I was really saddened by the coverage on the news tonight of events outside the Hospice where Terri Schiavo is dying. Surely her wish would have been to pass away with dignity, something I think we would all hope for. Fresh from revelations that Jeb Bush contemplated some sort of Ok Corral confrontation between state and local police at the Hospice, the Governor finally seems to have accepted that he is bound by the rule of law. Nor has George W. Bush commented recently. Dare one believe that the politicians are contemplating what they have wrought?
The Schindler family asked protesters to leave, but many refused. Viewers of the late news bulletins witnessed arrests and people shouting, and a priest claiming Ms Schiavo had uttered Jesus’ name when given the last rites. Ought he not to think more of his pastoral duty than making ignorant pronouncements calculated further to inflame a massively over-politicised situation? Perhaps not, perhaps he was just following the lead of L’Osservatore Romano.
Overlooked also in all this coverage is the fact that Ms Schiavo is being medicated to minimise the pain caused by dehydration and lack of nutrition.
Conservative American blogger Andrew Sullivan is right to call a spade a spade in the op/ed pages today:
But if limited government means anything it means leaving decisions like this as close to the individual as possible. But that is not what US Republicanism now thinks.
It has a religious drive that puts theological certitude before prudential or legal reasoning and a growing contempt for an independent judiciary. That is how Bill Bennett, a leading conservative activist, could write that Jeb Bush, the Florida governor, should simply overrule the courts, break the law and send armed guards to insert the feeding tube by force.
This attack on the basis of constitutional liberty in the name of religion is usually called theocracy.
The President himself, who said last week that “it is wise to always err on the side of life”, did not seem so concerned when he signed countless death warrants as governor of Texas, with the most cursory of legal reviews.
He also signed a Texas law that gave next of kin discretion to remove life support from a terminally ill patient in the absence of a living will.
Last week, an eight-year-old boy died in Texas after his tube was removed because his parents could not afford treatment, but the religious Right seemed uninterested. Culture of life?
I understand and share Tim Dunlop’s anger about the way the tragic circumstances of Terri Schiavo’s life and death have been exploited. Shrouding her death in such undignified political brawling surely renders it more tragic, if that were possible, not least for those who love her, who I am sure in their different ways are all well-intentioned and have her best interests at heart.
Elsewhere: The best source of legal and bioethical commentary continues to be Obsidian Wings, where the argument made by Sullivan that the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law are under attack is amplified.
Update: Both The Currency Lad and SaintInAStraitjacket point to the rather loopy beliefs of Michael Schiavo’s attorneys and seem to suggest that this shows that there is some sort of agenda at play. I wasn’t aware of his attorneys’ position until I read their posts just now but I can’t see the force of this argument at all. Schiavo’s attorneys may have odd views, but State and Federal courts have consistently upheld the arguments made against the position of the Schindler family. I remain unconvinced, contra C.L. and saint, that the blame for Terri Schiavo’s situation being exploited as a political circus lies anywhere other than with large elements of the Republican Party, whose political motives are crystal clear.
Saint writes:
Although if one thing is evident in this story, it is that the law alone cannot deal with the complexities and dynamics of human relationships much less bestow dignity to all human beings simply because they are humans.
The law is an imperfect instrument, but I can’t agree with this. Clearly the law in this case has sought to preserve Terri Schiavo’s dignity as a human by respecting what sets humans apart from animals - the capacity to form a will and make informed choices. I still await from those who argue that the law ought not to be involved (or perhaps ought not to be the only criterion) some reasoned argument as to how else such tragic situations ought to be resolved. The key to this is the acceptance by the courts of evidence as to Ms Schiavo’s wishes.
Further update: Via Kim - The Economist has a very judiciously argued editorial.
Passionately put!
Thanks, Kim - I was really disturbed by what I watched tonight.
“The broader public, they calculate, will forget. The zealots will always remember.”
Now THAT is telling. Something I hadnt considered but makes complete sense in hindsight. Very worrying indeed.
Where’s Rafe to defend the rule of law when we need him?
Seriously, though, it’s a very important point. I suspect it goes back to the Warren court and in particular the controversy over Roe v. Wade and then the politicisation of that controversy as the religious Right moved into Republican politics in the late 70s and early 80s.
It’s a real attack on the Enlightenment heritage of separation of powers and government by law which is one of the shining lights of the American political and cultural tradition.
