I was going to try to avoid repeating what you could read everywhere else today, so I wasn't going to post anything about Mrs. Schiavo. But then I read two townhall.com articles in a row, "The great quandary," by William F. Buckley, and "The right to kill Terri Schiavo," by Maggie Gallagher. Mr. Buckley is defending the rule of law, and our judicial process. He accepts that the court saw accurate, unbiased testimony on Mrs. Schiavo's state, that she is in fact in a "persistent vegetative state." He compares this to the Elian Gonzalez mess a few years ago. Ms. Gallagher, on the other hand, questions that testimony. She believes the neurologist who disputes it, the testimony of her mother, father, brother,s and sisters. She realizes that Mr. Schiavo's reduced moral authority should equate to reduced legal authority; something that Mr. Buckley apparently does not realize. She references the report that Mrs. Schiavo can swallow her own siliva, has swallowed some pudding on occasion, and could, with therapy, learn to swallow enough to not need a feeding tube. Therapy that her husband, despite Mr. Buckley's claim that she has "underwent a hundred medical ministrations," refused to allow. Mr. Buckley says that
What caused the political commotion was the sense that we were presiding over an execution. Terri Schiavo remained "alive" until we stopped feeding her. Then she began a fall through a trapdoor descending toward death.
Is not the same true for every infant? Is it not true for most Alzheimer's patients? For some mentally handicapped people? Should we allow them to starve? Should we define away their pain, even though we cannot enter into their thoughts to ensure our definition is accurate? Why are the courts not looking at the cases of people who have been in "persistent vegetative states" who have recovered? Why are people who ask these questions said to be self-deluding themselves?