Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay Pulled the Plug on His Father When He Was A Vegetable in 1988

Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been filling up the airwaves saying that it is murder for Michael Schiavo to pull the plug on his wife who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. But DeLay’s mother made the same decision in 1988 when DeLay’s father was in a coma for only a few days. According to family members DeLay agreed with the decision to let his father die. A decision that he now denies Michael Schiavo. There are a number of similarities between the Schiavo case and that of DeLay’s father as reported in the link above: Both stricken patients were severely brain-damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared from being kept alive by artificial means. And neither of them had a living will. DeLay is silent about his father’s death, but calls Michael Schiavo’s decision to pull the plug on Terri murder.

Perhaps this is displaced remorse for his agreeing to his own father’s mercy killing 17 years ago. Or as those who have read the memo from the Republican Leadership to Republican Members of Congress saying that they were going to use the Terri Schiavo case to win votes in the 2006 Mid-term Election, perhaps it is just Political Opportunism. We report you decide.