Tom DeLay... a hypocrite? You don't say!

[Good Doctor HST]

Report: DeLay agreed to let comatose father die
House majority leader helped make difficult decision in 1988

The Associated Press: Updated: 3:07 p.m. ET March 27, 2005

LOS ANGELES - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has helped lead a congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, joined members of his own family nearly 17 years ago in allowing doctors not to take extraordinary measures to extend his father’s life, a newspaper reported Sunday.


DeLay had just been re-elected to his third term in Congress in 1988 when his father, Charles DeLay, was severely injured in an accident. As the elder DeLay’s vital organs began failing, the family chose not to connect him to a dialysis machine or take other measures to prolong his life, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing court documents, medical records and interviews with family members.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old mother, told the Times. “Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

'Entirely different'
DeLay helped push through Congress a special law allowing Terri Schiavo’s parents to ask federal courts to order their brain-damaged daughter’s feeding tube reinserted after state courts allowed it to be removed. However, after hearing their pleas, federal judges refused to intervene.

The Texas Republican also accused Schiavo’s husband and the courts of “an act of barbarism” against Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.

The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father’s case, but a press aide said it was “entirely different than Terri Schiavo’s.”

“The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him,” said DeLay spokesman Dan Allen.

Charles DeLay, 65, and his brother and their wives were trying out a tram the brothers had built to carry their families up and down a slope from their Texas home to the shore of a lake when the tram jumped the tracks on Nov. 17, 1988.

Charles DeLay was pitched headfirst into a tree. Hospital admission records showed he suffered multiple injuries, including a brain hemorrhage.

Doctors advised that he would “basically be a vegetable,” said the congressman’s aunt, JoAnne DeLay, who suffered broken bones in the crash.

Like Schiavo, Charles DeLay had no living will, but he had reportedly expressed to others his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means.

He died on Dec. 14, 1988. He hadn’t shown any signs of being conscious, except that his pulse rate would rise slightly when younger son Randall entered the room, Maxine DeLay said.

“There was no chance he was ever coming back,” she said of her husband.

[911=inside job]

delay is a real piece of shit!!!!!

[danceyogamom]

Report: DeLay agreed to let comatose father die
House majority leader helped make difficult decision in 1988

The Associated Press: Updated: 3:07 p.m. ET March 27, 2005

LOS ANGELES - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has helped lead a congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, joined members of his own family nearly 17 years ago in allowing doctors not to take extraordinary measures to extend his father’s life, a newspaper reported Sunday.


DeLay had just been re-elected to his third term in Congress in 1988 when his father, Charles DeLay, was severely injured in an accident. As the elder DeLay’s vital organs began failing, the family chose not to connect him to a dialysis machine or take other measures to prolong his life, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing court documents, medical records and interviews with family members.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old mother, told the Times. “Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

'Entirely different'
DeLay helped push through Congress a special law allowing Terri Schiavo’s parents to ask federal courts to order their brain-damaged daughter’s feeding tube reinserted after state courts allowed it to be removed. However, after hearing their pleas, federal judges refused to intervene.

The Texas Republican also accused Schiavo’s husband and the courts of “an act of barbarism” against Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.

The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father’s case, but a press aide said it was “entirely different than Terri Schiavo’s.”

“The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him,” said DeLay spokesman Dan Allen.

Charles DeLay, 65, and his brother and their wives were trying out a tram the brothers had built to carry their families up and down a slope from their Texas home to the shore of a lake when the tram jumped the tracks on Nov. 17, 1988.

Charles DeLay was pitched headfirst into a tree. Hospital admission records showed he suffered multiple injuries, including a brain hemorrhage.

Doctors advised that he would “basically be a vegetable,” said the congressman’s aunt, JoAnne DeLay, who suffered broken bones in the crash.

Like Schiavo, Charles DeLay had no living will, but he had reportedly expressed to others his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means.

He died on Dec. 14, 1988. He hadn’t shown any signs of being conscious, except that his pulse rate would rise slightly when younger son Randall entered the room, Maxine DeLay said.

