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.
Then why the court order that she also not be given anything orally? And don't hand me the "She'd choke and die" crap. What would it matter since she was ordered to die? And yes, I believe choking to be kinder and quicker than drying her out for 13 days like a saltine.
Go read Judge Greer's death order. It did not say that medical treatment should be removed. It said that all hydration and nutrition should be stopped. It was a state-enforced death sentence, not a removal from life supporting medical equipment. Go read it.
One thing. Why no legal instrument? Many (most) states require. Not infallible, but better than letting judge be judge, jury and executor. Why not have a review board analogous to a pardon board in criminal cases. Law tends to be driven by process, but process is not an end in itself, which is why equity jurisdiction appeared. But equity is a "royal" power, and so there is no reason why it should NOT be vested in the executive. Texas gives the governor the power to stay' the pardon board the authoprity to pardon. Something like this to check the power of the courts when they get caught in a "loop," where the judicial process is not open to a different result.
temper temper temper....
A tube. A plastic spoon. A soda straw. What's the difference? The feeding port could have been maintained by and Terri fed by the Schindlers in their home. That's not medical care, not lifesaving, heroic medical care, requiring a medical professional.
Equally true for the "conservative" talk show hosts. I actually couldn't listen to them -- they sounded like AirAmerica.
States rights should not be regarded as absolute, except in a few cases. such as the right to maintain their borders.
Number one, prove that. Show me where the "extreme right to life fanatics" convinced the judge to order the morphine.
Second, what are your views on abortion?
Vegetable? We can do without such rhetoric.
Well except for the fact that we have a monster wandering around.
Three monsters if you include Felos and Greer.
Wrong answer. You're the one who said that "extreme fanatic pro-lifers" insisted upon the morphone. YOU prove what you said or YOU'RE the liar.
I don't care if people go "off-topic." It's just a website. :)
Be that as it may, Terri had the constitutional right to refuse medical treatment. That was the issue. Not suicide, not assisted suicide, not murder, not euthanasia.
Keep your eye on the ball, Spiff.
I'll say it again, go read Judge Greer's death order. It doesn't say that medical treatment be removed. It says that all hydration and nutrition should be ceased.
I was quoting Mr. Paulsen. Bring it up with him. You can't miss him. He's the one cheering about the state killing Terri.
Many people on this board very much wanted to involve the government, at all levels, in this "personal" matter. Some wanted to call out the National Guard to storm the hospital!
This was not euthanasia, state sponsored or otherwise. This was the judicial system enforcing the state constitution, allowing a person to refuse medical treatment. Period.
You may argue that this wasn't Terri's wish. Fine. You may argue that a feeding tube isn't medical treatment. Fine.
But for those of us who agree with the judge's decision, they were.
Knock off the personal attack now!
You don't understand the court order or the holding of the 2nd DCA, you don't understand the 5th Amendment (clue: it is not about the rights of prisoners, it is about the rights of persons) and you have no conception of powers and rights. You're hoplessly deluded into thinking that you are the "true conservative" for whatever reason. I suspect, however, if the State orders your death, you will be screaming to the high heavens for your Constitutional rights and federal review.
Did she have the constitutional right to go on a hunger strike and starve herself to death - to commit suicide via dehydration/starvation - without any intervention? Then, lacking such a "right", she could not have delegated it, through a living will or other document (in this case purely hearsay) to another person to carry out her wishes.
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