https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.png00emptywheelhttps://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.pngemptywheel2005-03-25 11:08:002005-03-25 11:08:0068% of white evangelicals embrace Choice
Anonymous says:
Rick Brady and I (Stones Cry Out) have had an extensive dialogue about this. I don’t think they see it that way, exactly.
Anonymous says:
I think one of the reasons this is resonating with white evangelicals is something to which you alluded, namely the government sticking it’s nose into issues of life and death that are and should be decided by families. I think there are few people outside the whacked-out right who doubt that Terri Schiavo told her husband she wouldn’t want to live the way she’s lived for the last ten years. Therefore, I think most people’s thinking goes, the government should get the hell out of their business, and let them make their own decisions.
Two unrelated thoughts that occurred to me while reading this piece. First, I wonder whether the Pope’s slow but serious decline has had any influence on Catholics’ thinking on these issues. Sure, the Pope has pursued the â€culture of life†stuff, but is he actually helping the cause by being the infallible Pope who can’t speak clearly enough to be understood? I dunno.
The other thing is a cynical thought–would this case be getting one tenth the attention it’s getting, and generate one tenth the heat if it didn’t concern white Terri Schiavo in Florida but black Terri Washington in Mississippi? I suspect not.
Anonymous says:
Re: the Pope. I don’t know. Most of my Catholic viewpoints come through my employed-by-the-Church and also-suffering-from-Parkinsons mother. And I think her instinct, wrt the Pope, even as a fellow Parkinsons sufferer, has ALWAYS been to pull the plug.
But I’m guessing she’s not typical. Must be the Jesuits she hangs out with.
Anonymous says:
Yeah, hard to make generalizations based on the Jesuits…
Anonymous says:
emptywheel–
Over at BOP Ellen Dana Nagler and I have been having an argument about this matter of Choice. Although I am perfectly content that Terri Schiavo should die, I do not take the view that autonomy is always and everywhere desired when it comes to issues of life and death. I am not, for example, comfortable with allowing people to commit suicide. Let me be clear that I don’t want to force anyone to undergo painful treatments when facing terminal diseases, but if you’re young (but not a minor) and depressed, but otherwise healthy, and you try to overdose on sleeping pills, I want the state to pump your stomach, because for the most part I think (and I’ve been depressed plenty myself) that people in that state aren’t really thinking well, and they aren’t seeing the whole picture. If some decent drugs and good therapy are likely to make life worth living, then it’s stupid to let a moment of isolation and loneliness be the last word. Others seem not to agree. What’s your view?
Rick Brady and I (Stones Cry Out) have had an extensive dialogue about this. I don’t think they see it that way, exactly.
I think one of the reasons this is resonating with white evangelicals is something to which you alluded, namely the government sticking it’s nose into issues of life and death that are and should be decided by families. I think there are few people outside the whacked-out right who doubt that Terri Schiavo told her husband she wouldn’t want to live the way she’s lived for the last ten years. Therefore, I think most people’s thinking goes, the government should get the hell out of their business, and let them make their own decisions.
Two unrelated thoughts that occurred to me while reading this piece. First, I wonder whether the Pope’s slow but serious decline has had any influence on Catholics’ thinking on these issues. Sure, the Pope has pursued the â€culture of life†stuff, but is he actually helping the cause by being the infallible Pope who can’t speak clearly enough to be understood? I dunno.
The other thing is a cynical thought–would this case be getting one tenth the attention it’s getting, and generate one tenth the heat if it didn’t concern white Terri Schiavo in Florida but black Terri Washington in Mississippi? I suspect not.
Re: the Pope. I don’t know. Most of my Catholic viewpoints come through my employed-by-the-Church and also-suffering-from-Parkinsons mother. And I think her instinct, wrt the Pope, even as a fellow Parkinsons sufferer, has ALWAYS been to pull the plug.
But I’m guessing she’s not typical. Must be the Jesuits she hangs out with.
Yeah, hard to make generalizations based on the Jesuits…
emptywheel–
Over at BOP Ellen Dana Nagler and I have been having an argument about this matter of Choice. Although I am perfectly content that Terri Schiavo should die, I do not take the view that autonomy is always and everywhere desired when it comes to issues of life and death. I am not, for example, comfortable with allowing people to commit suicide. Let me be clear that I don’t want to force anyone to undergo painful treatments when facing terminal diseases, but if you’re young (but not a minor) and depressed, but otherwise healthy, and you try to overdose on sleeping pills, I want the state to pump your stomach, because for the most part I think (and I’ve been depressed plenty myself) that people in that state aren’t really thinking well, and they aren’t seeing the whole picture. If some decent drugs and good therapy are likely to make life worth living, then it’s stupid to let a moment of isolation and loneliness be the last word. Others seem not to agree. What’s your view?