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The Schiavo Case [lead NYT editorial]
New York Times ^ | 3/19/05

Posted on 03/19/2005 6:03:33 AM PST by mathprof

Congressional leaders are playing a dangerous game with their intrusion into the hotly publicized fight in Florida over maintaining life support for a severely brain-damaged woman. With state legislative and court appeals being exhausted, the House and Senate began some grim one-upsmanship to stop the removal of the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo. She is the 41-year-old woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for the last 15 years, with her parents contesting that sad diagnosis. They also challenged the careful decisions by Florida's trial and appellate courts, based largely on the testimony of her husband that their daughter would have chosen to die rather than live indefinitely in such condition.

Congress seized the issue in the closing hours of its March budget debate. After bungled attempts to grant federal court review of the case, leaders of the two houses blamed each other for Ms. Schiavo's potential demise. They then landed on the ghoulish gimmick of postponing removal of her feeding tube by subpoenaing her to a House hearing and inviting her to a separate hearing in the Senate. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, said that criminal law protects witnesses called before Congress "from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness's attendance or testimony."

After considering the issue yesterday, the state appellate judge presiding over the case ordered the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube to proceed, finding Congress's intervention created no "emergency" requiring postponement. No doubt this is not the end of this painful drama. Meanwhile we can only lament the Republicans' theatrical effort to expand their so-called pro-life agenda to include intervening in a case already studied and litigated exhaustively under Florida law. Congress's rash assumption of judicial power and trampling on established state and federal constitutional precedents in "right to die" cases is nothing short of breathtaking.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigmedia; boycottstarbucks; breathtaking; culturweofdeath; euthenasia; murder; nytimes; righttolive; schiavo; starvingtodeath; terri; terrischiavo; wrongsideoflife
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To: New Orleans Slim
I am tired of my tax money being used to protect your sorry a$$ from burglars and street thugs.

You are not worthy of our protection.

181 posted on 03/19/2005 10:00:09 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: traviskicks

Nothing knee-jerk here. You just want to cover up a murder.


182 posted on 03/19/2005 10:01:20 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Randjuke
What if your wife were involved in incapacitating you?

Stuff happens.

183 posted on 03/19/2005 10:02:31 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: mathprof

They'd be singing a different tune if her name were Tehiri al-Shaifo.


184 posted on 03/19/2005 10:03:50 AM PST by Graymatter (Free Tehiri al-Shaifo, US-held torture victim and hospice detainee.)
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To: muawiyah
It sometimes happens that you get a sociopath on the bench.

True. I said that he was a human being like the rest of us because I don't believe that the fact that he wears a robe makes him any more wise or good than we are.

185 posted on 03/19/2005 10:04:37 AM PST by SilentServiceCPOWife ("It's a good life...if you don't weaken." - - my grandmother)
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To: New Orleans Slim
If she is truly conscious, she should be able to communicate, even if it is just a code composed of blinking her eyes in a sequence to answer questions.

That would be really nice if her husband hadn't ordered her caretakers not to attempt any therapy or communication with her at the risk of their jobs. Several have been fired for that. None of them were allowed to testify in court on her behalf.

186 posted on 03/19/2005 10:04:46 AM PST by TigersEye (Regime change in the courts. Impeach activist judges!)
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To: JFK_Lib

I think his post should be left where it is, so that all might know the great mind at work.


187 posted on 03/19/2005 10:06:28 AM PST by Petronski (If 'Judge' Greer can kill Terri, who will be next?)
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To: SilentServiceCPOWife
Hey, the guy is a judge. Didn't you know they were all officially demi-gods?

I kind of wonder if we couldn't run our society pretty well for several weeks with just Peoples' Courts while we eliminate this bunch of black robed ayatollahs and their running dog lackeys.

188 posted on 03/19/2005 10:06:54 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Hey, the guy is a judge. Didn't you know they were all officially demi-gods?

Oooops. I forgot. I shouldn't let those kinds of lapses occur. Thanks for reminding me. ;-)

189 posted on 03/19/2005 10:12:49 AM PST by SilentServiceCPOWife ("It's a good life...if you don't weaken." - - my grandmother)
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To: muawiyah
What if your wife were involved in incapacitating you?

Are you going to move the goalposts every time I answer your question?

Anyway I know where you're going, you think Michael Schiavo was responsible for Terri's injuries, something that neither you or I will ever know. And before anybody posts the link again, I've read terrisfight, know about the bone scan, etc. If there were a criminal case there to make it would have been made. Unfortunately right now it's all speculation.

190 posted on 03/19/2005 10:17:01 AM PST by Randjuke
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To: Petronski

Get real. This has been in the courts for years.


191 posted on 03/19/2005 10:22:04 AM PST by ContraryMary
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To: Petronski

There have been.


192 posted on 03/19/2005 10:22:37 AM PST by ContraryMary
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To: Randjuke
And there's still no written power of attorney from the woman.

This is a probate court judge putting down someone.

Kind of like the traffic magistrate shooting drunk drivers you know. Not that there should be anything against that, but isn't the death penalty far beyond their statutory authority?

193 posted on 03/19/2005 10:22:59 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Petronski

LOL! Then you're in for a big surprise.


194 posted on 03/19/2005 10:23:14 AM PST by ContraryMary
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To: SilentServiceCPOWife

Because we don't like the decision doesn't make it wrong.


195 posted on 03/19/2005 10:24:19 AM PST by ContraryMary
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To: Randjuke
But, back to your wife ~ have you provided her with written instructions on the matter?

If you haven't you will be sticking her into the same dilemma Schiavo faces. Do you think that's polite?

196 posted on 03/19/2005 10:24:39 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: ContraryMary

We shall see.


197 posted on 03/19/2005 10:25:00 AM PST by Petronski (If 'Judge' Greer can kill Terri, who will be next?)
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To: ContraryMary
Because we don't like the decision doesn't make it wrong.

You have that backwards. We don't like the decision because it is wrong.

198 posted on 03/19/2005 10:25:49 AM PST by Petronski (If 'Judge' Greer can kill Terri, who will be next?)
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To: JFK_Lib
You really dont seem to understand what a Congressional subpeona and contempt for Congress are, do you?

Yeah, it means a judge decides whether or not the contempt citation is warranted.

199 posted on 03/19/2005 10:26:23 AM PST by ContraryMary
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To: ContraryMary

It's been in and out of the courts over the course of fifteen years.

That is not a fifteen-year investigation.


200 posted on 03/19/2005 10:27:07 AM PST by Petronski (If 'Judge' Greer can kill Terri, who will be next?)
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