The Terri Schiavo case continues to bother me – in particular, the question of precedent. The precedent that our most personal decisions – about reproduction, about designating our own guardians, about choosing our own families – can be arbitrarily decided by a public letter-writing campaign is awful. One of the most basic elements of freedom – that when it comes to extremely personal decisions of life, death, and family, people are allowed to make decisions that go against majority preferences – is under siege by right-wing Christians in Florida.
I think there’s a strong connection between the view that says that women must not make their own reproductive choices, and the view that Terri’s choice of Michael to make medical decisions when she shouldn’t be respected, and the view that lesbians and gay men must be forbidden an equal right to form families.
In all these case, what’s at issue is the right to make decisions that are contrary to the Christian right’s moral perspective. And while they’re happy enough to use the normal rule of law when it works in their favor (for instance, the current status quo forbidding equal marriage rights for lesbians and gays), they have no actual respect for democracy when it conflicts with what God tells them. The Light of Reason puts it well:
For these folks, it has nothing to do with if Terri’s husband was abusive or not; Michael Schiavo could have been beating Terri up five times a day, and the Christian right would still overwhelmingly support him if he were calling for Terri to be kept alive indefinitely.
I think the precedent set by this case, if “Terri’s law” isn’t struck down by the courts, is awful. It’s saying that when a family, or a court, makes a decision the Christian right doesn’t agree with, right-wing legislators and governors have the right to overturn that decision by fiat.
If Jeb Bush has the right to undo the court’s decision in this case, why doesn’t he have the right to do the same thing the next time a Florida court makes a decision the Christian right doesn’t like? Maybe an abortion rights decision. Maybe a decision recognizing a lesbian couple’s right to adopt. Anytime a court goes against the Christian right, the governor will simply overturn the decision.
That’s theocracy for you, folks.
(And before anyone compares this to obscenity law, let me assure you – I would not approve of a law allowing a governor to overturn individual court decisions on obscenity on a case-by-case basis, thus making the legal rulings of the courts subserviant to the whims of the executive. It’s the way Christian fundimentalists have shown their contempt for the checks and balances of U.S. democracy, that makes the Terri Schiavo case so offensive.).
Lack of respect for democracy, I agree. More importantly, IMO, lack of respect for free will: for Terri Schiavo’s free will, here, in expressing her wishes. As she did. The GOP denies, in a startling moral and religious development, that Schiavo had a free will that she could express. She is, in fact, a possession: their possession. Her dad’s possession. The letter writers’ possession. Jeb Bush’s possession.
I use this term guardedly. IMO the clearest instance of free will being denied in human history is slavery. Terri Schiavo is now, quite precisely, a slave.
Oh – and the letter writers, and her dad, and Jeb Bush, are slave-owners. Who knew.
Truly impressive.
A disagreement in policy (in which YOU are on the minority side according to polling) leads you to conclude that the parents of a young girl who want to keep her alive, a governer who is protecting the life of her citizens, and religious people are all slave-holders.
You pick the most polarizing, most reflexivly hateful and most historically detached example possible to demonize people who you disagree with on a toss-up issue.
The amount of vitriol induced irrationality that permenates a lot of the posters here is truly awe-inspiring.
I have see a lot of partisan demagogurey recently, but your suggestion comes close to taking the cake. The only other thing close was hearing Marc Danner suggest that between Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il and George Bush, it is the ideological fanatacism of Bush that is causing the problems with Iraq and N. Korea. Truly amazing that people overlook the obviously criminal nature of Saddam and Kim and put the blame on our president.
Amazing.
Or disgusting.
Both.
Brent, WTF are you doing here? Who’s even talking about Saddam and Kim Jong Il here? And I’d respond to the rest of your post but it has no substance, just a bunch of empty crap.
If all you can do is try to contort the discussion beyond recognition with non-sequitur posts, just leave.
Brent: “(in which YOU are on the minority side according to polling)”
Tell me what the FUCK polling has to do with whether a human being can decide their fate or not. I think YOU should have no free will. There’s one vote, how about that.
I’d like to remind all particpants – including you, Brent – that I’d prefer y’all to remain civil.
