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.
I am guessing if you check how power-of-attorney and competency is handled in your state you'll find it's pretty similar. I've dealt with this in Wyoming, Colorado, Wisconsin and now Iowa, and there's not much difference. You and I are not going to agree on this but I respect your opinion.
I wasn't talking about Michael's conflict of interest. I was talking about the difference between making a judgment based on someone's morality and one based in law.
Sorry. You were the one who brought up the morality issue. Also, BTW, it wasn't Michael's decision. It was the Court's decision.
I would hope you are aware of the biological imperative in all the Primates regarding food sharing. Court orders that direct us to starve a person to death, or to just stand by while someone else does it, really, really, really get us in the gut.
Such orders also prove that the person giving the orders is somewhat less than human and probably shouldn't be giving such orders, or even walking around loose.
Try as they might the Liberals, his fellow judges, and all the lawyers cannot bring normal people to respect this Greer character, lawyers who support him, other judges, or Liberals.
It would violate our nature to do so.
Looks like a cooperative endeavor from here.
I think you're trying to split hairs that don't exist. This is a judicial murder.
Yes, the court decided that Terri wanted to die under these circumstances. But you are not addressing how the court came to that conclusion. They made their decision based on the testimony of a man who had ulterior motives for wanting to his wife to die.
Yeah, a FEDERAL judge and not that Nazi Greer or some FLorida Democrat hack.
And that is why he is worried.
Are you afraid Terri might not starve to death too?
Public's exhibit nubmer 1 for leftist death-monger logic. when presented with irrefutable information, resort to sarcasm.
Thank you for the illustration of mindless ideological 'thinking'.
But Greer is supposed to ascertain who should be Terri's guardian and the incompetent little monster refuse to hear any contrary reason to Michael not being guardian and insists that Terri not be fed by relatives and thus starves to death.
Are you afraid you might not get to see her starve to death too?
So do you think innocnet people should be allowed to starve to death due to technicalities of the law?
What if Terri had AIDS and was in this condition? Would the NYT consider her protectable by the constitution then? What if Terri was a gay man whose straight parents wanted to pull the feeding tube? Hm? Would the tune change??
Hmmm, I didn't know that husbands had the right to kill their wives. Maybe Scott Peterson should have used this as his defense.
Most of the rest of us get along just fine without the courts pretending the husbands own their wives as chattel property. Why is Florida allowed to do this?
Save that for your friends in Congress who are supporting the legislation. They compare Terri Schiavo to Scott Peterson, John Couey and every other individual who may face the death penalty. They say Terri should receive a federal judge's review same as the convicted killers and child molesters.
You thought the NYT would choose life. Why should it when there are so many FR posters who also want to starve this woman to death ?
Liberals hate themselves and their lives so much that none of them would cling to life.
Starbucks is helping the NYT get national distribution by selling the paper in all its stores. BOYCOTT Starbucks until they pull the rag.
"They say Terri should receive a federal judge's review same as the convicted killers and child molesters."
As she should!!! Are you saying you believe the criminal
who has committed a capital offense, should receive more consideration than this helpless woman....who has committed no crime??
Okay then, I take it you rescind your first objection. You know, when you objected to Terri and Mumia receiving the same treatment with respect to congressional subpoenas. I'm glad that you now see that the process will work both ways.
" I'm glad that you now see that the process will work both ways."
What I see is that the meanest of criminals are afforded greater "rights" that Terri Chiavo.
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