Delay's family tragedy

[TexasTiger 12,996]

DeLay Family Outcome Different From Schiavo's

 

By Walter F. Roche Jr. and Sam Howe Verhovek, Times Staff Writer

CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy unfolding in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal -- without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the raging debate outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family standing vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman -- U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

   

 More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and a ventilator, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.

Then, freshly re-elected to a third term in the House, DeLay waited all but helpless for the verdict of doctors.

Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to champion political intervention the Schaivo case. He pushed emergency legislation through congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.

And he is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way he (Charles) wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When the man's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do Not Resuscitate."

On Dec. 14, 1988, the senior DeLay "expired with his family in attendance."

"The situation faced by the congressman's family was entirely different than Terri Schiavo's," said a spokesman for DeLay, who declined requests for an interview.

"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said Dan Allen, DeLay's news aide.

There were also these similarities: Both stricken patients were severely brain damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without continuing medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared life sustained by machine. And neither left a living will.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

[tiger88 934]

Congressman involved in hypocrisy? Say it ain't so.

[Piglet 0]

I wonder how DeLay would have felt if a bunch of government busybodies and media clowns had descended on him in the middle of the family tragedy, not to mention half the public thinking they ought to make the decision instead, knowing all about it from distorted reporting and schmexpert opinions.

DeLay is worse than Slick Willy. "Do what I say, not what I do."

[tiger88 934]

That is a good job of putting this whole deal into a nutshell piglet. A nutshell is where it has belonged all along.

[MDM4AU 336]

Delay has his problems, but there is a major difference in these two cases. In the case of the Delay family tragedy, there was no divide among the family. The father needed a ventilator to breathe and dialysis for his malfuntioned kidneys. All this came about from a massive head injury.

With the Schiavo case, there are differing opinions by physicians on her state. There is a family divide about starving her to death. Her involuntary organs are working without the aid of a machine (maybe not now that she has been denied water and food for over a week). There are questions regarding the husband and his motives/issues.

Attack Delay for what ever "ethics" problems he might have. But don't try to equate these two totally different situations.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Delay has his problems, but there is a major difference in these two cases.  In the case of the Delay family tragedy, there was no divide among the family.  The father needed a ventilator to breathe and dialysis for his malfuntioned kidneys.  All this came about from a massive head injury.

With the Schiavo case, there are differing opinions by physicians on her state.  There is a family divide about starving her to death.  Her involuntary organs are working without the aid of a machine (maybe not now that she has been denied water and food for over a week).  There are questions regarding the husband and his motives/issues. 

Attack Delay for what ever "ethics" problems he might have.  But don't try to equate these two totally different situations.

153109[/snapback]

What he said. Plus, in the Delay case, his mother, who was the one to make the decision, made the decision and the kids and other family members supported her. There was also a Do Not Recesitate order in place for DeLay's father. His father's case falls under "heroic measures to save a life", meaning dialysis and a vent - something above and beyond the pale. The courts ruled long ago that a feeding tube is not a heroic measure, but a means to sustain life that is supporting itself - a feeding tube does not completely replace a bodily function like breathing or kidney function.

To me, the real issue here is dredging up DeLay's sad story to try and make political hay. We signed a DNR on my beloved grandfather once he developed a strep infection and pneumonia, both drug resistant. You think that was easy? What DeLay went through with his family is their private concern. DeLay should be left alone on this issue. Right wrong or indifferent, the Schiavos ASKED Congress, and any other human they could find to get involved. That opened the case up to rampant publicity. DeLay didn't go looking for this. in fact, I'll bet this has brought back bad memories for him

So lay off him.

[tiger88 934]

Delay has his problems, but there is a major difference in these two cases.  In the case of the Delay family tragedy, there was no divide among the family.  The father needed a ventilator to breathe and dialysis for his malfuntioned kidneys.  All this came about from a massive head injury.

