the issue:
i've been following the terri schiavo drama like everyone else and i'm shocked that the controversy has made it's way to the supreme court and the white house. even stirring dubya from his compound. nevermind the hypocrisy of a president, who as governor of texas encouraged - and passed - legislation allowing people with no cognitive future to be let go... then alarming even those on the far right with his intrusive right-to life arrogance. the bush tag team in florida and the white has been shot down consistently by the courts.
nevermind the opportunism of a government - run almost entirely by a conservative majority - bent on turning terri's tragedy into a photo opp. aren't conservatives supposed to be oppsed to an intrusive government that tries to dictate the perfectly legal and just process of a husband attending to his wife's likely wishes? if it were clinton doing this, there would already be impeachment hearings. just think about that. clinton coming to the rescue. the press would be screaming intrusive bleeding-heart-liberal big government.
the schiavo case is a perfect metaphor for the current administration.
intrusion. intrusion. intrusion:
soveriegn nations. world alliances. civil liberties. civil rights. human rights. globally established envoronmental policy. reproductive rights. - dubya has even tampered with age old policy within the conservative party. have you taken a look at what our government is spending? there is nothing remotely conservative about it. it is absolute hypocrisy.
there are cases all over the country - actually now in texas - where babies have been "turned off" against their parents wishes, because they either could not pay, or the child had to recuperative possibilty. all over the country, husbands unplug their wives, and mothers say goodbye to their sons. terri's father had his mother's life support removed when she was 79. where are his scruples now?
sure death is tragic. so is war. eating disorders. but the far greater tragedy is when rights are taken away from appropriately entitled family members, and handed over to career politicians.
nevermind terri had to go almost a week in 2003 without food only to be plugged in again for another two years of court battles.
nevermind the husband's stance that terri wouldn't want to be a vegetable for 15 years. would you?
what is really disturbing is that this never had to happen. terri was a beautiful young florida girl who killed herself to be thin - and thus attractive - worthy - needed - loved.
There has been a lot of attention on Terri Schiavo as her formal husband, her parents, and the so-called pro-lifers fight over whether her feeding-tube should be removed so that she'll die by starvation or whether she should continue to be force-fed so that she will remain alive in a persistent vegetative state.
Much less mentioned is the fact that Schiavo had this heart attack at a very young age, causing the current persistent vegetative state, because of her bulimia:
When she finally lost 65 pounds in her late teens, men started to pay attention — including the man who would become her husband, Michael Schiavo, who was tall and handsome.
But keeping the weight off was a struggle for Terri Schiavo, and years later — after her heart stopped briefly, cutting off oxygen to the brain — a malpractice case brought against a doctor on her behalf would reveal she had been trying to survive on liquids and was making herself throw up after meals. The Schiavos' lawyer said her 1990 collapse was caused by a potassium imbalance brought on by an eating disorder.
It is a cruel twist lost on no one close to the case: A woman who is said to have struggled with an eating disorder is now in the middle of a court battle over whether her feeding tube should be removed so that she can starve to death.
Terri Schiavo was forcing herself to throw up her food. She was denying herself the most human of activities, nourishment. Bulimia is a very dangerous activity. Stomach acids are not meant to travel back up through the esophagus and the mouth, where they will digest one's insides and rot one's teeth. Bulimia also results in serious chemical imbalances which can cause heart attacks -- as it did in Terri Schiavo's case.
I find it hard to believe her husband is not culpable in her bulimia, either through action or inaction. Her illness had progressed to the point she had stopped menstruating. He knew "she had peculiar eating patterns." He must have known about her discomfort with her body. He either reinforced her self-hatred or did not fight hard enough against it.
Terri Schiavo's parents also seem to be in denial about her bulimia. The whole bunch of so-called pro-lifers seem only concerned with somehow continuing to force-feed this unfortunate woman without any pretense at discussing our sick culture that causes women to hate their own flesh.
With all these Senate bills and last-minute interventions by the Governor, why not fund an eating disorder awareness fund or two? Even just for show, why not use this tragedy to try to warn the who-knows-how-many young women risking a similar end? Why not use this to examine how culture fosters such severe self-hatred in women?
That might actually save lives, you know...
But, instead, we have a public fight whether to force-feed or starve Terri Schiavo, carried out, it seems, mostly by people who care neither about her or about the myriads of young women who could become her any moment. A fight that would not have had to happen if we had just let her eat.
