My Thoughts on Schiavo

I don't know what to think about the case.

Look, I'm not someone who can sit here and take solace in Congressional action, because I think Congress might have been wrong to take this action. I find it hard to come to this conclusion -- it's not cut and dried that this is some awful precedent for the future. But before we blast the GOP alone, let's remember that plenty of Democrats, including Tom Harkin, voted for the measure. Hell, as Instapundit noted, Ralph Nader supported Congressional action. I think Michael Barone may have it right...

I do not put myself forward as an expert on this case, nor am I certain that Congress and Bush made the right decision, or that the courts, state and federal, made the wrong one. But I do think much of the criticism and condescension is misguided. And I think that the response of elected officials reflects one of the great strengths in our country: a confident belief in moral principles that stands in vivid contrast with what we see in much of Europe and in the supposedly sophisticated precincts of this country.

Start with the federalism issue. During Reconstruction, Congress passed laws authorizing the federal government to protect the civil rights of individuals left unprotected or harmed by state action. Those laws have been invoked in cases where the rights of black Americans were violated and the violators went unpunished. Invoked, I would say, not often enough. The law Congress passed and Bush signed was an attempt to protect the civil rights of one individual in light of substantial evidence that those rights were not being protected by the state.

...A cynical partisan ploy by Republicans? Not really. It is possible that Democrats, if in control, might not have summoned a special session. But this was not a purely partisan issue. Democrats did vote for the bill and made its passage possible. Proceedings in the Senate could have been stopped by a single objection to a unanimous-consent request. No senator objected.

... Were all these Democrats and Republicans acting cynically? I don't think so. Take Sen. Tom Harkin, a liberal Democrat who worked for the measure. Harkin's interest arose from his long concern for the disabled -- he was a chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act -- and his desire to protect the rights of the incapacitated. Were his views informed by his Roman Catholic faith? I don't know, but what if they were? Legislators are under no obligation to have moral principles entirely divorced from religious beliefs. I can't answer for every member who voted for the bill or against it. But the quality of the debate suggests to me that large majorities on both sides were acting out of reasoned moral conviction more than political calculation.

If anything, I think people should be equally appalled by federal courts opting to ignore the clear intent of Congress' resolution. Two wrongs sure as hell don't make a right, and the courts are undercutting their own standing in the future.

There are so many voices with so many views on this. Check out Joe Ford's article in the Harvard Crimson...

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube—a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people—is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

...In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she—ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one—“would not want to live like this.” In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might “get better”—that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called “mental retardation”) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

...Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

Other disabilities rights advocates weigh in here and here. And as Michelle Malkin pointed out, the public support for Michael Schiavo's position seems to rest on misinformation and loaded poll questions. I don't even want to get into the latest fake memo issue -- someone at the Post or ABC News owes the GOP an explanation if not an apology.

The bottom line is that there's no true right or wrong on this issue -- none of us know what Terry Schiavo really would have wanted, and none of us can be certain that what we believe about the case is correct. There's a ton of arrogance on each side on this issue, and it's one that's a very emotional one for many folks. In the end, I think the best lesson for all of us it make our plans accordingly for such a moment in the future, and make our wishes very clear.

I feel for the Schindlers, and even for Michael Schiavo. But I feel the most pain for Terry Schiavo, and maybe the best all of us can do is pray that she hasn't felt any pain for the last decade-plus, and won't feel any if and when she passes on. God bless her, and may we all learn our own lesson from this.