Not to forget people like Dominion Theologians who actually support theocracy in America - more powerful than many may think.
It’s also a worry culturally - as the US is such a heterogenous and in many ways anarchic society it really needs firm respect for the law to hold the whole show together.
See Respectful of Otters for medical issues as well. The most extraordinary part of this is that DeLay himself quietly stopped heroic measures on his own father some years ago.
What is most alarming is the outright hypocrisy of the BUshites in this whole affair. While governor of Texas, Bush got through legislation that made it easier for such life support to be turned off withdrawn in hospitals, regardless of family wishes.
Alan, yes, Tim had a lot to say about Tom DeLay’s double standards in the post to which I’ve linked.
Here I am Kim!
Well said Mark!
This is a really disturbing case and it was only late in the day that I started to take much notice. At first it just seemed to be a tragic clash of interests and desires between two sets of people who sharply divided on the best course of action for a person they all claimed to love, respect and want the best for.
Then it became a grotesque political football. My view on the details of this case is hardly worth a cracker because frankly I have wimped out of getting to the basic legal and philosophical issues. Still I am not surprised by the political opportunism that is being displayed, that is, sadly, what I would have expected.
The point about the rule of law is that it is going to deliver a heap of outcomes that we personally don’t like. Some of those will be mistakes but most will not be mistakes, they will just be decisions that don’t suit us. The rule of law can be undermined in many ways and we have to be alert to all of them, including those that deliver outcomes that we happen to like, or seem to be a good thing in the short term.
No-one has exploited it more than Tim Dunlop. Come off it Mark. Where were the limited government brigade when Janet Reno sent in the machine-gun-toting SWAT team to throw 11 year old Elian Gonzalez out of the United States?
Don’t look for a reminder of this Easter 1999 story at Surfdom:
“On Good Friday evening, after all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a ’search’ warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS’s (Immigration and Naturalization Service) helmeted officers, assault rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian’s relatives and snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet. Many local bystanders were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became moot.”
Terri Schiavo is being murdered. Behind it is a ‘husband’ who at the weekend sought to deny viaticum to his Catholic wife (too close to food presumably), advised by two astral-travelling New Age lawyers whose published philosophies of life are as nutty as the Third Reich.
Why didn’t Andrew Sullivan publicise the fate of that eight year old boy before his column? I know the little fellow probably wasn’t gay but that shoudn’t have stopped him.
Agreed, Rafe.
I was disgusted with the Elian raid but I didn’t have a blog at the time, C.L. I don’t think Tim did either.
Pre-blog doesn’t count?
I said on CL’s blog I amconfused by all the circumstances and I was glad to see Brainiac Jason soon was also confused on this.
From where I sit it is being exploited all round.
I was unaware that Her husband had born children to another woman and wants to marry her.
C.L., we’d have to get evidence from my friends and Tim’s friends as to how we were ranting about Elian at the time - I think one of the great contributions of the blogosphere is that it preserves friendships by allowing politically obsessed types like ourselves a space to sound off
I’ve just responded in an update to the post to the arguments that you and saint make about Michael Schiavo’s attorneys.
Mark: I meant to say ‘where are the references to that story now’ - not make conclusions about what people’s pronouncements were at the time. Tim runs a line on everything that always leads evil events to some Republican’s door. It’s therefore fair to point to an SS raid under Bill Clinton for comparison isn’t it?
Sure, C.L. There’s no doubt that the Elian thing was politically motivated in part by Gore’s desire to win Florida. But no one *has* to make the comparison, and if you wanted to make it, you’d still need to establish the validity of the parallel.
Goes to the sincerity of those making limited government, constitutionalist criticisms of the recent Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case. In short: Democrats and their supporters have embarrassing baggage and should avoid criticising Republicans. President Bush was criticised at LGF - of all places - last Friday for denouncing a group of vigilantes whose members have taken it upon themselves to police immigration law on the US-Mexican border. In comparison, the Democrats sent in the stormtroopers - almost certainly illegally - to disappear an eleven year old.
I suspect Sullivan probably did make the same point, as I think he’s been rather consistent in his views over time.
However, you want to think about the implications of your “mote in your eye” argument, C.L. Next time you want to criticise the Labor Party, if I can find an instance where the Liberals acted similarly and you failed to criticise them, does this negate the validity of your criticism? No.
