Posted on 03/23/2005 8:39:18 PM PST by logician2u
Rule of Law Damaged by Schiavo Bill
by Sheldon Richman, March 23, 2005
The events surrounding the life of Terri Schiavo are tragic enough. Now congressional Republicans and President Bush have made things worse. In one weekend they disabled federalism, the separation of powers, and the rule of law. These principles were embraced by the Founding Fathers because they tend to protect individual liberty. By tearing them down, the Republican leadership jeopardizes our freedom. How ironic that this comes at the hands of the self-proclaimed party of limited government.
It is beyond dispute that the legal issues involved in the Schiavo case are state issues. That has been the rule for more than 200 years. It is what has made the American system a federal system. The point of federalism is to decentralize power, and its rationale is that concentrated power is dangerous -- always and everywhere -- regardless of which political party rules.
Years ago Terri Schiavo went into what many doctors describe as a persistent vegetative state without hope of recovery. She can breathe, but she cannot take food or water on her own. Her husband has sought to remove the feeding and hydration tubes in order, he says, to comply with her express wish not to live this way. Her parents have tried to block him from having the support terminated. The Florida state courts have consistently sided her husband. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier declined to review the case because no constitutional issues are involved.
Last weekend the Republican-controlled House and Senate hurriedly passed legislation permitting Terri Schiavo's parents to request the federal courts to take a fresh look at the case -- as if the state court had never ruled. President Bush signed the bill. The case was heard Monday, but the judge refused an emergency order to reinsert the tubes pending a full hearing. The federal court of appeals affirmed the judge's order and the parents are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Much could be said about this sad case. Terri Schiavo had no living will directing that she not be sustained artificially. We have only her husband's and a couple of other people's testimony, and he may have a conflict of interest involving money earmarked for her care. Others testified that she never expressed such a desire. Yet a trial judge found "clear and convincing" evidence that she did not wish to live this way. Maybe the Florida law has defects, but that's a subject for another day. My focus here is on Congress's and the president's intervention. It was extraordinary and ominous. The bill singled out one case in an area where federal authorities have no constitutional jurisdiction. This makes no sense. At any given time, many people are in medical conditions similar to Terri Schiavo's. In most of these cases, the family members agree to end artificial respiration, feeding, and hydration. No doubt in some cases there is disagreement, but the matter is settled out of the news headlines.
Will Congress now intervene in all these cases? If not, why not? Aren't those lives precious too? That the Republicans intervened in this case, which has been taken up by the anti-abortion lobby (among others), hints that cynical political calculations were at work. A memo circulated among Senate Republicans called the Schiavo matter "a great political issue," indicating its appeal to the party's religious supporters. Is this payback for 2004?
In the end, the bill probably won't prolong Terri Schiavo's life. But it may well cut short the rule of law. It is no defense of the Republicans to say that a young woman was being starved to death. Congress has no constitutional authority to exercise arbitrary power any time an emergency catches its attention, especially where there are no federal or constitutional issues at stake. That it is legally restrained from doing whatever it wants is part of what we mean by the rule of law. That's why its weekend actions are ominous. We must fear for the precedent it has set.
Both the president and members of Congress take oaths to preserve and protect the Constitution. Any time they pass and sign a law thinking they will leave the matter of its constitutionality to the courts, they violate their oaths. The American system has a division of powers, which was violated in this case, but when it comes to abiding by the Constitution, there is no division of labor.
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Send him email.
Right at this point in time it's the bloody judges and the courts ("The System") that has condemned an innocent women to death by a cruel and barbaric method.
"The System" is serving the people?
Where were these people when the federal government ended segregation -- on the side of the southern Governors I presume since it was a State's Rights issue? (saracasm)
"...that a real god unknown to you won't punish you for following a false deity?..."
Such a diety would not decieve people by using a humble man who rode a donkey into a city and who spoke in such parables. But you would have to have logic and a heart to understand that.
My odds are still better than yours. You're sure to burn in hell if you follow no God.
What was ordered was the honoring of Teri's wish to not be artificially maintained. That wish was testified to, under oath, by 3 people (see the court records).
When an abomination occurs in the country, the brave and the free don't just stand there mesmerized bowing to abstract legal principles -- they attack the abomination.
Yes, there was an abomination. When someone expresses the desire to NOT be artificially maintained and that wish is ignored for 15 YEARS, that is indeed an abomination. Try imagining what it would be like to be encased in a glass coffin, unable to move on your own, dependent upon others to perform all of your basic hygiene requirements, etc. for 15 years. There are not many tortures more gruesome than that.
Well if you don't believe it, what rational basis could there be for your choice to not believe?
Uh....YES!
As far as I'm concerned, your types are just statists who have different motivations for jackbooting than the Marxists.
What are you bitching at me for? I'm a creation, the other believes he/she is the blob of inbred elements. Sheesh!
The woman has a substantive due process righ to life pursuant to the 14th Amendment. That is a federal issue. The Schindler's lawyers failed to raise this argument on Monday and now Terri's fate is in the hands of Justice Kenendy.
However, there are greater laws and principles than our Constitution. We all have an inherent right to life, and natural law vests us with the liberty to determine our own fate. At some point, if Terri Schiavo is to live purusant to these natural and inherent rights, extra consitutional measures become necessary. I support the executive branch taking such measures based on these natural law principles.
If you disagree, that is your right but be aware that the Constituiton as interpreted by the judiciary is now the final arbiter of your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Nutrition was not "artificial maintenance" when she allegedly made the statements. You can't morph the law defining that term, read it into a prior statement, and call it justice.
She was in various states of consciousness over those "15 years" including a few moments of perfect lucidity when she could have asked to end it all but didn't.
Most are the same lunatics that want pot legalized and have a deep-seated hatred for the federal government because it enforces federal drug laws and funds an agency called the (DEA) Drug Enforcement Agency.
ROTFLMAO -I am easily amused...
Not bitching, I was just copying you on my post to him.
I agree with you.
Imagine a Clinton appointee in charge of your feeding tube! You'd be a goner, even if your ailment was gas and that feeding tube was really just your belt buckle!!
When it's legal to abort the less that perfect adult because someone else demands it, this country is in big trouble!
Exactly! Getting more obvious by the day on some of these people that don't value life.
Are you a lawyer? If so, what do you think the burden has been on the parent's lawyer(s). I'm certain these guys will never get paid and yet here you have one firm running from DC to Tampa to Talahasse to Atlanta filing appeals, lobbying congress, the state capitol, etc. Incredible.
Only Governor Bush can save Terri at this time.
CONTACT JEB BUSH HERE:
E-mail: jeb.bush@myflorida.com
Telephone: 850/488-4441
Fax: 850/487-0801
You really start to worry when you see next to the treatment box on your chart the words "Vince Foster".
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