Scott Tibbs
Bloomington Herald-Times
April 19th, 2005
Back to Short Writings.
The murder of Terri Schiavo
To the Editor:The United States was never intended to be a judicial oligarchy. When the Florida courts ignored Terri Schiavo's 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the laws, it was the right and responsibility of the federal government to do more to protect an innocent woman. Sadly, Terri was tortured to death via starvation and dehydration.
Both the legislative and executive branches are sworn to uphold the Constitution. If the judicial branch is not following the Constitution, the other branches must protect our system of government. No one would argue that our representatives in Congress were overreaching their authority if they acted against a state court that ruled in favor of denying minorities the right to vote. States' rights are important, but no state government can infringe on fundamental Constitutional freedoms.
Efforts to save Terri were not "political". Right and wrong do not know political labels. Supporters of Terri were fighting injustice. The death of Terri Schiavo shows that we learned nothing from the murder of Baby Doe over two decades ago.
An unrelated note: My mother never needed to worry about my school giving me a "sex survey", like MCCSC did recently. I attended Grace Baptist Academy in Angola, Indiana.
Scott Tibbs
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D'oh!
In my letter to the editor today, I mistakenly referred to the MCCSC sex survey in past tense. The survey will not take place until next month.
Oops.