“There was no chance he was ever coming back,” she said of her husband.

and there is no chance that Teri Shavo is coming back either ...

I must admit that I find the idea of starving to death a bit grewsome ... but I don't know that its any kinder to force her to live in this condition.

aren't all these pro life "doing the will of God" protesters simply deinying Teri the bliss of the afterlife?

[somebigguy]

Yeah, that starving thing kind of bugs me too. Seems like there should be a better way. She might be all drugged up and therefore not feeling any pain. Hopefully.

[EminemsRevenge]

Beat you to the punch, putz:superman:

NOW that i've joined the BB fray, we're gonna cross-pollinate:)

[danceyogamom]

Yeah, that starving thing kind of bugs me too. Seems like there should be a better way. She might be all drugged up and therefore not feeling any pain. Hopefully.

well ... everyone *says* she can't feel anything.

but I believe the alternatives drift into euthanasia, and I'm not prepared for the protests on that one.

[Good Doctor HST]

I think it's funny when they show pictures of her before, with a kind of smile on her face when her family or husband was in..... now after the tube's out, all of the images they show are her with a more blank, unpleasant appearance.

The T.V. media sure know how to swing topics to one side, huh? She's braindead, has absolutely no control of her faculties, or anything physical, and she "smiles" when her family's near and "frowns" now that the tube has been removed.

[Gold9472]

I think it's funny when they show pictures of her before, with a kind of smile on her face when her family or husband was in..... now after the tube's out, all of the images they show are her with a more blank, unpleasant appearance.

The T.V. media sure know how to swing topics to one side, huh? She's braindead, has absolutely no control of her faculties, or anything physical, and she "smiles" when her family's near and "frowns" now that the tube has been removed.

:) You would like Uber... you really would.

[Giggles]

well ... everyone *says* she can't feel anything.

but I believe the alternatives drift into euthanasia, and I'm not prepared for the protests on that one.I think that as long as her parents can pay for her care let them. Then when they can't pay for her care any more let them let her go. So, instead of letting her starve to death just let her be euthanasia. It's the only respectful way to do things.

[danceyogamom]

I think that as long as her parents can pay for her care let them. Then when they can't pay for her care any more let them let her go. So, instead of letting her starve to death just let her be euthanasia. It's the only respectful way to do things.

I thought that was part of the issue ... Since she is still married, technically she is still her husband's responsibility financially. At least that is what I heard.

I'm not personally against euthanasia ... but lots of people are - and if they come out in droves to protest the removal of a feeding tube, just think on what would happen if Dr. Kavorkian showed up.

[danceyogamom]

I think it's funny when they show pictures of her before, with a kind of smile on her face when her family or husband was in..... now after the tube's out, all of the images they show are her with a more blank, unpleasant appearance.

The T.V. media sure know how to swing topics to one side, huh? She's braindead, has absolutely no control of her faculties, or anything physical, and she "smiles" when her family's near and "frowns" now that the tube has been removed.

very good point. Many of the pictures of her (with the feeding tube) make her appear to be brain damaged and somewhat functional as opposed to brain damaged and comotose.

[danceyogamom]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/29/schiavo/index.html

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (CNN) -- Terri Schiavo's husband has asked that an autopsy be performed on his wife after she dies so that a full report can be done on the extent of her brain damage, an attorney for Michael Schiavo said Monday.
Attorney George Felos said the autopsy will be performed by Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the chief medical examiner of Pinellas County.

Terri Schiavo, who hasn't had water or nutrients since March 18, is likely to die by week's end, doctors have said.

Now 41, Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 from cardiac arrest and suffered brain damage because of lack of oxygen. She has been in the center of a decade-long legal tug-of-war between her husband and guardian, Michael, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.

Michael Schiavo maintains his wife would not want to be kept alive in her condition, while her parents claim she could improve with intense therapy.

Schindler supporters in Florida and Washington appealed Monday to have Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted.

Bob Schindler spoke to reporters Monday after visiting his daughter at her hospice in Pinellas Park. "She's failing, but she's still with us," he said. "She has to be saved.

"I plead again that the powers-that-be don't give up on her. We haven't given up on her and she hasn't given up on us."

