DescentBB

I find it amazing how fast congress can get a bill passed and the president signs for someone like Schiebo. With all the pressing issues in the country why can't they (congress) work with the same speed to pass legislation say...fixing social security, get troop on our borders or any of a myriad of other issues? So for those of you who think I am a die hard Bush/rightwing lover, I don't think our top officials should have wasted their time on the Schiebo case.

I keep hearing people say that the right to life issue is what fuels their fire in this but I just don't see how the average right to life voter relates to this case.
Is it an attempt to get the camels nose under the tent so to speak, to define life in some legislation that can spill over into an abortion ruling?

Interesting thought on the abortion idea Will. There may be something to it.

I just think it smacks of ego-centrism and grandiose self importance for federal legislators to presume they know more about the case then those who have been living and fighting it for the last 15 years.

This is political grandstanding at its slimiest. During some of the testimony, some legislators were stating things as facts that were outright false.

Itâ??s disgusting.

The only way to fix Social Security is to get it out of Goverment hands and privatize it so the money stays where it belongs instead of lining pocketts.

What makes you think that privatized SS money wouldn't line pockets ?

I bet many a federal judge went to bed last night praying that they don't get picked for this one.

Privatising SS will only line stock broker's pockets with fees and transaction costs. What we need is a law or regulation that will disallow use of SS as a cash cow for budget deficits and other neferious financial doings.

Will Robinson wrote:I keep hearing people say that the right to life issue is what fuels their fire in this but I just don't see how the average right to life voter relates to this case.
Is it an attempt to get the camels nose under the tent so to speak, to define life in some legislation that can spill over into an abortion ruling?

No, it's an attempt to prevent euthanasia. The pro-life position isn't strictly limited to abortion; it's about protecting the right to live from conception until natural death. There's nothing natural about what the Florida judges have ordered; they want to withhold food and water, basic human necessities, from a person. In my opinion, you should be far more afraid of court-sanctioned mercy killing than of the attempt by Congress to intervene and save Terri's life. The former is what qualifies as "disgusting" to me, not the latter.

Top Gun wrote:...The pro-life position isn't strictly limited to abortion; it's about protecting the right to live from conception until natural death....

Just for the sake of arguing semantics, there really isn't anything more natural than dying of starvation and nothing less natural than only being able to consume nutrition by way of a feeding tube.

So the definition of "natural death" is truly a wildcard in your argument.

Removing a feeding tube from a person fully capable of breathing on their own constitutes denying that person the basic human right of nutrition, a right confirmed by many human rights groups. I don't know about you, but I don't consider letting someone starve to death to be a natural response; if anything, it's a violation of natural law.

Fair enough, but the courts have decided Terri's body is not a person.

Top Gun wrote:Removing a feeding tube from a person fully capable of breathing on their own constitutes denying that person the basic human right of nutrition, a right confirmed by many human rights groups. I don't know about you, but I don't consider letting someone starve to death to be a natural response; if anything, it's a violation of natural law.

It's not just a feeding tube. Terri is now a vegetable; she cannot take care of herself. If they don't remove her wastes or roll her body to prevent bedsores, she'll die of less pleasant causes. We can't kid ourselves that this is just some person who needs a little help with her spoon. She is 100% dependent on continuous intervention for her body to continue functioning.

If you got knocked unconscious for a week, would you like some court somewhere to decide that you aren't a person and starve you to death?

How about a year?

5 years?

The point is, if it's a human body and it's still capable of reflexes, who has the right to tell whether it's human or not? Who has been given that kind of moral authority? Please let me know; because if there is such a person I want them dead, and as quickly as possible, before they start saying that anyone under the age of 2 is not a human.

guys... take the discussion of Terri over to the other thread. We don't need two threads devoted to the same topic.

If I caught woodchip's point correctly, he's asking why this law can be passed within days, while others take a long time.

I think the obvious answer is that topics like social security reform really *should* go through a ton of debate. The two sides fundamentally disagree on the topic, and there's a lot of compromise (or bribery) to be done before they come to a reasonable solution everyone can be somewhat happy with. On certain other topics, there simply isn't that much to disagree on, so those laws tend to pass quickly and without much discussion, and we never see them. It just so happens that the Terri Schiavo case is one where there's not a lot of disagreement, but there is a lot of publicity and time pressure, so we see it blasting through the process on the TV.

