"Theocrats" for Terri Schiavo

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | April 1, 2005 | Lawrence Auster

[Tailgunner Joe]

How are we to explain liberal's and leftists' support for disconnecting Terri Schiavo from her feeding tube and making her die a slow death, while she is guarded by police officers who prevent anyone from even putting a drop of water to her lips? And how are we to explain the liberals' belief that conservatives, who want to prevent this horror from occurring, are religious dictators intruding into a purely private matter?

Most people think that the liberals are driven by their pro-abortion ideology, which takes the form of opposition to the Christian idea that Terri's radically limited life is nevertheless a human life and so worthy of protection. But that can't be the liberals' whole motivation. To demonstrate this, let us suppose that Terri's husband Michael had wanted Terri to go on living on the feeding tube, or, alternatively, that Michael had handed legal guardianship to Terri's parents and they had wanted her to go on living on the feeding tube. In either of those cases, the liberals would have had no problem with Terri's continued existence. The issue of her living or dying wouldn't even have come up.

In other words, the very factors in this case upon which the liberals' supposedly principled anti-life position seems to be based are contingent. If Michael had not wanted Terri to die, the liberals wouldn't want her to die either; indeed, they wouldn't be thinking twice about the case, notwithstanding their current expressions of horror at the idea of a person living her whole life on a feeding tube. And since, in this hypothetical scenario, the liberals themselves would be consenting to Terri's living in that condition, they obviously wouldn't be calling conservatives "theocrats" and "religious fanatics" for wanting the same thing that the liberals themselves would be agreeing to.

Therefore the liberal position cannot be simply that a person in Terri's situation ought to die. Rather, the liberal position seems to be that personal choice—Michael's personal choice—ought to prevail.

But this explanation also fails to hold up, as we can see from the following considerations: (1) Terri's parents and siblings love her and want her to live; (2) Terri's parents and siblings are convinced that Terri has consciousness and is not in a vegetative state; (3) Michael has two children by his common law wife of many years, and so logically ought to divorce Terri and let the guardianship revert to Terri's parents. Given these factors, Michael's right to decide on Terri's life and death ceases to seem so sacred. Why, then, would liberals side so absolutely with Michael's (highly doubtful) right to have his wife's existence terminated, while they completely dismiss the Schindlers' (correct and understandable) desire to be made her guardians and to save her life?

If individual rights and personal choice are the liberals' bottom line, why must the personal preference of Michael, who has (understandably) moved on with his life, be seen as inviolable, but the personal preference of Terri's parents, who have not moved on with their lives but want to care for their daughter, must be equated with theocratic tyranny and resisted at all costs?

Michael's right of guardianship stems from his status as Terri's husband. But he's given up that status in all but name by starting a new family. Since when are liberals so solicitous of traditional marital bonds and the rights of husbands over their wives—let alone the right of an estranged husband to have his wife killed?

Liberal famously regard marriage as an ever-changing institution, to be reshaped to suit changing human needs. Why then do the liberals treat the Shiavo's marriage, and Michael's rights proceeding therefrom, as written in stone, even though it has long since come to an end? Why don't the liberals simply call on Michael to divorce Terri and let the Schindlers take care of her?

As all these questions suggest, there remains something mysterious and uncanny at the heart of the liberals' position on this issue. Their passionate conviction that Terri must die cannot be explained in terms of any recognizable liberal perspective, whether a disbelief in the soul, the desire to dispense with a less-than-complete human life that inconveniences others, a devotion to serving the rights and desires of individuals, or an easy-going attitude toward the traditional bonds and duties of marriage. Therefore, I would argue, their position on the Schiavo case can only be explained as stemming from something extrinsic to the case itself, namely their bigoted animus against conservatives: since conservatives support Terri Schiavo's right to live, liberals must oppose it. As a liberal professor recently said to an acquaintance of mine (and these were his exact words), "Anything Tom DeLay and those conservatives are for, I'm against."

This reactiveness is a symptom of the extremism that has taken over left-liberals since 9/11. As the conservative writer Jim Kalb points out, prior to 9/11, even when liberal positions were disastrously wrong, they still had a more or less predictable, liberal logic to them that a conservative could understand. But since 9/11, liberals in their hatred of Bush and of conservatives have descended into sheer irrationalism, in the process giving up even those liberal principles that were decent. Thus, prior to 9/11, liberals would no doubt have taken the Schindler's side, as representing the rights of an oppressed and helpless individual. But after 9/11 (with some notable exceptions, such as Jesse Jackson), they do not.

What is it about 9/11 that has had this effect on the left? The post-9/11 world has placed liberals and leftists under an unbearable pressure. The Islamist attack on our country propelled us into a conflict, perhaps a decades-long conflict, with a mortal enemy. But liberals can't stand the idea that we have an enemy, let alone a mortal enemy, a "them," whose very existence justifies our use of force. Therefore such an enemy must be seen as a product of "root causes" generated by us. Further, in keeping with the inverted moral order of liberalism, the more threatening such an enemy really is, the more vile must be the root causes within ourselves that are creating that enemy. The more wicked our enemy actually is, the more judgmental, greedy, cynical, dishonest, uncompassionate, racist, and imperialistic we must be for fighting him. If our enemy seeks a theocratic dictatorship over the whole world (which is the case), we must be seen as seeking a theocratic dictatorship over the whole world, even though there has never been anything remotely like a theocratic dictatorship in our entire history.

