Stop the Madness
This Terri Schiavo debacle has officially gone too far. A man has been arrested for offering a $250,000 bounty on the head of Michael Schiavo and a $50,000 bounty on the head of judge. What I want to know is: how does a retarded drunk redneck have $275,000$300,000?
On the Rush Limbaugh show today, Rush stated that it was the judges who are killing Terri. That glaringly wrong statement forced me to blink for such a long period, mouth agape, that I nearly rear-ended the car in front of me. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Terri killed Terri. Terri Schiavo is in the condition she is in today because she had so little respect for her own body that she starved herself of nutrients in order to make her feel better about her appearance. This isn’t a misfortune, this is cause and effect. What’s happening now is merely finishing the job that she started, ironically in the same manner.
What really is disgusting is the way that this issue is being used as a political tool (by both sides, but much more by Republicans.) Someone should tell Sean Hannity that a feeding tube is for delivering nutrients to someone who cannot eat, not for feeding fodder to an ideologue’s self-righteous radio show. Hannity has made it “all starvation crisis, all the time,” bringing on quack after quack.
Glenn Reynolds notes that Conservatives are acting like Liberals in their willingness to use Congress and the courts to intervene.
I’m quite astonished to hear people who call themselves conservatives arguing, in effect, that Congress and the federal courts have a free-ranging charter to correct any injustice, anywhere, regardless of the Constitution. And yet my email runneth over with just those kinds of comments. And arguing that “it’s okay because liberals do it too” doesn’t undercut my point that conservatives are acting like liberals here. It makes it.
Glenn Reynolds: Instapundit
Here are the facts:
- Michael Schiavo is Terri’s legal guardian
- The decision to remove life-sustaining devices is up to him
- You may not like it, but it is perfectly legal
I say “you” may not like it, but I consider myself one of those people. I don’t like that someone without a written living will can have that choice made for them. But I cannot deny that the way the law is today, what is happening is perfectly legitimate. I’m not the only one reluctantly coming to that conclusion.
Oh… and whatever your personal wishes for your fate should you ever be in such a position… draft a living will, mmkay? Regardless of what Terri would have wished for, I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted her fate to become a battle between her family and her husband, waged on the national stage.
