My thoughts on this whole Terri Schiavo business

[judecorp]

I am so appalled that Congress will call all kinds of special sessions and be so passionate to get involved in the life and death of one random woman, while they could care less about the lives and deaths of thousands of US children, scores of people in poverty, and entire countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Where is the logic here, people??!? The dicksizing that runs rampant through this administration just plain makes me want to throw up. I am so fed up with seeing legislation proposed (and sometimes passed) to make decisions in affairs they have no business being privvy to JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.

I wonder just one thing: If Terri Schiavo was using Medicaid to pay for her 15+ years of hospital care, would the government be so quick to keep her alive?

(Attention, friends: If you have not done so, MAKE YOUR LIVING WILLS NOW. No, not later. NOW! This could all have been prevented with a little legal blahblah.)

Comments

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

But what I don't understand is that the ability to make these sorts of next-of-kin decisions is one of the government-mandated responsibilities/benefits of legal marriage. And now the government is taking one of the responsibilities away. Whatever happened to protecting the sanctity of marriage?

According to the law, it's the husband's decision, plain and simple, when there is no living will. That's just the way it is.

[eight.livejournal.com]

I guess my reservation in accepting that law is that he's started a new family with someone else and if the family was saying, "He's abused our daughter and he's trying to burn her to cover up evidence," I think it's good that it wasn't just ignored.

It doesn't mean that I agree with every politician and their mothers stepping in on this issue -- I think if judges had stuck with "this is the law, that's that" from the beginning and stopped taking out and then reinserting her feeding tube it would be less of an emotionally charged discussion.

That poor women, I just hope she's at peace.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think we can possibly assume to know the True Story with the way the media warps everything, but I read somewhere that Mr. Schiavo only started dating again after the legal fight to remove the feeding tube all started several years ago. AND he started dating again at the insistence of Terri's parents.

(I don't know if this is really true - who does? - but if so, it does make things look less heartless.)