Reply #40: Here's another reason: [View All]

[kskiska]

(snip)

At the hospital, she reads a story to some young patients and makes them laugh. But back in the van for the drive home to Kennebunkport, she says that the book she was given to read was without educational value and that the hospital administrators were obsequious—a quality she dislikes. “They thanked me three times, when once would have been fine.” Then, softening abruptly, she thinks back to that morning’s visit to the hospital’s neonatal ICU, where she saw premature infants in incubators. “Where do you draw the line” in saving those who would not have survived in another time? “What kind of quality of life? It’s the same thing with old age. Are we doing the right thing?” Then again she says of one severely impaired newborn, “But, they say she’s brought great happiness ...”

more…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3225744/site/newsweek/

Hmmmm. Wonder where she came down on the Terri Schiavo case?

Here's another from the same article:

(snip)

One of the most startling passages in her book is an anecdote about how panicked and vulnerable she felt when she and her husband had to leave the White House. An aide told her she would have to keep a paid staff. “I couldn’t believe my ears. She said Betty Ford... still spent $100 a month on postage alone. I felt like crying.” Though her insecurity seems irrational given her family’s wealth, she writes, “Everyone knew I had never earned any money, as I had never seriously worked in the 48 years we had been married. So besides losing the election, now at 68 I was going to have to work?”