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Fighting for life: Terri Schiavo and the courts

Date published: 3/11/2005

America's conscience

Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.

--James Clarence Mangan (1803-49), Irish poet

WHEN THE OLD Hebrew king was asked to determine the true mother of a contested baby, he said, chillingly, "Bring me a sword!" The resulting protestations of course proved maternity and cemented Solomon's reputation for wisdom.

If only America's courts were so sage. For in the tug of war over the life of Terri Schiavo, wisdom seems to have abdicated its throne. The Florida woman suffered brain damage 15 years ago, and for the last decade her husband and her parents have battled over her fate. Michael Schiavo says Terri would have rejected "life-prolonging medical procedures." He wants her feeding tube removed. Terri's parents, the Schindlers, object, asserting, in a replay of Virginia's Hugh Finn struggle, that their daughter is aware of her surroundings and deserves at least minimal care--feeding and hydration.

Florida's courts repeatedly have sided with Mr. Schiavo, fixing on a few vague oral statements Terri allegedly made while healthy. But perhaps the finding of the 2nd District Court reflects the judges' true thinking:

"In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after 10 years in a persistent vegetative statewith no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to consider the constant nursing care and the supporting tubesor whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives."

The court inferred the latter. In other words, this woman's case is hopeless; it's time to be done with it and let everyone get on with his or her life.

Theologian Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, in their book "Whatever Happened to the Human Race?" write that every nation and every age is ultimately judged by one criterion: "The final measure of man's humanity is how humanely people treat one another."

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Date published: 3/11/2005