Let’s see. Florida local, appellate, and supreme courts have ruled that repeated, exhaustive, thorough, and law-conforming reviews of Terri Schiavo’s condition and presumptive wishes under Florida state law indicate that her feeding tube should be removed and remain so.
The US Congress and President have passed a special law throwing the situation in to federal courts. Of those, we’ve now had a federal judge, an appellate panel, and a full appeals court now rule that, yes, the state courts had it right.
So what else to do? Obvious! Off to the Supreme Court!
Meanwhile, Jeb Bush is showing that, if you throw enough doctors at a problem, then sooner or later one of them will agree with you. It’s hard to believe that even a “renowned” neurologist can, on the basis of a one-hour examination, present a compelling case that argues against the diagnoses already given and accepted.
Which makes me wonder how criminal appeals work in Florida. I suspect that convicts, even (or especially) in capital cases, don’t get to have seemingly endless judges and lawyers and private investigators reassess their cases, looking for one who might see a glimmer of exonerating doubt in some piece of evidence or procedure that has been passed on previously. I suspect that the same is true in Texas, as well. Indeed, the trend has been the other way, to restrict appeals, to put time limits on them, to keep folks from “tying up the system” with “technicalities.”
Which makes the whole “Culture of Life” thang a bit more dubious.
Meanwhile, a number of conservatives are distancing themselves from this particular action by Congress.
“This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative,” said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. “When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it’s been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked – even if it hasn’t given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism.”
Stephen Moore, a conservative advocate who is president of the Free Enterprise Fund, said: “I don’t normally like to see the federal government intervening in a situation like this, which I think should be resolved ultimately by the family: I think states’ rights should take precedence over federal intervention. A lot of conservatives are really struggling with this case.”
Some more moderate Republicans are also uneasy. Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the sole Republican to oppose the Schiavo bill in a voice vote in the Senate, said: “This senator has learned from many years you’ve got to separate your own emotions from the duty to support the Constitution of this country. These are fundamental principles of federalism.”
“It looks as if it’s a wholly Republican exercise,” Mr. Warner said, “but in the ranks of the Republican Party, there is not a unanimous view that Congress should be taking this step.”
Meanwhile, a collection of religious guidelines (from different faiths and denominations) on the whole Living Will thang.
UPDATE: And, damn it all to hell, if Bush and Co. (incl. Tom Delay, “that id of reptilian conservatism“) are going to get all hissy about Schaivo’s case, where are their outrage over these two individuals?
Bush & co are not Republicans as my father understood the term.
But they are the core representatives of what the Republican Party is now.
Where’s the outrage? Dave, do you seriously expect anything but smarmy hypocrisy from these people?
Dave…thats a law George II signed into law back in 1999 to save the insurance and hospital biz money.
This is not the outrage you are looking for, please move along.
There is no benifet to them unless it outrages to GOP base, and paints the judicial system as a bunch liberals that need to be replaced, are at least overruled by the legeslature whenenver necessary.
Yes, I do expect more (from my elected representatives, of any party) than smarmy hypocrisy. That’s why it’s so infuriating when that is, indeed, what I get.
I’d like to get more. I don’t expect it. With have high blood pressure I can’t afford to be outraged. Fortunately, the outrage turned to cynicism and black humor a long time ago.
Bold prediction time. What is going on will have the exact same effect as the gay marriage maneuverings: emotional satisfying but ultimately counterproductive. BTW, I made the prediction with respect to the effects of the gay marriage cases while it was being planned. This is not smarmy hypocrisy but it is stupid politics. The core belief (which I share) behind this is the following:
Removing feeding tubes is sui generis. This is because feeding tubes cross the line from letting someone die and actively killing them.
The effect of the political maneuvering has been to deepen the precedent the other way in that removing feeding tubes is not sui generis, placing that technique in the discretion of the patient and/or the legal guardian. Given that presupposition the decision is a slam dunk as shown by the legal opinions in the federal courts to date (I don’t think the Supremes will decide any differently because they have already ruled that feeding tubes are not sui generis).
George Bush has sensed this already and is currently distancing himself from this mess. His younger brother on the other hand has not shown such sense to cut his losses.
There is one other darling law of the right that will also have unintended consequences in this area and that is medical tort reform. The biggest reason why doctors do not respect DNR orders and Living Wills is fear of lawsuits.
Moving from the legal to the philosophical I believe the President’s principle that we should err on the side of life is sound. This doesn’t mean that he has uniformly applied it. The Vatican rightly links the feeding tube issue with the death penalty. The Bible requires at least two witnesses for the penalty to be applied. The principle gleaned is the standard for the death penalty should be beyond all doubts not just reasonable ones. Applying the President’s standard makes me theoretically in favor of the death penalty but practically opposed because the evidentiary standard is impossibly high. This is as it should be be because mistakes in judgment have such horrific consequences.
Aaaaand … the Supremes have, once again (the fifth time, I believe) declined to hear the case.
Someone I was reading noted, ironically, that if other Bush/GOP initiatives had moved forward as planned, (a) under tort reform, Michael Schiavo would have been prevented from suing Terri’s OB for malpractice (or would have had the judgment severely reduced), then (b) would have had his life savings wiped out due to the medical bills, and be limited in his ability to file for bankruptcy to relieve the debt, and then (c) been stuck with Medicaid care for his wife, which (under that program’s financial limitations and various state “Futile Care” bills) would just as likely have been shut off by now, leaving his wife, Terri, already dead at this point.
I doubt Mr. Delay would have been so up in arms over that.
But that’s just good economic policy, right?
Aaaand, while I find poll-watching not all that reliable, there’s at least some indication that those in the government who are seeking to make political hay out of this may be missing the mark.
Hm, (a) – (c) above: A new variation on the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy, eh?
My explanation for Dave’s poll why many evangelicals oppose what the government is doing:
1. It is unclear to what extent a person in a PVS truly is alive.
2. Federalizing moral cases makes being otherwise pro-life more difficult.
In short, we win the battle, but lose the war. Or, given the way this is playing out, we lose both the battle and the war.
That makes a lot of sense, Rich. Or maybe it is the sense that, to paraphrase Goldwater, the government powerful enough to enforce your personal moral judgment is powerful enough to enforce someone else’s, too.
The NYT has an interesting editorial on the Schiavo case, connecting it to the display of the Ten Commandments on the lawn of the Texas State House, among other things.
I think the question is not whether or not someone in a PVS is alive, but whether or not they are a person. Grass and mosquitoes are alive, and I have no moral qualms about killing either one. I believe that the moral obligations involved in this case are to persons, not just to any old living thing. Some people may disagree, suggesting that the relevant moral obligations are to human beings rather than to persons, but I regard extraterrestrial persons as deserving of moral obligations, so I don’t think the right moral category is human beings. Further, I think that the neurophysiologists are fairly well convinced that Ms. Schiavo will never be a person again. Consequently, it is my opinion that all the claims about morality and erring on the side of life are erroneous when applied to the Schiavo case.