Friday, March 25, 2005

The price of freedom - one woman's cruel death

Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters has a very good post, with good follow-on commentary, on the Terri Schiavo case. I haven't written much here about it for a lot of reasons, most related to the fact that nobody reads this blog and I wanted to be part of the conversation. But here's my take, for the record. Michael Schiavo should have divorced Terri, annulled the marriage, and gone on with his life when it became apparent to him that she would never recover. The fact that he didn't makes the issue smell real fishy. There have been a lot of ugly allegations about his possible motives. Judge Greer should have permitted more evidence, and required Terri to be independently evaluated. He should resign from hte bench so he can be free to explain himself. Supposedly he's a conservative Christian. I cannot fathom why he has made the decisions he has made. It may be that there are some legal means for Governor Bush to take Terri into custody. I doubt it. I am persuaded that if there were, he would have used them by now. Congress in its extraordinary Palm Sunday session should have passed a law REQUIRING the tube be replaced. They left Whitemore and Greer an out. It's no surprise that they took it. She's not brain dead, and she wasn't on life support. She was severely disabled and needed to be fed through a tube. Killing her by dehydration and starvation is beyond cruel and unusual punishment. Sometimes the cost of freedom - of being a nation ruled by laws - is very high. Very high indeed.

No comments: