Mz Shoes, I couldn't agree more. I wrote my federal legislators here in Almost Heaven and told them to stay out of the family decisions in the Schiavo case. Just hope they listen...to common sense if nothing else. How many little children starve or are abused in this country every year? Where is the outcry for them, where is the special sessions called for them? We had a child freeze to death here this winter. Where is the public outcry for this child? Ah, it's all about the media and the publicity. The interfering, conservative politicians see this as a vehicle, not a matter of mercy. Wonder what good old stump would do with his hunting dawg if it went into a coma? Do you think he would let that dog linger for 15 years? Terri Schiavo deserves peace, and so does her family.

I miss the Miami Herald, and am lucky enough to have a few of the op/ed columnists carried in our local paper. Good column in my paper today by Leonard Pitts, Jr. and the story of two Smiths who call themselves Christians.

Be well.

Hear, hear! I often keep CNN playing in the background while I'm puttering around the house, but not tonight--I'm so freaking disgusted by the national Terry Schiavo circus, I can hardly stand it.

EXACTLY. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't know that I trust the husband, but at the end of the day, this is not a decision for the government to make.

You'd think they have better things to worry about. In fact, you'd KNOW they do. But let's all focus on this poor woman -- and on steriods in fucking baseball, etc. -- and pretend everything else isn't falling apart around us.

Obviously, I disagree. Terri Schiavo is not brain dead. She is not on life support (Florida's archaic laws define a feeding tube as life support and I am sure many people who use a feeding tube would like that to be changed) as people understand it, she uses a tube to eat - even though she can swallow her own saliva and many doctors have said she could eat baby food and even more with
rehabilitation (but Judge Greer at Michael Schiavo's petitioning) has repeatedly turned down requests for testing.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero wrote this of the case:

Long ago Jewish law made a distinction between withholding medication and special treatments from a patient as opposed to withholding food and water. Whereas there comes a time when we are no longer required to proactively employ “heroic” medicines and treatments to keep a non-functioning body operating, it is always necessary to continue feeding a patient.

A heart, for example, that beats not on its own but only through an artificial respirator is surviving outside the pale of physiology -- its maintenance is artificial. There is nothing artificial, however, in people being fed by others. Babies do not feed themselves, nor do the frail and very sick -- for example, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients. While we do not breathe for others, we certainly feed others. It makes no difference if the person is fed from without or within, conventionally or by machine.

While medicating is a conditional decision, not so feeding. Feeding is not a medical question, it is the most basic human need whose purview is not the doctor’s or judge’s but inalienable. Not to feed one starving in front of you is: “Standing by While the Blood of Your Brother is Spilt.”

Not withstanding the religious, moral and ethical aspects or even the most basic notions that humans have a right to food and water - the argument should really be this: many myths are being perpetrated about Schiavo and her condition, and decisions are being made on this because her so called "husband" testified to them in court (making these ideas the basis for what the court rules on) and that Schiavo herself was never represented by independant counsel. We read testimony from her attorneys in legal affidavits that say how she has commnuicated with them - what would hurt if she was allowed to go to Congress or even a court, on her own behalf?

Also at heart of the matter is what happens when a guardian is the wrong person or has motives beyond the greater good of the person in question? Especially in cases where there are no written or public wishes?

In my research of the case I have found no mention of Michael Schiavo's claim that Terri would not want to live in a vegetative state before he collected 1 million dollar + award from the court and moved out with the woman he was having an affair with (notably this is when Terri had been living at home). Actually, when he was in court fighting for his wife's rights he said he wanted to help her get better so she could have a better life. I find the time of the so called change suspicious - but in a way it doesn't matter because Terri is not living in a vegitative state anyways. What he claims is an entirely different scenario altogether.

She is disabled. More alert than some of the kids I see in wheel chairs at the mall. She just needs to be fed and allowed to have therapy and to be able to leave her room (currently she has been denied therapy for 13 years - and the staff at this home are under instructions not to let her out of her room, so she can only move back and forth from her lounge chair to look out the window, to her bed.) She laughs and remembers childhood stories and cries when people tell her that she might die.

