Posted on 02/02/2007 3:49:53 AM PST by 8mmMauser
I don't know about anyone else, but I am still waiting for Michael Schiavo to make a correction on his blog about what "actually" took place in Colorado when he went there (to the debate) to supposedly ask Congresswoman Musgrave one question and she and her staff supposedly tried to have him removed. He called it, "My unreal night in Colorado - with radio link" (Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 08:05:14 PM PST). I'll say (from what I read) that it was his "unreal night".
As I said before in "Standing up and Admitting a Mistake: Not Schiavo's Style?", if four uniformed officers were around my seat, I would have some idea of what was going on. I certainly wouldn't be sitting in "duh mode" to only be told later of what took place right there around me, as Michael suggests he was. If Michael's account is realistic -- his response and reaction is not. Nor is his response appropriate now that he has "learned" what he was "allegedly told" is not what took place. One would think if he can't get the words out that he was mistaken, he could at least have removed the inaccurate entry from his blog.
He has done neither.
I'm also still waiting to read about, "Also, maybe tomorrow I'll post about my election-eve rally with Bill Clinton in Florida." (A real election impact by Michael Schiavo, Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 10:40:34 AM PST). Indeed, I would love to read that story by Michael, since I read it was not possible. Not if he was implying it was the Bill Clinton that is the former President of the United States. Will be interesting to see what he says about that if he ever does.
If Michael couldn't get it straight what happened at the Musgrave debate or even if he spent election-eve with former President Bill Clinton -- do you suppose he might have gotten Terri Schiavo's wishes mixed-up as well? (He does claim to have a bad memory from what I read.) Makes one wonder. At least makes me wonder. Whatever...
I'm still waiting for the corrections if not the explanations!
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Good observation, BykrBayb. C.S. Lewis had their number. Perelandra, the second work in his space trilogy, is all about the temptation of Eve -- i.e., all temptation by evil. It employs virtually every argument that evil can muster.
If I may put it simply, in God's good creation, there is no pure evil; only a warping or bending of the good. Leftists do that by seizing on some tiny good at the expense of greater good. They fixate on a tree and intentionally ignore the forest. Their thinking is all about procedure but they shut their eyes to principle. Their moral point may be correct at a micro level, and that may satisfy the simple-minded, but you have to see if the moral law is affronted in a larger sense.
Thereby the right-to-die gang can stand up close and dither about due process. The world stands back a few feet and sees America torture an innocent woman to death.
You know how I adore politicians and other odious world savers. I remember smiling at a quote from an astronaut on the moon, back when:
"From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'" --Edgar Mitchell.
Right-to-die activists should be dragged to the bedside of the woman they are killing and and told to "Look at that, you son of a bitch."
The late season cold may be my body’s reaction to the dismaying global cooling. Storm a few days ago brought us sixteen inches of fresh snow, the one yesterday, another foot, and now we brace for the really big one to come in the next few days and then cold weather after that for the foreseeable future. But I smile at imagining the congregation of Gore’s Church of Global Warming praying frantically to their gods to bring up more coals from the depths to warm the place up a bit. Doesn’t make his new religion look very appropriate.
The most potent lies may be those cloaked in and wrapped around a powerful truth. The closer to Truth a lie may be, the greater its power to deceive.
And almost a proof of God it is, for it highlights that we all appeal to the same moral law -- a law of God's making, not our own. There is only one moral law. We cite it in all discussions. We may try to dismiss it in our minds, but we have to assert our innocence by it in all disputes. Lewis began his wonderful book "Mere Christianity" with just that insight.
You and I may totally disagree regarding the Schiavo case, but at the same time completely agree regarding the Texas futile care statute. I have found it very common in life to have agreement with people on some issues and not on others. Things are not black and white,as you seem to think. Frankly, if you expect any changes to be made to the Texas futile care law, you will need to enlist people to help your cause who do not have such rigid viewpoints as you have expressed in the past. People work together on issues they agree on even they disagree on others issues. Look at how the many legislatures work throughout our country.
Please my post # 1365.
. I take no offense, myself, and accept the observation for what it is. Sadly for Don Imus, he offered a similar explanation to Al Sharpton, and it fell on deaf ears, as part of the liberal psyche, I think, is to be offended.
What I do note is the tendency for you to see us as a block, as different, in that we are monolithic in our thinking and you are enlightened and flexible. Perhaps I can amplify a bit.
