Posted on 11/07/2007 7:41:35 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
On the matter of Terri Schiavo’s right to life, which occupied the attention of the media and Congress in 2005, Thompson called that a family decision, “in consultation with their doctor,” and “the federal government should not be involved.” Thompson added, “the less government the better.” ...
In the case of Terri Schiavo, a severely disabled person, there was a family dispute. Her estranged husband wanted her to die and he eventually succeeded in starving her to death. Her parents had wanted her to live. ...
There was no moral justification for killing Terri because she had an inherent right to life and there was no clear evidence that she wanted food and water withdrawn. The morally correct course of action would have been to let her family take care of her. Nobody would have been harmed by that.
“Meet the Press” host Tim Russert brought up the death of Thompson’s daughter, who reportedly suffered a brain injury and a heart attack after an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Apparently Thompson and members of his family made some decisions affecting her life and death. Thompson described it as an “end-of-life” issue.
Bobby Schindler says he doesn’t know what the circumstances precisely were in that case and that he sympathizes with what Thompson went through. However, he says that it is not comparable at all to his sister’s case.
“What no one is recognizing,” he told me, “is that my sister’s case was not an end-of-life issue. She was simply and merely disabled. Terri wasn’t dying. She was only being sustained by food and water. She had no terminal illness. She wasn’t on any machines. All she needed was a wheelchair and she could have been taken anywhere. She didn’t even need to be confined to a bed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
My analogy to begin with was simply a turn-around on your analogy to another poster. So if it was a Wookie defense it was no more so than yours was. Those who think the federal government was correct to step into the Shiavo case are not the ones claiming an all-or-nothing position.
Conservatives are for state's rights. Some of us also recognize that states have to be kept in check from time to time and are not separate little countries when they want to be and part of the Union only when the goody-bag is opened. States don't get to redefine murder or decide not to punish it.
Where you're mistaken is that you think all so-called conservatives want less government. Look at the wording of this past poll very closely...now look at the results of the poll! In my opinion, it is sickening.
I believe the LA Times story has been pretty well-established to be the Hillary-Huma rumor.
***Well, since I can’t really comment on that here in full on FR, that link and the forum will be about all I could suggest as an unbiased place to discuss the impact of that rumor on campaigns. If it is the Hillary-Huma rumor, that would be fantastic.
On the other hand, doesn’t the following possibly point to investment/manipulation of the market against Thompson?
***Not at all. If anything it shows the opposite, just as you say: There are some people out there who *really* have no faith in Thompson. Today, Fred is at 5.9 after a ~30 point drop over the last few weeks. It’s actually showing signs of stability after that drop. The market is doing its job.
Actually they do it all the time. For example a number of states have defined murder as including the murder of a viable fetus. Prior to those laws such acts were legal. If they repeal these laws, such killings will again be legal.
Does Dobson have the right to vote according to his own conscience or did he sign over his voting rights to the Republican Party for the crime of supporting their pro-life candidates in the past?
Yes, Dobson has all the right in the world to be a fool. This isn’t a discussion of rights because no one said he didn’t have the right. But frankly I don’t see what he’s doing as being some stand on principle. This is just a raw exercise in power by Dobson as he tries to make himself into some sort of power broker in the GOP beyond which his meager stature in the party merits. He is trying to drive the primary with these threats, threats he knows he doesn’t have the money, influence or even the candidate to make happen. And even if he does, what will he accomplish? It’s not as if this 3rd party fantasy of Dobson’s would have any hope of being elected president. So what will he have accomplished? Getting Hillary elected, that’s what. So spare me talk of Dobson’s “principles” or “rights.” It’s not about that with him. It’s about his trying to accrue power and influence he doesn’t now have to himself, all at the expense of the GOP and the nation. If you think this is high-mindness by Dobson, then you’re being very naive. I don’t find any virtue in sinking a ship based on some supposed principles, which I see as not being principled but just stubborn, because you could get half a plate of what you want instead of chosing to get a buffet full of what you don’t. How principled is it to turn over the entire government to the Democrats?
I really am not interested in the opinions of someone who calls Dobson a fool. Have a nice election season.
The people of the state.
First, they could have petitioned the city Mayor to not allow the use of local police to adhere to the state court.
If that failed, go to the county commission. If that failed, petition the state legislature and then the governor.
The bottom line is what is the law in Florida and was it followed or not.
Your line of thinking is no different than that of the Dems who forced the intervention of the federal government into Florida election law because they didn’t like the outcome in 2000. They failed and will never forget it and are horribly bitter.
Sorry, I just call ‘em as I see them. Would “saboteur” be a kinder word?
It's NONE OF YOUR FREAKING BUSINESS. Can I be any clearer?
