Terry Schiavo will never wake up -- will the US citizens?

This tempest in a teapot over what should be a private family issue is appalling! I want to find the list of which Democrats went along with this farcical piece of unconstitutional legislation -- they are KILLING our party. This was a perfect opportunity for Democrats to point out to the people the game that the Republicans have been playing for YEARS. Using Abortion and other "religious issues" to appear compassionate, while what they really care about is allowing the rich to get and remain richer on the backs of the working people.

The Republicans have been reducing the tax burden on the richest members of our society for 20+ years. In the 1950s the top marginal tax rate was 90% --- that doesn't mean, of course that someone subject to that rate would pay 90% of all the money they earn, only that they would pay 90% of earnings above a certain EXTREMELY luxurious level. Had we not allowed these rich people to keep more and more of their money out of the public coffers, we could have joined EVERY other developed country in providing unversal health care for our citizens. We could spend more money on our educational system so that we could stop falling further and further behind in the world in Math and Science.

I don't doubt that people have VERY strong feelings about abortion and right to die with dignity, BUT I challenge the wisdom of choosing federal officials based ONLY on these issues of personal beliefs. I resent the fact that these issues have been dominated only by extremists. I resent that conservatives like to tell people that we have "abortion on demand" in this country -when anyone knows that we only have anything resembling that for first trimester fetuses. These conservatives love to panic people into believing that fully viable children are being aborted regularly be women in this country -- they are NOT. I know that even first trimester fetuses are precious life in the view of some people, but MOST people realize there is a difference. The fact is that life is so fragile at this point that couples are often told not to tell people they are expecting until they've made it past the first trimester because miscarraige is so common during that period.

ON the other hand, I resent liberal supporters of Roe who insist on opposing even a miniscule restriction on abortion rights. Had Clinton signed the bill regarding partial birth abortions instead of leaving it for Bush, the law would have contained an exception for when the life of the mother is threatened. Democrats should have let the partial birth issue go long ago, it is far to good a PR issue for the Republicans. We have to start recognizing that most people are in the middle of these issues. If we carve out the middle, we can make the Republicans look excessively extreme and they can no longer use these wedge issues to distract!

One of the MOST appalling voices in this is Bill Frist. This man lost any credibility as a physician when he quibbled about whether tears and sweat could transmit AIDS on "This Week." Anyone with the slightest medical knowledge knows that no such transfer can or ever has happened, but Frist pandered to the evangelicals by abandoning his hypocratic oath -- OH, YEAH he did HARM! Then this week he stands up and insists that from studying some videos he can tell that Terry S. is not in a persistent vegitative state. What a joke. I can't tell whether all this nonsense is about pandering to the christian right or is designed to distract from the theiving of Tom DeLay.