Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[Edit: More links here, and much more discussion here. Also, don't bother asking permission before you quote/repost/link to this entry, but please do drop me a comment telling me where you did so.]

I'm a little surprised by the lack of television news coverage of the massive protests, candlelight vigils, last-minute legislation, threats of violence, and other attempts to save the life of Tirhas Habtegiris, the young woman in Texas removed from life support while conscious and allowed to die, against her wishes. The media seemed to eat that stuff up in the Terri Schiavo case. Have the news folks gotten bored with that sort of thing already?

Um ... there were massive protests with picketing and imprecations against judges and shouted Bible verses by people trying to save her life, weren't there?

I mean, there had to have been, right? After all the fuss over a woman who'd been brain dead for years, a case like this -- someone who could talk back, who begged to be kept alive long enough for her mother to arrive from Africa before she died -- would be an even more effective example for the cause, wouldn't it? So this must have been HUGE! How could it have not wound up on the evening news for several days of special reports and such?

After all, those folks protesting Schiavo sounded so earnest, so sincere; how could they let this go by? So it must be the media that let us down, right?

Hold on, someone just handed me a note.

What's this? There were no massive protests, no howls of outrage, no special bills introduced in Congress to try to prevent the hospital from pulling the plug, no circus for the television cameras? I don't understand. Other than Habtegiris not being insured, not being white, and being able to speak for herself (though apparently nobody was listening), the cases are so similar. Maybe I misunderstood what all those folks were saying about Schiavo, and "culture of life" and so forth, back then ...