The Religious Right did not Lose

Some progressive blogs (and others in the ol mainstream news) have benn calling the Schiavo case a major defeat for the religious right.

I disagree that the Christian right has suffered a defeat. It was the Schindlers who lost; the Christian right gained a martyr, energized its base, and got a great deal of publicity for its so-called "culture of life."

Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, the Schiavo case has helped to solidify what is really part of the pope's legacy--a growing block of hard-right Catholic clergy in the U.S. that has developed an alliance with its Protestant counterparts.

These clergy were very vocal in the anti-Kerry campaign, and they have doubtless been emboldened by the lack of a popular or official backlash. As a side-effect, the support among Republican politicians for the "nuclear option" in the Senate has doubtless been hardened; they now have "proof" that the judiciary is out
of control and needs to be reigned in by judges who will promote the most extreme elements of their agenda.

One more thought: Republicans compared Terri Shiavo to a prisoner on death row, saying that she had fewer rights than a condemned serial killer. These statuses are not, of course, parallel, and I think but there are similarities between what happened with Schiavo and what happens when lawyers appeal death sentences on the basis of incompetent representation or suppressed evidence.

Unless I'm mistaken, courts routinely rule that if the proper forms were followed, it doesn't matter how incompetent or sleepy the defendent's lawyer was or what evidence was in those boxes the deputies hid in the back of their office (within limits). My understanding from limited perusal of the legal materials is
that the Schindlers got all the process that was due them, and with that requirement having been satisfied, there's no reason to reopen the case.

But would it have been so terrible to have tested Terri Schiavo with the latest equipment? Due process often trumps substantive justice. This only bothers GWB when he can score political points by getting bothered, but doesn't it concern us more generally?

It should.