Thursday, March 31, 2005
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THANK YOU JONATHAN ALTER
However anyone feels about the issue of right to die or right to live, Terri Schiavo's family is surely mourning, but I have just finished reading Jonathan Alter's piece (Take a Look in the Mirror) in Newsweek, and hope you'll find it and read it.
He says much more than this, and it's all worth reading, but let me quote the last two paragraphs:
"The right wing should be ashamed of the way it has treated this man, who spent the first seven years after Terri's collapse doing everything imaginable to save her-even training as a nurse. For instance, Fox and CNN gave air time and credibility to one Carla Iyer, who accused Michael of shouting "When is the bitch going to die?" and claimed hospital authorities doctored her nursing charts--preposterous charges with no substantiation.
When this excruciating circus leaves town, the only sensible conclusion is a morally and constitutionally nuanced one. It should be possible to argue both that Terri Schiavo's case didn't belong in court--and that the courts are the only place to resolve such wrenching disputes when families cannot. That custody laws should contain a little more flexibility where the wishes of the patient are unclear--and that the president and Congress did real damage to their own principles by sticking their nose in this mess. They replaced reason with emotion, confused law with theology and allowed politics and tabloidism to trump the privacy this agonizing family tragedy deserved."
However anyone feels about the issue of right to die or right to live, Terri Schiavo's family is surely mourning, but I have just finished reading Jonathan Alter's piece (Take a Look in the Mirror) in Newsweek, and hope you'll find it and read it.
He says much more than this, and it's all worth reading, but let me quote the last two paragraphs:
"The right wing should be ashamed of the way it has treated this man, who spent the first seven years after Terri's collapse doing everything imaginable to save her-even training as a nurse. For instance, Fox and CNN gave air time and credibility to one Carla Iyer, who accused Michael of shouting "When is the bitch going to die?" and claimed hospital authorities doctored her nursing charts--preposterous charges with no substantiation.
When this excruciating circus leaves town, the only sensible conclusion is a morally and constitutionally nuanced one. It should be possible to argue both that Terri Schiavo's case didn't belong in court--and that the courts are the only place to resolve such wrenching disputes when families cannot. That custody laws should contain a little more flexibility where the wishes of the patient are unclear--and that the president and Congress did real damage to their own principles by sticking their nose in this mess. They replaced reason with emotion, confused law with theology and allowed politics and tabloidism to trump the privacy this agonizing family tragedy deserved."
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