Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

Get your head in a damn law book.

Starving animals is illegal in most states. You can go to jail for it.

Brandon...you're right.
It's a left wing conspiracy.
Done deal...you've exposed the truth.

Nice work.

candidone1 wrote:

Some questions for Schiavo pro-lifers:

1. Why exactly are you rallying to keep her alive?
Starving and denying water to animals is illegal. It should be for people, too, unless they left instructions. Her wishes are not clearly known. I don't trust her husband to act in her best interests.---That being said--I think she's past the point of return, now, and it would likely be more cruel to grab her back from the jaws of death--just to do the whole thing over again in a few months.
She was past the point of no return practically 15 years ago. You don't think that her parents have been attempting to "grab her back from the jaws of death" all this time, do you?

2. Why is the decision made by the courts inadequate?
It may not be--but with like other cases, I'd like to know the evidence they used to make the decision--because from what I can see--there is no adequate evidence.
Because you haven't seen the volumes of court documents and medical records which pretty much overwhelmingly declared her brain completely inactive. You don't think the courst reviewed practically every document before rendering their overwhelming decisions on this matter? What makes you seem to know more then they?

3. Why is "erring on the side of life" in this instance so critical?
If you were going to make a decision to allow someone to live, or to kill them--and you weren't sure which they wanted--which would you be less guilty of a serious crime, if you were wrong? Which one is permanent?
Good question. Shall we ask Dr. Frist regarding all the times he's pulled the plug on his terminally ill patients? Perhaps he would know...

4. If Michael had not begun another life with another woman, would his intentions be regarded as less malicious? Probably. His affections are divided. His loyalties are divided. If he were devoted to his wife, it would be easier to believe his intentions were in her best interest.
How do you know that he isn't doing what is in her best interest, after fifteen years of this insanity?

5. If the malpractice insurance money would have gone anywhere alse but his bank account, would his intentions seem less malicious?
Very likely. Conflict of interest.
What is wrong with wanting to go on with your life if you have a functioning brain?

6. If you were Michael, would you want to keep your partner in the same state for another 15 years? Is enough ever enough?
If I knew my husband's wishes, I would likely have helped him leave the world in a humane way. I will say this. This case has caused a lot of people to get Living Wills. We are completing ours this week.

How do you know that Michael didn't know his wife's wishes?

You are being less than truthful about my post. You do win more arguments that way, though. I simply asked you the purpose of the questionnaire, and suggested it was not a sincere effort to understand our position, since some of the questions themselves seem to contain your position.

Lash answered them.

Dookiestix wrote:

Lash answered them.

Well... She answered the questions then got jumped on for expressing her opinion. I'd be a bit hesitant to answer having seen the reaction to her post.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/25/acd.01.html

This story just coming in to CNN, the FBI has arrested a North Carolina man who is offering money over the Internet for the murder of Michael Schiavo and the state judge in the case. Richard Allen Mewist (ph) of Fairview, North Carolina, allegedly offered $250,000 for the killing of Michael Schiavo and $50,000 for the death of circuit court Judge George Greer who ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed and who continues to rule on the case.

We'll be following this story throughout the evening. This just came in to CNN. We bring you more information as we get it.

DrewDad wrote:

Dookiestix wrote:

Lash answered them.

Well... She answered the questions then got jumped on for expressing her opinion. I'd be a bit hesitant to answer having seen the reaction to her post.

Why?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64317-2005Mar24.html

Native Americans Criticize Bush's Silence
Response to School Shooting Is Contrasted With President's Intervention in Schiavo Case

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 25, 2005; Page A06

MINNEAPOLIS, March 24 -- Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.

Three days after 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed nine members of his Red Lake tribe before taking his own life, grief-stricken American Indians complained that the White House has offered little in the way of sympathy for the tribe situated in the uppermost region of Minnesota.

Lance Crowe, left, listens as Cody Thunder speaks to reporters at a hospital in Bemidji, Minn. Both were wounded in the Red Lake school rampage. (Scott Olson -- Getty Images)

"From all over the world we are getting letters of condolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian who is the founder and national director of the American Indian Movement here. "When people's children are murdered and others are in the hospital hanging on to life, he should be the first one to offer his condolences. . . . If this was a white community, I don't think he'd have any problem doing that."

Weise's victims included his grandfather and five teenagers; seven other students were wounded, and two of them remain in serious condition in a hospital in Fargo, N.D.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, in an informal discussion with reporters Tuesday, said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were killed."

"I hope that he would say something," said Victoria Graves, a cultural educator at Red Lake Elementary School on the reservation. "It's important that there's acknowledgment of the tragedy. It's important he sees the tribes are out here. We need help."

The reaction to Bush's silence was particularly bitter given his high-profile, late-night intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman caught in a legal battle over whether her feeding tube should be reinserted.

