really really really bad taste. I mean it.

[kellinator]

Is it a sign of just how cynical I've gotten that a big part of me is wondering if now Terri Schiavo's parents and their cronies in the religious right who have exploited her for political gain are pissed that she's no longer the biggest death-related news story of the day?

Comments

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

I remember that Mother Teresa died around the same time as Princess Diana, and she got the short end of the stick.

Because some ditzy, inbred blonde deserves more press than a woman who devoted her whole life to helping the poor and unwanted.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

by exhorting them to create more poor and unwanted.

diana didn't just sit around on her thumb. she used her celebrity to help with charitable causes as well. it ain't much, but it's more than most of us do.

Thank you.

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Mother Teresa wasn't the devil, but neither was she God. She's someone who was quoted more than once as saying that suffering was good because it drew people closer to God, and as such people who left her order said she frowned upon giving painkillers to those who were hurting.

Re: Thank you.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

right. she was one of the stricter catholics out there, it would seem. once upon a time most of them thought as she did. thankfully that is no longer the case, except maybe concerning birth control and abortion. although, even that merited no commentary nor Official Stance until women started making serious strides towards equality.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. The fact that Mother Teresa was against birth control completely invalidates everything else she ever did.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

in some ways, it did. what's the point in helping the poor if you're just going to insist they make more poor? and we're not talking one or two kids per poor mother here. if that were the case it might not be such a big deal. mother teresa worked in a community where mothers had LOTS of kids. not such a big deal for rich families, and even desirable in their culture. VERY big deal for middle-class and poor families. having children's the one major life decision you can make that can permanently make you or break you from a financial point of view.

she didn't care. that just blows my mind.

[missakins.livejournal.com]

Mother Teresa was Blonde?

I remember a lot of charity money and work coming from Diana.

[unanon.livejournal.com]

Appropriately snarky, yes. Not very Catholic PC either.

Still, it's practically the same thought that crossed my mind so...*shrug*

[yendi]

It speaks to your relative innocence that you're merely wondering. I'm certain of it, as much as I'm certain they were pissed when Johnny Cochran knocked them off the front page for an hour, and when that Jesus guy took them off the front page on Sunday.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Terri Schiavo's parents need to go back to living now, and I don't know if they remember how. They've made a career of being her parents for the last seven years, if not the entire fifteen. If they mourn and return to private life I might consider them sincere in their concern for their child, but right now I suspect they will continue to batten on her death as the poster-children (poster-parents?) for the Religious Wrong.

[pokeyturtle.livejournal.com]

if they think she died wrongfully, you can bet that's what they'll do, since the left obviously doesn't give a shit about what they've gone through.

way to go, us.

it isn't unusual for parents of a child taken by tragic circumstances to try to use that death to raise awareness of the circumstances. ryan white's parents did it for hiv/aids, after all. i wonder if the right wing was as venomous about them as some of us are being about the schindlers.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Ryan White's family didn't sell lists of people who donated to them.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Well, some of the right are calling Michael Schiavo a murderer, the judges are getting death threats, and the protesters are holding up blood-dripping signs. So the answer is yes, in spades.

As for giving a shit about what they've gone through, I do. I've been through a family struggle over what to do about a dying family member, and trust me, there is nothing easy about it. The advantage that I and my family had is that the birth-family in our case didn't drag the issue into the courts, congress, press, etc., etc., when they could not convince the marriage-family that theirs was the right course. As a result, and unfortunately only several years after the death in question, the rift in the family was mended. More or less. Mind you, it wasn't until the death of yet another relative that anyone would speak to anyone else.

Meanwhile, of course, people are being removed from life-support and feeding tubes all over the country, in some cases against the wishes of their families, and no one *except* the left gives a shit about them. People are dying for lack of basic medical care, and no one except the left gives a shit about them. People are hungry and homeless in this, the richest country in the world, and no one except the left gives a shit about them. In the last two weeks, since the feeding tube was removed from Terri Schiavo, I have worked two days in a food pantry and cooked two meals for the homeless, one on twelve hours notice. I didn't see any of the "Right to Life (but not to food or shelter)" activists *there*.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

I think people do "give a shit" about the Schindlers' situation. I certainly do. They acted the way they did because they still believed their daughter was in there. Medical science tells us her brain was not working--there was nothing there but fluid--but perhaps she was aware in a way we cannot yet measure or understand. I think that's what they were holding on to. For anyone who is/was a parent or has loved a child like a parent would, how can you not feel sorry for the Schindlers?

