Wall Street Journal Monday, March 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian Gonzalez.
The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn’t speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.
I have complained often and bitterly on this blog about Republican Party officials and office holders. I have commented on the role gay marriage played in the past election, but that one of Dick Cheney’s closest advisors is his lesbian daughter who is in a ‘life partnership.’
Is the Bush Administration really interested in this issue? Will they fight to prevent judges from overturning the traditional form of marriage? Or, will they pull a Mitt Romney and simply say, “Hey, we can’t control the courts, but we believe in the rule of law, so we have to do what the courts say.”
I’ve also criticized the Bush Administration’s inaction on abortion. The Partial Birth Abortion bill was too little, and has never been enforced by Justice. Jill Stanek, influential in passing the bill in the first place, has heavily criticized the lack of enforcement of this legislation.
Democrats will fight for their domestic agenda. They will use executive orders in a blatantly unconstitutional fashion. They will twist and subvert the law, and engage in raw abuse of power to advance their agendas.
How will the Republicans respond? The Republicans kowtow to the courts. The Pledge is unconstitutional? Okay, we can live with that. Laws against sodomy are unconstitutional? Okay, we can live with that, too. Laws regulating abortion in anyway are unconstitutional? Okay, no problem.
All I hear from Republicans is that we have to stop judicial activism. Okay, I agree. We have to stop judicial activism. How?
We should be impeaching judges like Greer. Where are the Floridian legislators bringing articles of impeachment? No where.
In the end, Republicans are going to just keep losing this fight. If legislation is passed the courts don’t like, they will just declare it unconstitutional. There will be no penalty for this. In fact, secretly, some prominent Republicans may be thrilled with the outcome. They get more issues to hoodwink pro-life/pro-family voters into voting against judicial activism, but, yet, their favorite pet-projects get enacted anyway from the bench and with complete political cover. “I opposed gay marraige, but you know, when the courts ruled we had no choice. So, hey, now my daughter is getting married next week and me and Mrs. Cheney would love it if you would come! After all, can’t beat ’em so why not join ’em? By the way, don’t forget to vote for Republicans in 2006 so that we can appoint more strict constructionist judges and stem the tide of judicial activism!”
Oh, and don’t forget the potential budget savings from euthanasia as a Medicaid reform plan.
I want action, no more words. The killing of Terri Schiavo is a travesty of justice, no matter the legal color under which it proceeds. If Jeb Bush and George Bush are too craven to do anything about it, what does that tell you about the Bush family and the mainstream Republican Party?
The pro-life movement appears to be at a gunfight with a starter pistol and allied to a shifty, good-for-nothing gang of cowpokes from Kennebunkport who just can’t be trusted. Too bad the other side brought real guns and are committed to getting their core agenda.
Glen, very good questions. The moral corruption afflicting the Democratic Party has seeped into the Republican Party as well. Jeb Bush’s defense of inaction in the Schiavo case was that he could not disobey a court order. He should have, and stood on the Constitution to do it. It would have precipitated a Constitutional crisis, but in reality it would be bringing to the suface that which already exists. He doesn’t differ at all here from a Kennedy Democrat.
I don’t know what this portends for the future. I’m heartened by the liberals waking up because of the babarity of this crime, but I have no sense yet how widespread this is. I’m not only speaking of public liberals, but people I know and like.
The dividing line this brings into sharper focus though is not liberal vs. conservative, but secular vs. religious. It will be more prominent in any future analysis of the culture. Christians are the most numerous, but a Chief Rabbi of Orthodox Judaism also held vigil outside Terri’s Golgotha hospice as well. I think you will see even more cooperation among Christians, Jews, and others with less division because of political affilition.
As I see it, cultural renewal ultimately has to be through the Gospel. It’s going to be tough and in some cases incur a great cost. I keep going back to Solzhenitsyn who wrote in the Gulags that if people had just resisted, even a few, but in very public ways, the killing machinery of the state would have ground to a halt. Darkness abhors light. Resistance in our present context is to resist the specious ideas of the culture of death. Hold them up to the light. Challenge them at every turn in our corner of the world.
Me Too Glen,Questioning Committment
Glen, I was never starry-eyed over Bush, Kerry just made me want to gag. I admire Bush’s skills as a political strategist, but, I do question his committment to core beliefs. Bush needs to take action as bold as Roosevelt’s court packing in 1937. It can be done, deep-six the fillibuster. My understanding of the fillibuster is that it is simply the product of internal Senate rules and that the Senate can vote to change its rules. Bush should have kicked Specter out of his position as Chairman of the Judiciary. Even beyond RINO betrayal Bush has left too many Clinton appointees in senstive positions in major agencies.
Sigh….
Local NPR discussion of Shiavo
Driving home today, I went against my better judgment and listened to my local NPR station. A local radio personality presided over a discussion of the issues raised by the Shiavo case. During the entire 30 minutes discussion not a single mention was made of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition.
