The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 11)

DuPont has the new MLB stadium sewn up -- "Better things for better living, through chemistry." Next!

p>The sheer irony is that for Schiavo, Congress will gladly trample over several centuries of domestic common law in an effort to save a life. Noble in a sense, but the politics behind it take the sheen off that thought. But this very same Congress will lift nary a finger in the defense of the unborn. Go figure. br> -- John McGinnis br> Arlington, Texas /p>

Yes, we are. Mr. Collins's roundup captures the morally degenerate irony with which American society finds itself: "A people who cannot agree on life's beginning were now engaged in debating when and how it should end. And what the individual herself would wish."

My older and only brother died six weeks ago, in the hospice at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Hampton, Va. He had a living will, so we all knew his wishes. I spent the last week with him. Four days before he died, he stopped eating. A day later, he essentially stopped drinking water, because he could barely swallow. I was holding his hand, stroking his forehead and speaking softy to him when he died.

I cannot fathom having him and his children, my mom and our family being subjected to this macabre and very public circus in which Terry Schiavo and her family are involved.

As to trying to divine what someone wants who can't speak and is literally on death's bed? Through my experience with Bill and my late dad, eight years ago, I can only offer this: Much of the time, your ears and eyes seem to give you the answer you want to hear or see.

p>Also, the quality of life someone has may be worthless if they can neither eat nor drink nor talk nor read nor move. We the living need to get out of the way of the near-dead, serve them, not our projections, and let them die in peace, with dignity. br> -- C. Kenna Amos Jr. br> Princeton, West Virginia /p>

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