Sorry, I don’t intend to draw out ad hominem attacks.
I was just pointing out how it is a little far fetched to take an issue which is at least a toss-up in terms of interpretation, and then to demonize people who think they are doing what is right by calling them Slave-holders.
That is a bit over-the-top and ridiculous. However, it is also consistent with the amount of vitriol which was shown me as well.
The issue is obviously not so cut-and-dry that demonizing the enemy is appropriate. It is foolish for those right-to-lifers to condemn people who disagree with their position to hell. But it is equally ridiculous to suggest Jeb Bush is a slave holder.
If the issue was so clear-cut, then you wouldn’t have the courts, the legislature, philsophers and the polity all split pretty much down the middle.
And since it is only a matter of opinion, I was just pointing out the absurdity of irrationally demonizing people just to prove your point.
Okay, Brent, what would your term be for a group of people who choose to deliberately ignore a woman’s free will in deciding what’s to be done to her own body?
Other than the GOP, I mean.
—JRC
Brent- saying Jeb Bush was a slave trader was a tongue-in-cheek reference that I don’t think was meant to be taken seriously. The meat of this John’s post is that Terri Schiavo is a slave. I’d go into further detail, but if you reread John’s first post, I think it’s pretty clearly spelled out.
If you’re going to argue this, argue with the heart of it, not the tangent references.
Raznor, I argued the point because it was asserted as the logical conclusion of his post.
As to this bit about free will, well we could go into a deep philosophical argument over whether we truly have free will at all. But that would be too long a discussion. I do think that you are mis-using the term free will when you mean liberty or freedom. Because free will does not have anything at all to do with freedom. You can be a slave and locked up and still have free will.
Indeed, free will, is the freedom to will… not the freedom to do.
(Side note: Interestingly, free will is a religious concept—and it is the religous perspective that you are arguing against).
But to the point:
For the sake of argument, lets define the term as freedom of choice or self-determination (this a better term to call the right to choose what happens to you).
Then I will concede for the sake of argument that Terry Schiavo has the right to self-determination.
The question then becomes, how do we know what she wants. Clearly there is a dispute between her parents and her husband of what she wants. How do we know if she wants to live or die? You cannot prove that she wants to die, so we cannot be certain of it. If we are not certain of it, and we let her die, then, legally speaking, that is murder.
In other words, we could be wrong. Since we don’t know the answer, we are morally safer assuming the status quo.
But for the sake of argument, lets concede we know she wants to die. Should the state let her? Suicide is illegal in the vast majority of the states. Why? Because the State has one primary goal: protecting the life of its citizens. Keeping their citizens alive is the bedrock function of a government or social order. It is the basis for every social contract. The state would not be doing its function if it allowed people to die.
We can see this from nature: in order to keep mankind solvent, we must have pro-creation. If we don’t have pro-creation, mankind dies off. Therefore, we must keep people alive so they can pro-create. This argument is extremely simplistic, but it is the basis for all social thought. We cannot have a society that doesn’t value life.
So, from a political, philsophical, moral, ethical and natural perspective, we cannot allow someone to just die… especially if don’t know for sure what the Schiavo wants.
So, the question of self-determination is interesting, but it doesn’t get us anywhere because we don’t know what she wants.
But assume, for a second, that Schiavo doesn’t want to die. Then can we end her life?
How do we know what she wants.
Easy, she married a man and empowered him with the ability to make certain choices for her in the event that she was unable to make them or communicate them herself.
Her choice is a legal one, and under existing law, it’s crystal-clear.
The rest of your philosophical meanderings are interesting, but mostly irrelevant. Other than subvering the rule of law to the rule of religion, there is no reason for Mrs. Schiavo to be alive today.
—JRC
WOW!
I was going to go home, but I couldn’t let his pass without comment.
From the side of the argument that preaches “free will,” women’s rights, self-determination, “property of no one,” we get:
“Easy, she married a man and empowered him with the ability to make certain choices for her”
Wow.
So much for women’s lib.
