"She would have wanted it this way... honest!"
Posted on 03/21/2005 9:57:54 PM PST by goldstategop
f you are in a "persistent vegetative state" and there is a dispute about whether to keep you alive, your case will probably go no further than state court - unless you are Terri Schiavo. President Bush signed legislation yesterday giving Ms. Schiavo's parents a personal right to sue in federal court. The new law tramples on the principle that this is "a nation of laws, not of men," and it guts the power of the states. When the commotion over this one tragic woman is over, Congress and the president will have done real damage to the founders' careful plan for American democracy.
Ms. Schiavo's case presents heart-wrenching human issues, and difficult legal ones. But the Florida courts, after careful deliberation, ruled that she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means in her current state, and ordered her feeding tube removed. Ms. Schiavo's parents, who wanted the tube to remain, hoped to get the Florida Legislature to intervene, but it did not do so.
That should have settled the matter. But supporters of Ms. Schiavo's parents, particularly members of the religious right, leaned heavily on Congress and the White House to step in. They did so yesterday with the new law, which gives "any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo" standing to sue in federal court to keep her alive.
This narrow focus is offensive. The founders believed in a nation in which, as Justice Robert Jackson once wrote, we would "submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules." There is no place in such a system for a special law creating rights for only one family. The White House insists that the law will not be a precedent. But that means that the right to bring such claims in federal court is reserved for people with enough political pull to get a law passed that names them in the text.
The Bush administration and the current Congressional leadership like to wax eloquent about states' rights. But they dropped those principles in their rush to stampede over the Florida courts and Legislature. The new law doesn't miss a chance to trample on the state's autonomy and dignity. There are a variety of technical legal doctrines the federal courts use to show deference to state courts, like "abstention" and "exhaustion of remedies." The new law decrees that in Ms. Schiavo's case, these well-established doctrines simply will not apply.
Republicans have traditionally championed respect for the delicate balance the founders created. But in the Schiavo case, and in the battle to stop the Democratic filibusters of judicial nominations, President Bush and his Congressional allies have begun to enunciate a new principle: the rules of government are worth respecting only if they produce the result we want. It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If you can really put people in a PVS to death, then I would think the NYT would be opposed to it. After all, if it catches on they will have to find a whole new staff.
I love to watch the Rats in a full-meltdown mode, especially when it brings a pack of CINO's with them.
that darn pesky religious right. sheeesh
good one, Squid
Hmmmmm....I'm going to have to go read my USC again. I always thought that if the House and Senate passed a bill, and the president signed, it becomes a law.
The Left is whining because they want to kill Terri. Whatever excuse they use, it simply comes down to killing Terri. That is the liberal way. If you have a problem or inconvenience, kill it.
"guts the power of the states"
Hmmmmm? The NYT didn't think the USSC was gutting the power of the states when they struck down all the STATE LAWS regarding juvenile death penalty cases ..??
But .. that's because it FIT THEIR AGENDA.
I guess they don't teach "How A Bill Becomes A Law" anymore in elementary school. Remember the 3-legged stool, one leg Executive, one Legislative, the third Judicial?
Good grief, we've been killing our children for 30+ years now, because they are inconvenient. Now we can kill them at age 41 for the same reason.
BARF ALERT Please (Unless that is redundant with 'New York Times')
It's a law, not a man, baby.
And it sounds like Martin Luther King might have liked the way Congress took action.
Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" ...[snip]I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice;
King might just as well have been condemning the lame arguments of the hard-hearted politicians who voted against the bill that President Bush eventually signed.
So let me get this strait. The NY Times wants to end the death penalty for violent murderers, yet is climbing over one another in the editorial room to kill this handicapped woman? They are mentally and morally ill.
Thank you for my new tagline!
The only persistent vegetables are NYT editors.
The NYT should be careful what they ask for. At least half their (fifth) columnists are in a permanent vegetative state.
"She would have wanted it this way... honest!"
Republicans use the "rule of law" and the ny trash paper is in a tizzy.
They want a Bush failure they can point at, that won't get up and walk.
Iraq surprised them by not being a quagmire, or for that matter, for not being a complete and total chaotic loss. Especially after they encouraged the terrorists with sweet music to their ears.
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