Steroids
and Terri Schiavo—Congress for once is getting almost as much attention as
Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton! I am disturbed by the extent to which both parties have asserted themselves in these cases. First let me begin with steroids and then I’ll move to Schiavo.
Major
League Baseball has a steroid problem. This isn’t new and we’ve known it for years. Athletes who distort their bodies with illegal performance enhancing drugs do so to the detriment of the game of baseball and any other sport for that matter. This much both parties can agree upon. Yes Major League Baseball’s steroid testing policy is weak. Yes, Baseball’s inflated muscle players send the wrong message to
America’s youth. But why do we need a Congressional hearing? Don’t they have more important
issues to grapple with:
Iraq?
Afghanistan?
The President???
Look America, if we don’t like the way baseball players or any other professional athletes present themselves then why don’t we
turn them off. Sure we might go through some withdrawal, but does anyone really miss hockey? Seriously, if you want to send cheating athletes a message, don’t watch them on TV. Don’t attend their games. Don’t buy their products. If we do all these things then we’ll see all the Jose Canseco’s of the world pumping your gas at your local Shell station. Likewise, if Baseball really wants to curb steroid use, they will. If not, it should be the responsibility of fans, not Congress to send Major League Baseball a message: we’re not interested in your product anymore!
Now, onto
the Schiavo case. I feel a strong connection to this case because eight years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was a lifetime smoker, who for most of her life avoided ill-health until it caught up with her in her late sixties. I remember her telling my Dad how she had lost the will to live. She was under constant medication, had a feeding tube and was immobile; confined to her bed. Before she lost her ability to speak she confided to my father that she wished someone could end her life. This was Arizona, you see and there was no “right to die” legislation to grant my dying grandmother her wish. So her slow death continued for two months after she regressed into a vegetative state. It was one of the most emotionally painful experiences my family had to endure.
I truly
feel for Terri Schiavo, her parents and husband. For ten years Michel Schiavo has remained faithful to his wife and has tried to allow her to pass with dignity—asserting that is how she wanted it. I understand Terri Schiavo’s parents wanting to cling to that hope that a miracle will occur and the daughter they once knew would come back. I wish this case wasn’t marginalized by the hacks and spin doctors who hog attention both at Schiavo’s hospital and on talk shows across the nation. Most of all, I think it is reprehensible that Republican Congressman led by Tom DeLay are seeking to undermine several court rulings that have supported Terri Schiavo’s right to die.
I fully
recognize there are several sides to this issue. I realize there are powerful arguments on both sides about Terri Schiavo’s mental capacity, however, most doctors have concurred that regardless she will be unable to recover from her vegetative state. Now, I’m not very religious, but I do believe in God and have a strong belief in many of the spiritual and moral influences that govern our society. But I ask this question to the religious right, to the Terri Schiavo hunger strikers, to the attention seeking “ministers” and to Terri Schiavo’s parents: doesn’t a better life await Terri in Heaven? Is it selfish for us to keep Terri here with us when she might be happier in perhaps another life?
There are
no easy answers to any of these questions, whether it’s a trivial as steroids or as monumental as the “right” to live or die. What I do know is that we have a lot of work to do out there. We have a homeland to defend, a Social Security system debated, and education program that is failing and an inconsistent foreign policy. Can Congress make some time for those?
Contributed By: Michael Pond, CoChair, 49th Ward Young Democrats
