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.
Geez. You forgot communist, socialist, and baby eater.
Actually, it was a statement by Felos. He said that the State had ordered the feeding tube removed and MS couldn't stop it if he wanted to. There was a huge brouhaha on FR. Don't you remember?
Your comment was off-topic, something that also happens every day at FR, and at other forums as well.
You believe that ignorant POS? Figures.
It's off-topic to comment on what the lounge lizard put on her headstone?
Two issues were involved. 1) was she PVS and 2) was there clear and compelling evidence that she wanted her life ended. With regard to the second, we have to ask about the sufficiency of the statute and whether the judge properly applied it. With regard to the first, we have to ask about the definition of PVS and whether doctors properly diagnosed her. IMHO, the statute gives the trial judge too much discretion. He jumped through all the right judicial hoops and therefore the judge-club could do nothing but circle the wagons to guard THEIR rights. So far as PVS is concerned, it is at best a term of art and the facts are as open to multiple interpretation as the number of doctors who can be brought in, on a par with a psychiatric diagnosis.
I'd check the hysterics if I were you. Frankly I didn't want the woman to die, but I also respect the standard of federalism above everything else. That line was crossed and any party that does that, no matter who's leading them, has lost my support completely.
Well, if "Michael" never "forgot" what Terri "told" him, what's your "point"?
You are pretty dense, aren't you? Your boy is a liar, once he got his loot and his new screwpal, he "remembered" Terri wanted to die. But you know that already.
IOW's "Patooey on the Constitution..." which is the Supreme Law of the Land. Good riddens.
As for federalism, how was "the line crossed" ? If federal court review is granted to death row criminals under the 14th Amendment, why shouldn't federal court review be granted in disputed cases where the state has imposed a death sentence on an innocent?
Oh my. I'd certainly hate to be ignorant.
Why don't you educate me as to what the court really did? I could use a good laugh.
I read the court order, currently have it opened in another window ready to "copy and paste" in response to your worthless answer -- assuming you post one.
No reading comprehension in some of these folks is there.
Oh well...Im off to hack at a golf ball for 18...
Well contrary to the cracked arm of 'conservatism' of which you seem to belong, the Constitution is merely a set of limitations on the national government. The Framers understood certain questions would come to the forefront within the respective states which is why we have the 10th Amendment. As I said, if Florida wants to muck about with the lives of its citizens, that's fine with me. But do not destroy what is left of the checks and balances between the national government and the respective state governments for your silly crusade.
Oh and learn to spell. It may help your argument..
Because the 14th Amendment was stretched for that power in and of itself. Now you're going to argue why not stretch it a little more? That's conservative....
This was a civil case, not a criminal one. The 10th Amendment is clear. I realize Republicans inherently hate that Amendment considering their auspicious party origin but are we now to take intrastate medical civil cases all the way to the Supreme Court because we disagree with the outcome?
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is one of several abstention doctrines that federal courts follow. This one holds that federal courts should not hear claims that essentially ask the court to review the decisionmaking in a state case. The rationale is, basically, that the U.S. Supreme Court is available to review state court decisions that involve federal issues (like due process), and there is no need to turn the lower federal courts into a review system for state decisions.
Now, in the case of those in state or federal custody, Congress has enacted statutes that expressly require federal courts to hear claims that ask for state proceedings to be reviewed. In those cases, Rooker-Feldman does not apply.
As you probably know, Congress has recently been debating whether to adopt a law that would extend the review capacity of lower federal courts to include persons in Terri's circumstances. If that law passed, Rooker-Feldman would not apply, and the court would be able to review the state court proceedings for due process violations. So far, that law has not passed.
And it probably won't.
Wasn't convincing to Michael before the money came in, though, was it? Go ahead. Give me the time line.
Ah! Well, that's different. Why?
According to the Florida State Constitution (and supported by the state supreme court decision in In Re Browning), a patient has the right to refuse medical treatment. Terri had, on at least five different occassions, expressed her desire not to live that way.
The judge in this case was charged by the State of Florida with finding "clear and convincing" evidence as to Terri's wishes in her then current condition.
His ruling reflected his decision, and he ordered the feeding tube removed, thereby honoring the patient's right to refuse treatment.
You got a beef with KDD's comment being off-topic, take it up with him and leave me out of it.
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