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Rift emerges in GOP after Schiavo case
Boston Globe ^ | April 9, 2005 | Nina J. Easton

Posted on 04/09/2005 3:48:54 PM PDT by FairOpinion

Top conservative leaders gathered here a week after Terri Schiavo's death to plot a course of action against the nation's courts, but much of their anger was directed at leading Republicans, exposing an emerging crack between the party's leadership and core supporters on the right.

And yesterday they issued an ''action plan" to take their crusade for control of the nation's courts well beyond Senate debates over judicial nominees, pressing Congress to impeach judges and defund courts they consider ''activist" and to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts over some sensitive social matters -- a strategy opposed by many leading Senate Republicans.

''This is not a Democrat- Republican issue; it is a liberal-conservative issue," Rick Scarborough, a Baptist minister and chair of the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration, sponsor of the gathering, said in an interview. ''It's about a temporal versus eternal value system. We are not going away."

In the charged battle over the future of the nation's courts, conservatives so far are outgunned financially. Last week, liberal groups mounted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign designed to build support for the filibuster and thwart Senate confirmation of nominees they consider extremists who will pursue a ''radical agenda and favor corporate interests over our interests," as one MoveOn.org radio advertisement intoned.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: judges; judicialmurder; judiciary; schiavo; schindler; terri; terrischiavo
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To: winstonchurchill

ouch. You said that well. I imagine how the Holy Spirit is much more grieved by those who say they know Him, and hear His voice when they have refused to know Him well, and refused to do as His voice commands.

Sad thing is, I've seen a lot of accuse me of "Satanistic" ideas and leanings...just because I propose ideas different than theirs.


301 posted on 04/11/2005 7:00:43 PM PDT by thinkingman129 (questioning clears the way to understanding.)
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To: supercat
I would describe a terminal condition as one in which (1) the only measures that would increase the patient's lifespan would impair the patient's quality of life for whatever lifespan remains, and (2) the projected increase in lifespan would not be very great in any event.

Although you say you are defining "terminal condition", you are really defining a cost-benefit analysis to any treatment. Basically, you agree that if the proposed treatment (i) would not extend the expected life span very greatly, and (ii)at the same time adversely affect the remaining lifespan, it should not be used.

What that cost-benefit analysis recognizes is the continued physical lifespan is not the summum bonum but must be weighed against quality of that life. I think it is good that you would test any treatment against such a test. But that is exactly what Terri and others (including me) do with the cost-benefit analysis of continued physical life. If the current quality of life is zero (as was hers), unless a change can be reasonably forecast, the expected lifespan -- whatever it is -- is worth zero -- or when one's situation is as bad as Terri's, worse than zero.

In short, those of us, like Terri, who make our wishes known, wish to have that cost-benefit analysis applied to continued physical life.

302 posted on 04/11/2005 7:02:21 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: Earthdweller
Diane Meyer, recalled they had just seen a television movie about Karen Ann Quinland. Terri, ... said, "Where there's life, there's hope."

Well, I know lawyers and if this woman and her story existed, the parents' lawyers would have put her on the stand - particularly after the mother's made up testimony exploded on the stand. Hmmm, but they didn't. Why not? Was she phantasmagorical?

303 posted on 04/11/2005 7:07:34 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: winstonchurchill
Why not indeed..her testimony was presented and was DENIED.
304 posted on 04/11/2005 7:11:47 PM PDT by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants ....Terri Schiavo, "Where there's life, there's hope.")
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To: supercat
Why don't you drive yourself into a bridge embankment at 100mph with no seatbelt and then your "life" forevermore will be much better too?

Thank you for your concern. I won't do that until my 'life' is like Terri's with my mind gone. Unfortunately, they won't let me drive then (except in NYC), so I'll have to count on someone else to send me home. Can I put you down to help?

305 posted on 04/11/2005 7:12:32 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: FairOpinion

Some of the deathists were anti-Terris because they were trying to protect abortion. Their selfishness drove them. Emotions trumped decency.


306 posted on 04/11/2005 7:18:42 PM PDT by 185JHP ( "The thing thou purposest shall come to pass: And over all thy ways the light shall shine.")
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To: winstonchurchill
"Well, I know lawyers and if this woman and her story existed, the parents' lawyers would have put her on the stand ..."

Let's see you explain this...

Greer found the testimony offered by Diane Meyer at the trial in 2000, at first credible but then not credible for one reason.

Meyer said that in 1982, she and Terri were recent high school graduates who had just seen a movie about Karen Ann Quinlan, who had been in a coma since collapsing six years earlier. Quinlan was the subject of a bitter court battle over her parents’ decision to take her off a respirator.

Meyer says she told a cruel joke about Quinlan, and it set Terri off.

“She went down my throat about this joke, that it was inappropriate.” She remembers Terri saying she wondered how the doctors and lawyers could possibly know what Quinlan was really feeling or what she would want. Terri added, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

Greer said that Quinlan died in the ’70s. He concluded that Meyer was mistaken about the date of her discussion with Schiavo and speculated that it occurred when the two were children, not young adults. Greer said, “The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan.” He ordered Terri’s feeding tube to be capped.

Point of fact—Quinlan died in 1985, a fact that Greer could easily have established and taken judicial notice of. Greer then discerned Terri’s wishes based on the highly suspect statements of Michael Schiavo and his two relatives.

A former girlfriend of Michael Schiavo, Cindy Shook, gave a deposition on May 8, 2001. Shook said Schiavo got angry when she asked him questions about Terri, saying, “[T]his had destroyed his life and he was being robbed of a normal life.” When Shook asked him about Terri’s care, he said, “How the h-ll should I know, we never spoke about this, my God I was only 25 years old. How the h-ll should I know? We were young. We never spoke of this.”

