(no subject)

[johnpalmer]

I'm still recovering from a nasty sinus infection, compounded by the necessity to keep working. Friday, it finally got to be too much for me... in fact, given that Friday and Saturday are just blurs to me, it seems like I wasn't as nearly recovered as I thought.

Still, I'm finding myself driven to comment on the Terry Schiavo case.


You know what infuriates me about this case?

It's not that the parents are divorced from reality. The pictures they're showing as evidence that their daughter is possibly able to be rehabilitated are cherry-picked photos, showing essentially random behaviors. Scans of her brain show large partions of the cerebral cortex *absent*. Nevertheless, there are doctors who are willing to support her parents' mistaken beliefs, so I can't fault them too badly for that.

It upsets me, but especially now, after many years of fighting, the fight itself has become the goal to them. With so many well-meaning, but misinformed people standing by their side, I can't fault them as much as I might.

It still upsets me. Parents have a duty to take care of their children, and sometimes that means letting them go.

It upsets me that the medical issues are being ignored... but that's not quite what infuriates me.

It *really* angers me that the decision of the next-of-kin is being ignored. Like it or not, her husband is her next of kin... even if he was making a questionable choice, it's *his* choice to make, unless there's some pretty damn compelling reason to overturn it..

And, if I saw this being believed by anyone rational, the notions that he's not a good husband because he's been "unfaithful" to her would infuriate me. (I'd like to think that it's more than my being polyamorous that makes me nonjudgemental about a man seeking a lover when his wife is in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years.)

No, it's not just the parents living in la-la land, it's not just the next-of-kin issue being ignored, it's not just medical conditions being ignored... it's that there are people who have no fucking business messing with this case, and they *are* messing with the case.

But, see, that's not all.

We don't know if Mrs. Schiavo has *any* rudimentary awareness at all.

For all we know, she is unable to communicate, at all, and is trapped in a state worse than quadriplegia, *AND* we have every reason, as a nation of laws, to allow her next-of-kin to refuse further treatment for her, and people who have no business doing anything, are possibly forcing her to continue living what might be a horrifying existence.

To any lawmaker out there who hears about this: you were elected to be a lawmaker, *NOT* God. Stop fucking around with a situation that you don't understand, and have no business fucking with.

Comments

[caltastic]

I have long felt it a sad commentary on our society that we are kinder to our pets than we are to our own people.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It *really* angers me that the decision of the next-of-kin is being ignored.

While I agree with you in general, I'll point out that the decision of her next-of-kin was to ask the Florida courts to take his wife as a Ward of the Court, and make the decision. Yes, the Court weighed his feelings quite heavily, but a lot of people seem to be missing the fact that he felt that he was too biased to make a good decision, and took advantage of the state laws to place the issue before a judge.

I'm sure he though it the best way to handle things at the time, but if he had retained his full next-of-kin decision making status, he wouldn't be in this mess. This website does a very good job of covering all the facts and circumstances in the case. Take a while to read it.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I'm so disgusted with Congress right now that I can hardly see straight. And unlike a lot of people, that's actually a new thing for me; until now I've always been able to feel that there were plenty of people fighting to make sure my positions were represented. These days, the whole lot of them are behaving like a bunch of gutless toadies trying to kiss up to the Party In Power because they've bought the lie that the last election represented some kind of overwhelming mandate.

The Schiavo machinations are part of it. So is the real likelihood that Amtrak is about to go away. Guess I'd better enjoy those train rides to Seattle while I can, darlin' ...

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

So is the real likelihood that Amtrak is about to go away.

Uh... what?

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Read it and weep. (Or read it and call your Congressman now: Congress votes to eliminate funding for Amtrak. (http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=622154)

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Posted a link and called.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Okay; I was basing my comments on a Findlaw discussion of the case (I think I read the discussion on that site; it was a legal opinion column, basically saying that the Schiavo decision was solidly grounded). I'd gotten the impression from the column that the parents had been suing to overturn Michael's decision.

Knowing that that he did not make the decision condemns the legislature that much more, and puts the parents in a much less sympathetic light. I can sympathize with "I think the decision maker made the wrong decision in an agonizing case". I can't sympathize with the attempts to paint Michael as the bad guy when he didn't even make the decision himself.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* Just what you said.

Gessi