So your position is that the women becomes the possession or “slave” of the man (John’s words)when they are married? Hello Ephesians 5!
To correct a legal point (since I am a lawyer): you cannot contract with anyone to do something that is forbidden by the law. Therefore, even if there were a power of attorney (which I am not aware one exists here), Schiavo cannot give someone else the right to end her life. It can’t be done.
So to rest your argument on a legal argument is completely faulty.
Further, the just because she is married, her husband does not retain the right to decide to remove her from life support merely because she cannot communicate.
I am dumbfounded to think that you would grant that much power to the man. I presume on the the prior discussion on abortion, you would suggest that the husband has no rights in that situation and that it is the woman’s choice, but here, you would grant the power of the man to end her life! Wow! Amazing!!!!
I can’t believe you just made that argument.
Advice: Stick to the moral and emotional argument. You can get the most traction there.
Geez Brent! How dense and tangential are you going to get. When I married a woman I empowered her with the ability to make certain choices for me. It’s part of the legal status of marriage in this country.
So much for your integrity or intelligence – you decide which.
To correct a legal point (I’m not a lawyer, but I play one…. no, no that’s not it….. Oh, yeah! I can read stuff. Including the law) it is currently legal to specify that a feeding tube not be used on oneself. As well as various life support equipment.
There is something called a “Living Will” or a “Medical Directive” that does “give someone else the right to end her life.” It can be done. Liar.
Then you say, “Further, the just because she is married, her husband does not retain the right to decide to remove her from life support merely because she cannot communicate.”
Strangely, that is also a lie. If I’m lying comatose my next o’ kin (in my case that would be my wife) does, in fact, retain the right to remove me from life support. Also, you liar, you’re being disingenuous when you say “merely because she cannot communicate”. It’s not only that she “merely” can’t communicate. Consensus is she’s also brain dead w/ no chance of recovery.
So, you’re “entire argument on legal argument” is predicated on lies & misdirections.
I am dumbfounded that you are not aware that these sorts of decisions are the responsibility of the closest family members (starting with one’s spouse).
I can’t believe you based your entire argument on lies and misinformation.
Advice: Tell the truth. You’ll get a lot more traction out of it.
I’ll add, since when is free will a religious concept, as opposed to philosophic concept? And your definition of free will, Brent, is highly restrictive. That’s ok, it’s a matter of philisophical distinction. What’s not okay is that you imply that this is the only definition that is of use. It’s the same as always, you take some interpretation of the events in question, and claim your interpretation is the gospel truth and anyone else who disagrees is completely wrong. It’s a position of pure arrogance, and quite frankly, I’m getting mighty sick of it.
“Sorry, I don’t intend to draw out ad hominem attacks.”
You have a typo here, big guy, the verb “draw out” for the verb “launch.” Check the thread.
Raznor, you’re mistaken about my comment. I meant exactly what I wrote. Jeb Bush, Schiavo’s dad, and the letter writers now have a personal slave, lying in a bed where she can’t fight back. She can’t do much for them, you’d think, but they can ram her on the news.
JRC, you wrote this to Brent: “The rest of your philosophical meanderings are interesting, but mostly irrelevant.”
I take issue with your word “interesting.”
Brent, you still have my vote to sell you into slavery. Let me know if you’re polling further.
Ampersand, you’ll note my lack of rude words in this comment. Sorry about the previous one.
Actually, JRC, I also have to object to the term “philosophical”, which I think is done a disservice in this context.
OK, I take that back, and I apologize. Nobody ever has my vote to be sold into slavery. I am really really mad right now: Brent has based his denial of a human being’s right to self-determination on opinion polls of strangers (read his first comment), and I find that so jaw-droppingly offensive that I hoped to make him see what it meant by pointing it directly at him.
I think that hope is futile, and all I’ve done is write something offensive. The rest of my remarks I stand by.
If we’re done feeding the trolls… *8)
“they have no actual respect for democracy when it conflicts with what God tells them”: well, yeah. I mean, that’s pretty much the required position if you take the whole Judeo-Christian God Thing seriously. God is the source of all moral truth, the creator of the Universe, the omnipotent and omnibenevolent perfection against which all else is measured. Of course his word is superior to any human law, any human institution, any human wish or will or idea.
