Misreading The Vital Signs

[struggle4progress]

<snip> Do they really think that if they pass misguided laws to require extraordinary medical care for Terri Schiavo, no one will notice their attempts to gut medical programs for the nation's needy? Medicaid, which provides for Terri Schiavo's care, is facing cuts from both Washington and Tallahassee.

Do they think that if they pledge to overturn Roe vs. Wade, no one will notice their lack of concern for the well-being of children once born into this world? President Bush has proposed serious cuts in education programs. Gov. Bush and the legislature made changes in KidCare, which provides health care to low-income children, that drove 100,000 children out of the program.

If a politician is opposed to stem-cell research and equally opposed to a ban on assault weapons or mandatory safety devices on handguns, how pure is that commitment to life? The most obvious contradiction is that so many people who have cast themselves as central to the culture of life have played such central roles in the culture of war. The rush to prevent the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube is as hasty as the rush to a war of choice in Iraq.

It is hard to conclude that Rep. DeLay and Sen. Frist are serious about the culture of life, since they have not kept Congress in constant session over the killing of 1,500 U.S. soldiers — sent to war ill-equipped and with poor planning — much less concerned themselves with the Iraqi casualties. The Bush administration, holding itself up as the prime defender of the culture of life, doesn't even bother to count civilian casualties in Iraq. And did President Bush ever interrupt a vacation to get to the bottom of abuses at Abu Ghraib? <snip>

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=F3D851E5-0C62-4B81-AEBC-6D8A58DF3B42