Posted on 04/02/2005 4:49:30 PM PST by silverleaf
Countering "The Right to Die"
The following excerpts are from Attorney James Bopp's keynote address to the Christian Life Resources convention on October 14, 1989. His points are still worthy of the reader's consideration.
More than a majority of the states in the United States have had what we call the "right to die" cases -- cases brought where a third party is trying to cause the death of another, usually by court ordered starvation and dehydration of the patient. These patients are [normally] ones that have suffered some injury or illness that has resulted in them having a diminished functioning state, such that they are under the law what we call incompetent, that they can't make decisions about themselves. . . .
Most of the cases in the United States have authorized euthanasia at the request of third parties. However, in the last year and a half a new trend of cases has emerged, where decisions of the New York Court of Appeals, the Missouri Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of the State of Washington have rejected starving and dehydrating to death incompetent patients. Such court cases will affect the lives of innocent parties whose death would be caused or hastened or chosen by a third party....
We are not talking about patients who will die anyway, who are terminally ill, whose death may be imminent. We are talking about patients who will live if given ordinary care. We are talking about patients like Carrie Coons.
Carrie, in April of this year, was an 86 year old woman who was in a hospital in Albany, New York. In October of the year before, she had been admitted to the hospital after having suffered a stroke. As a result of that stroke, while she was admitted to the hospital in a cognitive and communicative state, she had deteriorated to the point where she was completely unresponsive. She was diagnosed by the physicians as being in what is called a persistent vegetative state.
I want you to know that term offends me. There are no human beings that are vegetables. This term has now been accepted by the medical profession, perhaps to obscure the humanity of these patients. . . .
She is going to live in this state as long as her minimal needs are taken care of. She is not terminally ill by anybody's sensible definition of the term. She will live. But the fact that she will live is a problem to some people. Some people think [the fact] that Carrie Coons will live is a problem that needs to be solved. . . .
What has happened in the euthanasia cases, the "right to die" cases, is they have created a mechanism by which to ensure that Carrie Coons dies. What this mechanism is, is to take her right to refuse medical treatment, that if she were competent she could exercise, and give it to somebody else, and let that person refuse the ordinary care, the food and water that sustains Carrie Coons's life. So it's this transfer to a third party of the right to refuse to consent, then intervening that third party between the doctor (who is obligated and usually wants to provide care to his patient) and the patient. That is the mechanism they have used in order to insure that people like Carrie Coons don't live.
These "right to die" cases began with the Quinlan case in 1976, and continue to the present.
This third party is to stand there and think, "What would I do if I were Carrie Coons?" Pretend to be Carrie Coons, and do what she would do in this circumstance. So it is not a third party taking the responsibility for the decision concerning another, like parents do for children. We don't pretend what our three year olds would want to do if they could ever decide such matters. We take responsibility for the decisions we make on their behalf. But not here. Here we pretend to be someone who is incompetent, and pretend that person would be momentarily lucid, make a decision about refusing care, knowing that they are immediately going back into permanent unconsciousness.
As one commentator said, "In exercising this power, the third party is supposed to put himself in the place of the incompetent patient and decide what the incompetent patient would decide if the incompetent patient were able to decide." Thus the third party, in deciding to withdraw food and water from Carrie Coons, doesn't say, "I think this is in her best interest, I'll take responsibility for this decision on her behalf." This party says, "I didn't decide this. Carrie Coons did. She wants to be starved to death. Therefore, I'm saying that she should be, because she wants it. She decided it." But she is doing no such thing. Thus, you have the worst sort of decision making, which is making a decision but having no responsibility for the decision that you have made. . . .
Thomas Jefferson said that the first responsibility of government is the protection of human life. So, for instance, even our right of free speech, a very strongly protected right in our country, can be overcome by the state's interest in preserving life. Thus, you may not yell, "Fire," in a crowded theater if there is no fire. Not because you don't have the right of free speech — you do -- but the state's interest in preserving life overcomes your right because of the people who would die by the panic and riot that would create. Thus, we have long recognized the state's interest in preserving life. Well, this gets in the way of the euthanasiast, doesn't it? Because the effect of these third party decisions is to choose death for someone else. . . .
The state is entitled, indeed obligated, to intervene if one would choose the death of another. So, they've got to do something about the state's interest in preservation of life, and they do. They redefine it. What they do is reject the traditional view of life that all lives have inherent value. They shift that to a functioning test, a quality of life test. They say, "Well, all lives don't have inherent value; it depends on your level of functioning." . . .
This point represents one of the great ethical debates raging in our country. It is from the conflict of these two ethical views that the abortion issue is fought, the "Baby Doe" issue is fought, and the euthanasia issue is fought. For it is because of the inherent value of human life that people like Carrie Coons ought to have the same legal protection from a starvation and dehydration death that you or I, or my children or your children have. . . .
Let me get back to Carrie Coons. She is still alive. She's not suffering from dehydration and malnutrition like we would have expected. She's now being fed, and do you know why she's being fed? Because she recovered. Because when the nurses found out about this order they didn't like it. They didn't want to starve and dehydrate to death Carrie Coons, who the doctors said had a chance of recovery of "nil." So they became more active in her care. They started to try to spoon feed Carrie Coons and she swallowed it. She responded to that, and they were encouraged further to get Carrie Coons to live. In a few days, Carrie Coons spoke. In four or five days, she was carrying on conversations with her doctor and her nurses. She came out of this irreversible, persistent "vegetative" state.
