Posted on 03/19/2005 2:09:24 PM PST by ambrose
Venom over Schiavo case imperils GOP solidarity
By Dara Kam
Special to The Palm Beach Post
Saturday, March 19, 2005
TALLAHASSEE — The pressure on lawmakers grappling with the fate of a severely brain-damaged woman caused an eruption inside the state Senate chambers just hours before Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed Friday, showing potential fracture lines in the Senate GOP caucus.
"Some of us have been getting threatening phone calls and threatening e-mails, calling us very nasty names," said a weeping Sen. Nancy Argenziano, one of nine Republicans who voted Thursday to kill an amendment that other Republicans hoped to pass in time to keep Schiavo fed.
Argenziano said she respected the bill's sponsor, Sen. Daniel Webster, for "doing what he believes" but tearfully beseeched Webster and Christian conservatives who made the threats to "please respect my fundamental belief: I don't want to keep anybody from getting to heaven."
Webster, a Baptist from Winter Garden who home-schooled his six children, refused to bring his bill up for a vote Friday because he said it was "defective." But he vowed to keep it on the Senate calendar until Schiavo died, more as a tribute to her than out of an expectation of ultimate approval.
After the Senate adjourned without voting on the bill, the House, which easily approved a quite-different measure meant to keep Schiavo alive, canceled a scheduled 12:15 p.m. session in which House members had hoped to smooth out differences between the two proposals.
Lawmakers who voted against either measure, including those whose comments were put into the record in the House at Majority Leader Marco Rubio's request, will have to defend their actions to their constituents, Webster said.
That troubles some Republicans who may have opposition in the 2006 primary.
"Every person weighs how they vote, thinks about what they're doing and makes a decision," said Webster, a former House speaker. "There could be repercussions with anything we do. The best thing to do is stick with your principles."
Argenziano, a Catholic from Dunnellon, and Sen. Jim King, a former Senate president who led the GOP bloc against Webster's bill, were among those demonized by abortion opponents such as the National Right to Life Committee, who hurled electronic epithets such as "Murderer!" and threatened that they would "burn in Hell."
"It's completely un-Republican," said Argenziano, who has a copy of former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's book, It's My Party, Too, on her desk.
She blames the Christian conservative "machine" for "imposing their will on everybody else. ... There's no room for anybody that doesn't agree with them."
Brandon Republican Tom Lee downplayed the rift at the dawn of his tenure as Senate president, although he acknowledged an "ideological difference that exists out there clearly within the Republican caucus."
"I don't think that's problematic for us," Lee said Friday. "What concerns me most is that, for the first time in my eight years in the Senate, I watched the Senate miss an opportunity to make a piece of legislation better because ... it was easier to kill on third reading in its currently flawed state."
He accused King and his coalition of "gamesmanship" and "gimmickry" that could hurt the effectiveness of his chamber.
"That causes me more heartburn as a presiding officer trying to work to ... reunite this caucus and this Senate," Lee said.
Argenziano said she was concerned for her safety, as well as for others who voted against the measure, in light of the recent murders of an Atlanta judge and the family members of a federal judge in Illinois. She said she feared the reaction of abortion opponents and evangelicals, who have bombarded their offices with thousands of messages.
"This is not something I looked forward to," she said. "You're going to rev up this constituency out there."
Asked whether the Senate would try to pass a measure that would prevent similar situations, Lee said the emotional nature of the Schiavo case makes that unlikely.
"I saw yesterday an inability of the Senate to look past the issue of Terri Schiavo to how this might impact Floridians prospectively," he said. "I'm not sure you can disconnect those two at this point in the minds of the members of the Senate."
I would really like to know how this bill will impact all of our lives. Where can we see the entire bill?
Ever notice how quick the MSM is to "prove" that the conservatives are falling apart/at each others throats/breaking up?
No one should be threatening anyone. I don't know this state senator's belief system , but I find it hard to believe her position is based on "not wanting to keep any one out of heaven." By that logic she should be hastening everyone's death.
Boo effing hoo to the RINOs.
Schiavo has been all over the news. Anyone who has seen videos of her knows killing her is barbarism.
I've seen plenty of "pro-lifers" on here wishing death for Michael S., his lawyer, and the judge. One Freeper even lamented that Brian Nichols' wasn't in Judge Greer's courthouse.
I've been called every name in the book on these Terri threads.
Ironically, this entire situation, including the long-running abortion issue, stems from the libertarian notion that people are owners, not custodians, of their bodies. The fact that the left has seized upon the notion to facilitate its embrace of sexual liberation (and liberation from the burden of caring for the infirm) doesn't diminish the fact that this is a problem that originated with those of our political persuasions. It is going to have to be seriously addressed and resolved or sadly, I fear, it will tear us apart.
She can put this in her pipe and smoke it: I am a small-l libertarian Republican, not church-going, small-government type.
And I can plainly see this is murder-by-doctor. Anyone abetting this murder is rightly condemned along with the person pulling out the feeding tube.
"I've been called every name in the book on these Terri threads."
If I was one them, I apologize....but this is not about you. It's about the life of Terri.
I would really like to know how this bill will impact all of our lives.
Am I to assume from this article that there is no division in the democratic party over this issue?
Palm Beach Post wishful thinking.
The left desperatly seeking leftwing spin to find out something to their benefit. Bad news is good news for democrats.
The Republican Party is taking the "lead" on an issue that has galvanized the nation. The Democrats have only two choices, be the party of no or the party of me too.
Journalist vermin.
Note that I was also criticizing the state senator who didn't back helping Terri. I don't believe her decision is based on "helping" Terri get into Heaven sooner.
Now rather than later I suppose. What's this woman's hurry to kill Schiavo?
I don't know this state senator, but that quote about not wanting to keep anyone out of heaven sounds like pure political bs. "Hmm, let me see, how can I sell this without offending the Christian conservatives? Well, they're big on Heaven, so I'll just say I'm afraid to keep Terri out of heaven any longer." It sounds laughably phoney.
Well, of course that's true. We don't OWN our bodies, we ARE our bodies. We are both body and soul, according to traditional belief.
Those of us who are pro-life are opposed to such concepts as assisted suicide. But Terri's case is not comparable to anything like that, because the evidence suggests that she is being maltreated by her husband that the hospice that is taking his orders. She is not getting proper care, proper rehabilitation, or even proper medical exams for her condition.
There is NO evidence that Terri wants to die, except for an unsupported statement by her husband, who sounds about as believable as O.J.
There is at least some evidence that she may have gone into the hospital in the first place because her husband tried to kill her.
In other words, this really is NOT about the right to die. If you, or someone else, decide you want to kill yourself, I would deplore that action but I would also think that it was your decision. But killing someone else just because they are inconvenient is another matter entirely. Michael Schiavo has shown in many ways that he is NOT a proper guardian for Terri. There is no living will on file.
That's why this particular case has drawn so much attention.
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