I generaly don't talk about massively popular public news, however this one has struck a nerve. The whole Schiavo thing really doesn't deserve the press its getting. Why is it getting it? Because its emotional.
You see, here's the deal. The press has sided with the parents because of course it wouldn't be a story otherwise. This whole issue has been in the Florida courts, the Federal courts, and the Supreme courts. And they've all said the same thing. Do we really believe that all these judges have all come to the wrong conclusion? Maybe, just maybe, there's more to this story than what the press is feeding us.
My point is this: The people who are supporting the parents and the 'right to live' are all people who have no other choice. Politicians certainly must, I mean would you want to be the politician who said "yes, I support letting her die"? No, and you know what? They don't have all the facts anyway! That's why we have courts, a place where all the facts are presented from both sides in order for a person or people to make the proper decision.
Ideally, the courts would be that way. Unfortunately, it's not that way. DOn't have time to get into all of that, but there are a couple facts about the case I'd like to point out that most people don't know about. Her husband (the one trying to remove the feeding tube, starving her to death) is currently living with another woman, with whom he has two kids and is expecting a third, as I recall (though I might have confused a couple news reports -- they might have had one and were expecting another who was born since then, but I tihnk it was two and expecting a third, though it doesn't matter much which it was). So, really, he shouldn't have much (any) standing in court as far as legal guardianship over his wife. The second major thing is that her supposed desire not to live like she is was based on an emotional reaction to something on television to which her husband and I think a sibling of his were the witness. It was a typical emotional reaction, not something thought through. There are several other facets, but I must be going. Basically, he could divorce her and be done with it, but he wants to make sure she dies, which I find disturbing.
My point is exactly proven by your post. If that were the whole story then why would however many courts this has been thru not overturn the ruling of the lower court? It doesn't make sense.
Let's just say for a moment that this lady is being kept alive artificially, and has been in such a state for a long period of time. Long enough that it is clear that her body lacks all ability to recover, however she could be kept alive in her current state for some time. Beyond that, let's just say that it is truly her wish to not be kept alive in this a state, where you are confined to a hospital bed and kept alive by a machine and there is essentially no hope of recovery (for the record, that would be my wish too). Given these assumptions, it seems reasonable that this guy would want to move on with his life.
Really, this whole situation makes me want to sit down and write up a will. Unfortunatly I need to get to work at a more decent hour tomorrow, and so I should go to sleep instead.
Actually, your point is not proven by my post. The legal system does not work as well as it should. For one thing, only certain issues can be appealed. Various findings of fact can not. The legal system is very complex and, frankly, does not work well. If you thought legal contracts were hard to follow, try legal processes. Very much headache inducement. Moreover, courts are bound by the law (theoretically, at least; in practice, they are not always, but conservative judges (those more likely to side with the parents) tend to observe this more closely than liberal judges). Any defects in the law (for example, the lack of a stipulation that philandering husbands should not be able to make life-or-death decisions regarding their wives) are not properly corrected in court, but in the legislature. The "justice" system has little to do with justice and more to do with the law.
As for it being "clear that her body lacks all ability to recover," it is not. Just recently, a man emerged from an 18 year coma and is learning to talk again. I would not characterize it as likely that she will recover, but there are still some experimental methods that have not yet been tried. Even if she never fully recovers, by testing some of these experimental methods on her, there might be hope for future people in such predicaments. As far as it not being her wish to continue to live like this, that is not clear (see my previous post), and her feeding tube was removed due more to her husband's role as legal guardian than to any "wish" she may have expressed. Also, as to being "kept alive by a machine," she is not. Or at least not in the traditional sense (not sure how the feeding works, but now that I think about it, I guess there is some machinery involved). Her organs function on their own. If she was being "kept alive by a machine" then it would be a simple matter of pulling the plug, and death would come rather quickly. As it is, removing the
feeding tube results in a death process which lasts about two weeks and involves excrutiating pain. It would not be legal to subject a dog or cat to such treatment. Moreover, she is not braindead, she is not comatose. She responds to her surroundings. In fact, the more people learn about the case, the more they tend to support the parents.
Again, I follow the legal system to a reasonable degree, and it is profoundly screwed up. About as likely as anything, the judges committed the same fallacy you seem to -- namely, "I wouldn't want to live like that, so I don't see why she would" to put it bluntly. It's nice that you believe the judges should be focused on doing what's just, I certainly think they should be, but it is simply not the case in modern law.
