-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Judge rejects GOP bid to keep Schiavo alive
- Thread starter ShadowRed
- Start date
- Status
It appears we've reached the pivotal moment in the Terri Schiavo case, and it also appears our politicians, our senators and congressmen, might benefit from some observations.
In America today all big stories have three dimensions: a legal angle, a public-relations angle and a political angle. In the Schiavo case some of our politicians seem not to be fully appreciating the second and third. This is odd.
Here's both a political and a public-relations reality: The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can't save this woman's life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it.
This should concentrate their minds.
So should this: America is watching. As the deadline for removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube approaches, the story has broken through as never before in the media.
There is a passionate, highly motivated and sincere group of voters and activists who care deeply about whether Terri Schiavo is allowed to live. Their reasoning, ultimately, is this: Be on the side of life. They remind me of what Winston Churchill said once when he became home secretary in charge of England's prisons. He was seated at dinner with a jabbery lady who said that if she were ever given a life sentence she'd rather die than serve it. He reared back. No, he said, always choose life! "Death's the only thing you can't get out of!"
Just so. Life is full of surprise and lightning-like lurches. The person in a coma today wakes up tomorrow and says, "Is that you, mom?" Life is unknowable. Always give it a chance to shake your soul and upend reality.
The supporters of Terri Schiavo's right to continue living have fought for her heroically, through the courts and through the legislatures. They're still fighting. They really mean it. And they have memories.
On the other side of this debate, one would assume there is an equally well organized and passionate group of organizations deeply committed to removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. But that's not true. There's just about no one on the other side. Or rather there is one person, a disaffected husband who insists Terri once told him she didn't want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures.
He has fought the battle to kill her with a determination that at this point seems not single-minded or passionate but strange. His former wife's parents and family are eager to care for her and do care for her, every day. He doesn't have to do a thing. His wife is not kept alive by extraordinary measures--she breathes on her own, is not on a respirator. All she needs to continue existing--and to continue being alive so that life can produce whatever miracle it may produce--is a feeding tube.
It doesn't seem a lot.
So politically this is a struggle between many serious people who really mean it and one, just one, strange-o. And the few bearded and depressed-looking academics he's drawn to his side.
It is not at all in the political interests of senators and congressmen to earn the wrath of the pro-Schiavo group and the gratitude of the anti-Schiavo husband, by doing nothing.
So let me write a sentence I never thought I'd write: Politicians, please, think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be mad at you, and you'll keep a human being alive. Do nothing and you reap bitterness and help someone die.
This isn't hard, is it?
At the heart of the case at this point is a question: Is Terri Schiavo brain-dead? That is, is remedy, healing, physiologically impossible?
No. Oddly enough anyone who sees the film and tape of her can see that her brain tells her lungs to breathe, that she can open her eyes, that she seems to respond at times and to some degree to her family. She can laugh. (I heard it this morning on the news. It's a childlike chuckle.) In the language of computers she appears not to be a broken hard drive but a computer in deep hibernation. She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life and says, "Is it 1983? Is there still McDonald's? Can I have a burger?"
Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.
But in the end, it comes down to this: Why kill her? What is gained? What is good about it? Ronald Reagan used to say, in the early days of the abortion debate, when people would argue that the fetus may not really be a person, he'd say, "Well, if you come across a paper bag in the gutter and it seems something's in it and you don't know if it's alive, you don't kick it, do you?" No, you don't.
So Congress: don't kick it. Let her live. Hard cases make bad law, but let her live. Precedents can begin to cascade, special pleas can become a flood, but let her live. Because she's human, and you're human.
A final note to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You have to pull out all the stops. You have to run over your chairmen if they're being obstructionist for this niggling reason and that. Run over their egos, run past their fatigue. You have to win on this. If you don't, you can't imagine how much you're going to lose. And from people who have faith in you.
Bill Frist and Tom DeLay and Jim Sensenbrenner and Denny Hastert and all the rest would be better off risking looking ridiculous and flying down to Florida, standing outside Terri Schiavo's room and physically restraining the poor harassed staff who may be told soon to remove her feeding tube, than standing by in Washington, helpless and tied in legislative knots, and doing nothing.
Issue whatever subpoena, call whatever witnesses, pass whatever emergency bill, but don't let this woman die.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006442
I don't necessarily agree with everything the author has to say but so long as you're going to make snap, emotional judgements you might as well look at both sides of the issue.