Thats enough for me to say give her a chance. It's the least we could do. But I have ranted enough about this on my blog, published enough of the testimony of people like her lawyers and Kate Adamson, that I am comfortable with people making up their own minds. Just look at the bigger picture and put yourself in the same situation.

To Allie: What you write may be true, BUT...the bigger issue (to me) is whether the federal government needs to be involved. I think this is obviously a sad, possibly even tragic situation, but it has NOTHING to do with the U.S. government. The idea that the President and Congress are going out of their way to get involved in this case--while limiting stem cell research (that might help "disabled" people like Schiavo someday!) and perpetuating an unjust war...well, that just burns me up.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the federal government's involvement in this case.

Sadly your country has a completely different system of state/federal government than mine, and the idea to me of electing judges (making them politicians) is offensive to me, so I can only moderatly comment - but first I will say that yes, I strongly believe in the separation of church and state, and that personal family issues normally can and should be solved on their own between families and the legal protection that is already afforded within your structure.

Where I have a problem is what recourse does a citizen of your country have when these laws no longer meet the current situation - all laws eventually need to naturally evolve and it's no secret that there are some really stupid laws still on the books (in every country). I am uncomfortable with Terri Schiavo dying in the face of this problem because the laws (or definitions among them, like a feeding tube being defined as life support) can't or won't be changed fast enough.

As for the governments involvement on behalf of one of it's incapacitated citizens? I really do believe that everything else has failed her, so I guess I am mixed. I don't believe that this will hurt, I don't believe it will cause a negative precedent (where the opposite may) and I believe that this is obviously an issue the people of america need to look at very closely, both in developing ideas of euthanasia and in protecting those who are incapacitated, and what happens when a citizen is in this position with no legal written directions?

I do have every faith that the government will not act outside of it's legal powers and therefore I guess I have to essentially trust the structure that the american people and voters have put in place.

I can certainly appreciate the problems, but I worry that discussion will go on longer than Terri could survive.

You should watch this video and decided if you still think this woman, defined by your problematic laws to be PVS, aka brain dead.

This is where I trip up too. What is more important, strict adherence to laws or saving someone from them?

Life is either precious or worthless... it can't be both and there isn't a middle ground.

"Life is either precious or worthless... it can't be both and there isn't a middle ground."

Hmm, I have a hard time making/accepting black-or-white statements like that; I can't help but see the world in shades of grey. This whole "sanctity of human life" thing is obviously grounded in religion, and it's incredibly hypocritical coming from Dubya's government, which has ended countless tens of thousands of Iraqi human lives.

As for a feeding tube being a form of life support... Here's the thing. If Terri Schiavo were capable of being fed with a spoon, a fork, even a bottle, she'd be fed by a person—not a tube. Right? So she's apparently unable to swallow on cue. Which means that, in the absence of a feeding tube, she would have no means of obtaining sustenance, ergo she would die. So...doesn't that make her feeding tube a form of life support?

I dunno. It's obviously a touchy issue!

Actually Terri Schiavo can swallow.

Here's an exerpt from the report on Terri by Dr. William Hammesfahr (world-reknowned neurologist):

ENT: The patient can clearly swallow, and is able to swallow approximately 2 liters of water per day (the daily amount of saliva generated). Water is one of the most difficult things for people to swallow. It is unlikely that she currently needs the feeding tube. She should be evaluated by an Ear Nose and Throat specialist, and have a new swallowing exam.

Michael Schiavo has petitioned Judge Greer on many occasions to refuse new swallowing tests and forbids the staff to feed Terri by mouth, so apart from being the easiest way for staff to feed her its also the only legal option for her care.

Judge Greer is well enough aware of Terri's ability to swallow that this last time he had the tube removed he specifically said no one was to feed her by mouth either.

Ironically, if Terri had a different husband, or a different judge (or both) and she had not always been kept on the feeding tube (normally through rehabilitiona patients would come off the tube) and Terri was currently being fed by mouth, no one would argue that she should be killed.

But anyways, it's all relatively moot now that it seems the judge won't replace the tube or hear the case.

"I do have every faith that the government will not act outside of it's legal powers and therefore I guess I have to essentially trust the structure that the american people and voters have put in place."

If only that were true. Sadly, the American people can no longer be that naive. We'll end up under martial law if we keep thinking that way.