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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Harsh Feelings

Harsh Feelings

by John Cole|  June 15, 20059:49 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

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If you want an idea how harsh the sentiments are regarding the Schiavo case, look at this completely irrational post by the normally excessively rational Tacitus:

The results of Terri Schiavo’s autopsy are in, and it appears that the poor woman was in even a more frightful state than was assumed: she was blind, her brain was shrunk to half size by weight, and she could not have ingested sustenance without the infamous tube. What, then, does this change in hindsight on the pro-life case for keeping her alive?

Precisely nothing.

Well, he is right, in a sense. We knew all of the things the report stated prior to her death (with the exception of an outright declaration that she was blind, but even that was consistent with the findings of the guardian ad litem report). Some chose not to accept it.

Those claiming vindication for their advocacy of Schiavo’s killing

No one killed her.

by virtue of this autopsy must ipso facto accept one of several monstrous premises: either that humanity is not something intrinsic, but dependent upon function; or that humanity’s intrinsic nature is irrelevant as it is not worth preserving per se; or that humanity is worth preserving per se, but not so worth preserving as to grant its existence the benefit of the doubt in doubtful cases.

A false dichotomy followed by a gross misrepresentation of facts. The notion that Terri Schiavo was not given the benefit of the doubt, and that there was somehow a rush to judgement through the dozens of hearings and appeals and examinations over all these years is, to a word, absurd. I have come to expect such absurdities in this case.

Terri Schiavo was given the benefit of more due process and more doubt than anyone I can recall, and it was only after the husband, the reputable members of the medical community (roughly, just about everyone whose last name was not Frist), and the judicial system all came to the same conclusion that she was allowed to die. That conclusion was that she was medically a hopeless case and that she herself would not have wanted to exist in her current condition.

This is, in turn, a utilitarian evil, a nihilistic evil, and an apathetic evil. Ronald Reagan, in explaining why those who doubted the humanity of the fetus should be against abortion, asked whether, if one did not know what was in a paper bag, if one would nonetheless kick it.

We know what was in the bag, and it was not Terri Schiavo, unfortunately. It was, quite awful as it is to face, nothing. Terri Schiavo had left for a better place long before, and even, in the extremely completely unlikely case she was still trapped inside her body, it was determined that she would not have wanted to exist in that state. That determination is the only thing that remains even remotely arguable, as the medical evidence is conclusive beyond any shadow of a doubt.

We know: there are those who would kick it, and kick it hard.

Just snide nastiness that is patently offensive. No one I know wanted Terri Schiavo to die. No one helped her on her way. No one did anything to cause Terri Schiavo to die. You can keep saying it over and over again, but a feeding tube is life support. The only kicking was the kicking around of the medical community, Michael Schiavo, the judges, and the legal system by a loud group of reactionaries who chose to make this poor family’s problems a cause, a battle ground, and a prize to be won at all cost.

They won this fight, a woman is dead — a woman, not a “vegetable,” nor a “shell,” nor a “body,” nor any other euphemistic noun meant to distract from the essence of what was done to whom — and the proponents of that death are claiming the vindication of their victory.

What did ‘they’ win? This betrays what was really the purpose of this nasty protracted battle by the Right to Life folks- not the safety and security and dignity of Terri Schiavo, but the larger issue of their definition of life. They were using this woman in a cynical battle of their own choosing, they pretended their motives were pure and that they were worried about Terri, and now that it is all over, and all the strawmen have been burned, all the insults have been flung, all the lies have been pointed out, they admit, or at least Tacitus will, that this was all about a larger political agenda.

Because, you see, she wasn’t much of a woman. Not much of a person. Not much of a soul. The pitiable irony is that in asserting this, the continued existence whose justification they most undercut is their own.

No, she wasn’t much of a woman to many of them. She was a political prop.

These hamhanded attempts to seize some sort of moral high ground really betray the actual intentions of the Right to Life and ‘Terri Must Live’ crowd. Why else try to tell those who felt this was an intimate family decision that they ‘killed’ Terri Schiavo. Why?

Because, even if Terri was completely brain dead and not just in a PVS, they would insist that she be kept alive. This isn’t about a moral high ground or a moral principle, this is about who gets to determine what is moral and who gets to determine what life really is and what life is worth living. While the Right to Life crew may have come to terms with moral absolutes regarding what life is (see the debate over when life begins), the rest of us don’t have such a clear-cut viewpoint of what life is and isn’t.

Life, for me at least, can not be reduced to a beating heart or a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human. Regardless, someone elses moral certainty about what life is does not give them the legal right to impose that viewpoint on other people. Michael and Terri Schiavo were not to be afforded the right to do what they felt was best in this situation, because Michael and Terri Schiavo’s concept of life differed from what some in the Right to Life community believe.

Terri Schiavo had to be kept alive because of THEIR moral beliefs, not hers and her husbands. And because we didn’t allow or accept a political (and had they had their way, a judicial) assault on the most personal aspect of someone’s existence, their mortality and how to handle their end-of-life decisions, we are to be shamed. Because we didn’t have the necessary arrogance to tell Terri and Michael Schiavo to live by someone elses definition of life, we are villains. Because we felt that personal decisions should remain personal (to the extent that the Florida legal system allowed them to remain personal), we support a culture of death. It is nonsense, it is offensive, and it can’t go unchallenged.

