a new low
 

Deviant?

Re: the 30 doctors who signed something about Terri magically waking up, did the biased article you read mention how many doctors are willing to sign something saying "everything but her brain stem is liquid"? I mean, fuck, the right-to-life people have doctors willing to say almost anything. People who have medical degrees but believe that Jesus can reconstitute a brain if He so chooses.

a new low
 

These are the 17 expert affidavits filed by her family. Help me find a single one addresses the cerebral cortex issue, much less the validity of the scan. None have examined her, none of them have looked at the scan, and they base their expert opinions on the heavily edited videos provided by her parents. Hell, two claim to be "Dr."s without having any credentials to back the title up.

See more here, and more here.

ETA: The family claims that the speech pathologist is a doctor. Sorry about the mix up. The one with the "doctorate" in neuroscience has a Ph.D. in counseling psychology.

The Truth Comes Out
 

Apparently, the SCt hasn't found it.

• Although most observers consider it unlikely that the Supreme Court would accept a case about internal Senate rules, the Court did uphold the principle of supermajorities in a case involving local voting rules requiring a majority of 60 percent to pass a measure. The Court’s ruling stated: “Certainly any departure from strict majority rule gives disproportionate power to the minority. But there is nothing in the language of the Constitution, our history, or our cases that requires that a majority always prevail on every issue.” Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1 at 6 (1971).

liberal wuss website, but whatever, it's a quote to the SCt decision

a new low
 

I think it probably gos beyond their own need for media attention. Rather, she's become the latest totem in the battle over right to die/sanctity of life debate. Regardless of what she would have wanted given her current situation, I'm comfortable betting it wasn't to be held up as a symbol for the religious right's battle against heathens.

a new low
 

Actually, I just went now and googled her name and "medical evidence." Sounds like her cc is basically gone, which, in my limited knowledge, changes this from "they just want to make sure everything possible has been tried" to "this is just sad."

Ah, well. I think that, were she my kid, I might be going to (almost) the same lengths, mostly out of an unwillingness to accept my kid's death. I can't think of anything harder.

Again, just sad. If there's a bright spot, it's that, without her cc, she ain't feeling no pain.

a new low
 

No, i know, but I was reacting to the "the husband is just in it for the $$" argument advanced by bilmore, the credulous reader.

The Truth Comes Out
 

Kind of a different issue, no? Last time I checked, local government, if mentioned at all in the Const., is in the 10th amend. Congress, however, is in Article I, and the Const. does specify supermajority voting rules in certain instances (e.g., overrriding vetos, const. amendments). It seems fair to presume that the framers contemplated that tradiotnal majority rule would be the default in Congress.

a new low
 

I don't know much about the facts, but I sympathize with bilmore's point. Perhaps they love her. Perhaps they don't want her to die. They're holding on to what they've got (vegetative though it may be).

The point is, we have a variety of laws and procedures to resolve these problems, and everyone -- including the U.S. Congress -- should respect them. At some point, you have to be willing to accept procedural defeat, and that other people have other views, and sometimes the system respects their views instead of yours. Congressional Republicans have a hard time with that.

Which brings us back nicely to judicial filibusters.

a new low
 

Remember what we do. I can find a doc who will sign an affidavit saying anything I want. They have them on all sides. But, are you willing to interpose your own medical knowledge on this? If twenty docs signed saying her cc was fine, and twenty signed saying it was mush, would you automatically disbelieve the first group?

a new low
 

Lotta typing you wasted given you had no fucking clue about the facts.

Makes me oh-so-much-more inclined to accept your judgment in those things you opine on that I actually DON'T know anything about.

Way to boost your credibility.

a new low
 

Nah. It's their religious belief (them Catholics don't like the removal of feeding/hydration tubes) combined with their understandable unwillingness to give up any hope while their daughter still breathes.

I don't really blame the parents. I blame the people who are using them to pander. Jeb Bush is all about the culture of life, and the whole Catholic agenda (he converted to Catholicism when he got married) -- except when it comes to signing death warrants, that is.

a new low
 

I thought i made it fairly clear that I was passing on what I had read - because there was confusion about what was being done or claimed? Note how I stated a couple of times my overall lack of knowledge about the whole thing, but that I had read certain things?

So now, having read more, I have formed my own beliefs about the right and wrong - but my answers earlier are still valid.

a new low
 

I actually do not blame the parents. I feel bad/sad for them. I was, as I said somewhere, reacting to bilmore's assertion that the husband is just in it for the money.

a new low
 

If a jury votes to convict and sentence to death a murderer, and the murderer gets a direct appeal, a collateral state appeal, and then an opportunity to prove in federal court that the evidence or trial procedure was flawed, and then gets to appeal for clemency to the governor, I don't care what 20 "experts" say--they've gotten plenty of chances. Schiavo's family has gotten far more chances than any murderer (of course, she wasn't a murderer). But the point is ultimately the same--at some point, a person has exhausted all reasonable avenues to persuade someone that they're right. They've failed to, and continuing to pursue it through any channel is undignified and disrespects the very person they're purporting to "save".

The Truth Comes Out
 

But Article I also empowers each House to establish its own Rules, and these rules plainly may have the effect of preventing the majority from voting in favor of something. That surely was understood by the framers, since it was a robust feature of the English parliamentary tradition on which they drew.