In America today all big stories have three dimensions: a legal angle, a public-relations angle and a political angle. In the Schiavo case some of our politicians seem not to be fully appreciating the second and third. This is odd.
Here's both a political and a public-relations reality: The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can't save this woman's life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it.
This should concentrate their minds.
So should this: America is watching. As the deadline for removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube approaches, the story has broken through as never before in the media.
There is a passionate, highly motivated and sincere group of voters and activists who care deeply about whether Terri Schiavo is allowed to live. Their reasoning, ultimately, is this: Be on the side of life. They remind me of what Winston Churchill said once when he became home secretary in charge of England's prisons. He was seated at dinner with a jabbery lady who said that if she were ever given a life sentence she'd rather die than serve it. He reared back. No, he said, always choose life! "Death's the only thing you can't get out of!"
Just so. Life is full of surprise and lightning-like lurches. The person in a coma today wakes up tomorrow and says, "Is that you, mom?" Life is unknowable. Always give it a chance to shake your soul and upend reality.
The supporters of Terri Schiavo's right to continue living have fought for her heroically, through the courts and through the legislatures. They're still fighting. They really mean it. And they have memories.
On the other side of this debate, one would assume there is an equally well organized and passionate group of organizations deeply committed to removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. But that's not true. There's just about no one on the other side. Or rather there is one person, a disaffected husband who insists Terri once told him she didn't want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures.
He has fought the battle to kill her with a determination that at this point seems not single-minded or passionate but strange. His former wife's parents and family are eager to care for her and do care for her, every day. He doesn't have to do a thing. His wife is not kept alive by extraordinary measures--she breathes on her own, is not on a respirator. All she needs to continue existing--and to continue being alive so that life can produce whatever miracle it may produce--is a feeding tube.
It doesn't seem a lot.
So politically this is a struggle between many serious people who really mean it and one, just one, strange-o. And the few bearded and depressed-looking academics he's drawn to his side.
It is not at all in the political interests of senators and congressmen to earn the wrath of the pro-Schiavo group and the gratitude of the anti-Schiavo husband, by doing nothing.
So let me write a sentence I never thought I'd write: Politicians, please, think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be mad at you, and you'll keep a human being alive. Do nothing and you reap bitterness and help someone die.
This isn't hard, is it?
At the heart of the case at this point is a question: Is Terri Schiavo brain-dead? That is, is remedy, healing, physiologically impossible?
No. Oddly enough anyone who sees the film and tape of her can see that her brain tells her lungs to breathe, that she can open her eyes, that she seems to respond at times and to some degree to her family. She can laugh. (I heard it this morning on the news. It's a childlike chuckle.) In the language of computers she appears not to be a broken hard drive but a computer in deep hibernation. She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life and says, "Is it 1983? Is there still McDonald's? Can I have a burger?"
Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.
But in the end, it comes down to this: Why kill her? What is gained? What is good about it? Ronald Reagan used to say, in the early days of the abortion debate, when people would argue that the fetus may not really be a person, he'd say, "Well, if you come across a paper bag in the gutter and it seems something's in it and you don't know if it's alive, you don't kick it, do you?" No, you don't.
So Congress: don't kick it. Let her live. Hard cases make bad law, but let her live. Precedents can begin to cascade, special pleas can become a flood, but let her live. Because she's human, and you're human.
A final note to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You have to pull out all the stops. You have to run over your chairmen if they're being obstructionist for this niggling reason and that. Run over their egos, run past their fatigue. You have to win on this. If you don't, you can't imagine how much you're going to lose. And from people who have faith in you.
Bill Frist and Tom DeLay and Jim Sensenbrenner and Denny Hastert and all the rest would be better off risking looking ridiculous and flying down to Florida, standing outside Terri Schiavo's room and physically restraining the poor harassed staff who may be told soon to remove her feeding tube, than standing by in Washington, helpless and tied in legislative knots, and doing nothing.
Issue whatever subpoena, call whatever witnesses, pass whatever emergency bill, but don't let this woman die.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006442
I don't necessarily agree with everything the author has to say but so long as you're going to make snap, emotional judgements you might as well look at both sides of the issue.
