Posted on 04/04/2005 9:12:57 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Terri Schiavo was not dying, so she could not be "allowed to die;" she had to be killed.
Why the desperate insistence that Terri Schiavo die?
The claim of honoring her wishes won't wash. She may have said -- as we've probably all said, at one time or another -- that she "didn't want to live like that." But if she was really in a persistent vegetative state, then it's not mere sophistry to point out that she wasn't "living like that," because she was incapable of suffering. And since suffering requires consciousness, if she was suffering she wasn't in a persistent vegetative state.
She wasn't a burden on Michael Schiavo, both because he had the malpractice award to provide for her, and because he had the options of divorcing her or turning her over to those who were eager to assume her care.
Since she required no more extraordinary support than a feeding tube -- and here let me interject that I've placed many such tubes myself, and once was guided on a flyfishing trip by a man in whom I'd placed just such a tube a few weeks before -- she was no more on life-support than you and I. And she was not dying, so she could not be "allowed to die;" she had to be killed.
Michael Schiavo, his lawyer, and the various judges were thus demanding the killing of someone who either was not suffering or who was actually conscious but severely disabled. Why was that so affirmatively necessary when he could have walked away a free man? Why the fierce pursuit of her death? Why the demonizing of those who wanted her to live, and stood ready to assume the burden?
By the 1850s, slavery had become the exquisitely tender American boil that could not be touched. For the slaveholders, it was not enough that slavery remain legal ; any proposal which could, however remotely, be construed to suggest that slavery was anything less than perfectly normal and moral had to be met with adamant opposition. And anyone who made such proposals was vilified in the nastiest terms. In the halls of Congress a Southern legislator brutally beat an antislavery colleague. New states or territories could simply not be allowed to join the union as slavery- free entities, because why else would slavery be prohibited in those places except that it was fundamentally wrong? Politicians tried desperately to avoid the subject altogether, and whenever cornered they produced some of the shabbiest and most convoluted legislation in our history.
By the 1930s it was obvious that Germany was rearming and that Hitler was preparing to embark on the conquest of Europe. Sick and tired of war, the members of the League of Nations, and most European politicians, were determined to pretend otherwise. Winston Churchill's reward for speaking bluntly about the Nazi menace was to be ostracized and insulted with an intensity much like that visited upon today's right-to-lifers.
When, in the 1940s and 1950s, Whittaker Chambers denounced the evils of Soviet communism he was similarly slandered and ostracized. An international community determined to ignore the famines, show trials, and persecution at the hands of Stalin simply could not tolerate the probing of Chambers and his allies, few though they were.
The advocates of abortion have always been similarly touchy. Abortion must be an absolute good; there cannot be any restriction such as a waiting period, pre-abortion counseling, parental notification, or paternal consent. Even the most hideous forms, such as partial-birth abortion, must not be restricted. And those who propose restrictions are heaped with snarling abuse, and condescendingly sneered at in the media.
So today with the Schiavo case.
When a society is determined to look the other way, it always responds with fury to those who draw attention to the crime of the day. The supporters of evil are forced to alternate between declaring it a positive good and pretending it's not there at all. It's a very delicate balancing act, poised on a thin rope above a deep chasm.
The tightrope walker cannot tolerate the lightest touch or the softest breeze. And Michael Schiavo, Judge Greer, and the American media could not abide the slightest hint that Terri Schiavo deserved anything but death.
It's up to each state, yes. It is not a federal issue.
So you're saying the three of them forgot? Then they suddenly remembered eight years later? Do you have any proof that they forgot -- some comment they made, something like that?
Uh huh. Didn't think so.
How about we say that they remembered all right, just that they weren't required to repeat it until eight years later in a court of law, under oath, subject to cross examination and penalty of perjury. Doesn't that describe it a little bit better?
They forgot.
"your argument also has to question and answer to the motives of those so eager to see her die."
I did. I couldn't come up with any. Did you?
I wonder if the outcome of Terri's plight would have been different if she were a lesbian, Planned Parenthood employee, PETA member dying of AIDS. This comment is not meant to be flip in any way.
But if the scenario was the following: Terri was a lesbian, and Michael was her husband in name only with a new woman and children....and she were dying of AIDS...and she was surviving with a feeding tube...would the courts have gotten away with murder?! Or would all of the outspoken gay/lesbian groups, AIDS rights groups, government agencies, etc. have fought to keep her alive? This is truly such a slippery slope for the elderly, terminally ill, disabled, etc. that I cannot belive that it occured in the United States.
Terri doesn't count?
