2008 Woodie Awards
What the hell is going on?
Frustrations boil over Schiavo case
Donald Woodard
Issue date: 4/25/05 Section: Opinions
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I can remember the last story that did. It was during my senior year of high school. There was an article in the Chicago Tribune about a local hospital in Chicago that over the last ten years had literally performed thousands of late-term abortions. (Those of you from this area might know what hospital I am talking about).
The knowledge of this infuriated me. I could not fathom that a hospital could, (a) be allowed to do such a thing, and come under little fire from the state and political leaders, (b) never have their funding cut, and (c) actually perform countless numbers of these procedures and still call themselves a hospital of Christ.
Recently there has been another case in the news that has given me the same feeling: the Terri Schiavo case.
I have never been as sickened by a course of events in my life as I have been with the battle over this woman's life. From her parents, to her husband, to our very own idiot-in-chief, it all had me wondering what was going on?
Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last month or simply pushed this ordeal to the side like most of America as soon as a bigger news story hit (i.e. the recent death of the Pope). Theresa Mari Schiavo was a young woman who fell into a coma nearly 15 years ago due to heart failure, which is speculated to be due to a bout with bulimia. Since then, she had been in a permanent vegetative state and needed the assistance of a breathing and feeding tube to live. After many years of a court battle between the parents and husband of Schiavo, the feeding tube was removed from the 41-year-old woman on March 18, 2005. Despite many attempts by not only the parents of Schiavo and political leaders across the nation, including President George W. Bush, the feeding tube was never re-inserted and she succumbed to dehydration on March 31, 2005.
The day I first heard this poor woman's story and the incessant childlike fighting over this woman's life like it was a puppy or something not valued more than an object between her parents and her husband, I cried.
Now in this article, I am not going to attempt to try to say which side was wrong or which side was right. I honestly do not know which side was right or wrong. In addition, I personally do not want to touch the subject of euthanasia with a 20-foot pole.