I'm one of the 'yes'es. Not only would they have to remove my tube and let me die (or at the very least inject me with the good shit that deathrow inmates get), but I'd better have any organs I have on me donated to other people and the rest of my body to science, and they'd better burn and scatter what's left to the winds or feed me to the dogs or pour me into a pauper's gravedigger's toilet or do whatever and NO FUNERAL.
God help you if you try to give me a funeral, I'll find a way to defy heaven and hell and haunt your ass. They're a waste of money and I want my friends and family to move the fuck on with life. You want to remember me? Spend the money from my life insurance I leave behind on yourself; I don't make those annual payments for nothing.
A little overboard, but one of my greatest fears in life is to be a vegetable. Fuck that. I can't imagine being forced in a vegetative state for the good years of my life. The pro-lifing assholes fighting this must be some of the sickest jokers on the planet right now.
God help you if you try to give me a funeral, I'll find a way to defy heaven and hell and haunt your ass. They're a waste of money and I want my friends and family to move the fuck on with life. You want to remember me? Spend the money from my life insurance I leave behind on yourself; I don't make those annual payments for nothing.
A little overboard, but one of my greatest fears in life is to be a vegetable. Fuck that. I can't imagine being forced in a vegetative state for the good years of my life. The pro-lifing assholes fighting this must be some of the sickest jokers on the planet right now.
Kobun Heat
Member
This article points out some facts that strongly suggest this is not merely a loving husband wishing to comply with his wife's wishes. (I am not the author of the piece, so don't imagine that I'm somehow personally responsible for backing up each bullet point.)
Thaedolus said:
I'm not a Republican (or a Democrat), but I wholeheartedly agree. The government has absolutely no right ot intervene on such a personal level, as it reeks of pure politics and lacks any level of sincerity or importance. For me to even fathom the notion of the federal government trying to "save" this woman's life for selfish gains is nothing short of absolutely infuriating, especially considering we're losing perfectly healthy, conscious, young, and capable citizens over in Iraq thanks to the administration's shortsightedness; that only makes that absolute wretched article KobunHeat quoted more painful to read. The administration is already doing a great job trying to overrun our civil rights every chance it gets, and I don't need this case to give them further reason to attempt more shenanigans.
It's apparent to me the parents are simply seeing what they want to see, whether it exists or not, and that most medical evidence points to the woman being a vegetable which, most importantly, when combined with the fact that this woman, by all accounts, would've wanted to pass on under such circumstances, indicates to me that she should. The current Republican majority really needs to get over this whole contrary notion of smaller government oversight except when it comes to the moral interpretations, at which point, they come thundering down as if they were Jesus himself.
brooklyngooner
Member
ManaByte said:
Oh man... :lol
brooklyngooner
Member
hippie said:
There's so much wrong with the logic in this article that one wonder whether this was written by an eighth-grader. And no one is making snap judgments Hippie. Do you even read what people write?
videogamer
Banned
Fragamemnon if you are around: Hey if Frist wants the social conservatives vote, he might not have to go through with the "nuclear option" after all. He's been making a lot of noise over this issue. All he needs to do is waive the Schiavo martyr card come election time, and he has their votes.
Drinky Crow
Banned
Fucking testicle-free Democrats.
hippie said:
That's not how it works. The brain is dead. The part of her brain that for all intents and purposes makes her human is dead. In the past, diagnostic equipment weren't as good, so thats why a select few recovered. We can tell if the parts of the brain are dead now. The only part of her brain that isn't dead is the part that regulates involuntary actions, such as breathing or response to stimulus. You can't recover from that. There is no miracle that brings back dead brain cells.
Also, this guy was offered the option by the family who said they will care for her if he just divorces her and goes on his own way. Although it's true that he does have a girlfriend now, he walked away from a deal that would've allowed him to leave if thats what he wanted. Instead he stuck around for a decade trying to let her die. I have a feeling that she actually did tell him she wouldn't want to live like that, and that's why he's still fighting.
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Semi-update at CNN:
Save my little girl!
Save my little girl!
brooklyngooner
Member
909er said:
:lol you restoreth my faith in junior members.
UltimateMarioMan
Member
How can the cause be unknown?
Ninja Scooter
Member
what do they mean "unknown"? I thought it has been established that she collapsed and fell into a coma because of some kind mineral deficiency due to being beulimic.
videogamer
Banned
You do know that diffuse brain damage (oxygen deprivation) is generally worse than focal damage (gunshot, assuming that it goes through, rather breaks up)?Heezzi said:
Drinky Crow said:
Indeed:
-Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader
WHAT THE FUCK?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...19/ap_on_go_co/brain_damaged_woman_congress_6
What the fuck is Congress doing???? Christ. Great job, Reid.
