Posted on 06/19/2005 8:19:40 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Just when it seemed that every liberal commentator on the Terri Schiavo case was starting to sound like Barney Frank, the great Joan Didion published a long and remarkable article on the case in the quite far left New York Review of Books of June 9. Frank, of course, took the occasion of last week's Schiavo autopsy results as yet another opportunity to denounce Republicans as "this fanatical party willing to impose its own views on people."
For those of you still somehow unaware, "imposing their views" is a semiofficial Democratic meme or code phrase meaning "religious people who vote their moral views and disagree with us." Didion, on the other hand, cut through all the rhetoric about imposing views and said the struggle to spare Schiavo's life was "essentially a civil rights intervention." This is a phrase of great clarity, particularly since Democrats have a long track record of protecting civil rights and Republicans don't. Behind the grotesque media circus, the two parties were essentially switching roles. In the first round of public opinion--the polls--the GOP took a beating. But in the long run, the American people tend to rally behind civil rights, and the party that fights to uphold them is likely to prevail.
On the "rational" or "secular" side of the dispute, Didion wrote, there was "very little acknowledgment that there could be large numbers of people, not all of whom could be categorized as 'fundamentalists' or 'evangelicals,' who were genuinely troubled by the ramifications of viewing a life as inadequate and so deciding to end it." Amen. There was also little admission that this was a "merciful euthanasia" controversy posing as a "right to die" case. Many of us understood, as the autopsy has now shown, that Schiavo was severely damaged, but a national psychodrama built around the alleged need to end a life without clear consent is likely to induce anxieties in all but the most dedicated right-to-die adherents.
"The ethical argument" Didion did not conclude that ending Schiavo's life was a wrongful act, but she seemed to be leaning that way. She wrote: "What might have seemed a central argument in this case--the ethical argument, the argument about whether, when it comes to life and death, any of us can justifiably claim the ability or the right to judge the value of any other being's life--remained largely unexpressed, mentioned, when at all, only to be dismissed."
That issue was slurred and muffled by the media and by shrewd, though completely misleading, right-to-die arguments that distracted us from the core issue of consent. George Felos, the attorney of Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, told Larry King, "Quality of life is one of those tricky things because it's a very personal and individual decision. I don't think any of us have the right to make a judgment about quality of life for another."
Here Felos piously got away with adopting a deadly argument against his own position by presenting it as somehow bolstering his case. This can happen only when the media are totally incurious or already committed to your side. Michael Schiavo made a somewhat similar eye-popping argument to King: "I think that every person in this country should be scared. The government is going to trample all over your private and personal matters. It's outrageous that these people that we elect are not letting you have your civil liberties to choose what you want when you die." Americans were indeed scared that they might one day be in Terri Schiavo's predicament.
But Michael was speaking as though Terri Schiavo's wishes in the matter were clear and Republicans were determined to trample them anyway. Yet her wishes, as Didion says, were "essentially unconfirmable" and based on bits of hearsay reported by people whose interests were not obviously her own--Michael Schiavo and two of his relatives.
One hearsay comment--"no tubes for me" --came while Terri Schiavo was watching television. "Imagine it," Didion wrote. "You are in your early 20s. You are watching a movie, say on Lifetime, in which someone has a feeding tube. You pick up the empty chip bowl. 'No tubes for me,' you say as you get up to fill it. What are the chances you have given this even a passing thought?" According to studies cited last year in the Hastings Center Report, Didion reminds us, almost a third of written directives, after periods as short as two years, no longer reflect the wishes of those who made them. And here nothing was written down at all.
The autopsy confirms the extraordinary damage to Schiavo and discredits those who tried to depict the husband as a wife-beater. But the autopsy has nothing to say about the core moral issue: Do people with profound disabilities no longer have a right to live? That issue is still on the table.
The posters on this forum who spoke out against Terri's wishes acted like liberals, not conservatives. The factless, incorrect, misleading, and emotion-laden rhetoric on the Terri threads looked more like DU than FR.
_____One judge made a ruling about onconfirmable versions of "Terri's
wishes." That's a pretty flimsy basis for your support for euthanasia.
Those posters who support Terri's
demise are libertarians, not conservatives. A real conservative would--in the absence of any solid evidence of Terri's wishes--come down on the side of life--as both Bushes did.
They have the same M.O. with every issue. In their 2002 election losses, the explanation (excuse) was that they "didn't get their message out." In Nov. 2004, it was that they got it out, but the American electorate was "too stupid (and too Christian) to understand the message."
Dick Durbin just explained his inexcusable remarks not with an apology, but with regret that the public didn't understand the historical comparisons he had used, or "misinterpreted" his remarks.
At no time does this party, or any of its spokespeople admit that they were wrong. That's how it is when people or whole organizations are deeply narcissistic....and arrogant on top of it.
Char
It's odd how often the cost argument comes up.
Even a person with a cursory understanding of Terri's case should know that
- Terri was NOT "brain dead"
- the cost of care for Terri (had her parents been allowed to take her home and care for her themselves) would have differed very little from what it takes to support us supposedly sentient people (how much extra does a can of Ensure cost, compared to a steak dinner?); and
- Terri's parents were ready to assume all costs of caring for her.
