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The Latest On Terri Schiavo.

The White House made a statement on Terri Schiavo yesterday that is both succinct and lucid:

The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.

Likewise, House Majority Leaders Tom DeLay and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert made a joint statement (via blogsforterri.com):

It's unconscionable that Senate Democrats led by Senators Harry Reid and Ron Wyden would not allow a vote to move forward on critical legislation the House passed last night to save and protect Terri Schiavo's life. House Republicans knew we had a moral obligation to act and we did just that last night. As Terri Schiavo lays helpless in Florida, one day away from the unthinkable and unforgivable, the Senate Democrats refused to join Republicans to act on her behalf.

Andrew McCarthy, meanwhile, in National Review, expresses that terrorists get better treatment than Terri Schiavo:

On Friday afternoon, unless humanity intervenes, the state of Florida is scheduled to begin its court-ordered torture-murder of Terri Schiavo, whose only crime is that she is an inconvenience. A nuisance to a faithless husband grown tired of the toll on his new love interest and depleting bank account — an account that was inflated only because a jury, in 1992, awarded him over a million dollars, mostly as a trust to pay for Terri’s continued care, in a medical malpractice verdict.

In this instance, though, deafening is the only word for the silence of my former interlocutors — -civil-liberties activists characteristically set on hysteria auto-pilot the moment an al Qaeda terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without supper by Don Rumsfeld or Al Gonzales (something that would, of course, be rank rumor since, if you kill or try to kill enough Americans, you can be certain our government will get you three halal squares a day).

Not so Terri Schiavo. She will be starved and dehydrated. Until she is dead. By court order....

What kind of law is it, what kind of society is it, that says the lives of Khalfan Khamis Mohammed and Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali’s have value — over which we must anguish and for the sustenance of which we must expend tens of thousands annually — but Terri Schiavo’s is readily dispensable? By court-ordered torture over the wrenching pleas of parents ready and willing to care for her?

What kind of society goes into a lather over the imposition of bright lights and stress positions for barbarians who might have information that will save lives, but yawns while a defenseless woman who hasn’t hurt anyone is willfully starved and dehydrated? By a court — the bulwark purportedly protecting our right to life?

The torture starts Friday, at 1 P.M. Unless we do something to stop it.

Apparently Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi has come up with a solution to stop it; the House has gotten creative, issuing subpoenas for further investigation (via Wittenberg Gate blog):

In a last-ditch attempt to stop the court-ordered removal, a House committee on Capitol Hill here decided early Friday morning to start an investigation into Schiavo's case and issue subpoenas ordering doctors and hospice administrators not to remove her feeding tubes and to keep her alive until that investigation was complete.

The Wide Awakes blog points out this bit from drudgereport.com:

**Exclusive Fri Mar 18 2005 00:50:07 ET** The Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee, Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) has requested Terri Schiavo to testify before his congressional committee, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. In so doing it triggers legal or statutory protections for the witness, among those protections is that nothing can be done to cause harm or death to this individual.

Members of Congress went to the U.S. Attorney in DC to ask for a temporary restraining order to be issued by a judge, which protects Terri Schiavo from having her life support, including her feeding and hydration tubes, removed… Developing…

The clock is ticking.

UPDATE:

A Florida judge is temporarily blocking the removal of Terri's feeding tube, Fox News reports.

Also:

www.blogsforterri.com has even more.

Posted by Will Franklin · 18 March 2005 07:30 AM

Comments

Posted by: Linda at March 18, 2005 08:33 AM

Posted by: Ora at March 18, 2005 12:26 PM

Posted by: Kender at March 18, 2005 04:33 PM

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Posted by: zulu at March 20, 2005 03:37 PM