"The fact that Bush preempted his vacation to say something about Ms. Schiavo and here you have 10 native people gunned down and he can't take time to speak is very telling," said David Wilkins, interim chairman of the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and a member of the North Carolina-based Lumbee tribe.

"He has not been real visible in Indian country," said former senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.). "He's got a lot of irons in the fire, but this is important."

Even more alarming than Bush's silence, he said, is the president's proposal to cut $100 million from several Indian programs next year.

After hearing grumbling from tribal leaders, Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, called the White House on Thursday to inquire about Bush's silence. "I wanted to make sure the White House is paying attention to this issue," she said. "I wasn't sure."

Asked Thursday about Bush's silence, spokeswoman Dana Perino said that he plans to dedicate part of his Saturday radio address to the Red Lake tragedy and that he is following the case closely through the FBI and the Justice Department.

In the hours after the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, President Bill Clinton publicly expressed his condolences and followed up a few days later with a radio address in which he proposed new gun control measures and school safety projects.

At the Red Lake Urban Indian Office here, volunteer Marilyn Westbrook said she was disappointed but not surprised.

"I don't feel he cares about the American Indian people," said Westbrook, as she collected donations of gas cards and money to enable fellow Red Lake members to make the 260-mile journey to the reservation. "Why hasn't he made any statements about what happened with this shooting?"

Staff writers Dana Hedgpeth in Red Lake and Peter Baker in Waco, Tex., and research editor Lucy Shackelford in Washington contributed to this report

Schiavo case tests GOP alliances, priorities
Public reaction to federal intervention surprises many lawmakers"How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?" asked Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), one of only five Republicans in the House to vote against the Schiavo bill.

Fractured alliances

Republican lawmakers and others engaged in the debate say an internal party dispute over the Schiavo case has ruptured, at least temporarily, the uneasy alliance between economic and social conservatives that twice helped President Bush get elected.

"Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has been talking to both social and economic conservatives about the fallout. "I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life."

Some Republicans said they do not believe the vote to allow a federal court to examine whether any of Schiavo's constitutional rights had been violated will become a political issue, especially since 47 House Democrats voted for the measure, while 53 voted against.

An issue of 'conscience'On rocky ground

The fracas over congressional involvement has taken many GOP lawmakers by surprise. Most knew little about the case and were acting at the direction of their leaders, who armed them with the simple argument that they just wanted to give Schiavo a final chance, and that they wanted to err on the side of life. But because of the rush to act and the insistent approach of the leadership, Republicans had no debate about whether their vote could be seen as federal intrusion in a family matter, or as a violation of the separation of powers between the judicial and legislative branches. Both issues are concerns of many voters responding to polls, and of some members themselves.

Republican leaders knew from the outset they were entering new and possibly rocky terrain. DeLay said that he told Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) two weeks ago, "We have to do something for Terri Schiavo," but that the chairman was reluctant because, as DeLay recounted, "we don't have a precedent for doing private bills in these matters, and he didn't want to violate that precedent."

The majority leader's response to Sensenbrenner: "Be creative."

Resentment among friends

One senior GOP lawmaker involved in the negotiations, who did not want to speak for the record, said that DeLay, who is fighting ethics charges on several fronts, faced considerable pressure from Christian conservative groups to respond to pleas by the parents of the brain-damaged woman to intervene before her husband, Michael Schiavo, removed the feeding tube that kept her alive. The lawmaker said that DeLay "wanted to follow through" but added that many House Republicans were dubious and suspected that the leader's ethics problems were a motivating factor.

Republican concerns grew, the senior House GOP lawmaker said, as a succession of federal judges, some of them conservative appointees, rejected Congress's entreaty. "A lot of members are saying, 'Why did you put us through this?' " said the lawmaker, who agreed to recount the events on the condition that he not be named. [..]

Long-distance diagnosesAn uphill battle

Democrats, who note that the action is identified with the GOP-led Congress and the president, hope that the public's negative response could translate into a more general unease with Republican rule. "They look out of step," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a Clinton White House adviser who runs the House Democrats' campaign committee. "This Congress is getting involved in things they shouldn't be getting involved in, and not getting involved in things they should be."

Republicans are "going to get kicked around a lot," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. On the other hand, he sees a silver lining in the otherwise miserable polls: The minority that does back congressional action probably supports it intensely, while the majority that disagrees "won't remember this woman's name in a few months." [..]

... We can put down our beloved pets in a twinkling of an eye, when the animal gets to the point where their health is incompatible with life. We can hold them in our arms, as they peacefully drift off. Not so, with the people that we love.

I think that the Schiavo case is an opportune time to rethink the entire issue of euthanasia.

... We can put down our beloved pets in a twinkling of an eye, when the animal gets to the point where their health is incompatible with life. We can hold them in our arms, as they peacefully drift off. Not so, with the people that we love.

I think that the Schiavo case is an opportune time to rethink the entire issue of euthanasia.