Today I am Ashamed of my Government!

I watched a spectacle of mass proportion Sunday night, as our Congress assembled to involve itself into our private lives. Passing an amendment to reinsert the feeding tube of a brain dead woman whose husband knew that her wishes were to not be sustained this way. Every American should be outraged at such abuse of power. I take this very personally as life support judgments were either made or close to being made twice in two years within my own family. To have our federal government insert itself into such personal and painful private decisions is unimaginable.

This act by our Congress is nothing more than Politics 101. When a memo by Republicans is circulated throughout the Senate that says "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," and goes on: "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats," this poor woman becomes nothing more than a political pawn.

And what a display of hypocrisy by our President to sign the amendment for Terri Schiavo when as governor of Texas he signed a law called The Texas Futile Care Law which gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. In what medical ethicists say is a first in the United States, a hospital acting under this law, with the concurrence of a judge, disconnected a critically ill baby from life support last week over his mother's objections.

In a perfect world loved ones who can agree together on the right thing to do would make these horrible decisions. In an imperfect world we have courts to help make those decisions. It should not be up to our federal government to invade itself into our lives and into the judiciary. Today I am ashamed of my government and very afraid of what comes next if they can do this.