FL Supreme Court strikes down Terri's Law

[Seany-D]

www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/23/schiavo/index.html

This is the case where Gov. Jeb Bush signed a law forcing the reinsertion of a feeding tube into Terri Schiavo, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for the last 14 years. The family argues that she's responsive to them, the husband says that she's not.

I suspect the parents are seeing what they want to see ... it must be tragically hurtful to see your daughter in such a state, but the chance of recovery is nil. She's brain dead.

Sean "just like the girl that tried to run me over this morning" Davis

[chapdawg]

I agree with the supreme court on the issue. There is no way that a politician should ever hold such authority. Terri's Law gave Bush the power to individually influence someones life in personally issues that he could never fully understand. No politicians has the background to make such a decision. It should be left up only to doctors and family members.
Obviously this is difficult to do, seeing as how her husband and her parents were in deadlock. Both sides should be weighed, and a decision based on that. I know that is an incredicaly hard task, near impossible, but I would never expect anything involving a brain dead relative would ever be easy. There always is a possibility of her living again but a miracle like that is depressingly remote.
The hospital decided she would not live again, and her plug was pulled and I suppose that should be respected.

[Rama]

ON MODIFY: Wheee, I don't know as much about poli-sci as I should! I hate Jeb Bush!
Raaaaar!

[Seany-D]

"Grandfathering"?

[Sage1776]

"ex post facto," only applies to criminal laws by Article I of the U.S. Constitution.
The law should look to (in my opinion) who is the best agent of the disabled, the spouse or the parents. To me this is a big grey area.
But if I knew that I was to become brain dead, I would want to kept alive as long as my savings allowed as I believe that most likely there is nothing after death, and as I would be brain dead I would not be suffering, and that any probability of living again is better than 0.
But if the brain dead person was very religious, then an agent should allow her to "go to heaven." A legal will would likely solve the problem.

[Seany-D]

a recent op-ed on this issue -- SED


Florida woman's fate is a personal decision, not a political one
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Originally published October 3, 2004

WASHINGTON - Is it too much to hope Terri Schiavo will finally be allowed to die in peace?

Mrs. Schiavo, 40, has been in what doctors describe as a "persistent vegetative state" since she fell ill and suffered brain damage 14 years ago. Her body lives, but the medical consensus is that her mind does not and never will. Doctors want to disconnect her feeding tube and allow her to die.

Mrs. Schiavo's husband agrees and gave permission for the doctors to proceed. Enter Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, acting on behalf of Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who have fought their son-in-law every step of the way. The result was "Terri's Law," passed in a rush by state lawmakers and signed in a fever by Mr. Bush in 2003. It empowered the governor to order Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube reconnected, in defiance of previous court rulings and Michael Schiavo's wishes.

On Sept. 23, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously struck down Mr. Bush's attempt to hijack Mr. Schiavo's right to make end-of-life decisions on his wife's behalf.

I hope that's the last word.

Frankly, I don't know if Mr. Schiavo made the right choice or the wrong one. I don't even know that those terms apply.

Were I in his shoes, I have no idea what decisions I'd make. I believe in holding out for miracles. But who can say how that faith would be affected after 14 years of watching the woman I loved exist in a stuporous state where she didn't know me, didn't even know herself?

I don't know what I would do. If you think you do, my guess is that you're lying, if only to yourself.

But the pertinent question isn't what you would do or what I would do. It is, rather, what Mr. Schiavo has the moral and legal right to do.

We hear a lot of bloviating about the sanctity of marriage these days, but if that phrase means anything, it means this: the person you love enough and trust enough to join in legal union is empowered to make decisions on your behalf if you are unable to make them yourself. This person speaks for you when you cannot speak for yourself.

That's a sacred obligation, and it ought not be violated even by parents, much less government, absent compelling evidence of a spouse's malfeasance or incompetence. We've seen no such evidence where Mr. Schiavo is concerned.

Yes, he entered into a relationship with another woman after his wife became ill. That proves not malfeasance, but humanity. And the accusation by Mrs. Schiavo's parents that he wants her dead so he can pocket what's left of a medical malpractice settlement is only that - an accusation.

Mr. Schiavo's crime, if you want to use that word, is in making a wrenching choice some of us would not have made. For that, he finds himself facing off against the governor and legislature of Florida. They should be ashamed.

There is a galling hypocrisy here, after all. Meaning the alacrity with which some conservatives jettison the conservative credo that government should interfere as little as possible in the lives and decisions of the people. Oh, they are perfectly willing to make that argument so long as we're only talking about government regulation some captain of industry finds onerous. But let an individual make a difficult personal decision with which those same conservatives disagree, and they suddenly become as intrusive and regulation-minded as the liberalest liberal.

As a moral issue, this case is a tangled knot of competing emotions. As a legal matter, it seems much simpler, a perception underscored by the unanimity of the court's ruling.

Governor Bush disapproves of Mr. Schiavo's decision to let his wife die, and that's certainly his right. But one hopes the rebuke from the state's top court will help Mr. Bush understand something he has thus far failed to grasp: It's not his decision to make.


Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald.

[the anti-myrmidon]

another very good op-ed from Pitts. He's one of the better columnists around today. He has his biases like everyone else, but is less interested in pushing some personal agenda than simply speaking his mind.