Posted on 04/01/2005 7:42:27 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Public opinion may be shifting on the decision to disconnect Terri Schiavo's feeding tube and starve her to death, according to a new Fox Opinion Dynamics survey - with a significant percentage of Americans now saying it was "murder."
When asked about the "decision to remove" Schiavo's feeding tube, 38 percent of Americans told Opinion Dynamics that they disagreed with the decision, with 42 percent backing the move.
A full 20 percent said they were unsure.
A widely circulated ABC News poll last week asked if it was right to pull Schiavo's feeding tube, noting that she's been "on life support for 15 years" with a condition that is "irreversible."
Phrasing the question like that, 63 percent backed the decision to remove her tube, with 28 opposed.
In perhaps the most startling finding on the survey, fifty percent of African Americans told Opinion Dynamics that removing Schiavo's feeding tube was "an act of murder."
Thirty-nine percent of Republicans agreed. Even among Americans under 30, more than a third of the population [35 percent] believe that Schiavo was murdered.
Opinion Dynamics surveyed 900 registered voters on March 29-30, the day before Schiavo died.
Maybe people started picking up bits and pieces of facts instead of what most of the media has been saying.
Dear Vicomte13,
"The politicians who did not intervene are going to find out that the public thinks they abetted in murder."
But the accomplices to the murdering judges and Pontius Pilate politicians are the individual Americans who, in their ignorance, initially supported the murder.
In their quite-vincible ignorance, most Americans share culpability. May God forgive our nation.
sitetest
I would put nothing past that man.
Most people that voted on that original pole probably had no clue about what was really happening and her condition.
I'd be willing to bet they thought she was terminal and it was about pulling the plug in that kind of situation.
Right here in Tampa, the newspapers are so pro killing Terri I couldn't buy one while this is going on. (And not after, either)
The St. Petersberg Times has been running poor Michael and brave, brave judge Greer articles for weeks now. The editorials have been how dare anyone deny Terri her right to die.
It has also treated us to lovely articles like, "The other woman in Michael Schiavo's heart" and trashed the Schindler family viciously.
So I basically expect the people I meet not to know the facts.
You would think that would matter. But I believe people are so far removed from the physical death of others that they don't even understand how terrible starvation is. I'm not an anti-technology nut but I do think our current lifestyle has removed us from the basics of inter-human relationships at many points. Most of the time people go someplace to die. Only those that go quickly are usually at home today. Our society has lost it's ability to interact face to face.
Yeah. We don't get too many conservative radio talk shows where I am. My mom happened to be listening to a local liberal talk show host who had been supportive of and sympathetic to Michael Sciavo. This woman said that if he really didn't allow her family to be with her when she died that she would have to revise some of her opinions about him.
Not shifting.
They just got the question right!
"She was killed."
It was murder.
We'll see if this sticks. I said this in another post last week - I thought that once Terri died, people would start having remorse about their attitude towards advocating her death and there would be a backlash.
Clarity sometimes is the issue of experience.
Now if Jesse Jackson can get back of the righteous path concerning abortion many things become possible.
And back to believing polls, right
Yes, we all share culpability, because we are all part of Caesar in a democracy.
However, there was a deliberate campaign to deceive people about the facts of the case so as to generate the initial polls that showed support for "letting her pass". Of course the officials with the power knew the true facts, and as more and more people get the fuller picture, the horror of it all dawns. "Lord, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing" was Jesus' prayer as he was crucified, and it was literally true of many in the crowd. They didn't know Jesus from Adam, but they knew that the authorities they trusted told them he was a blasphemer, or an insurrectionist, or any number of things.
There are millions who didn't understand, but who now understand better and better.
Trouble is, those officials who DID understand, and did not act, are going to be caught on the bad end of a rip tide that it is now too late for them to avoid.
The visible actors, such as Jeb Bush, are irretrievably damaged. Less visible individual actors, like the Senators, could still recover by passing the Nuclear Option. But they need to move quickly.
This entire event is about life. People have been over exposed to a one sided perspective of death. It's hard to make sense out of Michael's desire to prevent Terri's parents from being present at her time of death let alone her funeral. There's more but these two incidents require no explanation, people are realizing what has occurred.
I heard the Rush tapes and have to agree with you. She was responding for sure, and didn't interrupt the questions her Dad gave her...she listened and responded...There is no doubt she was killed and the judges in this case, by not starting anew as Congress wanted them to, are responsible.
My fiancee did not know all the facts, either. He also did not have much of an opinion on it, other than he would not want to continue to live in Terri's condition.
I selected a few choice ones to offer him, one of which was that the judge chose to believe the husband when he said that Terri made passing comments about not wanting to be kept alive, and that he had suddenly remembered this six years after Terri's collapse, and after he had received a lucrative malpractice settlement.
My fiance said, 'well, I don't believe him.' He also said that if we were in the same situation, and my parents said that they wanted to take care of me, he would without question agree to it. Most decent people would.
You're right. My sister thought that it was right to pull the feeding tube because she thought that Terri was brain dead and that she had a living will. When I gave her the facts, she changed her mind.
Nicely said.
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