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revdorothyl at 03:16pm on 23/03/2005
revdorothyl at 03:16pm on 23/03/2005In case any of you have been as frustrated by the recent attempts of certain persons (including one of our own Tennessee senators, more shame to him) to make political profit off of circumventing years and years of court decisions and pandering to a vocal minority, here's the Move-On petition I've just signed, asking Congress to tend to their own knitting and stop making the Terri Schiavo family tragedy that much worse.
Quoting from the end of the petition letter:
Americans can have different personal opinions about what should happen to Terri Schiavo--life is precious, and this case raises some important ethical questions. But we can all agree that that's what the courts are for: to make the call in difficult circumstances. That's why Congress' interference is such an ugly and shameful incident of political grandstanding.
Will you sign this petition to tell Congress they must stop using one person's tragedy for their own political gain, and move on to the important business facing our country?
Sign now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/grandstanding
Just in case you're interested.
Quoting from the end of the petition letter:
Americans can have different personal opinions about what should happen to Terri Schiavo--life is precious, and this case raises some important ethical questions. But we can all agree that that's what the courts are for: to make the call in difficult circumstances. That's why Congress' interference is such an ugly and shameful incident of political grandstanding.
Will you sign this petition to tell Congress they must stop using one person's tragedy for their own political gain, and move on to the important business facing our country?
Sign now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/grandstanding
Just in case you're interested.
(no subject)
On the news a few nights ago the aired a memo circulated (on Congressional Hill, fer gawdsake!) outlining "Talking Points." One mentioned that the issue would "excite" right-to-lifers. Jesus.
I loathe the whole agenda, loathe it. I loathe the current administration, and I loathe the hypocrisy behind this, and I sincerely hope it tars them among their own adherents.
But here's the deal: I'm still a practicing Catholic, and I shrink from the removal of a feeding tube. A feeding tube, to a Catholic, is not a heroic measure -- it's the least measure of human obligation and decency, if the wishes of the patient are not known.
It's difficult. Here's a thing not many non-Catholics know: you can refuse heroic/unusual measures to save your life, and not be doing anything "wrong." Last year I was at a mass where a priest told the congregation about the death of his father. Sinking from diabetes complications, his father opted not to have his legs amputated and died with the full blessing of the church -- it's a choice every can (and I suspect frequently does) make.
But here's the thing -- it's about the Catholic fixation on Free Will. Know one really knows what Terri Schiavo wanted. The husband's opinion is suspect because (allegedly) he harranged his wife into the bulemic eating disorder that precipitated the crisis. The parents have no love for him, and the parents they're deeply Catholic, and are even dragging a couple of Franciscan brothers in their train. And THE POPE HIMSELF has spoken on this issue. I don't really go in much for Pope-worship, but desperate parents are different.
Back to me. I can't look at starving someone to death in a cool manner; it makes my skin crawl tight. Thinking long and hard, I really can't tell if that's religious conviction or mere squeamishness, to be brutally frank, so I'm not promoting an position. Catholic: it's the new gray.
The only thing I'm left with is another level of contempt for the Right, and a downloaded copy of The Living Will.
Me? Personally? Just in case the paper gets burned up and only LJ has a record of my wishes: NO HEROIC MEASURES. No feeding tubes. Please, just let me die.
(no subject)
http://www.thehoya.com/news/110403/news7.cfm
I think it comes down to the definition of "extraordinary measures." I and the state of Florida think a feeding tube qualifies in these circumstances, in my case because of the results of the brain scans and the long passage of time. But when my own family faced this dilemma, no one could have the nutrition stopped. In that case, my aunt lingered for months, not years. Still, watching her sons and my mother watch her curl into a fetal position, and her sons put everything on hold, from selling her house to finding a new home for her dogs--my mourning for her was over by the time she "died," replaced by concern for the living. I don't know when we could or would have said, "enough." I think she would have said the words herself much sooner, but the concept of living wills didn't exist then.
Because of this, I've been trying hard to sympathize more with the parents in the Schiavo case, but what they're dragging their daughter through makes my skin crawl.
I have no impulses whatsoever to sympathize with the politicians.
(no subject)
If it was down to me, I would tell Ms. Schiavo's parents to accept God's will... this is hideous, and subverts the Catholic belief that a LOT of things are better than death.
But it's the Catholic thing. Denying food and water. I have to say, I'm absolutely against the death penalty. Why? Because some of those people may be innocent. How many have been exonerated since DNA evidence was introduced? I would gladly pay tax money to keep a hundred killers alive in prison, rather than risk executing one innocent convict. It's a hangup we have.
But that's the miasma of the Bush administration -- Bush is a killer, he has the record for state executions, yet his administration dares to make an issue about Schiavo.
(no subject)
That's all I'm saying -- that the hypocrisy of the politicians involved is enough to choke a thinking person who's looking for a consistency between words and actions in our nation's leaders.
Personally, I'm totally on board with "rather spare a hundred guilty persons, than let one innocent person suffer the death penalty," and since human courts are fallible and we can never be 100 percent certain of the guilt of every person convicted, we'd better not do anything we don't have the power to undo.
That said, I'm also on board with the "right to die in peace" thing, and where no living will exists, and those closest to the dying person disagree about what she would want, it's a big tragic mess, and I hope never to have to make these choices for anyone else, ever.
But when pro-death penalty politicians try to portray themselves as "right to life" and champions of erring on the side of mercy, I have to stand up and say "Enough!"
I have to ask why none of these elected officials have shown anything like this degree of concern for the "right to life" of people (and especially children) without adequate health care or those serving in the armed forces without adequate armor, and other matters that are just as serious as Terri Schiavo's case, but are undeniably the politicians' responsibility and charge. They should first pull the log out of their own eye, before they try to pick the mote out of the judicial system's eye, over this matter.
(no subject)
As for the death penalty, I agree with your reasons but I've always had one more. Even if there was a 100 percent certainty of guilt, I'd oppose execution because it turns us into the thing we hate. IMHO.
(no subject)
True! But since opposing the death penalty on the grounds that cold-blooded killing is wrong, even when clothed with the illusion that "It's not me, it's the state who's doing it, and therefore it's okay," tends to be a harder sell and a much more complicated argument to get into, I tend to go first to the "Innocent people do get convicted" argument.
It's like with the abortion argument: rather than explain how I can be pro-choice AND anti-abortion (meaning that though I find the idea and reality of abortion problematic, I understand how it can be the lesser of two evils or a necessity for some women, and I'm unwilling to do anything to make abortions less safe, less legal, and in any way unavailable as an option) and argue about when life begins, etc., I try to go straight to the "How can we prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place and increase the quality of care for poor children and those up for adoption?" Not that even that argument provides much common ground . . . possibly because it's one of those issues where lots of people don't want to find common ground, anymore.
Oh well.