Thursday, March 31, 2005

Civilized society

I ate lunch today and washed it down with a soda, thus successfully delaying my own death by avoiding starvation and dehydration.

I can feed myself. I can speak, walk and move. I work and pay taxes, which means I am considered a productive member of society and cannot be disposed of.

But I’m being harsh. That Terri Schiavo was lucky. Her husband was merely carrying out her wishes when he denied her the supremely unnatural and heroic intervention of food and water. I’m sure that a man who is living with another woman and has two children by her can be trusted to make life-and-death decisions regarding his helpless wife.

And anyway, Terri Schiavo was given morphine at the end to ease her painless and elegant death. And she was beautiful at the end. I know it’s true because a lawyer said so.

That lucky duck. What a great blessing to have your unfaithful husband and a phalanx of lawyers and judges say to hell with your heartbroken parents and siblings, your husband is boss and if he says you once told him you wouldn’t want to live in this "state," then by golly what he says goes.

We wouldn’t want those pesky Republicans and right-wing Christian zealots possibly interfering with the sanctity of your marriage. No, no, no, we wouldn’t want anyone to further their political career by having the audacity to say that maybe you should be kept alive and given a chance to be rehabilitated rather than warehoused or killed.

After all, who but a knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping IDIOT would want to care for someone like Terri Schiavo?

Excuse me now … I’ve got to go join the protest over serving foie gras in Oregon. No ducks are going to be mistreated on my watch! Hell, no ... we're a civilized society.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I thought I'd bring the following post to your attention. I didn't write it, but it says everything that is needed to be known by self-righteous types such as yourself who persist in interfeering in matters that should be of no concern to you.

Hate to burst your bubble, but Terri has been in a persistent vegetative state for many years now. In fact, she didn't die yesterday, she died years ago when she was first declared brain dead. Just because her organs can be kept alive doesn't mean that she's a living person.

Why are you involving yourself in a private family matter anyway? You don't know her. There are thousands of people dying each day because they can't afford surgery, medicine, or chemo therapy, why aren't there protesters trying to save their lives? Most of these people got diseases naturally, unlike Terri who went into a coma because she was so concerned with vanity that she puked her body dry of nutrients. Isn't that hypocritical of you?

Letting Terry finally die was the only humane thing to be done in this situation. You go on to criticise Terry's husband for going on and starting a new life, with another woman and other kids- maybe he did what all you busybodys cannot- let her go, and rest in peace.