Posted on 03/27/2005 6:35:32 PM PST by FairOpinion
First thing:Terri Schiavo is not terminally ill. She is severely disabled with a brain injury. She is not hooked up to any life-support systems. For 15 years she has relied on a feeding tube for food and water. Her organs function normally.
So why does anyone want to kill her? "Kill" is the correct word here. Removing her feeding tube will cause her death. She will die by starvation and dehydration.
For those of us in the organized disability rights movement, it looks like Schiavo is being put to death for the crime of being disabled.
Disability makes many people uncomfortable. How many times have you said, or heard someone say, "I would never want to live like that." Or, "I would rather be dead than be like that."
People have said that to me. I am severely disabled and use a motorized wheelchair as a result of having polio 55 years ago.
Doctors told my parents to put me into a "home" and forget about me. He will have no life, they said, move on with your own lives.
They ignored the advice. When I went to school, I was teased and made an object of pity. "I would hate to live like you," kids told me. When I went to university, I was told that "at least you still have your mind." When I went to work in the newspaper business, I was expected to remain at an entry level position; when I left to go to graduate school, my work supervisor told a colleague "what else could he ever hope to do?"
People with disabilities are pushed to the ragged edge of our collective consciousness, stereotyped as dependent, unproductive and pitiful. It is not such a long step to considering such persons burdensome and too costly to maintain and finally, and of course regrettably, expendable.
Think of Schiavo for 15 years being held in so-called custodial care in a nursing home along with persons with Alzheimer's disease, other dementia or cognitive disorders or birth defects. She has had a feeding tube and her guardian (her husband) fought for years to have it removed so that she might die, as he claims she would have wanted.
"It's one thing to refuse a feeding tube for ourselves, but it's quite another when someone else makes that decision," says Diane Coleman, head of Not Dead Yet, a U.S. disability-rights group. "Disability groups don't think guardians should have carte blanche to starve and dehydrate people with conditions like brain injury, developmental disabilities — which the public calls birth defects — and Alzheimer's. People have the right not to be deprived of life by guardians who feel that their ward is as good as dead, better off dead or that the guardian should make such judgments in the first place."
The noisy free-for-all surrounding the Schiavo case as it works its way through the courts again has all the earmarks of political haymaking, rallying the troops in the "Right to Life" and "Right to Die" camps. But there is a serious thread that focuses on the real issue at stake: The right to due process and equal treatment under the law.
Coleman's group has called for a national moratorium on the dehydration and starvation of people alleged to be in a "persistent vegetative state" and not having an advance directive or durable power of attorney.
Senator Tom Harkin, a long-time advocate for people with disabilities, said it eloquently last week as Congress stepped into the case.
"There are a lot of people in the shadows, all over this country, who are incapacitated because of a disability. There ought to be a broader type of a proceeding that would apply to people in similar circumstances ... Where someone is incapacitated and their life support can be taken away, it seems to me that it is appropriate — where there is a dispute — that a federal court come in, like we do in habeas corpus situations, and review it and make another determination."
Schiavo has become a tragic figure, and is likely to become a martyr for one group or another. And that itself is a tragedy. We're likely to never really know her own desire in this case. But as individuals and as a society do have a duty here, and that is to face the fact of the brutal way in which we are permitting her to die.
As a person with a severe disability, I am deeply troubled by the Schiavo saga. I will commit my own wishes to a legal document. But will that be enough? Out here on the ragged edge, we're worried.
"It's one thing to refuse a feeding tube for ourselves, but it's quite another when someone else makes that decision," says Diane Coleman, head of Not Dead Yet, a U.S. disability-rights group"
And this is the crux of the matter. There is very flimsy hearsay evidence that Terri "wouldn't want to live like that" and it's her husband's wish, not Terri's, that she be put to death by starvation, reaffirmed by a judge.
It has already started. The Feds are investigating a Miami Group Home which had disabled people die as a result of ecconomic considerations.
I posted the thread yesterday.
Would you please post that link here too, I didn't see your thread.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Is that the task force run by Sandy Berger or Whitey Bulger?
Great link. Thanks. Will use.
(s)the government has a interest in protecting the "right to compassion" for fetuses to ensure they are born with no genetic defects. A law should be passed mandating gene tests and if defective mandatory abortion. Of course the women will recieve a tax credit. It is for the children. Society has a collective right to ensure unneeded costs of defective genes is not continued. Of course the program is optional for religious objections but those who object are ineligive to any public benefits, student loans, or any federal or state monies.(/s)
Disability group urges against euthanasia (Australia)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1332213.htm
ACT disability support groups have called on Australian governments to resist pressure to legalise euthanasia.
Craig Wallace, from the People with Disabilities, says the case of Terry Schiavo in the United States should serves as a warning.
Mr Wallace says even the most severely disabled have a right to life.
"Whatever you might think of the particular right-to-life case, what's happening to Terry is very cruel and unusual," he said.
"We think there is room for clarity in the Australian context and I would certainly call on the ACT Government to bring in laws to ensure something like this can never happen in the ACT."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1371531/posts
death by inconvenience
.
Judge given campaign contributions by the Husband.
Judge connected to Hospice
Husband's lawyer connected to Hospice.
CLINTON-Appointed Federal Judge refused to follow new Federal Law from Congress instructing him to review all new evidence in TERRI's Case and rules on the samo-samo evidence instead while she starves to death.
TERRI didn't have a chance.
And now the rest of US don't either.
NUTS
.
Unfortunately that's what it's going to come down to:
First the brain-damaged, diagnosed with PVS, never mind that half the time it's misdiagnosed.
Then those with any "mental problems" and considering that Dean called the Republicans brain dead, we will all qualify soon.
And of course nobody who is disabled in any way, physically or mentally should really "want to live like that", so they are doing them all a great big favor, by putting everyone out of their misery by forcing them to die a "natural death", by making them die of thirst and food.
Then people who smoke or are overweight, shouldn't want to live like that either... great candidates for "help".
Then will have nothing but perfect human specimens.
Wait, isn't this what Hitler was after? I guess he was just a little ahead of his time.
She's got it right.
Thanks. Here is another one -- most of it we don't even find out about.
Elder abuse spreading as population ages in California
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1371623/posts
"Elder abuse is often treated the way child abuse and domestic violence were handled until relatively recently, Wong said.
"Far too often it's been considered a family matter and not a crime," Osborn said. "
The insurance companies will start demanding DNA testing to look for genetic disease indicators. Then they will run the probablility tables. If alcoholism is found, then you will be denied insurance if you have a drink. etc etc etc. This is just the beginning.
The 'disabled', the only minority any of us can join at any time...
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