Here's the Next Step in What the Religious Right Will Bring

How about not being able to get prescriptions for birth control pills filled and not being able to refer those prescriptions to another pharmacy?

The Washington Post has the story, which I've previously written about.

And how about this one: the Republican House in the state of Michigan has passed a bill that would allow doctors to refuse care to homosexuals on "moral" grounds. (Supporters of the bill note that emergency care is exempted, but that really is beside the point.)

But people in the blue states just aren't being tolerant of the different views of the red states, right? We're just elitists who don't understand real America, right?
- posted by Joshua @ 9:02 AM (0) comments

 
Just in Case You Were Wondering if The Schiavo Case Was About Politics for Mr. DeLay

Tom DeLay has pretty clearly stated that his involvement in the Schiavo case is about erring on the side of life. Yet he's also stated, in private speeches to conservative groups, that she was a political gift from God for him to use to fight against those who have made ethical charges against him. Well, lookie what we have here -- Tom DeLay's dad was in a coma 16 years ago after an accident on a lake-side tram, and, guess what, Tommy didn't side with life -- he pulled the plug:

A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988
was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the
debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice. The patient then
was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his
home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center
was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined
the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life
crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment,
was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay. Then, freshly reelected to a third
term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the
verdict of doctors. Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with
his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention
in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to
shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.
And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say
has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding
tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for
committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman
quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die."There was no
point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's
81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no
way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father
wouldn't have wanted to live that way."Doctors advised that he would "basically
be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay. When his
father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a
dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated,"
said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His
bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."On Dec. 14, 1988,
the DeLay patriarch "expired with his family in attendance."

And, interestingly, it appears that DeLay's dad, although in a coma, expressed the same signs that Terri Schiavo's parents have used in support of keeping her alive:

Tom DeLay flew to his father's bedside, where, along with his two brothers
and a sister, they joined their mother. In the weeks that followed, the
congressman made repeated trips back from Washington, his family
said. Maxine seldom left her husband's side."Mama stayed at the
hospital with him all the time. Oh, it was terrible for everyone," said Alvina
"Vi" Skogen, a former sister-in-law of the congressman.

Neighbor Braddick visited the hospital and said it seemed very clear to
everyone that there was little prospect of recovery. "He had no
consciousness that I could see," Braddick said. "He did a bit of moaning and
groaning, I guess, but you could see there was no way he was coming back."
Maxine DeLay agreed that she was never aware of any consciousness on her
husband's part during the long days of her bedside vigil — with one possible
exception.

"Whenever Randy walked into the room, his heart, his pulse rate, would go
up a little bit," she said of their son, Randall, the congressman's younger
brother, who lives near Houston. Doctors conducted a series of tests,
including scans of his head, face, neck and abdomen. They checked for lung
damage and performed a tracheostomy to assist his breathing. But
they could not prevent steady deterioration. Then, infections complicated
the senior DeLay's fight for life. Finally, his organs began to fail. His
family and physicians confronted the dreaded choice so many other Americans have
faced: to make heroic efforts or to let the end come.

"Daddy did not want to be a vegetable," said Skogen, one of his
daughters-in-law at the time. "There was no decision for the family to make. He
made it for them."The preliminary decision to withhold dialysis and other
treatments fell to Maxine along with Randall and her daughter Tena — and "Tom
went along." He raised no objection, said the congressman's mother. Family
members said they prayed. Jerry DeLay "felt terribly about the accident"
that injured his brother, said his wife, JoAnne. "He prayed that, if
[Charles] couldn't have quality of life, that God would take him — and that is
exactly what he did." Charles Ray DeLay died at 3:17 a.m., according to
his death certificate, 27 days after plummeting down the hillside.

The other interesting fact is what the DeLay family did after his father died: they filed a products liability and wrongful death lawsuit against the Company that made the tram. The Hammer himself was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, which relied on Texas' products liability law and sought punitive damages:

The family then turned to lawyers. In 1990, the DeLays filed suit
against Midcap Bearing Corp. of San Antonio and Lovejoy Inc. of Illinois, the
distributor and maker of a coupling that the family said had failed and caused
the tram to hurtle out of control. The family's wrongful death lawsuit
accused the companies of negligence and sought actual and punitive
damages. Lawyers for the companies denied the allegations and
countersued the surviving designer of the tram system, Jerry DeLay.