You see, Terri had expressed her wish to at least three people that she didn't want to live that way. Are you saying that her wish should not be honored? That her parent's wishes should override Terri's?
Is that what you're saying?
It's up to each state. Sorry if Federalism scares you.
Only two testified under oath (what does that tell you), and one of those two recanted her testimony. The other was shown not to be credible.
Now what?
The Constitution trumps the state. Sorry if the very basis of our govt. scares you.
Not in these matters. Go here to read Justice Scalia's 1990 majority opinion in Cruzan by Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. An excerpt:
"While I agree with the Court's analysis today, and therefore join in its opinion, I would have preferred that we announce, clearly and promptly, that the federal courts have no business in this field; that American law has always accorded the State the power to prevent, by force if necessary, suicide -- including suicide by refusing to take appropriate measures necessary to preserve one's life; that the point at which life becomes "worthless," and the point at which the means necessary to preserve it become "extraordinary" or "inappropriate," are neither set forth in the Constitution nor known to the nine Justices of this Court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the Kansas City telephone directory; and hence, that even when it is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that a patient no longer wishes certain measures to be taken to preserve her life, it is up to the citizens of Missouri to decide, through their elected representatives, whether that wish will be honored. It is quite impossible (because the Constitution says nothing about the matter) that those citizens will decide upon a line less lawful than the one we would choose; and it is unlikely (because we know no more about "life-and-death" than they do) that they will decide upon a line less reasonable.
Sorry if Justice Scalia's majority opinion scares you.
Oh yes, her husband, his brother and sister-in-law all said Terri would want to die. And what about Terri's friends who said otherwise? Who had the most to gain, relatives who would gain financially or friends who would gain nothing? I doubt that Terri ever dreamed that she would have to suffer through starvation/dehydration for nearly two weeks.
Nobody has any proof they really heard her say it; least of all you. Because you couldn't come up with a motive (perhaps spite if his "Hasn't the bitch died yet?" comments have any weight) doesn't mean there isn't one. You seem to have reenforced my own opinion that you will do/say/hear/believe anything to make it all fit the way you think it should be.
....[_____] had become the exquisitely tender American boil that could not be touched. For the [_________], it was not enough that [_____] remain legal ; any proposal which could, however remotely, be construed to suggest that [_____] was anything less than perfectly normal and moral had to be met with adamant opposition. And anyone who made such proposals was vilified in the nastiest terms
Fill in the blanks with abortion/ists, homosexuality/ls, and now euthanasia/ists... it's all the same.
Hey, who does?
Does your Living Will exclude this eventuality?
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Good article. He illustrates (without actually saying the words) that moral relativists are not relativists. They are absolutists, while claiming that all views are equal or amorphous. But they are actually photo negatives of moral absolutists, except for their blatant hypocrisy and completely and absolute intolerance of even examining or allowing discussion of any position except their own position of evil.
Let me know if you want (back) on/off this pinglist.
Your reliance on Felos' and Schiavo's argument that "the court did it, not me" is specious, at best. It is buck passing at it's most blatant.
The court would not have been in the position to make the decision had Schiavo not advocated for her death.
It is true the court did find that the testimony of the husband (a biased and interested witness) his brother (a biased and interested witness) and his sister in law --NOT her best friend, as you assert-- (a biased and interested witness) while disregarding the testimony of her family and friends and the guardian ad litem to be "clear and convincing" and because the appellate courts are not charged with re-trying the facts, it was upheld.
But like Roe v. Wade, the law of the case is not always correct.
Actually, it doesn't. It's all about state's rights and the people's right to govern as opposed to the courts.
Scalia is pretty spot-on, if you ask me.
Read the Zogby poll: when asked about Terri's actual circumstances 79% oppose withdrawal of the feeding tube, and only 9% favor it (we know who they are--the really heavy duty NOW types and 'scientific' atheists).
If we can get anything like the traction the Swifties and buckhead got during the campaign with blogging on this one, we'll have judicial reform and, if not a roll-back of abortion 'rights', at least protections for the helpless who have had the good fortune to be born, and that within a year.
"This member of the government, the court, the judiciary, was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all the government's organs, but it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution can do what open force would not dare attempt."
--Thomas Jefferson, 1825
It's all still hearsay. Nothing's changed.
According to the St Petersburg Times:
""Terri didn't want to live like that," said Joan Schiavo, Terri Schiavo's best friend, who also testified Monday. "She didn't want people to see her like that. She didn't want to do that to her family and friends."
Or are they a "biased and interested" newspaper?
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