The Court Of The Problem (Terri Schiavo And Supreme Precedent)

National Review Online ^ | March 30, 2005 | Matthew J. Franck

[MisterRepublican]

As of this writing, the killing of Terri Schiavo has not been consummated, but it could be at any moment. There is no "letting her die" going on here, any more than we would be "letting" an infant die if we left him in his playpen and deprived him of food and water for 12 days. While debates have raged over whether such a death is euphoric or agonizing, humane or cruel, we should not blink at the fact that a killing is exactly what we have watched ever since Schiavo's feeding tube was removed on March 18.

Much of the blame for this horror can be assigned to the Florida legislature that enacted some of the legal precepts undergirding the decisions made in the Schiavo case; to the Florida judges who used and abused those precepts; and to the federal judges who defied the instructions of the Congress to reexamine the case de novo.

But little attention has been paid to the U.S. Supreme Court's contribution to the killing of Terri Schiavo — a contribution that began the very year that she suffered the collapse that left her brain-damaged.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Added to Terri Bookmark Mountain. FReegards....

http://www.freerepublic.com/~arthurwildfiremarch/links?U=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freerepublic.com%2Ffocus%2Ff-news%2F1371774%2Fposts%3Fpage%3D7

[Caleb1411]

[cvq3842]

oh my

[Bahbah]

Great analysis. Scalia again stands out as the greatest mind on the Court.

[mother22wife21]

Summed up very nicely. Bump.

[Law]

Excellent article. A must read for everyone. Thanks for posting it.

[agere_contra]

Agreed. Scalia makes a great point about how food deprivation is only urged for the handicapped.

[hushpad]

Pay back to liberal organizations who serve "the hungry", yet remain silent about terri. (Americas First harvest, etc..)

These feel good organizations who bawl and squall about starving children here and in other countries, how much pain they feel, etc.

Know what? I'm not giving another red cent to ANY charity that feeds the hungry. Since starvation is so wonderful - Let them Starve!

[Diamond]

"In an argument that has been replayed in macabre echoes in the Schiavo case, Scalia wrote that "[s]tarving oneself to death is no different from putting a gun to one's temple as far as the common-law definition of suicide is concerned." And if starving oneself was suicide, starving another was homicide: Scalia cited late 19th-century precedents holding that "[i]n the prosecution of a parent for the starvation death of her infant, it was no defense that the infant's death was 'caused' by no action of the parent but by the natural process of starvation, or by the infant's natural inability to provide for itself.""

Cordially,

[syriacus]

There is no "letting her die" going on here, any more than we would be "letting" an infant die if we left him in his playpen and deprived him of food and water for 12 days.

Exactly.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Powerful post. There's our 'natural law'/traditional values. That's what the courts are supposed to veer toward when in doubt, right?

[grassboots.org]

This is the video that should be shown on the news everynight - it is even more powerful than the balloon video.

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ccb/videos/Terri_Big_Eyes.rm

You need Real Player to watch this, available free on the internet.

This is not reflex action - she heard the doctor, she opened her eyes as wide as she could to impress him.

Even Fox news has ignored this clip.

[donbosco74]

Scalia is the only one to take a legitimate stand in that decision, it seems. The others (unless some were silent and agreed with him) or that is, the ones opposed to Scalia, were effectively setting up a monster that one day could devour them in their incapacity. If they did not see it that way, then they must be assuming that they would be able to evoke the power to commit suicide when the time comes.

I had a dentist whose office was in Sherman Oaks, CA, on the 4th floor of an office building. One day we talked about earthquakes. He told me that if a big one ever came there while he was in his unit, he would break the window facing Ventura Blvd., and jump out. His wife was present, and she assured me that's what her husband would do, as if they had talked about it at length already. He had a plan. He had already decided that he was not going to face the trial of surviving the devastation of a collapsing building. (I immediately thought, anyone whose attitude is so cowardly would never have the guts to jump, but that's another topic.)

It seems to me that those SCOTUS justices who advance euthanasia have such a plan for themselves. And therefore, they would recommend to everyone to have a similar plan, if they are "smart." Unfortunately for them (and anyone who agrees with them) they are presuming to deny God. Not a good way to die.

[Dat Mon]

Great article and post.

It reaffirms why we need Scalia as Chief Justice.

Beyond that...it also affirms the need to have more men of superior intellect and high moral convictions (Scalia is a devout Catholic) to return our 'rule of law' system back to the state our founding fathers...all men of superior intellect and high moral principles...intended.

[MamaTexan]

That's what the courts are supposed to veer toward when in doubt, right?

Common, or natural law being superior to man made law is what the Founders meant by a 'Republican' form of government.

Of the Simplicity of Criminal Laws in different Governments
In republican governments, men are all equal;
equal they are also in despotic governments:
in the former, because they are everything;
in the latter, because they are nothing.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS Book VI By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

One of the writings used by the Founders when forming our government.

[combat_boots]

Well, you're going to serve somebody, MamaT. Better to serve the Lord, than slave for Satan.

[becker]

I couldn't agree with you more.So many charitable organizations have hidden political agendas that do not come out until something like this happens.And then your so mad you gave them money you want to ask for it back.So when someone asks for a donation I simply start asking about the charity's position on gun control, abortion,capital punishment etc. until they give up.Interestingly most people who are collecting have no idea that the charity has a position on something other than what the stated goal of charity is.

[Diamond]

All I can say is, don't hold your breath waiting for the courts to veer in the right direction.

Cordially,

[AlbionGirl]

We seem in fact to have skipped entirely over the intervening step of voluntary euthanasia and gone straight to the involuntary. Why, then, cling to the drawn-out process of death by withdrawal of sustenance? Why not embrace the quicker, undeniably more humane method of lethal injection — the preferred way to go for failing household pets and death-row murderers alike?

The answer is that so far, the culture of death in America has suffered from a failure of nerve. I leave it to readers to ponder the difference between the deaths of their cats and dogs who were "put down" and the death of Terri Schiavo, and say whether this failure of nerve has been a good or a bad thing for the country's PVS patients. But there may yet be hope for the culture of life, in the lies we tell ourselves as we kill the weak among us. One of the most astounding falsehoods was told by the Virginia courts that endorsed the killing of Hugh Finn seven years ago. Desperate to deny what everyone knows, the courts of the Old Dominion held that a PVS patient is, as a matter of law, in the natural process of dying within the meaning of [Virginia statutes] and . . . the withholding and/or withdrawal of artificial nutrition or hydration from a person in a persistent vegetative state merely permits the natural process of dying and is not mercy killing within the meaning of [those same statutes].

No one who has ever seen Terri Schiavo — even those who believe she is PVS and beyond hope of recovery — can honestly believe a word of such nonsense for a moment. We will not soon become the Netherlands, while such a phalanx of lies marches through our judicial reports. But as Lincoln might put it, this house divided by the splitting of unsplittable differences cannot stand. We must sooner or later "become all one thing, or all the other" — a nation that embraces life, or one that shrugs at death.

Beautifully cogent and moving. Thanks for posting!