The Meat of the Matter

Me Too

I wanted to post about the Schiavo case this morning, then read the following on Chuck's blog. He said it with such perfection that I realized anything I would say would be second best, and as you all know, I like being the best. So here is what Chuck said: __________________________________________________________________________ A Nation of Hypocrites I'm here to weigh in on the Schiavo case. Unless you've been living under a rock under a box in a cave in the backwoods of Deliverance country somwhere, you've surely heard about it by now. But for you mouth-breathers out there -- and that includes you Dubya pinheads, as the phrase "mouth-breather" must, as you will see -- it bullet-points out like this: - Terry Schiavo is brain-dead and has been for nearly 15 years. - Her husband has been trying to follow her stated (to him) wishes not to be kept alive artificially and has been fighting her parents to have her feeding tube removed so she can die with the dignity she wanted. - Her feeding tube has been removed three times now and reinserted twice as her parents pursued increasingly desperate losing appeals up the judicial ladder. - The Florida courts have supported at every step Terry Schiavo's husband's right under the law to follow her wishes and remove the feeding tube. The two previous times it was reinserted was to let the parents' ultimately losing challenges work their way through the court. - In 2003, the last time it was removed, Florida Governor and Dubya brother Jeb Bush prodded the Florida State Legislature into passing "Terry's Law," a narrowly-written law that applied only to Terry Schiavo that forced her tube to be reinserted. - The Florida Supreme Court ultimately ruled this law to be unconstitutional. - All appeals having failed and the court having ruled (consistently) that the tube can be removed, her feeding tube has now been removed for the third time. ...and now fucking Congress and fucking Dubya are getting involved, passing legislation that will allow her parents to plead their case in federal court, and thus probably require reinsertion of the feeding tube again to keep her alive while this desperate gambit fails. Those are, I believe, the facts of the case, with maybe a little personal bias on the last point. This is what we're coming to. This is what you red state nippleheads have wrought. This is us reaping the whirlwind of hysterical conservatism. We are a nation of laws, laws that are interpreted and applied by the courts. But now we have rulers in power who don't respect the laws or the courts applying them. They talk about "activist judges" when they don't like the outcome that was mandated by law. And now they insert themselves illegally into private matters ("activists," anyone?) and twist arms to enact new, illegal laws tailored to produce the ruling they wanted but couldn't get legally. This case isn't about life or death. It's about abuse of power. Florida state law clearly states the conditions under which artificial life-prolonging measures may be withdrawn. The state law provides that the spouse, not the parents, makes the ultimate decision, based on the patient's written or expressed wishes and the advice of medical experts that the condition is irreversible. This is the law, period. The Florida courts are correctly interpreting it, period. I'll say it again: This case isn't about life or death. It's about abuse of power. BushCo and the congressional Republicans are abusing their power and are making a mockery of our system of government by jury-rigging federal law to insert themselves into a private family matter they have no business in. Where do they stop? Where will they stop? They claim theirs is the party of smaller government, of freedom, of personal rights, of dignity. How much longer are you going to believe them? Terry and Michael Schiavo should be left alone. Give them their privacy -- and their legal wishes. _____________________________________________________________________________ Thank you Chuck!