BTW, has your brother-in-law ever argued that the government (or, more accurately, the taxpayers) shouldn't pay for people's health care in general? If he's a liberal, his concern over the cost of Terri's care seems a little phoney considering taxpayers have been forced to financially support the socialist behemoth of Medicare for some time now.
I hate to say this, but I am ambivalent about this whole issue. I don't even know where I stand on it myself. Let me just say, If I ever had a terrible decease, a painful one, because I am basically a chicken and I have a funny way of looking at life, I would like to pull the plug on my life myself. Some kind of a pill that I could get it over with, quickly an painlessly. Although I am on the side of 'religious' people - the majority of the time - sometimes I don't. I do not profess to be a religious person, although I try to understand it and try to find it... But it's just to too tough for me. My brother in law, although I love him a lot, it's too 'hot tempered' when it comes to what he believes is right. And so as we always do when we visit, sooner or later we start talking politics, and as usual we end up in a heated argument. We seem to have opposite views on every important issue. Next day we get emabarrased a bit and then try to be really nice to each other [smile - same routine every time!]... so we were talking about politics, and teh issud of all the horrible things the GOP does came up, and as an example he cited the Schiavo case. Obviously he thinks it was wrong for the governor of FL, as well as the GOP to have gotten involved in this 'private family matter' simply as a way of 'scoring political points,' so he thinks. Then I told him, what I though was sort of the trust of the story, that many religious people were hurt and upset, because they could not understand what could have been the harm of just letting her parents take charge of Terri, especially when they were also willing to take all financial responsibilities for her care.
And he said "I've NEVER heard that from her parents in any of the many interviews I have seen with them."
Obviously, I was the one in the wrong here. It's pretty obvious from all the emails I have seen, my understanding was simplistic and basically incorrect. The issue was way more complex than that. In any case, I will use this email TO THANK EVERYONE for their participation and the knowledge I now have. I sill don't understnd the full scope of this issue, but at least I have resouces now if I chose to read and learn more about it.
Thank you Freepers