Terri Schiavo’s Husband Speaks Out On Jeb Bush’s Presidential Bid

[RandySF]

In his announcement Tuesday that he would explore a 2016 presidential bid, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) promised to focus on “ideas and policies that will expand opportunity and prosperity for all Americans.” But he made no mention of his most controversial act during his two terms in office: his attempts to take custody of Terri Schiavo and overrule her husband Michael’s decision to remove her feeding tube, fifteen years after cardiac arrest had left her in a vegetative state.

ThinkProgress spoke with Michael Schiavo and the attorney who represented him in the matter, George Felos, about Bush’s presidential candidacy. Both expressed concern that Bush’s record was one of government interference and opposing individual liberty.

“If you want a government that’s gonna intrude on your life, enforce their personal views on you, then I guess Jeb Bush is your man,” Schiavo explained, adding, “We really don’t need another Bush in office.”

Felos described Bush’s actions interference in Schiavo case as, “An egregious example of the fat hand of government inserting itself into a family’s medical decision and the obtrusive hand of government trying to override their decision.”

Though Michael Schiavo got a court order in 2002 to remove his wife’s feeding tube — he said his wife had not wanted to be kept alive artificially — Jeb Bush intervened, pushing the state legislature to pass an unconstitutional bill in a special session giving him authority to order the feeding tube reinserted. When a state judge ordered it removed again, Felos told ThinkProgress, Bush “manipulated the organs of state government in order to try to evade the court order.”


http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/12/17/3604615/michael-schiavo-jeb-bush/

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. I've been saying for years

That when many conservatives say, "I support the freedom of the individual to do as he or she wants" they actually mean "I support the freedom of the individual to do as he or she wants, insofar as he or she is doing something I approve of". Or, to put that more simply, "I do not support the freedom of the individual to do as he or she wants".

[CTyankee]

4. That controversy was playing out when my mother was dying in a Dallas hospital...

we had her taken off life support (she had simply stopped eating in order to die peacefully at the ago of 94). However, her hospital was not objecting to her wishes. She died as she wished to. It was a gentle good bye and I was grateful for having it be so. She had lived a good, full life and now it was time to go...

[Cha]

2. K&R

[JustAnotherGen]

3. This will rally the Right to Lifers

And Christian Conservatives.

[7962]

5. I doubt it; they're already railing against him. He's a "RINO" ya know.

And all RINOs must be defeated! When I read their comments, it makes me wonder if they'll ever get themselves another GOP president.
Someone said "the difference between the Democrats & the republicans is the democrats will circle their wagons around their candidates, the GOP circles their wagons and then they shoot"

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Funny I see all kinds of circling

Around Democratic candidates at DU - and lots of folks with their guns out.

If we make this an issue in a G.E. - they will use it as a contrast point and the idiots will fall for b.s. that they "killed her" because of Obamacare.

There are very intelligent economic conservatives who take the good with the bad. Then there are social conservatives clinging to to guns, God, and religion and those are the fucking idiots that will fall for this bullshit. Because Jeannine Pirro said it to them on Faux the other night. "they heard".

[7962]

9. Thats true; just start a Hillary OP and here they come! nt

[JustAnotherGen]

10. True that!

And being completely undecided - the way the "big three" supporters go at each other I'm thinking I'm against all three of them!

[SoapBox]

7. No more Bush...

ever.

[hatrack]

8. Govt. JUST small enough to fit in your bedroom, your uterus and your doctor's office

But wait! There's more - now with Fristronics Remote Diagnostic Systems! Just watch the video and you too can hold forth on what ails a patient!

[REP]

11. Good for him for speaking up

It can't be pleasant to relive what surely must have been one of the most terrible times in his life. At the time I was impressed at what a decent and honorable man he was; I'm still impressed.

[UTUSN]

12. The SHIAVO affair was second only to Coup-2000 in BUSH outrageousness for me

I still remember it all vividly -- Jeb Crow Shrub's criminal pandering, the sandaled-barefoot hairy Franciscan monks. On the other side, the beleaguered but stalwart Michael and our Democratic HEROES (which is why I'm flummoxed in recent years) Robert WEXLER and Debbie WASSERMAN-SHULTZ. I'm flummoxed because of the abuse heaped on WASSERMAN-SHULTZ here on DU, when she (like Harry REID, who also gets abused) have been out there speaking up Democratically tirelessly.

[zappaman]

13. Big kick and rec!