(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

Well, it's official. I'm not going to work today. It goes to show how often I do this that my immediate thought was, "I don't even know what to do with a sick day." Well, write, obviously, but ... yeah.

In other news, fuck activist judges. When are we getting rid of the activist politicians?

Comments

[hereticorp.livejournal.com]

I'm tired of the public personally.

They're the ones who will sit back in their comfy chairs, watch TV "News" reports and believe whatever they're told.

They're the ones who keep letting these things happen by voting for these people who only care about the politics of the moment.

Everyone is at fault here, from the top on down, but I'm sick of the idiot majority not calling the politicians to account.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Amen. I've still been listening to O'Reilly (God help me) and these are the same people who call him every day. Of course, on this issue, he's on the side of allowing her to die in peace, which meant yesterday he spent an hour fielding calls from people who were like, "You can learn even if your cerebral cortex is liquid!" and "She can recognize people! Isn't that worth saving?" *sigh*

In other news, I really need to talk to my mother about this. If I ended up like this, they couldn't pull the plug fast enough to satisfy me. If the biggest achievement I can make in a day is that I might have figured out how to swallow on my own, put me out of my misery.

[hereticorp.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? Her higher functions are gone, how can she learn? Argh... No, it's NOT WORTH SAVING damnit... She can recognize movement, but some plants can too. Human life is not something that must be preserved at the cost of a basic standard of deciency.

If you want, I can find the link that was posted a bit ago to a form you can fill out to make sure the plug is pulled. The whole Living Will idea made easy.

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

Well, politicians are supposed to be activists; that's what they're doing in politics. Judges are supposed to be impartial; that's what they're doing on the bench.

As far as I know with the Schiavo case, the conflict is between the husband and the wife's family, the latter of which doesn't believe she ever said the things he's testified to her saying. They think he's just trying to get out of the marriage and is making it up, because no one else ever witnessed this. I feel for them--losing a child is hard, and I can only imagine what it must be like to think, "If we just hold on..."--and if he can't corroborate her wishes with anything other than his own testimony, then the presumption should be that she wants to live.

But the whole thing makes me want to make a living will to make sure no one leaves me vegetating on life support if my brain is liquified.

[maechi.livejournal.com]

because no one else ever witnessed this.
Uh, he's not the only one. When this was all at trial, other people testified along with Michael & that's what the judge based his ruling that she be allowed to die on.

If he wanted to just get out of the marriage, he's had plenty of chances. He could have divorced her numerous times; her parents have offered him money to just walk away & he refused.

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

Personally, I have no side to take in this. I'm concerned about the precedent of just assuming that a disabled woman wants to die (especially if the utterance was after watching a very manipulative movie that favored euthanasia)--it's too easy to imagine people tired of taking care of handicapped loved ones coming to the conclusion that "they wouldn't this," and pulling the plug, regardless of whether or not the person really would not want it. Caretaker fatigue isn't a good state of mind in which to make choices.

On the other hand, medicine has raced way ahead of law and ethics issues, and they're doing things without asking why they're doing them. I have a general problem with technology this way.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Well, activists about this, anyway. Although, let's face it -- it's nice to know that we've solved every other problem on the planet so that we can deal with Terri Schiavo and just Terri Schiavo? (Wait, what do you mean, North Korea's announced it's got more nukes? Hey, over here! *dangles shiny thing*)

And you know, I can understand where the parents are coming from, but at the same time ... it just really makes me want to get in touch with my mother and establish some stuff right the hell now.

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

Well, they've been pretty activist in Iraq, too. And in dealing with a lot of issues. Not quite as activist as some people seem to think, but activist enough to bug a lot of people. The government deals with tons of issues every day. Right now, the Schiavo case is hot press--more interesting to the public than North Korean nukes because it has a name and a face attached to it, and deals with the actual rather than the potential--so the government's reactions to it are covered. It sells newspapers. That doesn't mean that other questions aren't being addressed. When it comes to international security issues (like the nukes), chances are we're talking about more clandestine stuff anyway.

And yeah. Living wills are a good idea.

[maechi.livejournal.com]

Re: Schiavo ... I really hope that this comes back to bite the Republicans in the ass. They are fighting against all of their supposed values just for this one woman. Where is their belief in the so-called sanctity of marriage? And what about states's rights? (Those are the things that are coming to mind right now. I'm sure there are more.) It boggles the mind really.

[miss-katelynne.livejournal.com]

Where is their belief in the so-called sanctity of marriage? And what about states's rights?

Shhh... they don't want us to remember that stuff!

[maechi.livejournal.com]

Yep. (Like the fact that thanks to a Bush law, a baby was taken off of life support last week against the family's wishes by the hospital. I guess they only care about life when it's good for them politically.)

[miss-katelynne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know! It's ridiculous. From what I've read that baby was more alive than Terri Schiavo.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Where is the husband's belief in the sanctity of marriage?

[maechi.livejournal.com]

The husband didn't get elected to a political office on the platform of keeping marriage 'sanctified' though.

And what do you expect him to do? He knows his wife is almost literally dead. Was he supposed to sit by her shell for fifteen years? The man is hardly a saint by any definition, but I see his actions as understandable given the circumstances.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

You might want to add this link to your post:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/delay_schiavo/index.html

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Okay, that just makes me want to puke right there, and I'm not even nauseated today. (One of my few body parts that's actually working correctly. *eye roll*)

[miss-katelynne.livejournal.com]

Wow... talk about your emotional appeals. With terms like "medical terrorism" and "judicial homicide", it's obvious they have nothing else going for them.

[wer-bin-ich.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks so much for the link.

I'm so happy I don't watch the news here anymore. It's utterly worthless.

[callie-chan.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe there's a simple answer to this question and I don't know it--

But why, exactly, are they starving her to death? Personally, I think the husband and the courts who've agreed with him are on the right track--the woman is gone, in every sense of the word but the physical, and I personally think her death would at least provide some closure to her family and friends. If there was a chance she could recover, my answer would probably be different, but there is no chance.

But I don't get why they're starving her to death! If you're looking for ways to do a mercy killing, I wouldn't have thought 'starvation' would be high on the list. Even though she probably can't feel a thing, there's a chance she might, so why not find a more humane way? Preferably a faster one, that acts before politicians can get moving to overturn the ruling that made it legal and before the woman can suffer?

I'm convinced there has to be a good reason for this that no one's mentioned, because nothing else would make sense.

-Callisto

[frogmajick.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I've never read that blog before and he's got some really interesting stuff.