Also, I care about this because it is about more than just one woman. This has become become part of the debate over euthanasia and, more generally, the culture of life vs. the culture of death (I must admit, it can be nice to be on the side of those who chose the names of the positions in a debate). Take The Netherlands, for instance. Legalized euthanasia in 1986. Today, they euthanize infants, and don't even bother reporting about five out of six instances. Take another matter that has been especially bad in some European countries, but we've had problems with it over here, too. A nurse decides the "quality of life" has slipped too low and kills the patient on their own (drug overdose, oftentimes). Even euthanasia more broadly, you decide you want it, your family, friends and whatnot are "supportive" of your decision -- what happens when you have second thoughts? After all the people you love already expressed support for you dying? Are you really going to act on those second thoughts? Or, again, expressing interest in euthanasia can be a cry for attention as much as anything else. Same thing, and they're pressured into euthanasia as much as anything else. Now, I know this may very well be something you have no interest in, and you're thinking just about the Schiavo case. However, they are linked, and I happen to know a few people who would not be alive today if modern European sentiments on life issues prevailed over modern (or somewhat less modern) American sentiments. I know people dismiss it, but there really is such thing as a "slippery slope" effect. I would much rather have a legal system that erred on the side of life than one that erred on the side of death.
Also, think about what I said previously about her husband, living with his girlfriend, with whom he has multiple children. Can you deny that there exists a conflict of interests there? Should any man in such a circumstance have the final say as to whether his wife lives or dies? (Incidentally, in case you or some other reader were to make the mistake, the courts do not have the final say; the courts have been deciding who has the final say, and largely (though I must emphasize, not universally (i.e., some judges have gone the other way)) have been giving the final say to him.) Reflect on that, not on what you would want, or anything else about the case, but simply that. Don't respond immediately, but kick it around for awhile.
I don't have all the facts, neither do you. Yet you somehow know with such certainty that the judges (who cannot possibly have any less information than you) are wrong - that was entirely my point.
As for euthanasia, I see a clear and distinct difference between putting someone to death and allowing someone to die of natural causes.
A conflict of interest? Again, I don't know the details. There appears to be that possibility, but I personally trust the media less than I trust the courts.
I never claimed to have all the facts. Guess what? Neither do the courts. Do the courts know what her wishes would be in such a circumstance? No, they do not. Court records, incidentally, are public information.
As far as trusting the the media and trusting the courts go, I'm not big on trusting either. For one thing, in their coverage of the case, the media only rarely mentions the conflict of interest (despite your assertion that the media is on the parents' side). As for the court system, they're mired in matters of what is and what is not legally admissable.
You want a judge who sided with the parents? Go here and see pages 11-21. Note: he is dealing with appeals procedures here as opposed to the complete merits of the case (as I said was how the court system worked).
Another opinion from someone rather knowledgeable about the case? How about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who a) has read the legal documents in the case (as I said, they're public record); b) is a former heart surgeon, who has dealt with such issues on many occasions; c) has the standing such that he's been able to pull strings and talk to various people involved in the case (doctors here, not the parents or lawyers or whatever). A rough transcription of his remarks is here. (Warning: this is both a rough transcript (spelling errors have not been remvoed) and written in all caps, which makes it irritating to read.)
Plus, you have the courts ignoring the plain intent of Congress when it passed its law last weekend. Congress intended for there to be a new trial at the federal level which would disregard the findings of fact at the state level. As I said in a previous post, appeals courts are bound by findings of fact determined at the trial level. In this instance, the testimony of one Dr. Ronald Cranford determined many of the findings of fact. Cranford is an extreme so-called "right-to-die" advocate, who even believes that feeding tubes should be removed from patients suffering Alzheimer's dementia (far from a vegetative state, and not at all a mainstream opinion).
Any laws you don't like? Speed limits you think are inappropriate? Well, the people who made them had much more information than you, so who are you to question them? Dismiss that as being merely Congressional matters and still support the infalliblity of the judicial system? Slavery and segregation were long supported by it. More modern? How about the way it maintains a display of the ten commandments somehow constitutes an establishment of religion (which religion might that be?), Roe v. Wade (which even a number of abortion supporters have said was a bad legal decision), the striking down of partial-birth abortion bans (I forgot the name of the main case), or the way certain justices seem to think the decisions of foreign courts affect our Constitution? Even aside from any specific examples, a healthy republic requires a check on all parts of government, including the judicial branch. Mistakes made there need to be corrected just as surely as mistakes made by Congress or in the Oval Office must be corrected.
As for "allowing someone to die of natural causes," since when is starving to death in a hospital dying of "natural causes"? That is a most unnatural death. Pulling a feeding tube is just as bad as euthanasia.
