On the bright side, after two weeks of TV coverage of the Terri Schiavo case, I think we have almost all liberals in America on record saying we can pull the plug on them. Of course, if my only means of entertainment were Air America radio, Barbra Streisand albums and reruns of “The West Wing,” I too would be asking: “What kind of quality of life is this?”
There are a few glaring exceptions. On the anti-killing side, to one extent or another, are: former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis, former Gore lawyer David Boies, former O.J. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, McGovern and Carter strategist Pat Caddell, liberal blogger Mickey Kaus, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Rainbow Coalition leader Jesse Jackson, as well as several of my friends who are pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage but not Pro-Adulterous Husbands Who, After Taking Up With Another Woman, Suddenly Recall Their Wives’ Clearly Stated Wish to Die.
[…]
…Pinellas County Judge George Greer found that it was Terri’s wish to be starved to death. She requires no life support; all she needs is food and water. If being (a) on a liquid diet, and (b) unresponsive to one’s estranged husband are now considered grounds for a woman’s execution, wait until this news hits Beverly Hills!
Cutting through the media borne BS quite nicely;
” Despite the media’s idiotic claims that scores of courts have made painstaking findings of fact over 15 years that Terri is in a permanent vegetative state and would have wanted to die, only one judge made such a finding. Other courts have not made any factual findings whatsoever. They simply refused to overturn Greer’s findings of fact as an abuse of discretion.”
Emphasis mine.
Terry Schiavo is now dead. And while I have tried hard to be objective and extend the “benefit of the doubt” to her husband out of concern that hype and hysteria may have led to unfair and untrue accusations against him, it is extremely difficult to do so – for this is the same man who refused to extend the benefit of the doubt to Terri and her parents, by refusing access to MRI scans and rehabilitative therapy, and preventing any attempts to give her nourishment by mouth. On that basis, it is virtually impossible to defend his decisions as those of a humane and caring guardian.
With his motives compromised by his actions, there should be no wonder that a great many people on all sides of the ideological spectrum on the “right to die” question will continue to be deeply troubled by the use of the courts to impose death on an innocent and helpless woman through dehydration.
Ive seen her MRI,and unlike you, I know how to read them, i’ve also wiped the ass of and dressed the bed sores of such people,but i digress. brains are famous for not regenerating themselves,otherwise brain damage wouldn’t be a big deal….so one has to ask, besides shilling for some of the creepiest people in america, whats yer point? i mean they just unhooked a baby in texas a couple weeks ago,against the mother’s will, using a law bush signed into existance by lil govenor bush because the hospitals didn’t want to pay for the life support for poor people anymore. of course that was black baby…tom delay unhooked his own dad in 1989-fortunately, he was able to make that decision unmolsted by the then sitting president’s administration…of course, if shiavo’s parents really cared about her why did they give up custody of her and put her in a nursing home? if they really believed she could be cured, why didn’t they put her in a coma stimulation center? kate you make a wonderful trumpet for the american far right but have you actually ever had an original political thought? every little comment you make is an echo right outta Karl rove’s office. this ain’t canada, and the fine people you support are making death threats against mr shiavo and the rather conservative judge who ruled against the schindlers. nice folks you suck up to…don’t worry, if they all get their way, we will be annexing canada soon enough and then someone will shoot you for not putting yer dying mom on a heart lung machine or somesuch.
i could go on to ask about yer outrage over the high infant mortality rate in iraq since the invasion but those would be little brown people who are dying…maybe you could redeem yerself by heading over there to volunteer at a clinic? you seem quite concerend wit hthe welfare of others, why not do something? wouldn’t it be nice if you could help some of the poorest americans who don’t eat as well as yer little doggies? in fact, some starving person could make a great meal out of a mini snauzer…in closing,everytime i read yer pathetic smug angry bullshit I wanna say “STFU”, but somehow I am reassured that being you is it’s own reward.
cheers!
It’s hard to believe you can read a menu, much less an MRI that was never performed.
But I’ll leave your post up as a warning to others about the dangers of drug use.
” Despite the media’s idiotic claims that scores of courts have made painstaking findings of fact over 15 years that Terri is in a permanent vegetative state and would have wanted to die, only one judge made such a finding. Other courts have not made any factual findings whatsoever. They simply refused to overturn Greer’s findings of fact as an abuse of discretion.”
I can’t remember where I read it – linked to via Instapundit/Hugh Hewitt/Powerline? – but someone commenting on this very fact pointed out that the case was lost at the first trial when Michael Schiavo took his newly acquired hundreds of thousands and hired the best attorneys that kind of money could buy. The Schindlers couldn’t compete and lost the all-important “fact” setting precedent.
The subsequent trials were as you described them.
BTW,
“have you actually ever had an original political thought? every little comment you make is an echo right outta Karl rove’s office”
Blame it on Karl Rove! Now there’s an “original political thought!” I can only assume he’s saving Haliburton for his next post.
“But I’ll leave your post up as a warning to others about the dangers of drug use.”
I don’t know if drug use can be blamed in this instance. The problem is more likely a naturally recurring one that goes back several generations.
I would have blamed it on inbreeding, but I have inbred dogs who make more sense.
One sure way of inducing cooperation is to call the other party every name in the book and to accuse him of every evil. Sure.
Now that Terry Schiavo has died I would not be terribly surprised to
see an effort made to have her canonized in the Catholic church. The
facts have been bypassed in favor of media frenzy.
The best outline of the facts in this case, done is a dispassionate
manner, is to be found at:
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html
Have a look to put this whole situation into perspective.
