OK. Just like the Congress, I'm coming out of Spring Break to talk about this amazing case.
The poor woman in Florida has become an international controversy. To sum up the case quickly, this woman, Terri Schiavo, suffered a heart attack in 1990 and has been in a "persistent vegitative state" ever since. Her husband, who has legal guardianship over her, won the right to order her feeding tube removed in 1998. Her parents filed suit immediately. Several judges agreed with Terri's husband, who testified that his wife told him she would want to simply be allowed to die if she ever was in this condition. Her feeding tube was removed. Evangelical Christians took up the case and applied all sorts of pressure to Repbublican lawmakers. The Florida Legislature cooked up "Terri's Law" in 2003 which allowed governor Jeb Bush to personally intervene. The feeding tube was replaced. The Florida Supreme Court declared "Terri's Law" unconsitutional, and the feeding tube was removed again on March 18, and Terri remains peacefully off of life support -- just as she said she'd want it.
Now, Republicans in the United States Congress, facing pressure from those radical Christians, have moved to intervene. They want to pass a "Terri's Law" of their own which would allow the case to travel to the federal court system, where judges might (or might not) decide to overturn the rulings given by the Florida state courts, allowing Terri to pass away peacefully.
OK. Why is the United States Congress taking up this one person's case? Well, clearly, because of these radical Christian organizations, which are working day and night on this issue, linking it to abortion and the "right to life" campaign. The Congress will meet in emergency session at midnight tonight to pass an unprecedented bill that would make this a federal case. In other words, this bill will affect just one person.
We have a provision in the Constitution which prohibits the Congress from making a law targeting one person. Such a bill is called a Bill of Attainder. This constitutional provision protects the division of powers -- checks and balances. The legislature is not allowed to act like a court, and it cannot intervene in judicial matters. This provision also is designed to protect individuals from persecution by the Congress. House Republican leader Tom DeLay has been personally attacking Terri's husband, saying, "I don't have a whole lot of respect for a man that has treated this woman in this way... What kind of man is he?" Well, Tom, he's clearly not a huge douche like you. He's being forced to justify a painful and personal decision that his wife told him to make. And he clearly had no idea that the force of the United States Congress and its political opportunits like DeLay would come down upon him like a ton of bricks. I thought we believed in freedom.
While some conservative commentators have insisted that the emergency bill that might be passed tonight is technically not a bill of attainder because this "isn't a criminal case" and because the courts will still decide the issue eventually, I think the Supreme Court might disagree. The federal legislature is intervening in a state court's jurisdiction. This is a clear violation of the constitutional separation of powers. In any event, the attainder issue will undoubtedly be raised if the case reaches the federal court system.
Look. I'm all for saving lives, but I agree with my conservative friends when I say that the government should butt out of deeply personal decisions like the right to choose whether to live or die. And I've never italicized anything on this blog before, so you know how strongly I feel about this.
The real motive of DeLay and the Republicans here is completely transparent -- they're using Prime Screw Time to cater to their radical Christian base.
Even more amazing is the hypocrisy uncovered by the good people over at Echaton who note that while governor of Texas, President Bush signed a law making it legal for hospitals to recommend euthanasia when a patient can't pay for care and a prognosis shows little chance for recovery. Now he claims to be all for stopping Terri's from choosing to pass away peacefully rather than persist in a vegatative state.
What happened to conservative fervor for state's rights and personal choice? Why am I suddenly put in the position of defending these hallmarks of conservatism? Why do these ultra-radical Christians have so much power?
UPDATE: 4:50PM March 21, 2005: So the Congress passed their emergency bill, and a federal judge in Florida has held a hearing on the case. He hasn't ruled yet, and, significantly, has declined (so far) to issue an injunction or an order to replace the controverisal feeding tube. Also, ABCNews conducted a remarkable poll (PDF), showing that a vast majority of Americans believe that the Congress should not have intervened in this case. Most believe as I do, that Congress did this for blatent poltical reasons and not out of any genuine concern for Terri, who said that she would want to be allowed to pass away if she were in this condition, anyway. Way to go, Republican douchebags.
