Patrick Buchanan: "The Execution of Terri Schiavo"

WND.com ^ | 04-04-05 | Buchanan, Patrick J.

[Theodore R.]

The execution of Terri Schiavo

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: April 4, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Terri Schiavo is dead. She did not die a natural death, unless you believe a court order to cut off food and water to a disabled woman until she dies of starvation and thirst is natural.

No, Terri Schiavo was executed by the state of Florida. Her crime? She was so mentally disabled as to be unworthy of life in the judgment of Judge George Greer. The execution was carried out at Woodside Hospice. An autopsy will reveal that Terri's vital organs shut down for lack of food and water. She did not die of the brain damage she suffered 15 years ago. She was put to death. We have crossed a watershed in America.

Michael Schiavo's argument that Greer found compelling was that this is what Terri wanted and she had told him so, though Michael never mentioned this until eight years after she was disabled.

Did Terri, at 26, really tell the man to whom she swore lifelong fidelity to find a way to kill her if she became handicapped? Is that what she had in mind when they pledged to stand by each other "in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part"?

Was Terri that different from her mom, dad, brother and sister, who fought with all they had to keep her alive so they could take care of her for all the years she had left? Why, one wonders, did this severely handicapped woman fight for two weeks against the dying of the light?

America is a great country because she is good country, and if ever she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great, Alexis de Toqueville is quoted as saying. Are we that America today? Are we the same kind of people? Would the country we grew up in have done this to a disabled woman?

Hubert Humphrey, a passionate liberal, once said, "The moral test of government is how [it] treats those who are in the dawn of life ... those who are in the twilight of life ... and those who are in the shadows of life."

In America, three in 10 in the dawn of life never see the light of day. They are destroyed in the womb because their very existence embarrasses or would encumber their parents. In the twilight of life, we have begun to provide our elderly ill with the means of assisted suicide. In Europe, euthanasia has become involuntary in some nursing homes. In the shadows of life – the sick, the needy, the handicapped – there is now in this land we once called "God's country" a chance the state will put you to death.

The motivations of the good folks praying for Terri outside the hospice one can understand. The motives of her parents one can understand. Even the motives of Michael Schiavo one can understand. He wants to be rid of Terri to start a new life with his new family.

What is inexplicable is why he did not get a divorce and let her go. What is inexplicable is the behavior of the media talking heads, who seemed so desperately anxious that the judge's ruling not be reversed and that Terri die. Why were they so pro-death?

One must not interfere in a family decision, they say. But these are the same folks who always demand interference if a father takes a belt to discipline his 14-year-old delinquent son.

This is what Terri would have wanted, they say. We have no right to interfere. But what Terri would have wanted is unclear and in dispute. And if there is disagreement, why not come down on the side of life? Why come down on the side of death, which is final and forever? Why were so many progressives on the side of death for Terri Schiavo?

Conservatives are hypocrites, they charge. The Right opposes judicial activism and preaches states' rights. But in Terri's case, the Right clamored for judicial activism and rejected states' rights.

But this is absurd. The judicial activist in Terri's case is Greer, who sentenced a brain-damaged woman to death by starvation and dehydration. If this is not judicial activism, in violation of a citizen's right to life, due process of law, and not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, what is?

And what is there left to say about that angel of death, the American Civil Liberties Union? As Nat Hentoff writes, the ACLU, "which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die."

But whose rights were in mortal peril here? Why was the ACLU not at the door of that hospice, denouncing Greer the way it would be at the door of a penitentiary denouncing Jeb Bush, if the ACLU even suspected an innocent man was being put to death?

We have turned a sad page in the history of America's decline.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Theodore R.]

Pat is so right: this is another sad page in the history of America's decline.

[snarks_when_bored]

She was put to death.

Perfectly accurate.

[libbybelle]

And what is there left to say about that angel of death, the American Civil Liberties Union? As Nat Hentoff writes, the ACLU, "which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row Or if Terri had been a lesbian.

[drpix]

[silverleaf]

I hear they met up with Robert Blake and Claus von Bulow to make a foursome.

[LOC1]

Why was only one man, Judge Greer, the determinant of the facts in Terri's case?

In most other cases, it is a jury that determines the facts. Certainly the facts in all capital cases are determined by a jury, although the defendant could select trial by a judge if he were so inclined.

Qualified individuals can make wise judgments. An individual can also make horrific judgments. Our society has determined that groups of individuals are more likely to be wise. That is why we have city councils, company boards of directors, and jury trials. Groups of people tend to be "less imperfect" than single individuals.

