Mixed Media: the right to be kept alive

POLITICAL INTRUSION INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPER: The law is a bold intrusion by Congress into a heavily litigated and finally adjudicated state court proceeding. It raises questions about Congress's conception of its own power, about what federalism and the separation of powers mean and about the legislative calculus that allows intervention into one life-and-death human drama and not others.

"It is a basic principle of our legal system," said Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, "that no legislature may intervene in the most personal and intimate choices that individuals and families make except pursuant to neutral and general laws, laws that draw lines capable of justification in principled terms."

* International Herald Tribune, Paris

BLOGGER'S VIEW: I strongly disagree with the decision to remove the tubes that were keeping Terri Schiavo alive, based on the potentially self-serving testimony of a husband with serious conflicts of interest. However, I don't believe it was proper for Congress to pass an ex post facto law to render ineffective the outcome of state court proceedings.

It looks like we're heading for a terrible result here. Congress has passed legislation that raises serious federalism and rule-of-law concerns. And Terri Schiavo is probably going to die at the hands of the state anyway.

* Deacon on http://powerlineblog.com

ONLINE COMMENT: This matter would have been settled years ago were it not for Terri's parents taking the kitchen sink approach and throwing every frivolous appeal at the court that they could think of.

Two trials have been held, and the court found in both cases that Terri would not want to be kept alive by these means. The court found that there was clear and convincing evidence that this was true. Personally, I would like to think that my wife would act the same way Michael Schiavo has.

* Jared on http://democracyguy.typepad.com

MEDICAL BLOGGER: I think this case has gone beyond consideration and compassion for the emotions of the family. It has gone beyond the legal decisions by the courts. It has gone beyond all ethical principles. The behaviour of the family, after all the legal and ethical decisions were made to allow patient autonomy through the substituted judgment of a legal surrogate, the husband, appears to be solely in the family's own self-interest. And this behaviour is wrong.

* Maurice Bernstein MD on bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com

VIEW FROM INDIA: Certainly, there are questions about the point at which life support systems can be withdrawn. But answers are in this case being sought on medical grounds, not subjective ones.

Allowing a loved one to die with dignity is a difficult decision for families to take. The alarming aspect then is not just, as American observers note, the spectacle of the highest legislature and executive swinging into that process of decision-making.

It is the idea of the leadership of the world's only superpower placing faith so wholesomely above science that must make us pause.

* Indian Express

Meaning of life

ON LINE COMMENT: As someone with solid liberal credentials who does support the right to die, here are the things that make me glad to have intervention in this case, even if it does come from the Christian right:

It worries me that decisions about life or death could come down to hearsay: based on a husband whose motivations might be questionable and a few reported comments, a court feels that it can come to a conclusion about the preferences of someone who cannot express them.

Schiavo's parents claim she is responsive and can even communicate, while doctors claim these movements are purely reflexes. But surely the fact that Schiavo smiles, moves, grunts and breathes on her own raises important concerns about what it means to be alive.

* Irene Perciali in www.salon.com

FLORIDA VIEW: I don't have children, but if I did, I would be doing exactly what these parents are doing.

To remove someone's feeding tube is murder.

That is forcing God's hand.

* Linda Mooney, real estate appraiser, quoted in the Florida Sun/Sentinel

COLUMNIST'S OUTRAGE: One would think that in a country where criminals on death row are afforded luxuries like television and time in the sun and where many believe that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment that they (Congress) would join people who believe that starving an innocent woman to death is equally cruel, but not in America.

What has happened to America that we have become a people who care so little about an innocent woman and say it is alright to starve her in what everyone knows will be an excruciating death.

* Steve Yuhas, a columnist quoted in opinioneditorials.com

US COMMENTATOR: It seems a poll has been taken as to the public opinion of whether to maintain or remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo.

How absolutely marvellous.

We have returned to the arena of the Gladiators.

Once again, it is up to the spectators to give thumbs-up or thumbs-down as to the life of the contestant.

* E-mail Dannabett at the link below