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.
Untrue.
This was a case to authorize the termination of life-prolonging procedures under chapter 765, Florida Statutes (1997), and under the constitutional guidelines enunciated in In re Guardianship of Browning, 568 So.2d 4 (Fla.1990). [FN2]
"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."
I would hate to be in Terri's predicament, and have a hostile former husband, whose neutrality was blatantly compromised, decide that I should be put to death, on the basis of a quick, superficial remark I might have made when I was 22.
Char
Just as Terri didn't want someone else to decide that she should live when she wanted to die.
If you want to live brain damaged by artificial means (and have the money to do so), be my guest.
But if I don't want to live that way, butt out.
That's all I'm sayin'.
Heinrich Himmler....You were right!!!!
She made five (5) similar remarks to three people on five different occasions. All three testified under oath, in a court of law, under penalty of perjury, and subject to cross examination, to that effect.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I'm aware you have strong feelings.
I believe the outcome was what Mrs Schiavo wished. I know that if it were me in the condition she was proven to be in the outcome would have been what I wanted.
And your feelings on that matter will not change the fact that most people would not choose to exist in a vegetative state for 20 years. We the people of FL. put these laws on the books. Change peoples hearts and change the law. Don't blame the judges. Look in the mirror.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If she has "no-ability," she has no rights.
Don't believe me?
Just ask Doctor Cranford, the expert witness, who helped Michael win Terri's "right to die"
Cranford does not believe Terri has constitutional rights
Don't you have a teensy bit of curiosity why all three testifiers had the last name "Schiavo"?
Considering all the "due process" exercised in her case that is a humorous statement.
It is ridiculous, isn't it?
I was amazed that Cranford said PVS patients and Alzheimer's patients have no constitutional rights. The same man testifies for their "right to die."
Not true. Look it up.
Of course. Was there any evidence whatsoever that Terri had done so? Any evidence?
I guess we are all up past our bedtime, then. :-)
How many PVS patients participated in that survey you allude to?
So the two of you believe she has no rights. What can I say? You're entitled to your opinion.
What of it? Something wrong with that? Please share your wisdom with the class.
Good point. People change their minds when it is in writing, and in Terri's case there was nothing at all.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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