Untitled Document

We humans can no more do without authority than we can do without other human beings. But down here on the short end of the stick, where freedom depends on "benefits," the burden of authority weighs heavy.

Just think: if we were financially independent, we could each maintain our personal authority over our personal lives until the end of our days. But we're not. So we carry on.
MOST ILLUSTRATIONS IN THIS ISSUE ARE WOODCUTS BY JOSEPH CRAWHALL (1821-1896). SOME ARE BY THOMAS BEWICK (1753-1828) AND HIS PUPILS. ALL APPEAR HERE COURTESY OF THE DOVER PICTORIAL ARCHIVE.

MOUTH MAGAZINE

"If you do happen to make it into the
office of that man upstairs, he is
going to pee down his leg."

Reporters, artists, photographers: We want your work but just like crime, Mouth doesn't pay. If you'd like to take part under those wretched conditions, please mail us samples and your phone or fax number to introduce yourself.

Back issues: $4 and up, cheaper by the dozens for trainings. Recent editions are available in quantity. To buy them, or to help keep Mouth afloat, call Cal at 785-272-2578 from 2 to 6 pm, weekdays. Do not call or email Lucy. Reach her by mail, or fax her at 785-272-7348.
h o u s e k e e p i n g
© contents copyright 2003

ISSN 1071-5657
Pigeonholed by the Alternative Press Index. Member of the Independent Press Association and Support Coalition.

Editor-designer ....... Lucy Gwin
General Officer ...... Cal Grandy
Reporters ...... Rus Cooper-Dowda
....... Roland Sykes
Clipper......... David Anthony
Voice .............. Marcia Yaroslow
Heroes ... Hollynn D'Lil, Jim Ward

Now that Republicans own the Senate, Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) thought he could quick get Jeffrey Sutton and two other reactionary Republicans confirmed to the federal bench. When more people with disabilities than could fit in the hearing room showed up, Hatch protested a move to make room.

Referring to the wheelchair users he said, "I will not have time taken to move you people!" and he
would gladly have shut out the folks who couldn't get in the door. Sen. Ted Kennedy had spotted a more spacious room open, so move they did. Hatch, though, was reportedly "furious."

The hearing wore on for a total of twelve hours, nearly all of it focused on Sutton. He's the Ohio attorney who coordinated states' rights efforts in the 1999 Olmstead case. Hatch, hailing from another state that backed Tommy Olmstead's challenge to the ADA, hoped the assembled monsters would note that Sutton had been "raised in an environment of concern for the handicapped. His father ran a school for children afflicted with cerebral palsy."

Photo of Senator Hatch with his personal assistants.

Hatch had to bang his gavel a bit when the crowd groaned over that trip down memory lane.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) told Sutton, "You are not simply a lawyer who has chosen to represent cases. You have been a passionate advocate who represents this point of view." In Olmstead, Sutton argued that "placing" disabled people in institutions is a matter of state economy, not discrimination.

A Mouth subscriber who was present for the hearing told us, "I've been around a lot of bureaucrats, but I've never seen anyone as skilled as Sutton at not answering questions." Even so, he will soon be a federal judge.

Jim Ward of ADA Watch in D.C. coordinated the disability nation's Stop Sutton campaign. To join the ADA Watch efforts, visit the website at www.adawatch.org.

Don't bother being born in Vancouver, if that would upset your mother's plans for perfection.

A Canadian Supreme Court Justice awarded $214,000 (U.S.) to the parents of a child born five years ago with Down Syndrome. The mother, who divorced her husband and abandoned their month-old child to his care, says her daughter's birth "totally disrupted our plans" and was entirely preventable.

Here's a good place to thank Dave Reynolds of Inclusion Daily Express. He's the man with the "quick, once-a-day look at disability rights, self-determination, and full inclusion around the world." You can sign up to get it at www.InclusionDaily.com.

What's at stake is Title II of the ADA our access to government programs and government jobs, our freedom from being "placed" where the government thinks we oughta be. Target of the march is California Governor Gray Davis whose state medical board denied a medical license to Dr. Michael J. Hason on the grounds that he has sought treatment for depression. (The doc's own shrink testified that Hason has never been a threat to his patients or to anyone else.)

As in the 1999 Olmstead case, many states are expected to file amicus briefs in Hason v. Medical Board of California. They don't like feeling forced to hire us or to remove barriers. What they don't like most is being sued. Under the ADA, people with disabilities may sue states in federal court. States believe that Congress has no authority to subject states to suits for money damages by crippled peons. Only one state, Minnesota, has announced it will file a brief in favor of Hason.

Don't think we can't lose it all. The Supreme Court has already gutted our employment rights under Title I, and will now, according to Ira Burnim of the Bazelon Center, "consider the very constitutionality of the ADA."

California is making exactly the argument Justice Scalia begged for in his opinion on the Olmstead case. Attorneys for Olmstead hadn't argued that Congress exceeded its authority with the ADA. California's position in the Hason suit is based almost entirely on that claim. The Supremes are likely warm to another opportunity to restore states' rights and take those uppity civil rights down a notch.

Announcing in January that it would hear the case, the Court didn't say when. March is the likely month, with a decision by June. HolLynn D'Lil, the March in March coordinator, notes that California has already argued and won in a federal appeals court that ADA injunctions against states are unconstitutional.

Our March in March will pressure California to drop its case. We want to be there to stop the ruination of our law. Don't you? We'd better get moving, fast.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo forfeited her right to live when she became disabled, according to several judges, the right-to-die movement, and her own husband. On April 4 her family will go to a Florida appeals court, arguing, not for the first time, that she has a right to food and water. Since the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the case, this is her last chance.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO (AT LEFT) WITH HIS BRIDE TERRI SCHINDLER AND HER FAMILY IN 1984 (photos courtesy of Robert Schindler.)

Terri's heart stopped in 1990 under mysterious circumstances. Deprived of oxygen, her brain was damaged. The resulting $700,000 medical malpractice award was meant to provide care and therapy for the rest of her natural life. Instead, her husband Michael Schiavo, with the support of right-to-die attorneys and physicians, is using those funds in legal battles to have her killed. Living with another woman now, he will inherit when she dies.

Terri survived three days without food and water after one court order. Her family's quick legal work headed off that death sentence and earlier this year won a postponement of her most recent execution date, January 3, until April 4.

Hired experts call her videotaped responses to doctors and to her family "involuntary subcortical movement." Courts have, after such testimony, twice ordered her death by dehydration and starvation.

Terri lives in a hospice today where her husband forbids flowers, pictures, outings, or more than a few selected visitors. Her primary care physician admits to seeing her only about four times a year for about ten minutes at a time. When asked in court why she's been sent to live in a hospice, her doctor said he didn't know since she is not terminally ill.

Her husband has forbidden antibiotics. She could sit up in a wheelchair if he would allow her to have one. She has not had her teeth cleaned, an OB/GYN appointment, or physical or occupational therapy in years. After her injury she was able to speak, but has had no speech therapy and now cannot. Her inability to speak is used against her in court.

Her brother Robert has established a website at http://www.terrisfight.org. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, welcome your visit to that site and your support for her fight to stay alive.

MOUTH MAGAZINE #76

MOUTH MAGAZINE