Other laws get passed just as fast -- they just don't get this much coverage. Most laws that get enough coverage for us to hear about on the news get that coverage precisely because there's a lot of disagreement on them.

I think that slowness on important / divisive issues is a good feature of our government. If everyone agrees, you write a bill and pass it 95-0 within a couple days. But if there's disagreement, every little clause gets examined, and everybody has to compromise a bit, and eventually the bill passes 51-49 but both sides have been over it with a fine-tooth comb. On an issue with as many long-term implications as social security reform, it's good it'll take them that long to fix it.

Lothar, this is the problem...there was no debate. Legislatures were called back from vacation just to vote on this. No weighing the issue, no review of why the courts all decided in favor of the husband. Nothing but a rush to judgement and vote so you look good. If the whole idea of who determines whether a human being is to be pulled off artificial sustanence is not worthy of a in depth look, then what is?

Additionally George F Will came out against what congress has done stating that "Judicial rights" have been trampled upon. What is the purpose of a independant state judiciary? A state can determine if a crimminal can be put to death...or can they? Perhaps the state courts should turn over every murder conviction where the death penalty has been incurred and let the U.S. congress have the final say. By interfering with the Shiavo case, I'm afraid the federal legislature has opened a whole pandoras box of how far they can intrude into our individual live. While Wills point about abortion may have some credence, I'd be more concerned about a new era of peeping toms seeking to control more than just what goes on in the bedroom.

woodchip wrote:If the whole idea of who determines whether a human being is to be pulled off artificial sustanence is not worthy of a in depth look, then what is?

Can't give it an in-depth look if the person you're asking about is already dead.

That's why there was a rush and no real debate -- the debate should happen, but it has to happen while the person it's about is still alive, which means that in order for the real debate to happen, first they have to make sure she'll actually be fed.

It would be stupid for Congress to spend a month debating whether or not they should keep her alive, and they get done and she's been dead for 3 weeks. It's worth an in-depth look, but it can't be given an in-depth look if she's already dead and cremated halfway through the debate!

Think about it this way: if they order the tube in for another month, and then they find the husband was right, they can pull the tube right then and the only bad thing that's happened is a body without a brain was kept alive for an extra month. But if they let her starve to death, and then they find the husband was wrong and they find reason to investigate him, she's already dead and her body is cremated, and that can't be undone.

If you're going to risk a mistake, which mistake would you rather make?

Well, if she is already a corpse, then why waste any time at all on legislating another look see into her situation? Sticking a tube back in doesn't change anything.

Right -- if. If she's already a corpse, then this is all a waste of time (and nothing more.)

If she's not really a corpse, and if her parents are right, then not sticking the tube back in her is a waste of a life.

That's what it comes down to -- whichever thing you do, you could be wrong.

If you choose to take a month to deliberate, and keep her alive, then if it turns out she really is dead, all you've done is wasted time. If it turns out she's not, then you've saved a life.

If you choose to let her die while you're deliberating, then if it turns out she was already dead, it doesn't matter. But if it turns out she could've been saved, then you just wasted a life.

It seems to me pushing through a law that at least allows her to live through the debate is the least anybody could do. If the debate comes down to "she can't be saved" or "she's really truly already dead" then so be it -- but at least keep her around until the debate has really been had.

The problem is Lothar that you have set no guide lines for a terminal point to find out that she is dead. I would argue that the debate has taken place for the past fifteen years, and the conclusion is that she is dead. You seem to believe that for some reason that doesn't count. This is an endless cycle, there will always be someone who disagrees with the depth of the debate, as you seem to now, and asks "what is the harm of keeping her alive until we have debated it according to the criteria x, y, and z?" And repeats your above argument.

You're argument only allows a real terminal point once we have come to the conclusion that she should live. Or it allows those who believe she should live to have their way no matter what. You will never change their minds.

Eventually, the debate really can't go any farther. "Gee, the Supreme court disagreed, let's take it to the mega-ultimate-court"? Um, no. Eventually it'll have to end. The question is, should it end right now, or should it end a month from now? You can't repeat this argument a month from now, because there's no court left to appeal to, and no more criteria left to debate.