First the commentators identified themselves as “bioethicists.” You see Americans really need to resort to post-modern academics to give them guidance on how to handle the Shiavo issues. The speakers first spent a few minutes dissing American culture. One quoted a Japanese doctor who supposedly visited the United States and said that “Americans are the only people who don’t expect to die.” They did not offer any reason to believe that this particular visiting Japanese doctor had any particular grasp of American culture of the Christian intellectual tradition. The speakers then remarked that Chinese culture was superior to ours due to the supposed greater veneration of the aged. No discussion about whether the Chinese are more willing to kill their aged. The Chinese certainly have no compunction about abortion, voluntary or not. Lastly, they noted silly Americans stated that the opposite of life was death, while wise members of African societies frequently stated that the opposite of life was birth.
In the course of the discussion of hospital protocal, the bioethicists made a point of stressing how important it was for the modesty concerns of Muslim women to be respected in hospitals. They actually suggested that Muslim women should be guaranteed access to female doctors. Non-Muslim women apparently have to continue to choke down their modesty reservations and tolerate the impersonal and many times humiliating treatment they get from OB/GYN’s. We non-Muslims women have no right to complaing. Sorry I digress.
If you had come from another planet and listened to this people You would have had no idea that 85% of Americans celebrate Christmas and that 78% of Americans in a recent poll stated that they believed that Jesus was the Son of God. You would have no idea that great intellects have served the Judaeo-Christian tradition and have wrestled with the issues raised by the Shiavo case. A full thirty minutes and not a single mention of Christian moral philosophy. None.
My husband wants me to stop listening to NPR because it just gives me heartburn.
Feeling Just Great
I want everyone to know that I feel great. I have no trouble remembering important things and I always know what day it is. I have sensation in all of my extremities and I always respond to those who talk to me. I can handle all of my basic physical functions by myself and there is no need to spend any money to help me.
Just thought you ought to know, wouldn’t want any misunderstandings here.
Sorry, Missourian, but your condition as you describe it fails to live up to acceptable quality standards. The execu… um, the Euthanatos Companions will call for you at your office later this morning. Please understand that this is for your own good.
Let’s see. What about a suffocation? We haven’t had one of those for awhile.
Aw, shoot. Am I still posting?
Don’t trouble the Euthanatos Companions ’bout little ol’ me
Given the gravity of the issues and the general high level of dignity of this site, I will put an end to my adolescent humor. It could be seen as disrespectfull to people who are truly suffering.
Ach, dinna fash yourself, Missourian. Originally a native of New England, I interpreted your post as effective irony. Sometimes what we write has more weight and authority than we first realize.
However, it is indeed a grim issue, and even an ironic approach to it wears out quickly.
A LESSON IN BIOLOGY
“Conceptually, death of the whole brain is seen to be a significant threshold separating one who is living from one who is dead. Notwithstanding the fact that cardiac and respiratory function can be maintained by artificial means in a person who is brain dead, those who accept a whole-brain definition of death argue that those brain functions necessary for the integrated functioning of the person are irreversibly lost. Without artificial support, the person would not be able to spontaneously sustain those necessary functions.”
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/164/6/833
I would not romanticize being in a PVS: it must be nothing less than a living hell if the person has even a minimal awareness (I’m hoping they do not). However, being only partially alive is not the same as clinically dead, evidently. That leads to the following question: if we are not truly dead and in a PVS, does one’s personal decision to opt out of any medical care (including a feeding tube) constitute suicide?
Procedures Protects Rights
To Jim Holman:
I can craft a critique of Terri’s case without a single reference to her actual physical condition other than to note that she will be alive with a feeding tube and dead without one. This critique covers all cases and all types of illnesses and disabilities. It doesn ont hinge on the medical specifics.
The clearest, plainest and I think strongest argument against the treatment meted out to Terri is that the introduction of the the primacy of individual autonomy wrecked havoc on institution that we call “the probate court.” The probate court was conceived initially as a HUMANITARIAN institute in which the judge and the law existed to PROTECT THE VULNERABLE essentially those who are too sick, too weak to defend themselves. The judge was always the protector of the ward and had full power to remove any guardian who was even suspected of a conflict of interest with the ward. It was never contemplated that the probate court would serve as a tool of someone whose desire it was to end a life by whatever means or modalities.
The procedures of the criminal court, by contrast, established in full knowledge that the actions of the court could result in the death or imprisonment of the defendant, hence, criminal law is full of evidentiary, procedural and Constitutional safeguards to prevent a miscarriage of justice. These same safeguards were not afforded to Terri.
This objection transcends and overrrides the medical specifics. Whatever the medical specifics of this case, Terri’s life was and is at stake and she deserved protection that she did not get.