Sunday, May 06, 2007

Culture of Life?

When Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state President Bush and many supposedly pro-life republicans were fuming at the efforts of her husband, Michael Schiavo, to have her feeding tube removed. Ms. Schiavo was unable to swallow, see or speak because of severe brain damage. There was a bill rushed through Congress to try to force the doctors to reinsert the tube. President Bush raced back to Washington on Air Force One to sign that bill.

It is interesting to note that while governor of Texas, Bush signed the "Advanced Directives Act" which allows a patient's surrogate to make life and death decisions for that person. That law also allows a hospital, with notice to the family and after consulting the bioethics committee, to remove life-support from a patient who has no hope of recovery. The family is given a little time to find another facility to care for the patient.

And while governor of Texas, George Bush there were 131 executions of condemned prisoners. Bush has stated that he has no qualms about any of those executions.

Culture of life? Am I missing something?

And where was the president while Hurricane Katrina was devastating New Orleans? On vacation.

On Monday, the 29th of August, while New Orleans was being inundated Bush was at a birthday photo op with Sen. John McCain in Arizona and later he went to a resort to promote the new Medicare drug plan. Later that day he flew to California to another group of senior citizens to push the drug benefit.

On Tuesday, Aug 30, Bush was playing the guitar with a country singer. On Wednesday Bush finally returned to Washington, flying over the disaster zone in the process.

While Americans were dying in a flood the president was vacationing, politicking and partying? I have not reproduced the entire Katrina timeline, it is available at several web sites.

So the republicans have staked out the pro-life position. But whose lives? They seem to value one Caucasian woman with brain damage over a neighborhood full of minorities. A fertilized ovum is more valuable to them than the adult woman who carries it.

Then there are the thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the war on their country. We rightly mourn our troops who died there but how much thought do the republicans who started the war give to the dead Iraqis?

There are some things I do not comprehend.