*cough*
Although the GOP pinned the Democrats in a corner, atleast fucking stand up for the goddamn law.
Go Go Ackman!
Banned
Shoot that bitch out of a cannon.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Go Go Ackman! said:
wtf :lol
This just keeps getting dumber, and dumber, and dumber...
What's sad, what's truly sad about all of this is that Terry Schiavo and her husband lose, no matter what. If she lives, everyone in her family will continue to suffer from the fight; Terry will remain "alive" in a condition that no right-minded individual would want to endure. If she dies, she becomes a martyr for the right-to-life, religious fringe who refuse to see the situation in a human context, but instead a religious one.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...ar20,0,5444446.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
What's sad, what's truly sad about all of this is that Terry Schiavo and her husband lose, no matter what. If she lives, everyone in her family will continue to suffer from the fight; Terry will remain "alive" in a condition that no right-minded individual would want to endure. If she dies, she becomes a martyr for the right-to-life, religious fringe who refuse to see the situation in a human context, but instead a religious one.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...ar20,0,5444446.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
The bipartisan legislation was passed this weekend (with, sadly, praise from Dem. leader Reid)...and ironically enough, this has come up:
As other sites have noted concerning the issue, it's quite a hypocritical piece of legislation there considering the motivations in getting it passed. Now about these little wars we're waging....
As other sites have noted concerning the issue, it's quite a hypocritical piece of legislation there considering the motivations in getting it passed. Now about these little wars we're waging....
Macam said:
What a fucking scum bag piece of legislation. And I'm really not surprised about Reid--I always suspected that the Democratic party's recent showing of spine was a fluke. After Bush's Social Security disaster blows over watch the party go back to business as usual as corporate lapdogs. I'm absolutely done with this party until they clearly show that they stand for progressive politics and common sense in more than name only.
TheDrowningMan
Member
I hope she dies before feeding resumes. It's dreadfully sad and could only happen to such an extent in America. Poor woman.
What kind of sad existence could this lady ever dream of having if she wakes up an old lady who's missed out on most of her life? She's 40 now and missed the last 15 years. She missed PS1 AND PS2. I couldn't go on after that. Besides, by the time any medical miracle comes along that can save her, she'll be 50 and in desperate need ot physical therapy and counseling. Parents love their kids, but these folks have no clue what they're talking about. This can only be worse for their daughter, not better. The miracle they're holding out for could only be a nightmare. PEACE.ge-man said:
That's the thing--she won't be waking up out of anything. As Cyan pointed out earlier, part of her mind literally died. I can sympathize with the parents plight. I'm sure I would initially exaggerate the significance of every little action my child made in the same situation, hoping that they would wake up out of their state like coma patients do. But that's not going to happen and people need to look at the situation in more complex terms--it's not just about life or death, there's an issue of quality of life. Who wants to live in such a state, putting undue burden on their kin? Furthermore, what happens when there is no one there to care for her anymore? Have her parents ever thought about these issues?
Father_Brain
Banned
Let's take a break from this bitter, partisan debate to laugh at CBSNews.com (from Eschaton):
videogamer
Banned
ge-man said:
Considering all the attention the religous right has given this case, the parents will probably not have that much trouble with fundraising for her future care. Of course, there are other cases where the parents are taking care of the brain-dead child without outside help. This case is a lot like the one in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, except there is no tube needed in that case.
Cooler heads might prevail. The Democrats who still have their spines on loaner stopped the voice vote, and are forcing a roll call, which means gathering together people who have just left DC for Easter. But I think the possible political repercussions are much broader than this. Exactly how hard can those in the GOP who march lockstep defy the party's long history of preferring small government before moderate conservatives have finally had enough?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=598084
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=598084
I <3 Republicans...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51402-2005Mar20.html
Well, I guess it's nice to know that all our suspicions about this being politically motivated turned out to be true.
GOP never ceases to amaze me. What has this party become..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51402-2005Mar20.html
Well, I guess it's nice to know that all our suspicions about this being politically motivated turned out to be true.
GOP never ceases to amaze me. What has this party become..
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked