Big news story (whether it should have been or not, though, is highly debatable); you'd think that something so controversial would have energized people into action (with whichever way you felt about it), but, looking back, after she passed on, nothing changed. How many have gone out and had a living will written out because of that incident? I know after the incident, it got pushed way in the back of my mind, and I still have yet to do it. It's just another faded headline in an old newspaper. The death of one, though certainly tragic, pales in comparison to the countless who have died in the wake of the several major natural disasters of this year.

The Terri Schiavo controversy was an amazingly hot topic at the time, but in the long term I do not think that this will have too much of an effect on people.

It's unfortunate that the family could not have settled this amicably, instead of turning it into a national brouhaha. There's no doubt Terri Schiavo's quality of life was very low, but it sure seemed her husband was awfully eager for her to be dead. Michael Schiavo came across very badly to me. Ironically, his decision to effectively starve her to death was a merciful one, because autopsy results indicated she may have been suffering. The whole shameful affair had quite an impact as if forced many people to think about how they would want to be treated if they were in such a situation.

Give me a break. This should have been left alone when it started. Hardly a dot on the radar compared to Katrina and the London bombings, and not worth the media attention it got. This would never get more than a two from me, and I cannot in any way understand why someone would rate it higher. This is something happens all the time, every single day; wether it's a feeding tube, a respirater, any kind of life support, it happens. This woman was in a persistant vegative state, blind, and brain-dead for fifteen years. Could we have kept her in that condition longer? Sure, but we didn't. To tell you the truth, I was relieved. I thought, just maybe, that pro-lifers would shut up after that, and America would get its head out of the clouds and remember what was really important. Too bad I was wrong. Those who are still screaming at each other over the Schiavo case need to get over it. This is done with.

So passe know after Katrina...

A family tragedy exploited by ruthless politicians-a LOW point for the media.

When moderate Republicans get fed up w/ the direction of their party they look across the way and see Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy and the assorted sordid lefties who hold positions of prominence in their organization, and they stay in their own camp. When moderate Democrats get fed up w/ the direction of their party they turn on the TV and saw assorted religious lunatics terrorize a family in the midst of a dilemma no one should be asked to face, and they decide that Sharpton, Hillary and the other race baiting socialists aren't so bad after all. That was a big, bad event for my GOP. I would not be surpised at all if it comes back to haunt the Republican Party in several key elections in '06.

Update to Eschew---It's a joke, Eschew, because when I've plainly said your points are specious, and a parroting of the Republican line, you restate them again, and then again, as if they have more validity with repetition. They don't. The Terri Schiavo incident was repellent, and obscene, and no amount of verbiage on your part changes that.-----Still another update to Eschew---Listen, Tim, let me reemphasize for the last time...ZZZZZZZ (sorry, terminal boredom overcame me before I was able to apply my fingers to the keyboard to refute the same specious, tiresome rationalizations yet again.)----Update to Eschew--Tim, these filibusters between us can be entertaining, but life is too short. You seem like a nice, intelligent-enough guy, but despite your nom de plume (Esteems Offal might be more appropritate) you follow the Republican line on EVERYTHING, no matter what topic is being discussed. All your arguments are the lies, distortions, and half-truths that are disseminated by the likes of FoxNews, the NY Post, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and the Conservative Think Tanks. I do like using sometimes colorful, even florid, language to make my points, but I think the difference between my own opinion and the facts I utilize from non-partisan sources are quite clear and distinct. I stand by everything I said. The Terri Schiavo controversy was a nauseating travesty that was created and fostered by the fundamentalist-controlled Republicans, absolutely. You're entitled to your own opinion, but at least in this particular instance, you're way out of step with the majority of your fellow Americans. Take care.-----Nothing better illustrates the craven mendacity of the Republicans than this case. The alleged party of less Government harkened like the lapdogs they are to the mandate of their fundamentalist masters and intruded themselves into a case that essentially had been abjudicated in the state courts. Terri Schiavo was not in a coma; she was in an irreversible persistent vegetative state; in other words, she was brain dead. Eight doctors made this diagnosis. People sometimes come out of a coma; they don't come out of a persistent vegetative state. Master hypocrite and scumbag Tom DeLay (he allowed the plug to be pulled on his own father, but that was different), Jeb Bush, George W., and all the other talking-head slime-toadies of the Republican machine decided that Terri Schiavo was going to be their Horst Wessel and the propaganda machine went into overdrive. Of course, none of these parasites gave a damn about Terri, her husband, or her parents. She was a symbol, and they were determined to exploit her tragedy and that of her family for all it was worth. Without any conscience at all, without any principles or morality, sociopathic media prostitutes like Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough and others of their repellent ilk all but proclaimed that Terri's husband was a conniving, manipulative murderer. Fox News and other representatives of the corporate media unceasingly played a 10-second film clip that showed Terri in circumstances that might lead an intellectually-challenged individual to say, Hey, she smiled! She's smiling! It was a muscle rictus, and nothing more, but you had to search mighty hard through the avalanche of shrill media bulls**t to uncover that fact. Finally, mercifully, common sense and the rule of law prevailed and Terri's tragic life came to an end. I'm sure the Republican party does have its share of ethical members (poll numbers indicate that the majority of Americans supported the decision of Michael Schiavo and this transcended partisan politics) but you wouldn't know it based on what happened here. Maybe, like the doctors who tried with increasing futility to disseminate the true facts of the case to the public, these ethical Republicans just weren't allowed to be heard. If they don't want their organization to lose all credibility, it's time they stood up to that fundamentalist minority that has come to dominate their once-honorable party (this was the party, after all, that long, long ago produced genuine statesmen like Abe Lincoln and Tom Dewey) so pervasively and dogmatically.

MY FINAL (7/7): How convenient. Now, you're bored. With responding to MY rationalizations. Without answering a single question of mine. Not a single point in rebuttal to having your intellectual pants pulled down. Not even a response to my challenge to back up your accusation of my inaccuracies and distortions. Whew, boredom can be convenient. The dichotomy of the liberal vs. conservative takes on this case couldn't be clearer. UPDATE (6/29): Could someone, anyone, point out to me a single specific lie, distortion or half-truth attributable to a post of mine, as EDT4 accuses? Frivolous characterizations aren't helpful in clarifying important issues. Is it OK with everyone that any person in a permanent vegetative state, as determined by any doctor or doctors, with or without a political or financial agenda, can be starved to death by court order, at the behest of their direct beneficiary? Is this the first such case or has there been a precedent. This woman wasn't dying, there are thousands like her throughout the country. If they have a trust fund or a life insurance policy on their life, should they, or should they not be in fear for their lives that their beneficiaries could bring and win such a case? UPDATE (6/24/05): So, ed, setting your partisan name-calling and bluster aside, any person in a persistent, vegetative state (your term: brain dead) can be starved to death when their life becomes inconvenient for their families, because they're never gonna come out of it? Was or was not there a legal precedent set here, and was or was not this the first and only such case in American jurisprudence? ORIGINAL COMMENT 6/20/05: An enormously, universally interesting story, tragic in its result, yet chilling in its precedent setting. All those wackos (I'm trying to remember a single one) who predicted the autopsy would validate their points in favor of keeping alive an innocent woman, who had left no written instructions whatsoever about her wish to die under any circumstances, owe Canadasucks an apology. I owe some apologies, too, though. I apologize for expecting the rule of law to be followed and not made up anew by a corrupt, overreaching judge who sought to execute (by starvation) an innocent, brain-damaged woman, so that her husband could inherit her lawsuit proceeds to the benefit of his new wife and family. I apologize to President Bush (and Governor Bush and many other politicians and justices) for expecting them to do their job and intercede successfully (or at least competently) in preventing a murder for hire. I apologize to all of you for being so gullible as to believe that American jurisprudence and its legal system held as its goal the protection of the legitimate rights of an American citizen, probably not the least of which would be the right to continue living, no matter how inconvenient that may have been for Terri's husband. Yes, I'm certainly sorry about all of those things.

Feel that sting on your cheek? That's middle America slapping you zealots in your face telling you to get out of their business. Another backpedal by pro-Bush people. (Oh, can we expect the constitutional amendment defining marriage any day now? Riiiight. . .) Nice attempt to circumvent the law by a bunch of stereotypical zealots. . .still waiting for the apologies from the whackos that claimed that the autopsy would validate their points. Personal fave- She's LOOKING around! The woman was blind. . . Folks, it's not a hard concept- keep gov't out of family business or move to a nation where the gov't is IN family business. You can't attack religious and philosphical zealotry overseas while practicing it at home.

I don't know how significant all of that will prove to be in the long run. I'm just glad that poor lady is finally at peace.

A big news story, that's for sure. This had people all over the country scrambling to make a living will, and we foud people who are usually on opposite sides of the fence agreeing with each other. All of that is over now, and I'll just say I hope she is at peace.