Terry Schiavo — Page 14

How can we be surprised at this? This is what this administration and the new Republican agenda is all about: find a hot-button issue, stick to it, if it fails, it's all about how God brought the issue to the spotlight to focus light on how Republican idealogy (read: the only right ideology because it follows the strictures of life from 700 years ago) and, if it fails, only highlights how our world has turned from God.
What I'm surprised at is how fundamental Christians are not the majority of the voting constituency (although they might make up the majority of Republicans now), yet their voice seems to be the loudest of them all.

I can't read DeLay anymore. I have to read other articles in which he's quoted.
I'm always surprised people think the Anti-Christ is going to be someone they'll easily spot. I think he's going to come right out of the Christian right movement...the better to fool them all.

Bwaysinger: Excellent precis of the agenda. And one thing that many people are not highlighting: many, many Fundamentalists have done the very thing Mr. Schiavo has done. The polls alone speak that fact. This is not "euthenasia," as many doctors have pointed out.

And yes, involving Randall Terry is frightening. I'm frankly troubled by what might happen in the next few days. With a full moon and Easter, the timing of all of this fraught with (unecessary) symbolism. The wailing and shrieking outside the hospice is theatrical in extreme.

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Bway - the important question is, how does your hair look today?

Dg, how kind of you to ask. Don't know, quite frankly (and no longer care) why you think of me as a third-grader but I'll gladly indulge you. My hair looks fabulous and is definitely a more important issue than what is at stake here.
Rainwater and whispers work wonders. I think I'll try bottling it.

Any way you look at it, none of this debacle is about Terri Schiavo anymore. And it hasn't been for a very long time.

Presidential and Congressional interference, and the resulting assault on the government's system of checks and balances, is every bit as blatant as I've been predicting in my most paranoid moments since the beginning of the Bush II era. Fortunately, the majority of the country, even those with whom I am generally at odds politically, seem to understand that our country's basic commitment to the separation of powers is being trashed before our very eyes by those very people for whom the doctrine exist to keep in line. I have found this entire spectacle to be simultaneously fascinating and deeply disturbing.

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Agreed Iflit and BWS - but, do not let it ruin your hair.

I hope that this episode will bite them.

I am still irritated that some Dems voted for the bill.

Will rain water and whispers somehow improve my hair? Lord knows it could use some help. Want to look good while fighting the revolution.

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So George and Jeb and Karl want to turn the US into a theocracy controlled by fundamentalist Christians.

Meanwhile, they're turning Afghanistan and Iraq into theocracies controlled by fundamentalist Muslims.

And while they were at it, they've helped push the Israel of Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin into a theocracy controlled by fundamentalist Jews. (Oy...)

The Bu****es trample on the Constitution and spend more profligately than the old cliche of tax-and-spend liberals.

And mainstream Republicans, like some of the fools on this board, continue to defend them as "conservatives."

Wake up, Republicans, the GOP has been hijacked by anti-American radicals.

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There's such logic and thought involved in an action like that, isnt't there.
I wonder if this Mr. Mitchell was wearing a shirt and shoes when he attempted the robbery and whether or not he disregarded the stores "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy.
How rude!

and while they were at it, they've helped push the israel of golda meir and yitzhak rabin into a theocracy controlled by fundamentalist jews. (oy...)

the israel that's dismatling settlements and turning control of cities over to the palestinians in the most real sign of progress over a decade? gimme that old time religion, baby!

there's a new movie coming out soon that i recommend to many members of this board, it's called chicken little.

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E. J. Dionne in The Washington Post

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washingtonpost.com
A Thin View of 'Life'

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, March 25, 2005; Page A19

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- What does it mean to be pro-life?

The label is thrown around in American politics so blithely that you'd imagine it refers to some workaday issue such as a tax bill or a trade agreement. Might the one good thing to come out of the rancid politics surrounding the Terri Schiavo case be a serious discussion of the meaning of that term?

To begin with, why did Congress feel an obligation to turn Schiavo's tragedy into a federal case? President Bush's answer was compelling: "In a case such as this, the legislative branch, the executive branch ought to err on the side of life."

You don't have to be a religious conservative to agree with that or to worry about prematurely allowing someone to die. But what, exactly, does "a case such as this" mean? Does it refer to one that received widespread publicity and became a major national cause for the right-to-life movement? Does it refer to one in which the parents and the spouse disagree?

There are countless decisions made every week when a family member removes someone they love from life support. Just over a week ago, a 5 1/2-month-old baby named Sun Hudson died after doctors at Texas Children's Hospital removed the breathing tube that had kept him alive. It was removed over his mother's opposition under the provisions of the 1999 Texas Advance Directives Act signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

Democrats such as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida have been arguing that Bush's decision to sign the bill aimed at protecting Schiavo's life is inconsistent with his earlier decision to sign a law designed to rationalize the way end-of-life decisions are made.

