Posted on 03/30/2005 9:07:57 PM PST by syriacus
It's astounding how many people want Terri Schiavo dead and aren't afraid to say so.
I got clobbered by readers who reacted to Tuesday's column about how the "culture of death" has placed its compassionate arms around Terri, the brain-damaged Florida woman who is being starved to death.
E-mail and phone calls (more than 150 at last count) are running 2-1 against me.
"It's nuts, this 'life at all costs' mentality," a caller said.
There was general agreement: Terri should die and starvation ain't so bad.
"Her parents are being very selfish by keeping her alive. Your reference to her starving like the prisoners [at] Dachau and Bergen-Belsen? Oh, come on. She will not be in any pain. She will go gently to sleep. I'm a nurse."
So let's starve death row inmates instead of killing them with lethal injections. I mean, if starvation is so gentle and painless. Ignore the faint-hearted who gripe this is "cruel and unusual" punishment.
"Her brain is mush. There has never been a case of a person being in a [persistent vegetative] state this long and having any kind of recovery. There's not gonna be a recovery. She's 40-some years old. Who's gonna take care of her? Her parents? They're going to die soon themselves."
A 1984 car crash left Terry Wallis of Mountain View, Ark., a quadriplegic. He lay silently in a "persistent vegetative state" for 19 years. Suddenly, in summer 2003, he began talking. He asked for his mother - and for a Pepsi. I spoke with his parents.
Terry Wallis' wife, after swearing she would care for him forever, left him for another man and had kids with the guy. (Sound familiar?)
Custody was given to his parents, who were often depressed. They prayed a lot.
Today, Terry Wallis is determined to walk. His daughter, Amber, 6 weeks old in 1984, is 21 and cares for him.
The most frequent gripe readers have is that I am not a doctor and so should not comment on Terri Schiavo's medical condition.
"Interesting that you put yourself above trained doctors. As a doctor myself, I find this low mentality repugnant. You and Bush spread this dribble for your own good and care nothing about Terri, her wishes or her husband. Have you, Bush and the Republicans gone brain dead? If this is the case I hope someone pulls your plug." - Bill Helton
I received many comments like that. Reading them gave me a headache - oops, I'm not a doctor. I'm not qualified to make that diagnosis. Sorry.
A neurologist from New Jersey sent me this:
"I fear that our culture will push the line further as to who should live and who should die. I fear for the old, the young, the sick and the helpless. I fear becoming one of the helpless. - Maria Choy, M.D.
Me, too. After Terri Schiavo, who will the culture-of-death vultures circle? A hint. Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist whose medical opinion was key to a Florida judge ordering Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, was on TV this week candidly admitting he doesn't believe Alzheimer's patients have constitutional rights.
So first it's people like Terri, then the Alzheimer's sufferers, then perhaps end-stage cancer victims, and so forth.
Why not? Who would want to live like that? Are they not burdens?
Charles Dickens captured it when he had Scrooge confront the do-gooders who wanted to save the helpless, deemed worthless to Victorian England.
"If they had rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population."
Yes, I've NEVER seen the comic stip. Not ALL comics run in every newspaper and some newspapers do NOT even run comics at all; not even a section on Sunday.
You still peddling that ridiculous fake story about potential violence between local cops and state officers?
You should check your sources better.
Two state cops and an order from the Governor were all that were needed throughout this ordeal. That is the truth.
Why go out of my way? I'm sitting at a computer.
"If they had rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge.
Is that the quote you need?
you think so?
LOL
Right....
why dont you try to post that picture of a dehydration victim again....maybe that will make it more right or something...
no its ok man...
it hasnt been in the newspaper for a couple of years now. Right when the comic was getting to be nationally known, the guy quit doing it for some odd reason or another....
Then if I were you, I wouldn't be talking about pigs. You're lazy and don't REALLY care about the quote at all.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Yes. But I missed seeing anything but casual references to the similarity between Christ and Terri.
Whole threads...wow.
Aren't we supposed to see Christ in everyone?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
yeah but this went beyond that....
to the point that the mods pulled it, which should show how bad it had gotten.
Good for you, old friend; you helped the oh so lazy person who wouldn't go look it up, but posted this thread instead.
Long time no see..........I hope all is well with you and yours! :-)
Oh,I see. I guess that I just never had a paper that carried it and then it stopped being drawn. :-(
I never posted any such picture.
I asked the top cop at the hospice about that 'story'.
He laughed out loud at the idea they would defy an order from the Governor in any way.
Governor Bush is the top law enforcement officer in Florida, and they damned well know it.
All he had to do was invoke Article One, Section Two of the State's Constitution.
All the talk about 'doing everything they could' is nothing but faldoral for the naive masses who get their information via the MSM filter.
yeah....
you can find collections of the comic, which is what I was reading becuase I was packing up books and stuff...
I place it 2nd behind Garfield as my favorite.....
Thank you. And it's an honor to be considered your FRiend. Best wishes.
Good post, but fact is, they came for the handicapped people before they came for the Jews...
whatever you say man....
go ahead and blame Jeb all you want. It just means that the attention you divert to blaming Jeb will be diverted from the real criminals, Greer, Felos and MS.....but by all means, go for it.
I'm just trying to get him to act, as he swore to do. It's not too late. She is still living, you know.
Have you read Article One, Section Two?
Jeb swore to uphold that most important of unalienable rights, the right to live, after all.
No one else can save her, except God, and he tasked Jeb to do it.
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