Killing Terri Schiavo
Thomas Sowell (back to web version) |
SendPosted on 03/24/2005 3:26:10 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past
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Killing Terri Schiavo
Thomas Sowell (back to web version) | Send
March 24, 2005
People who say that the government has no business interfering in a private decision like removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube somehow have no problem with a squad of policemen preventing her parents (or anyone else) from giving their daughter food or water.
Do those who want to keep the government out of private decisions think that the police are not the government? Do they think that the judges who authorized this are not the government?
Sadly, this is not the only Alice-in-Wonderland confusion of words and deeds in this tragic case.
We are being told that Terri Schiavo is being "allowed" to "die a natural death." Such an argument might make some sense if this were a terminally ill person. But Terri Schiavo is not dying from anything other than a lack of food and water, from which any of the rest of us would die.
She is not dying a natural death. She is being killed.
What is being kept alive artificially is the liberal media version of events. One side of this story is being repeated endlessly, as if it were gospel, but anyone saying something different -- including doctors and nurses who have actually seen or taken care of Terri Schiavo -- is unlikely to be reported.
The nature of death by starvation and dehydration is also being depicted as "gentle" in the words of the New York Times -- the same New York Times which in 2002 reported starving people in India dying "clutching pained stomachs."
This "gentle" death is the story line in the liberal media but a priest who has actually seen Terri Schiavo tells a wholly different story of her visibly deteriorating condition. If this is such an easy death, why not videotape it and show those of us who are less enlightened how mistaken we are? Instead, there is a ban on anyone's photographing Terri as she dies.
Despite the oft-repeated claim that Terri Schiavo is being "allowed" to die, supposedly in accordance with her own wishes, the only person who says that these were her wishes is the one person who wants her dead and who personally stands to benefit from her death -- her husband, Michael Schiavo.
When Sean Hannity said this on the Fox News channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program, he was assured by a lawyer who was defending the removal of the feeding tube that Michael Schiavo was not the only one to hear Terri say this. But, when Hannity demanded to know the name of just one other person, the lawyer followed an old lawyer's maxim: "When your case is weak, shout louder!" He shouted and waxed indignant -- but did not produce the name of any other person.
This case is one where many people speak with certainty about very uncertain things -- and the certainties of one side contradict the certainties of the other.
Many seem certain that Terri Schiavo is vegetative, does not understand what is going on around her and cannot respond. But Carla Sauer Iyer, a nurse who attended Mrs. Schiavo for more than a year, has contradicted all of this. Moreover, she has painted a very different picture of Michael Schiavo than the one he presents to the courts and to the media.
But you are not likely to find her eyewitness account of events in the mainstream media.
According to this nurse, Michael Schiavo complained that his wife wasn't dying fast enough -- only the word he used was not wife or woman but a word that cannot be repeated in a family newspaper.
The nurse's sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, is that she reported to the police that she had found Terri in both medical and emotional distress after a closed door visit by her husband -- and that she also found a vial of insulin, as well as needle marks on Terri, after Michael Schiavo's visit.
The same mainstream media that will scour the country to find individuals to quote in support of killing Terri Schiavo will not lift a finger to investigate the chilling charges this nurse filed with the police years ago. It might disturb the picture they are trying to paint.
Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and because she is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life to be strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges to be challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Contact Thomas Sowell | Read Sowell's biography
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All true.
It's about time Congress took back some of its powers that have been usurped by the jucidiary. Unfortunately, it lacks the courage. How sad.
If I were Terri's father it would be time to risk arrest and rescue my daughter.
Yeah, I thought that was an excellent point. Leaving people free to act would save Terri because her parents would be free to provide care. The government is saying that they cannot do that. It is even arresting children who attempt to give her water. The husband doesn't have to provide care, but others should be free to do so. At least if no government interference is your argument then that should be the case.
If anyone needs to convince family or friends that Terri is being murdered, this is the article to send them.
Oh, I am not going to be too hard on the Bush family. They have tried very hard to help. It is easy to say what they should have done in hindsight, but I do think they have tried and we should appreciate them for that.
It's too bad Terri Schiavo was not a mass murderer earlier in her life. If that were the case, every liberal organization in the country would be screaming that the state is killing her as an unofficial execution. Terri's problem is that she is innocent, defenseless, and can't speak for herself. Liberals have no interest whatsoever in protecting such people.
Sowell is great at logic. He can breakdown any phony argument.
I love Dr. Sowell bump
Just like abortion, the Liberals are cowards.
If I were Terry's father it would be time to risk arrest for shooting the son of a bitch who is trying to kill my daughter.
Speaking as a father with two daughters...
Thomas Sowell is not a religious conservative, and he is not a Republican partisan. He is America's greatest living intellectual. Oh, if only we could transplant Dr. Sowell's clarity of thought into (for example) Jeb Bush ...
Amen my brother.
I'm glad someone else said it first.
Risk arrest? How about risk death? You have to kill me before you can kill my daughter.
I also have two daughters...dealing with MS would be number two on the list, depending on how long I was in detention for trespassing and kidnapping.
maybe the police have orders not to shoot during a rescue attempt, similar to the "no chase" laws in LA the police have to follow for aprehending illegal aliens and car thieves.
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