Goodness Kate!
Mark Steyn has Paul Raposo and now you have lured your very own angry ignoramus.
Not quite up to Pauls standards but who knows how things might develop.
If you don’t remember Mr. Raposo here’s their exchange from last August.
MARK : Hey, Paul, what’s up? Are you on Prozac? After your last letter, I was expecting a little more……. In case you’ve forgotten the heights you were once capable of, here’s your last appearance in Mark’s Mailbox from March this year:
“A friend told me your site was great. I read through your pages and realized that even though I’d wasted thirty-five minutes of my life reading your pablum, it was a far cry from the years you’ve wasted writing it.
I’ve always felt journalists were little more than parasites. People incapable of achievement, latching on to those who have achieved. Yourself for example – you’ve built a career by reporting on the accomplishments of people smarter and more successful than yourself. Smooth ride, those coattails.
I hope that during one of your commutes between Quebec and Vermont, you have one of those fantastically horrific car crashes that make all the headlines. You know the type: where you are decapitated and the head is never found. At least this way you will be famous for doing something yourself, rather than reporting about some other person who has done something worth noting.
Barring a stupendously grusome decapitation, at your age, statistically speaking, you should be dead in seven to nine years. When you die, please have the misses send me an invite to the funeral, so that I might dance on your grave.”
MARK: That’s the Paul Raposo we know and love on SteynOnline, ….. What’s wrong with you, man? I know where my head is. Are you sure you haven’t misplaced yours?
how ’bout if i show you a link to the mri you blow me?
I don’t think this was ever a right to die case. We never knew if she wanted to.
Well Kate you’ve now got a fan. What a guy! who gives it all away signing off as “me”. Tells it all doesn’t it? More wasted oxygen! Anyway, another great post! David
“how ’bout if i show you a link to the mri you blow me?”
me me
Amazing. Mark’s lament about poor Paul Raposo was that eventually, he couldn’t rouse himself beyond making a feeble a fellatio crack.
Hey, Paul is that you?
I have to admit, I’m confused by this whole conversation. Kate are you saying there were never any MRI’s taken of Terry Schiavo? Or not recently? Because she had one in 2002. It is found here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7328639/
If you mean recently that is a different matter.
She had no cerebral cortex, and was a PVS.There was no hope for her, and there comes a time when reality has to be faced and people need to let go.
I’d hope you would be more familiar with the details of this case than your post indicated.If you relied on bloggers and several pundits for the facts, I can fully understand your confusion, but even Hugh Hewitt has not acquited himself well on the details.
Now, I’m going to be compelled to fact check the fact checkers.The conseravtive commentary on this small, shabby, human tragedy, has been so disheartening.
Sigh, Here in lies a fine example of why non medical people have such a hard time with medical issues… It’s a CT scan of her brain not an MRI. They are different tests and will show far different things. The MRI being much more detailed.
The information I had via mainstream media (not bloggers) was of a CT scan, as well. And that there had been no tests conducted in the past ten years, despite requests.
Her last EEG showed no brain activity.It’s in the Wolfson Report,dated Dec 2003.It was the finding of fact, as supplied to the Governor of Florida and the SCOFLA.
Thanks for pointing that out Boudica. You are right it is very hard for lay people to work our way through the ABC’s of MRI’s. So, perhaps we should just listen to the Doctors and keep our opinions to ourselves.
Actually the 2002 test was a CT scan, not an MRI. She never had an MRI scan.
The “right-to-die” stuff should be debated outside this single issue of a husband suddenly remembering his wife’s comment six years after her brain injury and after the malpractice money was won. Isn’t it a bit convenient for him to at last rid himself of Terri, using hearsay testimony gleaned from himself, his brother and his brother’s wife? Why were Terri’s glucose levels so high when she was initially presented for treatment? There are several possible explanations for this fact, and not all of them have been explored. This is not a true “living will” issue. It’s only a twisted travesty of perverted mercy. I believe Michael Schiavo, and too many others, regarded Terri’s destiny as not a “right to die” but, instead, a “duty to die”. Furthermore, since when is eating a “medical treatment”?
Everyone can argue about the merits and morals of euthanasia for as long and as heatedly as they care to until society develops a better system of rules for it. So, just consider the true horror of a two week death by court sponsored starvation and thirst. Unwanted puppies and kittens are treated better in their demise.
On CNN tonight a medical ethics professor said he polled his class of 200 as to what they’d like done if they were in Terri’s place, and since most said they’d like to have the plug pulled, he felt that this was representative of most people and therefore validated the decision to end Terri’s life.
Honest to god, that’s what he said.
Terri has passed
I just heard on the radio that Terri has died. Pray for the family.
That was quite the rant from “me” I must say.
The typos and spelling errors were fascinating. The email address given (good lord@MORONSRUS.COM) – whether real or bogus – was more than appropriate.
I can put up with this sort of arrant diatribe but I do draw the line when it comes to disparaging remarks about Miniature Schnauzers.
May “me” step in day-old doggie-doo at the very next opportunity.
A medical ethicist was interviewed on local radio yesterday too – and he was frankly, chilling, in his attitude.
The duty to die, the funds used to keep these people alive being better used for others, etc. every reason in the world to kill her was given.
The plug on a feeding tube is a lot different than the plug on a breathing tube. There are lot people walking around with feeding tubes. Never seen one walking around with breathing tube. The lack of total information about this case was appalling from the go git. Medical ethicist is the latest oxymoron