Update [2005-3-26 21:39:38 by Armando]: From the diaries by Armando. Edited for fair use and style.
It seems when DeLay's own father lay in a coma, Tom joined the family consensus to let him die. NOTE: This is NOT on the LA Times Web site yet, but should be shortly.
From the Los Angeles Times:
DeLay Family Outcome Different From Schiavo's
By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek , Los Angeles Times
Update [2005-3-26 22:18:32 by Armando]: More hypocrites - from quickiemart, the Schindler's spiritual advisers:
A Florida paper reports that three members of the Franciscan Brothers of Peace [who] "have been at the side of the Schinlder family as it fights to have Terri's Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted[,]" when . . . this staunch right-to-life order was faced with a similar decision when their founder became brain damaged after suffering a heart attack, 'when faced with [the need to] artificially prolong[] life, decided to refuse medical treatment on behalf of their friend and leader.
DeLay Family Outcome Different From Schiavo's//(Canyon Lake)
By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek=(c) 2005, Los Angeles Times
CANYON LAKE, Texas -- A family tragedy unfolding in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal -- without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the raging debate outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice. The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family standing vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman -- U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and a ventilator, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.
Then, freshly re-elected to a third term in the House, DeLay waited all but helpless for the verdict of doctors.
Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to champion political intervention the Schaivo case. He pushed emergency legislation through congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.
And he is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls ''an act of barbarism`` in removing the tube.
In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.
. . . When the man's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do Not Resuscitate."
On Dec. 14, 1988, the senior DeLay "expired with his family in attendance."