What’s LGF by the way?
Little Green Footballs.
*shudder*
I particularly like the way we on the left denounce passionate protestors on the right. Like, wehn we hit the streets with our moral outrage, we’re GOOD. When “they” hit the streets, likewise, we’re morally outraged becasue they’re BAD.
Loonies to the left of me, loonies to the right of me, you twits are driving me back to the centre…
Sorry, but I’ve lost the plot with the stupidity of those arguing the leftish position in this sorry saga. The only word that comes to mind is ‘wankers’, a word I thought up until now to be reseved for the rightists.
Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh….!!!!!!
Gerry, I know you’ve had your say over at Troppo, but you acknowledged there that there were some good and thoughtful arguments being put. There’s also a big difference between protesting outside Parliament and protesting outside a hospice. For similar reasons, I didn’t support the choice of Vanstone’s home by protesters in Adelaide recently.
It’s also not a left/right issue neatly.
And I acknowledged in a previous thread - the one on Windschuttle - that not all left protests are worthwhile and politically productive.
MSNBC is reporting that Michael Schiavo wants an autopsy done on his wife because he “wants proof of the extent of her brain damage.” He banned the eucharist but he’s already okayed the carve-up of his wife’s body. And wouldn’t it have been a better idea to establish the extent of Terri’s brain damage before starving her to death?
What a scumbag.
Oh come off it, C.L. Autopsies are routine and shouldn’t be described as “the carve-up of [a] body”. Unless cultists of life oppose them like they oppose medical science seemingly preferring to rely on the medical opinions of Dr Jeb, Dr Frist and some Monsignor? Schiavo is clearly seeking vindication in the face of the nonsensical claims made that his wife is “a very well young woman considering”.
And you know full well that Terri Schiavo was given communion as well as the last rites.
I admired Brian’s sane debating skills. I wish I had some.
I also said I was still not satisfied.
Spare me the moral outrage, Mark, that’s all I’m saying. It’s all so partisan. So manufactured.
At the end of the day we think we’re right because we think we’re right. They think they’re right because they think they’re right.
It’s all just ego.
I think I demostrated over at Troppo that it’s all just a clash of moral constructs with each side chestbeating about the rightness of their own construct and trying to elevate it to the status of The Manifestation of Absolute Truth.
And yes, my own position is also just my own chosen moral construct. Which is why I was not demanding that Terri’s life be terminated!
Are we getting this yet, my un-zen masters!!!!
Aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhh…!!!
Munch captured it perfectly!
“And wouldn‚Äôt it have been a better idea to establish the extent of Terri‚Äôs brain damage before starving her to death?”
Kim’s right. It’s been well established through medical evidence accepted by the courts. The only dissenters, as she says, are either congressional Doctors like Frist who’ve watched a video and are any case way outside their specialty, or medically unqualified people like Jeb Bush and Monsignor Tadeusz.
Terri Schiavo was given communion under the form of wine.
“Spare me the moral outrage, Mark, that‚Äôs all I‚Äôm saying. It‚Äôs all so partisan. So manufactured.”
Having recently lost a close relative, and being well aware of the potential indignity that people in hospices suffer in any case, my anger at the news reports last night was quite real, Gerry. If you think I’m doing “confected moral outrage” or whatever, then you’d be absolutely and totally wrong.
Kim: I know full well that Michael sought to block communion. That’s not from a ‘blogs for Terri’ site but has been reported in the MSM.
Nice.
Yes, he did, C.L. but he relented and she received communion. I don’t claim he’s perfect but surely you can see in the absurdly overheated atmosphere that’s been generated, perhaps neither he nor Terri’s parents are able to be as calm in their decision making as one would like?
Mark. If what we’re feeling because what we’ve been through is justification to project onto the external world, then I’d have become a terrorist a long time ago. It’s exactly that argument that I’m trying to undermine.
I have no doubt you’re experiencing grief. I empathise.
But whatever we feel does not entitle us to suggest that another’s life should be terminated if we do not really know, BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF DOUBT, what their wish would be. I do acknowledge the caveat about ending pain and suffereing, but this, we were assured by the medical pundits, did not apply in this case.
For what it’s worth, my partner’s grandmother is about to lose control of her life with a guardian being appointed as she slides twards dementia. She has not made a living will as far a s I know. And so others will get to decide what happens to her. I’m glad I won’t be one of those as I would refuse to make death-causing decisions unleass I saw real pain or suffering.
