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Sanctity of Life(tm) as promoted by mainstream media
Posted by Pile
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| A popular blog, Hullabaloo has an excellent commentary on the current mainstream-media-circus over this vegetative woman Terri Schiavo whose husband is fighting for the right to put his wife out of her misery. The conservatives have turned this into a big political lightning rod with Texas Republican Tom DeLay calling the proposed termination of life support a form of "medical terrorism". But things are never simple in conserva-land with the towering monolith of insurmountable hypocrisy that bloggers expose... |
Tom DeLay of Texas says:
"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."
By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.
Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.
Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.
Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.
And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.
Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.
This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.
This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die. |
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I thought she wasn't feeling anything...
Posted by Bill Gates on 2005-03-24 11:35:56 | | Put her out of her misery? I thought she wasn't supposed to be feeling anything. Besides, the main reason to keep this poor woman alive is not for her sake or her husband's sake, it's for the family members, who for one reason or another, have hope that she might come out of her "vegetative state". I'm surprised no one gets this. Even the media and the senate don't understand that this isn't about Terri anymore. Pulling the plug on Terri is going to kill her relatives. F#ck that worthless husband of hers. Besides, I would agree with pulling the plug on her had she a living will that wished it - not just because her, I want to move on with my life husband is tired of her being around. Wake up and smell the coffee people!!! |
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