First, do no harm

It's good to see Congress keeping so busy working on the critical issues of our day. Having completed the baseball steroid hearings yesterday, they are now on to the case of the brain-dead woman in Florida whose husband says that she would have wanted her feeding tube removed. As a gambit to keep her alive, Senate Majority Leader Frist wants to call her as a witness, on the view that federal law concerning the protection of witnesses will then require that her feeding tube be kept in. And the Government Reform Committee in the House, fresh from its baseball hearings triumph, is working on legislation to intervene permanently regarding her care.
Despite the very real tragedy here and the moral complexities of the withhold-care and related euthanasia issues, it would be a mistake not to laugh at the crass cynicism of the U.S. Congress in milking this issue for favorable soundbites. So readers are invited to offer their own jokes here. Here are a few offerings:
--At last the Senate has found a witness on its own intellectual level.
--No wonder they're intervening. If brain-dead individuals can have their care terminated, half of the U.S. Congress might be next.
--It's a good thing she's brain dead, or else they'd be fine with the CIA torturing her.
--As long as Congress is in the business of offering medical care instructions for specific cases, I wonder if they could get me a new theraband for my shoulder exercises. I'm awfully busy, and apparently I need a prescription.