QUOTE
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Lieberman, your Republican colleague from Connecticut in the House, Christopher Shays, had this to say. "This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy. ... There are going to be repercussions from this vote [on Schiavo's constitutional rights]. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."
You agree with that?
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, (D-CT): I don't. But that's a very credible and respectable opinion for Chris to take. See, I think--and Chris was there on the floor of the House, so maybe he heard in the debate some things that I didn't hear following it from a distance. The fact is that, though I know a lot of people's attitude toward the Schiavo case and other matters is affected by their faith and their sense of what religion tells them about morality, ultimately as members of Congress, as judges, as members of the Florida state Legislature, this is a matter of law. And the law exists to express our values.
I have been saying this in speeches to students about why getting involved in government is so important, I always say the law is where we define the beginning of life and the end of life, and that's exactly what was going on here. And I think as a matter of law, if you go--particularly to the 14th Amendment, can't be denied due process, have your life or liberty taken without due process of law, that though the Congress' involvement here was awkward, unconventional, it was justified to give this woman, more than her parents or husband, the opportunity for one more chance before her life was terminated by an act which was sanctioned by a court, by the state.
These are very difficult decisions, but--of course, if you ask me what I would do if I was the Florida Legislature or any state legislature, I'd say that if somebody doesn't have a living will and the next of kin disagree on whether the person should be kept alive or that is whether food and water should be taken away and her life ended that really the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to life. And the family member who wants to sustain her life ought to have that right because the judge really doesn't know, though he heard the facts, one judge, what Terri Schiavo wanted. He made a best guess based on the evidence before him. That's not enough when you're talking about aggressively removing food and water to end someone's life.
MR. RUSSERT: You would have kept the tube in?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I would have kept the tube in.
You agree with that?
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, (D-CT): I don't. But that's a very credible and respectable opinion for Chris to take. See, I think--and Chris was there on the floor of the House, so maybe he heard in the debate some things that I didn't hear following it from a distance. The fact is that, though I know a lot of people's attitude toward the Schiavo case and other matters is affected by their faith and their sense of what religion tells them about morality, ultimately as members of Congress, as judges, as members of the Florida state Legislature, this is a matter of law. And the law exists to express our values.
I have been saying this in speeches to students about why getting involved in government is so important, I always say the law is where we define the beginning of life and the end of life, and that's exactly what was going on here. And I think as a matter of law, if you go--particularly to the 14th Amendment, can't be denied due process, have your life or liberty taken without due process of law, that though the Congress' involvement here was awkward, unconventional, it was justified to give this woman, more than her parents or husband, the opportunity for one more chance before her life was terminated by an act which was sanctioned by a court, by the state.
These are very difficult decisions, but--of course, if you ask me what I would do if I was the Florida Legislature or any state legislature, I'd say that if somebody doesn't have a living will and the next of kin disagree on whether the person should be kept alive or that is whether food and water should be taken away and her life ended that really the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to life. And the family member who wants to sustain her life ought to have that right because the judge really doesn't know, though he heard the facts, one judge, what Terri Schiavo wanted. He made a best guess based on the evidence before him. That's not enough when you're talking about aggressively removing food and water to end someone's life.
MR. RUSSERT: You would have kept the tube in?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I would have kept the tube in.
Source.
Now, Michael Schiavo is going to formally endorse Ned Lamont. From today's Courant:
QUOTE
It's an odd coincidence, and I don't know what to make of it.
The widower of Terri Schiavo will be in Connecticut tomorrow to endorse Ned Lamont, largely because of Joe Lieberman's comments made during the heat of the case, when Lieberman said the government had a role to play in preserving the patient's right to life and liberty.
This very subject is staring me in the face now. I don't mean last month or next autumn. I mean I have attended two meetings in the last 24 hours to discuss the question of my own mother's nutrition and hydration. It's an enormously complicated question. I want the best for my mother. I want what she wants. And I want the advice of all the people who deal with these end-of-life stages on a regular basis. I want the thoughts of her doctor, who knows her fairly well. I want to make them all flow together so that everything we do is in my mother's best interest. And the one thing I can tell you is that the government has no constructive role to play and no business geting involved.'
I don't feel that way across the board. I'm opposed to physician-assisted suicide and always have been. I believe in things taking their natural course, if we can even find such a thing as a natural course by parting the jungle vines of tubes and wires that seem to grow up around a dying patient.
The widower of Terri Schiavo will be in Connecticut tomorrow to endorse Ned Lamont, largely because of Joe Lieberman's comments made during the heat of the case, when Lieberman said the government had a role to play in preserving the patient's right to life and liberty.
This very subject is staring me in the face now. I don't mean last month or next autumn. I mean I have attended two meetings in the last 24 hours to discuss the question of my own mother's nutrition and hydration. It's an enormously complicated question. I want the best for my mother. I want what she wants. And I want the advice of all the people who deal with these end-of-life stages on a regular basis. I want the thoughts of her doctor, who knows her fairly well. I want to make them all flow together so that everything we do is in my mother's best interest. And the one thing I can tell you is that the government has no constructive role to play and no business geting involved.'
I don't feel that way across the board. I'm opposed to physician-assisted suicide and always have been. I believe in things taking their natural course, if we can even find such a thing as a natural course by parting the jungle vines of tubes and wires that seem to grow up around a dying patient.
Source (this guy is my favorite Courant columnist).
-P
