Lauren Richardson, whom I've mentioned before. The Youtube link I provided in that post has been replaced by the video presentation on this page, because the court has forbidden Lauren's father to link to it. Amazingly tyrannical, isn't it? I didn't know courts could tell you what links you can put on your website. What is such a gag order supposed to accomplish? All the video shows is Lauren in her disabled condition, which will elicit sympathy from some people and contempt from others, the latter disguised behind a mask of mercy: grant her a dignified death, let her go, don't force her to live like this, all of which can be readily accomplished by STARVING HER.
Well, I can still link to it, and it's here.
Equally amazing is the fact that, while Lauren's father wants to care for her, her mother wants to kill her. The court has facilitated this by granting the mother guardianship. The deck is stacked. I can't keep track of how the world works anymore.
7 comments:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, haver mercy on us sinners . . .
That would be "have" mercy . . .
I check their web site from time to time. I don't know what sort of legal appeal they are mounting, but to me the signs look very bad.
I'm surprised the judge wasn't able to get the video taken off the Internet altogether. In fact, I thought he had. Court orders do indeed have such power.
But why do they have such power? Maybe the judge can tell her father to take it down, but other people have obviously copied it and he can't tell them or Youtube what to do. Or can he?
Gag orders are usually imposed to prevent leaked information from contaminating a jury's judgement via the case being tried in the press. But what injury to justice could possibly be incurred by the airing of this video? There is no jury, just a judge. So whom is he trying to protect? Does it bother him that on the video people will see a disabled, but very much living, girl? An actual person? A mother to a child? What a horror.
I suppose he could issue an order to YouTube not to display it. But there might be a jurisdiction problem there if YouTube is not located within his state. Probably he could order her father to take down his copy. Court orders are very strange. I always wonder what would happen if people disobeyed them. I gather the county sheriff's dept. can then be ordered by the judge to enforce them. Then of course it's a question of what would happen if _they_ refused. As they sometimes should.
Obviously the judge is on a high horse of a power kick. I can only guess what he'd say in defense of the order. Probably something about "protecting her dignity." It being supposedly undignified for people to see her in such a state. Which in itself shows his contempt for her, really, if you think about it. Disabled people are taken out in public nowadays, yet. Supposedly one of the few advances we've made in moral sensibility in the last 100 years is that we no longer think the disabled are "monsters" who have to be hidden away like a disgrace to humanity. Guess not.
I always wonder what would happen if people disobeyed them.
I think it's about time that tactic were given a try.
If his justification is that he's protecting her dignity, well, uh, I think he's lying. He's protecting himself. Against what I don't know. Since Schiavo, public sympathy for these cases is vastly in the minority, with congressmen and senators, like our own Mel Martinez, now regretting their attempts to save her life.
"I think it's about time that tactic were given a try."
Hear, hear.
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