Posted on 03/27/2005 11:48:41 AM PST by gwb43_2004
Demonstrators Mary Porta, kneeling, and others pray for Terri Schiavo, Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005, outside the hospice, where Terri resides, in Pinellas Park, Fla. Under increased security and with fading hopes, Terri Schiavo's parents asked supporters to return home to spend Easter Sunday with their families as the couple's severely brain-damaged daughter went a ninth day without food or water. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)
Sheesh! If this is the quality of the demonstrators, I can see why nobody is photographing them on a regular basis. Between the sign and the woman in white contorting herself, it looks like a whacko convention.
neither should the judicial branch be
They are in practice, because the other two constantly give them the last word.
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These men have been out there and are making the hard choices.
NO matter what they do, half the country ain't gonna like it.
Not one person here should express a lick of surprise when this decision is used as a precedent to put millions of handicapped and elderly to death using the same exact mechanism that led from Roe v. Wade to abortion factories.
10 years. I give it 10 years before even expressing a reservation about what will be the increasingly-common practice of euthanasia becomes cause for a "moderate" Republican to label you a right-wing kook.
As Terri’s legacy to us, we have to work, no we must work to change the laws that allow something like this to happen in this country, Florida is more perverse than most, but there are many more. When Florida has a legislator who writes publicly that she was going to change her vote until someone called her a name I became most worried. We have children going out and making pipe bombs or stealing weapons and going back to their schools and killing other students and teachers because they have been called names. But for a legislator to admit that being called a name was the reason she chose death over life is downright scary. Just as Michael’s choice of a terribly agonizing death over a lifetime of unconditional love is scary and indicative of the person he is. We cannot blame the Bush's, they did everything they could within the statutes we allowed our legislators to enact, and then some.
We must work to hold judges responsible for their actions or lack of actions when they fail to act when a crime is committed. Judge Greer failed to protect a young woman who asked for his protection and the protection of the court. He can never be held responsible for that action even though he is as responsible for her death as if he had placed the knife in her killer’s hand, because he allowed it to happen. While I don’t think he was a judge at the time, as a judge today, as every judge should, he should be actively pursuing or causing the pursuit of those who starved and dehydrated Lisa McPherson to death. There should be an investigation documented in the records of the court and there should be warrants for the arrest of the men whether they are within or beyond the boundaries of the United States. We do have international agreements providing for the extradition of such persons, but someone must pursue it, or it doesn’t happen. It should be mandatory, not something the judge or states attorney decides they want or don’t want to pursue. A murder was committed. A life was prematurely and perversely taken as documented by the autopsy report.
Incompetency/guardianship laws need to be changed. Lawyers who haunt rehab and phased life care centers should be disbarred period. No one should have a judgment of incompetency placed on them without a full conversation with the judge (face to face), no sooner than 3 months after any surgery or process requiring anesthesia or pain relief medication other than aspirin or similar OTC medication, and no attorney should be allowed to oversee the guardianship. When the incompetent person is so adjudged, the guardianship should include one medical representative, one family member, and one member of the clergy or advocate. When there is not a surviving family member, then another advocate, perhaps DCF, should be appointed. These guardians should not be in charge of their funds nor should they be allowed to dissipate any funds or assets, nor should the judge be allowed to dissipate those assets to provide for ANYTHING other than medical care or educational use. Where you have a parent whose spouse has died, then a petition to the court should be allowed to use funds to provide for educational and medical care of a minor, and they should be allowed physical guardianship of the minor until they reach their majority. Persons should be allowed to petition the court to re-instate their identities.
In the case of Terri, the spirit of the law was ignored. She is/was the victim of a judge who followed the letter of the law forgetting the balance of justice, the spirit of the law, as has been consistently upheld by other courts. The law was written for the terminally ill (i.e. dying of cancer or other diseases). Terri was never dying, but Judge Greer, ruled contrary (sp.) to the spirit of the law. Terri was also the victim of a man who has twice previously killed, who admitted on nationwide TV that he had no idea what her wishes were, and as such, who is a threat to every patient in any hospital, jail or clinic he may work in. She was the victim of an attorney who is certifiable and with a deep abiding interest in the “cleansing” of our society of the disabled and infirm, according to his own book.
We must change the law with the help of our legislators to eliminate the use of starvation and dehydration as a method of terminating any person’s life under any circumstances. The terminally ill who do not have a legally written living will, signed by their own hand, and sworn to in front of a legitimate notary, and who has made an informed decision, should not be forced to die at the hand of anyone under any circumstances, regardless of who makes the request. This case proved that women, in particular, are still chattel and that whatever their husband wants is what the court will approve. This is one reason why so many young women are remaining single, by choice, and raising their children as single parents. In fairness to 99.9% of men and women spouses in this world, most would not want to end a life to unburden themselves, but then we have Michael, who chooses death in agony over a lifetime of unconditional love. Witness Prince Ranier, who could have courted many women, he chose to honor of his marriage vows and I doubt very seriously that he would have chosen to kill Princess Grace regardless of her circumstances.
A right to die law should involve an informed decision regarding a persons own condition. Their request for assistance in dying should be signed by them, sworn to in front of a reputable notary, and witnessed by no fewer than 3 people. The assistance should not include the withholding of food and water. The terminally ill self-regulate regarding the ingestion of food and water. Death should be painless, and it should be administered by professionals who are able to judge the level of acuteness of the disease at the time, but at no time by the request of a spouse, child, or parent. PVS should not be a reason to kill. It has no clear and concise definition and therefore should not be included as a reason to terminate a person’s life. Withholding food and water to terminate a life allows us to terminate anyone’s life, without the clear definition above, and since all of us eat and drink, in fact we have to eat and drink to survive, should not be included in the definition of “artificial” life support.
