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So sue me. I am a conservative, I guess. At least if that means that I think there might be SOME value in doing things the way they have always been done.
It is not that I am against scientific advantages, believe me. One of the women with whom I work was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis ten years before I was, and her body has been extensively damaged just because the treatments that are available now were not available to her then. My husband's mother died of breast cancer in 1973 at the age of forty-six, and we have often wondered if she might have lived had she been diagnosed in the 1990s instead of the 1960s. As I have stated before, I like my microwave and my dishwasher. And my computer.
No, the things I am talking about here are the things that make a civilization civil. We in the United States are outraged about the way some Muslims treat their women. We can't understand why men in supposedly progessive Arab countries like Jordan can kill their wives, daughters and sisters without fear of retribution, without being answerable to someone. I am all for the separation of powers, but it doesn't seem to me that, in Terri Schiavo's case, the system of checks and balances worked because the higher courts refused to get involved.
I have heard some people criticize Congress and the President for getting involved in Terri's case. They say that the Republicans are moving toward a theocracy, that being a government ruled by or subject to religious authority. I do not see that at all. Rather, I see a government that is divided over the issue of MORALITY, the concern about the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. It seems to me that some things are always wrong, and that the killing of innocent human beings is one of them.
It seems to me that the controversy that surrounded Terri Schiavo had more to do with who had "rights" over her body since she could not speak for herself than it had to do with whether or not she wanted to die. I fail to see why her death did not become so important to her husband until eight years after her collapse. Was that when he met his fiancee or when she got pregnant? And she died a long death, one that would be considered inhumane if it were to be the sentence for someone on death row. If she couldn't feel anything, why was her husband trying to create the right ambiance for her death? Why the stuffed animal if it didn't mean anything to her? Why the vase of flowers, flowers in water that she couldn't have?
I think that Terri's death will make it easier for people in this country to euthanize those who are inconvenient to them. I think that since the line has been blurred, such deaths may become more common, as they are in Europe.
And I think we had all better hope that we don't inconvenience someone.
So sue me. I am a conservative, I guess. At least if that means that I think there might be SOME value in doing things the way they have always been done.
It is not that I am against scientific advantages, believe me. One of the women with whom I work was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis ten years before I was, and her body has been extensively damaged just because the treatments that are available now were not available to her then. My husband's mother died of breast cancer in 1973 at the age of forty-six, and we have often wondered if she might have lived had she been diagnosed in the 1990s instead of the 1960s. As I have stated before, I like my microwave and my dishwasher. And my computer.
No, the things I am talking about here are the things that make a civilization civil. We in the United States are outraged about the way some Muslims treat their women. We can't understand why men in supposedly progessive Arab countries like Jordan can kill their wives, daughters and sisters without fear of retribution, without being answerable to someone. I am all for the separation of powers, but it doesn't seem to me that, in Terri Schiavo's case, the system of checks and balances worked because the higher courts refused to get involved.
I have heard some people criticize Congress and the President for getting involved in Terri's case. They say that the Republicans are moving toward a theocracy, that being a government ruled by or subject to religious authority. I do not see that at all. Rather, I see a government that is divided over the issue of MORALITY, the concern about the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. It seems to me that some things are always wrong, and that the killing of innocent human beings is one of them.
It seems to me that the controversy that surrounded Terri Schiavo had more to do with who had "rights" over her body since she could not speak for herself than it had to do with whether or not she wanted to die. I fail to see why her death did not become so important to her husband until eight years after her collapse. Was that when he met his fiancee or when she got pregnant? And she died a long death, one that would be considered inhumane if it were to be the sentence for someone on death row. If she couldn't feel anything, why was her husband trying to create the right ambiance for her death? Why the stuffed animal if it didn't mean anything to her? Why the vase of flowers, flowers in water that she couldn't have?
I think that Terri's death will make it easier for people in this country to euthanize those who are inconvenient to them. I think that since the line has been blurred, such deaths may become more common, as they are in Europe.
And I think we had all better hope that we don't inconvenience someone.
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