But Terri was looking peaceful and healthy and her parents did not want her dead. Had I been her husband I would quietly have deferred to their wishes and feelings.
It’s interesting that his “recollection” of her wishes did not manifest untill AFTER she was awarded a million bucks and he was made the custodian of that money. His testimony was suss and should not have been accepted by the court - after all they found reasons to reject the testimonies of the rest of her family. If you tell me now that judges don’t have agenda or that these don’t shape their judgement I’ll burst out laughing.
But I’m ranting again. Sorry.
All I’ll say in response, Gerry, is that these issues are always extraordinarily difficult to resolve and there’s a reason why “beyond any reasonable doubt” is not the standard of proof in civil cases. Similar issues arise in regard to the law of succession - people often have mixed motives and doubts when they make a will - and as you indicate, this is an area too where intense intra-familial conflict can erupt.
I go back to the fact that this case is being treated very differently from many others owing to its politicisation. My view is that everyone benefits if the issues are debated in a calm and rational fashion, and if real effort is put into finding ways to determine these issues taking into account all relevant interests.
Speaking of which, I referred in my earlier post to a QUT Law research project on assisted decision-making and illness or disability. The issues paper is being launched on Thursday:
Associate Professor Lindy Willmott and Dr Ben White
would like to invite you to attend the launch of an issues paper (I’ll post a link to the paper when it becomes available):
“Rethinking Life-Sustaining Measures: Questions for Queensland”
The Topic
When should a person who has a heart attack not be resuscitated?
When should a patient no longer be kept alive on a ventilator, or be provided with artificial hydration and nutrition through a tube?
Rethinking Life-Sustaining Measures is a project that reviews the legislation that governs the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining measures.
Officiating at the Launch will be:
The Honourable Mr Rod Welford
Attorney-General of Queensland
and
Ms Ann Lyons
President, Guardianship and Administration Tribunal
When: Thursday 31 March 2005
Time: 5.30pm-6.00pm (registration and refreshments)
6.00pm Lecture commences
Venue: The Gardens Theatre, QUT Gardens Point (City) Campus
Well, mark, that should be a lively “lauch”. Might even achieve “lift-off”…
Thanks for tolerating my rants.
I the immortal words of Fred Dagg, I’ll get out of your blog now…
I might go along. I want to investigate the procedures for a living will, and have a current personal interest in the debates. Hopefully the venue is disability friendly!
Mark: On what basis to you employ the equivalentarian argument about Michael and Terri’s parents vis-a-vis communion? What, they weren’t being calm in wanting it for their daughter?
No, no, that’s not what I was saying, C.L. I meant their increasing desperation in launching legal action - which had they been well advised, they would have known would fail and one would imagine would be very expensive.
I have every sympathy for the Schindlers too. And I agree with you that it was wrong of Michael Schiavo to try to deny Terri communion.
My point in all this is that these decisions are horrendously tricky and they are not made any easier at all by being politicised.
Also, I don’t know what “equivalentarian” means
Must away - am starving - lunch time then nap time!
I think a number of participants in this debate need to take a chill pill
Yes, it provokes strong feelings, but no we shouldn’t jump to conclusions and stigmatise others.
Mark, the Economist has a very good editorial:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3789436
Thanks for the link, Kim. I’ll post the url in an update.
Come on back to the center Gerry, its nice here
I second Nic, Gerry. The extremes of what they call like eachother”left” and “right”, with their appeals to various kinds of higher authourities (secular or not), are casting far more shadow than light over what is something that no one of us would be quite that assured about if it happened directly to us.
Or as Master K’ung (Confucius to you red-headed barbarians) once said:
“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”
I don’t think this is a clear cut left v right issue, what has market forces or collectivism got to do with it? I don’t see this as a clear cut pull the plug issue as she can can still breathe unassisted, but then I don’t have the full facts or medical training. So shut up flute.
So Mark, how do I go about putting a piccie next to my comments?
Can be done here.
Nab: If you haven’t got the requisite crap on your computer, let me know what image you want and I’ll size it to Gravatar’s stipulated size and upload it, then leave the URL here.
Nick, nabakov (now there’s a blast from the past :), back to the centre? At the moment I’m too confused to know where I would be on the political spectrum.
