The Smarmy Carny

ACLU

What really, truly bothers me in this instance is not that they removed the feeding tube per se, but that they have ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Removing the feeding tube is one thing, but when a patient is able to swallow, denying that person food or water just seems so much more cruel to me.

Here's a basic test on this: Have someone suggest to the courts that as an alternative to lethal injection (with sterilized needles, of course) we should also have the option to starve the inmate to death. How long do you think will go by before the ACLU pounces on that one?

The ACLU's own "About the ACLU" clearly states their own views and goals. Here are a few quotes from this page (emphasis added):

We work also to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including Native Americans and other people of color; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people; women; mental-health patients; prisoners; people with disabilities; and the poor.
If the rights of society's most vulnerable members are denied, everybody's rights are imperiled.

Thus, one might think that the ACLU would be stepping in to help Schiavo, as she is a person with a disability . Unfortunately, the ACLU seems to go out of their way to never mention "life" on this page. It's all about "liberty" instead. Without life, what use is liberty?

After a previous tirade regarding the ACLU, a left-leaning friend of mine once asked me, "What's so bad about protecting people's civil liberties?" I noted that, while nothing in the ACLU's goals was objectional. The problem is in how the ACLU chooses to carry out these objectives in a political manner is what is quite bothersome. In this particular case, the ACLU posted a headline after the courts ruled yet again against Schiavo's parents: "U.S. Supreme Court Protects Liberty in Schiavo Case." Instead of fighting to protect the disabled Schiavo's life, they are rooting for the courts to rule that the feeding tubes remain out, "a decision that protects the severely brain-damaged woman's right to withdraw her own life-sustaining treatment and prevents politicians from interfering with intensely personal medical decisions." All right, I'll go with that. Put the feeding tubes back in, and let her "withdraw her own life-sustaining treatment" on her own. She never signed a paper to declare that is what she would want.

To continue my answer to my left-leaning friend, what wasn't in the ACLU's goals was also worrisome. They have clearly picked specific, particular groups. Am I saying these groups could not use assistance in protecting their liberties? Not at all. There is an obvious lack of protection for other groups who need protection as well. Unfortunately for those groups, their philosophies do not line up with the ACLU's political aspirations. Thus, you aren't included in our list of "people to help."

Meanwhile, a Cabot farmer convicted of starving his cows to death has begun serving a reparative sentence imposed by Washington County prosecutors as part of a plea bargain. Surprisingly, the ACLU focuses on humans and I could not find any comment on this particular case. Unfortunately for the farmer, all of his cows were healthy. If they had terminal diseases or disabilities, it probably would have been perfectly acceptable to starve them.

Perhaps the ACLU would care to go back and change a few things from history. First and foremost, they would alter Patrick Henry's famous saying and display it in their doorways:

Give me liberty and give me death!

Of course, they wouldn't quote the entire speech, as the previous sentence references God. Additionally, I can only imagine that the ACLU has a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and it looks like this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 at 09:01 by Novac and is filed under All, Health, Politics. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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