Most of us fighters for Terri's Legacy are religious, and hold our faith close. Not all of us are such, though, and we found grand support in Pinellas Park from atheiests as well as those of diverse faiths (with the possible exception of Scientologists, who were jeering Terri...) I speak personally as a plain Catholic Christian, and although my faith may differ to one degree or another from that of others here, we do cleave to similar core values. One of these is a belief there are absolutes. We believe there is real good and real evil. Terri by most all estimates was good. Mikey by all evidence is flatly evil. We believe there is clearcut wrong and obvious right.
At one time in my youth I was tempted to assume from my college profs that morality could be relative, that a compromise could bridge gaps. As I matured I noticed those perspectives were part and parcel of the more liberal, nay, the Marxists, as well as the non-religious and the anti-religious.
If you think these defining values are an unacceptable rigid thinking, I posit that it is you who are mistaken and you could benefit from a little flexibility in understanding basic values of good and bad. As an example I just mentioned, we who are by your standards too rigid to do any good with the Texas Futile Care Law are precisely the ones who brought it out into the sunshine in the first place! The moral relativitists at DU ignored the issue when they could have done something. It is we and people like us who, on similar blogs and in the media who turned this into an issue and painted the law with the lumination it deserved.
I list the great compromisers of the world...
Your link isn’t working for me. Is it a safe bet that I’m not on the list? : )
Here are some men worthy of all our attention.
Photo: ORF, Tom MatzekWar Crimes Investigation Team No. 6824 of the U. S. Army, led by Major Charles Dameron (second row, middle) established its headquarters in Regensburg und also investigated the Nazi euthanasia murders in Hartheim and crimes committed in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
Hartheim Castle (a facility for killing those whom the Nazis deemed unfit to live)
T-4 history here:
This column about Terri is by a professed atheist and leftist, Nat Hentoff, columnist on civil rights for the Village Voice. It is not just conservatives who are outraged by the wholesale violation of Terri Schiavo's rights.
Note that Hentoff mentions that the public opinion polls about Terri were rigged, and he shows exactly how they were rigged.
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Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder
Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our media by Nat Hentoff March 29th, 2005
For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.
She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.
Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.
Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.
While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.
Months ago, in discussing this case with ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, and later reading ACLU statements, I saw no sign that this bastion of the Bill of Rights has ever examined the facts concerning the egregious conflicts of interest of her husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, who has been living with another woman for years, with whom he has two children, and has violated a long list of his legal responsibilities as her guardian, some of them directly preventing her chances for improvement. Judge Greer has ignored all of them.
In February, Florida's Department of Children and Families presented Judge Greer with a 34-page document listing charges of neglect, abuse, and exploitation of Terri by her husband, with a request for 60 days to fully investigate the charges. Judge Greer, soon to remove Terri's feeding tube for the third time, rejected the 60-day extension. (The media have ignored these charges, and much of what follows in this article.)
Michael Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993. He did have her tested for a time, but stopped all testing in 1993. He insists she once told him she didn't want to survive by artificial means, but he didn't mention her alleged wishes for years after her brain damage, while saying he would care for her for the rest of his life.
Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination. Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, a specialist in heart-lung transplant surgery, has, as The New York Times reported on March 23, "certified [in his practice] that patients were brain dead so that their organs could be transplanted." He is not just "playing doctor" on this case.
During a speech on the Senate floor on March 17, Frist, speaking of Judge Greer's denial of a request for new testing and examinations of Terri, said reasonably, "I would think you would want a complete neurological exam" before determining she must die.
Frist added: "The attorneys for Terri's parents have submitted 33 affidavits from doctors and other medical professionals,all of whom say that Terri should be re-evaluated."
In death penalty cases, defense counsel for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled clients submit extensive medical tests. Ignoring the absence of complete neurological exams, supporters of the deadly decisions by Judge Greer and the trail of appellate jurists keep reminding us how extensive the litigation in this case has been—19 judges in six courts is the mantra. And more have been added. So too in many death penalty cases, but increasingly, close to execution, inmates have been saved by DNA.
As David Gibbs, the lawyer for Terri's parents, has pointed out, there has been a manifest need for a new federal, Fourteenth Amendment review of the case because Terri's death sentence has been based on seven years of "fatally flawed" state court findings—all based on the invincible neglect of elementary due process by Judge George Greer.
