Bush signs emergency law to preempt state courts ref Terry Schiavo

[Alexander's Horse]

if you ever get paralysed Drake we're gonna leave your food on a bedside table, hope that's okay with you

[Imran Siddiqui]

Again, what does that have to do with anything?

The fact that any arguments that you advance aren't going to change anything has relevance, but your insistance hypotheticals advanced on the logical basis of those arguments are irrelevant.

Give it up... the courts have heard the facts, they made their decision and the federal courts aren't going to reverse that.

[Drake Tungsten]

if you ever get paralysed Drake we're gonna leave your food on a bedside table, hope that's okay with you

I don't have to worry about you lot taking care of me. I'm going to make sure my wishes are known, which is the true lesson to take from this tragedy.

the courts have heard the facts, they made their decision and the federal courts aren't going to reverse that.

So what? I'm talking about what I think is right, not what I think will happen. Terri Schiavo is going to starve to death, but that doesn't make it right.

[Guynemer]

Sorry Drake.

As much noise that's been made about "Living Wills" and whatnot in the wake of this case, from a medical and a legal perspective, they are essentially useless. They always speak in very general terms, making them worthless when trying to apply them to the very specific medical situations that patients find themselves in.

The best thing you could do would be to give someone you trust Durable Power of Attorney for Medical Care. This is the same power that is presumed between spouses, i.e. the power that Michael Schiavo has for Terri.

[Drake Tungsten]

As much noise that's been made about "Living Wills" and whatnot in the wake of this case, from a medical and a legal perspective, they are essentially useless.

I'm well aware of that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm talking about what I think is right, not what I think will happen.

It's now a legal issue going through the federal courts, so your 'what I think is right' has nothing to do 'with anything', as you've stated. Your moral concerns are just as valid as hypotheticals that have been put forward.

[Drake Tungsten]

Moral concerns are as valid as irrelevant hypotheticals? You're gonna make a great lawyer, Imran.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Moral concerns are as valid as irrelevant hypotheticals? You're gonna make a great lawyer, Imran.

Yes, because I know to seperate what is irrelevent from what is relevant. Moral concerns are not the issue anymore. It's the legal argument now. Moral concerns are irrelevant as hypotheticals because they will not be coming into play.

[boann]

interesting commentary....


AUSTIN, Texas -- I write about the Terry Schiavo case both as one who has personally confronted the "pull the plug" question on several levels in recent years and as a staggered observer of this festival of political hypocrisy, opportunism and the trashing of constitutional law, common sense and common decency.
Look, the fundamental question in such cases is, "Who decides?" Preferably, the dying themselves, with a living will. In this case, evidence that Terry Schiavo did not want her life continued in its current pitiable state has been offered and accepted in several courts of law. Next, the next-of-kin, though in many cases someone else may be closer to the dying person, such as a longtime lover, and should be legally designated to make the decision through power of attorney.

Bad cases make bad law, and this is a bad case. In the tragic cases where a family splits on the decision, the case goes to court, where there is a well-established body of law on the subject. The Schiavo case has been litigated for seven years now, the verdict upheld at every level (including the U.S. Supreme Court, by refusing to hear arguments). It is beyond comprehension, not to mention the Constitution, that the Congress of the United States and the president should have involved themselves at this point.

What on earth makes them think they have the right to do so? Both libertarians and constitutional conservatives, including Justice Scalia, should be having fits over this push by the federal government into a private family matter. Congress has no power to overturn judicial decisions, nor has it any role in such painful personal decisions. This is as arrogant a usurpation of power as we have had since FDR's court-packing plan.

As Barney Frank, D-Mass., so trenchantly put it, "This is a terribly difficult decision which we are, institutionally, totally incompetent to make." George W. Bush is neither a neurologist nor a medical ethicist. What on earth is he doing in this case?

For your information, while he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed the Advanced Directives Act in 1999, which gives hospitals the right to remove life support in cases where there is no possibility of revival, when the family cannot pay, no matter what the family's wishes are in the matter. In Texas, you can only live in a persistent vegetative state if you are accepted in one of the few institutions that provide such care or if your family is both willing and able to take care of you. And if Bush is so concerned about the right to life, why didn't he give death-row inmate Carla Faye Tucker more than 10 minutes consideration and some cheap mockery?

The very Republicans who pushed for this arrogant, interfering bill, which if used across the board would take away everyone's right to make their own decisions in these awful cases, are the same people who voted to cut Medicaid, which pays for the care of people like Terry Schiavo across the country.

That the main player in this fiasco is Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- who is in the midst of yet another scandal himself -- is enough to make anyone throw up. This is a man whose sense of morality is so deformed that upon being chastised three times by the House Ethics Committee, his response was to change the rules and stack the committee.

