RIP Terry Schiavo

[BobbyTrendy]

May you finally rest in peace.

[Guest DrFired]

R.I.P.!

[Guest lulamishka]

May you finally rest in peace.

Amen.

[Guest Fez]

R.I.P.

[Guest rollyp66]

R.I.P.

[Guest sobe2004]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

[Guest JMT]

where did you go to med school?

[Guest sobe2004]

where did you go to med school?

Published on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Why I Don't Care About Terry Schiavo

by Joyce Marcel

In ghoulish anticipation, the whole world wakes up each morning and asks, "Is she dead yet?" I think it's disgusting.

I'm not a heartless person, but I don't care about Terri Schiavo. I don't care about Scott Peterson, either. I regard Michael Jackson as a freak of plastic surgery, but then, I regard Arnold Schwartzenegger that way, too, and he's the governor of California. I didn't care about OJ - he did it, he got away with it, his kids will pay the price. Going back some, I didn't care about Pam Smart, either. (But I loved the way Nicole Kidman played her in the film). Have I left anyone out?

How can I not care? Because I refuse to have my emotions manipulated by the news media.

These are serious times, and I guess I'm a serious person. From the media, I'd like to learn more about America's debt load, and whether it's good for China and Japan to own so much of our country. I'd like to know about our plans for competing with China and India for oil and other natural resources. Come to think of it, I'd like to see a detailed analysis of whether we're really running low on oil. Will we run out during our lifetimes, or are the doom prophesies scare tactics, allowing billionaires to make more billions on the backs of the rest of us?

I'd like to know the implications of the dollar's shrinkage against the Euro.

Politically, just about everything my government does worries me. And then there's the war in Iraq.

With all of this to think about, I'm appalled that America is spending what's left of its intellectual capital on one unfortunate woman who has been brain dead for 15 years. (And if Terri Schiavo had been anything other than brain dead, she would have long ago woken up in a rage at her parents for allowing those humiliating videos to be shown all over the world.)

The job of the news media is to provide information and allow us to form educated opinions. In this case, it has seriously failed.

For example, the root cause of all this hysteria is bulimia and negative female body images. Why aren't we hearing more about that? What was Mrs. Schiavo's relationship with her parents before she became ill? What was Michael Schiavo's relationship with them? Isn't this really an "in-laws from hell" story? Did Mrs. Schiavo really say she did not want to be a vegetable? How can we know? Why did Michael Schiavo wait so long to try and end his wife's life? If caring for her was too huge a burden (and how could it have been anything else?), why wouldn't he turn her guardianship over to her family?

Without solid information, we are trapped in a kind of moral-political sinkhole. It's like fiercely arguing about batting averages without having a statistics book. There's no point in it.

Watching politicians posture and pose over "the sanctity of life" infuriates me. Where did this suddenly "pro-life" George W. Bush come from, this man who used the death penalty to murder around 150 people - including children and the mentally incompetent - when he was governor of Texas, and whose regard for American and Iraqi lives is so minuscule that he neither cares about putting them in harm's way nor pays attention to the thousands wounded and dead as the result of his arrogant policies? What right has he got to be pontificating here?

And if his brother, Jeb, really feels so strongly about Terri Schiavo that he is willing to defy the courts and send his goons to kidnap her, then let him install her in the master bedroom at the Florida's governor's mansion and change her diapers himself.

In this case, Jesus hit the nail on the head when he said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

The truth is, though, that these bloviating politicians don't know any more about Terri Schiavo than the rest of us. We are all being manipulated.

"Recent history is full of images that have trumped context to shape public opinion," writes Ginia Bellafante in The New York Times. In 1996, for example, endless pictures of young JonBenet Ramsey dressed like a hooker "lent an air of perversity to the child's parents, which focused the public's suspicion exclusively on them." However, lie-detector tests later exonerated them.

"From the birth of photography, social critics have feared the camera's subjectivity and the potential use of pictures to manipulate the emotions of the masses," Bellafante said. "Eddie Adams' picture of a Vietcong captive at the moment of his execution by a pistol-wielding Vietnamese official became a symbol of the anti-war movement. The photo won a Pulitzer Prize, but Mr. Adams later disavowed it, in part because the executioner claimed that the man he killed had murdered the family of one of his aides hours earlier."

News isn't about news or information any more, it's only about conveying emotion. Terri Schiavo's fate is a tragic, private family matter and in her case, as in so many others, we should refuse to allow our emotions to be manipulated.

Joyce Marcel is a free-lance journalist who lives in Vermont and writes about culture, politics, economics and travel. She can be reached at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.