I will be returning to the legacy of Terri Schiavo in the weeks ahead because there will certainly be long-term reverberations from this case and its fracturing of the rule of law in the Florida courts and then the federal courts—as well as the disgracefully ignorant coverage of the case by the great majority of the media, including such pillars of the trade as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Times as they copied each other's misinformation, like Terri Schiavo being "in a persistent vegetative state."
Do you know that nearly every major disability rights organization in the country has filed a legal brief in support of Terri's right to live?
But before I go back to other Liberty Beats—the CIA's torture renditions and the whitewashing of the landmark ACLU and Human Rights First's lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld for his accountability in the widespread abuse of detainees, including evidence of torture—I must correct the media and various "qualified experts" on how a person dies of dehydration if he or she is sentient, as Terri Schiavo demonstrably is.
On March 15's Nightline, in an appallingly one-sided, distorted account of the Schiavo case, Terri's husband, Michael—who'd like to marry the woman he's now living with—said that once Terri's feeding tube is removed at his insistent command, Terri "will drift off into a nice little sleep and eventually pass on and be with God."
As an atheist, I cannot speak to what he describes as his abandoned wife's ultimate destination, but I can tell how Wesley Smith (consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture)—whom I often consult on these bitterly controversial cases because of his carefully researched books and articles—describes death by dehydration.
In his book Forced Exit (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: "A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. . . . Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining.
"They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death."
On March 23, outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was growing steadily weaker, her mother, Mary, said to the courts and to anyone who would listen and maybe somehow save her daughter:
"Please stop this cruelty!"
While this cruelty was going on in the hospice, Michael Schiavo's serpentine lawyer, George Felos, said to one and all: "Terri is stable, peaceful, and calm. . . . She looked beautiful."
During the March 21 hearing before Federal Judge James D. Whittemore, who was soon to be another accomplice in the dehydration of Terri, the relentless Mr. Felos, anticipating the end of the deathwatch, said to the judge: "Yes, life is sacred, but so is liberty, your honor, especially in this country."
It would be useless, but nonetheless, I would like to inform George Felos that, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: "The history of liberty is the history of due process"—fundamental fairness.
Contrary to what you've read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court system.
"As to legal concerns," writes William Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University—"a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit."
Ralph Nader agrees. In a statement on March 24, he and Wesley Smith (author of, among other books, Culture of Death: The Assault of Medical Ethics in America) said: "The court is imposing process over justice. After the first trial [before Judge Greer], much evidence has been produced that should allow for a new trial—which was the point of the hasty federal legislation.
"If this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand reconsideration. Yet, an innocent, disabled woman is receiving less justice. . . . This case is rife with doubt. Justice demands that Terri be permitted to live." (Emphasis added.)
But the polls around the country cried out that a considerable majority of Americans wanted her to die without Congress butting in.
A March 20 ABC poll showed that 60 percent of the 501 adults consulted opposed the ultimately unsuccessful federal legislation, and only 35 percent approved. Moreover, 70 percent felt strongly that it was wrong for Congress to get into such personal, private matters—and interfere with what some advocates of euthanasia call "death with dignity." (So much for the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and equal protection of the laws.)
But, as Cathy Cleaver Ruse of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pointed out:
"The poll [questions] say she's 'on life support,' which is not true [since all she needs is water], and that she has 'no consciousness,' which her family and dozens of doctors dispute in sworn affidavits."
Many readers of this column are pro-choice, pro-abortion rights. But what choice did Terri Schiavo have under our vaunted rule of law—which the president is eagerly trying to export to the rest of the world? She had not left a living will or a durable power of attorney, and so could not speak for herself. But the American system of justice would not slake her thirst as she, on television, was dying in front of us all.
What kind of a nation are we becoming? The CIA outsources torture—in violation of American and international law—in the name of the freedoms we are fighting to protect against terrorism. And we have watched as this woman, whose only crime is that she is disabled, is tortured to death by judges, all the way to the Supreme Court.
And keep in mind from the Ralph Nader-Wesley Smith report: "The courts . . . have [also] ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment. This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, they have ordered her to be made dead."
In this country, even condemned serial killers are not executed in this way.
Erton1, I reckon you were mistaken in insisting that all the legal experts agreed with Greer and that no reasonable person could possibly disagree. Here's some very stiff disagreement for you.
