Terri's dad pulled plug on his own mom & DeLay pulled plug on his own dad

There you have it folks: winger hypocrisy at its finest.

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

Terri's dad pulled the plug on his mom

I wonder when Fox, CNN, MSNBC will get around to mentioning these two little facts?

Wouldn't this provide some of that "balance" they're always striving for?

Oh, I forgot: only obvious notions like Evolution need to be counterpointed with a winger spewing fairy-tales for the sake of "balance" - while lies, slander and incitement to riot don't need any rebuttal at all.

whereas Terri has a chance to recover. There's always a reason for their hypocrisy--don't you see?:eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

I am so sickened by their evil.

I just can't stand it any more.

The point is...Mr. Delay...that your family was allowed the privilege of making your very personal decision--in private. Without cameras. Without sanctimonious, pandering, evil politicians calling you names and insinuating that you were murdering your father.

Damn! Do these people have any conscience?

How can truly religious people be fooled into believing that these horrible, awful people--who lack any decency or humanity--actually care about religion?

Mindblowing!

training to decide they were wrong?

possibility that temporary dialysis and a course of antibiotics might have offered his dad a few more weeks, months or years at home. I can sympathize with the man but still realize he is dead wrong about his daughter.

After all, the entire rift with Michael started over money Schindler thought he was entitled to.

So in both circumstances the person was elderly and the ENTIRE family was in agreement that there should be no extraordinaery measures.

I have noooo problem with withholding treatment.

Totally different than with TS who is a younger woman whose blood family does not agree and her wishes are not totally clear.....and whose husband has a major conflict of interest.

TS is not terminal.

There are also ADA issues.


Is this euthenasia ? Is this murder ?

A case can be made for both.

.

When there is a conflict between family members in this way it is settled in court. That happened and it is an extremely sound legal decision.

There are no ADA issues.

And it is neither murder nor euthenasia. We have a legal right to choose to terminate life support.

We are a nation of laws. The spouse, not the blood family has the right/responsibility to speak for the other.

I am perfectly comfortable with Michael speaking for Terri.

once a woman marries a man she is no longer a member of her father and mother's family.

This issue cuts both ways. Here is the Schiavo side:

By 1997, when Michael was set to remove the feeding tube for the first time, the stage was set for an epic confrontation. It is unclear what led to the change of heart, but Scott Schiavo, Michael's elder brother, says he arrived at the decision soon after the painful death of his own mother. "It sort of woke him up when he was watching my mother die," he says. "One day he just stood up and said: 'I can't do this any more. I can't do this to Terri.'"

And here is the Schindler side:

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.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077219,00.html

There are those that see everything through partisan lenses. One side will blame Clinton for everything, while the other blames Karl Rove. The truth is that there are millions of people that do not judge an issue based on partisanship but on their moral/ethical/religious core values. That's the disagreement we have in here!

This is a tragic situation in which there are no winners. However, I can guarantee you that the underlying issues in the Schiavo case are going to be with us for many years to come.

I will call to your attention the following passage in The Guardian's story:

It is unclear what led to the change of heart, but Scott Schiavo, Michael's elder brother, says he arrived at the decision soon after the painful death of his own mother.

There is no mention in here that Terri Schiavo ever told Michael that she wanted to be unplugged. Michael just made it up!

Terri did express her wishes.

Don't like the law if you so choose, but the decision was a legally sound one.

and what Scott Schiavo said. It was Michael's experience in the death of his own mother that made him decide he didn't want the same to happen to Terri. A sensible position, EXCEPT that Michael testified in court that Terri had explicitly said she wanted to be unplugged!

Your observation does not contradict the opinion of the majority of Americans that in lieu of a living will, the husband should decide whether to continue treatment.

It's DeLay, Bush and the others who have explicitly backed the right of the Government to decide.

You decide.

they were following Terri's wishes!

Which is what the case is really about.

Michael's decision was an informed one, made as he came to accept this was not temporary but in fact meant the outcome Terri didn't want.

You should try reviewing the court case rather than imaginiing things.

It says that Michael arrived at the decision after watching his own mother die. It does not say he "made up" a conversation with Terri; it does not say anything one way the other about previous statements Terri might have made. Absence of evidence on one count is not the same as evidence in support of the other.

In fact, a good case could be made that Terri DID in fact say something along the lines of not wanting to be kept alive by artificial means after watching the funerals of other people who had died and the intensity of her wish only hit Michael after he had had to deal with actually making the decision in the case of his mother.

The malpractice award came in 1993; his attempts to have the feeding tube removed didn't come until 1997. Something had to have happened to make Michael change his mind. If he had been intent from the beginning to cash in on the award, he would have done so a lot earlier.

I think it's interesting to note, too, that this article is from over a year ago and yet already the Schindlers had basically set up camp across the street from the hospice and were regularly meeting with the press and with the fundie leadership, while Michael remained virtually sequestered. If this was all about Michael, he wouldn't have remained so private for fifteen years.

the case.

TRy again.

The law was written, the judges ruled, and the media failed us big time in two important ways.

They and the polticians made this family and court affair into a spectacle. After they did this, they brought out political lawyers, but they brought few doctors and other experts in death. We were treated in a cheating way because of an established partnership of the media with a single political party. They could have educated us by calling on experts to talk very early in this confrontation. Instead, we taught each other by input from nurses, care givers, personal stories, and our own lawyer posters. We were lucky, others had to rely on their reverends, tv, radio, and newspapers.

Our country was had by the media, politicians, and reverends and once again.

Let's just hope that every single person who has protested the removal of her feeding tube has heart and voice for the deaths that we send our young to and the innocents they take, and death row criminals and innocents and the people dying for environmental and social reasons.