I think the bigger issue [of the government getting involved] here is the government taking away the right of the spouse to make medicinal decisions for his/her spouse and giving it to the parents because the parents disagree with the spouse.

Arrested for trying to give her water.

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/...&c=news_photos

That's amazing. Arresting someone for trying to give someone dying of dehydration a drink. Shows how screwed up the whole thing is.

I would suspect so. Unfortunately, I believe the large majority of politicians - regardless of party affiliation - play the political angle of everything and attempt to gain advantage from it.

So you try one thing, get stopped because it was declared as unconstitutional, and you should stop trying other avenues? I would suspect that you would be very persistent in pursuing what you thought was best in every situation if you hit a roadblock you thought you could get around.

They are not contradicting any court. They are working within an established system of government. You may think it scummy, and that's fine, but it's all about working within the system to acheive your goal.

Personally, I think it's scummy to make someone die of dehydration.

:rolleyes: Try arrested for trespassing. And these people were bringing sandwiches to a woman who is unable to eat and has no feeding tube. They were trying to get arrested. It's called civil disobedience. Good for them, I'm all for civil disobedience, but c'mon Leo, "arrested for giving her water"? You're above that kind of propoganda.

As far as I'm concerned, public officials getting this involved in a private matter that should have been (and was) resolved in the courts was over-stepping the bounds long ago.

I haven't weighed in on this one yet, because it just makes me sad on so many levels.

I do have one question, though: does this non-political humanitarian move by the federal government mean that they're going to pass a massive health care bill to take care of all the poor, sick and starving folks here in the US? If so, that's a great outcome to such a difficult case. I'm not going to be so cynical to imagine that they'd only vote on a case to make a statement without costing the Fed a cent.

Well, the link I posted only said water. Sandwiches, stupid, yes. Of course they were trying to get arrested, and it's pretty effective propaganda, really.

Go walk into any stranger's ICU room with a bottle of water in any hospital in this country and see what kind of reaction you get. What they were doing was a protest, they were protestors doing something illegal trying to get arrested. They weren't trying to give her water.

Did somebody say civil disobedience? This changes everything. Let me grab my water hose, swing by Subway to get her a meatball sub and I'm there, man.