RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events The Issue of Terri Schiavo

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Darknight613 said:
Regarding government intervention in this case, and regarding G-man's assertion that it's the government's responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens, I'm wondering if this means they'll step in on other individual cases where people's lives are in danger in some way.

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the G-man said:

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Darknight613 said:
Regarding government intervention in this case, and regarding G-man's assertion that it's the government's responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens, I'm wondering if this means they'll step in on other individual cases where people's lives are in danger in some way.

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Well, they already do in some cases: civil rights, habeas corpus, deportation to hostile nations, etc.

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Darknight613 said:

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the G-man said:

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Darknight613 said:
Regarding government intervention in this case, and regarding G-man's assertion that it's the government's responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens, I'm wondering if this means they'll step in on other individual cases where people's lives are in danger in some way.

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Well, they already do in some cases: civil rights, habeas corpus, deportation to hostile nations, etc.

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Perhaps I should have specified medical cases.

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Matter-eater Man said:
I just can't imagine anyone wanting to "live" like that poor woman or a spouse prolonging it. This has been through the courts a couple times over the years. I just don't understand how this is even a Con/Lib issue.

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The FBI arrested a North Carolina man for sending an e-mail offering a bounty of $250,000 dollars to anyone who would kill Michael Schiavo and $50,000 for killing a judge who has ruled in favor of the husband in the case.

The man, Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, was charged with solicitation of murder and sending threatening communications and could face up to 15 years in prison, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Tampa, Florida.

Lobbied by the Christian right, which has felt emboldened since helping President Bush win re-election last November, the Republican-led Congress rushed through a law last weekend giving federal courts jurisdiction.

But the extraordinary move was unpopular with Americans. Polls this week showed a majority of people disapproved of Congress' intervention in a family dispute -- and the Schindlers' efforts in federal courts have so far failed.

Commentators critical of the congressional move have praised the federal courts for rebuffing the push to circumvent state court rulings.

Schiavo Parents Beg Florida Governor to Intervene

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Loudest among them was Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, who said "there will be hell to pay" if Bush doesn't intervene.

Somewhere in all of this the rule of law must prevail, or we are all lost. Bush's brief flirtation with taking the law into his own hands was a serious mistake that could cost the GOP for years to come.

One by one, Republicans around the state began announcing: "Enough."

"I am a longstanding registered, voting Republican, but after watching this disgusting display, I am gone," wrote Ray Snyder of Crawfordville in a letter to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat Friday. "I see the dark ages of the Inquisition being born again. Someone needs a large dose of sanity and common sense, but it may already be too late."

Schiavo furor leaves rips in GOP 'big tent'

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PaulWellr said:
Well.....In reading about this case, I read about a GOP Senate 'talking points' memo obtained by ABC news where they discuss just how they're going to exploit this issue for politcal gain over the Democratic Party.

"Vampires". Those who feast on dead flesh, is more than appropriate.

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unrestrained id said:
"Sanctity"

Like the sanctity of life?

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The FBI arrested a North Carolina man for sending an e-mail offering a bounty of $250,000 dollars to anyone who would kill Michael Schiavo and $50,000 for killing a judge who has ruled in favor of the husband in the case.

The man, Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, was charged with solicitation of murder and sending threatening communications and could face up to 15 years in prison, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Tampa, Florida.

Lobbied by the Christian right, which has felt emboldened since helping President Bush win re-election last November, the Republican-led Congress rushed through a law last weekend giving federal courts jurisdiction.

But the extraordinary move was unpopular with Americans. Polls this week showed a majority of people disapproved of Congress' intervention in a family dispute -- and the Schindlers' efforts in federal courts have so far failed.

Commentators critical of the congressional move have praised the federal courts for rebuffing the push to circumvent state court rulings.

Schiavo Parents Beg Florida Governor to Intervene

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Terry Randall has also said if Jeb Bush doesn't intervene (illegally I presume), "there will be hell to pay"

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Loudest among them was Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, who said "there will be hell to pay" if Bush doesn't intervene.

Somewhere in all of this the rule of law must prevail, or we are all lost. Bush's brief flirtation with taking the law into his own hands was a serious mistake that could cost the GOP for years to come.

One by one, Republicans around the state began announcing: "Enough."

