The good Rev. Jackson is in town!
Jesse Jackson Urges Fla. Woman Be Kept Alive
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson pleaded on Tuesday for Terri Schiavo to be kept alive as the brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of a bitter family and political dispute slipped toward death.
"She is being starved to death, she is being dehydrated to death. That's immoral and unnecessary," the civil rights leader told reporters after meeting Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, near the hospice where she is being cared for.
Schiavo's feeding tube was removed on March 18 after a protracted court battle between Schiavo's husband, who is her legal guardian, and the Schindlers that galvanized many U.S. religious conservatives.
The case prompted the Republican-led U.S. Congress to pass a special law pushing the case into the federal courts, and President Bush cut short a vacation to sign it.
Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has also intervened in the case.
But recent polls have shown most Americans felt Congress should have stayed out of Schiavo's case, and that the government should stay out of families' life and death decisions. A CBS poll last week found that 82 percent of Americans felt Congress should have stayed out of the case.
'PROFOUND MORAL ISSUES'
The Schindler's invited Jackson to visit to boost their effort to keep their daughter alive against court orders and her husband's wishes. Michael Schiavo believes his wife, 41 and severely brain-damaged for 15 years, would never have wanted to live in this state.
"This is one of the profound moral issues of our time," said Jackson, adding he was in touch with members of the Florida legislature to try to get them to intervene.
"We ask today for some hard hearts to be softened up."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...hts_schiavo_dc
Interesting. I wasn't aware that you could shake down someone in a persistent vegitative state.
aV
