The Schiavo Post

I have resisted doing this for weeks now, but I can’t resist any longer. I was bored at work today, and having nothing else to do I spent most of the morning reading Howard Bashman’s blog, 50% of which seems to concern the Schiavo case. And so I was thinking about it and reading about it, and I wrote this around lunchtime. This article in today’s Saint Petersburg Times, aside from being generally depressing, shows several of the problems this case has created.

Disclaimer: I am not qualified to give legal advice, comment on legal considerations, discuss Terri Schiavo’s medical status, or any of a host of other things; consequently I'll do my best to avoid doing such things. Bill Frist, also, is not qualified to describe Schiavo’s medical state on the basis of some video footage, and should likewise shut his pandering little mouth. Further, vast amounts of empirical evidence show that fame begets neither wisdom nor empathy; based on this, Mel Gibson, Patricia Heaton, and everybody else in Hollywood should go back to making movies and keep their idiot opinions to themselves.

1. I’ll quote from the article. “One woman was arrested Tuesday for trespassing after trying to bring Schiavo a cup of water, and another group claimed they would risk arrest in a similar manner later Wednesday morning.”
This is very sad. This is pure evidence that the people, the protestors and demonstrators and self appointed caring few who want to “save” Terri, don’t even understand the most basic aspects of her situation. Had that good Samaritan woman succeeded, or were the second group to do so, and actually get a cup of water to Terri, how would they give it to her? Doctors have said that the feeding tube is necessary to prevent Terri from suffocating on water or food, because she cannot control her swallowing reflex even though she does swallow. Her most recent guardian ad litem said last night on NPR that Terri could swallow her own saliva, but could not safely be relied upon to swallow food or liquids given to her. The good Samaritans, who hope to demonstrate their caring by breaking a blockade to give what they surely feel is much needed medical aid to this woman, could succeed only in killing her. Everyone not intimately involved in this case needs to dial down the rhetoric, step back from the protest line, and learn more about what is involved here before they start taking rash actions that create bigger problems.

2. I’ll quote again. “‘This is a clear-cut case of judicial tyranny,’ said Tammy Melton, 37, a high school teacher from Monterey, Tenn.”
How so? The denial of motion was in fact the appropriate legal action. Judge Whittemore and the 11th Circuit had little real legal recourse in their opinions to order the tube reinserted. Furthermore, what exactly makes Tammy Melton, a high school teacher, an expert in legal theory? Why is she qualified to decide what is and is not judicial tyranny? And what decision is she referring to? There have been almost a dozen judicial actions in this case over the last decade, generally all in agreement that Terri Schiavo had expressed a desire not to be kept alive artificially, that Michael Schiavo is her legal guardian, that the legislature of the state cannot intervene in the domestic dispute, and that there are no federal issues involved in this case. One judge may be accused of judicial tyranny. Several judges in multiple courts over a span of several years are probably not colluding to kill an innocent, though I imagine Tammy Melton thinks they are. Tammy Melton is almost certainly repeating some mantra spewed out on right-wing talk radio in the last few days. The coarsening of culture has less to do with curse words and sex than it does with our inability to express fully formed opinions and our consequent reliance on half-truths and sound bites.

3. The above aside, there have been some questionable legal circumstances surrounding this issue. Leaving the medical issues out of it (since there is much controversy about which medical diagnosis is most correct), the one solid judicial problem I’ve seen is that Mr. Schiavo committed Mrs. Schiavo to a hospice without a formal legal placement proceeding. This is in violation of Florida Statute 744.3215 para. 4a. However, it is possible, perhaps even likely, that there was specific authority from the court allowing him to do this. In the morass of half-true “news” reports on this topic, I’ve been unable to clarify this situation. If this is what Tammy Melton is referring to when she speaks of tyranny, then she’s smarter than I give her credit for.

In the last few days I’ve heard this case compared to that of Elian Gonzalez (I've also heard Terri Schiavo compared to Jesus Christ, so let's not go overboard on the value of comparisons). I think Elian Gonzalez is a fair comparison, in that it’s a domestic dispute that’s been seized on by politicians and turned into a media circus. This is the disaster of the 24-hour news cycle, and it’s rarely mentioned in journalism classes that I've seen. There are whole courses on the 24-hour news cycle, but rarely is it mentioned that the cycle actually forces the creation of news where there had not been news before. Call me an alarmist, but the way the television news programs seize on these little domestic disputes until they’re larger than the entire war on terror… it seems like it’s just a few more steps to news agencies actually going out and starting fires so they can cover them. I’m sure I’ve read some sci-fi short story about this. I’d like to term this the “Frankennews Effect,” which I just came up with and think is particularly clever.

I'd like to close with the following quote from long-time political blogger Ron Gunzberger: "I cannot think of a single illness that was cured or major medical decision that was improved upon by the interjection of politicians." Amen to that.