Posted on 03/24/2005 11:02:42 AM PST by Destro
Posted on Wed, Mar. 23, 2005
GOP leaders unlikely to pursue new avenues to keep Schiavo alive
BY JEFF ZELENY
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - President Bush and congressional leaders said Wednesday they had exhausted their options and could find no new political avenues to prolong the life of Terri Schiavo.
"Now, we'll watch the courts make its decisions," Bush said at a news conference in Texas. "But we looked at all options from the executive branch perspective."
The president's brevity on the subject - devoting only a few moments to an issue that had overshadowed other domestic issues for days - suggested Republicans had decided to not aggressively pursue other alternatives or try to change public opinion in the case of the severely brain-damaged woman.
A CBS News poll released Wednesday showed that 82 percent of Americans believe neither Congress nor the president should have intervened. And among people who describe themselves as evangelicals, more than two-thirds of respondents said Bush and lawmakers should stay out of the case.
As criticism mounted from some strict conservatives over the decision of fellow Republicans to inject Congress into a state's rights issue, Bush defended the legislation, saying the government "ought to err on the side of life, which we have."
Still, the White House said explicitly the administration had no intention of taking the Schiavo case any further.
"There really are not other legal options available to us," said spokesman Scott McClellan.
The House Government Reform Committee canceled a hearing, which had been hastily arranged as a means to stop Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed. While Republicans planned to file another appeal when the Schiavo case reached the Supreme Court, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said lawmakers would not become deeply involved.
For days, Republicans have dismissed suggestions that their intervention in the case was rooted in politics, particularly to mollify anti-abortion and other social conservative groups. "The legal and political issues may be complicated, but the moral ones are not," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said last weekend.
But an audiotape obtained by CNN on Wednesday, featuring a speech by DeLay to the Family Research Council, offered another view. He said the case could be used to rally conservatives.
"One thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo," DeLay said, "to elevate the visibility of what is going on in America."
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(Chicago Tribune correspondent John Biemer contributed to this report.)
add me to the list of the duped. It's the law. Don't like the law, work to get it changed.
It's already split away; take a look at the polls; the vast majority of conservatives in the GOP do NOT approve of what Congress did.
And people who sit out get what they deserve, nothing.
But those nurses SWORE they were telling the truth! That means we have to believe them, you know. Besides, whatever bad things are said about Michael we are compelled to believe.
It's mass hysteria fed by nuts and vultures circling around the parents.
That nurse was nuts. Had conversations with Terri? Sheesh.
I have a feeling that Terry has been doing the stirring for the last week or so.
BTW, he is now "the" official spokesman for the Schindler family. *Rolling my eyes*
An unjust law is unfit to stand. The law killing Schaivo is unjust, therefore let it be damned.
Besides, the Florida legislature DID change the law two years ago to protect Schaivo, so you cannot claim that a change in the law has not been attempted. The judicial thugs on the Florida Supreme Court threw it out. Thus they have not only upheld an unjust and therefore illegitimate law - they have also blocked an attempt by the legislature to make that law just, thereby sustaining the original unjust law.
That's not America.
Word up!
Sorry, Greer disallowed statements from nurses and doctors stating that Terri could respond to therapy as well as other statements... On top of that, once the possibility of abuse came into the picture, the whole situation was changed. If he is allowed to succeed, due process is done.
Mike
The fact that it violates the principle of a double effect and sanctions error other than that on the side of caution.
Don't you think this and similar laws are applied almost daily all over the country?
The scope of injustice no more makes its act just than the scope of abortion makes it anything other than killing.
What kind of law would you have? Where the government gets to make the decision for the family?
Four out of five most immediate family members, all of them Schaivo's blood relatives, were completely excluded from the decision process. Thus the "family" you claim to have made this decision is in reality one single person: Michael Schaivo.
Have you seen that poll? I'd like to see it.
The guardian appointed by Jeb Bush, pursuant to that law, said she should be allowed to die.
That is/was Wolfson?
No. Lack of Cojones.
THe simple fact is, the Branches of Government are COEQUAL.
The Executive of Florida, OR the United States, should EXECUTE THE LAW AS THEY SEE FIT, and MAKE THE COURTS Sue them.
SCOTUS would be forced to Rule, or by their inaction Let Terri live.Whcih would still be a ruling.
The judges acted in strict accordance to the law - they followed Flrida law. This is in fact NOT a case of judicial activisim.
The guy tells me Frist is home for the Easter holiday.
Told him that he seemed to have time to do a medical diagnosis via edited videotape and time to go to New Hampshire to campaign, too bad he had no time for the job he has.
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