The past few months have been very illuminating for me, and now that some in my party are viciously attacking Michael Schiavo, it is pretty clear what is meant by ‘the sanctity of marriage.’
The sanctity of marriage is bullshit rhetoric to keep fags from marrying- other than that, it means nothing to these Big Government Republicans, who have thrown reason and concepts of privacy and human dignity out the window and replaced them with the bible and a faux sense of morality.
Look how they have set it up- if you think Terry Schiavo is brain dead, you are either stupid, ignoring the ‘evidence,’ or you don’t value human life.
Pompous bastards.
*** Update ***
Thank goodness. Someone on my side of the aislehas their head screwed on right:
I think that I am about the only radio talk show host in the nation that thinks that nature should be allowed to take its course and Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die. Expect an absolute media frenzy today as the time approaches for Schiavo’s feeding tube to be removed. The demonstrators are already gathering outside of the nursing facility. Republicans in the congress are getting in on the act. Republican Mike Enzi of Wyoming, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, says that he is going to issue a subpoena today to Terri Schiavo … a subpoena to testify before the committee. This illustrates the absurdity of this situation as nothing else can. Congress will subpoena a woman in a persistent vegetative state to testify. All we need now is for some sort of special arrangement to allow West Virginia’s Robert Byrd to question her.
At the center of the Terri Schiavo tragedy is America’s anti-abortion movement. Notice, please, the presence of Randall Terry. The fact is that the anti-abortion movement has seized Terri Schiavo … figuratively kidnapped her .. and they intend to use this woman to further their anti-abortion agenda. They will entomb the soul of Terri Schiavo in her now-useless body as long as it suits their agenda.
The language of those who would continue the imprisonment of Terri Schiavo is odd, if not amusing. She’s referred to as disabled, in a coma or just brain damaged. She is not “disabled” in the normal context of the word. Her body is, for all practical purposes, dead … being kept alive solely through extraordinary artificial means. She’s not in a coma. People recover from comas. Her condition is diagnosed as a “persistent vegetative state.” There is no medical record of someone recovering from a persistent vegetative state. This is not a state of brain damage. It is, for all practical purposes, brain death.
The absurdities of this case would be funny if they weren’t so pathetic. Terri’s family said last year that they wanted to take her to the mall, and for other field trips. Of course, those trips never happened; just as Terri will never testify before a congressional committee. We also have the blatant attempts to turn the attention away from Terri’s condition and to her husband. His crime? He says, and the courts have agreed, that he is merely carrying out wishes expressed to him by his wife. Listen to the Schiavo family and you will hear that her husband her condition was caused by a beating at the hands of her husband. It wasn’t. You’ll hear that her husband stands to rack up huge piles of money as soon as Terri dies. He won’t.
Thanks, Neal.
JohnO
“…being kept alive solely through extraordinary artificial means.”
How does providing food/water constitute “extraordinary artificial” means? It’s not like she’s on a respirator. I guess both you and Neal believe in the Gronigan (sp?) Protocol?
Slartibartfast
I gotta call bullshit on this one, John. Terry’s parents have expert witnesses that say that Terry can be trained to eat and speak in a timeframe of six months.
Not grunt. Speak. As in, a conversation. Something which most emphatically cannot be done with a brain-dead vegetable. They’ve offered to provide these services, and Michael has refused. Refused, repeatedly, over a span of years. Consider for a while what sort of husband refuses this sort of offer. Then get back to me.
Jeff
Despite the heat I take from people right of center I have come to a similar conclusion to Boortz. The family, like her husband, has muddied the waters to the point where no one knows the truth. If you claim to know the “truth” I will laugh at you. I have followed this case for a long while and the misinformation put out by the family alone is staggering. Not to mention the misinformation put forth by that scumbag husband of hers.
I wish that Terri were allowed to live however the law did not require that she “write down” her wishes and my fellow conservatives have to deal with that. The “fact” of the matter is the judge’s ruling is consistent with the law. I hate it. I also hate the income tax too but I still pay it.
Ex Post Facto laws are prohibited by our Constitution which means congress or the state legislature passing ANY law after this case comes before the court and then applying it to this particular case is illegal and unconstitutional.
What this case shows us is that we need to amend the laws to prevent such things in the future. But the ends never should be used to justify the unconstitutional means.
bg
JohnO, they’re “extraordinary means” because doctors can’t allow her to swallow because she might choke. Do you use a feeding tube?
And Slart, this bit about training her to speak, etc. Those are lies. Their expert witnessess are liars. She will never speak. She will never swallow. She will never do any of these things.
Her brain is liquid.
Slartibartfast
Show me, without having to open up her brainpan.
The entire problem here is that there’s no neutral testimony. Yours and mine included. “Their expert witnesses are liars” is an accusation easily made but less easily substantiated.
willyb
The life that Terri Shiavo had is gone, but who is to say that the one she has now is totally unsatisfactory to her?
I don’t know what the sanctity of marriage is, but I doubt it means having the power to extinguish your spouse’s “life.” And as long as there are people out there who are willing to feed and care for her, that’s what you are doing when you say she can’t be fed.
My position would be totally different if Terri Shiavo had left written instructions. She did not.
willyb
“Ex Post Facto laws are prohibited by our Constitution which means congress or the state legislature passing ANY law after this case comes before the court and then applying it to this particular case is illegal and unconstitutional.”
I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that an early court decision, Calder v. Bull, defined an ex post facto las as a retroactive ‘criminal’ law.
bg
Got me there. But prove the experts you believe in aren’t liars.
I’ll admit: I can’t prove my side. But I know you can’t either.
Slartibartfast
No, I can’t prove your side, either.
Snark aside, where ought the burden of proof lie?
Hektor
Spot on.
In a marriage, if need be, the wife speaks for the husband, the husband speaks for the wife. The most exacting and stict scutiny should be applied to any attempted weakinging or dismissal of that bond.
ergo
“Sanctity of Marriage” = Let’s bash homos.