Rep. Tom DeLay on Terri Shiavo
Congress has a legislative and moral duty to do what we can to protect her. Her life is being threatened, and we have it in our power to act on her behalf. Every human life deserves at least that much. - DeLay said on March 17, after the House passed a measure intended to prevent the withdrawal of Schiavo’s feeding tube.
I suppose I can understand how, being caught up in the moment, Rep. DeLay would think that. Congress seems to think that it is their duty to protect Terri Schiavo from the wishes of her spouse, her husband, who wants her to finally be at rest.
But what about all the other people out there who are in the same situation as Terri Schiavo? Will each of them have their own pieces of legislation to prevent someone from withdrawing life support from them as well?
And what about Rep. DeLay’s own father? Sixteen years ago, Rep. DeLay’s own father was injured in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. Because of that injury, his father “suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure”. His mother and his siblings made the decision to withhold kidney dialysis when it became clear that he would not recover.
Has Rep. DeLay had a change of heart? Would he do things differently now for his father? Or, is this just pure politics? We will probably never know the answer to that.
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council said, “Two different situations. With Terri Schiavo, there was no plug pulled, there was no respirator taken away from her. She was simply by court order deprived of food and water.”
We are splitting very very fine hairs here. The end result is death. Terri Schiavo is being deprived of her feeding tube - something that is keeping her body functioning. Rep. DeLay’s father was deprived of kidney dialysis - something that was keeping his body functioning. Both functions were withdrawn. I see no difference what so ever, other than Terri Schiavo’s situation serving the purpose of Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.
Rep. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader who led the congressional effort to spare Terri Schiavo’s life, was confronted more than 16 years ago with his own agonizing end-of-life dilemma and agreed to withdraw life support from the patient, his father, according to a report Sunday in the Los Angeles Times.
The newspaper reported that DeLay’s father, Charles Ray DeLay, 65, a drilling contractor, was severely injured in 1988 in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. [...]
The account said DeLay had suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure, and that his wife, Maxine, and their other children had made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear he could not recover.
DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object, the newspaper’s report said. (source)
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The following is an excerpt from today's Federal Court ruling regarding the request by Terri Schiavo's parents for a rehearing of the case. I think you'll find the part about "activist judges" interesting...
BIRCH, Circuit judge, specially concurring:
I concur in the denial of rehearing en banc in this case because any further action by our court or the district court, would be improper, as I explain below.
An axiom in the study of law is that "hard facts make bad law." The tragic events that have afflicted Mrs. Schiavo and that have been compounded by the resulting passionate inter-family struggle and media focus certainly qualify as "hard facts." And, while the memebers of her family and the members of Congress have acted in a way that is both fervent and sincere, the time has come for dispassionate discharge of duty.
A popular epithet directed by some members of society, including some members of Congress, toward the judiciary involves the denunciation of "activist judges." Generally, the definition of an "activist judge" is one who decides the outcome of a controversy before him according to personal conviction, even one sincerely held, as opposed to the dictated of the law as constrained by legal precedent and, ultimately, our Constitution. In resolving the Schiavo controversy it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Father's blueprint for governance of a free people -- our Constitution. Since I have sworn, as have they, to uphold and defend that Covenant, I must respectfully concur in the denial of the request for rehearing en banc.