With the Schiavo case, there are differing opinions by physicians on her state.  There is a family divide about starving her to death.  Her involuntary organs are working without the aid of a machine (maybe not now that she has been denied water and food for over a week).  There are questions regarding the husband and his motives/issues. 

Attack Delay for what ever "ethics" problems he might have.  But don't try to equate these two totally different situations.

153109[/snapback]

I'm not saying the cases were identical. I'm just saying that when you point, three fingers are coming right back at you. Differences, yes. Similarities, yes.

[TexasTiger 12,996]

Delay has his problems, but there is a major difference in these two cases.  In the case of the Delay family tragedy, there was no divide among the family.  The father needed a ventilator to breathe and dialysis for his malfuntioned kidneys.  All this came about from a massive head injury.

With the Schiavo case, there are differing opinions by physicians on her state.  There is a family divide about starving her to death.  Her involuntary organs are working without the aid of a machine (maybe not now that she has been denied water and food for over a week).  There are questions regarding the husband and his motives/issues. 

Attack Delay for what ever "ethics" problems he might have.  But don't try to equate these two totally different situations.

153109[/snapback]

What he said. Plus, in the Delay case, his mother, who was the one to make the decision, made the decision and the kids and other family members supported her. There was also a Do Not Recesitate order in place for DeLay's father. His father's case falls under "heroic measures to save a life", meaning dialysis and a vent - something above and beyond the pale. The courts ruled long ago that a feeding tube is not a heroic measure, but a means to sustain life that is supporting itself - a feeding tube does not completely replace a bodily function like breathing or kidney function.

To me, the real issue here is dredging up DeLay's sad story to try and make political hay. We signed a DNR on my beloved grandfather once he developed a strep infection and pneumonia, both drug resistant. You think that was easy? What DeLay went through with his family is their private concern. DeLay should be left alone on this issue. Right wrong or indifferent, the Schiavos ASKED Congress, and any other human they could find to get involved. That opened the case up to rampant publicity. DeLay didn't go looking for this. in fact, I'll bet this has brought back bad memories for him

So lay off him.

153136[/snapback]

Lay off him? Have him step down, and I'll forget all about him. Little Tommy Delay needs big Jenny running interference? In any event, I didn't slam him over this situation. As I said on another thread, this is just another illustration of how difficult these tragedies are. Thankfully, at least to our knowledge, there was apparently little dispute among family members. Perhaps due to his age, as opposed to Terri's, there was less impetus to hope for a miracle that was not to be forthcoming.

The fact is, we don't know a whole lot about the details of his father's case, which is how it should be. It was a family matter. We know he lacked a living will, but the family decided he would be better off not being kept alive. But a DNR is not the same thing as deciding not to use dialysis. And there are key similarities between ventilators and feeding tubes. We have a more immediate need for oxygen than we do for food. As terrible as starving is, imagine dying gasping for air. Neither seems terribly humane when all one focuses on is the manner of death. Someone needs a ventilator when they can't take in sufficient oxygen on their own. Someone needs a feeding tube when they can't consume nutrition on their own. Terri has no swallowing reflex.

My grandmother suffered needlessly because none of her children wanted to be the one to decide to let her go. It would have been tough for any of them to step up and say "stop." The answers aren't easy and condemning people one doesn't even know in such a situation is also inhumane.

So I didn't condemn Delay for his role in deciding not to provide his father with care to sustain his life. Which is far more respect than he has shown Mr. Schiavo:

Friends and relatives considered Charles DeLay's quality of life and concluded he'd be better off dead. "He was all but gone," said the neighbor. "He would have been better off if he'd died right there and then." According to Charles' sister-in-law, his brother "prayed that, if [Charles] couldn't have quality of life, that God would take him—and that is exactly what [H]e did."

