Terri Schiavo as Conversative Prop

Suddenly, GOPers in Congress are asking a woman who can't move or talk (or anything really) to "testify" so that they thwart a Federal Judge's ruling that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should be pulled.

All these appeals and advocacy campaigns to keep Terri alive costs lots of money, so Attorney Jon Eisenberg wrote an article in the SF Recorder discovering that "many of the attorneys, activists and organizations working to keep Schiavo on life support all these years have been funded by members of the Philanthropy Roundtable."

The Philanthropy Roundtable, he explains "is a collection of foundations that have funded conservative causes ranging from abolition of Social Security to anti-tax crusades and United Nations conspiracy theories. The Roundtable members' founders include scions of America's wealthiest families, including Richard Mellon Scaife (heir to the Mellon industrial, oil and banking fortune), Harry Bradley (electronics), Joseph Coors (beer), and the Smith Richardson family (pharmaceutical products)." All the usual suspects. Terri's parents lawyer Pat Anderson "'was paid directly' by the anti-abortion Life Legal Defense Foundation, which 'has already spent over $300,000 on this case,'"

So why do they care? Is the life of a fetus the same as a comatose woman in their eyes? Why are they trying to bleed Terri's husband dry?

This seems like another thing Conservative activists found that can rile up people to vote GOP against their interest and all logic-- like Gay Marriage, or the Confederate Flag.

Meanwhile, they seem to have forgotten that Terri told 5 different people that she didn't want to be kept alive like this. Her parents can't let go, I can understand that, but these people are taking advantage of their grief and funding this legal grudge match against Michael Schiavo. These conservatives have also forgotten that they care about state's rights, after passing a bill allowing people to sue in federal court if any judge does order to remove life support for such people.

Back in 1996, when my cancer stricken grandfather fell and went unconscious, he had previously asked not to be kept alive by machine. So that is what my family did, after everyone around could say goodbye. I wish that is what Terri's family would do. I wish these super conversative power brokers would stay out of it.