So: eliminate starvation/dehydration as a means to terminate any life; change guardianship/incompetency laws to eliminate dissipation of funds; living will encouragement; depending on your point of view, a right to die law that clearly puts you in command, and enact laws holding judges responsible for errors in judgment and failure to act. (Note: capital cases are judged by a jury and therefore a judge would not be held responsible in such a case, not should they.)
We should also try to help eliminate Medicare/Medicaid fraud by not allowing judges to place persons on it after allowing the dissipation of their funds for other than medical or educational uses. This is a major reason for the withholding of food and water to our disabled and seniors in the US. A person, anywhere in the United States, cannot afford to live on the allowance of Medicare/Medicaid, so hospices, phased care retirement facilities, etc., cannot keep these people and make the profit their stockholders demand. Florida is owed $14 million in medicare fraud by Terri’s hospice chain, but no one is collecting it, why not?
They did what they could and the way to reverse what you may not like is to get different Judges appointed.
As an amatuer photographer and former professional videographer I spotted this set up right away. The woman in the foreground has absolutely nothing to do with the woman with the sign. The foreground lady is some sort of fundamentalist nut job, while the woman in the back is standing amongst a group of people who are quite passively praying their rosaries.
Though since 1987 I have voted strictly conservative-republican, right down the line and will continue to, I will forever be puzzled at how some people can defend their party guys even when they are acting like mice. Isn't it better to vote our guys in and then hold their little political feet to the fire to advance the objectives of which they were elected for?
Sorry for the rant, but Terri Schiavo is my daughter, your daughter, and the daughter of all America. Her rights are being trampled on by ghouls in black robes and then they take their bloody shoes and wipe them in our faces. These are the days when our leaders have to act like men and not mice.
The answer is...the people of Florida need to fix it.
That may seem reasonable to you, but it seems like defeating the purpose to me. How many people would have to die before you are satisfied he did all he could?
A couple of points:
1) You are counting it a certainty, or at least as a strong likelihood, that shots would have been exchanged. I say nay. A sufficient show of force by state officers under the command of the governor, combined with direct orders by the governor of the State to all county and local police to stand down, executed properly, would almost certainly have resulted in the local law enforcement officials backing down. Bush is, after all, the Governor of the State.
2) Consider this: The Schindlers' lawyer appeared in court with a clear and credible affidavit alleging that Terri had clearly and expressly communicated her desire to stay alive (loudly replying, "IIIIIIII WAAAAAAAA!" in response to Weller's telling her, "Terri, if you would just say, 'I want to live, then this would all be over'").
Greer's response was very telling: Instead of addressing the credibility of the report, he struck this extremely relevant evidence down on a flimsy technicality. "You were in this court 3 days ago and didn't bring this up then, so you waived your right to have this admitted as evidence, therefore I reject the request."
When he did this, he abandoned (in my opinion) even the pretense of either fairness or decency, and made it apparent (to me, at least) that he is actively, deliberately and willfully killing Terri.
When you allow an official to do this with impunity, especially in public, be assured that you're going to get a lot more of it. Greer should NEVER have been allowed to get away with this. Regardless of the view that Greer "is" the law because of his black robe (or at least, whatever he says the law is, is what it is) - Greer's actions ARE, by my admittedly layman's analysis, both illegal and unconstitutional. They constitute depriving an American citizen of life without due process ("Your evidence is irrelevant because you didn't present it 3 days ago")... and there are several other crimes here as well. Greer simply ignored and disobeyed whatever law he didn't like, including laws passed by Congress. Why? He had the balls to do it.
Jeb had a responsibility to oppose this, with police force if necessary. It's true that for him to do so would have meant at least a slight risk of loss of life. The fact that he chose to avoid this risk (and the associated political risks) means that other petty tyrants like Greer all across the nation will be emboldened, and MANY more lives like Terri's will be lost. Many others will suffer in quality of life, because it's been clearly and publicly demonstrated that a judge at even a county level can get away with just about anything he damn well pleases. Jeb's handling of Greer, has set an extremely bad precedent.
Jeb had the choice of risking a few lives - to save a great many. Tough choice, admittedly, but in my opinion, Jeb made the wrong choice.
And Andrew Jackson was not only wrong legally, he was wrong morally too. Andrew Jackson, from my perspective, is about on the same level as Janet Reno.
Too many lives were lost because of Jackson's ego. Jackson was a pr**k.
And the fundies wonder why no one takes them seriously?
Straw man. The comparison is laughable on it's face.
In what way was Andrew Jackson wrong legally?
I too view that woman praying like a voodoo witch to be a flake. But the setup is that the woman with the sign is passively praying her rosary with the group she is standing with. Don't be so misled by photos, in political arenas they are designed to mislead and confuse, as is this one. The woman with the sign was probably there all day, and there were many other photos taken of her.
And yes, I would liked to have seen Gov Jeb make a public proclamation that Terri Schiavo's civil and religious rights are being brazenly trampled upon, then call on the FBI to investigate this Federal offense, and then personally go to the hospice with 50 State Troopers, 100 National Guardsmen, a team of State medical personnel, and the heads of these State organizations, and then declare to the local police that their jusisdication has just been superceded and overridden by the State of Florida, and the STATE, NOT THE COUNTY, is now in charge of the case. Then physically remove Terri Schiavo from her starvation chamber and bring her to a hospital where she belongs.
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