BlogWood: MT Archives

Wrong-headed wealthy white wimps: “Writs will watch over wretched and weak,” wink, wink...

“Trust us. We are rich and powerful and know what’s best for you. These are moral and legal issues and have nothing whatsoever to do with religion.”

Elaine Cassel begs to differ:

In one day, the federal government and the state of Florida stepped in to control the physical autonomy of a woman's body.

In Washington, the Senate passed to so-called "partial birth abortion" ban, a gruesomely named procedure for an equally gruesome process that is only used by doctors in the second and third trimester of pregnancy to save the life or health of the mother. The procedure is rarely used, and with good reason. For the doctor and the mother, the procedure is a heartwrenching process in which painful choices have been made.
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Also yesterday, that crazy state of Florida enacted a law allowing Gov. Bush to order that feeding tubes be reinserted into 39-year-old Terri Schiavo, a woman who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years. Terry is not in a coma, and could live years longer, but to what end? Court-appointed doctors have reported that she has no cognitive abilities.

Her parents have objected to the removal of life-sustaining fluids, and their supporters have flooded the Internet with videos of Schiavo laughing and talking. When she did that is anyone's guess, but it certainly has not been in recent years. Doctors say any physical responses are reflexive and not intentional acts.
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Baby brother Bush has learned well from his big brother how to be an imperial leader, denying his subjects civil liberties. Gov. Bush earlier this year ordered the appointment of a guardian ad litem for the fetus of a mentally retarded woman who was raped in a Florida home for adults. He wanted to be sure the woman did not have an abortion (she did not, nor did she ever indicate that she would), even though an abortion would have been entirely legal under Florida law. In a statement last night, Bush said he was not "playing God." Maybe he was just playing Machiavelli, then. He was definitely playing all-powerful-panderer to the political right.

Aside from the legal and ethical implications of the Florida and federal legislation, ask yourself this question: If these were men's lives we were dealing with, would the law be ordering what should be done with their bodies?