Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader and leader of the Congressional effort to spare Terri Schiavo's life, was confronted more than 16 years ago with his own agonizing end-of-life dilemma and agreed to withdraw life support from the patient, his father, according to a report Sunday in The Los Angeles Times.
The account said that Mr. DeLay had suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure, and that his wife, Maxine, and their other children had made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear he could not recover. Representative DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object, the newspaper's report said.
In a meeting before the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, Mr. DeLay linked the Schiavo case to a broader attack on both him and the conservative movement in general. In press releases and statements on the House floor, he spoke of Ms. Schiavo in explicitly religious and moral terms.
"Congress has a legislative and moral duty to do what we can to protect her," Mr. DeLay said on March 17, after the House passed a measure intended to prevent the withdrawal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. "Her life is being threatened, and we have it in our power to act on her behalf. Every human life deserves at least that much."
This is what Tom Delay said about Terry Schiavo:
"Right now, murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida," DeLay said. "Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should be immediately replaced, and Congress will continue working to explore ways to save her.
"Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."
Tom Delay's own father was being kept alive by intravenous lines and a ventilator when Tom Delay decided to murder his own father by removing life support!
It's time to remove the hypocrisy tube that's feeding Tom Delay.
