Right to Life: Bush vs. Bush by Dale Tozier
The Republicans have been busy protecting the sanctity of life this past week. They called an extraordinary recess session so that on March 19th they could pass a bill directing the federal courts to intervene with a hearing on the Terri Schiavo case.
President Bush felt so strongly about the sanctity of life that he returned to Washington from his usual state of vacationing so that he would be available to immediately sign the legislation ... which he did, early on the morning of March 20th.
While the Schiavo case became a virtual media circus, there was also a less widely covered "Right to Life" case in the news that same week. This was the case of a baby named Sun Hudson. The parents of the baby Hudson lost their bid to keep their teminally ill son on life support in a Texas hospital. Over the parents' tearful objections, Sun Hudson was removed from life support and died on March 15th, a mere five days before Bush moved to "save" Terri Shiavo.
It seems that there is a Texas law which gives hospitals the right to decide on their own to end life support for any terminally ill patient when the hospital determines that further care is futile. The law specifies that hospitals may make the decision to terminate life support even if the patient's family objects, and it specifically allows the hospital to consider the matter of the family's ability to pay for the
medical care when deciding whether or not to terminate life support.
Coincidentally, George W. Bush also played a role in that other "Right to Life" case, for it was Governor George W. Bush who signed that Texas bill into law after it was passed by the Republican Texas legislature in 1999.
At first I was a bit befuddled by the apparent contradiction of President Bush advocating "life" for the brain-dead Terri Schiavo, whose next of kin favored allowing her to die, when Governor Bush had signed a law allowing hospitals to end the life of terminally ill patients, even if done over the objections of the patients' family.
But then, I realized that there really was no contradiction. The Schiavo bill was solely about the sanctity of life. However, in the case of the Texas bill, there was more involved than merely the sanctity of life ... for that bill was really about the sanctity of hospital profits. Given the competing moral claims of the sanctity of life versus the sanctity of profits, clearly George W. Bush believes that the dollar should trump life.
As President Bush said last week, "...it is wise to always err on the side of life ... as long as that does not mean lost corporate profits." (Okay, I confess that I added the last part of that quote. My bad.)
Dale E. Tozier
President Bush felt so strongly about the sanctity of life that he returned to Washington from his usual state of vacationing so that he would be available to immediately sign the legislation ... which he did, early on the morning of March 20th.
While the Schiavo case became a virtual media circus, there was also a less widely covered "Right to Life" case in the news that same week. This was the case of a baby named Sun Hudson. The parents of the baby Hudson lost their bid to keep their teminally ill son on life support in a Texas hospital. Over the parents' tearful objections, Sun Hudson was removed from life support and died on March 15th, a mere five days before Bush moved to "save" Terri Shiavo.
It seems that there is a Texas law which gives hospitals the right to decide on their own to end life support for any terminally ill patient when the hospital determines that further care is futile. The law specifies that hospitals may make the decision to terminate life support even if the patient's family objects, and it specifically allows the hospital to consider the matter of the family's ability to pay for the
medical care when deciding whether or not to terminate life support.
Coincidentally, George W. Bush also played a role in that other "Right to Life" case, for it was Governor George W. Bush who signed that Texas bill into law after it was passed by the Republican Texas legislature in 1999.
At first I was a bit befuddled by the apparent contradiction of President Bush advocating "life" for the brain-dead Terri Schiavo, whose next of kin favored allowing her to die, when Governor Bush had signed a law allowing hospitals to end the life of terminally ill patients, even if done over the objections of the patients' family.
But then, I realized that there really was no contradiction. The Schiavo bill was solely about the sanctity of life. However, in the case of the Texas bill, there was more involved than merely the sanctity of life ... for that bill was really about the sanctity of hospital profits. Given the competing moral claims of the sanctity of life versus the sanctity of profits, clearly George W. Bush believes that the dollar should trump life.
As President Bush said last week, "...it is wise to always err on the side of life ... as long as that does not mean lost corporate profits." (Okay, I confess that I added the last part of that quote. My bad.)
Dale E. Tozier
posted by Satya | 3:09 AM
<< Home