3/31/2005: The circus in Florida
What the hell is wrong with people?
Larger and larger crowds have been gathering outside the Terri Schiavo hospice in Pinellas Park, FL every day, many of them protesters. And of course reporters have also flocked to the scene.
A hospice is a place where people go to die. Terri Schiavo is not the only patient in there, and her husband & parents are not the only family members who have someone dying inside that building. The other patients' visitors now have to navigate the crowds, pickets, reporters, and excessive security to get inside, adding more stress and trauma to the already difficult situation that they, like all the players in the Schiavo case, are also in. 
Hospice is not generally a long-term arrangement. Chances are some of the other patients will die before this is all over. Their families will have this circus forever coloring their already-difficult memories of saying good-bye to their loved ones.
Sure, the protestors can argue First Amendment freedom of assembly - and they will - but the decisions made in the Schiavo case were made because of the laws in place; it's always suspect when someone leans only on the laws that are convenient to their position. But beyond that, the protesters are calling for "human rights" and "decency" - where is the decency in holding a circus at a place for dying??
Whatever side of the Schiavo life-or-death debate you're on, you can't deny that the activities going on are well out of line for any hospital area, let alone a hospice. There have been catcalls, bullhorns, chants, religious ceremonies, bagpipes, even people holding up signs HONK FOR TERRI.. and who knows what else. A local elementary school has had to relocate until it's all over.
It just boggles the mind that the participants in this free-for-all can't see beyond their own noses - or the trendy bandwagon of the day - and realize that in "making their voice heard" on behalf of one woman, they are cruelly tainting countless other people's lives and deaths.
Terri Schiavo's story is a sad one in every way, there's no denying that. But is she that much more important a human being than every other patient in that hospice that her supporters have a right to so loudly monopolize the hospital's grounds? To affect all the other patients, visitors, and staff, and disrupt the entire neighborhood to this degree??
