In 2005, our Congress and our President, then the smaller Bush, decided that it was their right and responsibility to legislate that Terri Schiavo, in a vegetative state since 1998, should be kept alive through continued use of a feeding tube. Not only did they bypass the courts, but more important, Terri's doctors, and her legal guardian, her husband.
On Sunday, five year old Kyler Van Nocker died of cancer, after not only fighting the cancer, but fighting the insurance company, HealthAmerica, for treatment. Again, another party with an interest other than the health and well-being of the patient, steps in to dictate treatment. For every well educated and well-armed parent or patient, there are innumerable individuals who suffer and die for lack of ability to fight this beast.
And then there is abortion. Not the taking of a life, but the choice of a woman with her family, and with the advice of a physician. A difficult choice that many women make because bringing a child into their lives would be wrong. The cry of abortion as murder has been used by right wing extremists to fan the flames of hate and prevent fearful and insecure individuals from fighting for their own interests: a living wage, better education for their children, and yes, guaranteed health care, all of which would decrease the incidence of abortion by improving the quality of life.
The screaming about "death panels" last summer was outrageous and beyond ironic, because we have the death panels already.
They are the religious fanatics who believe they have the right to step into our bedrooms and sickrooms and decide what we can and can't do when we have sex, and what we should do with a fetus that is in our bodies, and that a stem cell CAN'T be used to further research to save lives.
They are the legislators who fought against a public health care for all that would be non-partisan and even-handed, because it would cut into the profits of their corporate sponsors. They cried about the deficit after building it, and then claimed the government would be the "death panel", when it was in fact the insurance corporation that truly determined who and when a patient would die.
And in fact they DO kill granny, and mom and dad, and even a five year old child, rather than pay for an expensive treatment or by disallowing large amounts of the cost, making health care unaffordable even with health insurance.
The "death panels" decide how much money to spend on our treatments. Their representatives in Congress won't vote to pay a penny to keep a Terri Schiavo alive, but stand in judgment of a family trying to say good-bye to a loved one. They won't fight for health care for all, even if it means a child will die, because it costs too much, it sets an expensive precedent, their corporate sponsors' profit margins will suffer.
The Jim Demints and John Boehners will stand against ObamaCare, because their money is on the insurance industry. And yet they will cry out about "death panels" as though they don't know that they are the ones who have made death panels the law of the land.
If you were going to cook a frog, would you throw it in boiling water, or drop it in a pan of cold water and turn on the heat?
If you want to control people, you get them to agree that they need to give up some small freedoms. You convince them that in fact it is other people that need to be controlled, and make laws against abortion. You tell them how bad it would be if the government controlled their health care, that "free enterprise" is the American Way, and of course, the way of "freedom". You control their doctors, and you allow doctors to be threatened and killed without standing against the murderers, until that treatment is no longer available. You come up with reasons why government funded research is bad, allowing corporations to decide what gets marketed and by whom. You cut funding for education, you cut funding for stem cell research, you cut funding for regulators to monitor the industrial research and corporations.
...and Voila! the frog is dead, and didn't even know it was happening.
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