_ _ _ _ _
Hentoff:
I covered the Terri Schiavo case for more than four years, going against nearly all of the other media in emphasizing and documenting that this was not a "right to die" case, but a disability-rights case. And that's why many leading disability-rights organizations filed legal briefs — unreported by most of the press — on her behalf.
Terri Schiavo was indeed brain-damaged, but her husband had stopped all testing and rehabilitation for her in 1993 (Terri died in March 2005). For years, Michael Schiavo — while "devoted" to his wife's wishes — was living with another woman, with whom he had two children. (He has since married her.)
As for what Terri Schiavo's wishes were — if the time came when she could not speak for herself — in the winter 2005 issue of the University of Minnesota Law School's "Constitutional Commentary," Notre Dame Law School professor O. Carter Snead reports that, at a January 2000 trial, five witnesses testified on whether she would have declined artificial nutrition and hydration (water) in the state she was in.
Terri's mother and a close friend of Terri said (as another friend has also confirmed) that Terri would have wanted these basic life needs. However, three witnesses assured the court that Terri would have approved the death her husband provided for her. These death messengers were Michael Schiavo, his brother and his sister-in-law (a family that sticks together).
It was on their testimony that Florida state judge George Greer ruled there was "clear and convincing evidence" of Terri's wishes, thereby justifying the removal of the feeding tube.
Dismayingly, 19 additional judges in six courts, including federal courts, based their terminal judgments on Terri Schiavo entirely on Greer's ruling. The courts erred fatally in not conducting an investigation of Greer's entire handling of the case from the beginning. For another example, he ignored a number of charges of neglect by her guardian, Michael Schiavo. When Terri Schiavo died, I wrote that hers was the longest public execution in American history. Even the most monstrous murderer on death row would have received far more due process of law than she did.
"As to legal concerns," William Anderson — a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University — wrote when she died: "a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit."
In "Constitutional Commentary," professor Michael Paulsen of the University of Minnesota Law School warned: "This is the story of a judicially ordered killing of an innocent, disabled woman. It is the story of the failure of all branches of government ... adequately to protect that particular life. It is an end-of-life story that is likely to be repeated, without high legal drama, in the lives of many of us."
Or, as Pat Anderson, former lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents, told me: "Euthanasia in America now has a name — and a face."
As I am Nat Hentoff fan, thank you for posting that column.
Nat is a freeper, BTW.
I am astonished to hear it. And pleased. I've been saying some nice things about him behind his back. Now maybe I can say them to his face :-) Nat, your coverage of Terri's story has been straight and rock solid. Thank you.
Suicide, euthanasia and assisted suicide are not morally acceptable; they violate the very sacredness of human life. We hold the teaching on the sacredness of life as fundamental. And we believe that our lives do not end with death, that we are called to everlasting life. Catholic teaching on ethically required medical care states that we should use all reasonable means to preserve human life and to promote the profound dignity that belongs to it. Yet we recognize that sometimes we should not use technology if it inflicts greater suffering on loved ones and holds them back from being able to go home to God.
The decision to forego extraordinary medical care must be made by the patient or the patient's proxy with a great deal of prayer and consultation with ethicists, spiritual mentors and health care professionals. In some situations, we would be obligated to use extraordinary medical care. There is no "one size fits all."
Physicians have stated that Emilio's condition is irreversible and will result in his death. There is great concern that continued extraordinary treatment will only result in greater pain for Emilio, without curing or improving his condition. Based on this information and a review of the case by ethicists, moving to a "comfort care" plan for Emilio would be morally acceptable. Emilio would still receive food, water, pain medication and other "ordinary" treatment. Some compare Emilio's situation to Terri Schiavo's. They are very different; in the Schiavo case, ordinary means — food and water — were withdrawn, which caused her death.