The two key elements of the "right to die" cases are rejected by the "right to live" cases. (1) Third parties are not to decide personal matters for you, particularly they are not to decide to choose your death. (2) Regardless of how you function, you are entitled to minimal legal protection, such that you may not be starved to death without legal sanction against your will, that Carrie Coons will not be starved to death without her consent, against her will by a third party. . . .
In the abortion debate the question is, "What is the value of fetal life?" In the euthanasia debate the question is "What is the value in the life of Carrie Coons?" The answer to these questions is that they will all have inherent value that is entitled to legal protection.
Please let it load -- it's 11 mb.
Have headphones or sound on.
special thanks to lafroste for generous technical and web assistance.
ping
BUMP.
Our nation's Supreme Court seems to think that the "right to die" is a liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. It may in fact be a liberty, but it is not a fundamental or natural right. While the Ninth Amendment might seem to imply that we have additional fundamental or natural rights, what the court fails to recognize is that, it is not with their power to grant us those additional rights. Those fundamental rights are God given rights, natural rights, i.e., rights we possess by nature and not by law. To give an analogy, I have a right to go to Heaven, it is a liberty that I possess and yet the court cannot grant me that right. Likewise, the court cannot grant me the "right to die", only God can, and only when he chooses.Death is not amoung the natural rights! Life, howver is. Respect for the dead, and making alleviating the discomfort of the sick and dying are also natural rights -- and like most, if not all of those G-d granted rights, are a right and duty at the same time.The courts now find themselves in a dilemma now by basing all their current and future judgements for other cases on a mistake made back in 1990 where our court played God and granted a "right" that they actually had no power to grant. The "right to die".
* * *
Justice Scalia had that talk he gave in Washington last month -- Rush Limbaugh spent a good part of a show discussing that talk, the transcript, iirc, has been posted on FR. So I differ to that transcript which would be more accurate that my recollection, yet I'll recall something Justice Scalia said if not completely in words, then by sighs, tones and body language. I recall that as an originalist interpreter of the Constitution, Scalia is not interested in Natural Law Theory -- just what of little of it was made fast into the intent of the Constitution at it's enactment. That is, Scalia while holding so tightly to originalist construction, would ignore and even scoff at the great body of Natural Law Theory.
Consquently, when a Schiavo case Greer's Judicial Murder Order with its outright illegality under any framing of Natural Law, I'd think can be ignored by a Justice Scalia because he'd pay heed like Appelate Judge Birch to balance of powers, and judicial scope as established in the Consttution but leave the loosey-goosey (or so he might consider) preface ("to ensure these blessings", and prior) outside of the things that inform his ruling.
That preface is -- in my view -- a clear statement of scope and purpose and deserves weighing in all precedent-setting decisions, it's clauses and verbs are carefully laid out and so to the order of those clauses. What comes before in the preface must come before to allow to come about the next desirable thing for which a nation.about. The first duty is to establish a more perfect union -- for withour union, domestic tranquility cannot be acheived and without domestic tranquility no nationa can long defend against extrenal enemies.
That preface itself has a foundation in Natural Law, it's objects and verbs all do.
Yet Justice Scalia would ignore and has ignored in his decisions what parts of the Constitution that can only be developed by building off an indirect or inferential reference to Natural Law -- perferring to work off only direct references such as "cruel and unusual punishment" -- and what would the comoon law (that is the Natural Law as applied by juries and local magistrates) of the 1780's then allow. Rather than reach into Natural Law theory -- he views constuctionism as only what was practise -- made realized of that theory. He'll take the practise of 1780 but not the theory.
So then a Justice like Scalia can not speak up and take action to stop that evil Judicial act in Florida, because as constructionist Birch made clear, it passed the practical constructionist's muster. Utter hubris!
Natural Law theory screams that any Judical Order to Murder and innocent is illegal on the face it, and can never be made legal by all the power of constructionism accurately applied to the order.
Good article, but in nursing homes today it is very unlikely you would get that kind of care.
I had to request water for my step-mother all the time. They never did have a pitcher of water available to give her drinks from.
Any Judge that takes an oath to uphold the Constitution has to recognize and respect Natural Law.
Most excellent article.
"Thus, you may not yell, "Fire," in a crowded theater if there is no fire."
A better construct is "If you yell 'FIRE' in a crowded theater and it is not" you are responsible for the consequences.
If it ever were to be shown, for example, that Michael caused her initial injury, would it not follow that he could charged with a homicide?
Excellent reasoning. The Cruzan decision was a big mistake.
Did you read the entire essay?
Ping for later use in emails advocating right to LIFE.
Yes, I read the essay on the blog.
Some things left out and common arguements of the left ~
First off, there is no such thing as a "right to die"
Secondly, I often here it refered to as a "personal family matter"
Since when when is starving to death a family member considered a "personal family matter"?? Are people phucking insane??
If someone is beating the crap out of their wife or starving their children to death, or for that matter kicking their dog. I will make it MY business! Are we understood? It is not a "personal family matter"!!
And in closing, Terri Schiavo and people like her are not vegtables. They are human beings just like you or me.
Their medical condition or mental state is completely irrelevant.
Well said and I agree. The Cruzan decision really was a bigger error by the Supreme Court.
Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
Every individual has the right to die. Anyone incapable of expressing a desire to exercise that right will still exercise that right, whether they want to or not.
Wow. Sounds a lot like Terri, doesn't it? Except that Michael and Felos took the initiative of eliminating any nursing staff who wouldn't be "cooperative". Really written 1989!?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.