Terri Schiavo

The right to die

from JoeUser Forums
I don't speak for all liberals, but liberals don't want innocent people to be murdered. In fact, we think its one of the worst possible crimes in the world to kill someone. For this reason, the Terri Schiavo issue is very tricky to deal with. Here’s the biggest thing: IF (and only IF) Terri Schiavo wanted to die then she should be allowed to. Now I don't have personal knowledge of whether or not she wanted this, nor do you have personal knowledge that she did not. Therefore, when we (liberals) say she should be allowed to have her feeding tube removed, we are accepting the judgment of 19 courts that she wanted to die. The reason this is a sticky wicket is because we also believe in the fundamental right to die if you are terminally ill. We broadly support this right, and in this case we are just affirming this right, assuming she did want to die. None of us know what she wanted, so even as I stand up and defend the right of Terri to have her feeding tube removed, I have second thoughts. What if she didn’t want it removed? So that’s why I am writing this. To affirm my belief in the right to die, not to affirm a belief in this case.

Frankly, what upset me was congress intervening in the process. This is a judicial issue, and if I was having a judicial issue and congress interfered, I'd be pretty pissed off. That is the other reason I am vocal on this issue. I think that Terri is being used for political advantage by the republicans especially, and that congress is overstepping its boundaries.

I don't know exactly what to do in this case with Terri, but what a judge has to do is look at the law, and the law says Terri is to have her feeding tube removed (and I do support upholding the law).
politics
6,610 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh also, I wanted to mention this:

At first, when I heard starve to death, I thought 'Oh my god, that’s terrible!', however after reading an article in the Detroit Free Press, I realized that it is not in fact 'starving' but rather an easy and painless way to go. To sum up the article, dying patients don't feel any hunger, they are calm and collected, their heart slows down as the food supply drops, the only negatives are dry mouth and other such things, which can be solved with swabs and ice cubes, and it is the most commonly chosen technique for terminally ill patients to die. The patient becomes less alert, and finally passes out on the tenth or so day. After this time, since the kidney has no liquid with which to get rid of the bodies toxins, the toxin levels increase and the chemicals in the body become unstable, and you die of a chemical imbalance, not because you 'starved' to death.
I am looking for the article, when I find it I will post it.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Frankly, what upset me was congress intervening in the process. This is a judicial issue, and if I was having a judicial issue and congress interfered, I'd be pretty pissed off. That is the other reason I am vocal on this issue. I think that Terri is being used for political advantage by the republicans especially, and that congress is overstepping its boundaries."


Then you have to toss out all the times the Federal government made laws specifically interfering with court decisions in states that upheld slavery, segregation, civil rights abuses, etc. Why do we even need Federal civil rights laws, at all? Hell, that can be up to the states, right? Why do you think any of this was ever Federalized?

In American history there are many times when state courts and state governments thwarted the Federal will. We had a rather nasty war over such in the 1860's. The 1960's weren't all that smooth either, many times for the same reasons.

You have an artificially inflated view of the Judicial system, like most impose-my-will-through-the-courts Liberals. What we enforce and violate is Law, and the Legislature is put there to create those laws. Your idea of Law is the Constitution, and you ignore the volumes of REAL law Congress constantly produces.

Now, do you get angry about the sanctity of the courts when one offers up "creative" interpretations of the Constutition, basically becoming Legislators themselves? Nope. You wait and decide to get uppity is when LEGISLATORS make laws. Welcome to a three branch government.

Fine. Your call. Lets shift all this stuff back to the states, sandy.

Let's continue to let the states decide of homosexuals can marry.
Lets throw out Roe v. Wade, and let the states decide if abortion should be legal there.


I could make you a nice list of things you would probably be outraged if a Conservative-leaning state was allowed to choose for itself. Not so here, though. Florida did what you wanted, so the real devil is the Federal government. The next time you, in your Democratic zeal are bitching for a Federal legislative imposition, I'll remember this.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Some interesting facts and commentary at Findlaw Link
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Baker, I don't know where you come up with some of this stuff. What does Roe v. Wade have to do with this? That was a COURT decision, made by the supreme court. The parents of Terri appealed to the supreme court, they declined to hear the case. Thats all there is to it. And this doesn't have to do with states rights or federal rights or anything like that. This has to do with congress interfearing with precidented judical order, and not through a full fledged law, such as an abolition of slavery or the like, but rather with a law for the sole purpose of "saving" Terri. This is a blatant overstepping of the boundaries. That would be like you suing me for, say, I don't know, slander, and me being close friends with the president and having him introduce an executive order saying I have the right to appeal and appeal and appeal and if that doesn't work then I can appeal to the federal level courts. And beyond that, it throws the support of the president behind one side of the case. The president isn't a normal citizen, he can't publically support things without the issues becoming political.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
sandy:

Roe v. Wade was about the Constitutionality of many state Laws. In that case, state laws were overturned by the Federal government because they didn't jive with the (VERY subjective) Federal view of "women's rights". That is a tool the Supreme Court has.

Making law is the tool the Congress uses. You call it politics, I call it responding to the outrage of the American public. Granted, it is easy to forget, but we DO send congressmen there to react to our needs.

You, though, are coming at it backwards, as if the courts play and we dance. The courts do OUR bidding, i.e. upholding the laws our elected representitives create. In this case, the courts have shown us a leering hole in how we deal with such situations. Expect Congress to react, and in this case, it had to do something before someone starved to death. There wasn't time to make a broad "right to die" law to remedy the sitation.

Congress denounces and praises individuals all the time with legislation. They have senate hearings that investigate the actions of individuals. Yet in this case, you seem to think that they are barred from acting on an individual's behalf?

Why, just because you differ with them, or do you have something that says it is against the "rules"...
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Congress denounces and praises individuals all the time with legislation. They have senate hearings that investigate the actions of individuals. Yet in this case, you seem to think that they are barred from acting on an individual's behalf?

Why, just because you differ with them, or do you have something that says it is against the "rules"...


These are acts of recognition, not of law, and certianly not of directly ordering a trial to a federal court.

Roe v. wade was a matter of constitutionality. T.S.'s parents don;t have the constitutional right to an appeal to the federal court level in any interpretation of the constitution.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
"These are acts of recognition, not of law, and certianly not of directly ordering a trial to a federal court. "


Nope, to my knowledge there is nothing preventing Congress from enacting laws pertaining to individuals. If you have something, please, post it. Otherwise you are just differentiating because you don't like WHY they did it, not because they "overstepped their authority".

"Roe v. wade was a matter of constitutionality. T.S.'s parents don;t have the constitutional right to an appeal to the federal court level in any interpretation of the constitution."


Again... you're missing the point.

Congress just gave them the right to be heard in federal court. How? By passing a law, which is what Congress does. Roe v. Wade was the Supreme Court using its tools to protect the rights of individuals "abused" by state laws. Congress used it's tools to do the same.

I mean, do you really think that your grasp of the law allows you to see the obvious unconstitutional villainy of this act, and yet all the lawyers in Congress that voted FOR it just happened to overlook something you saw immediately? Including a great many Democrats? I find it difficult to believe that you have their oversight all sewn up and yet they overlooked what you claim is such a glaring ethics violation.