It goes with the territory.
Not that it’s not good for & to remind everyone about it and all. But it’s definitely no surprise, and not really even controversial. It’s what the whole God Thing is about, for the Big Western Religions as generally interpreted. (Modern Quakers and Unitarians and Reform Jews and Ariadnites and so on get a free pass here, of course; I’m talking about those who are Biblical / Koranic literalists, at least in theory, including I believe at least the majority of practicing Christians in the U.S.)
Which is why it’s so important to keep those most heavily infected with that meme complex fat and happy and politically inactive until over the generations the malady burns itself out… *8)
Well duh, God’s word would have precedence over man’s, but even accepting that, it doesn’t account for the arrogance of people saying “I know exactly what God’s word is. Everyone else are pawns of Satan.”
Well, God’s word is that these people are assholes. I know because God told me. We have coffee together on Tuesdays.
A good point, Raznor. One can have a decent conversation even with someone who believes in the Absolute Perfection of God’s Will, as long as e admits that e can’t be certain what God’s Will is.
These particular fundies are especially annoying because they are so sure they know the opinion of God in this case, and they’re willing to trust their own certainty of that enough to override the expressed will of a person about the course of her own life. But that sort of certainty is sadly common in this meme complex (although you’re quite right to point out that it’s far from rationally implied, as I may have overenthusiastically suggested).
[Say Hi to God for me next time you see Her!]
The husband has won in 19 different hearings. The facts are established and the case has repeatedly been decided in accordance with Florida law.
Florida has the death penalty and has decided that the state may take life from even the unwilling if such taking is in accordance with the law.
John Ellis Bush as governor was required by law to take the life of Paul Hill who murdered two people in Pensacola, Florida. One of those killed was a doctor who is reported to have performed legal abortions. Mr. Hill was associated unofficially with Operation Rescue.
Operation Rescue [Randall Terry] was pushing for the extension of Mrs. Schiavo’s life.
If I was the type of person who ascribed a ‘win at any cost’ attitude to the governor and Republican dominated legislature of the state of Florida, I might conclude that the Gov and Lege needed to throw a ‘bone’ to the ‘anti-abortion whackos’ to ensure their support for the Gov’s brother in 2004.
You know what I can’t understand?
I don’t know why the Christian right has taken such a strong stand on this.
It really confuses me. I don’t see the religious support, in either direction, for this decision. The bible is pretty much silent on the issues involved.
There’s a great argument, biblically, that the birth family loses all rights when the wife marries the husband. But that doesn’t seem to be the operative thing here.
Can anyone explain why this particular issue has drawn the attention of the Christian right? Apart from abortion, they really don’t seem that big on keeping people alive.
–Kynn
PS: ObCheapShot: She represents the Christian right ideal of how women should act.
Actually, JRC, I also have to object to the term “philosophical”, which I think is done a disservice in this context.
Yeah, you’re right. . .I was trying to be non-flamey, instead of just saying “you’re spouting crap, Brent.”
In retrospect, and considering his trollish, dismissive, and insulting behavior both here and in the Veterans thread, I regret my choice.
*sigh*
—JRC
Yes, sigh.
Incidentally Schiavo means slave in Italian.
Brent,
Like nearly everyone else here, I don’t use polls to decide what I think. However when someone claims a poll supports their point of view, I always want to know which poll?
The reason I want to know this is that I tend to disbelieve people if I find they lied to buttress their arguments.
I also often find that people who use polls to support their arguments are often simply lieing. The lie may be absolute– in the sense that fabricated the poll results. Or the lie my be a really, really, big fudge, in the sense that the poll was clearly invalid. (Possible reasons: Too small, administered to a clearly biased sample, used clearly biased wording etc. If the person citing a poll doesn’t know why these make a poll invalid, I reclassify them from “liar” to “uneducated moron”. )
So Brent, whe you implied that a poll supports your point of view (as follows). Could you tell me which poll, and then we can all look up the sample size, find out how it was administered, and read the actual question?