Tom DeLay let his own brain-dead father die peacefully in 1988

DeLay's Own Tragic Crossroads
By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek, LA Times Staff Writers

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.
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More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.
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"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, Tom DeLay's father} wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."
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When his father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."
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{Although food and water alone would NOT have kept DeLay's father "alive"} there were also these similarities {with the Schiavo case}: Both stricken patients were severely brain-damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared from being kept alive by artificial means. And neither of them had a living will.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,5710023.story?coll=la-home-headlines via Atrios

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So... In DeLay's case, a private family decision was made, in an attempt to best reflect the wishes of the patient.

In Schiavo's case, her husband and 22 judges came to the same conclusion about the wishes of the patient - but this time, a bunch of criminal, radical busybodys from Congress and Operation Rescue overruled the patient's surmised wishes, because they thought it would excite "The Base."

How many years has it been now that it has sucked being a conservative.

...to ignore while you play games with people's emotions and sensationalize this fiasco for your own corporate greed. Shameful.

The pile on this POS is getting deeper and thicker...along with the releases of his memos and private chit-chat on how he's using this for his own purposes. The corporate media? They send Whorie Kurtz out with a panel of 3 other compromised media shills and say this story is about "faith" not politics...and how the "librul" "mainstream" media (why I've never used a word they made up) just doesn't get it. Shameful again.

Where are the Edward R. Murrows? The one who will get on national television and face down these goons with the simple question..."sir (or madam), do you have no decency?".

The fact this slimeball lays prostrate on the House floor last week; spewing lies like Mrs. Schaivo could talk and possibly walk...based on his own personal experience is beyond words.

But, given the vehemence with which he has been fighting to prolong Terri's life, it is a little surprising to learn that Robert decided to turn off the life-support system for his mother. She was 79 at the time, and had been ill with pneumonia for a week, when her kidneys gave out. "I can remember like yesterday the doctors said she had a good life. I asked, 'If you put her on a ventilator does she have a chance of surviving, of coming out of this thing?'" Robert says. "I was very angry with God because I didn't want to make those decisions."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3364707&mesg_id=3364707

Mind boggling hypocrisy. :shaking head:

doesn't die peacefully.

"religiously insane." At least o few of the sheeple are beginning to recognize they might be required to think for themselves again!

Don'tcha think?

If Hannity and Scarborough have assorted nutjobs and charlatans weighing in on the Schiavos' decision like Randall Terry (of Operation Rescue) and Dr. Hammesfahr (the neurologist with the phony nomination for the Nobel Prize), you'd think the least they could do would be to offer some "balance" by getting Widow DeLay on to talk about the family's difficult decision to pull the plug on Tom DeLay's dad?

Where is Bush's personal "Avenger of the Lord" who shall wreak vengeance upon the hypocrite DeLay -- Oh Gonzales why do you hide yourself.

that a brain dead person can appear to be cognizant