The poor woman in Florida has become an international controversy. To sum up the case quickly, this woman, Terri Schiavo, suffered a heart attack in 1990 and has been in a "persistent vegitative state" ever since. Her husband, who has legal guardianship over her, won the right to order her feeding tube removed in 1998. Her parents filed suit immediately. Several judges agreed with Terri's husband, who testified that his wife told him she would want to simply be allowed to die if she ever was in this condition. Her feeding tube was removed. Evangelical Christians took up the case and applied all sorts of pressure to Repbublican lawmakers. The Florida Legislature cooked up "Terri's Law" in 2003 which allowed governor Jeb Bush to personally intervene. The feeding tube was replaced. The Florida Supreme Court declared "Terri's Law" unconsitutional, and the feeding tube was removed again on March 18, and Terri remains peacefully off of life support -- just as she said she'd want it.
Now, Republicans in the United States Congress, facing pressure from those radical Christians, have moved to intervene. They want to pass a "Terri's Law" of their own which would allow the case to travel to the federal court system, where judges might (or might not) decide to overturn the rulings given by the Florida state courts, allowing Terri to pass away peacefully.
OK. Why is the United States Congress taking up this one person's case? Well, clearly, because of these radical Christian organizations, which are working day and night on this issue, linking it to abortion and the "right to life" campaign. The Congress will meet in emergency session at midnight tonight to pass an unprecedented bill that would make this a federal case. In other words, this bill will affect just one person.
We have a provision in the Constitution which prohibits the Congress from making a law targeting one person. Such a bill is called a Bill of Attainder. This constitutional provision protects the division of powers -- checks and balances. The legislature is not allowed to act like a court, and it cannot intervene in judicial matters. This provision also is designed to protect individuals from persecution by the Congress. House Republican leader Tom DeLay has been personally attacking Terri's husband, saying, "I don't have a whole lot of respect for a man that has treated this woman in this way... What kind of man is he?" Well, Tom, he's clearly not a huge douche like you. He's being forced to justify a painful and personal decision that his wife told him to make. And he clearly had no idea that the force of the United States Congress and its political opportunits like DeLay would come down upon him like a ton of bricks. I thought we believed in freedom.
While some conservative commentators have insisted that the emergency bill that might be passed tonight is technically not a bill of attainder because this "isn't a criminal case" and because the courts will still decide the issue eventually, I think the Supreme Court might disagree. The federal legislature is intervening in a state court's jurisdiction. This is a clear violation of the constitutional separation of powers. In any event, the attainder issue will undoubtedly be raised if the case reaches the federal court system.
Look. I'm all for saving lives, but I agree with my conservative friends when I say that the government should butt out of deeply personal decisions like the right to choose whether to live or die. And I've never italicized anything on this blog before, so you know how strongly I feel about this.
The real motive of DeLay and the Republicans here is completely transparent -- they're using Prime Screw Time to cater to their radical Christian base.
Even more amazing is the hypocrisy uncovered by the good people over at Echaton who note that while governor of Texas, President Bush signed a law making it legal for hospitals to recommend euthanasia when a patient can't pay for care and a prognosis shows little chance for recovery. Now he claims to be all for stopping Terri's from choosing to pass away peacefully rather than persist in a vegatative state.
What happened to conservative fervor for state's rights and personal choice? Why am I suddenly put in the position of defending these hallmarks of conservatism? Why do these ultra-radical Christians have so much power?
UPDATE: 4:50PM March 21, 2005: So the Congress passed their emergency bill, and a federal judge in Florida has held a hearing on the case. He hasn't ruled yet, and, significantly, has declined (so far) to issue an injunction or an order to replace the controverisal feeding tube. Also, ABCNews conducted a remarkable poll (PDF), showing that a vast majority of Americans believe that the Congress should not have intervened in this case. Most believe as I do, that Congress did this for blatent poltical reasons and not out of any genuine concern for Terri, who said that she would want to be allowed to pass away if she were in this condition, anyway. Way to go, Republican douchebags.
"just as she said she'd want it."
