Yet another twist in Schiavo story
CNN reports that a Florida county circuit court has struck down a law passed by the Florida legislature which prevents the husband having his wife’s life-support machine turned off.
According to Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian, this law has been “condemned by civil libertarians, the legal and medical community, and queasy state legislators”. What on earth has this got to do with civil liberties? This woman is not in a persistent vegetative state – she is severely brain damaged, and is able to respond to stimuli even if on a very basic level. (The family also claim that when Terri Schiavo was told she might die, she very definitely did respond.) She also has a husband who it seems wants rid of her, because he has a girlfriend and who has had children for him.
If the American left and “civil libertarians” really are on Michael Schiavo’s side, it stands to reason why they lose elections. Exactly who has their civil liberties are in danger here – Terri, who is threatened with being starved to death, or Michael Schiavo, who, uh, won’t be able to marry the girlfriend he has been living with for the past few years? Maybe he is concerned that he won’t be able to remarry in a church, but then if he has been living in sin and having children in that state, why does he care? Why doesn’t he just get a divorce and turn his wife over to her parents who are willing to care for their daughter?
Apparently Terri Schiavo told her husband in the years before her accident that she would not want to be kept alive artificially, but according to all the reports I’ve read, there is only the husband’s word to go by on this. Goldenberg overwhelmingly takes the side of the husband, alleging that the people who side with Terri’s natural family are often evangelical Christians, the right-wing media, and other people Goldenberg finds distasteful. That may be so but should these people not be asking why these media are so popular if the “left” have such a dismal record on protecting human life – both inside and outside of the womb? This is yet another reason why we should not get too close to the liberals either here or in the USA – we may agree with them on getting rid of Bush, but there is a world of difference between us and them on, well, just about everything else.
