Schiavo and the Rule of Law


I have been saying for some time now that if you oppose the politics of Conservative Nation, the best way to defeat it is to let them have their way, but not without clear objection. Conservative Nation’s politics is extreme and focused on such a small minority of the population that to let them have their way is to give them enough rope to hang themselves.

There would be no point in rehashing the Schiavo case here, as people likely have their own thoughts on the matter that are, by this time, well formed. Suffice it to say that all of the state and federal courts that have considered the matter, some several times, have concluded that Ms. Schiavo received a fair trial, there was more than sufficient evidence to allow the Order to remove her feeding tube and thereby allow her to die naturally, and that no other right remains that should disturb that final judgment. The case has proceeded for almost a decade and Ms. Schiavo has remained in her vegetative state for approximately fifteen years.

For whatever their individual motives, the Florida legislature, the Governor of Florida, the Congress and the President of the United States, have all gone to extraordinary lengths to change the judgments having been rendered by the courts. None have succeeded because, essentially, the courts have upheld the rule of law and their own function to decide cases based upon the law and the facts presented to them and not upon the forces of politics.

Now, AO (Ann Coulter – see other articles below for the initials AO) suggests that the Schiavo case is tantamount to a civil rights case in the 1960s and that “there is nothing in the law, the Constitution or the concept of "federalism" that mandates giving courts the last word. Other public officials, including governors and presidents, are sworn to uphold the law, too.” (“Starved for Justice,” Thursday, March 27, 2005).

Regarding her first point, she is correct, but not in the way she intends, to the extent that the right of Terri Schiavo to refuse medical treatment and to be allowed to die with dignity in the circumstances she has been in for the past fifteen years is her right under the Constitution (oh, by the way, the Constitution does not expressly say that, but the Supreme Court has). She has been trying to exercise that right for the past eight or nine years. AO is more concerned about the rights of others to control Ms. Schiavo’s decisions for their own motives, whether good, bad or indifferent.

Regarding her second point, both under principles of the separation of powers and federalism, each branch of government upholds the law according to the powers granted to it and no further. And, since 1803, a decision of the Supreme Court that has been the law since at least that time, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution. AO knows all of this. She is a highly trained and experienced lawyer, who clerked for an appellate court judge and was the editor of her law review at the University of Michigan, one of our great law schools. So, who is she kidding?

Presumably, AO is now so firmly entrenched for the fanatics of Conservative Nation that she is willing to abandon what she must know to be true in order to side with their causes, whatever her motives, good, bad or indifferent. I must assume that she would defend to her last contract the right of the Governor and the President to say to hell with the courts and to send in the troops to remove Ms. Schiavo from her hospice bed, to have State employed doctors reinsert the tube, and to keep her alive for as long as her parents, or in their absence, the State might decide.

Thankfully, neither the Governor nor the President has suggested that he would go to such lengths. Even the lengths they have gone to so far have prolonged the agony of the case. But, my point is that if they did and AO would defend them in their pursuits, the American public would get a better view of the nature of the government they have elected.

One last point: AO’s comments that “the husband also happened to be the only person present when the oxygen was cut off to Terri's brain in the first place. He now has two children with another woman;” and “despite all those years of important, searching litigation we keep hearing about, Terri has yet to receive either an MRI or a PET scan — although she may be allowed to join a support group for women whose husbands are trying to kill them;” and not to be outdone by the comment that “Gov. Mitt Romney will never recover from his acquiescence to the Massachusetts Supreme Court's miraculous discovery of a right to gay marriage. Neither will Gov. Bush if he doesn't stop the torture and murder of Terri Schiavo;” (Starved for Justice, ibid.) are almost unbelievable. The claim that Michael Schiavo might have killed his wife and the comparison of court decisions regarding gay marriage with the life of Terri Schiavo is, in my mind, evidence of a desperate and perhaps unbalanced person.