[Guest tres-b]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

[Bling]

God Bless Terry Schiavo and her family they have been thru hell and back now hopefully they can move on to more peaceful times

[Guest sobe2004]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

The articles point exactly dumbass . . .

[ryan2772]

good article

[Guest JMT]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

The articles point exactly dumbass . . .

so essentially your whole point is a lack of a point. i still dont see what that has to do with your original post, but thanks for sharing. there actually are people in this world that care about what happens to others (one way or the other), not just themselves, unlike the author.

[Guest tres-b]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

The articles point exactly dumbass . . .

1-Dr Dontknowshit referred to your expert diagnosis that she has been dead for a long time.

2-a doctor who thinks otherwise was referring to the fact that Terry Schiavo deserved more protection than she received. I am sorry for not being more clear.

The article was basically a piece that has little to do with Terry Schiavo and more to do with what America should be focusing on which I agree with 100% but there is room to care about this woman's fate as well. I have seen reputable doctors argue that she was/was not in a vegatative state. I have listened to both sides more times than I care to remember. I am still torn on what should have been done.

Having said all that, it doesnt take media manipulation for me to know that Terry Schiavo was starved to death and that is what is so difficult to come to grips with.

[Guest sobe2004]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

The articles point exactly dumbass . . .

so essentially your whole point is a lack of a point. i still dont see what that has to do with your original post, but thanks for sharing. there actually are people in this world that care about what happens to others, not just themselves, unlike the author.

Then why didn't you care last year, or the year before that or the 15 years she has been brain dead??

It should be a private situation, not a public one.

If you care so much, you should go volunteer your time at a hospital or other facility.

[Guest]

[Guest LeVeL]

You know Sobe ,I have to agree with you on this situation...because its true its been happenning for years already. I mean its not the courts decision to say to take the Feeding Tube out of her. But the woman requested it to her husband.

Hell there is not one person here who would like to be in a bed in a Hospital for that long. Hell I would kill myself...that is no life being there having your family seeing you lie on the Bed suffering..its tremendouse torture.

To live a life is to smile, run,breath,talk,have fun joy...taking advantage of all the senses god has given u.

[Guest JMT]

she has been dead for a long time kids . . . .

Thanks Dr. Dontknowshit. For every article like you posted, there is a doctor who thinks otherwise.

The situation is a terrible one and I have mixed emotions about what was right/what I would do.

God bless Terry and those involved.

The articles point exactly dumbass . . .

so essentially your whole point is a lack of a point. i still dont see what that has to do with your original post, but thanks for sharing. there actually are people in this world that care about what happens to others, not just themselves, unlike the author.

Then why didn't you care last year, or the year before that or the 15 years she has been brain dead??

It should be a private situation, not a public one.

If you care so much, you should go volunteer your time at a hospital or other facility.

when i learned about the case, i started caring about the family. thats how us carbon based life forms process information and form thoughts, through observation.

since you know me so well, you should know what volunteering i do.

[Guest sobe2004]

I don't know you but I do know this, this entire tragedy is being used solely for political purposes and that is disgusting.

[Guest tres-b]

I don't know you but I do know this, this entire tragedy is being used solely for political purposes and that is disgusting.

It is up to you as an intelligent adult to filter through all that and realize that the only person that really mattered in the whole mess was Terry Schiavo, who starved to death over the last 2 weeks.

No matter what you feel about politics, religion, life, death, etc., you have to ask yourself whether you are comfortable starving another human being to death.

Again, I have mixed emotions on the issue but it is what it is. Terry Schiavo died b/c food and h2o were taken from her.

[Guest coach]

You know Sobe ' date='I have to agree with you on this situation...because its true its been happenning for years already. I mean its not the courts decision to say to take the Feeding Tube out of her. But the woman requested it to her husband.[/quote'] This is what HE said. We have no other proof than that. And her parents claimed she would not want it to be removed.

Hell there is not one person here who would like to be in a bed in a Hospital for that long.

This is absolutely not true.

To live a life is to smile, run,breath,talk,have fun joy...taking advantage of all the senses god has given u.

There are plenty of people who cannot do a number of those things, yet enjoy a fulfilling life despite that.

[Guest pod]

That being said, it is one of the reasons I fully support voluntary self-termination of life, and also making a DNR order bulletproof in a legal sense.

They talk about extending lifespans, but what use is living to 120 if the last 30 years of your life are spent bedridden and comatose?

Sobe is right, she was dead 15 years ago.

[Guest JMT]

voluntary assisted suicide is not the same as yanking the food from someone who cant talk. none of us are qualified to comment on her mental state. for all we know, sitting in that bed could have felt like total euphoria.