And that is all I am going to say about Terri Schiavo, absent some egregious silliness popping up. It is over. Let the women and her husband and her family rest in peace. I am sure you all will find someone else to use to your political ends in little or no time, but, for now, it is time to let Terri Schiavo be.

Additional thoughts can be found here, since, as I said above, I have nothing more to say.

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Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    MI

    June 15, 2005 at 10:18 pm

    I’m being kind of snarky here, but I have a difficult time believing the guy who wrote THAT is usually “..normally excessively rational..”

  2. 2.

    John Cole

    June 15, 2005 at 10:20 pm

    It is Josh Trevino, one of the most decent guys on the right side of the aisle, and he is someone whose ideas I normally respect. As a person, I have the utmost respect for Josh.

    Except he is just dead wrong in this case.

  3. 3.

    MI

    June 15, 2005 at 10:23 pm

    I’ll take your word for it and give him an honest read. But that is some really out there shit. Your rebuttal was right on.

  4. 4.

    MI

    June 15, 2005 at 10:25 pm

    And sorry to the grammar folks out there for my unneeded and awkward “usually.”

  5. 5.

    Brad R.

    June 15, 2005 at 10:26 pm

    John’s right- Tacitus is one of the most consistently readable right-wing bloggers. I’m pretty shocked by this Malkinesque turn…

  6. 6.

    Pete Guither

    June 15, 2005 at 11:22 pm

    Following the House vote today to continue harassing medical marijuana patients, I got a very sobering comment from a reader at my site: Isn’t it interesting that Angel Raich, totally cognizant and aware of her pain, didn’t arouse as much sympathy from our public servants as Terri Schiavo did?

    I didn’t have an answer.

  7. 7.

    Jon H

    June 15, 2005 at 11:39 pm

    “John’s right- Tacitus is one of the most consistently readable right-wing bloggers.”

    Used to be. At some point last year, the party-line brain eater got him. He went from “conservative” to GOP, which isn’t the same thing.

  8. 8.

    jcricket

    June 16, 2005 at 12:19 am

    As usual Joh, you’re right on about how the BS “right to life” crowd only “wins” this argument by spinning up strawmen and feeble slippery slope arguments. They flout well established case law, medical evidence, not to mention completly ignoring any individual right to self-determination issues. I wouldn’t want a single one of these idiots to diagnose my pet fish, let alone take care of a dying relative.

    Of course, from my side of the aisle, I’m not surprised. I’ve always known that they wouldn’t be satisfied with just banning abortion. All our lives are just props in their “holy crusade” to impose their beliefs on us. No abortion, no birth control, no comfort at the end-of-life, no sex outside of covenant marriages, no IVF, public stoning for gays and shunning of divorcees and “adulterers” (unless it’s Newt or Rush). I’m sure it’s all coming soon enough.

    Oh, I forgot, except if it’s a dark-skinned guy on death row. Then let’s fry ’em. Then there’s also sorts of “solid reasoning” and “qualifications on the culture of life” that comes into play. But not here.

    Not surprising, coming from the party of Reagan. Seriously, he’s the first one to start encouraging this wing of your party.

  9. 9.

    M. Scott Eiland

    June 16, 2005 at 12:42 am

    For the record, Tacitus is strongly opposed to the death penalty, so he certainly can’t be accused of hypocrisy on those grounds. When he says he believes in the sanctity of life–whether it involves the unborn or the lives of convicted murderers–he means it.

  10. 10.

    Kimmitt

    June 16, 2005 at 12:43 am

    MI — I have something of an ongoing discussion of Tacitus at my blog over the past few days. Feel free to stop by; I don’t want to rip on someone Cole respects in his comments section.

  11. 11.

    Bonnie

    June 16, 2005 at 1:08 am

    John,

    Excellent post. I agree with almost everything you say, but I must point out that there is a real and important distinction between ” a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human” and the tragic case of Terri Schiavo. That distinction lies in the word “potential”. Terri Schiavo’s potential was, sadly, gone years before her body was allowed to die. The “cluster of cells” lodged in a woman’s uterus is all potential. That makes abortion a tougher sell for me.

  12. 12.

    CaseyL

    June 16, 2005 at 1:24 am

    I don’t know what happened to Tac, but it must have been something dreadful. He’s all snark these days, dropping in to other blogs to drop self-satisfied sneers and then vanish again. Maybe he did sell his intellectual integrity down the river in order to be a GOP Booster; I just don’t find him readable anymore.

  13. 13.

    MMGood

    June 16, 2005 at 2:23 am

    I’m at a loss to explain how Tacitus could square this position with his advocacy for the war. If a single life is worth so much that even her own wish to end it should not be granted, then how can there ever be war — since civilians, who have _not_ asked to be killed will inevitably be killed. I don’t get it.