Based on Shook’s statement, Judge Frank Quesada ordered doctors to uncap Terri’s feeding tube. Greer refused to consider Shook’s statements.

Was Greer just shopping for the right "facts"? Why?

307 posted on 04/11/2005 7:27:17 PM PDT by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants ....Terri Schiavo, "Where there's life, there's hope.")
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To: Earthdweller
Why not indeed..her testimony was presented and was DENIED.

Aaaaah, the famous unnamed witness. I won't hold you to technical legal terminology, but "denied" is something that happens to a motion. Evidence is either "admitted" or "excluded". This testimony was admitted. Then the conflicting evidence is weighed by the trier of fact (in this case, the court). About this witness, the Court noted, her memory improved dramatically at trial over a few weeks before at deposition. Ultimately, the court concluded that she was testifying about the same comments as the mother had, made in the mid-70's when Terri was 11 or 12.

The Court was certainly right to give greater weight to statements made by Terri when she was an adult rather than those made when she was pre-adolescent girl.

308 posted on 04/11/2005 7:27:38 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: winstonchurchill
Answer in post #307
309 posted on 04/11/2005 7:29:34 PM PDT by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants ....Terri Schiavo, "Where there's life, there's hope.")
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To: Earthdweller

See #308 as to how the Court weighed the girlfriend's testimony.


310 posted on 04/11/2005 7:29:55 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: winstonchurchill
You are ignoring the facts also..<P.
A lawyers job is not to pick and chose which hearsay he likes the best. If you are going to kill a woman based on hearsay then at least allow it all.
311 posted on 04/11/2005 7:35:15 PM PDT by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants ....Terri Schiavo, "Where there's life, there's hope.")
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To: thinkingman129

This was NOT a hypothetical, theoretical exercise.

A defenseless woman's life was on the line and many passionately wanted her dead.

That you apparently were one of those, is very illuminating.


312 posted on 04/11/2005 7:36:50 PM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
many passionately wanted her dead.

No, many passionately wanted her wishes (and ultimately their own) honored. The pandering politicians, as usual, wanted to score points with those who cared more about some a priori presupposition on physical life than the day-to-day degradation of Terri. Not a pretty sight.

313 posted on 04/11/2005 7:43:10 PM PDT by winstonchurchill
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To: winstonchurchill
I will agree with you on this one.

A few "misunderestimated" how "excited" the base would get.

314 posted on 04/11/2005 7:51:06 PM PDT by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants ....Terri Schiavo, "Where there's life, there's hope.")
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To: FairOpinion
I think instead of recriminations against Bush and Bush, who did everything they could, they should focus the anger against the real culprits: the judges who defied the law and the will of Congress.

First, the judges actually broke the law and, secondly, Bush and Bush did not enforce existing law to prevent Mrs Schiavo from suffering a horrible death. This is not about judge selection anymore. Hell, half of the judges who didn't lift a finger to help Terri were appointed by a republican president! This is, however, about the humanity of this nation............

315 posted on 04/11/2005 7:52:59 PM PDT by eeriegeno
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To: eeriegeno

"This is, however, about the humanity of this nation............"

====


I certainly agree with this.

The commentary on the humanity of our nation is sad indeed.


316 posted on 04/11/2005 7:56:41 PM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
I want to know when the pro-life Terri republicans are going to come out in support of massive increases in Medicare and Medicaid?

As a matter of fact they should be in favor of socialized medicine of some sort. That is if poor peoples lives are equal to the lives of people that can afford 15 years of 24/7 managed health-care before they get any help from the feds.

Lets back up your great concern for human life with some money to make it all possible. All the Terri repub's should immediately start lobbying against any type of cap on malpractice damage awards as well as this is way to keep a body tethered by machine to "life" for many years.

If this support is not forthcoming then the Terri republicans are in favor of economic euthanasia! Not to mention massive hypocrisy.

317 posted on 04/11/2005 8:04:02 PM PDT by Walkin Man
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To: Walkin Man

All Terri needed was food and water and her parents were going to take care of her.

You rant about Medicare is totally irrelevant.

I guess you think that as soon as people over a certain age get sick, they should be euthanized, or if people at any age became disable mentally and physically, right?

Hitler thought so too. Maybe he was just a bit ahead of his time.

Of course any of us are a microsecond away from ending up just like that.


318 posted on 04/11/2005 8:07:56 PM PDT by FairOpinion
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Comment #319 Removed by Moderator

To: FairOpinion
All Terri needed was food and water and her parents were going to take care of her.

If that was the case why was she laid up in hospitals and a hospice for 15 years??

Are you trying to say that her care for the next 15, 30, 40+ years was all going to be taken care of by her parents??? LOL!

Yeah, her parents and 80,000 a year or so of taxpayer money!

Why don't you people get off your high horse and actually DO SOMETHING to back up your BS rhetoric?

You say life, any kind of 'life', is precious and must be 'saved' at all cost! You people were ready and willing to burn the Constitution and kill some sheriffs to 'save Terri'! Why don't you support socialized medicine and no caps on malpractice awards then? I guess thats not as exciting as rollin down the streets of Florida in National Guard tanks, eh?

It just says to me loud and clear two things.

The pro-life Terri fanatics are some of the biggest hypocrites I have ever seen and you are only concerned with 'saving' the rich while the poor get their plugs pulled and you look the other way!

All of you are in favor of economic euthanasia!

320 posted on 04/11/2005 8:25:09 PM PDT by Walkin Man
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