What a despicable display of pure political pandering. What an insult to everyone who has faced this decision without ever considering asking 535 strangers in Washington, D.C., what to do.

How can anyone want to cede that authority to a bunch of politicians?

I am indebted to the blogger called Digby for the following points: Those who passed this bill are the same politicians who want to outlaw medical malpractice suits like the one that provided the care for Terry Schiavo for many years while she was in "a persistent vegetative state." They are the same politicians who have just finished changing bankruptcy law so that it is now much harder for families hit by tragedies like this one to get out from under the staggering medical bills. How dare they talk about morality?

How can a bunch of blowhard television pundits with no medical training whatsoever conclude anything about Terry Schiavo's condition from watching a few seconds of edited videotape? Where on earth do they get the nerve to make any pronouncements about her condition?

Who are these professional anti-abortion activists who think they have the right to make decisions about someone else's life? Those who think letting someone who is critically brain dead die is the same as Auschwitz are incapable of making moral distinctions.

I watched one of the dearest men who ever lived, who had no chance of regaining consciousness, toss for hours in relentless pain before he escaped because the state of New York had such draconian drug laws the doctors were afraid to give him enough morphine to kill the pain. The New York legislature, in all its majesty, made sure the 76-year-old, 90-pound man dying from cancer did not become a morphine addict. Political bodies have no business making medical decisions.

Do I believe in miracles? Yes, I do, and I'm praying for one that will let the sanctimonious phonies in Washington realize the gross moral error of their presumption.



--Molly Ivins

[Alexander's Horse]

I discussed this with Mrs Horse last night - she would like to die if in a PVS, I would like to live because I think the dreams might be nice.

[ixnay]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
So would quadriplegics. Are you saying that denying them food that they can't get for themselves wouldn't be "killing them"? Christ, do you guys have any conscience? At least AH is probably just trolling, but the rest of you...

quadriplegics generally don't have a head full of spinal fluid.

[Drake Tungsten]

What's your point?

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by ixnay


quadriplegics generally don't have a head full of spinal fluid.

as opposed to a few posters around here I could name...

[ixnay]

SMACKDOWN IN CIRCUIT COURT

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- By a 2-1 vote, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined early Wednesday to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

A lawyer for the parents of the brain-damaged woman said they would continue their fight, The Associated Press reported.

Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, had filed with the appeals court Tuesday, after U.S. District Court Judge James Whittemore in Tampa, Florida, decided he would not grant a temporary restraining order that would allow reinstatement of the tube.

The tube, which was removed last week, had been providing the 41-year-old woman with water and nutrients since 1990. She is being cared for at a Florida hospice.

"The Schindlers will be filing an appropriate appeal to save their daughter's life," Rex Sparklin, an attorney with the law firm representing the parents, told the AP.

In issuing their majority opinion, 11th Circuit Judges Ed Carnes and Frank Hull said:

"We agree that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a substantial case on the merits of any of their claims. We also conclude that the district court's carefully thought-out decision to deny temporary relief in these circumstances is not an abuse of discretion."

Judge Charles Wilson, who said he "strongly dissented" from the majority opinion, said refusing the parents' appeal "frustrates Congress' intent, which is to maintain the status quo by keeping Theresa Schiavo alive until the federal courts have a new and adequate opportunity to consider the constitutional issues raised by plaintiffs."

Schiavo's feeding tube was removed Friday on the order of Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer, a Florida judge who ruled that he had no jurisdiction in the case. He said judicial doctrine bars losing parties from using federal courts to appeal state court decisions.

Both sides in the case -- the Schindlers, and Schiavo's husband, Michael -- filed documents Tuesday with the appellate court in Atlanta, Georgia.

Courts have consistently ruled that Terri Schiavo's husband, who wants her tube removed, is her legal guardian and has the legal right to make decisions about her treatment. The Schindlers insist that she continue to be fed.

Attorney George Felos told reporters that Michael Schiavo is by his wife's side at a Tampa, Florida, hospice, saying, "That's where he'll remain until she dies."

President Bush has expressed support for the Schindlers' fight, signing the law that allows the case to be reviewed by federal courts. (Full story)

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration hoped the Schindlers find relief in the appeals process. (Full story)

The Justice Department filed documents in the appeals court late Tuesday supporting the Schindlers' effort to have the feeding tube reinserted while the legal battle plays out.

"Unless preliminary relief is immediately issued, there will be significant and irreversible injury: Theresa Schiavo will die," the document declared.

Reached in Tallahassee, Florida, Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist and spokesman for the Schindlers, said the parents were "devastated" by the appeals panel's ruling.

Terry said he is in Tallahassee trying to convince state senators to vote for a bill that would reinsert the feeding tube.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/23/schiavo/index.html

[Drake Tungsten]

Nothing's going to stop it now. I hope to god she really doesn't feel anything...

edit: Good column...