Monday, March 21, 2005
I Will Try Not To Say Much More About This Subject But I Found This Article Interesting
From Salon.com:
As Republicans plotted congressional intervention last week to extend the life of Terri Schiavo, a Texas woman named Wanda Hudson watched her six-month-old baby die in her arms after doctors removed the breathing tube that kept him alive. Hudson didn't want the tube removed, but the baby's doctors decided for her. A judge signed off on the decision under the Texas futile care law -- a provision first signed into law in 1999 by then-Gov. George W. Bush.
Under the 1999 law, doctors in Texas can, with the support of a hospital ethics committee, can overrule the wishes of family members and terminate life-support measures if they believe further care would be futile. Bush signed the bill after interested parties, including anti-abortion activists, agreed on compromise language that required hospitals to give families 10 days' notice before terminating care and to help families find an alternative treatment facility that would continue care instead.
That process worked last week for the family of Spiro Nikolouzos, a retired electrical engineer who was critically injured in a car accident 10 years ago and has been in a persistent vegetative state since at least 2001. The Houston Chronicle reports that a lawyer for Nikolouzos' family was able to delay the termination of care by a Houston hospital just long enough for the family to find a nursing home in San Antonio that would take him in.
Wanda Hudson didn't have that option. According to the Chronicle, Texas Children's Hospital said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but not one of them would accept Hudson's baby. He died last Tuesday, just minutes after doctors removed his breathing tube. So far as we can tell, neither the White House nor any member of Congress made any effort to intervene in the case.
I guess I just don't understand the way people have taken one woman's story and used her image so shamelessly as a poster-person for their cause. If I were Terry Schiavo I would be furious. But then again I suppose she doesn't even realize what's going on.
Just for the record I'd like to say that if anything ever happens to me like what happened to this poor woman fifteen years ago- PLEASE DON'T KEEP ME HANGING AROUND FOR OVER A DECADE AND THEN PARADE ME AROUND ON TV. Just don't keep me around at all, ok? We really should require everybody to state in writing such wishes.
Thank you very much. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
As Republicans plotted congressional intervention last week to extend the life of Terri Schiavo, a Texas woman named Wanda Hudson watched her six-month-old baby die in her arms after doctors removed the breathing tube that kept him alive. Hudson didn't want the tube removed, but the baby's doctors decided for her. A judge signed off on the decision under the Texas futile care law -- a provision first signed into law in 1999 by then-Gov. George W. Bush.
Under the 1999 law, doctors in Texas can, with the support of a hospital ethics committee, can overrule the wishes of family members and terminate life-support measures if they believe further care would be futile. Bush signed the bill after interested parties, including anti-abortion activists, agreed on compromise language that required hospitals to give families 10 days' notice before terminating care and to help families find an alternative treatment facility that would continue care instead.
That process worked last week for the family of Spiro Nikolouzos, a retired electrical engineer who was critically injured in a car accident 10 years ago and has been in a persistent vegetative state since at least 2001. The Houston Chronicle reports that a lawyer for Nikolouzos' family was able to delay the termination of care by a Houston hospital just long enough for the family to find a nursing home in San Antonio that would take him in.
Wanda Hudson didn't have that option. According to the Chronicle, Texas Children's Hospital said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but not one of them would accept Hudson's baby. He died last Tuesday, just minutes after doctors removed his breathing tube. So far as we can tell, neither the White House nor any member of Congress made any effort to intervene in the case.
I guess I just don't understand the way people have taken one woman's story and used her image so shamelessly as a poster-person for their cause. If I were Terry Schiavo I would be furious. But then again I suppose she doesn't even realize what's going on.
Just for the record I'd like to say that if anything ever happens to me like what happened to this poor woman fifteen years ago- PLEASE DON'T KEEP ME HANGING AROUND FOR OVER A DECADE AND THEN PARADE ME AROUND ON TV. Just don't keep me around at all, ok? We really should require everybody to state in writing such wishes.
Thank you very much. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Because We Can, That's Why
I wasn't going to say anything about the Terry Schiavo drama playing its way out in the courts and press, but now Congress has intervened with a bill to overrule the courts with a last minute bill passed this morning at 12:20AM about which House Leader Bill Frist actually said:
"This is a unique bill passed under unique circumstances that SHOULD NOT SERVE AS PRECEDENT FOR FUTRURE LEGISLATION".
I would say something about this but I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. Regardless of what side anyone takes on this matter, what kind of law are they making that can't be used as legal precedent in the future? Did Congress suddenly become a six-year-old who constantly keeps making new rules in the middle of the game and then denies them to their opponent when they start to play along?
"This is a unique bill passed under unique circumstances that SHOULD NOT SERVE AS PRECEDENT FOR FUTRURE LEGISLATION".
I would say something about this but I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. Regardless of what side anyone takes on this matter, what kind of law are they making that can't be used as legal precedent in the future? Did Congress suddenly become a six-year-old who constantly keeps making new rules in the middle of the game and then denies them to their opponent when they start to play along?
Sunday, March 20, 2005
You Be Quiet. I'll Be Peace.
Because I have known you for going on fifteen years, I know that you will still love me even after I post this photo of you from 1991:
And because you love me I know I can tell the whole internets that on the pink (yes, PINK) wall behind your daybed- even though you can't see it in the photo- there are two gigantic posters of Luke Perry and Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills 90210.
And because I love you I will also post this gawgeous picture of your beautiful twenty-seven year old self:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE JO!
XOXOXO
P.S. We'll be hitting that piano bar real soon.
And because you love me I know I can tell the whole internets that on the pink (yes, PINK) wall behind your daybed- even though you can't see it in the photo- there are two gigantic posters of Luke Perry and Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills 90210.
And because I love you I will also post this gawgeous picture of your beautiful twenty-seven year old self:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE JO!
XOXOXO
P.S. We'll be hitting that piano bar real soon.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
For Frodo
I just had to get this Aragorn (from Return of the King) action figure at Kaybee Toys yesterday when we were at the mall. Of course, I then was obligated to purchase a My Little Pony for Juliana since I couldn't very well tell her that only Mommy was allowed to get a toy at the toy store.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Eat Your Heart Out Jennifer Beals
I finally got my new stationary bike and it's awesome! If you remember, my old one was apparently designed for someone born a handful of decades before myself so I exchanged it for a snazzy new one that I can actullly adjust the resistance on and I. LOVE IT. Jason was so nice to put it together for me yesterday so I took it for a test run just now for about 30 minutes. It's so nice to change things up from my normal step aerobics routine because as much as the dvds I work out to kick my butt, I think I was about to poke Kathy Smith's right eye out if I had to listen to her voice for another successive day. Riding the bike also cemented my desire for an iPod even more since I don't really want to hop off to change the music playing on the computer if a song comes on that I don't want to hear. For example, I had forgotten that I had most of Sasha's dance recital music in my music library and halfway through my bike ride the theme from the movie "Flashdance" came on and the cheesiness of me on the bike pedaling along to "What a feelin', You can really have it all..." was just a little bit too much to take.
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