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Posted on 03/23/2005 11:00:46 AM PST by MHGinTN
Aside from killing a disabled woman, what’s the controversy?
A cousin asked me the other day, “What’s this Terri Schiavo thing all about down in Florida?” I did my best to catch cousin up to speed on the history of the plight. While on line, a newbie at FreeRepublic cited four points over which the newbie needed confirmation or correction. I did my best to address the problems with the perspective expressed in the four points of interest as stated by the poster.
Clearly, there are different levels to this issue; this is not a simple controversy lending itself to sound byte explanations, though the mainstream media tend to over simplify and use sound byte explanations, usually tainted with the network’s bias –such as the stilted poll done by ABC, for which they received precisely the ammunition they were trolling for, rather than an honest perspective of the American people.
Let’s take a look at the controversy from a perspective other than bedside sadness.
First, there is a lengthy judicial process followed in Florida, and controversy and major dispute beginning with the power and perspective of one Judge Greer. Terri was receiving due process without complaint from any family member, until Judge Greer’s court took over dealing with the controversies. Every appeal following the Greer rulings amounted to other courts rubber stamping Greer’s actions … and therein lies the reason for the Congress of the United States finally getting involved.
That brings us to a second point of controversy, with major political ramifications. A state judge in a Florida court has order that a non-criminal severely disabled woman be put down via starvation and dehydration by ordering that the port for her feeding tube be removed … and a feeding tube is all this woman needs to continue living. [Is food and water actually artificial medical intervention?]
Last week, the United States Congress issued an oversight action authorized by the Constitution in the Third Amendment, in order to give Terri Schaivo assurance that her Fourteenth Amendment rights were not short changed in arriving at her current court ordered sentence of death by dehydration. The bill issued by Congress stated a request for a ‘de novo’ hearing of the case at Federal level. The Federal Judge who received the case chose to ignore the request and do yet again what has been done at every judicial stage in this controversy, glance at Greer’s rulings and stamp them adequate for Terri’s rights.
It is precisely the questionable nature of Greer’s rulings that caused Congress to request a Federal de novo hearing. What if Greer has a bias or new facts have come to light that indicate Terri Schiavo has not in fact received fair and balanced treatment from the court or the court has been in error due to inadequate facts? How can the wrong rulings of a judge be questioned in a process where rubber stamping passes the rulings along without honest ‘de novo’ review? Apparently, not even Third Amendment responsibility of the United States Congress can break the bias of particular court systems.
And therein is the substance of the second major controversy: how can judicial activism and rubber stamping based on political/philosophical bias be corrected, if Congress only requests without any consequences to follow when a judge such as Whittemore (the Federal appeals Judge who received the Congressional request) thumbs his nose at the Congress in their Constitutionally authorized oversight of the judiciary?
Terri Schiavo is not going to be saved from death by dehydration through a conflict between the Legislative and the Judiciary. As things are now progressing, Terri will be dead before the controversy could be resolved. And therein is the substance of a third controversy: what’s the damn hurry to execute Terri Schiavo before full de novo hearing can be accomplished? Is it so outlandish to consider that Judge Greer has a bias that has prevented Terri from receiving fair and balance justice? If a de novo hearing concludes that all court rulings have been sound, without new information changing anything of the findings of fact and promotion of truth, Terri isn’t going to flee to some other jurisdiction and thus be beyond the judge executing her after further review. What’s the hurry to put her down without actual Federal de novo hearing?
And therein lies the fourth controversy: political forces are thrashing the issues around for political empowerment; one force with a heavy bias toward granting to one person the right to kill another alive, sensing human being feels their rite, er excuse me, their right is threatened by de novo review that potentially could change the now obvious destiny of an inconvenient human being; Terri, if granted a fair and thorough review, just might get a stay of execution and then be given therapy that would improve her interactions with her environment, and thus embarrass the faction pushing for this inconvenient human to be put down. Surely the other faction, the one wishing to value even the life of a severely disabled woman, realized that further review might confirm what are already the findings, so that faction was willing to risk the ridicule inevitable from the liberal media in their water-carrying for the other political faction.
So how honest is the faction now demanding that Terri be put down and cremated immediately, without a final de novo hearing? And how cold, political, calculating, and stark is the wrong committed by a Federal judge ignoring the oversight request from the Congress of the United States, to yet again rubber stamp the rubber stamps forwarded up from his fellow Florida Judges?
This truly is an historic controversy, but it remains to be seen if the Congress has the loyalty to our Constitution that would follow through in settling judicial tyranny that is killing one severely disabled woman in Florida.
More than anything else, the Terri Schindler story is the death of the mainstream (broadcast) media; they've failed completely in covering the landmark event of the year -- not because of the conventional drama of armies on the march, but because they have no language and emotion for communicating this story. It's not about ideology; it is about compassion. The story is not so much about Terri -- as it is about the different responses to the facts, and what people regard as the facts, from their own experiences and understanding of life. The subject herself is almost the perfect Rohrschach ink blot. It's ultimately not about Terri -- but about everybody else.
