Oh the hypocrisy

I suppose it's time to weigh in on the Terri Schiavo case.

Let me say right up front to all my friends and loved ones that if I'm ever severely brain damaged I want the plug to be pulled. And yes, I have a living will.

Now, what I want to point out is the rank hypocrisy of the right-wingers who want to keep a brain-dead woman's body going. First of all, let me share this tidbit I found on Eschaton:

In 1999 then governor Bush signed a law which allowed hospitals to withdraw life support from patients, over the objections of the family, if they consider the treatment to be nonbeneficial.

I also wonder what they think of all the people who die due to lack of medical insurance.

Now, here's a comment off of Smirking Chimp:

All of these so-called xtians claim to be doing "God's will" by keeping this poor woman alive. Imagine the living hell if she really is alert and aware inside of a body that will not respond to her will, not even to swallow food. I say that if they want to really do "God's will" then remove the feeding tube that God did not place there, and let God decide her fate!

I so agree.

Now here's an article entitled, "White House contender in ‘quackery’ row over dying woman" from the London Times on the complete inappropriateness of a heart surgeon making a neurological diagnosis from a video tape.

Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican who was a leading heart surgeon before he turned to politics, added a new twist to the bitterly fought case when he offered a controversial medical opinion based on his reviews of family videotapes of Schiavo lying comatose in bed.

Frist took to the Senate floor to dispute findings by Florida doctors that their 41-year-old patient was in a “persistent vegetative state”.
...
Democratic officials accused Frist of playing politics with a family tragedy. “It’s quackery,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist. “It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so grotesque.”

“I suspect that Senator Frist has his eye more on the Iowa caucus (the launch pad for the presidential campaign) than the Hippocratic oath,” added Marshall Whitmann of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Medical ethicists also questioned the propriety of a heart surgeon commenting on a neurological case without even examining the patient.

Bill Frist ought to lose his medical license over this.