Issue Position: Keeping Family End-of-Life Decisions Private

Floor Speech

"Nothing better illustrates how completely out-of-touch the Republican Rubber-stamp Congress has been from mainstream American values than the shameless attempt to politicize the tragedy of Terri Schiavo and her family. We even saw Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist "diagnose" Ms. Schiavo's condition from a videotape, while House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Fox News made a villain out of Ms. Schiavo's husband for keeping faith with what he understood to be her last wishes.

In my opinion, the Congress of the United States had absolutely no business attempting to legislate in this case. Worse, the legislation was designed to take sides in a very painful family dispute about which most members of Congress had little reliable information. It was one of the worst incidents of abuse in the Republican Congress, and if I am elected I can assure the people of Colorado's 7th Congressional District that I will fight to keep the government from intervening in family end-of-life decisions. These matters ought to be left to state laws governing living will arrangements and for families to decide according to their faith and in reliance upon their doctor's advice.

This Congress and the current administration have done too much to erode our personal privacy as it is. We need Congress to work on critical issues like health care instead of dividing Americans over questions of faith."

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