Posted on 03/24/2005 7:22:09 AM PST by ConservativeMan55
Edited on 03/24/2005 7:43:21 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Mod note: Calls for violence will result in suspensions
Michael Schiavo has filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking them to stay out of the case.
That's the problem. If this is true, there is no need for Judges to have any schooling.
They are supposed to Judge according to the law. Not from their "feelings." That's why they go to law school.
And even if most of the people want them to make rulings from their feelings, they should follow the law instead.
I'm not sure they didn't take this route to stir up a media circus but that is what it looks like.
Waco......Church sanctuary gone terribly wrong!
I woke up in the middle of the night last night, thirsty. I couldn't help but think of Terri. Breaks my heart.
God bless Terri and her family.
Sometimes when the law fails, civil disobedience is our only recourse. It worked 230 years ago.
It's easy to be cavalier when you don't give a damn.
Google "Bill of Attainders" and review recent SCOTUS decisions.
and if my attending or treating physician and another consulting physician have determined that there is no reasonable medical probability of my recovery from such condition, I direct that life-prolonging procedures be withheld or withdrawn when the application of such procedures would serve only to prolong artificially the process of dying, and that I be permitted to die naturally with only the administration of medication or the performance of any medical procedure deemed necessary to provide me with comfort care or to alleviate pain.
The terms "life prologing procedure" and "be permitted to die naturally" are where I have a problem. Very few people understand the ramifications of those terms of art, to include that "dying naturally" really means "committing suicide by starvation."
Anyway, sorry for the diversion. Still parsing the statute for the proposition that a spouse usurps automatically holds the patient's power to order medical treatment.
Can't take the law into his own hands.
I hope he's haunted the rest of his days.
IslamOnline's report concerning USSC refusal to hear the appeal was factual and accurate. The following from US Supreme Court Rejects Shiavo Appeal may be of interest:
Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, President of the Fiqh Council of North American, told IslamOnline.net that all religion, particularly Islam, are deeply concerned about the preservation of the dignity and honor of human life.
He stressed that only the Creator of life has the ultimate decision about life and death.
However, the scholar said if a number of medical experts determine that a patient is in a terminal condition, then it could be permissible for them, through a collective decision, to stop the medication.
He added that if the patient is on life support, it may be permissible, with due consultation and care, to decide to switch off the life support machine and let the nature take its own time.
Dr. Salah Soltan, President of the American Center for Islamic Research, Columbus, Ohio, agreed.
He said if doctors agree beyond any shred of doubt that a patient is clinically dead and that the brain is declared dead, then it is allowed in this case to take off the life support.
This is the view of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, other Fiqh councils and the majority of contemporary scholars, Soltan told IOL.
He stressed that there is no provision in Islam for killing oneself or another person to reduce his/her physical or emotional pain or suffering from sickness or disease.
Mercy killing is forbidden in Islam as it encompasses a positive role on the part of the physician to end the life of the patient and hasten his/her death via lethal injection, electric shock, a sharp weapon or any other way.
>Suppose, for instance, someone had a stroke and couldn't speak. A relative who overheard that person saying they didn't want to live under these circumstances, is enough to have that person's life support - even if it is just food and water, taken away.<
You bring up a very good point, Ivan. Let's say, I am very wealthy, and my extended family stands to inherit a large estate. Should your example happen, if 2 or more greedy relatives get together, and testify they heard me say I wouldn't want to live "with tubes", the precedents set in this case would give them the perfect way to get that estate more quickly.
Remember, only judges can make/break/forsake the law.
Uhm...the Gub'ment is not too worried about trampling on churces rights...imo.
Remember what happened outside of Waco?
To be fair, I didn't see the question you were responding to, so I didn't fully understand the context of the answer you were giving.
Sorry about that.
I finally had to turn off Fox News. They've had so many analysts on this morning to say why it's right for Terri to be starved to death, and so few on to say otherwise.
Before I turned the TV off, I heard Bobby Schindler in a phone interview. When asked what he wants to say to Terri's supporters right now he said "Just pray for Terri. And pray for my parents, this is really hard on them right now. And pray for Michael Schiavo." His last comment was deeply moving to me.
Contrast that with what immediately followed on Fox News - the press conference with George Felos. He spent a lot of his face time admonishing and condemning. He said that the behavior of Governor Bush was appalling and he should be ashamed. He had the hubris to say that Terri's parents should spend their remaining time with Terri being "contemplative" rather than continuing any attempts to save Terri. The man is evil. There's just no other word that better describes him.
True. But:
1) The definition of "life support" is a little fuzzy here. Her parents are asking to be allowed to take her home and feed her. They are not asking for ongoing care, at great public or hospital expense, involving high-tech life support equipment, operated by medical professionals who believe the effort is futile and ill-advised. I fully agree with Pres. Bush's position on the Texas law he signed, that allowed withdrawal of life support in those situations, regardless of the wishes of the patient's relatives.
2) I have a good deal of trouble with a state law that defines a husband -- even one who is living with another common law wife and has children with her -- as the "next of kin", while giving no legal standing whatsoever to the unanimous opposing view of the subject's parents and siblings.
That's what they said at Nuremburg. People swung for obeying the letter of the law, as opposed to their consciences.
Here is the part that hamstrings the surrogate, whoever it is, to follow the PATIENT's wishes ...
765.205 Responsibility of the surrogate.--(1) The surrogate, in accordance with the principal's instructions, unless such authority has been expressly limited by the principal, shall:
(a) Have authority to act for the principal and to make all health care decisions for the principal during the principal's incapacity.
(b) Consult expeditiously with appropriate health care providers to provide informed consent, and make only health care decisions for the principal which he or she believes the principal would have made under the circumstances if the principal were capable of making such decisions. If there is no indication of what the principal would have chosen, the surrogate may consider the patient's best interest in deciding that proposed treatments are to be withheld or that treatments currently in effect are to be withdrawn.
Still no sighting of the term "spouse" or "next of kin."
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