Yes, it's been debated for 15 years. Yes, the courts have consistantly ruled in favor of the husband (though it's misleading to say the court rulings over the past 15 years have been on this specific issue.) That's evidence in his favor, but that doesn't settle it. It's not that it doesn't count at all -- it's just that this case, like death penalty cases, should be appealed until there's no more reasonable chance for any appeal to be successful.

If what Tetrad posted in the other thread is true, the debate will be over in a month and the feeding tube will be removed. But the fact that there are still a sizeable number of people close to her who disagree should at least make you wonder if that evidence is legit.

Eventually, the debate really can't go any farther. "Gee, the Supreme court disagreed, let's take it to the mega-ultimate-court"? Um, no

It could follow the guide lines, the supreme court could make a decision, as they did, in this case not to hear it, congress could stay up tell midnight to find away to get it back to them, as they did.

I am in favor of letting her live. But I am against this renegade conservative legeslation.

So, listening to the mornings news, the federal judge has refused the re-insertion of the feeding tubes. One thing I found interesting was the parents claim of their daughters never had a atty. assigned to her, thus her due process rights were violated. Some of the news organs had picked up on this and made neilson ratings hay out of it. As it turns out Terri did have guardians appointed to her and is one reason why the federal judge has refused an emergency order to re-insert the tubes. We have to be careful of assuming too much about this case by listening to media newsie's and internet websites.

Lothar, as Tetrad posted, Terri's brain is a liquid soup du jour. There is no "if". As in all the UN resoulutions against Saddam Hussein, how many court cases do you need to accept a person will never be brought back? Will any and all such cases have to be heard all the way to the USSC? The only good I can see of this is future cases may have a process established that it won't take 15 years to settle such situations.

Top Gun wrote:

Will Robinson wrote:The pro-life position isn't strictly limited to abortion; it's about protecting the right to live from conception until natural death.

You idiot. What's natural about lying in hospital being fed through a tube for 15 years? That is distinctly NOT natural.

Allowing nature to take its course would have seen her dead 14.9 years ago. Sweet Baby Jebus.

Yay Mobius with the unabashed "Idiot!" comment!

Way to go, Mobius. Not only did you spam the thread with a mindless insult, you also apparently don't know how to use the quote tags. Then again, you'll never read this thread a second time, so I don't know why we're trying to talk to you.

In a way, Mobius does have a point.

woodchip wrote:In a way, Mobius does have a point.

You're right in that it's not natural to lie in a hospital bed for 15 years. By the same token, is it natural to open up a person's chest to replace a heart valve, or to administer concentrated doses of radiation in order to treat cancer? I'd say no to both. Most modern medicine isn't "natural" by any stretch of the imagination, but should we stop administering it simply based on that fact? Of course not.

In the case of Terri, if she was hooked up to a ventilator for 15 years and was universally and irrevocably designated as brain-dead, I would probably consider that to be extraordinary care (however, I wouldn't criticize anyone who desired to live that way or who wanted to keep a family member "alive" in that fashion; it's a hard decision). However, Terri is being denied basic nutrition and hydration, which I don't think anyone could construe as "extraordinary" care; besides, there's still debate on her exact condition one way or another. Whether by mouth or by tube, it's still basic food and water, and I happen to feel that denying those to any person, regardless of their mental status, is tantamount to murder.

At the same time you have to consider the resources that are being used to sustain her. Sometimes it's hard to deal with the fact that there's no chance for improvement. According to many (most?) doctors, she's in a "persistent vegetative state", and according to all doctors she has no chance of recovering. The best they can do is leave her as is, and quite honestly what does that do? It runs up huge bills and takes a place away from someone who might be able to recover.

Her husband may be a total scumbag, but legally it's his right to determine her care plan.

wow, I can't believe I'm saying it, but DCrazy is right. Without a will specifying, the next of kin is power of attorney, which is, her husband (at that time). The doubt the courts have any ill will towards this woman, but the law is the law, and that's the way it goes.

This got me thinking a little bit about stem cell research. I don't mean to stray off topic, but the religious sector of this country feels that stem research is tantamount to playing God and the natural cycle and unethical. I think keeping someone alive when they would undoubtedly be naturally dead is more of playing God. What do you think? I don't think she could have a natural death now, she's been kept alive mechanically for so long now.