According to her husband only, who very well could have hidden motive; two possible ones could be money, or to cover up the circumstances behind Terri's 1990 collapse. The cause of the collapse was never determined. Her heart temporarilly stopped and oxygen was cut off to her brain, putting her in her current state, and a theory is that it was caused by a potassium imbalance but that is by no means established fact. Her entire blood family says she is responsive to them and not in a vegetative state and doctors have said recovery is possible. The fact that her husband said something that cannot be verified and that judges with no medical background have ruled in his favor means nothing to me.
let me be the extremely conservative person here. this bitch is a drain on medical resources and more importantly, she's monopolizing news coverage. as if the freakin' atlanta thing wasn't bad enough, we have to endure everyone and their mom giving us their own personal opinion on the whole right to die issue. ugghh. she's dead people. dead as john f kennedy. dead dead dead. d-e-a-t-h what's that spell? death! death! death!
phil good job on the crack medical research that you have provided all of us. i mean you should be the judge in this case since you seem to have more of a medical background than the ones in florida. hey phil, i can come up with a ton of people with the appropriate medical background that would tell you that we ought to pull the plug on her sad and sorry life. hey phil, i also can't verify that you have any semblance of human-level intelligence. must not be true!
i mean didn't any of us see million dollar baby? didn't we learn that life isn't worth living unless you can do it right? if it were me, i'd say kill me! lord jesus christ in heaven above, please put me out of my f-in misery.
hey i'm on a roll here people...what's the difference between phil and terry schiavo? there's isn't any, they're both braindead wastes of human life that i wish to any diety listening were dead dead dead!
Curiously, the Husband hasn't divorced Terri in all of this time (15 years?).
I find that particularly curious, in a conspiratorial way. Her family is all about keeping her alive (which is fraught with stupidity), and here's this Husband, saying "Nope, we need to pull the plug."
Couldn't he just divorce her and be done with her/it/the whole situation? Is he counting on some insurance money?
Aside from those questions, Erik is absolutely right that this is a HUGE waste of press coverage and legislative action (and as Bob suggests, medical resources). Really, if there's something fishy going on (as Phil suggests), then send out a detective and somebody with CSI and do some investigation. (I suspect that's been done, and came up a big ZERO.) But please, PUH-leeze, do not suffer us this fantastic waste of governmental interference.
All that being said, Terri is an idiot for not putting it down IN WRITING what she wanted done.
"All that being said, Terri is an idiot for not putting it down IN WRITING what she wanted done."
She was pretty young when her collapse happened and she hasn't been able to write since I believe. I'm 21 and I have nothing in writing as to what I'd want done if I was in that situation, and I doubt most people even think about it.
Terri's husband is seeing another woman and has been for a while, so he is still married to her for the benefits he would receive if she died. I don't believe there is any other logical reason.
The media chooses to cover the story because enough people are interested and it draws ratings.
Government interference would not be necessary if some judges did not make some stupid decisions. If I was a Congressman I'd interfere too, to make a point to judges that they can be overruled if need be, and simply because it is wrong to let Schiavo's husband murder Terri for selfish reasons when her entire family wants her to live and says she is not in a vegetative state.
From what I understand (and I'm not a lawyer, though I think there is one that posts to this blog) a Bill of Attainder is a law used to punish and individual, and thus this act, which theoretically protects the only target, is not such a bill.
When I was on capital hill this past weekend, where this was a big issue, I heard some things on both sides that seemed far more nuanced and informed than what I had been hearing in the press or in the blogosphere, despite any one blog's importance.
That being said, my final conclusion was that I couldn't give 2 shits about this, and I agree that the media is way overdoing it. I feel like of all the things that should be priorities in this country, one family's asinine arguments (and families have asinine arguments in courts all the time) doesn't even make my top 10 list.
i change my mind. phil doesn't make me want to kill terry schiavo. he makes me want to kill myself.
of course, i still wish death upon phil, however.
Long time reader, first time poster... just wondering if you've seen THIS article about Tom DeLay and HIS father.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB02JH1U6E.html
I love ironic things... Keep up the good work, my friend. Peace-
-J.Steeno
CrazyJohn -- great to hear from you, man. Love your blog, even though it doesn't quite eclipse the importance of this one (but it's a close call).
I have heard of this DeLay nonsense -- thanks for the link -- and this guy is a HUGE douche. If it weren't already well-established that he's a douche, he'd definitely be a winner of the Wal-Mart Douchebag Award. He's probably going to get kicked out of Congress. HA ha.
Come back and comment soon, John. Thanks for stopping by.