Terri Schiavo's sister said she "is wide awake and very responsive."

"She recognizes me," Suzanne Vitadamo said Monday. "She's weaker but she's still trying to talk."

Felos said he visited with Terri Schiavo Monday and that she appeared "very calm."

"I saw no evidence of bodily discomfort whatsoever," he said.

He said her condition had changed little from his last visit on Saturday.

"Terri's eyes do look more sunken," Felos said. "And her breathing was a little on the rapid side."

He described her pulse as "thready," or slow, and said she had not urinated since Sunday.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurologist, said that is a sign her kidneys are failing and that she has reached a point where, even if the feeding tube was reinserted, it likely wouldn't help.

Congress lobbied

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a conservative Christian activist who has been leading demonstrations outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice, took his fight to Washington on Monday.

"We are here demanding answers," said Mahoney, standing in the rain across the street from the White House with about a dozen supporters behind him.

Mahoneywas pushing for congressional leaders -- including House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- to enforce a subpoena issued by a House committee. The subpoena orders Schiavo to appear before Congress.

That subpoena was issued March 18, the day Schiavo's feeding tube was removed by order of a Florida state judge. That same judge quashed the House subpoena, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal of that decision.

Mahoney and his wife met with two senior attorneys for the House of Representatives for about an hour Monday.

Afterward, he said that by canceling Terri Schiavo's hearing, House leadership "might have lost an opportunity to save Terri's life."

Mahoney and a small group then hoped to meet with Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis. He met with Davis' press secretary, David Marin, who told CNN, "We don't see any other legal action we can take."

Numerous state court judges have sided with Michael Schiavo. Court-appointed doctors in Florida have found that she is in a persistent vegetative state, despite arguments from her parents.

Governor pressured

President Bush signed federal legislation on March 21 to move the case from state court to federal court. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/21/schiavo/index.html))

But the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, refused to overturn the state decisions. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/26/schiavo/index.html))

Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan monk who has been acting as a spokesman for the Schindlers, stepped up pressure on Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, calling on him Monday to "step in and take custody" of Terri Schiavo.

"We're begging, governor: Do something today, now," O'Donnell said. "Don't join the culture of death and be writing this woman's obituary."

The Florida governor has sided with the Schindlers and made efforts to have the tube reinserted, adding his support to state legislation. But by Sunday, Gov. Bush said he had done all he could. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/27/schiavo/index.html))

Speaking briefly to reporters Monday, Gov. Bush said he is "respectful of the judiciary's decisions," but "from a personal perspective it just breaks my heart."

"My legal counsel has talked to the Schindler family and their lawyer over the weekend, and I think they've exhausted their remedies as well," he said.

A crowd of protesters has gathered daily outside Schiavo's hospice. Since March 19, 46 people have been arrested, most of them for stepping over a police line in a symbolic effort to bring Schiavo water, said Pinellas Park police Capt. Sanfield Forseth.

Of those 46, only five people were from Florida, he said.

In Asheville, North Carolina, a man accused of soliciting offers for the murder of Michael Schiavo, Richard Alan Meywes, appeared in federal court on Monday. (Full story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/25/arrest.schiavo/index.html))

Morphine given

Bob Schindler on Monday commented about the facility she is in -- Hospice House Woodside -- saying, "I have a grave concern that they'll expedite the process to kill her with an overdose of morphine."

That triggered a response from the hospice, which has generally refused any comment on the case.

"We are not going to do anything to hasten or postpone natural death," said spokesman Mike Bell. "We are trying to provide comfort to the patient as well as the family."

Felos said morphine had been administered twice through a suppository since March 18 at what he said the hospice staff told him that is the "lowest possible dose."

Felos also countered accusations that a brain scan has never been performed on Terri Schiavo.

He said CAT scans of her brain were introduced in trials in 2000 and 2002, showing that her cerebral cortex was "gone."

Felos said Michael Schiavo decided to come forward with the autopsy plans for Terri Schiavo after "opponents to carrying out her wishes" suggested Michael Schiavo had an ulterior motive in his plans to cremate his wife.