Posted on 03/30/2005 8:45:00 AM PST by stan_sipple
the (relatively silent) majority of Americans feel(s) that the most compassionate treatment for Terri Schiavo - as well as the proper legal course of action - is to let her vegetative existence end, as advocated by her legal guardian, her husband.
For Republicans who consider their party a captive of the religious right on matters like medical research and right-to-die legislation and now legislative intrusion into the judicial system, there is a way to at least feel more comfortable with their political consciences.
That way is to leave a party whose leadership is currently attempting to leave behind in the dust of American constitutional history the principle of separation of powers that has served this country well for more than 200 years.
the religious conservatives deeply involved in the case believe in an afterlife - eternal life in circumstances considerably more appealing than lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state for 15 years, being kept alive by food and liquids fed into your body through a hole in your abdomen.
Wouldn't the more compassionate course be to release Terri from a vegetative existence in the belief you are sending her on to a better life after death?
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
I refuse to believe that the "majority of Americans" think that it is 'proper' to terminate the life of a human being in a manner that we wouldn't dream of treating death-row murderers or dogs. Denying available water from the lips of anyone conscious or "vegetative" is a heinous crime.
Because a woman is being thirst to death and you seem okay with it? How can you be okay with it when apparently you aren't 100% sure this is what Terri wanted?
Wrong! This guys one of the taxpayers best friends in Nebraska. Consistently anti-tax and not afraid to say so.
Life is full of uncertainties. This case has been litigated to death. Time to move on.
Medical authorities told her husband then she was a hopeless case and to let her go. He persisted for years afterwards in trying to rehabilitate what cannot be rehabilitated and then, attempting to placate the inplacable parents, turned the decision as to what to do to the judge. Proving that no good deed goes unpunished her parents then launched a campaign of distortions and lies to attack him and everyone else except for a select group of crackpots who pretend to believe Terri is not a hopeless case.
But why bother with facts when we can pretend? I wouldn't force my worst enemy to undergo the ordeal forced upon Terri by her parents and their army of Loons.
I must laugh at that!
The "moderators" are evidently caught between a rock and a hard place. A few days back they seemingly were partaking of the kool aid and started making moves without rhyme or reason.
Jumping and dumping posts to the "Smoky Back Room" and otherwise curtailing debate from any side but the "save Terri" crowds.
The MSM and talk radio, Congress, etal jumped in with both feet, and are praying to God it will go away. They all took up all Terri, 24/7, instead of getting on with the many other problems confronting America. (yes, there are other things needing attention besides a woman in a persistent vegetative state)
Meanwhile hundreds if not thousands of people have probably died much like she will, with nary a whimper from this crowd.
The entire thing is and was farce that really began when the Schindler's got into a money argument with Michael many years ago. Hell, her parents even encouraged and then welcomed Michael's girl friend at first. Then the almighty buck got in the way.
Sorry for the rant.
Regards.
If not religion, what is the basis for your moral criticism of the religious; a blind, omnipotent, impersonal, mechanistic universe?
If that is your premise, then such notions as objective moral standards, values, moral obligation, moral accountability, praise, blame, freedom, and rationality are all unintelligible because they are the result of nothing more than physical chemical reactions in your brain. Since mere physical forces are devoid of ethical content your condemnation of certain alleged actions and omissions of the religious is fundamentally irrational. You can have your own made-up ethical preferences, but there is no reason to think that anyone else is obligated by them.
Cordially,
Also genuflecting to the 80% of the population that feels this should have been done years ago.
Saving Terri is going to cost Republicans control of the House and Senate in '06.
SO9
True, true. Laywers can't spin and Felos is just a do gooder helping poor old MS spend 700 large in insurance money. But hey, at least you're not gullible....
The takeover is now complete. We have all the porn you can handle on the internet, a strip club on every corner, abortion on demand, gay marriage just around the corner. Get real !
bump
It is that kind of attitude that has led America to where she is right now, morally speaking, people who just don't care or give up to easily.
To me, that kind of attitude is a slap in the face to everyone who has fought and died for this country.
Invading foreign army?
Stretching it a bit aren't you?
BTW ... Should the government only do that one thing, defend the United States of America, which they are by definition sworn to do, we all would be quite well off. That would keep people very busy minding their own damn business.
There is no violation of federal law here. No federal law forces the maintenance of hopeless medical cases which, at any given time, number in the thousands. These are decisions made everyday without little comment.
Terri is not "disabled" under any rational meaning of the term. This is one of the most egregious lies told by the pack of opportunists. She is FAR beyond being merely disabled.
Nor is there any question of "due process" except in the minds of those who refuse to face facts. Her case has consumed thousands of hours of judicial time and millions of dollars of medical costs. She has received FAR more from the taxpayers and legal system than probably 99% of those in similiar situations. To pretend that there has not been due process is a clear indication of lack of integrity and refusal to tell the truth.
