Hopes

Now that Terri Schiavo is gone, I can only hope that all the people who kept this bloody fight going will one day have the entire country passing judgment on their private medical and family matters. I can only hope that talk radio, TV psychics and thousands of weblog writers will make pronouncements about what's best for their family. I can only hope that Congress will step in, so it can control the outcome. I can only hope that people like Dean Esmay - 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag - who willingly spread falsehoods about this case will have an endless litany of protestors screaming in his ear that he is a murdering sadist Christian-hater, and that Tom DeLay will take to the floor of Congress to declare that he is "a man of questionable morals." I can only hope that all the people who used this family's grief as a bludgeon will be personally lectured over the public airwaves by Rush Limbaugh.

I can only hope that as they sit at the bedside of someone they love, they will have Randall Terry in the hallway, conducting a live interview on CNN.

I can hope, can't I?

Now it's clear

The Terri Schiavo case has proven to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that the rule of law means nothing to the crapweasel right wing in this country. All that matters is their agenda. A dozen courts have already ruled in Michael Schiavo's favor, but that means nothing to these people, who are lining up to use Terri Schiavo's body as a human shield against their blood enemies.

More: And go he should, if he were the devil himself, until he broke the law.
Roper: So now you'd give the devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get to the devil?
Roper: Yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law - for my own safety's sake.

-Man for All Seasons

Questions

I have some questions for those who think the government should step in and require that Terry Schiavo's feeding tube be re-inserted.

• If you were in a persistent vegetative state, would you want to live 15, 20, 30 more years?
• If your spouse told you unequivocally that they would not want to be kept alive under such circumstances, how would you feel about spending 10 years in court to carry out their wishes?
  
• Do you really want the state to have that much control over your family's medical decisions?
• Did you know that when he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a law that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes?