I can understand both sides of the Terri Schiavo debate, but at what point do you let go of a loved one. Terry is clearly not going to get any better, and I think it is cruel and selfish for the parents to let her linger in her current state. To what end? What is Terry’s quality of life? If it were her wish not to suffer in this state, then her desire to be let qo should be respected. It is, or was, her life after all, and if we do not have ultimate dominion over ourselves, what type of real freedom do we have?
And I think the Republican led Congress has way overstepped it authority on this one and will hopefully get slammed by the federal courts. The Republicans talk a blue streak about the need for government to stay out of our lives, for government to get off of our backs, for the federal government to respect states rights and here they are mucking around in a very, very personal issue; the hypocrisy is galling. Would any of us want Congress butting into our personal business?
It is clear to this citizen that the Republican’s seem to distain the third branch of government (the “unelected” judicial branch) and seek to discredit it in the minds of the citizenry by calling into question the very legitimacy of its rulings on the law by stating that they are not elected. Even a sitting Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (AS) furthered that ignorant school of thought in a speech last week chastising the Court’s recent ruling vis-à-vis the right of the states to execute minors.
The Republican’s also state that we are (the United States) should uphold the principles of a “culture of life,” but they think nothing of cutting funding for Medicaid and other medical and or social programs for the poor (guess they are not included in the culture of life, because their lives are worth less then others); letting tens of thousand die in Sudan; turn a blind eye to torture and murder in U.S. detention faculties overseas; refuse to support common-sense prescription drug coverage for all Americans; and support the state-sanction murder of U.S. prisoners. Sounds like a culture of life to me, how about you?
1 comment:
Dear Vince,
My thoughts and feelings are so many that I don't know where to start, and I don't know how to end.
The thing that infuriates me is that Michael Schiavo only began this "pull the feeding tube" thing AFTER the lawsuits were won and money was in the bank. If you follow the timeline on http://www.terrisfight.org you will see this. He has stayed married to Terri only for the money - he clearly does not love her - so the money is his motivation. He had a series of relationships after Terri was placed, and he's in a common law marriage with a woman and has two children. Yet he stays legally married to Terri. I guess adultry is something that means nothing to Michael. It's on the record that he is suspect of trying to murder Terri in the past by injecting her with insulin. Who knows what else he has done to try and hasten her death. The man wants her dead. Period.
Why did it take Michael years to suddenly say that Terri wouldn't have wanted to "live this way." Again, this was after the money was available. It's his word against hers, and... oh yeah, she can't talk so HE must be believed, correct?
Allowing Terri to die in such a brutal, inhumane, cruel way is incomprehensible. To me, it has NOTHING to do with religion or Christianity. This has to do with greed, irresponsibility, disgust, and a mindset that it's okay to throw our disabled in the garbage when we get tired of taking care of them.
Terri is a human being and the way she is being murdered in a slow-motion, agonizing, barbaric way is unbelievable. She is dying alone and in silence. What is right and just about this? It makes me ashamed to be a part of our American justice.
It's been said before and I will absolutely say it again, even though many will not and will never agree with me. We are arrested if we mistreat animals. We are arrested if we abuse our children. We are thrown into prison when we "mercy kill." Inmates on death row are given the grace of a "fast kill" by lethal injection. Inmates who have committed the most heinous crimes are shown more respect and mercy than this poor woman is today.
This innocent woman has done nothing but live for 15 years in this state. She tries to talk. (She could have been talking earlier with therapy - therapy that MICHAEL would not permit); she interacts with her family. She breathes on her own. She does not have a terminal disease, and yet she's being treated as if she does. The ONLY thing she can't do is eat and drink on her own. That's it.
Michael Schiavo has stood in the way of so many of Terri's basic rights. Speech. Support of her parents and brother and sister. Imagine being strip searched before you could be at your daughter's bedside, just to be sure that you weren't hoarding an ice chip for your suffering child. It's sick.
Terri's death - and she will die before any other help can reach her - is going to haunt so many of us for a very long time. Terri's death will allow Michael to finally "get on with his life" and enjoy the money that is left - which, by the way, he once said that he'd donate to charity IF THE PARENTS ALLOWED TERRI TO DIE. But that was years ago. I'll bet he can't even recall saying it now.
It must make the judges feel very powerful - almost God-like - to know that they've helped to murder this innocent woman. And that's what this is: murder. There is nothing natural about this. Anyone who thinks it is a natural way to die apparently has no idea how precious life is.
I pray for Terri's death. I pray for it wholeheartedly because she will never be at peace on this earth with a low-life scum such as her husband who is slithering along, making her life - and the family who loves her - a living, breathing hell.
I look for Michael to dance with joy when Terri struggles to take her final breath, which will be blocked by a swollen tongue. He will be free to marry and control the woman who has been his common law wife for years. He can finally make his children "legit" by marrying their mother. About time, right? The money will allow him to do a lot of things, and my hope is that one day, Michael will reap what he sows.
Next to Scott Peterson - the wife and baby killer on death row, who will be given the MERCY of lethal injection - I believe that Michael Schiavo is the most hated man on the planet. At least he is in my world.
God help us all.
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