Thus the liberals' helpless rage, both against the war on Islamic theocracy and against the conservatism that has become dominant in American politics as a result of that war, takes the form of a floating indictment of conservatives as the real theocrats. This attitude is then projected onto any issue that may arise between conservatives and liberals, such as the battle over the fate of Terri Schiavo: Terri's right to live is passionately backed by conservatives; conservatives are theocrats; therefore Terri is a symbol of theocracy, and therefore Terri must die.

[the invisib1e hand]

In Honor of Terri Schiavo.

Please let load -- it's 11 mb.

Have headphones or sound on.

[Future Useless Eater]

>> Why was only one man, Judge Greer, the determinant of the FACTS in Terri's case?

Thanks LOC1, you're the first person I see pointing that out besides me. Contrary to the ugly liberal talking heads saying that DOZENS of judges and courts reviewed this, it was only Greer that decided the two supposed 'facts' that killed Terri. Greer, and ONLY Greer, decided Terri was in PVS based on a slight majority of the evidence. Greer, and ONLY Greer, decided Terri WISHED to starve to death rather than live with an inconspicuous feeding tube, OR to get swallowing therapy. Greer decided Terri's wishes, based on just a slight majority (in his mind) of the evidence. I would also like to see post-mortem legal changes do away with the 'preponderance of evidence' standard for life and death cases. "Beyond ALL reasonable Doubt" is the ONLY way to go. And Habeus Corpus (trial de novo's) make sense too; As long as serial killers can have 'em, then why not innocent disabled citizens with family members still wanting to care for them!!!

George W. Greer

[Ohioan from Florida]

Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!

[supercat]

If you read them, it will quickly become obvious that the premise of your question is deeply flawed.

I acknowledge that some early fact-finding was done by Judge Shames. And Judge Quesada did some fact-finding (in the Schindler's favor) before an appeals court decreed that Judge Greer was the only qualified fact-finder. But what other judges have heard so much as a single witness?

[supercat]

I would also like to see post-mortem legal changes do away with the 'preponderance of evidence' standard for life and death cases. "Beyond ALL reasonable Doubt" is the ONLY way to go.

Clear and compelling is already supposed to be the civil equivalent of 'beyond a reasoable doubt'. Nonetheless, it might be good to be more explicit about the few circimstances where hearsay might reach a 'clear and compelling' standard.

[reposting from another thread]

I would suggest that oral statements should generally not be "clear and compelling" in the absense of anything to authenticate them (such as a videotape, etc.) It is trivial for an unscrupulous person to attribute to people things they never said. There may be a few cases where an oral statement could constitute clear and compelling evidence, but only if all of the following apply:

1. The statement is heard by enough independent people who would have no motive to invent it, that a conspiracy to invent would be implausible.
2. There is consensus about what was said and what was meant, the statements were clearly intended to serve as a living directive, and the claimed meaning is plausible.
3. There is a logical reason why the person making the statement was unable to personally put it into tangible form.
4. The statement is disclosed to people who can officially record it as quickly as practical.

An example of a case where purely oral statements might constitute clear and compelling evidence would be a train wreck, where an injured passenger tells others of his wishes prior to losing conciousness. In such a case, if the other passengers were to report what the passenger said as quickly as practical to officials, I would say such statements could be regarded as 'clear and compelling' evidence:

1. Unless the other passengers conspired to cause the crash, they would seem an unlikely group to conspire to invent a story.
2. There would be little confusion about the person's statements or the purpose thereof.
3. The person's decision to give the statement orally rather than writing or recordig it would be clear and logical given exigent circumstances.
4. The witnessess to the statement would be able to report it in timely fashion.

As you can see, I wouldn't outlaw all non-recorded oral statements, but I would only allow them in places where there would be no reason to doubt them. Let's see how Terri's "wishes" stack up:

1. Her wishes were heard by an openly-adulterous husband, his brother, and his sister-in-law. One of them had a very clear and obvious conflict of interest, and conspiracy by the others is highly plausible.
2. The three people witnesses Terri's claim that Terri spoke to each of them at a different time; there is thus zero corroboration. There is no particular reason to believe Terri's statements--if she made them--were meant to be enforceable as a living will. At the time Terri's statements were made, hydration by any means was not considered life support and therefore a claim that she intended them to justify the removal of same would seem implausible.
3. There is no logical reason why, if Terri wanted her supposed wishes carried out, she could not have written them down.
4. The statements were not recalled until seven years after Terri's 'collapse'--long after they were supposedly made.

What do you think of these criteria? Terri's siblings' hearsay testimony fails all of them.