Responding to loaded questions

I got an email today on a non political mailing list that enraged me.  I wanted to respond, but not wanting to get mired in a hopeless discussion I deleted it.  After reading this article on Schiavo, I decided I needed to practice responding and reframing.  It may not be pretty, but there's no other way to get good.

With help from the article, comments, links, and Lakoff I composed a decent response to the first question.  That took me more than an hour and a half so I'm toast now.  I know I won't get good feedback from him (I'll probably get flamed for being political while he is ignored), but I thought you might give me some.  Also, if anyone has any advice, I could use some help with answers to the others (those that deserve to be taken seriously anyway).

Questions and my answer below.

1 Is the umbilical cord to an unborn baby similar to Terry Schavio's  feeding tube? Do the courts have a right in the decisions to sever these life  giving tubes?

2 The WMDs now known to have been moved outside of Iraq prior to our  removal of Saddam require an apology to the Presidents, (both Clinton and Bush)  by those who denied there existence? ( reported in the NY Times today)

3 Do the Al Qieda operatives now located  in Panama, according to the Dutch press, require that we invade Panama and regain the canal?

4 The oil reserves in Alaska exceed those in Saudi Arabia and the yields would free us from that dependence. Would that move Saudi Arabia towards a democratic government or toward the Jihadist type of regime?

5 Iran's nuclear weapons program is dedicated to destroy Israel. When  Israel bombs these facilities should we support the UN when they condemn  this action.

6  Should we replace the minutemen volunteers on the Mexican border  with troops to stop the Jihadists reported to be smuggling surface to air  missiles into the United States?

7 Should we withdraw our ambassadors from France, Germany and Russia as they, using Food for Oil money looted from the UN, supplied nuclear  WMD's lost in Russia, and sold equipment to make them to the terrorists?

8 Should Brittany Spears neighbors move because of the paparazzi are making their lives untenable?

I have done my best to have these questions politically correct, any objections?

 Some of these are tongue in cheek and many are deadly  serious. This is the world we live in  All are based on items in
the past  three days new reports and, to me, thought provoking

As I am certain you are aware, those are all extremely loaded questions each of which takes for granted certain facts and opinions while ignoring the truths which are inconvenient.  As such they are difficult questions to answer without stepping into a place where I dishonor your integrity or violate mine.  Nonetheless, I feel compelled to try.  I will start with the first- the others will wait until I have more time.

Is it right to keep Terry Schavio alive?  Is it right to allow her to die?  More broadly: Is it right to let someone die when you can prevent it?  And is it right to take away the choice from a person to let a natural death come, just because you have the power to keep them alive?

I believe in life; I believe helping people realize their best selves; I believe in fairness and opportunity and responsibility; I believe in taking care of my brothers and sisters; I believe in integrity and the freedom to choose one's own path; I believe that living life well is hard and requires sacrifice, and that in letting that go and doing our best we succeed.

Parts of this question are easy for me because my values are clear, parts are difficult because they pit one value against another.  I know I am in integrity when some things are hard; it could only be easy if I applied my values unequally.

I believe humans have the right to let God take them when their time has come.  At some point efforts to save and do what is best for the body becomes violence against the soul.  That point is not fixed, but the best measure I know is to respect a person's choice.  I believe that humans have a right to life.  It is never right to kill someone.  That is easy.

Abortion is hard.  It is not right for a woman who has been raped to become a slave to her rapist's child.  It is not right for a child who has become pregnant through lack of knowledge and social pressure to have her life taken away.  It is not right to take an innocent life.  When I hear about abortions I hear about assisted miscarriages ("didn't you know that 1/4 of pregnancies end in miscarriages, many of which are experienced as 'heavy periods'?"), and I hear about snuffing out life and when the soul becomes a part of the body.  I do not have an answer; I am still struggling.  I cannot choose to strip a woman of her rights the moment she has sex, nor to judge how many divisions between that first merging of egg and sperm it takes to be alive and have a right to life.  So I do the best I can.

I believe in making abortion unnecessary, or as close to it as we can.  I believe in birth control, in giving women a good education (statistically, the best form of population control) and fair opportunities.  I believe in doing what works to help young women avoid being pregnant.  The number of teen abortions has gone up over the last 5 years- abstinence only education has been tried in the field and it is failing.  I believe in accepting that, and making sure youths know ALL the best methods to avoid pregnancy- from abstinence to condoms and pills.

The case of Terry Schavio is another difficult one; one that I do not pretend to know enough about, nor to have the wisdom, to make a judgment.  My shadow likes to tell me that I have the knowledge of good and evil, but I know better.  She did not make a clear choice for herself and cannot now do so.  She is not being kept alive through extraordinary means.  If I were to end up in the same place, I would choose to let go and let God take me.  And I am not her.  I cannot imagine the pain her husband is going through.  He can never mourn, never close the wounds, never let go.  Worse, he who knew her best believes that she would want to be free and he must watch them hold her here.  If it were my wife I could not imagine letting go.  And I am not him.

I do know I would never presume to choose for her to die when she and her family wanted her to live.  Less than a week ago Sun Hudson (Houston Chronicle), a six month old baby, was purposely allowed to die against his mother's wishes.  Because she could not pay.  This was done in accordance with a Texas law which states that a patient that CANNOT PAY for care and is terminally ill may be removed from life support AGAINST that person's and the family's wishes.  This law is wrong.  And I cannot imagine how a person could fight for Terry Schavio's life, and not for the Sun Hudson's.  President Bush recently said "...our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern." and yet not so many years ago he signed a law which last week killed a child because his mother could not pay.

I wonder if you know how Terry Schavio has survived for so many years.  Were you aware that her medical bills have been paid for by a malpractice claim?  The Republicans in congress are contemplating gutting the tort system, making such suits impossible, and removing the last line of defense individual citizens have against abuses of power.  Without that defense Terry Schavio would likely already be dead.  In doing so, they have already sentenced future Schavio's to death.  Is that right?  

Did you know the Bankruptcy bill just jammed through Congress by Republicans would ruin families who suffer catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's.  They can no longer declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start once the medical bills become overwhelming.  Is that right?

I cannot stomach Tom DeLay (Newsday) grandstanding and pretending to know the absolute right answer on this issue.  Not when his policies would have deprived Terry Schiavo of the malpractice settlement that has paid her medical bills, would have ruined her husband financially as he struggled when he had hope to keep her alive and would never have allowed him to recover, and finally would have permitted the hospital to let her die when her husband could no longer pay.  He fights for the legislation, puts spin on it to make it seem reasonable, and votes for it.  And then he says "Right now murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida."  And meanwhile a sixth month boy named Sun Hudson has his life support removed and dies unnoticed in his home state of Texas. Is that integrity?

(lord, that's shorter than it felt when I was writing it!)