Posted on 11/13/2003 4:34:02 AM PST by Prov1322
Schiavo's case is really about religious right
November 13, 2003
There is something you should understand about the feeding-tube case of Terri Schiavo.
This is about much more than her.
It is about an agenda, pushed by conservative religious groups that would allow the government, or even strangers, to intervene when families decide to end the lives of loved ones who are hopelessly brain-damaged.
The National Right to Life organization, which has glommed onto the Schiavo case, already has proposed legislation that could stop parents from making choices regarding children whose brains have been destroyed.
For these people, it is convenient that Terri Schiavo's parents wish to keep their daughter's body alive. But it also is beside the point. Even if family members were unanimous in wanting to end Terri's life, these religious conservatives still would oppose it.
Consider the case of Carla Myers, a teenager in Ohio who was left in a vegetative state after a 1992 auto accident. The family, as well as a court-appointed guardian, favored removing the feeding tube. Even so, Randall Terry jumped into the tragedy with his radical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. This is the same man who championed Schiavo's case and bragged about pushing Jeb Bush to intervene.
Terry's group organized protests at Carla Myers' hospital, turning a family tragedy into a media spectacle.
"I do not have the right to starve my children to death," Terry proclaimed.
The parents had to fight off court challenges orchestrated by Operation Rescue, as well as an attempt by complete strangers to adopt Carla. Finally, the tube was removed.
"The exploitation of the Myers family tragedy for political gain and to promote the agenda of certain groups is reprehensible," said Barbara Patterson, the guardian assigned for Carla.
In another case, zealots tried to break into a hospital and restore a Missouri woman's feeding tube. The parents of Nancy Cruzan had decided to let her die after an accident left her in a vegetative state for seven years.
A group in Minnesota tried to block parents from removing their son's feeding tube. Jamie Butcher had been in a vegetative state for 17 years. "I think these people are insane," said Dr. Ronald Cranford at the time. He was a neurologist involved in the case. "They have utterly no chance of winning in court, and they have no grounds whatsoever for substituting for this well-meaning family."
The magic words in that last sentence are "no chance of winning in court." The courts long have frustrated conservative Christians who prefer their agenda be decided by legislators more prone to political pressures.
Terri Schiavo was a golden opportunity. Rather than going up against a united family, the groups were able to exploit the division between Terri's parents and her husband. They also had Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, ever eager to court the religious right in his U.S. Senate campaign.
This gave Randall Terry a long-sought victory. At last politicians ignored separation of powers and trumped the judiciary. It is a first step. Now there is talk about intervening in thousands of other cases.
If you fear the prospect of being stuck in some institution, rotting away on a feeding tube, your loved one helpless to stop it, then you should be very concerned about this. The people behind this agenda now have the ear of Jeb Bush and Johnnie Byrd.
Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com. Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Sorry; a misunderstanding, my fault. Thanks for straightening me out. God bless.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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