"I am a longstanding registered, voting Republican, but after watching this disgusting display, I am gone," wrote Ray Snyder of Crawfordville in a letter to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat Friday. "I see the dark ages of the Inquisition being born again. Someone needs a large dose of sanity and common sense, but it may already be too late."

Schiavo furor leaves rips in GOP 'big tent'

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This fiasco really is exposing the lunatic religious extremism that passes for The Republican Party these days.

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PaulWellr said:
Well.....

I've been trying to temper my own outrage over this but I may have betrayed that outrage by refering to these zealots as "vampires".

Now I could have simply used whatever expletive came to mind but...

fuck.

In reading about this case, I read about a GOP Senate 'talking points' memo obtained by ABC news where they discuss just how they're going to exploit this issue for politcal gain over the Democratic Party.

"Vampires". Those who feast on dead flesh, is more than appropriate.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
[I would like to point out that this post was posted days after the document mentioned was demonstrated to be be a forgery. I know it makes you feel good to demonise the oposition. After all we are a bunch of gouls and vampires, but next time be carefull because in your rush to portray as as monsters you may make yourself look a bit of a fool.

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I'm sure however that there is NO sincerity fuling the right to lifers here (including Schiavo's parrents) so the generall picture your painting of evil Republicans and heroic Democrats still stands as legitimate.

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PaulWellr said:
Then there's the case of Bill Frist thinking he can make sound medical diagnoses by looking at selected snippets of videotape. It was in my opinion theatre of the absurd and the macabre.

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Protests Outside Schiavo Hospice Chaotic

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Jennifer Johnson, barefoot and in her pajamas, ran to her grandfather's bedside once a hospice worker said his death was moments away. She got there — one minute too late. Johnson said the chaos outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying kept her from saying goodbye.

When Johnson arrived, a police officer demanded identification; she had none. And after a hospice employee cleared her, another officer halted her for a search with a metal detector.

The delays lasted three to four minutes — the last of her grandfather's life.

"It's a terrible, extra obstacle to put in front of a family. ... Everything is about Schiavo," Johnson said. "It's all about her and in my family's case, it cost us dearly."

Woodside Hospice has 70 patients besides Schiavo, whose parents are desperately trying to have her feeding tube reconnected. Dozens of protesters have arrived from across the nation since the tube was removed March 18, and at least 15 have been arrested, prompting a police barricade around the facility and unprecedented security.

Family members visiting patients must pass through a police checkpoint to park, then show identification outside the door before another security screening inside. They also must walk by scores of signs decrying Schiavo's "crucifixion," "torture," and "starvation," plus navigate around hordes of media who have been camped outside.

"To have to maneuver through all of this and have a hostile environment outside when all they want is peace and quiet and to enjoy those few days they have left with a loved one is a horror," said Dr. Morton Getz, executive director of Douglas Gardens Hospice in Miami.

Getz said many people with a family member in a hospice have to make the same excruciating decision that courts have made for Schiavo.

"It's causing a lot of grief and questions in their own mind on whether they did the right thing," he said. "It's unconscionable to have a family member to be near the end stages of life and to get there, you have to walk through signs that say, 'Murderer.'"

Most protesters direct their signs and their chants against the courts and Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, who insists she would not want to be kept alive artificially.

But walking through a hostile environment can only add stress to what's already an emotionally draining situation.

"It probably has the same psychological effect on the residents' families as it does on someone who is walking into an abortion clinic and facing signs and aggressive behavior," said Elizabeth Foley, a Florida International University law professor who specializes in bioethics.

Over the past few days, as Schiavo's parents' attempts to have their daughter's feeding tube reinserted repeatedly failed, signs outside the hospice have grown more desperate. Doctors have said Schiavo would probably die within a week or two of the feeding tube being removed.

Messages compare Michael Schiavo to Scott Peterson (news - web sites), convicted of killing his wife and unborn child in California, and John Evander Couey, who allegedly murdered a 9-year-old girl in Homosassa.

One woman in a wheelchair regularly moves up and down sidewalks in front of the hospice yelling in a megaphone, "We're disabled, not disposable!" and "Terri is a person, not a vegetable!"

Relatives of hospice residents say the clamor — intended to rattle Michael Schiavo — rattles their patience.

