MaxedOutMama
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Hay Foot, Straw Foot
Did you ever hear the story about a DI trying to teach a country recruit to march in formation? He finally figured out that the man didn't know his right foot from his left, so he tied a piece of hay to one boot and a piece of straw to another and drilled him alone calling out "hay foot, straw foot" until he got the hang of it. Now if you aren't country you don't know the difference between hay and straw, so just don't worry about it, okay? It's not important.
I am telling you this story because I believe that it illustrates what's happening with several urgent ethical issues of our time. They are being discussed in a framework that's divorced from facts that we can make sense of, so people are dropping out of discussions they should be in, while fighting rhetorical battles that mean nothing. SC&A wrote:
I am telling you this story because I believe that it illustrates what's happening with several urgent ethical issues of our time. They are being discussed in a framework that's divorced from facts that we can make sense of, so people are dropping out of discussions they should be in, while fighting rhetorical battles that mean nothing. SC&A wrote:
The reality is that at times, the friction between justice and liberty is important, if for no other reason to keep us aware of the precious nature of this very system we often take for granted.and:
We are meant to argue, debate and discuss the balance of this living organism we call democracy.
As we have let the media and politicians define what we are seeing, it is important that the truth be brought to the fore.Everything important is about reality and the implications of reality, not ideological or political alignments. Nat Hentoff writes in Village Voice:
Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination. Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, a specialist in heart-lung transplant surgery, has, as The New York Times reported on March 23, "certified [in his practice] that patients were brain dead so that their organs could be transplanted." He is not just "playing doctor" on this case.and:
While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.and:
I will be returning to the legacy of Terri Schiavo in the weeks ahead because there will certainly be long-term reverberations from this case and its fracturing of the rule of law in the Florida courts and then the federal courts as well as the disgracefully ignorant coverage of the case by the great majority of the media, including such pillars of the trade as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Times as they copied each other's misinformation, like Terri Schiavo being "in a persistent vegetative state."Rich Lowry writes in National Review:
George Felos, the lawyer for Terri’s husband, Michael, explains his position in the case thusly: “I firmly believe in the right of individuals to make their own medical-treatment choices.” But Terri is not making her medical choices. Choices are being made for her, perhaps (if you believe Michael Schiavo) on the basis of things she said a decade ago, perhaps (if you don’t) in the absence of any stated preference.You see? Both are protesting the unreal and fantastical nature of this debate as it is being carried out. One I guess is on the right and one on the left, but that is not why they are insisting that facts are important. It's because they are!
After visiting her bedside recently, Felos declared, “In all the years I’ve seen Mrs. Schiavo, I’ve never seen such a look of peace and beauty upon her.” Maybe Felos has forgotten: If she is indeed in a persistent vegetative state, as he maintains, she can’t feel anything, let alone a sense of peace that would make her radiant with beauty.
One expert told the New York Times that “no one is denying this woman food and water.” Really? Then why is she dying? Is it merely a coincidence that she might experience kidney failure from dehydration at any time?
