VOICE OF THE MAJORITY

Schiavo and Republicanism
A Battle for the Soul of Conservatism
by Andrew Sullivan, Sunday Times of London.
It was impossible to look at the images of Terri Schiavo starving slowly to death in a Florida hospice without grief. And it has become impossible in America these days to look at such a tragic set of circumstances without succumbing to hysteria. Washington last week was, quite simply, in a state of fever. Those of us who have long worried that unleashing religious fundamentalism into the bloodstream of American politics would lead to disaster can only feel that our fears have now come true. Here are the relevant facts. Fifteen years ago, one Terri Schiavo suffered a heart stoppage caused by bulimia. Her brain was temporarily starved of oxygen and scans showed that her cerebral cortex had stopped functioning. A CAT scan shows that her brain has since shrunk massively. Her electroencephalogram reading was and is completely flat - she has no brain waves. She is not brain-dead. But she has no ability to think, feel, or communicate. She can breathe on her own; and random eye movements can give the impression of some kind of awareness. She is kept alive by a feeding tube. In the first years that she was in this horrifying state, her husband, Michael, did all he could to find treatment, went from hospital to hospital trying new therapies. According to the Miami Herald, which has covered the case more thoroughly than any other outlet, "each rehabilitation facility treated her with aggressive physical, recreational, speech and language therapy, moving her arms and legs, trying to rouse her with scents. But according to court filings, Terri was not responsive to neurological or swallowing tests." Terri was even sent to California to have experimental platinum electrodes inplanted to get her brain going again. Michael slept next to her for five weeks. At the time, he and Terri's parents were united in doing all they could for what was left of his wife.But eventually, the husband acquiesced to near-universal medical opinion and came to terms with the fact that his wife would never revive. He said that when she was cogniscent, she had once told him she didn't want to be kept alive artificially for an indefinite period of time. You can see why. From the Miami Herald again: "She suffered from bile stones and kidney stones, according to court papers, and had to have her gallbladder removed. She has 'drop foot,' where her foot twists downward, and the ensuing pressure resulted in the amputation of her left little toe. She frequently developed urinary tract infections, diarrhea and vaginitis. Several cysts were removed from her neck. Several times, her feeding tube got infected." The sight of a human being in such a state of complete disintegration became too much for Michael Schiavo to bear. So he decided that it would be more compassionate to let her die with dignity.Her parents, for understandable reasons, differed and fought Michael in the Florida courts. The litigation has gone on for many painful years. The parents, who had at first encouraged Michael to date other women, then used his second relationship (he subsequently dated another woman and had two children with her) as a weapon against him in the courts. But court after court acknowledged the overwhelming medical data and the fact that Terri's legal guardian was her husband. Court case after court case moved Terri inexorably toward death. But then the political religious right heard of what was going on, took up the case, and cast it as an example of what the Pope has called the "culture of death." They used Nazi analogies. They demonized Michael Schiavo. They described those who defended the rights of the husband as, in Peggy Noonan's words last week, "half in love with death." They saw an opportunity to highlight their principled defense of human life. Their clout was such that they got the Florida legislature to pass a bill to protect Terri, a law that was subsequently over-ruled by the Florida courts. Last weekend, they got the federal Congress back in emergency Sunday session and got a law designed to delay the process of death pending new federal court challenges. President Bush rushed back to D.C. to sign the bill in the middle of the night. You want proof that the religious right runs the Republican party? What more do you need? Federal courts then examined the long course of the case and came to the conclusion that Florida's courts had acted carefully, within the law and that there was no legal case to intervene. The parents then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which again refused to hear the case. As the esteemed conservative, William F. Buckley, noted, "There was never a more industrious inquiry, than in the Schiavo case, into the matter of rights formal and inchoate."I don't know what I'd do in such a case. The nearest I have come to it was watching one of my best friends die of AIDS and have his family and friends refuse to resuscitate him after his heart stopped beating. It was what he wanted. I stood by, helpless in the face of the inexplicable. But I also recognized that this kind of wrenching decision can only be made either by the person herself or by family or spouse or legally-appointed guardian. The idea that the government should have the final say, and that the government could be swayed by powerful political lobbies trying to make headway in the culture wars, strikes me as grossly inappropriate. If limited government means anything, it means leaving decisions like this as close to the person as possible. And if the American principle of federalism means anything, it means that the local state's courts are the only relevant instruments to deal with such a tragedy. But that, alas, is not what American Republicanism now is. It has two powerful impulses - a religious drive that puts theological certitude before any prudential or legal reasoning and a growing contempt for an independent judiciary. That's how it came to pass that the Congress of the United States involved itself in a matter way beyond its purview. That's how governor Jeb Bush of Florida last week tried to take state custody of Schiavo and void her husband's rights. And that's how a leading conservative activist, Bill Bennett, could write last Thursday in the conservative magazine National Review, that governor Jeb Bush should simply over-rule the courts, break the law and send armed guards to insert the feeding tube by force. "It is a mistake to believe that the courts have the ultimate say as to what a constitution means," Bennett argued. This attack on the very basis of American constitutional liberty in the name of religion is what is usually called theocracy.Will there be political repercussions from this? Polling shows large majorities disagree with the idea that the federal government should get involved. Bush himself, who said last week that "it is wise to always err on the side of life," didn't seem so concerned when he signed countless death warrants as governor of Texas, with the most cursory of legal reviews. He also signed a Texas law that gave surviving next of kin complete discretion to remove life-support from a terminally ill patient in the absence of a living will. Last week, an eight-year-old boy died after his tube was removed in Texas because his parents could no longer afford treatment, but the religious right seemed uninterested. As commander in chief, Bush has presided over the criminal homicides of 26 inmates in U.S. military care, after removing by executive memo the usual bans on cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Culture of life? But these ironies are balanced by something else. The Republican party is engaged in a fascinating debate about what it is about, what it believes, what it is. The survival of what is left of Terri Schiavo is for some people a genuine matter of moral principle. That position should be respected. But it should also be subject to the rule of law. For others, the Schiavo case is a first battle to win over the religious right primary voters who will determine the next Republican nominee. The Republican leadership is gambling that the intensity of their religious base will outweigh the more general public's disdain for this exercise in government over-reach. The broader public, they calculate, will forget. The zealots will always remember. And if Schiavo dies, they will have a martyr as well. And they will figuratively prop her up as a symbol in the campaigns to come.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2005