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.
Uh, no. The judge had "clear and convincing" evidence that she wanted to die. You just make this $hit up as you go along? Unbelievable.
"But money must never be part of the criteria whereby a decision is made to terminate a life."
Just arrived on this planet? Not quite familiar with the way things are done here?
We don't quite yet have the socialist country you're dreaming of, but Hillary is working on it. She needs your vote.
So we should keep brain damaged patients alive forever, at no charge? Heart-lung machines, kidney dialysis machines, intensive care, cancer treatments, the whole nine yards?
What a humanitarian you are! What a big heart! You're so wonderful!
(That's what you're looking for, right?)
Just my personal opinion on this case: Michael Shiavo is a very unlikeable person. He comes across as a controlling pig, bent on having his way, not caring about others feelings. Terri's parents wanted to care for her, Michael had gone on with his life, which included a live in girlfriend and 2 kids. All he had to do was terminate his rights to Terri, give them to her parents and family, and walk away. I think he fought to let Terri die to spite her family.
Ah, your true colors. I'm sorry I ever took you seriously. You've made my list, troll.
My point is self-evident
I've already lived a full life. I'm not young, like Terri was when she was denied basic care.
Pretty close. One of my nicknames, in my younger years, was "Leprechaun."
"No tubes for me" is a far cry from "no food and water for me". Can you imagine someone saying, "If I'm ever in that situation, I want to be starved and dehydrated. I want to die a wretched and painful death. I want to lose a third of my body weight. I want my lips to crack, my tongue to swell, my eyes to sink into my head." Yeah . . . I'm sure that's what she was thinking when she told the Schiavos "no tubes for me".
Ooops, I forgot.
BTW- I see that you like to make definitions about COnservaives- but apparently you forgot that a "true" Conservatives looks to the Constitution for answers.
And no where does it say that a husband has a right to kill his wife when she became too much of a burden for him, his lover and their children. Of course we know that Judge Greer disagrees with that... but again, no where in the Constitution does it say that one judge gets to make up laws and prohibit Congress from doing their job.
I guess you will have to deal with that somewhere down the line.
Situation wanted[/sarcasm]~~The Three Schiavos~~
Your judge's chambers or ours.
Exprerienced witnesses willing to testify that your loved one requested starvation/dehydration two decades ago.
Doctors' expert testimony also available, for a modest additional fee.
This is an excellent question!
The Terri-Must-Die-Bots are in frantic mode. Why is that, since they "won" ? Terri was killed. It was a legal victory for their side.
The Death-for-Terri-ites show the same obsessive anxiety over Terri's case as the pro-aborts show over the potential demise of Roe v. Wade.
They know that their legal "victory" rests on specious reasoning -- and that with the appointment of judges who have a sound understanding of our Consitution, their "victory" will crumble to dust.
Just as Dred Scott was relegated to the dustbin of history, so eventually will be Roe v. Wade; AND so too will be this equally squalid federal court decision rendering Terri not worthy of the even the same due process that a convicted murderer receives before execution.
And the Terri-Must-Die crowd knows it. Just like the Roe supporters, they know they are wrong; but they are hysterically trying to convince us they aren't.
If we need to do it often enough, someone will figure out a cheaper way to do it.
No need to kill, to save a few bucks.
Are your loved ones unwilling to express their unspoken desires to be starved and/or dehydrated?
Our experienced counselors will encourage them to share their secret wishes.
Mind melding available at modest additional cost.
Results guaranteed.
The money that will be freed-up by simplifying the tax code can be used to retrain the resultant unemployed IRS employees and CPAs to care for the infirm.
I'd rather that our money went to them to care for sick people, than have it go to them for filling out forms.
"brain-damaged"(quoting robertpaulson)
Please try to keep the facts straight. She was brainDEAD not brain-damaged, from the moment of her collapse, according to nathanzachary, who has rhetorically bludgeoned us over and over and over with his supposed medical and scientific expertise, and who is just as thrilled as you that she was put to death. Both of you cannot be right. However, both of you can be wrong.
To futher confuse and confound, A Mayo Clinic Neurologist who got in to see her said she was, in his opinion, minimally conscious, not PVS as the inerrant (acording to you) Judge Greer ruled.
But we have just got to get the facts straight, in order to discuss. Surely all would agree on that? Hmmmmm? Paging nathanzachary? Facts needed on another Terri thread? Bring us your "brainDEAD for 15 years" diatribe? Then robertpaulson and nathanzachary can straighten out the facts?
BTW, a radio news guy kept describing the autopsy, on the day of release, as saying she had suffered from "severe brainDEATH" according to the findings. It was not a slip of the tongue, as he repeated it throughout the day during newsbreaks.
Now I ask everyone, on both sides, how do you suffer "severe" brainDEATH?" Is there a less-than-severe brainDEATH???
So much for trusting that "the powers-that-be", who wanted her dead and succeeded, had all their i's dotted and their t's crossed...
As opposed to being proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard the state must meet in order to execute the most heinous of murderers.
So convicted killers receive better legal protections than a helpless woman.
Excellent point....if one listens it sounds like the same arguments that are made to promote abortion......anything to make themselves feel better about wanting Terri dead.
Decent article, although the author is confused as to which party traditionally supports civil rights and which one doesn't.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.