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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-03-19

I Love "Raymond"

I have thoroughly enjoyed "Everybody Loves Raymond" for several years now. All the other things about the family aside, it seems that the writers have managed to capture the dynamic of a young marriage exceptionally well. And the chemistry between Raymond and Patricia Heaton, his wife, seems very genuine.

I now have more reasons to like this show, and support its (and its leading actress's) success:

Two-time Emmy winner and New York Times best-selling author Patricia Heaton pled for the life of Terri Schiavo today as Terri's life-sustaining feeding tube was removed. Heaton serves as Honorary Chair of Feminists for Life of America.

"We must not let Terri Schiavo be starved to death," said Heaton. "This deliberate and painful destruction of a woman's life cannot be justified or tolerated. Terri deserves better."

"By his actions Michael Schiavo has demonstrated that he should not be the one making the ultimate life or death decisions for a woman who, only in legal terms, remains his wife. His belief that this was Terri's wish counters the views of Terri's family who, no doubt, know Terri well. Removal of a feeding tube will result in a slow starvation that is cruel and painful."

"Feminists have always challenged the idea that married women have no rights of their own," said Heaton. "A husband should not be granted absolute control over his wife's fate, especially a disaffected husband with dubious motives."

This kind of talk isn't gonna do much for her post-Raymond Hollywood career. But you gotta love a Hollywood starlet who has a grip on reality.

UPDATE: my wife does not necessarily agree with me. She is of the opinion that leaving a person living in that condition is cruel. This, of course, is before she learns of Michael Schiavo's denial of testing and denial of care for his "in sickness and in health" wife. Look, under normal circumstances, I would agree that if her life were dependent on machinery, then hanging on would be a disservice. But, until ALL care options have been exhausted, how does anybody really know? And can you make a death decision based on incomplete or potentially faulty data? Isn't this the same argument anti-death penalty types have adopted lately? Many of whom, by the way, line up on the side of Michael Schiavo. So it's cruel to end the life of a murderer because there's the chance that the system failed him and we didn't get all the facts, but it's okay to let a woman starve to death because her husband decides--based on incomplete medical evidence--that her life is effectively over? Once again, more incoherence from the left.

By the way, my wife came around pretty quickly--with an acknowledgement that the news has been pathetically incompetent in its coverage of the case.
Posted by: Michael / 3/19/2005 11:01:00 AM

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