March 20, 2005

Before Terri Schiavo dies of starvation and thirst, there are two questions that must be answered.

1. Even if we were to concede, for the sake of argument, that this woman is irreversibly and totally vegetative, what possible objection can there be to her parents assuming custody of her and, at their own expense, taking care of her?

2. Are the members of the United States Congress so faint-hearted, feeble, and foolish that the best they can do is to get another judge involved in this case?

There must be thousands of Americans today in medically hopeless condition. Are they all to be killed? If not, are we to spare some and kill the others?

No one has made a compelling argument as to why Mrs. Schiavo must be killed. Instead, all we have is an unproven, unproveable assertion by her husband that she told him, years ago, that she would want it so. No one else heard her say this. Because the assertion cannot be proved, it has no business being in the argument.

Why should her parents not take care of her? There is simply no reasonable answer to that question.

Congress, meanwhile, has intervened--but only by kicking the case upstairs to a federal judge.

This is shameful. These are the people's elected representatives. From them we want decision, not a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Judicial lawlessness in this country has now reached the point where a lowly state judge in Florida, acting on hearsay, and in rampant defiance of a Congressional subpoena, can reach out and deprive a helpless woman of her life.

We do not want more judges involved. We have had enough of judges.

After this case, after Terri Schiavo dies according to a judge's fiat, where do we draw the line and tell the judges where to stop? What power, if any, is to be withheld from them?

If she dies, no judge can order her back to life. Our judges have not yet found a way to do that.

At every level, and now at the highest level, our elected representatives have spinelessly surrendered power to non-elected judges. If they don't intend to make decisions, they might as well stay home. At some point, they may discover that they have ceded so much authority to the judiciary that it has become impossible to restore it to the people.

It's bad enough that an innocent woman should have to die for no compelling reason.

Must our republic die with her?

Lee Duigon