There is a categorical difference between abducting a child and sending it into the clutches of a Communist dictatorship and saving the life of a woman whose father and mother don't want her dead. The comparison to the Elian story are absolutely and patently absurd.
I don't agree. There are a lot of parallels with Elian Gonzales here.
Elian Gonzales' father's rights trumped Elian's right to liberty and Micheal Schiavo's rights as a husband trumps his wife's right to life. Or so the left says. IOWs men may treat their women and children as property. The Dems are doing really well on civil rights issues these days. They are moving wayyyyy back to try to recapture traditional values as their issue.
In terms of inalienable rights I consider the right to life to be the most basic, the most fundamental, without life you can't very well exercise any other right. Yet the argument seems to be that spousal rights trump it. Spousal rights are being trumpeted as an absolute that even the other spouse's right to life must bow to. Sounds like wife as chattel to me.
In both cases the left supported the lesser right of guardianship over the more primal inherent rights of life and liberty.