This is a copy of a paper my daughter wrote for a college class in law. She had to pick a SCOTUS case and write about it. Terri's case changed all our family as the Waco and Ruby Ridge cases did. When America fails, it changes history and gives someone something new to ponder. Morality is our foundation, but whose morality do we follow?
Moral Blindness Vs. Inalienable Rights
The founders of the United States believed that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Adams, Franklin, & Jefferson, 1776). This concept is based on morality and it seems as though the idea of good morality changes from year to year. Changing times and ideas are mostly considered a great quality but it can also create moral blindness. For example, when white individuals owned black slaves it did not make the slaves any less of a human being than the whites in society’s eyes today, but during that time they were believed to be less than human. The Dred Scott case was a pure example of this moral blindness. Each state had a choice whether to be a slave state or a free state but there had to be a balance of each in the Union. For instance, Missouri joined the Union through the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and it was a slave state next to Illinois, which was a free state. Illinois came from the Northwest Territory; given by Virginia to the United States in the Northwest Compact of 1784-85. The compact was the basis of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787; in reference to the balance of slave owning and free states, article 5 says:
There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five States. . . . And, whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government: Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand. (Thope, 1909).
Scott’s new owner moved him to Illinois for two years, since Illinois was a free state you could take a slave through that territory but one could not keep them there long enough to become residents. If an owner failed to move the slave in the limited transit time period of two weeks then the slave became free. Scott was in Illinois for two years, which by far exceeds the time limit of the transit time, and by law made Scott a free man. After residing in Illinois for two years, Dred’s owner relocated to Wisconsin, and under the Missouri Compromise law of 1820 said that slaves taken into this area and residing in it were free by force of federal law. Also, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 states in article 6:
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid. (Thrope, 1909).
These are just two of the many examples of how the court system failed a man who, according to federal law, was free, because of a morally blind majority. Dred Scott was treated as though he was merely property and not a human being that was entitled to his inalienable rights. The Preamble, which is stated above, clearly proves that not everyone believed this ludicrous ideological nonsense that whites were more human than blacks. Although, the court system overlooked the laws that Congress had put forth for all Americans to live by, which caused the government to fail in ending slavery immediately, the government laid the foundation for the Dred Scott case to change the way Americans viewed slavery altogether. The 13th Amendment, section 1 boldly states: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (1776). Clearly, Scott was stripped of his rights as a human being without committing a single crime and was denied his freedom as an American even though by law he was said to be a free man. Also, in 1868 the 14th amendment was written, every clause from the 14th amendment directly overturns some holding of the Scott case. The 14th amendment, section 1 state:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (1776).
The Dred Scott case opinion clearly stated that these rights only applied to white people, but even then there was no federal power to correct the situation if a state deprived whites of their inalienable rights. The immorality of the judges who handled Scott’s fate kept him bound as a slave because in their eyes they saw only saw him as a piece of property and not an American citizen.
Immorality does not just base itself to race or generation, but it can be found in any part of life. For instance, Dred Scott was a black male in the 1800’s that white judicial elitist saw as property, but in the case of Terri Schiavo, she was a white female that lived in the current generation with abundant “freedom”.
Terri Schiavo was in her mid-twenties when she suffered cardiac arrest that left her in a coma. The reasoning behind her cardiac arrest, doctors believe, was due to having Bilema Nervosa. She recovered from her coma, but the lack of oxygen to her brain left her impaired. She could breathe, sleep, wake up, and responded to sounds and even pain all on her own. She was unable to speak but communicated through grunts and groans. Doctors diagnosed her to be in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) and sent her to a Hospice facility for care.
The facility took very good care of Schiavo while her parents and her husband contributed finances. In the beginning everyone believed that if she was under constant care that she would recover even more from the cardiac arrest. When her condition failed to gain improvement her husband grew weary of the situation and decided it was time for Terri to stop “suffering”. He then took the matter to the Florida circuit courts to have Terri’s nutrition stopped. Her wishes for this type of situation were never written down in any kind of document and her husband was using hear-say in the courts to say she did not wish to live in PVS.
The issue became heated and went nation wide, many people supported the life of Terri, and even the Republican Party stepped in with Jeb Bush as Terri’s spokesperson. The outcome was the courts decided to take away all nutrition and care from Terri and she died 13 days later of starvation and dehydration.
Paul McHugh, a Professor of Psychiatry for Johns Hopkins University with experience in Hospice, believes that Hospice did not live by their oath to Schiavo. He states:
In hospice care, no one is deprived of the simple amenities of being kept clean and receiving food and water. In Terri Schiavo’s case, just as the team did not withdraw her bladder catheter, which helped keep her clean, so it did not withdraw the gastric tube, which had similarly been put in place during the rescue phase in order to ease the burden of nursing her. If for some reason the gastric tube had to be removed, the team would surely have tried to sustain nutrition by feeding her with spoon and cup.
In a hospice, decisions to limit medical services are made easier by everyone’s knowledge of how the patient’s condition emerged. Team attention, emphasizing as it does all relevant perspectives, strives to support all relevant interests. Terri Schiavo received good care and treatment, and would not have been permitted to suffer unnecessarily. At the same time, she would not have been carried repeatedly through processes of treatment that ultimately did nothing to advance the quality of her life (McHugh, 2005).
Basically, Mchugh is saying that Hospice gives an individual the amount of care they need to keep them from suffering, but does not do anything medically to keep them alive. Terri’s body was living on its own with others assisting her in keeping her clean and fed. Hospice was doing their every day duties that they do with each of their individuals, why was Terri chosen to be the one to die? Why did they courts pick her and not another individual in their care?
The decision made by the courts was one that scared many citizens of America. Terri did not leave any written document to say she did not want to live in PVS, she was being taken care of by Hospice and financially by her family. How did the courts have any jurisdiction in a human being’s life that did not commit any criminal act? How does one person, Michael Schiavo, Terri’s husband, and a court take her life away? This showed Americans that they do not have complete control over their well-being. It showed them that even as unpopular as the decision was it all came down to a judge’s ruling.
Moral blindness knows no generation limit, race, gender, or age. Americans must realize that a court system is much more powerful then they may believe. These two instances make it perfectly clear it does matter who sits in the judge’s chair and they do not only deal with criminals and civil cases. These two cases dealt with two innocent citizen’s lives and the citizen’s lost. In reality, they ultimately show that justice is not always fair. It can be quite cruel and sometimes the people in the wrong win.
Works Cited
1. (1776). The Constitution. Philidelphia, Pennsylvania. 2. Adams, J, Franklin, B, & Jefferson, T. (1776). The Preamble. (1776). The Constitution. Philidelphia, Pennsylvania 3. McHugh, P. (2005, June). Annihilating Terri Schiavo. Commentary Magazine 4. Thorpe, F. N. (1909). (1909). The Northwest ordinance of 1787
