I know there have been a number of diaries on the Schiavo case today, but this is 30 minutes off
Reuters website:
Hours before a feeding tube was to be removed from a brain-damaged Florida woman, U.S. lawmakers on Friday called on the woman to appear before congressional committees in an attempt to keep her alive.
Republican leaders from the Senate and House of Representatives said in separate statements they would use congressional probes to stave off the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, that was slated for 1 p.m.
Amazing and sickening. More below...
I find this use of Congressional subpeona power disgusting.
Frist said the Senate will call Schiavo as a witness before the its Health, Education and Labor Committee at a March 28 hearing in the middle of Congress' two-week Easter recess.
Federal law protects a witness "from anyone who ... influences, obstructs, or impedes an inquiry or investigation by Congress," Frist said.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas said they planned to issue a subpoena later in the day to keep Schiavo alive.
Michael Schiavo's attorney puts it well:
"Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert are not members of the Politburo in Stalinist Russia," Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, told Reuters by telephone. "The state does not own Mrs. Schiavo's body and Congress cannot simply order her to remain alive contrary to her medical treatment wishes and court order."
If Congress were to try to use my vegetative body, or one belonging to one of my loved family members, I or someone in my family would be after them.
Is there no end to their callous and cynical manipulation of people's lives for their political agendas?
"Later this morning, we will issue a subpoena, which will require hospice administrators and attending physicians to preserve nutrition and hydration for Terri Schiavo to allow Congress to fully understand the procedures and practices that are currently keeping her alive," the Hastert and DeLay said.
They said this is to support a House Government Reform Committee's "inquiry into the long-term care of incapacitated or non-ambulatory adults."
Gee, does that mean these thugs are going to have an epiphany and decide that financing long-term care for disabled and elderly needs to be reformed--and I mean reform in a true way that benefits people, not deform to benefit corporate profits.