Schiavo's case is really about religious right

The Orlando Slantinal ^ | 11/13/03 | Mike Thomas

[RightWhale]

This essay gets it completely backwards. Furthermore, it's a poor essay in itself. If this keeps up, the student will be dropped from class.

[Saundra Duffy]

I'm the STAUNCHEST defender of Terri's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Sorry; a misunderstanding, my fault. Thanks for straightening me out. God bless.

[iowamomforfreedom]

When someone says, 'I wouldn't want to live like that,' it's believing it will never happen to you. When it does, it's not a bad life or a useless life. It's a changed life."

This is another point so many people miss. If you see a severly disabled person, of course you are going to think "I wouldn't want to live like that". But if you were actually IN that situation, you might think, "hey, I'd rather not have this disability, but it's better than being dead". Many disabled people come to appreciate the small things in life, and find happiness and fulfillment in their changed life. No one can know what it's like till you've been there. And NO ONE can decide for you whether or not you have a life worth living.

[itsahoot]

Chancellor your views are as blurred as your home page.

[iowamomforfreedom]

This is the guy (Cranford)who testified on behalf of Felos/Mikey at Terri's death court?

Yeah, he gets ALL the "good" right to die cases.

[FatherOfLiberty]

Thank you for mining that little nugget of extreme truth! I am an occupational therapist who has seen many, many "changed" lives due to the onset of a disabling condition. I just help the person maximize function and/or help with modification/adaptation of tasks to help them resume their "changed" life as independently as possible and with as much enjoyment as possible.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Auguste Renoir blurred? Dang.

[aberaussie]

Mike Thomas is evil. Here is what he wrote in response to the United Way's support of the Boy Scouts:

If I were the United Way, and all the agencies that depend on it, I'd build a big pile of wood with a pole stuck in the middle of it. Then I'd tie the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America to the pole, using only the most secure half-hitches and square knots. Then I'd rub the two sticks together and work on that campfire merit badge.

[T'wit]

Mike Thomas obviously lost his testicles somewhere. He does not even have the capacity to defend an injured woman. His case is hopeless. He'll never get better. I can't imagine why any of his relatives would struggle to save him, but anything's possible.

[T'wit]

Rus Cooper-Dowda, just for the record, is another of Terri's defenders who is neither conservative nor Christian. Bless her for all she's done.

Alan Dershowitz, liberal and secularist, also deserves thanks for voicing his view that Terri should not be killed.

Senator Joseph Lieberman went on record that Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature had acted correctly in intervening.

[T'wit]

It struck me that medical personnel might be "injured parties" in Terri's struggle. Care-givers work for the satisfactions of helping others as much as for a paycheck. It's often dirty, thankless, repetitive toil, yet they stick to their post.

My daughter, halfway through college, worked one summer as a nurse's aide in a facility for hopelessly disabled children. These were the saddest of the sad cases, worse than Terri's condition. Not one in a hundred ever got out. My daughter came home aglow. It completely changed her life. She changed her major and stayed in school an extra year to become a special education teacher. (She also did a tour in the Peace Corps to help train Ecuadoran teachers in special ed.)

Care-givers invest love and professional skill and hope in their patients. Along come Michael Schiavo and George Felos and coldly, intentionally kill your patient. Is this not cheating the care-givers out of the satisfactions of their work and making them grieve?

As a professional, perhaps you could give us some insights in these matters?

[FatherOfLiberty]

Activists in the disabled community tend to be on the liberal side of the political spectrum, but they will staunchly defend the rights of other disabled individuals.

God did create EVERYONE with natural law implanted in their hearts (conscience). Those like Michael Schiavo and George Felos have suppressed their conscience with their great evil. Even athiests from time to time will listen to their conscience. Liberals, too. Natural law aside, logic dictates that we must defend the lives of those unable to defend themselves.

[FatherOfLiberty]

It struck me that medical personnel might be "injured parties" in Terri's struggle. Care-givers work for the satisfactions of helping others as much as for a paycheck... Care-givers invest love and professional skill and hope in their patients. Along come Michael Schiavo and George Felos and coldly, intentionally kill your patient. Is this not cheating the care-givers out of the satisfactions of their work and making them grieve?

As a professional, perhaps you could give us some insights in these matters?

When working closely and intimately with people in a rehabilitation or caregiving role, especially for extended periods of time, one can't help developing somewhat of an emotional attachment. I have lost patients to natural causes before and have grieved. I lost a long-term rehab patient once to violent crime - from the same person who caused him to be disabled in the first place! I not only grieved his death, but also grieved the loss to society. I was indeed angered at the perpetrator of the crime, but not because I had been robbed of any personal satisfaction that I might have felt in helping my patient achieve. My anger was simply at the senseless theft of life.

As a rehab professional, my role is to facilitate and motivate a patient toward achievement despite all odds. I help them learn to help themselves (give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime). My satisfaction in my work comes from seeing people self-motivate to achieve, not in what I have "done" to them.

On a personal note, I had an experience similar to your daughters. I had been a music major and computer science major before I worked for a summer at an Easter Seals camp - that "changed my life" so they say. I explored the "helping professions" after that experience and discovered occupational therapy. O.T. has been good to me and I, hopefully, have been good to O.T.

Thank you for inviting my comments.

[T'wit]

>> God did create EVERYONE with natural law implanted in their hearts (conscience).

Good point! Leftists keep getting deeper into their personal fever swamps. I wonder if they have to work harder to suppress their consciences, or if it gets easy as they bend their knees to evil.