  14. 14.

    p.lukasiak

    June 16, 2005 at 5:12 am

    Trevino may use big words, but he is pure wingnut.

    Like many once-reasonable conservatives, when confronted with the fact that the liberals have been right about the disasterous nature of the Bush regime, he couldn’t handle it. Rather than admit he was wrong, he has gravitated to those who will continue to affirm his prior opinions — and those folks are the wingnuts.

  15. 15.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 16, 2005 at 9:03 am

    I think Lukasiak scores here, and it’a too bad.

    I wonder what the Schiavo cult will say when medical science has the ability to keep a corpse’s heart beating indefinitely?

  16. 16.

    Jon H

    June 16, 2005 at 9:29 am

    “I wonder what the Schiavo cult will say when medical science has the ability to keep a corpse’s heart beating indefinitely?”

    Hell, what’ll they do when science has the ability to keep a lone organ alive indefinitely?

    “You can’t unplug Jenny!”
    “But, all that’s left is a gallbladder…”
    “But she’s alive! Who are you to declare that “life” only counts if you’re whole? Who are you to say that a few ounces of gallbladder tissues doesn’t count as being alive? I had my wisdom teeth removed, does that make me expendable? She’s living the best life she can, don’t you take it away from her!”

  17. 17.

    Geek, Esq.

    June 16, 2005 at 10:30 am

    Trevino is a very lucid writer and strikes me as a very principled commentator.

    That said, that essay was just goofballs. The idea that the definition of human life must include some notion of sentience or awareness is hardly worth describing as “evil.”

    Trevino’s notion is anti-humanist: it reduces humanity to nothing more than its component cells. Under his conception, to be human means nothing more than having the most minimal biological functions.

  18. 18.

    bains

    June 16, 2005 at 11:40 am

    I found South Park’s summation of the Schivo contraversy quite apt. One side was wrong for all the right reasons, the other side right for all the wrong reasons.

  19. 19.

    RSA

    June 16, 2005 at 1:16 pm

    Nice post, John.

    From Tacitus’s post: “Ronald Reagan, in explaining why those who doubted the humanity of the fetus should be against abortion, . . .”

    I find this especially deceptive, in suggesting that those who think an early stage embryo is not a person is in doubt about its being a human being. For many (most?) it’s that we’ve made a judgment, and there’s little if any doubt involved. Disagreement between two philosophical poles, with no reasonable expectation of logical resolution, doesn’t constitute doubt on one side. One might ask, by analogy, “Isn’t it possible that animals (and perhaps even plants) have souls? If you can’t prove otherwise, why aren’t you a vegetarian (or even a fruitarian)? Go ahead, kick that bag.”

  20. 20.

    patrick

    June 16, 2005 at 4:03 pm

    As a Catholic, and what I consider a true libertarian (socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and belief in the rights of the individual), my personal feelings is the right to life from the beginning of human cognition (whenever that happens and an embryo/fetus is more than just a bunch of cells–when it becomes “human”), to natural death, this case, Terry died naturally. she was being kept alive by artificial means, and after the courts decided she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means, the wingnuts tried to intervene but failed. My view also with medical marijuana or gay marriage is get out of my life, out of my bedroom, if I am not hurting anyone or infringing on the rights of others, it’s none of your business….but I agree with anti-smoking bans, because secondhand smoke infringes on many people’s right to enjoy a public place, especially if they have allergies or asthma. gay “marriage” (Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman and God…going down to a Justice of the peace or getting a marriage license does not mean you’re Married, but rather married (little m) which is nothing more than a civil contract between two people for certain dependency, tax, and inheritence benefits, and shouldn’t be used to descriminate based on sexual preference. what’s next? christians can only legally marry (civil union) other christians? sorry, I got off topic.

  21. 21.

    Tacitus

    June 19, 2005 at 7:41 pm

    Whenever I doubt the fundamental foolishness of man, I need only turn to the fundamentally foolish who say that I’m a tool of the party establishment(!), or that I an in denial about the disastrous mediocrity of the Bush Administration. This sort of nonsense is de rigeur for Lukasiak, but I’m not sure anyone else has an excuse.

    In any case, John, two points:

    1) It is immensely disingenuous to assert that Schiavo was not killed, unless you assert a separability between herself per se and her body — in which case the “respecting wishes” logic become somewhat tenuous.

    2) You’re a full-fledged Editor at RS just as I am — remember you’re free to cross-post as it pleases you there. Even this.

  22. 22.

    John Cole

    June 19, 2005 at 7:59 pm

    Tacitus- I reformatted and lost my password and login, or I would have.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Game the World says:
    June 15, 2005 at 11:06 pm

    Which Question When

    The autopsy of Terri Schiavo has been released. For those who felt strongly about one position or another, this changes squat.

  2. Right Wing Nut House says:
    June 16, 2005 at 7:04 am

    LIFE, DEATH, AND TERRI SCHIAVO

    The Terri Schiavo autopsy report that was made public yesterday has many in the shadow media gloating and some, like myself and a few other secular social conservatives, reflecting on what the fight meant then and what it will mean for the future.

    W…

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