The best the mainstream media can come up with is their bogus polls, "As you may already know..." What a presumption; we don't know, and the more one knows, the less one could say that it is merely a matter of a right to die issue; it is a right to die versus a right to live -- and which should trump which. Apparently to a lot of liberals, the right to die should trump the right to live only in the case of human beings but should be inviolable in the case of anything else -- even trumping the right of any other species over that of a human, so confused are they, so determined to be "right." It's not about rights or who is right. It is about what is human.
The richness in the discussion of this is where the new media of interaction vastly surpasses their laughable polling feedback which is already so biased in their design and intent. The death of Terri Schindler was the death of the mainstream media to be a viable, credible part of American life. To the end, they insisted on telling the people, vastly more intelligent, informed and compassionate than they are, what to think and how empty it was to be them. They had nothing worth learning about -- to be a better human being.
DCF filed a renewed guardianship something about new info they have about her case. The DR's review said she has been misdiagnosed!!!
Raises serious concerns and needs action and I can't keep up.
Should err on the side of life. Doing everyone in his power to give Terri the same rights as criminals
Several doctors and nurses involved with the case have stated that with proper training and therapy (that's 'education', too, got it?...), Terri could regain her ability to take food by mouth. In fact, some have stated that, years ago, she was already taking liquids and puddings by mouth and that when Michael Schiavo discovered this he went ballistic, ordered them to stop, and threatened to have them fired.
Ah, you're right, I forgot. Those hundreds of thousands who were slaughtered by the Nazis in their T-4 "euthanasia" program didn't have much "quality of life", either, although they helped the crematory operators at Hadamar and similar places stay busy leading fulfilled lives.
well you can eat by yourself, so it's not artificial..even if you couldn't, and you asked someone to feed you, it wouldn t be considered artificial to me..but if someone had (because you couldn t even ask them for it) to feed you via a tube (only liquids), and from time to time set a new feeding pack for you to be fed continually, this would definitely look artificial to me.
I’ve done volunteer work for decades with profoundly handicapped children and adults, some of whom have received nutrition via feeding tubes exclusively for their whole lives.
It's sickening that there are people in this world, like yourself, who wish to kill them for the crime of not being able to initiate an effective peristaltic motion.
You’re a ghoul.
I remember that. The bigger point, though, is that even if she never has any more ability than she has today, she deserves to be fed. Even if James never has any more ability to eat or communicate than he has today, he deserves to be fed.
The full 11th circut has refeused the new appeal
Press conference going on now http://www.hannity.com
Tisk, tisk, tisk.
Carefule what you say to the big bad man. He just might be one those ...what do they call them...oh, yeah,,, among people who are equals, he a bit more equal..
you know, one of those people so smart and all-knowing that he/she will be one of the deciders of who's worth the...what did the big bad man call it...'artificial survival process.'
We're all sopposed to quake in fear and awe at the intelligence being shown to us.
(Except we don't know it.)
You obviously know nothing at all about medicine, medical proceedures .
I have been a nurse for 20 years. There is no machine.
The care that Terri gets does not require a facility at all. She could be cared for at home by someone with a 3rd grade education and just a little bit of specialized training.
"Based on the testimony of Dr. Cranford that Judge Greer made his decesion by, yes."
Which of my comments are you referring to?
If she was declared a lesbian suffering from AIDS, the left would move heavan and earth to keep her alive!
40 million extra people in the US might have helped us out supporting the Boomers' Social Securuty delima. But, sadly, those "unviable tissue masses" were all destroyed.
Be careful what you wish for.
Ah, now we're getting somewhere.
It's not about you.
This world did not start at your birth.
Nor did history start afresh, free of sin and toil.
You merely symblize the lazy who walk the earth.
To think in a manner of wisdom and honesty requires work.
To act in a steadfast manner to defend the innocent is hard.
To be willing to die that others may live is hardest.
To lazy to think is to lazy to act is to lazy to save.
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Who's wants to be the first to assert that they were Terri's Lesbian lover and Mike wanted to cover it up by trying to kill her?. I'm sorry to the Schindlers and all the hardworking Terri supporters, to suggest this but we are desperate at this time, and the courts only seem to respect perversion.
Could this be about the CT scan someone found that does not reflect what Felos has been saying? I.E., that Terri's brain is mush and liquid (paraphrasing it).
I read it showed activity or something...
The article said the doctor's looking at it were shocked or astonished. Cannot remember which word.
Since it was referenced early on in the court case and used as a basis for the determination the 'doctor' gave that allowed (read that as gave an excuse) Greer the chance to say "Kill her, boysand girls!"(Again, paraphrasing) should Greer be allowed to disregard it?
Wow.
Don't know if you understood what I asked... I'm only just reasonably sure I know what I asked!!
"It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution - some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding. " - Frederic Bastiat "The Law" ...and...
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." - President Thomas Jefferson
This case points out that the State has the power of death over every citizen. It comes with sovereignty, it is sovereignty and its modern face is biopolitics.
This was from ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' While praying for Terri all I could think she is our little mockingbird.
All she lives for is to smile at her family.
''Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. The don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.''
It is a sin to kill Terri. It is a sin to kill others like her.
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