But leave that aside and just ask why Schiavo's case was a national cause and Sun Hudson's wasn't. I am sure there are medical and moral distinctions to be made, but honestly: How many bills would Congress have to pass to ensure that in every close medical call around the country, we "err on the side of life"? How many courts would have to be involved? That's why it's not surprising the Supreme Court decided yesterday to stay out of this controversy.

Whether or not signing that Texas bill puts the 1999 Bush at odds with the 2005 Bush, the act of approving it was an acknowledgment that end-of-life issues in an age of advanced medical technology must be confronted, however wrenching they are. Facing up to those questions and drawing distinctions is especially important for those -- and I'm one of them -- who oppose doctor-assisted suicide.

How has Terri Schiavo's care been financed? The available information suggests that some of the money came from one of those much-derided medical malpractice lawsuits and that the drugs she needs have been paid for by Medicaid.

The irony has not been lost on Democrats. Just a few days after most Republicans in both houses of Congress had supported cuts in federal funding of Medicaid, here they were erring "on the side of life" in a single case. The same issue has come up here in Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush, a strong supporter of keeping Schiavo alive, has been proposing cuts in Medicaid spending.

Republicans cry foul when any link is made between the Schiavo question and the Medicaid question. "The fact that they're tying a life issue to the budget process shows just how disconnected Democrats are to reality," harrumphed Dan Allen, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Forgive me, Mr. Allen, I know you're just doing your job, but what's disconnected from reality is refusing to accept the idea that health care is about life issues and money issues.

People who lack access to health care because they can't afford insurance often die earlier than they have to -- with absolutely no national publicity and with no members of Congress rising up at midnight to pass bills on their behalf. What is the point of standing up for life in an individual case but not confronting the cost of choosing life for all who are threatened within the health care system or by their lack of access to it?

What does it mean to be pro-life? As far as I can tell, most of those who would keep Schiavo alive favor the death penalty. Most favored allowing the assault weapons ban to expire and oppose other forms of gun control. The president makes an excellent point when he says we "ought to err on the side of life." It's a shame how rarely that principle is put into practice.

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Updated On: 3/25/05 at 12:07 PM

And for equal measure, the always-delusional Miss Peggy "Point o' Light" Noonan:

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PEGGY NOONAN
In Love With Death
The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people.

Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:01 a.m.

God made the world or he didn't.

God made you or he didn't.

If he did, your little human life is, and has been, touched by the divine. If this is true, it would be true of all humans, not only some. And so--again, if it is true--each human life is precious, of infinite value, worthy of great respect.

Most--not all, but probably most--of those who support Terri Schiavo's right to live believe the above. This explains their passion and emotionalism. They believe they are fighting for an invaluable and irreplaceable human life. They are like the mother who is famously said to have lifted the back of a small car off the ground to save a child caught under a tire. You're desperate to save a life, you're shot through with adrenaline, your strength is for half a second superhuman, you do the impossible.

That is what they are trying to do.

They do not want an innocent human life ended for what appear to be primarily practical and worldly reasons--e.g., Mrs. Schiavo's quality of life is low, her life is pointless. They say: Who is to say it is pointless? And what does pointless even mean? Maybe life itself is the point.

I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.

If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."

Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.

Why are they so committed to this woman's death?

They seem to have fallen half in love with death.

What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?

Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not.

I do not understand their certainty. I don't "know" that any degree of progress or healing is possible for Terri Schiavo; I only hope they are. We can't know, but we can "err on the side of life." How do the pro-death forces "know" there is no possibility of progress, healing, miracles? They seem to think they know. They seem to love the phrases they bandy about: "vegetative state," "brain dead," "liquefied cortex."

I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people.

The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.

I do not understand why the don't-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don't-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.

I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing--an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law--are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.

There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband's chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being.

The pull-the-tube people say, "She must hate being brain-damaged." Well, yes, she must. (This line of argument presumes she is to some degree or in some way thinking or experiencing emotions.) Who wouldn't feel extreme sadness at being extremely disabled? I'd weep every day, wouldn't you? But consider your life. Are there not facets of it, or facts of it, that make you feel extremely sad, pained, frustrated, angry? But you're still glad you're alive, aren't you? Me too. No one enjoys a deathbed. Very few want to leave.

Terri Schiavo may well die. No good will come of it. Those who are half in love with death will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.

And those who are still learning--our children--oh, what terrible lessons they're learning. What terrible stories are shaping them. They're witnessing the Schiavo drama on television and hearing it on radio. They are seeing a society--their society, their people--on the verge of famously accepting, even embracing, the idea that a damaged life is a throwaway life.

Our children have been reared in the age of abortion, and are coming of age in a time when seemingly respectable people are enthusiastic for euthanasia. It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you "know" that--that human life is not so special after all--then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz. Today that road runs through Pinellas Park, Fla.

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