Schiavo Intervention: Was It the Right Move?

Re “Bush Approves Schiavo Review in U.S. Court,” March 21: After reading about the House’s decision to intervene in a very painful -- but private -- family matter, I can only wonder one thing: How many members of Congress have living wills in place to make sure that the government doesn’t do to them or their loved ones what they are doing to Terri?

Rob McClinton

Monrovia

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The U.S. government’s decision to stick its nose in Schiavo’s tragic situation is creepy. Schiavo is a human being, not government property. The Republicans’ use of her life-or-death situation to flex their political muscle is obscene. As for the Democrats who supported this intervention, you have lost your way. Please leave the party and join the Christian right. We need leaders with strong convictions, not sheep.

Jocelyn DeVault

Newbury Park

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When will the rabid right and their counterparts, the religious right, learn that they cannot impose their morals or views on the American public? With the ballooning budget deficit, the illegal war in Iraq killing thousands, the millions of uninsured and homeless Americans, I find it insulting that the best our lawmakers can do is to investigate steroids in baseball and stick their noses into the private sufferings of a family that has endured more than enough heartache.

Skip Houston

Laguna Beach

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What kind of a country denies food to a living human being?

Michael Erickson

Laguna Niguel

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The 8th Amendment guarantees every American citizen protection from “cruel and unusual punishment.” Evidently, Schiavo is the exception. Stop playing God, Washington!

Marie Roberts

Long Beach

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I argue that, measured against the standards of love and quality of life, Schiavo’s husband, Michael, is the only one who focuses on a concern for Terri. The others express a self-centeredness. In answer to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s question about Michael Schiavo, “What kind of man is he?” I say loving and compassionate. It is incomprehensible to me that Congress has interjected itself into this matter, and I am deeply disturbed with the self-centered ethical decision-making that is evidenced.

Karl Strandberg

Long Beach

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I am disgusted with the grandstanding in Washington about Schiavo. It is not about her right to life. It is about her right to die. The testimony of her husband and friends that she would have chosen to end her medical support if she could is the important point. In Terri’s position, I would choose to die and indeed have an advance directive that says just that. What infuriates me is that the people behind this effort would seek to invalidate this choice, prevent enforcement of my directive and force me to continue to live under circumstances I would find intolerable. What hubris!

Jonathan Hubbell

Laguna Niguel

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I don’t know whether to laugh or cry -- the politicians wringing their hands over Schiavo are the same ones who had no qualms about “pulling the plug” on thousands of Iraqis.

Jeremy Friesner

Pasadena