The end is near
The Supreme Court has declined to hear the case or order the feeding tube reinserted, so the Schiavo's legal options have come to an end. Barring a miracle, Terri will die within days. She hasn't had food or water since Friday.
How did we come to this point? It's been 15 years of battle between the husband and parents for her life. The husband, who one a million dollar malpractice settlement and has moved on with another women, is her legal guardian and the only one who asserts Terri would want to die if in this state., There is no written record. The parents dispute that she would want to die, and are sure she has a chance to recover. It is the most public and longest fought legal right to die case in history, and it's about to come to an end.
There is so much to say, and so much conflicting evidence from doctors. But this strikes me the most, as I posted below: The burden of proof used to lie with those who would end a severely disabled person's life, to prove they would want it that way. Today, the burden of proof is on those who would keep them alive. If that isn't a slide down the slippery slope, what is?
posted by jdp @ 9:42 AM
5 Comments:
At 9:57 AM,
Anonymous said…
Schiavo case as I see it:
--> What the slavering right-wing whack-jobs are basically saying is that Florida's court system can't be trusted. This case has been extenisvely litigated, yet time after time, the courts have sided with the husband. Nothing that has been said in the past five days hasn't been looked at already by Florida state courts. When Bush signed the law into effect, he was basically telling Floridans that none of them should trust their state court system, because it's just flat-out wrong. The funny thing, to me, is that the federal judges who have reviewed this case (3 times) have all said that the Florida system has adequately covered all the issues.
At 10:05 AM,
jdp said…
What's great about democracy is that law resides in the hands of the people, not the judges. They interpret the law - they don't make it.
The desenting opinion in the federal case is instructive. He argued that by refusing to review the case, the court was putting itself above the law that was just passed.
There is a second issue, even if legally the case is air tight, it seems to me that the law has not adequately taken in to account dissenting medical opinion or the conflict of interest that the husband is in.
Thirdly, in cases where the wishes of someone to die are not clearly expressed, shouldn't we err on the side of life?
At 11:43 AM,
Anonymous said…
How were they not clearly expressed? Seven years and 19 court proceedings found that the husband had adequately demonstrated that it was, in fact, his wife's wishes that the plug be pulled. How much more do you want?
At 12:36 PM,
jdp said…
No one else but the husband, who is in a clear conflict of interest, heard her express that she want want to starve to death if she was ever severely disabled. That's not clearly expressed.
Clearly expressed is written, or said in front of multiple witnesses.
At 1:15 PM,
Anonymous said…
So you're saying you never talk about anything with Kelly that you don't also say to someone else? That's lousy reasoning. If she told someone, it would have been her husband.
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