NY Times: How Family's Cause Reached the Halls of Congress

[Coastie for Truth]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/politics/22cong.html?

How Family's Cause Reached the Halls of Congress
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, March 21 - When a judge set last Friday as the deadline for removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, Ken Connor, a Florida trial lawyer and prominent Christian conservative who represented Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida on this issue, decided to appeal to a higher power, Congress.

He turned to an old acquaintance, Representative Dave Weldon, a Florida Republican and doctor, in a long-shot effort to persuade Congress to intervene. Convicted murderers have more chances to appeal to the federal courts than patients who are incapacitated, Mr. Connor argued.

"Don't we want to accord the same protections to the handicapped and disabled that we do to death row inmates?" he asked.

That was three weeks ago. The plans hatched by Mr. Connor and Dr. Weldon eventually snowballed into Congress's marathon weekend session, resulting in the recall of more than 260 members of the House from their spring vacations to try to preserve the life of one brain-damaged woman who has spent 15 years unable to speak, feed herself or move much more than her eyes.

Their success was the culmination of a two-year campaign by social conservatives who had been building support for the cause, along with the diligent efforts of Ms. Schiavo's parents and brother. Senator Mel Martinez, a newly elected Republican of Florida who is Mr. Connor's former college roommate, also played an influential role.

Mr Weldon (who claims to have an MD degree) has also introduced a Bill in Congress to criminalize a resident US citizen's leaving the US to obtain a stem cell derived therapy abroad -- and then returning to the US. (No drugs, no devices -- just having received a stem cell derived therapy, for example as an adjunct to chemotherapy or a stem cell grown tissue or a stem cell grown electro-contractile heart muscle adjunct for a congestive heart failure therapy).

[Inland]

1. So Schiavo now has same rights as death row inmate?

No wonder she lost.

[Mr_Spock]

2. Actually, she won!

She hopefully will be freed from the Hell here on earth if there is any compassion left in this world...

[Coastie for Truth]

3. That's the best the "faith healers" could do

Mr Frist, Mr. Weldon, Mr. Tom Coburn.

"Mister" is an honorable title in a democracy. "Doctor" is both an affectation and a "title of nobility" as applied to Frist, Weldon, and Coburn.

We have a duck pond outside my condo, and I think of Frist, Weldon, Coburn, and Kass when the ducks are there. Quack Quack Quack

What insurance does Mr. Frist's HCA Hospital Chain take --Aflac, Aflac Aflac