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.
One thing is certain; the autopsy will never put to rest the question of whether Terri was PVS or not. A PVS diagnosis is a clinical diagnosis. There isn't any blood test for it or any other type of metabolic test and, as long as some cerebral cortex remains (as it did in Terri) no machine can make the determination. It absolutely can't be determined from a corpse.
So you're not familiar with this case? You think Michael killed his wife?
Who told you that lie?
"a "true" Conservatives looks to the Constitution for answers."
So you're not familiar with the right to privacy protected by the Florida State Constitution? You know, the part that says a patient may refuse medical treatment?
"one judge gets to ... prohibit Congress from doing their job.
Judge Greer prohibited Congress from doing what job?
Or more correctly, "the director of a laboratory at the Mayo Clinic branch in Jacksonville that deals with unconscious reflexes like digestion". We wouldn't want to mislead people, now would we, txrangerette? Uh huh.
"said she was, in his opinion, minimally conscious, not PVS"
Ummmmm. Not quite. He said, "Schiavo might not be in a persistent vegetative state but rather in "a state of minimal consciousness." (my bold).
We wouldn't want to mislead people (again), now would we, txrangerette?
Lastly, this born-again neurologist visited Ms. Schiavo in her hospice room for an hour and a half on March 1, 2005 and reviewed only the heavily edited videotapes of her made by her parents (you know, the one where the balloon followed her eyes, oops, I mean where her blind eyes followed the balloon?).
But we have just got to get the facts straight, in order to discuss. Surely all would agree on that? Hmmmmm?
(Terri was brain damaged. If you've got a problem with Nathan Zachary, then don't clog up my in-basket by copying me.)
So said the citizens of Florida expressed through their legislature.
Unless you don't believe in state's rights, tenth amendment, power to the people, that kind of thing.
Hypocrisy abounds!
Solid? Will you take "clear and convincing", the Florida standard? Obviously not. It's gotta be solid.
Here we have a legal system which you are totally ignoring because YOU didn't like the outcome. Is THAT a conservative attitude? To only obey the laws one agrees with?
A horrible manner of death that the state could
NEVER inflict on a convicted murderer. That would be
"cruel and unusual punishment". Anyone that condones the way
the Schiavo case went down needs to seriously think
about how that beloved daughter and sister was afforded
her "right to die". Mr. Paulsen, I submit that NO ONE "wants"
to die the way Terry Schiavo did. That was NOT mercy killing,
it was inhuman. If the state was so sure of it's perogative to end
that woman's life, then why did they not offer her the mercy
of lethal injection, mercy afforded society's worst criminals?
Will you take "clear and convincing", the Florida standard? Obviously not. It's gotta be solid.
+____I believe the ruling was simply the subjective call of one hudge and the system is geared to uphold that provided he follows correct legal procedure.
The whole thing was a case of legally sanctioned judicial murder. Dr Mengele would have approved.
Here we have a legal system which you are totally ignoring because YOU didn't like the outcome.
___Ever hear the phrase "miscarriage of justice?"
Is THAT a conservative attitude? To only obey the laws one agrees with?
_____So I guess you're helping OJ search for the real killer?
)
Abd no one was refusing to "obey"
the law, but we were questioning the ruling of one judge in the matter. In fact, Congress and the POresident questioned that ruling, tooo...)
Given that Terri was in a PVS, I don't see how. Maybe you'd better explain.
"If the state was so sure of it's perogative to end that woman's life,"
What are you talking about? The state had no prerogative to end Terri's life.
Under the Florida State Constitution, Terri's right to privacy included her right to refuse medical care. She did not want medical care under those conditions. The court honored her wish.
"then why did they not offer her the mercy of lethal injection"
That would have been illegal.
Which one of the 19+ judges who reviewed this case called it that?
If I have to explain to you that humanity extends beyond the ability to reason or perceive pain, it is really pointless. One wonders why morphine was administered to a sub-human vegetable.
She did not want medical care under those conditions. The court honored her wish.
Food and water is not medical care. You can keep fooling yourself that Terri Schiavo's wishes were followed in this matter, but you ARE fooling yourself.
That would have been illegal.
Correct, but what was done to her was much worse. It was an abomination.
Which one of the 19+ judges who reviewed this case called it that?
____The appeal judges ruled on the procedural issues, not the substance of the case. Judge Greer followed correct legal procedure and that included his right to hold for Michael Schiavo
based on Greer's choice to believe his essentially unconfirmable testimony about Terri's intentions.
Citizens have a right to decide whether Judge Greer was just in ruling in favor of Schiavo and I believe he was not.
Schiavo clash is rooted in cash
The dispute between Michael Schiavo and his in-laws began when Bob and Mary Schindler said he owed them money, court records show.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
Published November 23, 2003
Assuming this one-sided pro-MS hit piece is true, exactly why didn't MS share the money and pay back debts, instead of using it to bankroll his shackup?
Greed and spite on both sides.
A sordid family squabble...and quite a public squabble locally.
Most people nationally were unaware of this case prior to 2000. They didn't know it was probably all spite over the settlement money.
I followed the story since her collapse 15 years ago.
I live in Pinellas County.
Assuming both sides were greedy and spiteful, that leaves the fact that one side wanted to care for her, and the other wanted her dead so he could continue on with his shackup. Looking at motives, it's clear MS had personal reasons for wanting her dead, the parents had none.
At the medical malpractice trial against doctors who treated Schiavo in 1992, Mary Schindler spoke with admiration about Schiavo's attentiveness to her disabled daughter.
"He's there every day," she said. "He is loving, caring. I don't know of any young boy that would be as attentive. ... He's just been unbelieveable. And I know without him there is no way I could have survived all this."
On her grave marker he has inscribed, "I kept my promise Terri".
Because the extreme right to life fanatics like you insisted that morphine be injected into a "vegetable". The judge conceded, figuring it would do no harm.
I'm sure he regrets it after reading comments like yours that suggests he did it because Terri could feel pain.
"Food and water is not medical care."
That is correct.
But when delivered by medical staff, on doctor's orders, through an artificial, surgically implanted feeding tube, however, it becomes medical care.
Second, the case she supposedly commented upon to Joan Schiavo was significantly different from her own situation years later. For one thing, she was not in a coma. Her condition was either Very Low Consciousness or PVS, neither of which was ruled out by the autopsy.
She was also not on wires, monitors and ventilators, was not being "kept alive by machines." She was young (41), strong, not in pain, and not terminal. All she needed was ordinary care: assisted nutrition/hydration. So if she expressed the view attested by some, that she would want to "be allowed to die a natural death," she was not asking to be starved/dehydrated. Neither you, nor I, nor any judge or panel of judges in the world can deny fluids to a dependent and disabled person and call their resulting demise a "natural death."
Third, the judge's decision that there was "clear and convincing" evidence of Terri's desire to be dehydrated to death, obviously was not clear and convincing to many people who knew Terri. It was not even "clear and convincing" to Michael Schiavo until after he received --- from a medical malpractice settlement --- a substantial amount of money which he swore he would use for his dabled wife's long-term care!
Not only her parents, but her brother and sister, half a dozen nurses, lawyers, clergy, could have testified ---- if he she's had a trial de novo --- that she exhibited a will to live.
Fourth, it is outrageous that a county probate judge can order the death of any citizen who has not been convicted of a crime. You realize of course, that in the end this was done on a court order. Technically, it wasn't even Michael Schiavo's decision in the end. It was an actual court order by Judge Greer.
This was a "first." And a precedent: one that must not be allowed to stand.
Or perhaps you can answer post # 42. I have yet to get a syraight answer to that question.
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