Posted on 05/28/2007 9:33:12 AM PDT by wagglebee
The Christian attorney who fought to keep Terry Schiavo alive says the three leading GOP presidential candidates don't understand the important disability issues involved in the widely publicized 2005 case.
During a recent Republican presidential debate in California, the candidates were asked whether Congress was right to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case by attempting to prevent the state of Florida from removing the disabled woman's feeding tube. The answers varied.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said he thought it "was a mistake" for Congress to get involved and the matter should have been left at the state level. Senator John McCain said Congress "probably acted too hastily." And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the case a "family dispute."
David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association says the United States gives greater due process to convicted murderers than to innocent disabled people. The former attorney for Schiavo's parents argues that Congress did the right thing when it intervened to provide her those rights.
"Many of the candidates are following the political wind, if you will, instead of showing leadership and saying, 'You know what? That was good public policy back then. We need to stand up for the disabled. We need to stand up for the senior citizens,'" Gibbs says. "We need to have that compassion for vulnerable people as opposed to taking the mindset that those people that just don't matter," he notes.
It is disingenuous, the Christian attorney contends, for candidates to claim they are pro-life but not be willing to grant due process rights to the disabled. "If you're pro-life, you have to be pro-life at every step," he says.
"Please understand: our founding fathers understood that you don't have any liberty, our Constitution doesn't matter, if you don't protect the innocent life of the citizens," Gibbs explains. "That's why they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- your free speech, your freedom of religion, your right to own a gun or [receive] due process of law," he says. "If the government can kill you, you have no true liberty."
When Rudy Giuliani visited Florida he initially said he was in favor of assisting Terry Schiavo but later backpedaled from those comments, Gibbs points out. And in the recent GOP presidential debate, he says, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California got the issue right when they were asked about the Schiavo case.
And the end result was that an innocent woman was MURDERED and any of these candidates would allow it to happen again.
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Terri was tap dancing and juggling 6 oranges when her scurrilous husband shot her in the back of the head. At least that’s what I pieced together from reading these threads.
I’m going to get blasted for saying this, but this should have been left at the state level. It’s unfortunate. I’m not wholly happy with how it turned out. But individual states have traditionally dealt with this issue.
I’m going to leave politics wholly out of it, as this case has a way of setting people off in all number of directions.
"I wouldn't want to live like that so let's kill her" PING!
Romney’s position should come as a surprise to no one.
After all, he used his executive power to implement gay marriage in Massachusetts, even though there was no law or constitutional provision that allowed him, much less compelled him, to do so.
He’s a judicial supremacist, the most dangerous breed of elected official loose in the land today.
He is right that it was a political mistake, mostly in how it was executed. The GOP's chronic problem is am inability to articulate what it is doing, why it is doing it, and why it's good.
The Schiavo case was a classic example of what happens when they fail to do this: someone else (political opponents) fill in the blanks in a self serving way, and the GOP loses public confidence. Soon after, they lose political influence.
Should it have been left at the state level when the court was in clear violation of the Florida Constitution?
Did you support federal court involvement in the 2000 election when Florida courts violated their own Constitution?
Should state probate judges have the authority to ignore a Congressional subpoena?
Let's see if you still think it's a family dispute when one of our wives decides she wants your money instead of you. Oh, never mind.
If we are going to start deciding whose daily existence is pathetic and needs his/her miserable life ended by court-ordered starvation, I have a long list of candidates.
Don’t worry about it. Try taking a class in reading comprehension. It really helps to understand the written word.
They offer night classes for adults in our area.
Not just MURDERED It was worse than that. The poor Girl was starved to DEATH! ! ! !
We treat DOGS & CATS better than that.
LMFAO!
Well, it won’t be long before we are informed that we “don’t understand” because she was “brain dead” and had repeatedly stated that she would “want” to be starved and dehydrated to death and that the fact that her husband was legally estranged from her, living with another women who had his children, is not important because it was the “loving” thing to do.
It’s just a mattter of time before the other assorted trolls show up here.
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