Posted on 04/01/2005 8:05:46 PM PST by FairOpinion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.
The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.
Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.
"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.
"From the very start of this debate, Americans have sat on one of two sides," Concerned Women for America's Lanier Swann said in response to the poll. One side "believes Terri's life has worth and purpose, and the side who saw Michael Schiavo's actions as merciful, and appropriate."
More than three-fourths of Americans agreed, Swann said, "because a person is disabled, that patient should never be denied food and water."
The poll also lent support to members of Congress to who passed legislation seeking to prevent Terri's starvation death and help her parents take their lawsuit to federal courts.
"When there is conflicting evidence on whether or not a patient would want to be on a feeding tube, should elected officials order that a feeding tube be removed or should they order that it remain in place," respondents were asked.
Some 18 percent said the feeding tube should be removed and 42 percent said it should remain in place.
Swann said her group would encourage Congress to adopt legislation that would federal courts to review cases when the medical treatment desire of individuals is not known and the patient's family has a dispute over the care.
"According to these poll results, many Americans do in fact agree with what we're trying to accomplish," she said.
The poll found that 49 percent of Americans believe there should be exceptions to the right of a spouse to act as a guardian for an incapacitated spouse. Only 39 percent disagreed.
When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.
Read the thread.
More than one (including myself) have noted what we think of Zogby. Clearly we're not ignoring the character he has defined for himself after the last election.
The main reason why this poll is interesting is that the question is remarkedly different from the questions asked by the MSM. I don't need Zogby to run a poll to alert me to the fact that different wording and genuine facts of the case will produce different results. It's a given. ABC, for example, ran a push poll to get the percentage they desired but were not honest about it.
Oh Goodie... let's resurrect Terri and start from scratch !!!
I read that that POS MS has already, with the aid of Felos and Greer? - got himself protected from civil suit - I sure hope not
What do they say "A day late and a penny short."
Perhaps, but these same politicians waded into this situation knowing the polls were against them initially so credit must be given for that as well.
Can anyone else not verify this story?
I don't want to be starved or thirsted to death.
I agree. At first I had nothing but admiration for them.
So, this will be all over the newspapers and TV news tomorrow, right?
Yea, it will make a few papers, but it won't be around when people are paying attention. Why do you think this was released on a Friday night? The only night that the klintoon admin released bad news about themselves, so it wasn't around by Sunday or Monday. They had a lot of busy Friday nights.
"The courts found that Terri's husband spoke for her when it came to her desire NOT to be kept alive in a vegatative state. PERIOD."
=====
The "courts" was Judge Greer, who took the word of a biased witness, who had a conflict of interest with keeping Terri alive. Surely you couldn't have ignored all the information: MS said under oath that he didn't know what Terri wanted, and that he will spend his life tending to her, and he received a huge medical malpractice award, based on that.
THEN, seven years AFTER Terri fell into her condition, he suddenly remembered, that Terri said that she wouldn't want to live hooked up to tubes, when they were watching a movie on TV of someone who was hooked up to the respirator and other machines.
And based on this -- with NO written instructions -- you KILL an innocent person?
Murderers couldn't be convicted on this kind of evidence, but you think it's OK to do that to an innocent person?
A person who had loving parents and a family who wanted to surround her with love and take care of her?
And you should also note, that the judge didn't even order the tube removed, and let Terri live, if she could drink and swallow -- he forbade any food or water be given to Terri by any means.
Does this strike you as the right thing to do?
Yes. When the polls first came out, the first thing I told my husband was that people are being misled and they're uninformed. I told him the cream would eventually come to the top, but it would be too late for Terri when it does.
I believe most Americans have a kind heart, and their hearts are often deceived. People don't like that when it happens. People don't like it when some one deliberately lies to them.
We not only need to shower DeLay with emails - and snail mail - but ALL of them, so they'll find their back bones and dig in.
They pay attention to noise from the public.
We know that "W: doesn't hold a wet finger to the wind to see which way it's blowing - but most of the pols do.
Let's get those emails, followed by snail mail (visual pile up on desk really does get attention!) this week end...
Iron's hot, Time to strike
Why do you suppose that someone hasn't commissioned a poll like that? What morons. It's the obvious question.
I was being sarcastic.
btw - You're a lot more optimistic than I am
Most people know a crime when they see one
Exactly!
With Universal Health Care, the government will decide when you live and when you die, because your health care would be publicly funded. People need to know that.
As I said in my column, the parents should have asked seven years ago for a separate counsel for Terri alone. And the first action of that counsel should have been to file for a divorce. If Michael had been removed as husband, he would have been removed as guardian. And that would have prevented the events we observed in the last two weeks.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "The Fatal Attraction of the Inside Straight"
I was watching the series Numbers tonight and I got the idea that there are maybe clues that have been overlooked that could turn Terri's case into a murder investigation. Maybe bloggers could dig up what really happened to Terri. I believe if Michael has a problem with anger, that sooner or later he will have problems with his new wife and kids. Also, I think George Felos with his insatiable appetite for killing will be linked up with some murder in the future. Just as the planes that went into the trade towers were put together after crashing, I believe this case can be pieced together as to what the facts are. This all is based on feeling that tracks are left and even when covered up or changed, they are still there. We are all humans and will make mistakes. Our key is to find the mistakes that they have made and bring them to light.
People judged to be in a PVS are placed by law in the terminally ill category.
Wow...we find ourselves on the same side of an issue.
Overnight, the forum which has historically derided the left for wanting to govern according to how the "feel" about things, and has demanded the impeachment of Judges who adjudicate based on how they "feel" about a law, rather than on what the law says, is all in an uproar because they "feel" that the law was wrong, and that the Judge should have based his findings on things other than the law
Well, it's a bad law, but that's not for the Judge to decide, and not for a Court to ignore because they don't "like" it.
And now, we find ourselves comfortably cruising through that weird Clinton universe where polls mean more than laws.
And we seem to "like" it.
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