Time To Let Go

All this Terri Schiavo business is really irking me on a number of levels. The one that is bothering me the most is all the 'pro-life' groups backing her family's efforts to 'save her life'. I realize they love their daughter/sister. I understand it is difficult (understatement) to lose someone you love, especially unexpectedly. But what about the past 15 years she's spent in the hospital with machines keeping her alive constitutes living? There comes a time you have to give up hope and realize this person you love will never be that person again.

Before you call me a heartless bitch, take into consideration I, along with most of my immediate family watched my grandfather 'live' only because he was being fed oxygen through a tube. Seeing my grandmother struggle with the removal of that tube was excruciating and one of the worst things I've ever been a witness to. Knowing that my grandfather would not be happy 'living' like that, having us watch him slowly die helped make up everyone's mind that the tube should be taken out, my grandmother just couldn't bring herself to do it. In what can only be described as an act of God, my grandfather became lucid long enough to say goodbye to her, his three daughters and almost all his grandchildren (two couldn't make it from out of state). He then was able to make the decision to take the tube out and passed away the next day. I understand this is not the norm in these circumstances and I am beyond grateful to have had that last five minutes with him. I still have an empty place in my life, always will from his absence, but he's happier now. He isn't suffering, being kept alive by artificial means and that is where my aforementioned problem with the 'pro-lifers' comes from. These are people (I'm not saying all Tam) who fight against the right for a woman to have a choice regarding abortion, who say that it is God's will if someone gets pregnant or not, if someone lives or not, yet will use artificial insemination if they are unable to create a life on their own. These are people who think abortion is wrong, that it is murder, yet get the morning after pill after having unprotected sex (I personally know someone who did this and didn't see the hypocrisy - it still boggles my mind). They are politicizing something that is a personal matter and refusing to admit they are politicizing. They are also creating a great threat to states rights.

Sorry to have gotten all Dennis Miller on y'all, but this is just driving me crazy.