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Guynemer
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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.
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boann
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ice queen colorado
Sep 2000
time: 22:34
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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
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ixnay
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ACS Staff: 'RoN' Content Editor
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I <3 etna, omg disgaea fag
Jan 1970
time: 22:34
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SMACKDOWN IN CIRCUIT COURT
quote:
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
Last edited by ixnay on 23-03-2005 at 19:43
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
The Court was right.
As for Krauthammer- the "best" thing Drake has yet linked too...interesting.
This is fact is now the Schindler's family new strategy- to push the Florida legislature to pass a new law giving the parents in this case standing in the courts. We will see what happens with that. |
This would then be a classic example of how a bad law comes into making.
This whole discussion plays into the conservative hand. The endgame is Roe v Wade and no one gets it.
Maybe if I put this in gamer's terms. Use the interface to zoom out to maximum and think about the big strategic picture.
The power right knew it could never win this case in the courts. They aren't trying to save her life. She was handpicked to be the new icon for the right to life movement. "Remember Schavio".
This is all linked to the Supreme Court. Fillibusters. The nuclear option. The 2006 elections. Stevens, Ginsberg and O'Connor.
Think people. The power right has made fools of you all. There is a big "can't see the forest for the trees problem" in America.
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
Think people. The power right has made fools of you all. There is a big "can't see the forest for the trees problem" in America. |
You are incredibly overestimating the right wingers involved here. This WON'T have an effect on anything in a month or so. It'll be a dead issue. Any attempts by the 'right' to use this as a campaign issue will backfire. |
Wrong. You are incredibly underestimating the political power of the religious right. The religious right is and has been the biggest dog in town. The threat of using this as a campaign issue in selected districts has more than a few congressmen quaking in their boots as we speak.
All politics is local, and locally, in off year elections, the religious right, while not always winning, is always a major factor.
Without the religious right there would be no conservative majority. Or hadn't you noticed who controls the executive, judical, and legislative branches of the Federal government?
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Capt Dizle
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Mark my words. After she dies, "remember terri schaivo" will become as well known in the world of the religious right as "remember the alamo". Did you think this case became a headliner by chance? Didn't it occur to you that a group of men in suits, at a quasi-religious/political meetings, discussed the type of case they would need to use as a rallying cry in the great push to topple Roe V. Wade? Didn't it occur to you that other young men in suits with Bibles in their briefcases went forth to identifysuitable cases then in the system and that Schaivo was the one ultimately chosen?
I just question how much time you've spent in the pew listening to what has been going on. Or maybe, you are in one of the other side's pews.
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Oh, so it was the religious right who said we aren't going to put the tube back in as well? |
Since you seem to only think in one dimension I will try to dumb it down for you.
It might be hard to do.
The religious right is made up of people, the vast majority of whom are good people; their leadership, like that of any group with inherent political power, those leaders consist mostly of the worst sort of power brokers. They believe the end justifies the means.
They (the leaders) take this position of keeping her on the feeding tube knowing that in the end the it will be not be permitted.
She dies.
They (the leaders) then brand the "left" and the judiciary as murderers. They use this to whip up the base in the hope that it will help them in their efforts to clear the way for further stacking of the court with ultra-conservatives. Think about the filibuster issue, the nuke option. Think about Democratic congressmen that have to stand for relection in Bush states, with an active religious right wing, and think about how they might vote on a Bush judge in the face of a firestorm of "Schaivo tee shirts" that could be waiting for them in the mid-terms.
Are you blind to the extent to which the power right want to overturn Roe v Wade? It is not simply the biggest thing to them, it is the whole thing. It is the end game. The whole point of the movement. It has been the fulcrum point of all United States politics for the last 30 years. Wake up!
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23-03-2005 08:48
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