Once in a great while, I write a letter to the editor to our local fishwrap, the Ann Arbor News. I was inspired this time by the Schiavo Affair, and the emergency session of Congress which produced a law specifically designed to provide leverage to help Terri's parents keep her alive, no matter how brain-dead she might be.

Left: Normal 25 year old; Right: Terri Schiavo's 2002 CT scan (stolen from Wikipedia)

Or how much, legally, her husband Michael is supposed to be directing her care and carrying out her wishes.

Another hobby of mine is looking for amazing and goofy stuff said and done by George W. Bush. Blogging around, I tripped over this doozy ages before AP moved it, and shared it with the Bush endorsing News:

Bush OK'd law to let life support stop

In 1999, Gov. George W. Bush signed into law chapter 166 of the Texas Health and Safety Code. This law permits physicians to stop life-sustaining treatment for terminally ill children even if their parents disagree with the decision.

On March 15, 2005, '... Sun Hudson, the nearly 6-month-old at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, diagnosed and slowly dying with a rare form of dwarfism (thanatophoric dysplasia), was taken off the ventilator that was keeping him alive. A Houston court authorized the hospital's action, and Sun died shortly thereafter ...

'Both papers report that this is the first time in the United States a court has allowed life-sustaining treatment to be withdrawn from a pediatric patient over the objections of the child's parent. ... If true, the unique Texas statute under which this saga was played out contributed in no small way to the outcome.' From: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/ healthlawprof_blog/2005/03/lifesupport_sto.html", "Life-Support Stopped for 6-Month-Old in Houston," by associate professor of law Thomas Wm. Mayo of the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, one of the law's cowriters.

Bush is a hypocrite. Or, he doesn't know what he's signing.

Alan Benard, Ann Arbor

 

A hobby of person or persons unknown in the News service area is sending vaguely threatening, anonymous, and extremely angry notes to the homes of liberals who — in signed, published letters — point out that President Bush lies about stuff, or starts wars for no good reason, etc. There was a rash of these around here in Ann Arbor around the start of the Occupation of Iraq — folks at my local Unitarian Church (scroll down to "Religious Education Friday Night") received some of them.

So, imagine my pride as an indignant, liberal crank to receive my very own vaguely threatening, poorly written, very angry, misaddressed (to some guy named Arnold Benard) and anonymous hate mail!

Bush DID not ok to let life support stop

Ass-hole!

A law in Texas in 1999, what fucking intelligence you have, I will bet IF that was true, it no longer applies, but balless you wouldn't even look to see that it had, and secondly numb- nuts, Mr. Bush can not prevent Terri Schaivo's death, only God can do that.

Why don't you go down to Texas and protest? what the fuck are you waiting for? so! there maybe laws in some states that you don't approve of, I do not think that you have the full view of any case you stated, if you had the full story, you would either never write or if you did you would write to fit your agenda and I do think you have one.

How is Bush a hypocrite? I have a living will and will not be put on life support, could it be, those who stated may have had something similar? to a shallow mind like yours, most likely not."

How could one respond to this? One can't — except to mourn that, in the (rejected) Bush budget for FY 2006, " . . .one in three programs slated for elimination is in education".