RE: [Marxism] Re: Terri Schiavo: the right to live, to die, or to kill?

[davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Walter raises some good points, but it is also interesting that he mentions 
Clint
Eastwood in the same  breath of the Terri Schiavo case since most disability 
rights
activists (and regular disabled people) consider him one of the  worst living
instances of liberal "benevolence" for the disabled. There was a book recently
written about his position by a disability right's activist  entitled: "Make 
Them Go
Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights"
The book basically sums up the view of Clint, Reeves (and many like minded
liberals) of disability as being a "personal tragedy" that the conscientious 
public
should either pity or make disappear. Right and left  holds to the first 
belief, yet
many good hearted liberals go the next step  by equating "helping" disabled 
people
with support for euthuansia type measure rooted in eugenic ideology, measures
summed in the statement such as: "We putting them out of their misery" "you
should have an abortion because your child may be mentally challenged and that
will cause untold suffering in adult life", etc.
Marxists might be surprised to know that very few disabled  peopel (many of whom
have serious impairments and experience extreme pain) ascribe to this belief. 
Most
don't ask for people's pity, but rather the same degree of respect and dignity
afforded to other adults and along with that, the rights, protections and
accomodations (e.g., accesss to public facilities) that much of the abled body 
public
takes for granted and that currently is nonexistent for disabled people in most
countries around the world.
DOQ


On 21 Mar 2005 at 6:54, Walter Lippmann wrote:

> Under capitalism, women and children are considered property.
> Women are the property of men. Children are the property of
> parents. Here we see a conflict between two "property rights",
> and the right has come out squarely in favor of the "rights"
> of the parents as against the spouse. He'd supported keeping
> her on life supports for seven years before changing views.
>
> I know nothing about whether or not he'll make a bundle off
> of her death, via insurance claims or whatever, but that's
> a lesser issue, it seems to me, than the rightist campaign
> to keep her alive. They used the same tactic of trying to
> get a federal subpoena of then aged-six Elian Gonzalez by
> a congressional committee as well. Fortunately it didn't
> work then.
>
> It does seem that the hospitals certainly stand to make a
> bundle, to keep making a bundle, off of this tragic woman's
> situation. This is well-explored in the movie made recently
> by Clint Eastwood called MILLION DOLLAR BABY, which I will
> recommend to those concerned with this issue.
>
>
> Walter Lippmann
>

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