C’mon, pro-lifers - where are the vigils? Is this child’s life not precious? And apparently she’s got a 5% chance to live, if treated, as opposed to Terry Schiavo’s approximately .0000001% chance of being anything besides a vegetable for the rest of her bodily life.
Oh, she’s black, isn’t she? I hate to be cynical here, but that other kid they pulled the plug on in Texas a few weeks back, the one that barely made the news during the Schiavo vigil, was also black.
And it’s in Texas, and there are no obvious libruls to blame this on - you’d have to bring up the law that GWB signed while guv, the one that says hospitals can pull the plug - over the family’s and even the patient’s objections - if there’s no one to pay the bills.
So, is this getting any play with Pat Robertson or James Dobson or any of the other Usual Suspects? Is GWB getting rousted out of bed to sign a bill overruling the law he signed while governor?
You can hear the crickets chirping, can’t you? It sure is pretty damned quiet around there.
Mods: I’m not sure if there’s a debate here or not; if you were to decide that this is just a Pitting of the Christian Right and their Savior, George W. Bush, I could hardly gainsay you.
I have no idea what being “pro life” and the person in question being “black” has to do with each other, other than a cheap shot at people you don’t like.
Not that the issue isn’t valid: As I mentioned before (in a thread about Laci Peterson), people of all political and religious affiliations (left, right, center, green) don’t give a shit about you if you’re missing and are NOT white, female, and upper-class. There are plenty of black men missing in America, but only the pretty white lasses get the press coverage. Just ask that wedding chick down in Atlanta.
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Oh, she’s black, isn’t she? I hate to be cynical here, but that other kid they pulled the plug on in Texas a few weeks back, the one that barely made the news during the Schiavo vigil, was also black.
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I understand the anger, but this is a media problem, not a religious one. Terry Schiavo was getting coverage for years before the recent media explosion. It makes no sense, but then, I think those who decided that Michael Jackson and OJ and whatnot were news ought to hang their heads in shame and quit.
When did you turn into Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton? You used to be rational, what happened that made you think that playing the race card is a valid debating tool?
Anyway, the bottom line is this: If I could do anything about any of this, I still wouldn’t, just as I wouldn’t have saved Terri Schiavo. In that case I chose to register my disapproval with the method of her death. I choose not to get involved in any “right to die” arguments because it’s like abortion: no matter what my opinion is I wouldn’t change anything, because it’s not my place to do so, and I think what we have now, while flawed, is about as good as it is going to get.
Do I wish that this girl could be saved? Absolutely. If they starve her to death, will I disapprove of the method? Absolutely. Can I save every sick person on Earth? Absolutely not, and for the sake of my soul I choose not to.
So tone down the rhetoric, man. It’s possible to question why one case is world famous and one is known, but it doesn’t require you to pick a fight to do so, and the way you framed the question you’re being a prick and you know it, and it’s completely unnecessary.
I don’t really know why you’re trying to bait an argument here, RTFirefly.
I’m about as pro-life as they come, especially on these boards. But that doesn’t mean that all medical treatments are always appropriate, or that nature cannot be allowed to take its course at times.
All three of my children were born prematurely, and we had to deal with some issues while they were in the NICU. And while they are all healthy and happy now, I’m well aware that it could have gone the other way. If that had happened, we would have had to draw the line somewhere.
My cousin had to deal with this with his daughter, who was born with a heart defect. After several operations and hospital stays, she finally died right before her second birthday. Now, her life may have been extended by more invasive means - but it would have served no purpose. This little girl would never have lived much more in any case.
Pro-life doesn’t mean always hooking up the machines, you know.
What a troubling case. The child’s 5% chance at life far exceeds (by about 5%) that of Terri Schiavo. Certainly the board of Hermann Hospital have to be conscious of the bottom line, but to deny a patient care because of inability to pay really shouldn’t happen in today’s society. This isn’t on your network news because you don’t have any video clips to go with it, nor any family fights and no court battles. Not on news= no public outcry = no reaction from politicians. If it was on your television news each night, perhaps the religious right would rally to her side as well. We’ll never know.
Sometimes airman race does matter. Don’t know in this case, but to wave away the possibly that the reason these kids aren’t getting the attention of the media or the “culture of life”, because of their color, flies in the face of several centuries of history in this country.
You might not be a racist. You might not interfere in other people’s affairs, but to ignore and wave away that others do, is naive at best.