"It's a real pain in the neck," said Bill Douglass, whose mother-in-law is a resident. He said the only consolation is that she is "oblivious" to the outside scene.

Police and hospice officials say they are trying to minimize the intrusion on hospice residents and their families, and that the security measures are meant to protect the privacy and safety of all residents, not just Schiavo.

But Johnson, 24, said her 73-year-old grandfather, Thomas Bone, was restricted from moving freely around the hospice grounds during his final days. He died just hours after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed and protests intensified.

"They've taken away hospice's greatest quality, that it is peaceful and serene and quiet and calming — and it's not fair," Johnson said.

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PaulWellr said:
Terri Schiavo is in a hospice by the way. In case people aern't aware what a hospice is, that is a place where people go to make their last days comfortable. A place people go to die. It is not a public hospital and given the solemnity of the purpouse of the facility, it is not a place where a full-on three ring media and ideological circus is appropriate.

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Darknight613 said:
I don't know how many people care about this aspect of the story, but as someone who had to watch his grandfather deterioirate not long ago, I'd be devastated if I wasn't able to see him or had to go through excessive ahssle to see him in his final days.

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DeLay's Own Tragic Crossroads

CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

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Uschi said:
The parents gave in. I heard it on the radio this morning. She was given communion yesterday - I think that was a deplorable thing to do.

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Uschi said:
That just fed more nutrients into her system, possibly prolonging the poor woman's death even more.

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the G-man said:

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Uschi said:
The parents gave in. I heard it on the radio this morning. She was given communion yesterday - I think that was a deplorable thing to do.

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I guess you're not Catholic.

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Uschi said:
Did you read the next sentance explaining my thoughts there?

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Uschi said:
That just fed more nutrients into her system, possibly prolonging the poor woman's death even more.

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Though he maintains a vigil at his wife's bedside, he has also tried to move on with his life. He met and began dating Jodi Centonze 10 years ago. He has referred to her as his fiancee for five years, and the couple have two young children.

At first, the Schindlers urged him to see other women. They understood that he might need new companionship, according to court records and family members. But since the family split, the Schindlers have argued that his new relationship amounts to adultery. They have called him an abuser and murderer, suggesting he was a controlling, anger-prone husband.

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As the dispute continues, the clash over money has largely become moot, observers say. There is little left of the $750,000 that was set aside to pay for Terri Schiavo's medical care, according to court records. About $40,000 to $50,000 remains as of mid-March, said Deborah Bushnell, one of Michael Schiavo's attorneys. Some of it has gone for his wife's hospitalization, though much of the cost — estimated at $80,000 per year — is picked up by the nonprofit Woodside Hospice, where she has been for five years. The balance has been paid for by Florida Medicaid.

More than $300,000 has gone to pay for Michael Schiavo's legal costs. The Schindlers' legal bills have been subsidized by church groups.

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and this....

List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm



Make of it what you will....

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Uschi said:
laswt rites doesn't mean "use jesus to torture the woman more!"

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the G-man said:

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Uschi said:
laswt rites doesn't mean "use jesus to torture the woman more!"

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But that's my point. To a Catholic it wouldn't be torture.

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Poverty Lad said:
Yeah. Catholics love being tortured. It's part of their whole "Guilty from birth" thing. "Jesus died for my sins before I even did anything."

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the G-man said:
To a Catholic it wouldn't be torture.

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PaulWellr said:

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the G-man said:

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Uschi said:
laswt rites doesn't mean "use jesus to torture the woman more!"

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But that's my point. To a Catholic it wouldn't be torture.

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Actually Uschi, it wouldn't be torture to ANYONE.

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According to medical experts, when a feeding tube is removed, it is standard procedure to start a patient on morphine. The extent of Schiavo's brain damage means she is not conscious of pain, but the customary procedure would probably be followed anyway, the experts said.

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How can it be torture if she isn't conscious of pain.

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Uschi said:
Actually Uschi, it wouldn't be torture to ANYONE.

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According to medical experts, when a feeding tube is removed, it is standard procedure to start a patient on morphine. The extent of Schiavo's brain damage means she is not conscious of pain, but the customary procedure would probably be followed anyway, the experts said.

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How can it be torture if she isn't conscious of pain.

I didn't know [about the] drip.

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PaulWellr said:
How can it be torture if she isn't conscious of pain.

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