-Posted by zeynep at March 20, 2005
it is sad that things have gotten tipped so far to the right, that the tragedy of a woman being allowed to die is considered a victory for those who love true freedom. not the undefined maluable version that is being knocked around by the bush administration. that is the only solace there is to be found. within a week or so, terri will be gone. and so will the bush-bush premise. bush is going to lose this one. because he is up against the worst kind of enemy - the rule of law.
i've been following the terri schiavo drama like everyone else and i'm shocked that the controversy has made it's way to the supreme court and the white house. even stirring dubya from his compound. nevermind the hypocrisy of a president, who as governor of texas encouraged - and passed - legislation allowing people with no cognitive future to be let go... then alarming even those on the far right with his intrusive right-to life arrogance. the bush tag team in florida and the white has been shot down consistently by the courts.
nevermind the opportunism of a government - run almost entirely by a conservative majority - bent on turning terri's tragedy into a photo opp. aren't conservatives supposed to be oppsed to an intrusive government that tries to dictate the perfectly legal and just process of a husband attending to his wife's likely wishes? if it were clinton doing this, there would already be impeachment hearings. just think about that. clinton coming to the rescue. the press would be screaming intrusive bleeding-heart-liberal big government.
the schiavo case is a perfect metaphor for the current administration.
intrusion. intrusion. intrusion:
soveriegn nations. world alliances. civil liberties. civil rights. human rights. globally established envoronmental policy. reproductive rights. - dubya has even tampered with age old policy within the conservative party. have you taken a look at what our government is spending? there is nothing remotely conservative about it. it is absolute hypocrisy.
there are cases all over the country - actually now in texas - where babies have been "turned off" against their parents wishes, because they either could not pay, or the child had to recuperative possibilty. all over the country, husbands unplug their wives, and mothers say goodbye to their sons. terri's father had his mother's life support removed when she was 79. where are his scruples now?
sure death is tragic. so is war. eating disorders. but the far greater tragedy is when rights are taken away from appropriately entitled family members, and handed over to career politicians.
nevermind terri had to go almost a week in 2003 without food only to be plugged in again for another two years of court battles.
nevermind the husband's stance that terri wouldn't want to be a vegetable for 15 years. would you?
what is really disturbing is that this never had to happen. terri was a beautiful young florida girl who killed herself to be thin - and thus attractive - worthy - needed - loved.
There has been a lot of attention on Terri Schiavo as her formal husband, her parents, and the so-called pro-lifers fight over whether her feeding-tube should be removed so that she'll die by starvation or whether she should continue to be force-fed so that she will remain alive in a persistent vegetative state.
Much less mentioned is the fact that Schiavo had this heart attack at a very young age, causing the current persistent vegetative state, because of her bulimia:
When she finally lost 65 pounds in her late teens, men started to pay attention — including the man who would become her husband, Michael Schiavo, who was tall and handsome.
But keeping the weight off was a struggle for Terri Schiavo, and years later — after her heart stopped briefly, cutting off oxygen to the brain — a malpractice case brought against a doctor on her behalf would reveal she had been trying to survive on liquids and was making herself throw up after meals. The Schiavos' lawyer said her 1990 collapse was caused by a potassium imbalance brought on by an eating disorder.
It is a cruel twist lost on no one close to the case: A woman who is said to have struggled with an eating disorder is now in the middle of a court battle over whether her feeding tube should be removed so that she can starve to death.
Terri Schiavo was forcing herself to throw up her food. She was denying herself the most human of activities, nourishment. Bulimia is a very dangerous activity. Stomach acids are not meant to travel back up through the esophagus and the mouth, where they will digest one's insides and rot one's teeth. Bulimia also results in serious chemical imbalances which can cause heart attacks -- as it did in Terri Schiavo's case.
I find it hard to believe her husband is not culpable in her bulimia, either through action or inaction. Her illness had progressed to the point she had stopped menstruating. He knew "she had peculiar eating patterns." He must have known about her discomfort with her body. He either reinforced her self-hatred or did not fight hard enough against it.
Terri Schiavo's parents also seem to be in denial about her bulimia. The whole bunch of so-called pro-lifers seem only concerned with somehow continuing to force-feed this unfortunate woman without any pretense at discussing our sick culture that causes women to hate their own flesh.
With all these Senate bills and last-minute interventions by the Governor, why not fund an eating disorder awareness fund or two? Even just for show, why not use this tragedy to try to warn the who-knows-how-many young women risking a similar end? Why not use this to examine how culture fosters such severe self-hatred in women?
That might actually save lives, you know...
But, instead, we have a public fight whether to force-feed or starve Terri Schiavo, carried out, it seems, mostly by people who care neither about her or about the myriads of young women who could become her any moment. A fight that would not have had to happen if we had just let her eat.
-Posted by zeynep at March 20, 2005
it is sad that things have gotten tipped so far to the right, that the tragedy of a woman being allowed to die is considered a victory for those who love true freedom. not the undefined maluable version that is being knocked around by the bush administration. that is the only solace there is to be found. within a week or so, terri will be gone. and so will the bush-bush premise. bush is going to lose this one. because he is up against the worst kind of enemy - the rule of law.