I’m supposed to be figuring out how to get a new driver’s license, but instead am skimming the news articles on Congress, the courts and Terry Schiavo. I’m less interested in the ethical and medical matters revolving this case, and more interested in how Congress got involved, the partisanship around the matter, and just the general unusual politics of having Congress get involved so personally in the life of this one woman.
From this article in the Times, it appears that the Democratic vote in the House was split. The House and the Senate approved legislation to have a federal court review the case. Voting yes were 156 Republicans and 47 Democrats, while 53 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted no.
Both sides are using every congressional tool at their disposal.
The Democrats’ refusal to allow the bill to pass without a roll-call vote prevented the House from taking up the measure early Sunday afternoon and sent Republican leaders scurrying to summon lawmakers scattered for the Easter recess back to Washington to provide a quorum.
House rules required that such a vote could not occur until Monday, so the Republican leaders suspended the vote until Monday morning so they had time to assemble at least 218 of the 435 House members.
The intensity of the feelings by political leaders and the unusual Congressional strategies are remarkable.
The mood in the Capitol was subdued as members of both parties gathered to plot strategy. Some said the atmosphere reminded them of a vote on going to war, colored by a life-and-death decision.
“I have been here 13 years,” said Representative Donald Manzullo, Republican of Illinois, “and I have never seen anything like this before.”
The session was extraordinary for a number of reasons, including its falling on a Sunday and in the middle of the Easter recess for Congress.
I just did a quick surf around the blogosphere. Instapundit points me to Sissy Willis who has some posts on the topic, including one post on a pro-Terry column in the WSJ by James Q. Wilson. Willis pointed to Virginia Postrel who was talking about congressional overreach on MSNBC, referring to Schiavo and the baseball hearings. So, the libertarians and the social conservative wings of the Republican party are in conflict around Schiavo. The small government types don’t want gov’t involved at all.
Apt. 11d 
There’s a great legal discussion on the Volokh Conspiracy about whether Terri’s parents even have standing to bring the case. It’s one of the few sane places in the blogosphere where you can discuss the issue at the moment.
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I believe that Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die in peace. My grandfather always told everyone in earshot – just in case it might ever happen (thankfully, it didn’t) – that he didn’t want to be kept alive by a machine.
I think its very sad how this situation, and her family’s pain (on both sides) is being twisted for political gain. I feel a great deal of empathy for both her husband and her parents, all of whom are doing what they feel is right, and for the right cause.
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Has anyone ever heard someone say they DID want to be kept alive by machines? I haven’t. Why should anyone assume this poor woman would want to be kept alive this way, when virtually no one else would?
Of course, her parents are hoping for a miracle. A literal miracle, not a figurative one. Nothing else will replace so much brain tissue loss.
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Beeing a father myself, i can understand the parents reaction, one would simply hope for a miracle and see hope in every little thing she does.
But beeing a human beeing and a husband .. I would never want to “exist” or see my wife on that state .. I would fight to let her go in peace.
The parents unfortunately havent reached that state yet, or maybe ht emedia pressure has put them into a corner were they cant get out now ..
But regardless, on this issues what sickens me is the politics of it, to see Congress and the President interfeering with such personal issues, shows the real light of the kind of leaders we have in the US ..
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I have heard people say they would want to be kept alive in such circumstances. Have you ever heard of Not Dead Yet, the disabled organization? They are strongly against pulling Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, and they have various levels of disability themselves, so presumably they know more about what it feels like to be disabled then, say, I do. And I’m not sure I would want my feeding tube pulled in such a circumstance.
This case is an extreme one, of course, but I think Not Dead Yet makes some great points. I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby, a movie they are very critical of, but I know for certain I would not want to die if I was paralyzed. I have a life of the mind as well as a life of the body. However, I understand that paralyzed people are sometimes approached by others who say they would not want to live under those circumstances. Rude, but not just rude. Might this view lead to a general assumption that such lives are not worth living? Also, they point out that studies show that the newly disabled soon return to their former level of happiness, and that disabled people are no less happy than anyone else. They argue that most of the desire for death that the disabled and event he terminally ill sometimes feel is caused by physical suffering and transient depression, both of which can be resolved short of euthanasia. Society should be focusing on making the practicalities of life easier for the disabled and ending the suffering of the terminally ill.
I am a left winger, born and bred, but the left is short-sighted on this one. They are making assumptions a priori without listening to the disabled people themselves.
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What you’re making is a “slippery slope” argument. If A, then B will happen, and eventually C. But those arguments have no validity, especially in this case. NO one wants to deny life to disabled people, like Christopher Reeve, who was a real hero of mine. These cases are leagues apart. Terri Schiavo has no cerebral cortex, and cannot think, feel, or have emotions. All she has is reflexes prompted by her brain stem. The courts have found over and over again that she would not have wished to be kept alive, based on statements she made to several people. (Here’s a link on how thoroughly the courts have looked at this, from an impartial source, an expert on Fla law.)
What I find interesting is the fact that her father had his mother withdrawn from life support when her kidneys failed. Makes me wonder why he’s joined with Randall Terry suddenly on this death-with-dignity issue.
I didn’t see that movie, mainly because I don’t think I’d agree with her decision either. But paralyzation is far, far different from what’s going on here.
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Yes, it is. But I don’t think it helps to say that “nobody” in her condition would want to live. She may in fact not want to live, certainly. And the courts may be right in their assessment of her pre-injury desires. But that does not mean “nobody” in her condition would want to live. I’ve given you counter-examples: some of the members of Not Dead Yet say that they would want to live in that circumstance. They know that the two cases are very disimilar and they still come to the conclusion that they would want to live.
Also, I don’t think it is reasonable to assume that nobody thinks that people who are paralyzed should want to die. Of course they cannot be compelled to do so, but many disabled people have stated that they have been told by people that they would want to die if they were in that circumstance.
