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   The New York Times




Jeb Bush and the biblethumpers can't even spell a dead cerebral 
cortex---their cortex , all reasoning power and all compassion iare also 
dead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


         September 29, 2004


   Feeding-Tube Posturing Struck Down


Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature were justly rebuked last week 
when the Florida Supreme Court declared unconstitutional their ghoulish 
efforts to require continued nutritional support for a severely 
brain-damaged woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 
more than a decade. The patient is Theresa Schiavo, who suffered a heart 
attack in 1990 that deprived her brain of oxygen. She has been kept 
alive with feeding and hydration tubes ever since.

There seems little doubt that Ms. Schiavo's medical prognosis is 
hopeless. A trial court found overwhelming evidence that her brain had 
deteriorated so severely that much of her cerebral cortex was gone.

The case is complicated because Ms. Schiavo left no written directive 
that spelled out her wishes should she be in a vegetative state. Her 
husband contends that she had orally expressed a desire not to be kept 
alive artificially, and the lower courts, finding clear and convincing 
evidence that she would want the life support stopped, had ordered the 
feeding tube removed.

But the Legislature, prodded by religious conservatives, quickly passed 
a law authorizing the governor to order the feeding resumed, and 
Governor Bush ordered that life support be reinstated. Those 
grandstanding maneuvers were properly struck down last week when the 
Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the law was an 
unconstitutional encroachment on the judiciary's power.

Ms. Schiavo's parents cling to the hope that she may someday recover and 
plan to continue their legal fight to keep her alive. That is their 
right. But we hope that the politicians at least will now keep their 
hands off this tragic case.


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