This Terri Schiavo political and executive circus...

is particularly offensive to me. In 1976 at twenty-one my wife was diagnosed with a reemergence of a very deadly form of bone cancer. At the time, she was five months pregnant with our child. She and I had to make a very personal, very emotional decision: a) begin chemotherapy which would result in a late term abortion or b) withhold chemotherapy and hope the baby could be born (most likely resulting in my wife's death due to delayed treatment). We chose chemotherapy and, tragically, both my wife and baby were lost.


Thinking back to those times...they were INTENSELY gut wrenching and personal...immediate family and doctor in confidence discussing and deciding on life or death issues...a time of shock and grief piled on top of grief. I shudder to think how much more painful it all would have been if we had been made the pawn of right wing Christian religous fanatics who had not the slightest clue of or care for our suffering. Simply outrageous.