Posted on 04/13/2005 8:21:32 PM PDT by cyncooper
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay apologized Wednesday for using overheated rhetoric on the day Terri Schiavo died, but refused to say whether he supports impeachment of the judges who ruled in her case.
~snip~
At a crowded news conference in his Capitol office, DeLay addressed remarks he made in the hours after the brain-damaged Florida woman died on March 31. "I said something in an inartful way and I shouldn't have said it that way and I apologize for saying it that way," DeLay told reporters.
~snip~
DeLay seemed at pains to soften, if slightly, his rhetoric of March 31, when Schiavo died despite an extraordinary political and legal effort to save her life.
"I believe in an independent judiciary. I repeat, of course I believe in an independent judiciary," DeLay said.
At the same time, he added, the Constitution gives Congress power to oversee the courts.
"We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse," DeLay said.
Asked whether he favors impeachment for any of the judges in the Schiavo case, he did not answer directly.
Instead, he referred reporters to an earlier request he made to the House Judiciary Committee to look into "judicial activism" and Schiavo's case in particular.
~snip~
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Emphasis on "who voted"
Most didn't.
But how do we know what people in a PVS think? That's the issue.
sw
Not from a legal point of view. The essential element to justify the withholding of food and water is the patient's wishes. PVS is not a necessary element under Florida law.
Browning was 86 and a stroke victim. She did have a written advance directive. The patient was not PVS and was not terminal. Florida court system held that starving her to death was legal. Note the decision dates to 1990, before the Florida statute was changed so that the definition of "life-prolonging procedure" was expanded to specifically include "artificially provided sustenance and hydration."Supreme Court of Florida.
In re GUARDIANSHIP OF Estelle M. BROWNING.
STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Doris F. HERBERT, etc., Respondent.
No. 74174.
Sept. 13, 1990.
BARKETT, Justice.
We have for review In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So.2d 258 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989), in which the district court certified the following question as one of great public importance:
Whether the guardian of a patient who is incompetent but not in a permanent vegetative state and who suffers from an incurable, but not terminal condition, may exercise the patient's right of self-determination to forego sustenance provided artificially by a nasogastric tube?
Id. at 274. [FN1] We answer the question in the affirmative as qualified in this opinion.
FN1. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. Estelle Browning died on July 16, 1989, at the age of 89. Although the claim is moot, we accept jurisdiction because the issue raised is of great public importance and likely to recur. In re T.W., 551 So.2d 1186, 1189 (Fla.1989); Holly v. Auld, 450 So.2d 217, 218 n. 1 (Fla.1984).
I. THE FACTS
On November 19, 1985, a competent Estelle Browning executed a declaration that provides, in part:
If at any time I should have a terminal condition and if my attending physician has determined that there can be no recovery from such condition and that my death is imminent, I direct that life-prolonging procedures be withheld or withdrawn when the application of such procedures would serve only to prolong artificially the process of dying.
In addition, Mrs. Browning stipulated that she desired not to have "nutrition and hydration (food and water) provided by gastric tube or intravenously." [FN2]
FN2. The entire form is reproduced in the appendix of the district court's opinion. In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So.2d 258, 275 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989).
At eighty-six years of age, Mrs. Browning suffered a stroke.
...
The consensus of the medical evidence indicated that the brain damage caused by the hemorrhage was major and permanent and that there was virtually no chance of recovery. Death would occur within seven to ten days were the nasogastric feeding tube removed. However, Mrs. Browning's life could have been prolonged up to one year as long as she was maintained on the feeding tube and assuming the absence of infection.
Chapter 765, Florida Statutes 2004 <-- 765.101(10)
Note also the recitiations in Browning's living will. These were construed by the Florida District Court of Appeals in such a way as to find that Browning was legally terminal. That a scheduled natural death by dehydration, under the fact circumstances of the case, was what Browning wanted, and was therefore legal.
This is also the case that lays the groundwork for the assertion that Michael somehow did the blood family a favor, by following the "more strenuous" legal course before starving Terri to death. The alternative, less strenuous course, is to starve her to death with no permission required from the court.
