It's not often Bush interrupts his vacation in Crawford to head back to DC. Same for the Congress. The last time something like this happened was when the Congress subpoenaed Elian to try to keep his father from taking him back to Cuba. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=598594 .
It's very sad that Congress and the president waste time with trivial crap like this that usurps states' rights, instead of actually focusing on real issues. Fortunately the Supreme Court is likely to overturn whatever stupid laws Congress passes regarding Terry Schiavo.
Yeah this is going beyond ridiculous. Congress needs to stay out of it, and let the courts decisions stand and let that poor woman move on.
The woman is not dying! She suffers from brain damage, but is no way braindead. If this woman is put to death, then should the same thing be applied to all people suffering from debilitating disabilities? Maybe we should just start killing off the mentally challenged and the elderly as well, or anyone else who is seen fit to terminate. I am sorry, but to kill a woman -- who isn't even dying -- by starving her to death is nothing short of sick and totally inhumane. It has nothing to do with religion, conservatism or liberalism. It has to do with what is right, and killing a woman that is not dying, by making her starve to death, is just not right. It's disgusting.
You can argue semantics regarding whether or not she is "dying," but the fact is she is in a permanent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. She is unable to communicate whether she wants to be kept alive. Her husband is her next of kin and should be allowed to make that decision. Please show me the article of the US Constitution where Congress is granted the right to pass laws preventing the removal of a feeding tube.
Yes, she is unable to communicate whether she wants to live or die. Unfortunately, she never signed a living will. In a case such as this, it's only Constitutional to rule in favor of life. The state has no Constitutional right to mandate death unless a person is committed of a crime that allows for the death penalty, or they sign a living will stating they want to be put to death if in a vegetative state. Neither apply to Terri Schiavo since she has not committed a crime warranting the death penalty, nor has she signed a will stating she wants her life to be terminated if in a vegetative state. Please read the Fifth Amendment.
Anyone familiar with the medical futility law in Texas that Bush signed in the late 90s? Cases such as Schiavo have occurred in Texas and the plug or feeding tubes have been pulled without Congressional intervention. http://www.asbh.org/resources/exchange/2000/winter_02.htm .
Here's a legal summary of the Terri case. It's not as if due process has been denied. http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html Her case was appealed to the federal courts a number of times but was rejected. In at least one case it was rejected by a federal judge who cited lack of federal jurisdiction. The Congress has essentially forced federal jurisdiction into the situation. The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected a review of the case. There's not much more the Congress or Bush can due other than to pass some sort of legislation that would force the feeding tube to be reinserted, which would be declared unconstitutional anyway at a later date. The best they can do is hope that a federal judge orders the tube reinserted while the review is pending and hope that ultimately a federal judge would decide in favor of Terri's family.
You have to wonder if Bush and the Congress would have intervened if the Florida courts had decided in favor of Terri's family. Mike still has rights as her husband and legal guardian that shouldn't necessarily be thwarted by Congressional intervention. This harks back to the Elian Gonzales case where the Congress tried to thwart the father taking his son back to Cuba by issuing a subpoena to his son and relatives to testify in Congress. A number of appeals were made to federal courts in that case too by Elians's secondary relatives only to be rejected based on lack of merit or lack of jurisdiction.
As always PR, your ardor is invigorating, but I think you might be missing something in your zeal. Terry Shiavo is being kept alive by artificial means, by a medical contrivance. If she couldn't breath for herself, if she was on a ventilator, the point would be the same - the difference would be found only in the machine. And watching a person, a loved one draw their last breath is no more or less a hard thing to watch than watching someone slowly pass like Terry is going to do. Spin time back fifty years and we have nothing to talk about. She would have passed beyond fifteen years ago. We are very quick to build more machines, devise more procedures, develop more drugs to prolong life or to hold death at bay. But we fail miserably at asking ourselves (and answering truthfully) a very important question - "Just because we can do a thing, should we?". It is incomprehensible, not to mention reprehensible, that ANY legislator or elected official has stuck their head into this family's business. Bill Frist is especially troubling, since, as a medical professional, he, above all, should know that you can't diagnose nor second-guess a case from a distance like he has. What happened when he rose to the Senate? Was he given divine sight? A crystal ball? Super-duper Tarot cards? The political manuevering going on at the expense of this woman is sickening! And it is indicative of what we can expect in the future from D.C.
I wonder if the current review and appeal don't go in favor of the Schindlers if the Congress will pass another piece of legislation that makes yet another federal court review the case (there are other districts). They could keep doing this until a ruling that Bush favors is reached, assuming that Terri's body is still alive and assuming that Mike hasn't gotten help from the Supreme Court to overturn the decision or rule that the Congress was behaving unconstitutionally to begin with. Congress is effectively acting as a judge in a loose sense with this tactic. It's the counterpart of what people refer to as 'legislating from the bench', when judges try to behave as a legislative body instead of a court. Here the Congress is trying to act like a court or trying to manipulate the court process instead of acting as a legislative body.
I'm fairly sure that Mr. Schiavo is Terri's legal guardian. As such, I'm fairly sure it's his choice to say whether she should be euthanized or not. I'm personally against the feeding tube removal, because I've sure starvation is one of the worst ways to go, but this guy testified that his wife told him she wanted the plug to be pulled if she were ever in that state. I've never signed a piece of paper saying that, but that's how I'd want it, too. Really, I think the Mr. Schiavo is acting in her best interests, and trying to fulfill her wishes.
