The Irony of the Religious rights attitude on Terri Schaivo...

[Javaman]

Considering that the religious right is so hell bent on god and jesus, one would think they would be more apt to allow a person to be disconnected from all sorts of feeding and life sustaining apparatus to facilitate the said persons jump to the great beyond.

I find it interesting that here we have in this world whole sections of the population willing to martyr themselves so they can get a ticket to heaven.

Yet, here in the states we have the paradox of the religious right wing who, talk all about the kingdom of heaven and how beautiful it is, but will do everything within their power to prevent themselves and people in general from getting in to it via ration means.

When the pope in Rome wishes also to be put on all sorts of machines to keep him alive, even in the event of a vegetative state, one has to question why? One would think that the "holiest" person in the world would be ready to allow nature take it's course and accept the inevitability of our mortality and meet his maker.

This is a very scary precedent to set for years to come. "If the pope does it, then I must be hooked up too", that's a frightening thought.

Much like in the move Coma, we will have body farms, with people hanging instate, on the perpetual brink of death, knowing full well, that with out the help of these machines, the person will die. However, instead of the possible awakening from the coma option, these people will be a room full of life supported vegetables.

With Medicaid in obvious desperate need of repair, it will be impossible to sustain this kind of notion for long. The reality is: It's damn expensive to keep human vegetables alive for long periods of time.

Michael Schaivo loves his wife, he wanted her to go peacefully to her reward, but also, the reality of the settlement that was awarded to her back in 1993 was going to run out. After which, Medicaid was suppose to pay for her treatment. The reality is: it wasn't going to cover much. Since he his the husband, by law he has every right to decide what should be done with his wife. (Personally, I thought he made the right choice.) Beyond his love for his wife, I believe he was also motivated by the realities of the health system in this country. If Terri was kept alive, before long Michael would be bankrupt and regardless of who you believe what Terri said, whether she wanted to be kept alive or not, I don't believe Terri would have wanted Michael to become destitute trying to maintain her care while she being a vegetable.

If this is indeed the case, and if the Schindlers would have won the right to reinsert the feeding tube, if I was Michael, I would have also made them take over the complete financial burden as well.

So the whole concept of "erring on the side of life", is given a whole new perspective.

If mr bush* was sincere in that whole concept, he would have jumped headlong into saving and fixing Medicaid rather than having his political motivated bill signing photo op.

So, if the religious right were also really sincere, they would petition bush* to fix Medicaid, so that anyone rich or poor, could be sustained on life support. That would be just to damn hard, because as the saying goes, you can't fight city hall, even when you elected them, so I guess the religious right is willing to fight these things on a case by case basis of their choice, based on which gives them the most face time.

The saying should be, "erring on the side of some lives".

[BlueEyedSon]

1. It was a very small % of the Rel Right that jumped on this.

I suspect the "troops" that showed up were being duped by their leadership. They (the leaders) believe that the Terri Schaivo fight-for-life supports their anti-choice goals.

[Inland]

2. The repugs always led off with the fact Shindlers promised to pay for care

Not that they meant it, but the repugs wanted to reassure everyone that life is sacred but not so sacred that it costs you anything.

[asjr]

3. The tragedy of Terri Schiavo is but one more road

to travel down to the threshold of disaster. Our founding fathers came up with a marvelous piece of paper called The Constitution of the United States, in which the rights of all the people were taken into consideration. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion. With the entrance of faith-based programs and the Congress and the president making overnight laws regarding another individual, we are seeing religion creep into the state of the nation. I am not bashing religion but it should not govern our country. Some of the Christians holding forth in Pinellas Co. must never have read the Constitution. The television media giving time to Randal Terry and Rev. Dobson, etc. have only added fuel to the fire. It was a daily, ready-made pulpit for them to spew hatred. And how ironic it is that the state, local judges followed the constitutional laws and not those of the ones who cry "be on the side of life." That is such a lame rhetoric thing to say. But I am sure it made certain people feel good, made them stand up straight and say to themselves and others: See how important I am!