Somebody at Reuters is apparently doing something rare for a mainstream-media organization—making an effort to present moral-values issues, and how they relate to Terri Schiavo, from a wider perspective, with "Schiavo Protesters Not All Christian Conservatives":
Conservative Christian groups have called for mass vigils outside the hospice caring for brain-damaged Terri Schiavo but many of the few dozen who have shown up said they were drawn for personal reasons unrelated to organized religion.
Eleanor Smith of Decatur, Georgia, sat on Tuesday in a motorized wheelchair in front of the hospice, baking in the sun, with a sign on her lap reading, "This agnostic liberal says 'Feed Terri."'
Her background was a far cry from the evangelical right wing more generally seen as the lobbying force behind the U.S. Congress' scramble over the weekend to draw up a special law to try to prolong Schiavo's life, and President Bush's decision to cut short a Texas vacation to sign it.
Smith, 65, had polio as a child and described herself as a lesbian and a liberal who had demonstrated before in support of the disabled and causes supported by the conservative establishment's archfoe, the American Civil Liberties Union.
"What drew me here is the horror of the idea of starving someone to death who's vulnerable and who has not asked that to happen," Smith said.
She said she thought that people who left written instructions to withhold medical treatment should have those wishes honored but that withholding water and nutrition from Terri Schiavo, who left no such written instructions, was tantamount to murder.
"At this point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate than an ACLU member," Smith said.