Anyone familiar with the Constitution will not argue that Congress does not have the power to do what it has done or that it does not have the power to pass bills affecting an individual. It does. I think it a horrible example of political wisdom but it was within its power. Now it can do no more. However, dragging a near corpse before a committee of gladhanders and grandstanders is one of the most revolting acts Congress has performed and it is the stuff of satire. The supoenas were ignored because no one could possibly take them seriously. What will it do next supoena someone in the morgue?
Your understanding of the meaning of the mandated review is not in keeping with legal concept, de novo, and in no way requires the District Court to start proceedings from day one. But trying to tell this to people who know more about the law than judges, more about murder than the cops and more about medicine than doctors is fruitless. After all they stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
All your fantasies are less than persuasive and do not change the fact that the President has NO authority to do more than what he has already done. At least not in a country higher than a Banana republic.
Yep. Problem is that MS has been offered more than the original insurance pay-off to just walk away and let the parents take custody. He won't. What's your theory on this rather odd behavior? And don't say "cause Terry said she wanted to die", there were plenty of opportunities in the first 7 YEARS for that argument.
Compared to the ambulance chasers working for the Schindlers Felo is a Daniel Webster. Naturally Felo is irrelevent to any point you might have to make and wouldn't even by involved in this but for the malice of the Schindlers.
True. It's been argued many times that if the Schindlers had real lawyers, none of us would have ever heard of this case.
year of our lord was how the calendar was set up. Didnt have CE, Common Era back then. It was either AD or BC.
"Overwhelming evidence supports the belief that homosexuality is a sexual deviancy often accompanied by disorders that have dire consequences for our culture," wrote Steve Baldwin in, "Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement," soon to be published by the Regent University Law Review.
Baldwin is the executive director of the Council for National Policy in Washington, D.C.
"It is difficult to convey the dark side of the homosexual culture without appearing harsh," wrote Baldwin. "However, it is time to acknowledge that homosexual behavior threatens the foundation of Western civilization the nuclear family."
Though the homosexual community and much of the media scoff at such accusations, Baldwin who chaired the California Assembly's Education committee, where he fought against support for the homosexual agenda in the state's public schools says in his report that homosexual activists "efforts to target children both for their own sexual pleasure and to enlarge the homosexual movement" constitute an "unmistakable" attack on "the family unit."
Baldwin's research is substantiated in a recently completed body of work written by Dr. Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education and author of numerous authoritative books debunking sexual myths, including "Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences."
In her thesis also written for the Regent University Law Review Reisman cited psychologist Eugene Abel, whose research found that homosexuals "sexually molest young boys with an incidence that is occurring from five times greater than the molestation of girls.
Abel also found that non-incarcerated "child molesters admitted from 23.4 to 281.7 acts per offender … whose targets were males."
"The rate of homosexual versus heterosexual child sexual abuse is staggering," said Reisman, who was the principal investigator for an $800,000 Justice Department grant studying child pornography and violence. "Abel's data of 150.2 boys abused per male homosexual offender finds no equal (yet) in heterosexual violations of 19.8 girls."
Jay Heavener, spokesman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, counters that federal crime data refute claims that homosexuals molest children at higher rates than heterosexuals.
"According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), this claim is false," he told WND by e-mail. "The gay and lesbian community calls into question any dubious research which flies in the face of our own experience."
And Gary Schoener, a clinical psychologist who has been diagnosing and treating clergy abuse for 28 years, told Salon.com, "There are far more heterosexual cases than homosexual."
In terms of sheer numbers, that may be true. But in terms of numbers of children abused per offender, homosexuals abuse with far greater frequency; and boys, research shows, are the much-preferred target.
Baldwin says evidence he examined disproves the assertion that child molestation is more prevalent among heterosexuals. Both he and Reisman found that media coverage of adult homosexual abuse of minors is also slanted.
"The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) recently boasted that although homosexuals are less than two percent of the population, three-fourths of the people who decide the content of the front page of the New York Times are homosexual," Reisman wrote.
That one fact is especially noteworthy, experts point out, given the recent child sex scandals taking place within the American Catholic church.
A survey by WorldNetDaily of recent news reports found that rarely did the media describe priestly sexual abuse as "homosexual" or "gay" activity even though the worst incidents involved male-to-male contact, and a spate of investigative reports has revealed that the Vatican is concerned about an upsurge of homosexuals in seminary schools throughout the world.
Gay press promotes sex with children
Baldwin says his research not only "confirms that homosexuals molest children at a rate vastly higher than heterosexuals," but it found that "the mainstream homosexual culture" even "commonly promotes sex with children."
"The editorial board of the leading pedophile academic journal, Paidika, is dominated by prominent homosexual scholars such as San Francisco State University professor John DeCecco, who happens to edit the Journal of Homosexuality," Baldwin wrote.
During his research, he also found:
And I realize that even if Bush gets his judges appointed, it will be, at best, a crap shoot. Afterall, it was Ronald Reagan who nominated Sandra "Dazed" O'Connor, and Anthony "Norwegian Law" Kennedy to the Supreme Court.
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