James Taranto examines the political implications of the controversy over the fate of Terri Schiavo and points out a lesser-known interest group.
The important question is not what most Americans today think of the case, but who is likely to have a long memory about it. It seems to us there are two such groups. The first is obvious: pro-lifers. Mrs. Schiavo's death doubtless will spur them to greater political activism. Whether this will help Democrats or Republicans is hard to predict, since it depends on the extent to which each party seems to be catering to extremists.But the second group is more interesting, and seems likely to hurt the Democrats. We refer to advocates for the disabled, who, as the Boston Globe says, "have struck an uneasy alliance with Christian conservatives." Some of the most passionate commentary on the Schiavo case has come from people with severe disabilities.
[T]heir perspective is worth considering. An able-bodied person may look at Terri Schiavo and think: I wouldn't want to live like that. Someone with a severe disability is probably more apt to hear the talk of Mrs. Schiavo's "poor quality of life" and think: I don't want to be killed like that.
To be sure, a distinction can be drawn between those, like Mrs. Schiavo, whose higher brain functions are irreversibly gone and those whose cognitive abilities are undamaged (or less damaged) despite other severe disabilities. But if you were in the latter group, would Terri Schiavo's death bolster your faith in physicians, politicians and judges to look out for your interests?
Old-school leftie Nat Hentoff, champion of human rights, is outraged.
On March 23, outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was growing steadily weaker, her mother, Mary, said to the courts and to anyone who would listen and maybe somehow save her daughter:Posted by Alan at March 29, 2005 08:37 PM"Please stop this cruelty!"
While this cruelty was going on in the hospice, Michael Schiavo's serpentine lawyer, George Felos, said to one and all: "Terri is stable, peaceful, and calm. . . . She looked beautiful."
During the March 21 hearing before Federal Judge James D. Whittemore, who was soon to be another accomplice in the dehydration of Terri, the relentless Mr. Felos, anticipating the end of the deathwatch, said to the judge:
"Yes, life is sacred, but so is liberty, your honor, especially in this country."
It would be useless, but nonetheless, I would like to inform George Felos that, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: "The history of liberty is the history of due process"—fundamental fairness.
Contrary to what you've read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court system.
In this country, even condemned serial killers are not executed in this way.