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The Spectacle Blog
I thought Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and even Ron Paul had good answers on Adam Smith’s question as to whether the federal government should have more say than a spouse with regard to end of life decisions vis a vis Terri Schiavo who was a resident of Florida.
Santorum corrected Smith in saying he had not visited Schiavo’s bed side but had interceded on behalf of Schiavo’s parents who were his constituents in Pennsylvania. After all, while Schiavo’s husband wanted her dead, her parents were prepaed to take care of her. Newt pointed out the effort that we make on behalf of prisoners on death row to preserve life, the same courtesy should be extended to someone to preserve life of the terminally ill by way of a federal hearing. While Ron Paul favored that such a situation be handled on the state level, he pointed out that these situations can largely be avoided through living wills.
Mitt Romney did not get asked his opinion on the matter.
View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/23/good-answers-on-the-terri-schi
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Beat| 1.23.12 @ 10:52PM
I am not sure why Santorum did not go to the plate in the debate and correct everyone that falsely believed Terry Schiavo was in a coma. Her body worked. The only thing she needed was a feeding tube. That does not make a person brain dead. She had communication to some degree. She was not on life support. She was not in a vegetative state. She was starved and dehydrated. Period.
Jack in Wi.| 1.23.12 @ 10:54PM
Beat that is so true. But there is no changing that now.
Ryan| 1.24.12 @ 9:03AM
Ummm....the autopsy showed her brain was practically jelly. The Schiavos doctored hours of tapes to a few minutes to try and "prove" she was still alive.
Her ex-husband was a jerk - we know that. Her parents played the media to try and get control over someone who was deceased. She was never going to recover.
Bob K.| 1.24.12 @ 9:54AM
Ryan,
The question in matters like this is who is in charge here? Big Brother or the family?
If we as a society allow Big Brother into it to decide these issues on a judicial basis and Big Brother decides on death then Big Brother should, at the very least, order the parties who sued for death to actually do the killing and not give them the comfort of watching it's gruesome progress from a distance. Think of all the television advertising that could have been sold while it's audience waited on pins and needles for the ex-husband to pull the switch!
This is what happens when we expect our Judiciary to decide all difficult issues. The slippery slope to Orwell's "1984" gets steeper.
2Anglico| 1.24.12 @ 10:19AM
You sound like Terri's husband's attorney. Only problem is, many, many people disagree with that position. Thus the controversy.
Wouldn't it be nice if everybody just died and went away on your timetable?
2Anglico| 1.24.12 @ 10:20AM
Above directed to Ryan, not Bob K.
Ryan| 1.24.12 @ 11:47AM
Most of them who disagreed were wrong - the autopsy helped prove it. It's not about the timetable - it's about what decision the husband had a right - and responsibility - to make. There was SOME room if the parents wanted custody, but they had no real right to go force it if he wasn't willing to give it.
fckewe| 1.24.12 @ 11:14AM
Chickens DO run around when the RED queen lops off their heads. Frog legs twitch and I bet Geo Bush would get an erection if we strapped him in the Electric chair (where he belongs as a mass murderer and card cheating traitor).
Her body didn't work well enough to survive without FORCE feeding.
I feel for the parents and admire their love for their child, but I would NEVER let My dog suffer like that. Shame we as civilized people allow torture to the terminally ill.
fckewe| 1.24.12 @ 11:16AM
But it is most certainly NOT the Government's place to interfere. it was undignified for a president to use his poor woman's suffering as a publicity stunt, milking it for weeks to mug to the camera.
I mean, his brother threw him the election, what more did he want?
Nick| 1.24.12 @ 11:42AM
Ryan,
"She was never going to recover."
What difference does that make? Many quadriplegics will never recover. Is it okay to withhold water from them, so that they die of thirst?
You also need to look-up the word deceased. Mrs. Schiavo was very much alive. No one had the right to end her life through dehydration. A very cruel way to die, by the way.
President Bush failed, miserably, in this tragic situation. He should have ordered the F.B.I. in to protect Terry's civil rights, and moved her out of the jurisdiction of that death-loving judge, who ordered her death.
Ryan| 1.24.12 @ 11:50AM
Quadriplegics are still conscious and functioning. Terry never was. Apples and oranges comparison.
Terry could not make any decision for herself, and was deceased. Her brain was mush. Her mode of death was indeed tragic - but stating "very much alive" is a vast overstatement.
Nick| 1.24.12 @ 12:48PM
Ryan,
"Quadriplegics are still conscious and functioning."
Now, you are adding qualifiers to your statement. You only used the word "recover". So, I used an apple to apple comparison. Also, some quadriplegics cannot communicate, nor, feed themselves.
And, what about people in comas? Can they be deprived of water, until they dehydrate to death?
"Terry could not make any decision for herself, and was deceased."
That is not the definition of deceased. Go look it up. Mrs. Schiavo's brain was keeping her entire body alive, so, it was not "mush". Did you get that term from a medical textbook?
Her brain only denied her the ability to feed and hydrate herself, and communicate the way the rest of use do. She certainly communicated with her family, in an unspoken way.
You obviously haven't thought long and hard about these philosophical questions about life and death. I suggest you start.
Mike| 1.23.12 @ 11:14PM
Does anybody recalled who was paying the medical bills for Schiavo?
Bob K.| 1.23.12 @ 11:33PM
On this issue Mitt Romney should have offered his opinion even if he wasn't asked. The man is very timid on some big issues.
Fionnagh| 1.23.12 @ 11:56PM
No matter. Had Mitt been asked, he simply would have smiled and said, "Me, too." And then affably looked around at the other three candidates without indicating with whom he actually agreed.
Johannah B.| 1.24.12 @ 12:28AM
Mike,
Terri had a fund that was the result of a successful lawsuit against the first responders and the doctors who flubbed her treatment.
Ryan| 1.24.12 @ 9:05AM
Which is where it began and should have ended. She should have been laid to rest long before she was. The mistakes were made in her early treatment, and she passed sometime in that range. Her parents push to keep her body functioning were purely emotional.
Nick| 1.24.12 @ 11:46AM
Ryan,
People who can't feed themselves, or drink water, do not deserve to die. You'd better hope you never end up in that condition.
Your attitude shows no respect for human life.
Ryan| 1.24.12 @ 11:51AM
She was already dead. Sorry.
Nick| 1.24.12 @ 12:58PM
Ryan,
She wasn't dead until her body was deprived of water and dehydrated to the point that her organs failed.
First, she would have experienced flu-like symptoms, such as chills and cramps.
Then, her throat and lips would have dried up, making it hard to swallow.
Then, her eyes would have dried up, feeling like sand scratching with every blink of her eye-lids.
Then, her internal tissues would have began to dry up.
Again, I hope you never experience such a death.
beebop2| 1.24.12 @ 5:42AM
If we spend the next 10 monthis discussing what the MSM wants, are we ever going to have an opportunity to effectively explain where we draw differences with the administration of Barrack Insane Obama? For as much as we need to remove HIM, there is Big Sis, Sebelius, Holder, Chu, Biden, and Salazar. They don't publish the full list of czars, so I won't add them here, but my point is this: BIO is he ten percent of the iceberg and unless and until we focus these less than affable evenings with some red meat, we are going to lose.
With all due respect, Terry should be left to rest in peace.