John Cole has been blogging up a storm at Balloon Juice and so has Bill at InDC Journal. Both are center-right bloggers annoyed by the grandstanding and exploitation of Terri Schiavo.
The soap opera that’s been created by such shameless acts as the Palm Sunday Overreach reminds me of the Elian Gonzalez case. One of the parallels is the willingness to throw family rights to the wind if there’s a sexier symbol to be had, as anti-Castro was for the Cuban Mafia and “Life” as a lifeless abstraction is for the anti-abortionists. There’s nothing more important to a real conservative than family unless it’s privacy, and having your private life smeared all over cable news while people like Tom DeLay try and score points by slandering you (as they have Michael Schiavo) calls a lot of principles into question.
This is a kind of mass hysteria, and I’ll be glad when it’s over.
Most of the people opposing withdrawwal of Terri Schiavo’s food and water may be “religious right,” but many of us are not.
(I’m a deist & rarely attend church. I strongly disagree with some central tenets of the Catholic faith in which I was raised. I.e. I see nothing immoral about the use of contraception in a committed relationship, I don’t buy the idea that any person can be infallible (the Pope), and I believe that priests should be allowed to marry.)
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Enough about the messengers – what about the message of those who oppose letting Terri starve?
If we believe in individual freedom, Terri’s wishes must be binding if we can ascertain them with confidence. (To be consistent, this means I support any competent adult’s right to discontinue treatment, regardless of what other people think is moral, and regardless of whether their condition is terminal. I also support anyone’s right to choose active assisted suicide w/o interference from the government or pro-lifers.)
Like most of us, Terri did not have a living will or health-care power-of-attorney, so we’ll never know her wishes with enough confidence to make this decision.
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So the next question is, who should decide on Terri’s behalf, Michael Schiavo or her parents? Under the circumstances of this case, it should be the parents.
This is not because I share the rush to demonize Michael Schiavo. We shouldn’t be too harsh on him for taking up with another woman and having children. It was not unreasonable for him to conclude that there was almost no chance of Terri ever regaining higher-brain function. How many years would the rest of us wait before wanting to have a life and a family?
But when Michael Schiavo took up with another woman and had children with her, he violated his vows to Terri and effectively abandoned his marriage. It’s hard to find clearer or more convincing evidence of breaking off your marriage than what he’s done.
That’s Michael Schiavo’s choice, but he must also face the consequences. He cannot retain the rights and privileges of marriage while openly and consistently flouting its obligations.
The right to decide on Terri’s behalf thus falls to her parents.
John, that’s far too logical for the social liberals that are un-hysterically cheering each round of judges protecting their pards down the line.
It’s easier not to think about such externalities when one judge in Florida has done all the thinking for eveerybody already.
Plus, it involves consequences, something else the social liberals are not interested in hearing about.
This isn’t a court and we can’t litigate the facts of the case here. The court has found that Michael’s representation of Terri’s wishes was more credible than that of her parents, and that was based on much more than his personal statement, it included statements by others who heard what Terri said.
Let’s not do too much violence to the facts of the case, OK? Who Michael is sleeping with 15 years after his wife fell into a virtual coma isn’t an issue.
Facts are diamonds, man…you can’t hurt facts. You can only get more of them. Unless we’re talking about the legal system, which stops the accumulation of facts, apparently.
Diamonds? Diamonds? Quick, get me a plane ticket to Kansas. The school board is throwing away tons of those Evolution diamonds right this very minute. I’m gonna be rich, rich, RICH!
At some point the court has to stop accumulating facts and actually render a judgment, don’t they?
Gosh, I dunno…I keep hearing from yall that the whole damn thing is about facts. Is there a limit on the number of facts that a judge can handle if they’re relevant?
I guess a better question is, is there truly NO case that you can imagine where an 8 year-old judgement is completely unassailable?
How many times should they recount in the votes in Florida before declaring an election final?
Whatever that number is, the facts (and the law, which is also important) in this case have been reviewed way more than that.
Or you can ignore the question like your little buddy Cole.
PS The facts ain’t been reviewed…procedure has ben.
Actually, the facts have been reviewed by the Appeals Court, which did so just for the heck of it. Patterico cited the documents where they said “even though the standard is abuse of discretion, we conclude that a de novo review would yield the same result.”
But that’s judges for you, right?
Well, I’ve looked up and down for that de novo review by the appeals court and haven’t found it. Is there a link?
Or is that it — “we conclude”? As I read that, it sounds to me that they didn’t do one, just concluded that it was not necessary. That’s not quite the same as actually doing one, now is it?
And yeah, judges — protecting the guild, brother. That’s what it’s about. Heard it again tonight from 12 freaking lawyers, all of whom would cut their weenies off to be one.
This is the link, but it’s flakey.
I’ve read that one already…it’s nothing but a conclusion that they don’t need to do one and that Judge Greer is an awesome trial judge.
To their eternal credit, they did look at some videotape which confirmed that, yes, Therea Schiavo is severly brain-damaged. Thanks, Judges!