Having said that, I don't understand their need to get the media involved in this. I can see where you're going with the Ryan White comparison--and it's true, his mother did work to raise AIDS awareness by bringing attention to her son's plight. But I think the comparison starts to fall apart; Mrs. White didn't show pictures of her dying son (meaning when he was in the final stages) to the press.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

I would also like to add that while perhaps some of those politicians who got involved did so out of sincere beliefs, I think the majority stuck their nose in because it would make them look good politically.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I think you meant to respond to bigbabyleomoon, not me. I have to say I agree with you, however.

[sleepinbeauty.livejournal.com]

It's okay. I had similar thoughts today.

[dorei.livejournal.com]

I'd agree about the cronies part. As for her parents, I don't know for certain about that.

When someone you love dies, it's hard to look beyond your little circle of the world to other things, or at least, not see everything through the shadow of that. I'm certain that many of things they have said are out of anger and hurt because they're very self-focused. Then again, grief IS a self-focused process. I would not be surprised at all if they view the Pope's passing as some sort of sign regarding the passing of their daughter.

When you're grieving, you want to alternately lash out at everyone and at the same time look for comfort. Nothing makes you feel more helpless than watching someone you love die -- I imagine it's even greater when it's your child. The natural progression is that you should not outlive your progeny.

As for those cronies, though -- I think they're pissed. The religious right likes a good bone. And the politicians don't want you remembering the problems overseas and this is a good smokescreen that is now clearing.

[leopard-print.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the religious right and the republicans are pissed. I think it's unfair to lump her parents in the same category though.

I'll be honest, if I were in Terri's position, I wouldn't want to be kept alive. However, if my parents had any doubt that that was the case (which they don't) I would want them to fight for me. I wouldn't want the media flashing my vegitated face all over the world but I hope my parents wouldn't just throw in the towel and say 'Fuck it, who cares if she might've wanted to live? Who cares if there's any possible hope for her?'

If your own family won't fight for you to the end of the world and back, you've got nothing.

I admire her parent's stance as much as I admire her husband's. Anybody who can't empathize with both sides of such a tragic circumstance is being just as short-sighted as all the people using it to gain attention for themselves.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I am being pretty damn cold-hearted towards her parents. Why? Well, they sold the donor list. Can you imagine the outcry from the right if Michael Schiavo had done that? They plastered her face everywhere, looking as pathetic as possible. Based on what little I know of Terri Schiavo, I don't think she would have wanted that. They took away her dignity. And they were not her most frequent visitors over the years -- that was Michael.

If my parents did that to me, I'd come back from beyond and beat 'em with a stick.

I grok what you're saying, but their behavior has made me very unsympathetic. I feel like they've pimped their daughter out to promote a political agenda -- and they even admitted that even if they knew for sure being unplugged was what Terri wanted, they wouldn't do it.

Then again, I don't think this would even be an issue in my family, which makes it very hard for me to imagine. Almost to a man, we've pretty much all stated that we wouldn't want to exist like that.

[leopard-print.livejournal.com]

I agree that the donor list was incredibly poor taste. I also agree that the Right would've freaked out had Michael done the same thing. I also still think the parents weren't acting solely out of selfish reasons.

I still stand by my position that no one ought to judge any of the family members on either side because we haven't had the distinct discomfort of walking a mile in those shoes. We can sit here all day and flap on about how we'd handle this, that, or the other, but the truth is, we have no idea. You never know how much heat you can stand until you get burned.

Sorry, I live in too delicate a glass house to go casting stones at others. I prefer (when possible) to err on the side of sympathy in the hope that when my turn to be burned at the stake comes, someone else will take the same view of me. Of course, I realize more than a few people I know will likely not give me that courtesy. It's so much easier just to jump to conclusions, in either direction.

You're entitled to your opinion, as am I. We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Fair 'nuff. I appreciate the food for thought.

[leopard-print.livejournal.com]

As do I.

[poprockgrrl.livejournal.com]

besides the sleazy selling of donors' names and plastering her face everywhere, I lost every ounce of sympathy for those asshats when they said they would have kept her alive even if she had a living will that said not to. If you don't respect someone's wishes, you're an ass.

[nyxalinth.livejournal.com]

Someone else on my friends list commented that Bush gave more of a shit about the death of one white, Christian woman than he did about the deaths of women and children in Iraq.

She's right.

Of course, now that she's dead, everyone has to keep going on about it. And it looks like the Pope is next. I wonder what he'll discover when he gets to heaven (stops right here for fear of offending anyone's beliefs.)

[on-se-dit-tu.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that THEY couldn't simply allow that poor woman to die with dignity. There are fates worse than death...