It's the ability to make the final choice in a matter. All sovereignty resides with the individual. 
Posted on 01/21/2006 11:23:34 PM PST by Bullitt
Eh...I wouldn't say the U.S. doesn't value life. I would say people are (unfortunately) instinctively pre-disposed toward death at this time, but when consciencely a choice is forced they tend to side for Life. It's a mixed bag. Polls, for what they are worth, showed people saying she should be starved to death. When given the precise facts, they said she should live. It's mixed.
BTW, Michelle Malkin is following a similiar case.
http://michellemalkin.com/
Last fall, Haleigh was hospitalized after her stepfather allegedly burned her and beat her nearly to death with a baseball bat. Haleigh, in a coma, was kept alive by a feeding tube and ventilator. Doctors said she was "virtually brain dead" -- in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.
The Massachusetts Department of Social Services wanted to remove Haleigh's feeding and breathing tubes.
Even her biological mother (who had been deemed unfit to care for Haleigh and whose former boyfriend was accused of sexually abusing the child) wanted her to be put to death (transcript via Nexis/CBS Evening News):
CBS reporter SHARYN ALFONSI: This is Haleigh Poutre before, before her teeth were broken, before her tiny body was burned and before she was beaten, doctors say, into a vegetative state. You're her mother.
Ms. ALLISON AVRETT (Biological Mother): Yes.
ALFONSI: What do you want for her?
AVRETT: I want her to rest.
ALFONSI: And right now?
AVRETT: She's not. Being kept like that is not a life.
The only person who wanted Haleigh alive was her stepfather, who will likely be charged with murder if Haleigh dies.
Two days ago, Massachusetts' Supreme Court ruled against Haleigh's stepfather, saying it was ''unthinkable" to give the power to make a life-and-death decision to the man accused of putting Haleigh in a coma. "Court: State can let beaten girl die," the headlines trumpeted.
Just one small complication for all of those who, for whatever reason, were in such a rush to "let Haleigh die:"
Haleigh wants to live.
As state officials prepared to remove Haleigh's life support, the supposedly impossible happened:
A day after the state's highest court ruled that the Department of Social Services could withdraw life support from a brain-damaged girl, the agency said yesterday that Haleigh Poutre might be emerging from her vegetative state.
DSS also said it has no immediate plans to remove her feeding tube.
''There has been a change in her condition," said a DSS spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro. ''The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."
Monteiro said Haleigh is breathing on her own, without the ventilator she has depended on for four months. Monteiro also said that doctors at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield elicited responses from Haleigh during tests performed yesterday.
Everyone had given up on Haleigh--except Haleigh.
This is a huge story, a wake-up call to "right-to-die" ideologues who recklessly put such unlimited trust in the medical profession and Nanny State. The same government bureaucrats and doctors who had conclusively deemed the 11-year-old girl "hopeless" and her vegetative state "irreversible" now tell us she is responding to stimuli and breathing on her own.
They were wrong.
Next, look for The Professionals to tell us that despite her improvements, her "quality of life" will be worthless. We already know how they feel about people with feeding tubes.
Haleigh's fight has just begun.
It's the ability to make the final choice in a matter. All sovereignty resides with the individual.
Recovery was not the point. Terri had a right to live. Unless, of course, you believe that no human being who lives a life you see no value in, has to die. That's the point.
I don't think it opened a rift at all. It simply exposed the rift that runs right through the Republican Party today. In today's GOP, social conservatives coexist in an uneasy alliance with libertarians, who typically support (albeit with different rationalizations) the social maladies that we most deplore. I suspect that just as the Reagan Democrats felt compelled to break away from their party, one of the groups in the GOP's big tent will also split off in the near future.
"I'm sorry, but the Schiavos were delusional in thinking that their daughter could recover."
I don't think Terry's family was so much focused on whether or not she was going to recover. I think they knew recovery was out of reach.
From what I saw, they just wanted to take care of their severely brain-damaged daughter for the rest of her life. They wanted her to be surrounded by loving family.
That is beautiful, and so true.
Whew, you had me going there for a minute.
Why the heck can't people understand the difference between "brain-damaged" and "brain-dead"?
Do you favor killing off little toddlers who are brain-damaged when they're born?
Terri was in a similar condition. She was NOT brain-dead. She was severely retarded.
No, I am not pro death penalty. I do believe capital punishment should be used only for the most heinous of crimes. At the top of that short list are the terrorists. Since the US death penalty was reinstated in 1976 there have been roughly 1,000 people put to death. OTOH, since 1973, 45 million have died from the abortion procedure. Generally speaking, I don't think the problem is captial punishment but rather a society that has no resepct for the unborn.
Interesting thread. I'll have to look back when I have more time.
I know what the definition of sovereignty is. I just didn't know the meaning of "soveignty" (I don't think there is such a word. And yes, I was just joking around, which is why I put the ;) face on my post).
Not really.
I believe terrorists deserve death. Period.
I think life in prison with hard labor, without TV, radio, computers, weightrooms, etc etc etc, is the way to go. Bottomline. While I may not agree, captial punishment is a legal option. The final decision for punishment is in the hands of the jury, or the judge.
Sadly you are probably right.
You don't sound like a newbie, so you must be a retread.
So tell us, what was your screen name before you got yourself banned?
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