Charleston Gazette's Disgraceful Editorial
This editorial in the Charleston Gazette is so despicable it is hard to know where to begin. In applauding the Federal Court's decision not to extradite George Exoo at the request of Ireland for allegedly assisting the suicide of an Irish woman, the editorial makes the most disgraceful, ignorant, and insensitive statements:
Jack Kevorkian, an eccentric known as "Dr. Death," spent eight years in a Michigan prison for murder because he helped a Lou Gehrig's disease victim end his hopeless life.Yes. And he also assisted the suicides of more than 130 people, most of whom were not terminally ill but disabled. More urgently, imagine how it feels to be a Lou Gehrig's disease patient or a family member, and read in your local newspaper that it officially considers someone with ALS to have a "hopeless life."
And then, the editorial brings up Terri Schiavo:
The grotesque Terri Schiavo case, in which Republican congressmen rushed into emergency session to continue life-support machines sustaining a brain-dead woman, spotlighted the thorny topic.Never mind, as I wrote in this week's Weekly Standard, that bill was passed with broadly bi-partisan support, including unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate. Terri was not on "life-support machines." Nor was she "brain dead." She was profoundly disabled.
The editorial writer is not only crassly insensitive, but incredibly ignorant. Disgraceful, but all too typical of the MSM on these issues.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:03 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Of course, George Exoo is "offbeat" and Kevorkian is "eccentric." Aw, shucks, they means well. -- Using such qualifiers is a flimsy rhetorical device aimed at making their opponents seem unreasonable. Shoddy, shoddy writing.
It's an editorial, so it states a point of view -- fine. But it doesn't even try to be balanced.
They are entitled to their ugly opinion, of course. But as journalists, they owe their readers accuracy. But apparently that is asking too much.
All this talk about Kevorkian tends to leave one rather depressed... therefore.. here's a Halloween gift for you guys and gals :)
http://uk.media.movies.ign.com/media/746/746237/vids_1.html
:) I'm so buying a ticket to wath this one! :)
I tend to think less and less that people who are hostile to the facts are entitled to an opinion: on what would it be based? Good intentions? Wishes? Those are no ground for an argument.
Good point, gregory l. ford.
The link to the editorial was broken for me.
This should work.
Wow. I was involved in the Terri Schiavo case and I have heard too many insensitive and inhumane comments by newspapers and the general public on the matter. Calling someone who has been in an accident and who has suffered life altering injuries should not be referred to as a "vegetable" or "brain dead"! That whole case was a ploy for the legalization of assisted suicide and the growth of euthanasia.
If we can just kill anyone who cannot survive without life support, then what is to stop us from killing babies who need breathing tubes or other such implements to survive their first few weeks?
Why even have life support?
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