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.
They will now, using the Terri Schiavo case as a precedent. Hopefully Mumia's state executioner would ignore the congressional subpoena as has been done in this case. If Judge Greer is prosecuted for contempt of congress, defense attorneys will begin petitioning House sub committees as part of the appeals process.
"They wait until March 17 to do something, when the media will be focused on their efforts.
And it's not going to work. This "subpoena" business was embarrassing, and futile."
I am forced to agree with you. This action is actually worse than doing nothing - it is showboating to appease religious conservatives like myself. If they are not willing to back up their words with forceful action, then they have lost me. If Terri dies because of the impotence of GOP leaders (including the President), I am changing my party affiliation from Republican to Independent.
I am sick to my soul of working for and voting for candidates that don't deliver. I don't want to hear "We Can't" anymore. Get it done boys, or I go.
... a dangerous game
... their intrusion
... grim one-upsmanship
... Congress seized
... After bungled attempts
... the ghoulish gimmick
... Republicans' theatrical effort
... Congress's rash assumption of judicial power
... [Congress's] trampling on established state and federal constitutional precedents
... the careful decisions
The New York Times -- Middle School writing for Elementary School readers.
NY Times, the leader of the pack of death cultists. That's where the newspaper of record wants to be.
Based on the testimony of her husband who is shacked up with someone else. Just like Scott Peterson who would believe him?
What kind of society goes into a lather over the imposition of bright lights and stress positions for barbarians who might have information that will save lives, but yawns while a defenseless woman who hasnt hurt anyone is willfully starved and dehydrated? By a court the bulwark purportedly protecting our right to life? The torture starts Friday, at 1 P.M. Unless we do something to stop it.
Talk about a brain dead editorial board that needs to have life-support withdrawn.
Sounds like an excellent tag-line for someone.
We can complain about the judiciary all we want, but it should never have gotten this far. On the side of morality, Michael Schiavo should have stepped aside a long time ago and left this to the parents. They weren't married but a few months.
As to his claim of what Terri said, lot's of people say this and their survivor's can't do it. My dad made a request in front of all of us that he be cremated, but my mom just couldn't do it. Though 2 of my siblings had strong feelings that we should do as my father said, we accepted her decision. We do not begrudge her feelings on this.
Yes, it's a bit different, but it is about a dying request that was broken. Hey, Michael, just give her back to her parents. That's all you have to do. Walk away and marry your girlfriend. Make those kids legal. We'll have more respect for you than we do now.
Maintaining life support? All they are doing is feeding her. She is not on life-support.
There is a family in my area that is charged with felonies for not feeding a six year old. The girl had some medical problems resulting from a birth defect in her GI tract. According to the autopsy report, she died of malnutrition and dehydration. I guess they should have hired Felos and gotten a court order.
< These right-to-lifers remind me of cancer patients who have had serious operations and spend every second of the rest of their lives in excruciating pain, but doctors refuse to put them out of their misery. >
Let us know the next time you are in excuciating pain and we'll come over and let the doctors know they are supposed to kill you.
What expenditure of public funds??? The last I heard, private donations and her family were slated to provide for her care. No one that I know of has even hinted that public funds would be used.
Terri's husband also has 2 children with his girlfriend. Funny how the liberal death-cultist don't want anyone to know about that fact. Or the fact that he squandered away her $1 million malpractice settlement without spending a penny of it on her treatment. The death cult is a cult of monsters and ghouls.
The New York Times.....the dead archive of Liberlism....Very Good.
I think the Florida judges and the NYT editorial board should be denied food and water for 48 hours and then see if they have a different opinion!!
I was wrong.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Am I the only person who is tired of hearing about Terri Schiavo? I know there's no way to compare these two things, but it's seems there is something wrong with the Congress being tied up over this, all the anguish and words and breast-beating over Terri Schiavo, who probably is brain dead or nearly so, when we've lost and are continuing to lose young people in war.
This has really just become a nasty fight between Republicans and Democrats. The thing to do would be to change the laws now so that no one could be deprived of a feeding tube without having signed a sworn statement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.