Sometimes I feel the left isn’t left enough, then after an episode like this one, where I come out looking like Christian Fundie Death Beast, I start to wonder if I’m even entitled to have political (or moral) thoughts.
Perhaps I need some of Flute’s wisdom and learn to shut the f*#k up.
“It‚Äôs interesting that his “recollection” of her wishes did not manifest untill AFTER she was awarded a million bucks and he was made the custodian of that money.”
For the record: She was awarded $700,000 (in trust for her treatment) and he was awarded $300,000 for pain and suffering. The payment wasn’t in any way tied to her longevity - or otherwise. Michael Schiavo says his troubles with the Schindlers began when his father-in-law demanded that he share the $300,000 with him.
As it turns out, the Schindlers didn’t need it. The millions of dollars required to mount their legal challenges have all come through the boundless generosity of pro-life, religious organisations, totally uninterested in making any political advantage out of their largesse.
As it turns out, the Schindlers didn’t need it. The millions of dollars required to mount their legal challenges have all come through the boundless generosity of pro-life, religious organisations, totally uninterested in making any political advantage out of their largesse.
Why am I not surprised, Geoff?
Flutey, nice Gravatar! is that an actual portrait?
“But Terri was looking peaceful and healthy and her parents did not want her dead. Had I been her husband I would quietly have deferred to their wishes and feelings.”
Gerry, in the first sentence “looking” is the operative word. It is astonishing that, at least up until 2003, Terri had never had a bed sore. In fact the excellence of her care was attributed in no small part to Michael ‘terrorising’ the medical staff. He also was reported to be her most assidouos visitor to the end.
As to deferring to the Schindler’s wishes, yes I would have too.
On the socalled conflict of interest, I saw one report that when he sought a court ruling to have the feeding tube removed in 1998 Michael offered to forgo the inheritance of the residual of the trust fund he had set earlier up for her care out of the medical negligence payment .
I also saw one report that the trust fund was now exhausted. Until just now I wasn’t sure how her care was being funded. Thanks for clearing that one up, Geoff.
Flute, the expert medical opinion was that her cerebral cortex was either entirely gone, or perhaps there were some isolated remnants. But her life as a human being with, as Mark says, a will and the ability to make informed judgements was over. The fleshly residue is what was left.
Because she still had a functioning brain stem she was capable of a number of reflex actions and automatically programmed actions. These included her eyes following a balloon and breathing. She was able to swallow her saliva, but not food. The insertion of food or fluid in the mouth risked choking or drawing it into the lungs.
One of the tests for irretrievable brain damage is the barium swallow test, which she failed three times in the early years.
I don’t understand the detailed procedures of the Catholic eucharist, but she could not have swallowed the wine. This is a wild guess but Michael may have refused communion because he believed that her soul had long departed.
CL as I understand it all societies have acceptable as well as unacceptable forms of killing*. Just where the boundaries lie varies a bit according to social norms and laws. Only the unacceptable forms of killing should be seen as murder.
The withdrawal of support when in a PVS is obviously a contested area. I would like us to see it as the discontinuation of a failed intervention to preserve human life, human in the sense of having a will etc.
The thing we have to be sure about is that the PVS state is irreversible in the absence of an advance medical directive, or ‘living will’. In this regard an appropriately framed living will would no doubt take the pressure off a bit, but the medical diagnosis and prognosis would still have to be solid.
*I have heard of one possible exception, the Moriori of Chatham Islands. They were in the end a totally peaceful people and suffered the fate you would expect.
I’ve posted these Australian journal articles over at Troppo as well. Mackay has a nice bit in a box about his own NFR (Not For Resuscitation) will.
Gardner; re BWV: Victorian Supreme Court makes landmark Australian ruling on tube feeding. MJA 2004; 181 (8): 442-445
A time to die: Is there something wrong with the way CPR is presently practised? Michael J Mackay MJA 2004; 181 (11/12): 667-668
Thanks for the interesting links, Francis.
BTW, why was that about the Cuban boy Elian brought up by C.L. It was his father in Cuba who wanted his son back. As the direct living relative(the boys mother had died) wanted his son back home. The U.S. govt had no choice but to send the boy back to his father, and rightly so.
Re Elian: What MickM said. Doesn’t CL believe in family values? Or does ideological warmongering trump family?