Promoting A Culture Of Zero Quality Of Life

They aren't against using Terry Schiavo, who has spent the last decade in a persistent vegetative state, as a political pawn.

This issue begs several questions that the Republicans in Florida and Washington D.C. have completely bungled. Who has the legal right to make the decision? Is it the surviving spouse? Is it the court? Is it a Republican controlled legislature? What about a legislature that changes the rules after the decision is made to cease life-sustaining measures according to well-settled and practiced precedent?

Not content with taking rights away from class action litigants and screwing over-extended debtors victimized by rapacious credit card companies, the United States congress thinks it needs to intervene in a private family decision.

The U.S. House and Senate passed competing bills but it was unclear whether a compromise could be reached. State courts and the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites), meanwhile, rejected attempts by Schiavo's parents and the state to postpone the removal of her feeding tube.
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In Washington, both the U.S. House and Senate passed bills to move the case to federal court, but the effort stalled over differences between House Republicans and members of both parties in the Senate over how sweeping it should be. Schiavo's parents and brother spent the day in the Capitol lobbying lawmakers to pass some kind of legislation.

House Republicans insisted that federal courts be given jurisdiction in similar cases questioning the legality of withholding food or medical treatment from people incapacitated like Schiavo. The Senate limited its bill to the Schiavo case only.

By the time senators passed their legislation Thursday, many House members already had headed home for Easter. House and Senate leaders each sought to blame the other for the stalemate.

"We've made our best effort here and it does solve the problem," said Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. "We tried the House language, there was broad opposition on both sides of the aisle."

"House Republicans knew we had a moral obligation to act and we did just that last night," said Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas in a joint statement. "As Terri Schiavo lays helpless in Florida, one day away from the unthinkable and unforgivable, the Senate Democrats refused to join Republicans to act on her behalf."

Apparently the Senate and House don't have enough important work to do and think that the federal court system ought to be the place to handle problems normally resolved in hospitals and nursing homes.

President Bush is really concerned with how we treat people who are at our mercy.

The White House was cautious Thursday not to comment on any specific legislation. Yet in a statement, President Bush (news - web sites) left little doubt where he stands.

"The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues," he said. "Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern."

Mercy for the poor, the downtrodden, the unfortunate, the people taken from their homes in far-away places, held in isolation without contact with family and loved ones, for the people suspected of having information useful to our wars and secreted away to foreign countries where they can be tortured. I guess mercy only if the you are the darling of the evangelical right.