Tom DeLay honored his own father's wishes

[quaoar]

So why can't he honor Terri Schiavo's?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,5710023.story?coll=la-home-headlines

DeLay Family Outcome Different From Schiavo's

By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek, Times Staff Writer

CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy unfolding in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal -- without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the raging debate outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family standing vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman -- U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

< snip >

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way he (Charles) wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

< snip >

When the man's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do Not Resuscitate."

[n2mark]

1. There is a difference between

do not resuscitate and taking away the food tube although I am not ask this either. Just to let you know there is a difference.

[Discord]

2. no, but the dialasis machine is artifical life support.

like the feeding tube. The DNR was an "as well as" not either/or

[tkmorris]

5. Sure there is

There are a number of differences in the two cases but the only relevant factor is in fact the same for both of them. Neither the elder Delay not Terri Schiavo wanted to be kept alive under such circumstances as they found themselves in. In Terri's case of course that fact was disputed and so it went to court but the court ruled that those were indeed Terri's wishes. That ruling has been reaffirmed again and again.

I think this is an ugly case, and not nearly clear-cut as both sides seem to believe. I try not to get drug into the myriad threads about it because to me what is right or just is not so simple as it is for some here.

For better or worse however, the court has decided, and what they have decided is in accordance with state law. If anyone finds the law to be offensive or immoral than an effort should be made to perhaps change it. This particular case however is over. Sad as it might be, it should be allowed to end.

[cal04]

3. Then filed a lawsuit, which no one can probably do after their law

The family then turned to lawyers.

In 1990 the DeLays filed suit against Midcap Bearing Corporation of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the distributor and maker of a coupling that they said failed and caused the tram to hurtle out of control down the steep bank.
The family's wrongful death lawsuit accused the companies of negligence and sought actual and punitive damages. Lawyers for the companies denied the allegations and countersued the surviving designer of the tram system, Jerry DeLay.

The case thrust Congressman DeLay into decidedly unfamiliar territory -- the list of plaintiffs on the front page of a civil complaint. He is an outspoken defender of business against what he calls the crippling effects of "predatory, self-serving litigation." The DeLay family litigation sought unspecified compensation for, among other things, the dead father's "physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and trauma," and the mother's grief, sorrow and loss of companionship. Their lawsuit also alleged violations of the Texas product liability law.

The DeLay case moved slowly through the Texas judicial system, accumulating more than 500 pages of motions, affidavits and disclosures over nearly three years. Among the affidavits was one filed by the congressman, but family members said he had little direct involvement in the lawsuit, leaving that to his attorney brother, Randall.

Rep. DeLay, who since has taken a leading role promoting congressional tort reform, wants to rein in trial lawyers to protect American business from what he calls "frivolous, parasitic lawsuits" that raise insurance premiums and "kill jobs."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,5710023.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[usregimechange]

4. kick

[paineinthearse]

6. A plug for the "home" page.

Rose posted this Sat Mar-26-05 10:12 PM - in LBN. It has 67 "greatest" votes and is on the home page.

Plug for the home page. It is my first stop. Invariably I read something there not previously seen elsewhere that managed to "slip through the cracks" that is fantastic.