As for the conflict of interest, there isn't much more to know. He is living with another woman with whom he's had a couple of children. That supplies a very obvious conflict of interest when it comes to his decisions regarding the care (or lack thereof) for his wife.
You're doing a good job putting words into my mouth. My first line was a statement, you don't have the facts. I never said that you claimed to. My second statement, was that the judges have no less information than you do, a point you cannot dispute. Thirdly, My initial claim was that no politician can side with allowing someone to die, it would be political murder - regardless of what they really think. Granted, it would be easier for them to just keep silent, so is likely validity to your claims about Bill Frist.
As for speed limits, if you read on how they are generally set, I do have as much information as those who set them. They are not arbitrary, neither are they scientific. They are set based on the average flow of traffic, and generally just below that. Yup, they make everybody speeders, it makes no sense but that's how they do it. The belief is people ignore the speed limits anyway and on average tend to drive a reasonable speed for the conditions of the road. Driving the same roads every day, its pretty easy for me to determine the average speed people drive. Oh, as a side note, it has been determined that the safest speed to drive is slightly faster than the flow of traffic. So, they set the speed limits below average and its safest to drive above average... making it illegal to be as safe as possible. But judges don't set speed limits, nor does the media, so I don't see how it pertains.
Political suicide (I believe that's what you meant; slip of the tongue)? Well, sixty seconds of research provides this list of people who committed political suicide:
Baldwin;
Berkley;
Bishop (NY);
Brown-Waite, Ginny;
Butterfield;
Capuano;
Cardin;
Carnahan;
Carson;
Castle;
Clay;
Cleaver;
Clyburn;
Conyers;
Davis (FL);
Dent;
Dicks;
Doyle;
Evans;
Frank (MA);
Gutierrez;
Hastings (FL);
Holt;
Hoyer;
Israel;
Kaptur;
Kennedy (RI);
Larson (CT);
Levin;
Lewis (GA);
Matsui;
McDermott;
McKinney;
Miller (NC);
Moran (VA);
Murtha;
Nadler;
Olver;
Pallone;
Pascrell;
Payne;
Price (NC);
Reichert;
Rothman;
Schiff;
Schwartz (PA);
Scott (VA);
Shays;
Spratt;
Strickland;
Thompson (MS);
Van Hollen;
Visclosky;
Wasserman Schultz;
Watt;
Weiner;
Wexler;
Wu
And that's just members of the House who voted on the bill; it doesn't count those who were not present for the vote, but expressed an opinion on the record, such as Minority Leader Pelosi (a total of 174 did not vote; I'm much too lazy to track down what each of them might have expressed regarding the matter). This doesn't count members of the Senate, nor politicians in Florida, nor politicians in any other state (the case has caused other states to review their laws and update them, so state politicians from other states have made comments on the matter).
The speed average thing was an attempt to point out areas where you might disagree with the powers that be (I'll admit that I was having problems thinking up an area where that might be likely -- I'm familiar with how speed limits are (usually) set, and, by those standards, there are still some places where that rule isn't well followed; one of my personal pet peeves is stop signs where yield signs should be (the yield sign is woefully underused), but I digress). Just because someone in government has an appointed power and has "no less information" than anyone else, does not mean that they will be correct in their decision. That was the point I was working at getting at.
As I pointed out already, most of the decisions in this case rested with the "findings of fact" of a single judge, based on the testimony of a single witness. Moreover, findings of fact are a matter of trial courts, and appeals courts are dependent on them (an appeals court cannot produce a new finding of fact). This runs contrary to your stated belief that several courts and judges and whatever had reviewed the matter. They were not allowed complete review of the matter. This was what the U.S. Congress was trying to resolve -- it was attempting to get the case reviewed in U.S. District Court complete with new findings of fact. However, that court rejected the will of Congress and refused to get involved in the matter.
Also, while Terri has been subjected to a CT scan, she has not had an MRI or a PET scan which would provide a much more complete neurological exam. Her Permanent vegetative state diagnosis is not just something questioned by some protesters, but by a couple of the doctors who have actually been treating her.
Moreover, she is being deprived of life much more easily than any convicted murderer would be. A murderer must be proved guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." However, the Schiavo case went through civil court, not criminal court, where a less strict standard is applied. The decision was handed down by a single judge, rather than the jury required in capital punishment cases. The fifth and fourteenth amendments protects against the taking of life without due process of law, something that was not met in this case. While some say that such only applies to to criminal matters, they are fooling themselves if they believe that the state has not sentenced her to die in this case; moreover, it's only through an "accident of history" that such a matter has even arisen (that a life could be taken through a civil proceeding). (And if that's not enough to compel the need for a jury trial out of you, how about the Seventh Amendment? I think the value in this case is much greater than $20, even adjusted for inflation.)