The case thrust Rep. DeLay into unfamiliar territory — the front page of a
civil complaint as a plaintiff. He is an outspoken defender of business against
what he calls the crippling effects of "predatory, self-serving
litigation." The DeLay family litigation sought unspecified compensation
for, among other things, the dead father's "physical pain and suffering, mental
anguish and trauma," and the mother's grief, sorrow and loss of
companionship. Their lawsuit also alleged violations of the Texas product
liability law. The DeLay case moved slowly through the Texas judicial
system, accumulating more than 500 pages of motions, affidavits and disclosures
over nearly three years.

Among the affidavits was one filed by the congressman, but family members
said he had little direct involvement in the lawsuit, leaving that to his
brother Randall, an attorney. Rep. DeLay, who since has taken a leading
role promoting tort reform, wants to rein in trial lawyers to protect American
businesses from what he calls "frivolous, parasitic lawsuits" that raise
insurance premiums and "kill jobs." Last September, he expressed less than
warm sentiment for attorneys when he took the floor of the House to condemn
trial lawyers who, he said, "get fat off the pain" of plaintiffs and off "the
hard work" of defendants. Aides for DeLay defended his role as a plaintiff
in the family lawsuit, saying he did not follow the legal case and was not aware
of its final outcome. The case was resolved in 1993 with payment of an
undisclosed sum, said to be about $250,000, according to sources familiar with
the out-of-court settlement. DeLay signed over his share of any proceeds
to his mother, said his aides.

Three years later, DeLay cosponsored a bill specifically designed to
override state laws on product liability such as the one cited in his family's
lawsuit. The legislation provided sweeping exemptions for product sellers.
The 1996 bill was vetoed by President Clinton, who said he objected to the
DeLay-backed measure because it "tilts against American families and would
deprive them of the ability to recover fully when they are injured by a
defective product."

So DeLay's family relied on the same products liability law that DeLay sought to eliminate -- indeed, DeLay himself was a PLAINTIFF in such a lawsuit. One liberal commentator described this information as "another layer in the Republican hypocrisy lasagna."

I'm still struck by the fact, when Democrats challenged the actions by the Republican Congress and noted how their budget cuts in Medicaid would have affected people like Terri Schiavo, DeLay spokesman Dan Allen fired back: "The fact that they're tying a life issue to the budget process shows just how disconnected Democrats are to reality." No, I think it shows how disconnected the far-right is when the Republican leadership doesn't see that the failure to provide adequate health care, the effort to limit products liability and medical malpractice lawsuits, the effort to cut Medicare and Medicaid and to destroy Social Security are ALL "life issues." It's just up to the Democratic party to make that clear.

And for all the talk about Michael Schiavo's feud with Terri Schiavo's family, how about this little piece of info on DeLay, per the Washington Post in 2001, with the headline, "Absolute Truth; Tom DeLay is certain that Christian family values will solve America's problems. But he's uncertain how to face his own family":

For all of Tom DeLay's public espousal of Christian values, particularly
his deep commitment to family, he privately has nursed a terrible estrangement
from his own mother and three siblings. After the 1988 death of his father and
the rise of his career in Washington, DeLay cut off contact with all three
siblings, and seven years ago he stopped attending DeLay family gatherings. He
has not seen or talked to his mother, Maxine, in two years, even though she
lives about 10 miles away from Sugar Land; nor did he invite any of them to his
daughter's 1999 wedding or even mention his mother in the published wedding
announcement.

All through his roomy home are many photographs of his wife, his
daughter and his in-laws -- but not a single one of the DeLays. Throughout our
conversations, this rift is the only subject that he adamantly will not discuss.

His mother, discussing her husband's situation as compared with the Schiavo case, had this very informative quote:

She acknowledged questions comparing her family's decision in 1988 to the
Schiavo conflict with a slight smile. "It's certainly interesting, isn't it?"

Interesting is one word for it.
- posted by Joshua @ 1:32 PM (0) comments