...and where it stops, nobody knows...
Lately the news from Florida reads like some Saturday Night Live skit about Generalissimo Francisco Franco gone horribly wrong. Most gruesome, is the seeming blind ability of the parents to not hear, let alone grasp the concepts of brain death, and "persistent vegetative state". Time to drag out the Kubler-Ross and read up again. Denial is the FIRST stage, and one that they should be well beyond in over 15 years. It's all tragic, and horrible - undeniably. Dealing with all of these issues over my father just a year ago makes me a tad more sensitive, and a tad less able to ignore the macabre media circus.
I find it very difficult not to think that at this stage, they're just getting awfully used to the global attention, to being the radical right's latest cause celebré, and finding that their gigantic victim badge just a bit too comfy to remove. Harsh thoughts, indeed… but I find it more believable than the idea that they really think a parade of doctors and specialists (court appointed and otherwise) are all involved in some ghoulish conspiracy to murder their daughter.
The prospect that some 'god-doctor' could look at a video tape, and claim to make a diagnosis that's 180º away from every one (based on actual physical examination) is beyond laughable. The AMA should be having a discussion with this quack about credentials sometime soon. The bottom line is, if the media, presidents, senators, congressmen, governors and right-to-lifers (apparently bored of blowing up clinics and murdering Ob/Gyn's) hadn't been butting their noses into a terribly personal family tragedy - this likely would have been resolved back when this poor woman had some small shred of dignity left.
It's nice that Mr. DeLay had time to take a break from his ethics violation hearings to step up and tell us all to be moral and godly. What would we do without his expert advice? I was particularly delighted to see people using their children as 6 o'clock news props and teaching them how to break into medical facilities and cross police lines. Talk about terrorist training…