WASHINGTON - A terminal leukemia patient must have daily blood transfusions or die. A family begs doctors to do everything possible to keep their elderly mother alive. Parents cannot accept their newborn baby will not survive.
End-of-life issues top the list of ethical dilemmas hospitals face as medical progress enables doctors to extend an endangered life to the hard-to-determine point where they may actually only be dragging out death.
Private dramas like these play out in hospitals every day, rarely hitting the headlines as did the family feud over ending life support for Terri Schiavo in the United States in 2005 or a British couple's fight to save their severely handicapped baby Charlotte Wyatt in 2003 when doctors wanted to give up on her.........................
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U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, Republican from Washington's fast-changing 8th Congressional District, barely had time to sit down in his second term before two challengers started working to defeat him in the 2008 election.
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Two Democrats barking at him so early may make Reichert nervous, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Reichert is a conservative — maybe too conservative for his district. Yet, he has been willing to stretch himself to independent votes on such matters as the environment and on the absurdity of the government intervening in the Terri Schiavo case. Schiavo was the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.
The 8th District race will be hard fought in both the primary and the general election seasons. Sounds exhausting in a way, but Tom is a welcome addition to an important campaign.
Reichert challenged on two fronts
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