Oh. As for people who are "thinking about dying," I don't think the thoughts of the group of people who have cancer (and it's pain and so forth) are going to be similar to the thoughts of a group of people who don't have cancer.
It is interesting, how people with cancer vacillate between "I want to die" and "I don't want to die." I can think of times that I felt like I'd like to die. Sometimes from sheer embarrassment ;-)
Zogby had it at 80%, and that was a sampling of the general population. So yeah, "emphasis on 'who voted'" - - most freepers probably considered the question too obvious to bother with, or the "wrong to murder Terri" percentage would have been much higher.
I saw the Zogby poll.
I don't believe the A/M's reply that lugsoul wasn't suspended for using EV's real name. Lugsoul wasn't on another thread and hadn't made any other posts so I don't know what the explanation could be.
Yes, I "mispoke" and said Washington Times, when I meant to say Washington POST. I corrected it on my next post.
I'm glad you caught it, though, as it gives me a chance to correct it AGAIN for others that might have missed my correction.
Thanks.
However, I did find unartful...
Unartful
\Un*art"ful\, a. Lacking art or skill; artless.
It's a term of art.
"beyond the sea" had a similar name calling episode with me on a different thread and I decided to follow up to see if it was just the subject matter that had set off the individual or if this person has a habit of cowardly assaulting other people, too.
It would appear that "beyond the sea" has made a habit of going beyond the Pale and should perhaps visit here:
www.prozac.com
Thank God for Hospice.
sw
Thank God for Hospice.
I'm more cynical toward hospice now than I was after my contact with hospice 10 years ago. Way more cynical. Toward the legislative and judicial systems too, but that's another story.
Terminal cancer patients' expressions don't apply to a patient who has no disease, or to a severely disabled person (e.g. Altzheimer's), or a clinically depressed person. But it is interesting that people facing death and in serious pain change their mind to (and from) "I want to live!" during the course of a day. It makes intuitive sense, to hang on to one's own life. Not that everybody does, obviously, see suicide.
Well said. I don't even refer to myself as a "conservative". They can run with that title all they want.
Don't want to upset the holy ones, you know.
Well, we're talking about two different things here. Caring for a dying person in the last days or weeks of life is one thing. Caring for a person who's permanently damaged in some profound way with no hope of recovery, but is still in no imminent danger of dying is another. That's the question I was asking re: who pays for it.
And to be perfectly clear: I wish we as a society had the resources to give every person the medical care they need or desire without regard to cost. But we don't. Somebody is going to decide how those resources are allocated...whether it's HMO's, the free market, or the government.
And no matter who makes those decisions, somebody is going to get screwed, and somebody is going to die when they could have lived a few more days, weeks, months, or even years with X number of dollars of finite medical care applied to their treatment. I don't like it, but that's the way the world works.
WHERE in the Constitution does it say that it is permissible to murder an innocent woman?
Also, the following will get you started in self-education. After this, you will have to do your own homework.
http://www.theempirejournal.com/04020503_formal_complaint_filed.htm
Judge Greer’s rulings ought to be thrown out due to all these violations and the Supreme Court ruling on May 18, 2004 that states may be liable for money damages for denying disabled persons access to the court.
http://www.petitiononline.com/ijg520/petition.html
sw
Even a blind acorn finds a squirrel from time to time.
sw
Perhaps you could also bother to read the Wolfson report to Bush. But heck, I don't want you to get caught up in actual facts as they don't apparently matter. Like the fact the Schindlers stated in court they would keep her alive at all costs, up to amputating limbs, and wouldn't honor her requests even if they knew she wanted to die? But those are just facts. I'm sure your argument is much more valid. Of course tell that to Anton Scalia, William Rehnquist, and the writings of James Madison. I'm sure they'll take your arguments under the consideration they so richly deserve...
WHERE in the Constitution does it say that it is permissible to murder an innocent woman?
It is quite impossible (because the Constitution says nothing about the matter)--Anton Scalia
It says nothing either way..but again don't let that get in your way
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