I am very familiar with slippery slope arguments as I teach critical thinking. They are not in themselves invalid. (Invalid means: it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false). They are wrong if they rely on a false premise: if in fact x will not lead to y. So the dispute is whether or not x will lead to y. I am not sure in fact that x will lead to y. I am merely concerned. I am concerned because I think that developing a sense that certain lives are not worth living might lead to an environment in which people are encouraged to seek death if they are disabled even if they in fact do not want to do so, or even if they want to do so but are currently irrational about what they want. For instance, Dr. Kevorkian helped several depressed women who were not terminal, although they had MS, and who were worried about being a burden on their families, commit suicide. Those women might not have chosen suicide if their depression had been treated, or if they did not feel guilty that they were a burden. But if people think that suicide is what they would want in these circumstances, then they might not set up society in such a way that disabled and ill people can get assistance with depression. People might not feel capable of standing up to their families and saying, I want to live. You need to help take care of me.
It is not clear that Schiavo’s condition is worse than death. What is it even like? Twilight sleep? Does she feel the basic comfort of a bed, and being warm and fed? She is not physically suffering. She is not attached to breathing machines. I am not sure what she is experiencing, and I am not sure I would want to die if that was what I was experiencing. And I don’t think anyone else can be sure about what I would want if even I am not sure.
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Michael Shiavo is coming out like an very unlikeable
sleezebag on this one. He went on with his life, two broads and two babies later, and continues to hurt Terry’s parents, what a bonehead! He has not been a “real husband” in the biblical, moral or functional sense in the past 15 years. So, notewithstanding technical paperwork, I say doc’s courts and congress should err on the side of LIFE.
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Careful, those slippery slope arguments cut both ways. What if when my mom, who suffers from a degenerative brain disease, one day reaches the point where I have to decide whether to continue whatever life support she may be on at that point? And what if one of her other relatives intervenes and gets Randall Terry, Tom DeLay, et al on the “Save Pat” bandwagon? And Congress decides to intervene and takes the decision out of my hands, despite the fact my mom told me, when her mind was more clear than it is now, that she wanted to be able to die when the time came? At that point, a very difficult and personal decision I would have made, based on my knowledge of what my mother would have wanted, is taken out of my hands and given to a bunch of politicians who care nothing for her, except as a fetus-surrogate to further their own standing with the religious right.
Sound crazy? About as crazy as those of us with sincere right-to-die-with-dignity beliefs wanting those with disabilities to be able to end their lives simply because they’re having a rough time getting around. It’s a huge leap to assume the merely disabled will be “next”. Anyone who watched Christopher Reeve (whose sister was my mom’s doctor, btw) knows there is nothing remotely similar in his condition and that of a PVS patient.
This isn’t a disability issue; claiming Ms. Schiavo is “disabled” is as disingenuous as claiming “dogs and cats have more rights” and insults the disabled. Disabled people have brains that, for the most part, work just fine and allow them to make decisions, even if, as in my mom’s case now, they’re the decisions a three year old would make. Without a cerebral cortex, this sort of thinking, indeed, even the concept of pain, hunger, etc., cannot exist.
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What about those people in a minimally conscious state, who can’t make decisions? Are they disabled?
People with sufficient disability, either from birth defects or Alzheimer’s, who can’t speak?
If what you say is true, if she is just a body at this point than the person she was has limited interests here anyway, as that person no longer exists. It’s hard to know how her rights could be violated (by keeping her body alive) any more than a dead writer’s rights can be violated if someone publishes their works that are no longer copyright-protected. But I myself am not sure that is true. She does not have no cortex at all; just an extremely thinned out and damaged cortex. The implications of that are not completely clear to me and I don’t believe are completely clear to scientists, yet. The views of these matters are still undergoing development. PVS is not completely understood.
I agree that people should be entitled to make decisions for their future medical care, and the sort of case you describe would be one of concern to me. But it is just as significant a violation of autonomy to violate someone’s wish to live in such circumstances as it is to violate someone’s wish to die, if not more so, as the loss of life is a more permanent and significant loss. The question is: how do we create a society in which all people’s wishes on these sorts of matters are respected? I don’t know the answer, but I do know one thing: you do not create that sort of society by assuming that nobody would want to live in Terri Schiavo’s situation. That sort of all-encompassing assumption simply writes out of existence people who disagree with you, and might lead to a society in which such people are considered bizarre and mistaken about their own best interest, and in need of care from others who know what they should want.
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From everything I’ve read, her cerebral cortex isn’t just thinned out, it’s virtually gone, replaced by liquid. I don’t have time to hunt down the references; Here’s the best place I’ve found for impartial facts on this case.
Also, she told her husband on two occasions after the deaths of family members she didn’t want to be kept alive like that. (Also, her husband, after being trained as a nurse to care for her, finally realized how futile her situation was, hence his change of heart regarding ending life support. Prior to that, they’d gone to extraordinary lengths to try to rehabilitate her, probably being taken in by numerous quacks.)
Disregarding her wishes in this case is a pretty serious matter; if we cannot control what happens to us when we’re no longer able to communicate that, I fear for our society.
I do hold life to be sacred; and whenever there’s a question of what someone would want I’m in favor of deciding in favor of life. But “life” as we know it for this woman ceased a long time ago. And after all the court cases, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that’s what she would have wanted.
Just a shame it has to be played out in public like this.
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Notes de lecture sur Terry Schiavo
Cette affaire m’a passionne depuis le jour ou je l’ai decouverte. J’ai regroupe mes lectures sur le sujet en une longue liste de verbatim, que je soumets au lecteur avec le recul necessaire pour produire un commentaire complet et, je l’espere, pertinent.
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