Do you plan to force me into chemotherapy despite my wishes to the contrary? Would you outlaw DNR's?
That is where your stance leads. How about I make my own decisions and you make yours. This IS America, right?
People claiming to be pro-life hold the position that life begins at birth, therefore abortion is a homicide. While the emotional state of the woman may complicate her judgment, there is no such excuse for the doctor and the billion dollar industry making money off her situation and the baby's murder. Does the motive of greed make a homicide rise to the level of a murder? I'm pretty sure it does.
Thompson is not really pro-life in that sense. He is in that "moderate" place that sees it as only an issue of morals and if a life is taken well then so be it.
Terry Shiavo was a disabled person who was murdered.
A government with the power to insist I stay alive, has the equal power to insist I die. Just depends upon who is in charge.
What part of Terri Schindler Schiavo's family? Her estranged, trust-fund-embezzling, adulterous husband who wanted her dead? Or her parents, brother and sister who upheld her right to simply go on living (and were willing to pay for it)? And
Terri chose Michael to be the person to make her decisions by marrying him. Her parents should have had no legal standing.
Shouldn't the government stay out of this, specifically the County Probate Judge (!) who (by what authority?) ordered her death by starvation/dehydration?
If the Schindlers hadn't insisted that the courts be involved, they wouldn't have been.
What does the bible have to say regarding an unruly child?
Terry Shiavo was clearly a disabled human being and her parents were more than willing to take over guardianship of her from that adulterous slime of a husband.
By their definitionj she was no longer a living person. As a disabled person I disagree, but that is a political decision. So long as the state government which made that decision was a republican form of government, the federal government had no right to intervene.
These people don't want Federalism or smaller government or conservatism (and you and I understand the term). The want a big powerful government to inflict their will on those that disagree with them. As far as I am concerned, they are no better than the liberals who want to do the same thing.
It's a damn shame, but I am learning in this primary season that many FReepers are not conservative at all. They just want to be in charge, believing they are better, smarter, and superior to the rest of the country. As I say, just like the liberals.
really FR a racist site is absurd.
this site is populated by some of the most PC racialists this side of Cornel West.
I think Fred is actually getting good traction
Frankly I don't think states should get to say an unborn baby is not a person. We have the technology to actually see the baby in the womb and we all know it is a live human being. That child should also have a federal right-to-life just like the rest of us.
What Thompson wants to do is have it both ways. He wants credit for calling the child or Terry or whomever persons but he doesn't want to give them the legal protections other persons get. They are half persons kind of like slaves were.
What are you talking about? The federal government did intervene and that's why the endless recounting was stopped. If it had been left to the states, the Florida supreme court would have had its way and stolen the election for Gore! Federalism isn't a suicide pact, people!
And if the states had decided to decide the other way, would it be OK for President Clinton to send troops in to ensure that Terri had been killed? If you give the government a sword, first imagine that the worst possible person is wielding that sword. The founders solution was to divide authority among the branches and between the states and the federal government.
The first enumerated purpose for the foundation of the American government is the right to life. If an organization does not have the power to assert and defend this right, it is not a government.
Your phrase "the power to insist that I stay alive" is strange, though. Nobody has the power to "insist that you stay alive," humankind being a mortal species. Nobody can force you to accept burdensome, futile, "extraordinary" treatment, either. What the government must defend is the right not to be killed: in other words, the right to be free of agression and (in the case of minor children and the medically dependent) the right to be cared for and to be protected from abuse and neglect.
This is all specified, by the way, in Florida law, including the definition that a caregiver who starves a dependent is guilty of criminal abuse/neglect.
"Terri chose Michael to be the person to make her decisions by marrying him. Her parents should have had no legal standing."
First of all, you can't mean that husbands have the right to kill their wives. Certainly absent a written document stating "in the case of the following condition I wish to be starved and dehydrated to death," he had no right to starve her.
You know, don't you, that her husband received a million-dollar medical malpractice judgment and pledged to the jury that he would spend it all on her care, treatment and rehabiilitation, right? So he had a legal mandate to spend HER money in the furtherance of HER health. No one can make the claim that she was healthier dead.
The court ought to have taken the settlement money away from Michael Schiavo when he proved unwilling to use it for the stated purposes, and awarded it to a court-appointed guardian, who could have been her mother, father, or any other person committed to furthering Terri's health interest.
"If the Schindlers hadn't insisted that the courts be involved, they wouldn't have been."
In 1998, Michael Schiavo got Judge George Greer involved when he petitioned the Pinellas County Circuit Court to remove Terri's feeding tube. The Schindlers had nothing to do with it. Please. Read up on the basics before you post your comments on this topic.
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