And even if all the above were not true, the "cost" argument is truly Hillary-Care-esque.
Beyond Terri's case, the decision to withhold health care because of some bureaucratically imposed "cost vs. quality of life" quotient is a very slippery slope indeed.
But what's disturbing to me is that some normally "conservative" posters on FR are such rabid supporters of Death-For-Terri.
I think Bushbacker has it right (in post 101): These posters are not really conservatives at all, but libertarians. They have revealed themselves. (And if memory serves, many of those same posters are "pro-choice" too.)
And most libertarians, in my experience, are as narcissistic as leftists.
Which ones? If you are gonna hurl accusations of murder, ya oughta at least have the decency to name names.
The baby boomers on the horizon will drive the costs into the multi-BILLIONS!
It is the managed care and long term care industry that is the force behind the curtain. Felos and Michael are puppets.
Yeah, the only satisfaction of the so-called right-to-die is listening to the squeals of the killers when they get old and it is done to them.
Felos says this and the media let him get away with it. Unbelievable. Bottom line - they killed Terri and I will never forget.
I agree- the witnesses who testified she did not want to live like this were Michael and his family. Statements given by witnesses who stated otherwise- her family and friends were not given any weight.
What bothered me is Michael and his family forgot to mention her wish to "not live like that" until all the $$$ was collected, years had gone by before they suddenly remembered. Seemed to me they had collective amnesia until Michael wanted her death.
My question is Do People with profound disabilities have any right to live? I thought they did until this happened to Terri- now I am concerned. I was always under the impression without a written directive, life would be chosen over death. WRONG
Did you notice how the media jumped on the blindness - as if being blind is just another good reason to bump off a person. It is frightening!!
You are right it has been an embarrassing and dark period for this forum.
We have found that those that we worked with and felt had the same values we did - actually did not. We found that there are many here that see nothing wrong with killing a non-dying person.
We found that many WANT the ability to take steps to initiate a death of one they decide does not want to live.
Yes that is embarrassing because they are the ones we are fighting when we spend our efforts to overcome the liberals in this country.
They represent the very things we fear from socialism - the state controls life and all in it, the state takes on the duty of determining who gets the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as it is not for ALL people - only those worthy of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Very embarrassing indeed.
Maybe if FL stops being the disabled killer state, I'll consider spending money there. Until then, Jeb can forget about any support from me.
later read/ping?
Love your tag line. Exactly and well put.
Right. Absolutely no alternative but to kill. So, just turn us into a nation of people that kill their own because the country has no brain power to solve problems - just kill the problem.
Nevermind the fact that America has always been known for protecting the weak, rushing to help any anywhere in times of tragedy. Just turn America into one that chooses to kill off those unable to speak, those "some" evaluate as unworthy of life, because it is just too expensive.
Just destroy the America that became the most powerful and turn it into a socialistic community where some elite get to deal out death to the weak, deformed, undesirable.
Very conservative of them isn't it? They conveniently ignore that each of us is an American citizen entitled to LIFE with constitutional rights. And, they conveniently ignore that they have been given NO AUTHORITY to judge the worth of another's life. I don't remember any election or authority given to those writing these laws that detail what criteria determines death.
Yeah, starvation/dehydration tends to do that - as that was the purpose since she was killed.
Yet, she managed to live with that severe braindeath for 15 years. Wonder how that would be possible - braindead = life. Hm.......I thought they used braindead to allow them to kill a person. Am I missing another major revision in our end-of-life criteria (done without our knowledge or consent)?
We could also cancel lifetime salaries for legislators, pork spending to buy votes for those legislators, security for those threatened judges, funding for the ACLU to sue trying to destroy religion rights continually that provides nice fees for their lawyers.
We could stop nonsense federal grants, welfare organizations ongoing costs year after year. We could only allow time restricted grants and federally supported welfare groups.
On and on. But, no, so many can find no solution but to require that America and the rights of American citizenship only be available to the young and healthy. And, that they are the ones to determine who the American citizens are.
Don't forget prisoners of war, terrorists, child molesters.
Remember the democrats must protect their supporters.
And, you see, once one is bedridden or evaluated by any other American as "unworthy of life" they lose all constitutional rights and become merely the garbage that the ghoulish relatives/government seeks to remove.
Slippery slope - nothing. It is nazism, socialism, communism all of it.
And even "quality of life" does not and never will be the determiner of the ability to live in America.
To allow that - is the beginning of nazism attempting to craft society to please itself.
First they must get rid of God (so that will take out all of the God-given rights man has, and God control of life and death.
Then they institute some method whereby SOME evaluate the worth of others to live. And, since many will not meet the crafted criteria for a superior society, they will have to institute SOME who will get to remove the unworthies.
All the while they have an onslaught against the constitution where all are equal - because - you see, all are not equal at all as SOME evaluate the worth of others and take action to REMOVE the unworthies.
And we have freepers who see absolutely nothing wrong with man taking over God's rhelm of life and death decisions. Who see nothing wrong with one life being more valuable than another life. (as shown in abortion and these "killing" cases). We have a lot of waking up to do around here. And, apparently we have been infiltrated by those buying into the "new American agenda".
I noticed it and they are just like ghouls.
Looks like the little men from Mars have invaded and taken over.
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