And I wish just once we can have a discussion concerning the possibility of race as an issue without trotting out Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, until they make their presense known. It’s just so…tiring.
What’s tiring is how people frame arguments under the assumption that race is what it is. There are thousands of people who get the plug pulled yearly, and none of them are as vocal or as persistent as the Schiavos. That one got play because of the conflict between the family and the husband. If there were such a controversy here it would be all over the papers, black or not.
I’m really sick to death of “you don’t care because they’re balck” arguments. No, I don’t care because it’s not brought to my attention, and I don’t care because there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I couldn’t care less if the person were black, although it’s obvious that some people do, if only to score cheap points.
Moto These guys were screaming that the liberals and their activist judges were killing Terry Schiavo. That they should be one more test. They should try one more judge. That life was to be preserved if there was a chance.
Terry Schiavo’s brain was NEVER going to get better. This little girl has a chance and no one is claiming that she wouldn’t want to have that chance. The ‘government’ is.
You have this little girl who has a chance. A small chance, but a chance none the-less and she will be denied that chance because of a policy put in place by the man who ran to congress in order to create law to protect ONE person from the “law”.
The question is why Terry Schiavo and not this little girl or the one before her?
I agree. I think this argument would cause the pro-life debate to lose a few points. Irregardless of race in this case. It’s obvious with the facts. A 5% chance (give or take a few) compared to Schaivo’s 0% chance of recovery, is undeniably a much greater chance at survival. Even if it’s not the greatest treatment, it is a chance for this little girl. Now I didn’t really like the idea with starving Terry, but it is a method of life support. Our body requires us to eat, Terri could not feed herself. The feeding tube was life support for Terri.
Either way, where’s CNN and MSNBC’s coverage for this? :rolleyes:
Those thousands of cases had a legal guardian making the decisions. This case has the government deciding…do you understand the difference? Agree or not, Terry Schiavo had family making the decision and the government followed the rule or law. This time, it’s the government deciding OVER the entire family. The mother or father isn’t saying that this little girl doesn’t want the chance. The government is saying they don’t deserve the chance…because it’s only 5% and cost too much money.
I supported the Schiavo decision. However had the entire family agreed that she didn’t want to die, I would be against the government pulling her plug, as I am this little girl.
Airman No one has said that YOU Airman don’t care because she’s black…however it’s not unreasonable or race-baiting to suggest that had this child been a blond blue eyed darling, with appropriate parents, the media might have latched on to it…before it’s too, little too late.
Race, wealth, attractiveness or gore shouldn’t matter in whether or not the media takes an interest in a story…but it does. Admitting that it does matter sometimes, isn’t scoring points, but seeing the world as it is.
And you should care, even if you can’t do anything about it; because it could be your kid next.
We’re all just one paycheck, one fried transmission, one flood from being this woman and relying on the kindness of strangers.
How does this fit in with the federal Baby Doe legislation we’ve recently discussed? I thought that with the Baby Doe law, the parents had no choice to decline treatment for a baby.
Now they don’t have a choice to continue it without means to pay? Are these laws in conflict? Or do they cover different circumstances?
Unless you have evidence that the sole reason this particular case did not receive the amount of media attention that the Terri Schiavo case did is because this baby is black, then yes it is unreasonable to suggest that and it is race baiting.
Wondering why, or even trying to find out why, seems reasonable. Assuming that race had anything to do with it, absent some kind of evidence, does not seem remotely reasonable. It’s the race card that’s been played and played out.
catsix what evidence would satisfy you? If I have a wealthy woman found death in crackhouse and a poor woman found dead in a crackhouse which one is going to get more media play? Am I class-baiting when I assume that the reason the media played the wealthy woman is because her wealth makes her a more sellable story?
Slight hijack: Many, many years ago, I worked at a bodybuilding magazine and it was at the time when most of the Champions were African-Americans; but the only time they got on the cover was when they won a major championship. The rest of the time it was white guys and girls. So finally I asked, why do you keep pulling my covers and the publisher said, “The magazines don’t sell well, especially in the South, when we have black people on the covers, … and we have a business to run.” He had the number of returns and there it was…in black and white, you could see the newstands sales drop when there was a black person on the cover.
Now we’re talking 15 years ago or so, but it was an eye-opener for me. Actually seeing how race effects the “media” and the decisions that people made. Now out of hatred, but simply financial reasons.
I don’t know if Terry Schaivo had not been white or if these two children had been if the media would’ve pushed it and that I think is the real problem.