Setting aside personalities, as distasteful as they appear to be, having only one person determine the facts seems to be the central failing of the judicial system in Terri's case. For the future, that failing could be solved by legislative action.

[Diogenesis]

She was tortured in the Nazi fashion for those who bravely attempted to evade the Nazi Crematoria.

[silverleaf]

Terri was convicted by a jury of "medical experts" (some too cowardly to sign their reports and some who remained silent or perhaps even looked aside as records were destroyed or altered).

Medical professional societies, many "bioethicists", and apparently too many sheeple, are outraged that their opinion that PVS is a uniformly terminal condition, and that sufferers are unworthy of and would surely never choose life, have been challenged by Terri's family, lawyers, nurses, friends, any medical "quack" who offered a dissenting opinion, or extreme religious right wing whacko activists who think the courts are being led down the valley of the shadow of death.

[kenth]

For the future, that failing could be solved by legislative action.

It could be. But will it be? I doubt it. A federal judge just scolded the legislative and executive branches for trying to interfere with the judiciary and their sacrifice to show the world who runs the United States. So far the response of the leg. and exec. branches doesn't look promising.

[cvq3842]

And I think that any appellate court that wanted to could have found "reversible error" and ordered a re-trial. But again I'm thinking of a criminal case . . .

[cvq3842]

We must never forget.

I hope the Shindlers (or someone) tells the whole story and puts it in a book. The MSM will never pick up on it (except mybe to criticize it), but it all needs to get out there. Remember the Swift Boat vets.

I'd love to see Michael sue for libel. What a trial that would be! Never gonna happen.

[syriacus]

Why was the ACLU not at the door of that hospice, denouncing Greer the way it would be at the door of a penitentiary denouncing Jeb Bush, if the ACLU even suspected an innocent man was being put to death?

Because the ACLU was helping George Felos.

The other day, Felos thanked the ACLU for helping Michael's cause. Felos said Michael's cause was only able to succeed because of their help and the help of some others.

For years, the ACLU has been very busily fighting for the right to Physician Assisted Suicide. They know their way around the courts, all right.

Back in 1999, the ACLU gave an award and a dinner (!!the irony!!) to Former Chief Justice of the Florida State Supreme Court, Gerald Kogan, who supports Physician Assisted Death.

[syriacus]

Motto for the ACLU

We're the ACLU
We bring good folks to death

[Ga.Lady]

Your exactly right.. an execution, without due process. I'm still in shock that this has happened in America. The court starved a woman to death and she fought for life for as long as she could. My heart goes out to her parents, I can't imagine how they feel. Cause I feel horrible.

[PistolPaknMama]

Why was only one man, Judge Greer, the determinant of the facts in Terri's case? In most other cases, it is a jury that determines the facts.

This was a probate case. Probate courts don't have jury trials; those are for civil cases.

Certainly the laws need to be changed that in life and death cases, certainly when they are contested, need to be moved to civil court or at least decided by a panel of judges, not just one judge with an obvious agenda.

[AaronInCarolina]

A federal judge just scolded the legislative and executive branches for trying to interfere with the judiciary and their sacrifice to show the world who runs the United States. So far the response of the leg. and exec. branches doesn't look promising.

This, in my opinion, is one of the most bizarre and frightening aspects of this case. A legislative body, (in this case the FL Legislature), whose task it is to create laws did so, with a very vague "Clear and Convincing" clause in it. This clause was exploited, and Terri Schiavo fell victim to it. The FL state court made a ruling based upon this original form of the law. Then the FL Legislature attempted to amend the law (although I think it was too narrowly directed at one individual) in the form of the so-called "Terri's Law". The FL state court basically told the legislature that they could not amend what they had created, since the court had ruled on the original law, saying "it was an attempt to interfere in a judicial ruling". The court seems to have developed an irrational affection for the original form of the law, thus overstepping their authority in proclaiming it could not be modified, simply on the basis that they had made a ruling on the original form. They do not seem to realize that their only purpose is to assure that all laws are compatible with the state constitution, not whether the court likes one form of a law better than a modified one. The FL courts are WAY out of line on this.

[buck61]

My same thought, where was due process? Bioethics,
Oligarchy of Despots,,,, explains it all, nothing more, nothing less.

[Vapor3]

A soldier would have been court-martialed for following the Greer court order.
Soldiers have a duty to disobey an immoral order.

[eastsider]

Terri Schiavo was executed by the state of Florida.

Unjustly so.

[nicmarlo]

America is a great country because she is good country, and if ever she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great, Alexis de Toqueville is quoted as saying. Are we that America today? Are we the same kind of people? Would the country we grew up in have done this to a disabled woman?

ping