As I mentioned previously, Michael Schiavo is living adulterously with another woman, with whom he has a couple of children. This should be enough to call his interest in the matter into question. More than that, though, it wasn't until seven years after Terri came into her current state that he suddenly "remembered" that she wanted to die rather than live through it. His evidence for this is both flimsy and disputed.
As I've also said previously, it is important to err on the side of life. Should it later be proved that she was in a PVS, and that she wanted to die if such was ever the case, such could be remedied. However, if the opposite were proved, and she was already dead, there is no remedy available. The presumption must be on life, not death.
This is a new area of law and the courts and legislatures are struggling to keep up. The idea of keeping someone alive artificially is not that old, and only started to mainstream around the 1980's. It is natural that missteps will occur, and it is the duty of the people of a free Republic to monitor their government and correct it.
The protestors siding with the parents are much better informed than you give them credit for. Incidentally, polls show populace at large siding about 60-25 (lots of undecideds/people who haven't heard of the case) with her husband against her parents. The political price you try to paint for siding with the husband just isn't there. Of course, most people know extremely little about the case. The more they know, though, the more likely they are to side with the parents. However, my main point is that it is rather ludicrous for you to denigrate the protestors for their supposed lack of knowledge when you a) know less about the case than they do and b) are unfamiliar with the legal system at work here.
political suicide, you're correct - thats what I meant. I think those politicians were pretty stupid to vote against the bill, from a political standpoint - but thats my opinion. The rest of the population is welcome to think otherwise.
It is interesting that you assume is that I side with the husband. My original assertion was that the media was being one-sided in order to provide the best story, not the most facts - and its getting a lot of press because its an emotional subject. As an aside, I did read a very good article on CNN the other day (on my cell phone no less - when my internet connectionw as down). It actually provided a good summary of all of the recent happenings from a fairly unbiased perspective. My other point was that the fact that numerous courts have come to the same conclusion leads me to believe there is something that the media must be missing - even if the appellate courts only have the facts from the lower court. In my case, I'm too lazy to go read more about it, and therefore I am left with doubts for either position.
If you read my posts I never claimed that the protestors were uninformed. Nor did I claim to be more informed than they are. My claim was that average people were being spoon fed by the media and not being critical of the source of the material.
I do agree with erroring on the side of life. I also agree that the courts and legislation is perhaps struggling to keep up with the "issues of today", and perhaps more accuratly struggling to abstract the issues such that the technology becomes irrelevant.
Okay, one last post on this, and I'm done.
I disagree that the media has been very one-sided on this issue. Notable exceptions would be stuff like Christian radio news updates, which you've probably heard, which could color your opinion on the media's bias. Further, the bias something might appear to have on the surface does not always hold out. For instance, the democrats often use coverage of the Lewinsky matter to "prove" that the media doesn't have a liberal bias. However, following the initial revelations (the media is about sensationalism and profit, after all), if you look at the coverage, they played it out as Clinton "lied about sex" rather than committed perjury and played up the deal about not all that many Americans wanting impeachment, which actually drove the number wanting impeachment down (some people initially wanted impeachment (actually, almost everyone would have preferred Clinton resigning), but, seeing that a conviction in the Senate wasn't going to happen (because people didn't want it), they didn't want the government to waste its time going through the impeachment process). Plus, they usually played down or did not cover matters such as Juanita Broderick
(whose interview was kept on the shelf until after the trial). So the articles seeming to keep the attention on the scandal (and thus benefit Republicans), actually worked in subtle ways against the scandal (benefitting Clinton).
As for claiming the protestors were uninformed, from your original post: "My point is this: The people who are supporting the parents and the 'right to live' ... politicians ... They don't have all the facts anyway!" which would seem to read as saying those siding with the parents are uninformed, poorly informed, whatever -- certainly no match for the knowledge all the judges (the plural of which I already expressed an opinion on, along with the single judge who did most in this matter). And that's what ticked me off. I never said that you claimed to be more informed. You just seemed to be saying that they weren't as informed as the judges, so they should pipe down.
Oh, as to your original entry paragraph as to the Schiavo case receiving a lot of press, anything is better than the Michael Jackson case. TV cameras aren't allowed in the courtroom, so they actually re-enact the trial on tv! Ugh.
Oh, and happy birthday to a fellow monkey. It was recently discovered that Matt is a sheep and all his years of passing himself off as a monkey were a big lie.