This is not fiction

[BumRushDaShow]

33. This is not unusual - 20 years ago this year

a certain Senator from PA who we dub "Frothy" (Rick Santorum) made it a point to fight removal of the feeding tube of a woman who was born and raised in a suburban Philly township and was living in FL - Terry Schiavo - who had been declared "brain dead" and in "a persistent vegetative state".

Schiavo Case Now a Campaign Dilemma
By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff

In 2005, Rick Santorum put himself in the center of the congressional debate over the fate of Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old Florida woman who doctors said was in a persistent vegetative state after a brain injury suffered in 1990.

The goal of the second-term Pennsylvania Republican senator was to stop the removal of a feeding tube for someone whose cerebral cortex was largely gone, which Santorum depicted as “close to equivalent of someone with the disease cerebral palsy.”


ON THE SCENE: Santorum attends a vigil outside Schiavo's hospice in Florida two days before her death. (DAVID ADAME / EPA / NEWSCOM)

Proclaiming the issue to be the sanctity of life, he spoke with passion when he took the floor March 17, 2005, to plead for federal intervention to save an innocent woman “sentenced to death” by the Florida courts.

In the end, the controversy turned out very badly for congressional Republicans. Polls showed that most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, disapproved of Congress’ role in the case, a rebuke that contributed to Santorum’s 18-point defeat in the 2006 elections.

(snip)

When he ran for another term a year later, we sent him packing. He attempted to run for President in 2012 and that didn't go well.

The GOPers had battled including Jebby (who was governor) but she was finally laid to rest. This is what they do.