Personally, I think the Schiavo case is outrageous.
The federal courts and Prez have no business interfering.
I jotted this down as I was listening to NPR today -
an interview with a woman from Cause USA protesting
about the pulling of the tube (paraphrasing):
"I hope the courts will rule morally and justly on
behalf of life. If not, the blood of life will be on
the judicial system of America."
Totally frightening.
As a journalist, I get strange email pitches now and then.
This excerpt is an example of how strange can suddenly
become fascinating.
SCHIAVO CASE IS A FAKE CONTROVERSY, DESIGNED TO DISTRACT
Guide to Politics in a Terrorized World Argues that the Creeping State Needs to Feed Americans a Steady Diet of Distractions to Turn Attention Away from Bad Policy
The United States congress has engaged in unprecedented parliamentary maneuvering in order to prevent the death of Teresa Schiavo. In less than six weeks, at least three separate bills have been proposed that manipulate American law about privacy and the definition of “life.” At least six different court decisions have held either for or against Schiavo—who exists in what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state”—being allowed to die.
The debate over Terri Schiavo’s fate is “a classic fake issue” says James Walsh, author of LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES: A Libertarian Guide to Laws, Politics and Society in a Terrorized World. Walsh writes:
Establishment politicians make their careers on publicizing rare points. It’s a kind of bait-and-switch game. They bang a drum over there while they pass terrible laws over here. Terri Schiavo’s sad story means almost nothing to most Americans, but these charlatans would have you believe it’s a central case.
In February 1990, Schiavo had a heart attack, nearly died and was resuscitated. But, in the process, she slipped into a coma from which she has never recovered. She was 27 years old when she had the heart attack and had lived with major health problems all of her adult life.
Her husband, Michael, called for emergency response as soon as Terri had the heart attack. And he stayed with her while she slipped into the coma.
In the 15 years since, Michael Schiavo has tended to his wife—even changing his career and earning a license as a physical therapist, so that he could work near Terri. Her doctors agreed that Terri’s conscious mind had been destroyed when she’d had the heart attack; some other doctors held out the hope that she might recover from her coma.
In the late 1990s, her husband decided that a “persistent vegetative state” is not the way that Terri would have wanted to live. He asked her doctors to take Terri off of the feeding tubes that kept her alive.
The doctors agreed. But Terri’s parents—who believed strongly that she might awake from her coma—began a series of legal challenges to keep the feeding tubes attached.
In the years since, the case has bounced from Florida state courts to federal courts and back again. In the meantime, Terri’s parents have pressed the case as a “right to life” rallying point; her husband has been left to make the “right to die” argument.
In LIBERTY IN TROUBLED TIMES, Walsh writes:
This is, in fact, neither a matter of “right to life” or “right to die.” This was one of the most bizarre, inappropriate and possible illegal abuses of the state legislative function in recent memory. …The Schiavo case is an example of why, as technology advances, solid political philosophy will become important. As machines and programs do more for people, people need to have a firm notion of life and what its fundamental liberties are.
Terri Schiavo didn’t leave a living will that stated exactly what she would want if she slipped into a vegetative state. The closest thing to that was the judgment of the man she chose to marry. …Respect for that choice is a good thing. It’s essential to keeping the mechanics of death—at least the ones that most people are likely to encounter—in the hands of family. And out of the hands of state.
More recently, Walsh has added: “This woman was not a child. She was an adult who married a man whom she felt reflected the moral values that she held. For preening politicians to interfere with her husband’s difficult choice about this woman’s life and death is obscene.”
