Stuart Buck attempts to re-frame the Schiavo question as one of competing principles:
One of the odd things about the Schiavo affair is the argument that “if you care about federalism, you wouldn’t favor Congress’s involvement in granting federal jurisdiction for Schiavo’s parents to have one more day in federal court.”
One sees this argument in many contexts: “If you really opposed abortion, you’d support the death penalty for women who have abortions,” or “if you really wanted to clean up the environment, you’d agree to ban all automobiles,” or “if you really supported bringing democracy to Iraq, you’d support war in about 100 other countries,” or “if you really supported free speech, you wouldn’t be in favor of hate crimes laws.” In short, “If you really believed in Principle X, you’d follow that principle to all extremes without ever letting another principle override it.”
But that sort of reasoning is often wrong. People often accuse their opponents of being hypocrites when, in fact, they may simply have been balancing competing principles. We all do this constantly. And the mere fact that someone reaches a different balance than you, or that they decline to treat one principle alone as being absolute, does not prove that they are being hypocritical.
He’s wrong, of course. This case was about three things that have nothing to do with federalism:
1) Do we consider a person dead when their brain has stopped, even if their heart still beats? and:
2) Do we consider it proper for legislative bodies (state or federal doesn’t matter) to attempt to make factual determinations in individual cases and craft bills that usurp judicial prerogatives; and:
3) Do we want to litigate each end-of-life situation where a family member way wish an irrational course of action all the way to the highest court in the jurisdiction?
Certainly, Congress was wrong to get involved in this case on federalism grounds, but that’s the least of their errors.
Not to mention 4) who is a person’s ultimate caretaker, their parents or spouse?
the issues can go on and on, but the fact is life ended and everything following that was not a real consideration. is there anyone who considers him/herself alive if they lie in an atrophied position with eyes fixed on nothing making pitiful sounds and noncommunicative? Please pull the plug, I would think, and my living will says so. I also have a letter to my son saying donate anything that can be useful to anyone who can use it, or to science.
I’d certainly agree with you that Federalism was one of the Schiavo sideshows at most. But what about his point of balancing the application of competing priciples? That striving by the intelligent observers to use all their pertinant guidance in harmony or else be ready to learn their own set of rules needs revision in the service of consistency…all that is just a vulnerability to the oversimplifiers and single issue voters. To those who are impatient for certainty and uncomfortable with answers longer than one sentence, a case like Schiavo’s proves to their satisfaction that the rest of us are confused and doomed equivocators. The style and process of this public debate about an affair that was none of the public’s business is as much the substance to be reflected upon in the aftermath as any of the principles that have been mentioned.