Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Inconsistently Pro-Life; Consistently BS-ing!

“….. where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life"
- President Bush


So said the man responsible for more State executions than any governor in the USA. The US justice system has been known to be so fraught with unreliability that any conscionable authority would not have permitted the death penalty to exist within the system.

Anyway, the case that drew that hypocritical remark from President Bush involved one Terri Schiavo, who has been brain-dead for the last 15 years, and is living, as doctors described, like a vegetable. After years of court cases, the legal system agreed with her husband that life as understood does not exist for her anymore, and ordered the feedline that has kept her body going, removed.

Entered one George W Bush and the conservative Right-to-Life electorate. The President had to rushed a last minute emergency legislative Bill to overturn the court’s ruling so that Terri Schiavo may continue to be kept physically alive, or more likely the actual reason, that his constituency may be appeased.

Bush then came up with that double-standard pontificating to justify his interference in a man's management of his private life that has already been sanctioned by a court (what say those libetarians now?), while the Republican Party senators, recalled for the emergency Bill, had this note waiting for them in their offices:

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. This is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats"

Observe how that note started on a moral high tone, but before one could gather one’s wits from reading the first sentence, the second sentence has already said it all – “…This is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats”

What grubby distasteful grandstanding that has unscrupulously exploited the unhappy circumstances of a family's sufferings, and virtually prolongs the agony of a long suffering husband, all merely to gain an edge over the political opposition. I hope Bush will also pass a Bill requiring those urging and supporting the prolongation of Terri Schiavo's vegetable existence to be also responsible for looking after her.

UPDATE:
A federal judge refused to order the reinsertion of the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo.

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