All rights are derived from our Creator, and this one is clearly codified in Florida law.
What the heck are you talking about? You lost me again. Who am I "forcing to speak out with their views"?
You obviously don't carry through your expositions to their logical conclusions. I'll be less rigorous, in an attempt to make it simpler. (And I apologize for my syntax being so rotten today--I have a migraine that won't quit and can't even sleep.) Go back to the parts you chopped out of my earlier message, and you'll see that I am referring to all rights having an included right to "the opposite." Right to Keep and Bear Arms includes a right to DISCARD and NOT BEAR arms. Freedom of Speech includes a right NOT to be forced to expound your beliefs. Right to Life includes a Right to Die. It's part of the foundation of the FREEDOM upon which our country is built.
She hasn't "exercised" or "not exercised" anything in the first place. She is going to be killed on the say-so of other people.
She received medical treatment based on the say-so of other people. She never asked for it. She never wrote about it. But I don't hear you complaining about that.
Decisions are often made without the input of the person in the bed...it has to be done. Several courts have decided on this case. The rule of law was followed. The court made a decision based on the evidence, and even though many FReepers like to distort that evidence (not implying you), the court had to rely on the facts.
Mr. Schiavo believed Mrs. Schiavo would have wanted the experimental electrode therapy, and tried it. But I believe he eventually believed the evidence, which shows that Mrs. Schiavo's higher brain functions are absent because the tissue is not there (look at the CT scan). And he made decisions based on what he thought at the time she'd have wanted. Finally, the court was asked to do so, instead, and also found that this is the path for her.
I don't believe the Creator endowed us with the "right not to have a tube", sorry. I can envision circumstances where most would agree that tube-feeding would do more harm than good (i.e. those involving terminal cancer patients in great pain with 2 weeks to live), but that doesn't make tube-withdrawal a "right", and in any event, this is not one of them.
As for Florida law, Florida law is one of the objects of my criticism. Generally, when I complain about X and X is contemplated and provided for under Florida, or any other, law then please feel free to consider that law itself as a target of my ire. All right?
If the law said that whites had the "right" to kill blacks on sight I would no more believe in such a "right" than I believe in the "right to die".
you'll see that I am referring to all rights having an included right to "the opposite." Right to Keep and Bear Arms includes a right to DISCARD and NOT BEAR arms. Freedom of Speech includes a right NOT to be forced to expound your beliefs. Right to Life includes a Right to Die.
One of these things is not like the other. To not-bear arms, all you do is... nothing. To not-speak, all you do is... nothing.
To not-live, for a typical person, requires an active act. So collapses the parallel structure by which you seem to have convinced yourself of the "right to die". Sorry.
And in this case, it's an active act that is not even self-inflicted. Yet you maintain it still falls under the rubric of "right to die". If you took what you were saying seriously, you would be forced to conclude that bridge-jumpers ought never to be rescued or restrained. That's a violation of their "rights"! That people who take sleeping pill overdoses ought never have their stomach pumped. They wanted to die so we must let them! That if a depressed teenager came up to you and told you he wanted to die, and he was incapable of making himself dead for whatever reason, you must kill him. Not to do so would be to violate his "right" to die!
Either you take what you are saying seriously and you believe all that - in which case I simply disagree with you - or you do not take what you are saying seriously. One or the other. I don't care which.
It's part of the foundation of the FREEDOM upon which our country is built.
No, I don't believe a "right to die" is "part of the foundation of the FREEDOM upon which our country is built", I don't believe you can support this assertion (cite Jefferson or Madison please? somebody?), and I'm not impressed by your putting the word FREEDOM in capital letters.
She received medical treatment based on the say-so of other people. She never asked for it.
The same is true of anyone and everyone who falls into some emergency trauma leaving them, even temporarily, incapacitated. Fall down and hit your head and you'll receive medical treatment without asking for it. That is the moral thing to do. To wait for you to "ask" would be immoral.
Infants, too, are given medical treatment for the first several years of their life without them having communicated anything concrete to anyone in any way. A violation of their "rights"?
She never asked for it. She never wrote about it. But I don't hear you complaining about that.
Indeed you don't. Why would I "complain" about providing sustenance to someone who is incapacitated and cannot do so on her own? It is the moral thing to do and not to do so is monstrous.
Decisions are often made without the input of the person in the bed
I don't doubt that. That does not require me to approve.
Several courts have decided on this case. The rule of law was followed.
Um, it seems clear that "several" courts made decisions on this case. A multiplicity of courts making an immoral decision does not confer morality onto that decision.
I am not in a position to dispute that the "rule of law" was followed. As far as I know, it was. I am saying that the law is an ass.
But I believe he eventually believed the evidence, which shows that Mrs. Schiavo's higher brain functions are absent because the tissue is not there (look at the CT scan). And he made decisions based on what he thought at the time she'd have wanted.
I have no solid basis for doubting Mr. Schiavo's sincerity. Nevertheless by your own words at best we have a situation where Mrs. Schiavo is being provided with what some other person "thought she'd have wanted" - not with what she wants, which cannot be ascertained.
Therefore, to paint this as nothing but providing her with her "right to die" (even if there is such a right, which I deny), is dishonest. She has, in actuality, not asked to be killed. The most one can say - assuming that everything Mr. Schiavo has said is the truth - is that more than a decade ago in a conversation she said words indicating that she would want to be killed in some hypothetical circumstance of vague description (which may not, in fact, match the circumstance she currently finds herself in). That does not mean that she wants to be killed right now. So claims that she is being given, or exercising, a "right" that she wants, lack solid basis. You simply don't know what you are pretending to know.
It is more accurate to state what is actually happening, as I already have: She is going to be killed on the say-so of other people.