"No; It's Not about Terri Schiavo Anymore"

There have been people on DU who have been concerned that the Terry Schiavo case isn't that simple. This article really probes a lot of the discomfort some of us feel. (If this has already been posted somewhere, I apologize.)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032605G.shtml

No; It's Not about Terri Schiavo Anymore
By Mary Johnson
CommonDreams

Tuesday 22 March 2005

No; it's not about Terri Schiavo. And it hasn't been for quite awhile.

It's about us.

It's about each of us who thinks "I wouldn't want to live if I were a vegetable." It's about each one of us who thinks, as one blogger wrote, that Michael Schiavo has been "chained to a drooling shitbag for 15 years."

But it's also about those of us who are those vegetables, those drooling shitbags. Those of us who want to live but know we're a burden to our families. Those of us who fear "do not resuscitate" orders. Those of us who use ventilators, and who use feeding tubes. And those of us who can communicate with clarity only through artificial means.

How can the two groups of us - those of us who live with severe disabilities, and those of us who fear such a fate more than death - come to some common ground? .....

.... Just yesterday a listserv that I frequent was holding a discussion of the type of feeding tube Terri Schiavo had. A number of the folks talking about it were comparing their own feeding tubes to hers.

This is what the Terri Schiavo circus is all about. We may think it's about political posturing - and it is that, for sure. But it's about those of us who have scary, messy disabilities, and the fears of the rest of us....

...There isn't a single disability rights activist I've heard from who is happy that things ended up at such a sorry pass, and who isn't afraid that this will make liberals hate them even more than they now do. Yet it cannot help being noticed that it generally depends on whose ox is being gored as to what side of the states' rights debate one comes down on. We're all for federal laws when it comes to things like civil rights - and gay marriage. We're not, though, when it comes to things we've labeled as "right to die" - which we say are "privacy issues." ....

(More at the link)

Whaa?

n/t

There is a long thread posted by Cuban Liberal on this exact article already.

Thanks.

...Jeb, Junior, Randall Hatemaster Terry, and the mindless freeper zombies who have gotten so used to taking their orders from a 2-digit IQ chimp that they actually believe a brain full of spinal fluid is fully functional.

Whoever called Terri Schiavo a "drooling shitbag" is an idiot. This is not about caring for family members with disabilities that require extra attention and effort. It's about a hunsband doing what his wife told him she would want. A woman who has spinal fluid where her cerebral cortex should be. I woman who is already dead, but left the remains of an autonomic nervous system behind.

There's enough hysteria surrounding this issue. Don't add to it.

Those Disability Activists can surely depend on Bush and his ilk for support. They have always been the best friends of the downtrodden.

tax deduct the new yacht.

...Randell Terry's causes including "Operation Rescue". This creep needs to be investigated by the IRS and the justice department for under-reporting, misrepresentation and misappropriations of charity funds. The numerous other charitable causes that had taken the Terri Schiavo cause need to be held accountable as well through various questionable solicitations practices and that is the responsibility of the Florida Governors office.