Aymond: Like life, death is sacred Bishop Gregory Aymond, DIOCESE OF AUSTIN
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A bill making its way through the Legislature - AB374 - would bring a version of Oregon's aid-in-dying law to the state. Opponents of the bill are conducting a media campaign to portray themselves as not just the traditional opponents of choice in dying - the Religious Right - but also representing diverse political and social movements. For example, in a recent article in the Mercury News (Another View, March 1), Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights, Education and Defense Fund claims that "while religious groups are in the mix" against AB374, "the opposition to assisted suicide is a broad coalition of left, right and center." Similarly, in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wesley J. Smith claims that AB374 is opposed by "a broad and diverse political alliance" consisting of "civil rights activists," "medical, nursing and hospice professionals" and "advocates for the poor," with "disability rights advocates" at the vanguard. The truth, however, is that the leading opponents of the bill are among the same folks who brought us the Terri Schiavo fiasco. Let's have a close look at the "broad coalition." Take, for example, those "civil rights activists" whom Golden and Smith say oppose the measure. They mention only one relatively obscure group. On the other hand, support for it comes from major national civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (500,000 members), the National Organization for Women (500,000 members) and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Those "medical, nursing and hospice professionals" Golden and Smith mention are the California Medical Association and the American Medical Association, powerful groups representing doctors' interests. But many others support AB374, including the California Association of Physicians Groups (America's largest association representing physicians who practice in groups), the American Medical Students Association (68,000 members) and the American Medical Women's Association (10,000 members). Those "advocates for the poor?" Again, they list only one group - the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, which Wikipedia describes as a "front group" for "a network of American political cults" which "pose as social welfare and advocacy organizations." Legitimate advocates for the poor and elderly that support the bill include the National Association of Social Workers (150,000 members), the Congress of California Seniors and the Gray Panthers. As for those "disability rights advocates," the truth is that they do not represent the majority view of their own constituency on aid in dying. Two Harris Poll surveys indicate that about two-thirds of disabled persons support laws like AB374 - roughly the same as California's general population, as shown by a recent California Poll survey. The opponents are blowing smoke. Scratch the surface of their "broad coalition" and you'll find Terri Schiavo redux.
Aid-in-dying opponents represent narrow viewpoint
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The mother says it's murder. The doctors call it mercy. Each claims that Catholic teachings on end-of-life care support their positions.
In the case of Emilio Gonzales, the 17-month-old boy with a terminal disease at Children's Hospital of Austin, the decision over whether to remove him from a respirator has been steeped in legal maneuverings and court rulings.
But because both Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, and the Seton Family of Hospitals rely on the Roman Catholic Church for guidance, theological questions on the boy's care have generated another layer of debate over Catholic doctrine that permits ending medical care for dying patients.
Gonzales brought her son to the Seton-run Children's Hospital with a collapsed lung on Dec. 27.
Emilio was put on life support in the pediatric intensive care unit the next day, then doctors told her that Emilio suffered from a rare, incurable disorder that causes the central nervous system to break down.
Since then Gonzales, doctors and hospital officials have clashed over how to care for Emilio, with Gonzales seeking more aggressive treatment and doctors recommending withdrawal of life support.
In trying to weigh the sanctity of life against the desire for a dignified death, Bishop Gregory Aymond supports the doctors' decision.
~Snip~
But he would not say that Catarina Gonzales is wrong to seek continued treatment, and he said he would like to meet with her to talk about the church's teachings...................
.........To tell her to shut up and accept the killing???
Medical guidance from the church In Gonzales case, church teachings are interpreted differently
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Posted Friday, April 13, 2007 8:47 PM By JPeterson
I have to agree with Robert Lockwood, until there is wholesale replacement of (some) of these Bishops, not much real change will occur. I certainly wish nothing bad of our current Bishops but many local Parishes are simply lost like sheep without a shepherd. The faith has been so washed out over the years that the Holy Mass has in many cases become one Holy mess. I have been a Catholic all my life..37 years (cooincidentally I was born the same year when the Latin Mass was shelved after over 1500 or more years..lucky me!) I have never attended a Latin Mass in my life but if something can take the place of the terribly irreverant Mass that we currently have in my diocese (St Pete, FLA..you know, that Diocese where Terry Schiavo was put to death and Bishop Lynch said not a word and then subsequently remarried Michael Schiavo to his concubine in the Church!), than I am all for it. I care not for all the bad singing, non traditional songs, announcements, hand shaking, introductions and the 1001 other things invented to take away from the sacrifice of our Lord. I don't think it's necessary to return to a Latin Mass all the time but I do believe that the traditional Latin Mass makes it much harder for individual Priests to add their own whimsy to the Holy Mass.
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I can explain...
You are using the secret decoder ring if you can read this. The URL link is zero, or nothing, or nil. I meant for it to show a zero when clicked, but I must have goofed. ;-)
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