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

[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.