Mexican Living: A Disabled Man Speaks for Terri

I am an incurably ill American male forced to leave America to afford the medical care I needed. I live in Mexico. I now live in a country where "pulling the plug" for whatever reason is illegal!

I am not terminally ill. I have a lifelong disability that will never get better. I am much like Terri Schiavo, the woman who the State of Florida killed because she had a lifelong, incurable disability. Notice, like me, Terri Schiavo was not terminally ill but handicapped. There is a difference!

Every handicapped person in America has to ask, "Am I next?"

Am I the next disabled person about whom, at some point in the future, someone will make a claim that I said something about the issue of life-and-death and a judge will believe it without the benefit of due process? Will someone come along without a preponderance of evidence (And should not there be a preponderance of evidence and not the word of one individual?) and have some judge some court somewhere order my death by starvation--Or by whatever means that is convenient to the court?

I wonder what the criteria will be. Will the courts be the ones who now determine whether you serve some usefulness to society? Who will define usefulness?

Moreover, I wonder why someone was not asking these questions:

· Did Terri Schiavo tell anyone other than the man who stands to make a bundle of money from a malpractice suit that she did not want to be kept alive via a stomach tube? (He claims he has already spent the money on her care. I want to see that proof!)

· Why is the court taking only her adulterous husband's word on this issue of life-and-death? Is that a preponderance of evidence?

· Can't the court see that this man has some nefarious motives?

· Have the allegations of spousal abuse been investigated fully?

· Why didn't her husband allow Terri, ever, to have physical therapy that might have improved her state?

· Is any one aware that others, in so-called vegetative states, have awakened years later?

· Can science dictate morality? Though science sometimes can tell us why something is, can it tell us what is right and what is wrong?

Something smelled fishy in this entire thing-and it still does.

What is next? Will disabled Americans whose families tire of them be able to find a judge who will order their deaths too? On the other hand, perhaps we will be told too much money has been spent on us in disability pension payments and now it is time to check out of living.

You have used up your quota! Now it is time to die.

I do not offer this as an exaggeration but an honest question. Just what is next? Every disabled person should be asking this question.

I wonder if the judge who ordered Terri Schiavo's death forgot, or ever knew, the words of Hubert H. Humphrey:

"It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

My God, in heaven, what has America become?

Thank God, in heaven, I live in Mexico!

Doug Bower is a freelance writer and book author. His most recent writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He lives with his wife in Guanajuato, Mexico.

His new book Mexican Living: Blogging it from a Third World Country can be seen at http://www.lulu.com/content/126241

---

MORAL ARMORS Counterfeit 911: Refuting Michael Moore

Michael Moore asserts the following in his political film Fahrenheit... Read More

World Power Brokers Readying for WWIII

Einstein when ask how did he believe WWIII would be... Read More

Elliot Spitzer for NY Governor

I believe it would be good for the economy for... Read More

Monetary Flows, Consumer Debt, Policy, Trade Deficit and Reality

America has some monetary issues, which need to be addressed.... Read More

Cops Want To Increase Marijuana Punishments?

Leave it to the Columbia City Police Officers Association in... Read More

Economic Illiteracy Can Be Very Costly!

I'VE ALWAYS ARGUED THAT ECONOMIC ILLITERACY IS VERY COSTLY.This is... Read More

Trade Wars, China and Over Regulation At Home

We are seeing some trade wars brewing as American trade... Read More

Pierre Dupont de Nemours

After arranging the Armistice that ended or settled outstanding issues... Read More

Is it just hubris, or ...?

In what the Americans love to describe as the war... Read More

Image is Everything in Redevelopment Projects

Revitalization Downtown projects are all the rage in fact the... Read More

Political Lobbying & Biblical Aspects of the Mid-East Crisis

1) IS HAVING A DEMOCRACY MORE EFFECTIVE IN ADDRESSING POLITICAL... Read More

Anarchy: Law, Order, and Authority

[Author's Note: Another essay that I wrote on notebook paper... Read More

Oil Pipelines and Rates of Flow

How much oil can travel through a pipeline? It depends... Read More

Gun Control? How About Crime Control Instead?

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American... Read More

De-Population

Judgment and detective work requires thinking about possibilities. One of... Read More

The Distributive Justice of the Market

(1) Each person is to have an equal right to... Read More

Foreign Spies Troll Gay Bars in Washington DC for National Secrets

The use of homosexual men in the area of espionage... Read More

Public Sector Economies in Transition

In the previous article, we described the various methods developed... Read More

The Divided Language

I was dismayed to learn the other day, that my... Read More

Debt Relief and Reality Check

The United States and other first world nations have been... Read More

Environmental Economics, Stream of Thought

Entrepreneurs can clean up the environment if we would let... Read More

Arson Neighborhood Mobile Watch Program for Summer Fire Season

Due to the bizarre weather patterns this winter California got... Read More

Freedom on the Internet

Throughout all recorded history on our lovely little planet, Earth's... Read More

Intellectual Property: The ECJ Extends the Use of Trade Marks to Goods and Services

The European Court of Justice ("ECJ") ruled in Praktiker Bau-... Read More

All Extremists Go To Heaven... Dont They

Heaven, Hell, or some sort of Purgatory.I cannot seem to... Read More

The Hegemony - Church and State

THE ECCLESIASTICAL GRANT:There are good things done by the hegemony.... Read More

Unemployment Iraqi Style

Let's put it all into perspective: the U.S. has an... Read More

Fundamentalist: Fascist or Common-Sense?

Is the only way to fight Fundamentalist Extremists becoming one... Read More

The Dawn On The Nile Valley Has Secrets To Tell!

Amnesty International comments on the proposal that has been laid... Read More

Clearing Land Mine Fields from the Air

You know we have sent many, many army tanks with... Read More

Will Cloning of Super Families Lead to Slavery

If slavery has not worked well, then cloning if it... Read More

Why Can?t We Have a More Responsive Government?

The great people of the United States of America deserve... Read More

The Fabric of Economic Trust

Economy is called the dismal science because it pretends to... Read More