Posted on 01/29/2006 10:06:22 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who took a leading role in the Terry Schiavo case, said Sunday it taught him that Americans do not want the government involved in such end-of-life decisions.
Frist, considered a presidential hopeful for 2008, defended his call for further examinations of the brain-damaged Florida woman during the last days of a bitter family feud over her treatment. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state.
The case became a rallying point for right-to-life advocates, an important segment of the Republican Party. It also drew interest from those supporting the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment and led to charges that the GOP was using a family tragedy for political gain.
Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he had any regrets regarding the Schiavo case, Frist said: "Well, I'll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don't want you involved in these decisions."
Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed and 15 years after her initial collapse and hospitalization. Courts in Florida had supported her husband's contention that she would not want to live in such a state. Her parents and siblings disagreed and for years fought efforts to remove her feeding tube.
An autopsy later showed that Schiavo had suffered severe, irreversible brain damage and was blind.
Frist, R-Tenn., said in the full Senate that he supported what he called "an opportunity to save Mrs. Schiavo's life." A heart surgeon, Frist had viewed video ordered by a court and taken by a board-certified neurologist who had concluded she was not in a persistent vegetative state.
Congress passed a bill to allow a federal court to review the case, and President Bush quickly returned from his Texas ranch to sign the bill into law. But a federal judge refused to order the tube reinserted, a decision upheld by a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.
Frist was later mocked as having made a diagnosis from his office using a video screen. "I didn't make the diagnosis," Frist said Sunday. "I raised the question of whether or not she was in a persistent vegetative state."
Looking back, Frist said, "When you're taking innocent life, with parents who want that life preserved, you've got to make sure, and therefore stepping in to say, let's take one more review, that's what we did."
He added: "I accept the outcome. I don't agree with the moral sense of it."
Frist plans to leave the Senate when his second term expires in January 2007. He said Sunday he will return to his home in Tennessee and decide whether to seek the Republican nomination for president.
Frist's wealth and the attacks by the SEC stopped his presidential run in its tracks.
It's called dictatorship. In a representative democracy when elected officials don't follow the will of the people they are replaced. >>
When elected officials allow mass murder on their watch they are removed and imprisoned, and spat upon by history. When they give up, they are mocked and not elected.
If you think it's dictatorship, go to a land where killing weaklings is government policy. Take a time machine to Germany, 1939.
Only to a degree. When elected officials go too far in ignoring the will of the people, they tend to get voted out of office.
Americans do not want the government involved in such end-of-life decisions.
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That's right!...let families itching to get aunt Millie's money, insurance companies who are looking at the bottom line, and death nuts control those decisions.
Frist is a future presidential also-ran (if he gets that far), but I haven't been following his fortunes that closely. What does the Southeastern Conference have against him?
And what U.S. government officials have been removed and imprisoned for mass murder recently? By your logic then, mass murder must not have occurred.
No, let's have people think ahead for a change, and make their own wishes known. My husband and I had a medical power of attorney in place long before the Schiavo case. If anyone is out there without one AFTER the Schiavo case, they're pretty clueless.
That's right!...let families itching to get aunt Millie's money, insurance companies who are looking at the bottom line, and death nuts control those decisions.>>
Cartoon summed it up pretty well. Old Mom is in a hospital and hooked up to life support. Her son is about to pull the plug from the wall with one hand and is staring at the will which he holds in the other, a big smile on his face. Old Mom says to him, "Son, I should have aborted you like I did all the others!"
And what U.S. government officials have been removed and imprisoned for mass murder recently? By your logic then, mass murder must not have occurred.
By your logic a mandate (which might be for mass murder, who knows?) isn't a crime. So how can one be removed or imprisoned for not committing a crime. I know,... by majority mandate or...anarchy
Nope. The right to life is absolute regardless of any "living will" and if such a document allows active termination of life then it is null and void.
The right to life should not depend on whether you had the money to consult a lawyer beforehand.
Since when has the default been cancelled?
Preserve life. Do no harm.
The physician's oath?
The downward leftist spiral into insanity hasn't slowed it appear even here.
Explain that. I'm interested in seeing how your logic works.
If you have a "living will" after the Schiavo case, you are the clueless one, unless you have a scientific and medical crystal ball.
Old Mom says to him, "Son, I should have aborted you like I did all the others!"
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Oooh that's good! And then they came for me.....Sums up pretty well the insidious descent into social fragmentation.
I like a smart man. We do not want the government involved in these decisions.
An unwinnable goal. We will ALL die.
I think your problem is that you believe in a straight Democracy, I believe in a Republic.
No silly, that's merely your gross mischaracterization of it.
I think you haven't been reading my posts very well.
If it is always all or nothing with you, than all laws are futile.
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