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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during the Sunshine Summit conference in Orlando on Friday. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Ben Carson says the Terri Schiavo case was ‘much ado about nothing’

By Ed O’Keefe

THE WASHINGTON POST

November 13, 2015

[ Emphasis and {commentary} in red type by Abyssum ]

ORLANDO — Leading Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson believes that federal and state official overreacted in trying to save Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died in 2005 as her husband and family battled over whether to keep her alive despite her vegetative state.

The case roiled the state of Florida and sparked an emotional national debate about the ethics, politics and spiritual significance of her life and death.

A well-regarded retired neurosurgeon, Carson earned national acclaim for performing delicate surgeries. But he’s also surged atop the GOP presidential pack with the support of Christian voters nationwide who are drawn to his rags-to-riches life story, his books on spirituality and redemption and his frequent talk about his faith.

But on Friday, that reputation seemed to collide with his professional medical opinions.

At the request of her family, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush intervened and attempted to take custody of Schiavo. A Republican-controlled Congress also held a rare Palm Sunday session to pass a law that would have kept her alive. But federal courts struck down the law and Bush’s intervention and Schiavo died shortly { it would have been much more accurate for this journalist to have written “Schiavo was killed shortly after the ruling” rather than to simply say that she died.  After the court ruled that Congress and Jeb Bush could not interfere the circuit court judge in Florida at the urging of Terri Schiavo’s husband and with the agreement of the Bishop of Saint Petersburg, Bishop Robert Lynch, the nutrition and hydration support was removed from Terri Schiavo and over the next three weeks she died a slow, painful death by dehydration and starvation.  Prior to her death she had shown all signs of life except full consciousness }after the ruling.

After speaking at a Republican Party conference here on Friday, a reporter asked Carson what he thought of the infamous case — one that Bush speaks about occasionally as he mounts his own presidential campaign.

“We face those kinds of issues all the time and while I don’t believe in euthanasia, you have to recognize that people that are in that condition do have a series of medical problems that occur that will take them out,” he said. “Your job [as a doctor] is to keep them comfortable throughout that process and not to treat everything that comes up.”

[The story of the surgery that made Ben Carson famous — and its complicated aftermath]

When the reporter asked whether Carson thought it was necessary for Congress to intervene, he said: “I don’t think it needed to get to that level. I think it was much ado about nothing.”   {This is the kind of flippant remark that has killed the political ambitions of many candidates.  The effort of many people to save Terri Schiavo from the euthanasia her husband wanted was not “much ado about nothing.”  Granted the action by Congress was a bit much, but instead of saying that, Carson cast a blanket of ridicule on the family of Terri Schiavo and the thousands of people who were try to prevent her killing.  I can overlook a candidate making flippant remarks about the economy or other candidates, but on life issues  flippancy is inexcusable !  Given Carsons record of saving the lives of thousands of infants his callousness in speaking of the tragedy of families having to cope with the eagerness of the medical/organ transplantation industry’s eagerness to use ‘brain death’ to justify killing is inexcusable.  See my next post on this Blog. } 

Allie Brandenburger, a Bush spokeswoman, said he “has always advocated for a culture of preserving life. For him, being pro-life is not just about preventing deaths of the most vulnerable, but also about promoting human dignity and helping people preserve life. Governor Bush engaged on the issue and advocated for Terri Schiavo because he believes that when in doubt, it is important to err on the side of life.”

In a memoir published last week, Bush recalled his first interactions with Schiavo’s father, Robert Schindler, who asked him to intervene in an e-mail sent in 2001.”It was many months before I realized this letter was only the beginning of a very long, complicated, and controversial journey for her family and me,” Bush wrote in his book, “Reply All,” an anthology of e-mails he received during his governorship.

Bush wrote that feedback about Schiavo peaked in his inbox shortly before her death in March 2005 when he received more than 16,000 e-mails about the situation.

Once the courts ruled against him, “there was nothing more we could do,” Bush wrote. “At the end of the day, I knew in my heart I had done absolutely everything I could to save Terri.”

{I like Ben Carson.  I doubt that I would have voted for him in a primary, I would probably vote for Cruz or Rubio or Fionrina, but if he had ended up as the Republican candidate for President of the United States I would vote for him. reluctantly !!! }

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