God may have taken Charles, but his family held the door open. They inferred, without written evidence, that Charles wouldn't have wanted to go on living in this condition. "Daddy did not want to be a vegetable," said Vi Skogen, who at the time was Charles' daughter-in-law. Tom DeLay's mother told the Times, "There was no point to even really talking about it. There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew—we all knew—his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

That was then. This is now. At a press conference on March 18, Tom DeLay denied that quality of life could be valid grounds for withdrawing Schiavo's feeding tube. "It's not for any one of us to decide what her quality of life should be," he said. "It's not any one of us to decide whether she should live or die." Congress, DeLay explained, was intervening against Schiavo's husband "to protect her constitutional right to live."

In the absence of a living will, DeLay argued, Schiavo's spouse couldn't legally vouch for her wishes, as DeLay's mother had done—on less apparent basis—for DeLay's father. When a reporter noted that "Terri Schiavo's husband has said that she expressed a verbal desire that she not continue in this sort of state," DeLay replied, "The sanctity of life overshadows the sanctity of marriage. I don't know what transpired between Terri and her husband. All I know is Terri is alive. … And unless she had specifically written instructions in her hand and with her signature, I don't care what her husband says."

A day later, DeLay told reporters that Congress had to intervene rather than "take it from just a few people that have decided whether she lives or dies. For one person in one state court to make this decision is too heavy. That's why it does take all of us to think this through, think about the Constitution and its protection of life."

DeLay hasn't confined his condemnation to the principles on which his family acted. He has condemned the character of people who now apply or defend those principles. On March 18, he charged, "Senators Boxer, Wyden, and Levin have put Mrs. Schiavo's life at risk to prove a point—an unprecedented profile in cowardice." A day later, he said of Schiavo's husband, "I don't have a whole lot of respect for a man that has treated this woman in this way. … My question is: What kind of man is he?"

Why the difference between then and now? Maybe because DeLay saw his father as a human being. He speaks of Schiavo as something more—and less. "It's more than just Terri Schiavo," DeLay told the Family Research Council on March 18. "It is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight the fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. And I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America."

This is what happens when you approach a tragedy as a politician rather than as a family member. You see quality of life as a slippery-slope abstraction, not as a reality affecting someone you love. You find it easy to impose a standard of documentation that would have forced your family to break the law. You second-guess a spouse in a way you would never second-guess your mother. You challenge people's competence and impugn their character. You perceive the afflicted person more as God's tool than as God's child.

I don't have a lot of respect for a man who treats a woman this way. But to dismiss him as a hypocrite would further politicize a case he has already politicized too much. My question is: What kind of man is he? My answer is: He's a better child than politician. So are we all. That's why families should make these decisions, and Congress should stay out.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2115879/

[AURaptor 1,126]

I guess since Stephen Hawking can't feed himself either, we should just let him starve/ dehydrate untill he's dead too, huh?

[TexasTiger 12,996]

I guess since Stephen Hawking can't feed himself either, we should just let him starve/ dehydrate untill he's dead too, huh?

153200[/snapback]

He's planning a lecture in Spain in April, you can go and ask him yourself what he thinks of your analogy.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/info/info.html

[AURaptor 1,126]

I guess since Stephen Hawking can't feed himself either, we should just let him starve/ dehydrate untill he's dead too, huh?

153200[/snapback]

He's planning a lecture in Spain in April, you can go and ask him yourself what he thinks of your analogy.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/info/info.html

153202[/snapback]

I'd love to! Not only being one who admires Hawking, but also jetting over to Spain would be cool. Alas, my itinerary is full.

[Tiger Al 0]

I guess since Stephen Hawking can't feed himself either, we should just let him starve/ dehydrate untill he's dead too, huh?

153200[/snapback]

He's planning a lecture in Spain in April, you can go and ask him yourself what he thinks of your analogy.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/info/info.html

153202[/snapback]

I'd love to! Not only being one who admires Hawking, but also jetting over to Spain would be cool. Alas, my itinerary is full.

153215[/snapback]

Maybe you can ask him via his e-mail address then. S.W.Hawking@damtp.cam.ac.uk