NYT Editorial Still doesn't get it about Terri Shiavo

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because after coming home from work, I'd run through a few of my favorite bolgs and find nothing but depressing news about the chances Terri has of not being starved to death.

Today I heard a caller on Rush Limbaugh's show say that before Terri's "accident" she suffered from bulimia. Apparently the caller thought that justification as to why we should kill Terri through starvation and dehydration. I truly feel sorry for these people that seem to be trying as hard as they can to justify what is going on.

Then, here is an excerpt from a New York Times editorial by Charles Fried, a professor at the Harvard Law School. He quotes Justice Scalia's opinion in a 1990 case in Missouri that portrayed "precisely the same issues".

I quote from the article:

"The various opinions in this case portray quite clearly the difficult, indeed agonizing, questions that are presented by the constantly increasing power of science to keep the human body alive for longer than any reasonable person would want to inhabit it," Justice Scalia wrote. (Emphasis added)

I could not find the actual opinion or case that Fried refers to, but here it seems to me that the Missouri case involved someone who required a whole lot more science than just feeding him (her?) to stay alive. Again, here is the MSM purposefully misrepresenting Terri’s condition to promote its own agenda.

Again, I quote from the editorial:

Justice Scalia went on to say that he would have preferred that the court had announced, "clearly and promptly, that the federal courts have no business in this field." The problem, he insisted, was that "the point at which life becomes 'worthless,' and the point at which the means necessary to preserve it become 'extraordinary' or 'inappropriate,' are neither set forth in the Constitution nor known to the nine justices of this court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the Kansas City telephone directory."

For starters, life is never “worthless” Justice Scalia. Second, Mr. Fried, do you really feel eating and drinking are extraordinary means of keeping yourself alive?

More (if you can stand to read more without blowing a gasket…):

For years now, Congress has more and more stringently demanded that federal court intervention be limited to cases where the state courts have acted not just technically incorrectly, but with egregious lack of reason. Whatever might be said of the Florida state court proceedings in this case, they certainly have not crossed that line, and indeed probably accord with what state courts all over the country have ordered or permitted for years in these difficult and agonizing cases.

Judge Greer has broken more Florida laws and has acted with a complete lack of reason in this case. He not only passed the line Fried talks about, but erased it and drew another of his own liking. Congress didn’t intervene in this case because they wanted an activist judge, it is precisely because there was an activist Judge that was not basing his rulings on fact, but on his own notion that Terri should die. That is more than justification for Congress and the President to act. No branch of government acts in a vacuum; all can be held accountable by the others.

I hope this made sense today. Sorry if it doesn’t. Here’s the link to the editorial again (you need to register to view it). MSM...don't know how much more I can take.

Paul