Posted on 03/16/2005 10:06:33 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- A state appeals court has refused to block the expected removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube on Friday.
One kook intermedling is going to change minds on this matter? Sure, whatever.
...which is why the DEATH CULT doesn't want people watching videos of baby-butchery.
The truth murders...
The other aspect of this, the courts... No sardonic tone is intended here, but bave the courts ever done anything to shake our confidence in their adherence to the Constitution? Have their collective actions over the last few decades aroused any suspicions about an underlying agenda? To be blunt, have the American courts, taken as an aggregate, shown themselves trustworthy as weighed on the Constitutional scale?
These questions provide a substrate for much of the second-guessing of the court decisions in this particular case.
You let her starve to death?
Terri Schiavo never had a heart attack. He K levels were normal. Her coronary arteries likewise. And the state has no power to order food and water removed from any patient absent their informed consent. Period.
Remember your original statement: he prohib against murder includes self. That can be established from Scripture as well.
You cite three Biblical proofs: (i) 1 John 5:16; (ii) Ex 20:13; and (iii) a purported exemplary summary of persons mentioned in Scripture who committed suicide to show that "You will not find a single believer who did this."
First, Ex 20:13 cannot further explain Ex 20:13. So your second citation adds no weight to your argument.
Second, 1 John 5:16 has nothing whatever to do with physical death. John is in the midst of a discussion of the assurance which believers have of eternal life. Let's look at the passage (with your quote italicized).
I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, then we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. If anyone sees his fellow Christian committing a sin not resulting in death, he should ask, and God will grant life to the person who commits a sin not resulting in death. There is a sin resulting in death. I do not say that he should ask about that. All unrighteousness is sin, but there is sin not resulting in death.
The passage makes clear that John is speaking of spiritual death and gradations of sin. He is not speaking of the physical death of man -- from any cause.
Finally, as to your argument from example. I have not done that survey (which perhaps you have), but even assuming your assertion to be true arguendo, it does not carry the argument.
We find, for example, no examples of believers driving cars, using telephones, playing backgammon or countless other things. This cannot be an argument against such activities. Such arguments from silence are notoriously weak.
Now, on the burden of proof, you are simply wrong. If someone dies at your home, do you have the burden of proving it was not murder? I know of no legal system anywhere which would so argue. No, you are the party arguing that suicide is murder as used in Ex 20:13. It is your burden to show it with Scriptural proof -- and you have not done so.
You have not shown Biblically (nor, I submit, can you)that "You shall not murder" (as stated in Ex 20:13) proscribes suicide.
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Finally, as to my wife's illness, thank you for your thoughts. However, my argument was not that cancer was such a terrible illness as to justify decisions to allow cessation of efforts to prolong life. Rather, my argument was that my example demonstrated the wisdom of the law allowing the husband, absent sufficient proof of ill-will to displace him, to exercise decision-making power on behalf of the wife. It is a good rule.
Here, the courts have done their job. They have scrupulously (so far as I can tell and no one here argues to the contrary) reviewed the evidence against the husband and have found that it does not overcome the presumption that he can properly discharge his function of making those decisions. While I realize that many here disagree and would readily displace him, I believe that we are Biblically enjoined to submit ourselves to the ultimate decisions of civil authority. This is one such decision.
PERIOD!
You would deny nutrition to Terri and murder her.
I do not care for you. As nicely as I can convey it.
No, I believe you are incorrect. Judge Greer did not substitute his judgment for that of the husband. Rather, he decided that the husband could properly make that decision. If tonight, the husband had (what I suspect you would think was) a "Damascus Road experience" and decided to continue food and water, Judge Greer's order would not interfere.
Your real objection here is to the decision-maker not the decision. You (and others here) don't think the husband should be the one to make the decision (because you don't like him, suspect him of ulterior motives, etc). Those, however, are precisely the matters Judge Greer has ruled upon. He has now ruled that the hospitals, etc must follow the instructions of the husband which he (Judge Greer) and the appellate judges have approved.
My argument is simply that the husband's instructions, once the evidence against him has been reviewed and found wanting, should be respected.
Good grief, you're not well!!!!
It begs many other questions!!!!
You are suggesting suicide is okay -according to what scripture?
Oh, yes, they definitely have disrepute to our system of law. But, as Justice Scalia pointed out the other day, they have departed the path when they substitute their policy judgments for the application of the law. BUT, here they are doing exacting what our courts are quite good at -- applying a well-established rule of law to the facts at hand and weighing conflicting claims of fact in deciding on the facts. This is not some 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' constitutional law case; this is what thousands and thousands of courts do everyday in this land: weigh conflicting claims of credibility, decide the existence of facts and apply well-established rules of law to those facts. While the result here affects someone's physical life, the process used to get there is quite common and quite reliable.
For the same reason that I (as a former prosecutor) would gladly pull the switch on the poison pill machine for all those on death row, I have confidence in this decision as well. This is the kind of decision-making in which our system works quite well.
Hi. I've been wondering about something for quite awhile. Do you know when Michael started his relationship with his mistress?
Not the same case you were thinking of but...
A year ago last January, 83-year-old Marjorie Nighbert suffered a stroke. She was left with severe physical disability, including difficulty swallowing, not uncommon in stroke victims. A feeding tube was inserted so that she could receive nourishment.
In 1992 Marjorie had designated that her brother be given power of attorney for health care for her. He directed that the tube feeding be discontinued. The tube was removed.
Marjorie, of course, became hungry. She repeatedly asked those caring for her in the nursing home for food. But the order was clear, and legal. Marjorie was to be starved to death. She would have died unnoticed behind closed doors had it not been for the conscience of one staff member who saw Marjorie touch a nurse’s arm and ask for food. He told a priest, who contacted the local chapter of Right to Life, who reported Marjorie’s situation to Florida’s Health and Rehabilitation Services. The case went to court. Ultimately the judge ruled that Marjorie not be fed on the basis of her not being competent to ask for food. The employee who reported the incident was fired. Marjorie died on April 6, 1995.
http://www.pregnantpause.org/euth/target.htm
Actually, that is not true either. I object to anyone- a judge, a spouse, or anyone else decreeing that another human being is to be starved to death. Even our death penalty cases involve quick and painless death. I am going to go find the source of the statement I made before that Judge Greer has forbidden Terri to be fed by mouth or by feeding tube. We do not permit this to be done to animals in our society! My biggest problem with the entire case is that Terri has been sentenced to starve to death because she has become inconvenient. That is not only grossly wrong, it has huge implications for our society and it's values.
Do you have a problem with the legislature passing a law that the husband's instructions for public policy reasons sufficient to them give the circumstances should not be followed? Do you have a problem with the Florida supreme court striking such laws down, because they don't like new laws in this case interfering with hubby just doing it, because in their shoes, they would certainly prefer just doing it?
No, I don't, but maybe OfF can help. I know he had at least one girlfried previously. His current squeeze was pregnant with their 2nd kid while Terri was being starved in Oct 2003.
It is interesting that no court was willing to draw your conclusion or even your inference with a much lower standard of proof. To convict the husband of "attempted murder" would obviously require (as Robert Blake found out today) proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, here if the judge were inclined to draw your inference, he would only need proof by a preponderance and, arguably, only a reasonable suspicion which taken together with other facts and circumstances, might dislodge the husband as decision-maker. Yet, there is no evidence that I know of that he (or any appellate court) did that.
Again, judges use inferences every day to resolve conflicting claims of fact and are usually quite good at it. Yet no one in the judicial system has ever drawn the inference you do. Do you see why I have my suspicions on the inference?
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