[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 5, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         FOR THE RELIEF OF THE PARENTS OF THERESA MARIE SCHIAVO

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. JULIA CARSON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Sunday, March 20, 2005

  Ms. CARSON. Mr. Speaker, the Schiavo family tragedy has touched the 
hearts of Americans across the country. This is a family that has for 
fifteen years intimately battled with what for most of us are distant 
fears. Now millions of us, in conversations at the office with our 
friends and colleagues and at the dinner table with our families, are 
trying to decide what we would do in their situation, what we would 
want for ourselves and for our loved ones. It is a conversation we need 
to have as a nation. But it is a question that will remain unsolved 
unless that time comes when our families are faced with tragedy as the 
Schiavo family has been.
  Today we can argue what we hope we would do in their situation, what 
we think we would want for ourselves, and what we think is right. But 
we do not know what it means to be a member of the Schiavo family. We 
in Congress can only pretend.
  Can any of us even imagine the agony that this family has weathered 
over the past fifteen years? Can any of us here in Washington pretend 
to have the authority to decide which members of this family in Florida 
are ``good'' and which are ``bad''? I have listened to some of my 
colleagues condemn Michael Schiavo, a man they have never met and do 
not know, as wicked. Some of my colleagues have suggested that this man 
they have never met, this man who has suffered immeasurably through 
this agonizing family tragedy, is motivated by selfishness and cruelty. 
Some have suggested he has no respect for life. Let us see these 
accusations for what they are: a sick and shameful attempt to destroy a 
man's character and to tear apart a family, all in the name of 
political gain.
  My colleagues, this will be a day looked back upon with shame. It 
will be the day that 100 Senators and 435 Members of Congress and one 
President, none of whom are members of this family, none of whom have 
stood alongside Terri Schiavo over the hardships of the past 15 years, 
none of whom know her wishes, none of whom would have lifted a finger 
were it not for a sick sense of political opportunism at the expense of 
the family--it will be the day these 536 strangers decided that the 
family wasn't good enough, that it was time for 536 strangers to 
decide, without any evidence or personal connection, what was good for 
a family they have never met.
  This is a choice we would never wish upon anyone, but which families 
must make between themselves and God alone. May Congress never again 
pretend to be part of such a covenant.

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