To the editor:

I was saddened when Terri Schiavo’s parents weren’t given the chance to take care of her and not just let her languish endlessly unable to function or communicate. They should have had the right to try all means to help her.

What I find really repugnant in the whole affair is the attempt by some to politicize it all by saying the “liberals” were for her right to die. This is a family matter and a case-by-case issue dealt with daily by many. The courts looked at it over and over and you have to trust their rulings were made in good faith.

To politicize it is ridiculous. We can’t keep everyone alive indefinitely by artificial means. I have yet to talk to anybody who wants to be kept alive, in Schiavo’s condition, for as long as she was.

It’s getting increasingly tiring being lectured about morality and the sanctity of life by those who also endorse the taking of life via capital punishment, unjust war and the endorsement of torturing suspects for years without a trial. I wonder what percentages, of detainees being treated this way, are innocent. With no guilt established without torture, who really knows? What makes those lives, the innocent ones anyway, less important? Is it their race or religion?

Steve Crockett,

Lawrence