On the Schiavo controversy

The Schiavo case strikes me as somewhat bizarre.

Here we have a chimpanzee who, as Governor of Texas, signed a law that permitted health-care providers to withdraw life support against the legal guardian's wishes, yet as the President of the United States, breaks his holiday to fly back to Washington to sign a another law aiming to prevent a health-care provider withdrawing life support even with the express consent of the legal guardian. And, we all know how much the Presidential chimp values his holidays, so he is obviously a very concerned, if ideologically confused, chimpanzee.

More surprisingly, Bush's terminator law is being utilized to kill people on life-support at the very same time that Republicans are wringing their hands about the abomination of the Schiavo case. Well, wringing their hands, and/or advocating take-no-prisoner style rescue attempts.

Apparently, in Bush's America, if you want to kill someone, you have to be a corporate entity with a financial interest in that person's death. As a mere legal guardian you should have no such rights.

I have been impressed that the US courts have refused to bow to political pressure and have acted according to the law as it stands. Bravo, for upholding the rule of law!

However, as far as this chimpanzee is concerned, it does strike me as strange that the parents don't have any rights in this case. Why they would want to prolong her life is somewhat beyond me, but they very clearly want to. It seems very sad that they are not allowed to, if that is their wish.

Still, they are getting old. Who would look after Terri Schiavo when they die? Perhaps the health-care provider. But then, if the logic of Bush's Texas law kicked in...