Twenty two times this family court matter was reviewed by who knows how many Judges and Constitutional Lawyers all the up way to the Supreme Court of the U.S.A. and not one Court could cite an over-turnable decision by the Trial Court Judge Greer. Delay really owes Greer an apology now that the Senators own lawyers have poured over the transcripts and have obviously come to the same conclusions of nearly every legal mind that ruled on it. There are reasons this law was written as it is.
People who don't or won't understand why the people of Fl. insist on privacy in such matters have not followed the very painfull processes that brought us to having these laws on the books.
Quinlin, Curzan and Browning, combined with a 1980 Constitutional Amendment to the Fl. Constitution guaranteeing citizens of the State PRIVACY in dictating their medical preference's set the ground rules for laws that allow Fl. patients to refuse ANY medical treatment they choose, including what the law termed life pro-longing procedures.
Given O'Conner's opinion in Cruzan, hydration and nutrition were included to preempt any constitutional challenge to the law on those grounds. None of this case was new law...nothing set a precedent in this case until zealotry overtook some with what they are positive was good intentions. Delay was a victim of that. Did they forget that this debate has been on-going since Quinlin, and current laws are a result of a societal consensus that has manifested in various State Legislatures writing laws that reflect a reality that most people have learned to live with over the two decades that this subject has been debated?
I don't know.
But this whole charade smells like a democrat dirty trick to me.
The person I spoke with at the RNC in Washington said the internals showed that the mainstream Republican voters were furious with the way this whole "mess" was handled by the GOP.
The religous right framed THIS particular life debate with a vileness that repelled any rational person from their cause. Any positive voice they brought to the debate was screamed dowm with invectives from other self rightous holier than thou.... Christians? Hardly...
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
John Adams - letter to John Taylor
"Twenty two times this family court matter was reviewed by who knows how many Judges and Constitutional Lawyers all the up way to the Supreme Court of the U.S.A. and not one Court could cite an over-turnable decision by the Trial Court Judge Greer"
Many people who were against Judge Greer.. if they had the power, would have kept the feeding tube in, even if Terri had signed a notorized document saying she did not want to be kept alive in her situation. And even if they knew 100% she was PVS, with no chance of recovery.
Arguing over those points were just excuses to seem more moderate, and to hide their real agenda.