Posted on 11/01/2003 7:37:41 AM PST by sweetliberty
To a certain extent, yes. Still they believed the husband and trash the family. I can't help wondering if a lot of this is based on their putting themselves in his shoes and not wanting themselves to be saddled with a useless spouse. I'm only human myself and at some point would get burnout. The problem is that regardless of your personal stake, you must still do your best to do the right thing imo. That's is what separates the sheep from the goats, not feelings. To me, doing the "right" thing doesn't involve years later "remembering" and starvation, especially of an individual who has not being diagnosed as terminal. In a worst case scenario, if Terri is truly PVS (which doesn't appear to be the case to me), that still doesn't excuse termination by deliberate starvation.
That is why it is critical that we all get as much FACTUAL information as possible out to several reporters/newscasters/talk show hosts as possible.
That is helpful, providing the factual information to get out are actual facts. We aren't privy to a lot of the facts. What I'm seeing is that people are no longer concerned with the facts. They react viscerally (hatred for the Bush brothers using Terri as their catalyst) and want to get on to the next show.
Even facts don't dissuade most people. Their minds are made up. As is mine, of couse, mainly because of the inconsistencies in the case. The bottom line for me is that no matter who has custody of a person, they ought not to be starved to death when we have the means to prevent it, especially on the basis of belated remembering and biassed "testimony".
hehe. Knew ya would :-). Just a play on words.
Good. It read a lot better with the colorful language left in :-).
Yes, but but would you react to such burnout by divorcing your spouse, or by killing your spouse?
By the time Michael won the malpractice award, more three years had elapsed since Terri's collapse. Consequently, he would have been eligible for a divorce. I don't think one would have been denied him, and Terri's trust fund would likely obviate the need for alimony. Of course, then he wouldn't be able to pocket Terri's trust fund himself, but he claims this isn't about money.
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the gypsies and I did not speak out because I was not a gypsy
Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I was not a Catholic.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Seeking answers in case of Terri Schiavo - Reader Opinions
Not artificial to supply food
By Wesley J. Smith, Oakland, Calif.
Florida Today's editorial headlined "Second thoughts" about the Terri Schiavo case, states that she has "been kept alive artificially."
I am not sure what that means. But if her life-sustaining medical treatment is "artificial," then so too is it artificial for the diabetic to receive insulin.
But no editorial writer would ever use the term "artificial" in that context to argue against treatment for diabetics.
I can only infer then, that the intent was to demean the value of Schiavo's life and minimize the wrongness of dehydrating and starving her to death.
Probably not but I might. Where I am now with my religious beliefs, I would not feel free to remarry nor having a new relationship involving sex.
or by killing your spouse?
I would like to think I would never do such a thing, no matter how badly I wanted to be free. I can't deny that I would probably have a strong desire for deliverance though, but not through my own hand or actions. That's what living by faith encompasses, doing the right thing when we desire another, quicker outcome.
Prudential to drop some policies
Homeowners told to shop for new coverage
This article was written re: natural disasters but if the Schiavos had homeowners insurance at the time of Terri's 'collapse' - which occurred in their home - wouldn't her initial medical bills have been covered, up to a point?
I wouldn't know. I just don't know enough about the insurance business operates.
By Stephen Drake
Saturday, November 1, 2003
Bob and Mary Schindler consistently refer to their daughter, Terri, as a disabled person. They're right. Although most newspapers are covering this story as an "end of life" or "right to life" issue, what ultimately happens to Terri Schiavo will affect countless other people with disabilities in this country.
Like many disabled people, Terri Schiavo is unable to tell us what future she prefers. She left nothing saying she preferred starvation to living with a disability. She never signed a legal document designating her husband as her surrogate in the event she became unable to communicate.
Despite this, media commentary is dominated by bioethicists and "end of life" experts telling us she should be left to die and explaining how "peaceful" starvation is as a way to die. To hear them tell it, Schiavo has no meaningful life. She can't talk, they say, she can't eat on her own, can't walk and has no control over her bowels or bladder.
Thousands of people with disabilities across the United States are watching the case anxiously. In fact, 12 national disability groups have filed "friend of the court" briefs in opposition to the efforts to starve Schiavo. Obviously, we want to know how all those commenting in this case feel about the lives of people with Down's syndrome, autism, Alzheimer's and other disabilities. Are they next for death through starvation? It's not so farfetched.
I was born brain-damaged as a result of a forceps delivery. The doctor told my parents I would be a "vegetable" for the rest of my life -- the same word now being used for Schiavo -- and that the best thing would be for nature to take its course. They refused. Although I had a lot of health problems, surgeries and pain as a child, I went on to lead a happy life.
Up until the mid-1980s, U.S. pediatrics journals routinely published reports on the selection criteria used to determine which disabled infants born in hospitals would be left to die.
One of the most notorious incidents involved a team at Oklahoma Children's Hospital in the late 1970s that used a "quality of life" formula for children born with spina bifida that factored in the parents' economic and educational level. Poor and uneducated parents and those on public assistance were more frequently advised to not treat their children. Twenty-four babies with spina bifida died, mostly from untreated infections. Not one person on the medical team was charged with a crime.
About 20 years ago, a hospital staff in Indiana was starving an infant with Down's syndrome. A whistle-blower alerted authorities, and the district attorney went to court to order hydration. The judge refused. Public comment supported the idea that "difficult" decisions like starving disabled infants were best left to the privacy of doctor-parent consultation.
In spite of that, enough of the public was sufficiently outraged to create a stir that cut across the political spectrum in Washington. As a result, congressional legislation was drafted to prevent medical killings of disabled infants.
The legislation, which ultimately was passed, was decried by bioethicists, physicians and others as an attack on both the medical profession and the privacy of family decisions. As a result of the passage of the law, though, more of us avoided getting killed in hospital nurseries through denial of treatment.
Guardianship -- which in this case was granted to Schiavo's husband by the courts -- has to have limits, especially when the stakes are the very lives of the people under guardians' power. It's important to remember that guardians have power over people, not property, and those people still have rights.
Drake is the research analyst of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group
But he hasn't. The HINO is still calling the shots. The GAL is just a representative who offers an opinion in court and it seems that even the court is arrogantly operating on the suppostion that Terri's Law will be overturned on Constitutional grounds. As I see it, the most important Contitutional issue here is the right to life. If defending the most fundamental principle of the Constitution is deemed "unconstitutional," we might as well throw the document away, because it has lost all real meaning anyway.
I thought that was what we'd been doing all along!
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