Bigotry, Judicial Murder, and Lying Jesuits

Joe Ford, who has "severe cerebral palsy, the result of being deprived of oxygen at birth", writes at The Harvard Crimson, Mar. 25:

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube — a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people — is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency....

Nat Hentoff writes at (yes) The Village Voice, Mar. 29:

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history....

And, George Neumayr writes at The American Spectator, Mar. 29:

Former Massachusetts congressman Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest who supported legalizing abortion when he served in Congress, still uses the authority of his collar to cheerlead for evil causes. On Easter Sunday, he turned up at various television studios to praise the starvation to death of Terri Schiavo. Drinan was apparently Tim Russert's idea of a sturdy Catholic authority on this matter. Even as Drinan praised the killing of a disabled woman he mused nostalgically about passage of the "Americans with Disabilities Act," a glorious piece of legislation, he said. A host not willing to play the stooge to a snow-job artist might have asked Drinan: So why doesn't the ADA prevent murdering a disabled woman like Terri Schiavo? Why does the ADA give the disabled ramps at restaurants but permit trapdoors at hospitals?...

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/31/05 05:38:41 PM
Categorized as Terri Schindler Schiavo.