Posted on 03/24/2005 11:46:40 AM PST by vanderleun
It's really as simple as that.
thanks, I like this one very much.
If the U.S. Constitution does not protect the life of a disabled woman then it is good for nothing -- but apparently mandating a "right" to abortion, sodomy, pornography and stuff like that.
That the thing that has flipped all our right on there head ....
That the thing that has flipped all our right on there head ....
T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral. How fitting.
Thank you vanderleun for this astute -- and deeply saddening -- post.
I can't add anything that would say it any better. Thank you for posting this.
Profound, disturbing and sad.
This has not been about the 'right to die', we already have that with a living will.
This woman had no living will, and her husband has not acted in good faith as her guardian, which makes his assertion of her desire to die extremely questionable, especially when her family wishes to keep her alive and take care of her. Many of her old friends and nurses have also given testimony of Terri countering what Terri's husband has said.
This case has been about the right to live.
By this country allowing the legal system to insist on death for Terri we have taken away all of our own rights to live. Now our right to live is conditional. Conditional as determined by the state.
Let me ask you a serious question. If my wife told me that she didn't want to be kept alive with a ventalator, or with a feeding tube, and then she became completely incapacitated, would you support my right as her husband to remove her from the ventalator or remove the feeding tube once every attempt to revive her had failed?
This case wouldn't involve a written will, it would only be my word about her wishes. Would you support my right to carry out her wishes?
Well said.
When has this been proven in a court of law. The rights of a guardian are a legal matter, and when the guardian abuses those rights, or fails to act in good faith, then that is something that can be proven in a court. When has someone proven in a court that Michael Schiavo has not acted in good faith?
And yes, I'm aware that he has kids with another woman. But that's not enough to legally strip him of his rights as a guardian. I'm sorry but that's the law.
The courts have decided that it's his decision to make. And if it were me, or my wife I would not want the government stepping in to make that decision for me.
"Judge Greer and Michael Shiavo are premeditating 1st degree murder."
Does any one know who is filing for the impeachment of Greer? Please post along with an address. I would like to send a check for the impeachment proceedings.
When has this been proven in a court of law. The rights of a guardian are a legal matter, and when the guardian abuses those rights, or fails to act in good faith, then that is something that can be proven in a court. When has someone proven in a court that Michael Schiavo has not acted in good faith?
This is what the parents have been questioning and has not been given a fair trial. Considering that Terry's life is being taken away from her contingent on this fact, shouldn't the feeding tube be reinserted until the reasonable contentions of her mother and father that Michael is not looking after Terri's best interests, but rather his own, are given a fair hearing in court?
Until it is, then Terry is being asked to prove her right to live. Once our right to live is allowed to be questioned then we lose all other rights.
Yes if she had a 'living will', and yes if everyone else in the family agreed if there was no living will. This should be a private, personal and/or family decision if it comes to this.
But here we have people who have proven their ability to care for Terri disagreeing the proposal that Terri would not have wished to live like this.
If a family can not agree together what to do and it must go to court like this, the court must err on the side of life, it does not have the right to decree that a person's life is forfeit as long as the person can survive without life supporting paraphernalia.
Food and water are requirements of every single one of us, to allow her to be deprived of the right to food and water by the state, means that anyone of us can be deprived of that right also by the state.
Ironmike asks: "Let me ask you a serious question. If my wife told me that she didn't want to be kept alive with a ventalator, or with a feeding tube, and then she became completely incapacitated, would you support my right as her husband to remove her from the ventalator or remove the feeding tube once every attempt to revive her had failed?
This case wouldn't involve a written will, it would only be my word about her wishes. Would you support my right to carry out her wishes?"
No I would not even if I had no reason to doubt your word. As we have seen here, accepting one person's word is not enough.
Your evocation of Eliot prompted me to revisit Murder in the Cathedral, a sublime work of the human spirit. Some of its themes evoke aspects of what is happening down in Pinellas County, and Florida more generally, right now. Or so it seems to me. Here are the lines that resonate:
* * * * * * *
I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government,
But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation.
King rules or barons rule:
The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice.
They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it,
And the steadfast can manipulate the greed and lust of others,
The feeble is devoured by his own. […]
What peace can be found
to grow between the hammer and the anvil? [Third Priest, Part I]
They know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
They know and do not know, that action is suffering
And suffering is action. Neither does the agent suffer
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed
In an eternal action, an eternal patience
To which all must consent that it may be willed
And which all must suffer that they may will it,
That the pattern may subsist, for the pattern is the action
And the suffering, that the wheel may turn and still
Be forever still. […]
We do not know very much of the future
Except that from generation to generation
The same things happen again and again.
Men learn little from others’ experience.
But in the life of one man, never
The same time returns. Sever
The cord, shed the scale. Only
The fool, fixed in his folly, may think
He can turn the wheel on which he turns. [Thomas, Part I]
A Christian martyrdom is never an accident, for the Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man’s will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. A martyrdom is always the design of God, for his love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. It is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has lost his will in the will of God, and who no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of being a martyr. [The Archbishop, Interlude]
* * * * * *
May the good Lord ever bless Terri and her family, and comfort them in their time of suffering. In all things, Lord, Thy will be done.
That's bullsh!t. It's not a communal decision. Her parents are no longer her guardians, and thus they have absolutely no right to made decisions about her well being as long as the husband is still legally in the picture. Until the time Michael Schiavo is proven unfit as a guardian, he's in charge.
It's disconcerting to know that you all would be willing to step in and run my life for if my wife (God forbid) was ever in such a situation. Frightening. It makes me question if you're actually conservatives, or just thugs who want to step in and make decisions on my behalf because you feel that I'm not capable of doing it myself. You're no different than the Liberals who think the Government should be making all the decisions.
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