Three Way News
Your Source. For everything. Really.
Contributors
- Hammer
- Jambo
- Libby Mae
Current Poll
Recurring features
Hammer's Favorites
- Dobson v. Sponge-Bob
- Calvin, the nest egg
- Pat's predictions
- Bachmann spins Cupertino
- 205 atheists assume the bench
- Fox spins Oil for Food
- Fact check: highest taxed state
- Gen. Myers v. Reality
- Janice Rogers Brown
- Killing Field
- Kline hates Big Bird
- Vote Luca Brasi!
- Cornyn's Stalinist Supreme Court
- Rumsfeld's hidden metrics
Jambo's Favories
- Dolphin research updates
- We all shine on
- If you have to write...
- Columnist NY Times should have
- Truth about taxes
- Fourth of July
- Movie objects
- Lost in supermarket
- Dysfunctional Farmer Labor party
- Punks you hated
- Some preacher from east
- Winning issues
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Agape stories of the year: Terri Schiavo v. activist judges
The Schiavo tragedy is also an Agape Top Story of 2005. This event marked the mainstreaming of the "activist judges" meme:
Pro-life advocates are reacting to Terri's death in expected fashion, offering their condolences to the Schindler family while at the same time calling attention to the events causing her death -- specifically, a culture of death fueled by activist judges.
..."We are deeply saddened that [Terri's parents] found the life of their daughter in the hands of a merciless judicial system," the CWA founder adds. "Terri's Schiavo's battle to live will not be forgotten."
And like LaHaye, Eric Whittington of the American Life League believes Michael Schiavo had an accomplice in his wife's death: judges who have no value for human life. He says Terri's death by starvation would not have happened if more honorable men and women were on the bench.
It is that exact issue -- the rights of incapacitated individuals -- that Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana says will be Terri Schiavo's legacy. "Congress must right this wrong by ensuring that incapacitated Americans may not be deprived of their inalienable right to life without the assurance of the due process of law that our federal courts were established to protect," the lawmaker says -- adding this ominous note: "With [Terri's] death, America lost not only a precious citizen, America lost its innocence."
Has any person ever received more process than Terri Schiavo? How many courts reviewed her condition? The U.S. Congress stepped in to give her even more process with another crack at the federal courts.
Process wasn't the issue in the Schiavo case. The substantive law of Florida is at issue here. I believe the majority of Americans want to decide the medical care they do and do not receive at the end of their lives. In this case, court after court determined from all the available evidence that Terri Schiavo would not have wanted her life to be prolonged by feeding tubes when she had no hope to ever recover. A portion of the country wants to deny us those choices.
I value my life dearly for all privileges I enjoy -- my wife, my children, my friends, my family, my world-renowned Tetris skills. If all those privileges were stripped from me and I lay in a bed unable to participate in my own life, I would have nothing left to value. I would not want a tube to provide me food or a respirator to give me breath when my life, as I value it, has ended.
And, of course, my advance health care directive to that effect is in the basement safe.
