:
CBS News. 3/21-22. MoE 4%. (February results)
Congress Job Approval
Approve 34 (41)
Disapprove 49 (44)
Bush Approval Ratings
Approve 43 (49)
Should Congress and the President be involved in the Schiavo matter?
Yes 13
No 82
You’re free to post and argue with us, but we don’t take kindly to trolls here. Care to offer a reasoned response to evidence of overwhelming public support for keeping government out of Terry Schiavo’s hospital bed?
I’ll try to start here:
Since when does “public support” (polls) have the ultimate weight in moral decisions? Are not some things absolute, like fundamental rights and due process?
Since when was the judiciary (Greer) not a part of “government?” Was he not in “Terry Schiavo’s hospital bed?” Was it not his order that ultimately killed her? The judiciary has always been only one-third of the whole and subject to the checks/balances of the legislative and executive branches. It’s all right there in the Constitution. The 9th Circuit and the MA S.C. are good examples that many people have forgotten this and regard the judiciary as some separate untouchable entity. Not so.
Why did Michael Schiavo persistently refuse a MRI or PET scan for Terri? Why was it that only one judge (Greer) found Terri was in a PVS and every other court refused to review the facts of the case and instead just went with Greer’s finding based on one man’s word (Michael Schiavo’s)? Why did it take Michael Schiavo so long, after he earlier testified the opposite to the money-awarding jury, to remember something Terri supposedly said? The right to life is a fundamental right, afforded due process under the 5th and 14th amendments, which did not happen here. I guarantee you Scott Peterson will get due process.
It’s quite obvious who was running the show and screwed up on this one.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword. For years the right has used the example of “murderers on death row getting 15 years of appeals” as proof that “due process” isn’t really expedient enough for us in our “culture of life but wow prisons are expensive.” But now it’s convenient for the right to decide that 15 years isn’t long enough to endlessly wrangle over this case. We’ll remind you of your collective fetish for due process next time someone you find undesirable is asking for it.
For the incapicitated as well as the incarcerated, due process has a finite end. The rule of law is in this way not like the Kingdom of God. Imperfect though it may seem for neo-theocrats, the rule of law was followed to the letter in this case, Thomas. You just don’t like the result. But that’s exactly why we have laws. I like x, you like y and sooner or later we end up in court. [Given that the alternative is killing each other in the streets over our differences, I will see your brain-dead martyr and raise you a few hundred incorrect convictions a year. This is the calculus of human justice.]
You prefer to say “she didn’t get the benefit of due process” just because the end you wanted was not the result. Which is basically the same reaction of a 9-year-old who has just lost a game of chess–though your reaction is dressed up in some fancy legal terms that you clearly don’t understand about some silly “rights” you clearly don’t hold as dear as whatever multiply translated, randomly selected, ripped-from-context snippet of Scripture you’re flogging today.
And while we’re piling on the Amendments, how about this one, Number Ten: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It’s something the GOP–the “less government,” “states’ rights” party–might want to think about, before rampant Federalism sticks a feeding tube down all our throats. That’s the other problem with the rule of law–when you set a precedent, you never know how it will affect you down the line. [Hello, “nuclear option”?] As my Papaw always says, “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.” Try as you might, you cannot have it both ways with the law.
While I’m on the topic and plenty angry, I’ll be calling to ask for your support for a “culture of life” when we debate national healthcare after the Democrats take over majority status in the House and Senate in 2006. [That’s what those pesky polls are about, Thomas–politics, not morality.] Since you seem to think $80,000 a year is an appropriate amount for the support of one “marginally conscious” (I’m being generous here) woman, I’m sure you’ll be 100% in favor of funding basic health care for average citizens. Because I have a dear friend sick in the hospital as a side effect of the criminal and entirely immoral way we approach healthcare. This Schiavo thing has opened a whole new can of whoopass on the hypocrisy of the Republican party. It’s going to fun to watch you try to spin this one.
Fair enough on the polls, I’ll send you a couple:
Zogby
Rasmussen
Yeah, that was a great Zogby poll on behalf of the wingnuts at Concerned Women for America. Thomas, I’ve forgotten more about crafting research questionnaires to get the desired result than you’ll ever know, so don’t think I’m impressed.
Here’s the money question, emphasis mine.
In other words, their phrasing of the question spells out a circumstance most people would see as different from Schiavo’s case. If being trapped in a decaying body for 15 years isn’t terminal, I’d like to know what is. It also avoids the messiness of the person in question having a legal spouse with power of attorney!
Once we get the autopsy reports, we will know exactly what state her brain was in… a state I expect to be surprisingly similar to the minds of conservatives who think they will score political points by exploiting this poor woman’s life and long death.
The far right doesn’t seem to have any respect for life as I would define it, but if there’s even a heartbeat you certainly want to do anything you can to keep people from getting to the afterlife. It’s enough to make one wonder if Randall Terry will be picketing the Pope’s funeral, since he didn’t want a feeding tube.
And if the Rasmussen approval score is the best you have, how sad:
While he was being impeached, Clinton’s approval scores never got that low! Remember?
Notice how the all of the clergy they are interviewing since the Pope’s death are emphasizing that he was lucid (capable of making his wishes known) while at the same time his breathing was so labored that he couldn’t talk?
Hmmmm…