Patterico's Pontifications

3/20/2005

L.A. Times Once Again Presents Only One Side of the Schiavo Controversy

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Schiavo — Patterico @ 1:35 am



For the L.A. Times, the Terri Schiavo story is simple. A woman in a persistent vegetative state, who told her husband she didn’t want to be kept alive by artificial means, is being used as a political football by a bunch of religious nuts. That’s how the controversy was portrayed in this article:

As a Roman Catholic priest administered last rites to Schiavo, 41, and demonstrators prayed nearby, national political leaders sparred over Congress’ unprecedented intervention into the battle over a woman whose story has roused the GOP’s social conservative base.

. . . .

“This is what Terri wanted. This is her wish,” her husband, Michael Schiavo, said late Friday on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” He said he was angry that the government had “just trampled all over my personal life.”

. . . .

Over the last few days, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress — responding to an outcry from the religious right — passed legislation in an attempt to delay the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube.

The article does quote one ethicist who has problems with the case:

Adrienne Asch, a bioethics professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, suggested there are “real problems in this case” and echoed concerns of many social conservative leaders that “a spouse is no longer the best decision maker.”

But the article makes Adrienne Asch look like a lunatic, because it does not even hint at the facts that might cause someone to say that there are “real problems in this case” or that Michael Schiavo “is no longer the best decision maker.” Anyone with a superficial knowledge of this controversy — and that means most people — will read this article and say: “What the hell does she mean the spouse isn’t the best decisionmaker? Nobody better say that about my spouse!”

But Michael Schiavo isn’t just any spouse. He has numerous conflicts of an emotional and financial nature. I don’t need to go over these again here. I have done it extensively many times, including on other occasions (such as this one) where the L.A. Times has failed to tell its readers about both sides of this controversy. For me, it’s all summed up in his statement about Terri, overheard by Registered Nurse Carla Iyer: “When is that bitch going to die?”

That statement has never appeared in the L.A. Times, and it never will. The paper has a consistent history of telling readers only one side of this story. All I can say is: they’re doing it again.

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