ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 23, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Leave it to Congress to reduce tragedy to farce.
Leave it to Congress to summon Terri Schiavo to leave Florida, where she is on a feeding tube, and testify in Washington even though she has spent the last 15 years in a persistent vegetative state, a state also called "wakefulness without awareness."
Leave it to Congress to try to "save" the life of Terri Schiavo, who, according to her doctors, cannot think, feel or have memories. Her cerebral cortex has been reduced to liquid and destroyed.
Terri Schiavo's husband is her legal guardian and as such has a legal right to determine her medical treatment, when she is unable to. He has sworn under oath (as have two others) that when Terri Schiavo was in good health, she stated more than once she never wanted to be kept alive through artificial means should something befall her.
This is disputed by Terri Schiavo's parents, who are fighting to keep her hooked to a feeding tube, even though she could well last another 30-40 years in this vegetative state. This state is considered "far more severe than a coma," according to Reuters, which also reported: "Experts say Terri Schiavo would experience no discomfort if allowed to die, as the part of her brain that experiences pain is unlikely to be functioning."
The state courts have ruled on behalf of her husband time after time.
But Congress rushed back into session last weekend to pass what would appear to be an obviously unconstitutional bill to move the case to federal court. The president, according to the White House, was roused from bed after Congress acted, went into the hallway to sign the bill into law, and then went back to bed.
There are (at least) two questions here: First, where does Congress get the power to assign cases within the judicial system? Where does the legislative branch get to determine how the judicial branch shall act?
Second, where does Congress get the power to determine the proper medical treatment for individuals? Whatever happened to the sanctity of the family?
Let's say your child falls ill and one doctor recommends a high-risk operation to save him and another doctor says it would be best to wait.
Should Congress be able to pass a law forcing you to make your child undergo the high-risk operation? Is that the proper role of Congress? Should Congress be able to take such a decision out of your hands and assume it knows better than you what is best for your child, even though they have never met your child?
And wasn't there a guy - - pretty popular, as I recall - - named Ronald Reagan who said the federal government should get out of our lives? So why is government intervening in a medical decision made by a woman's legal guardian and upheld by the courts?
Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, knows. Frist - - who mentions at least every 15 minutes that he's a doctor - - moved the farce into the realm of the truly grotesque when, having never met or examined Terri Schiavo, having seen only highly-edited home movies of her taken by her parents, Frist made a medical diagnosis:
"Speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. Senator," Frist said from the Senate floor, he thought there was "insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state."
You mean all those doctors who have examined her over the past 15 years are lying or mistaken? Only the all-powerful, all-knowing Frist can make a correct medical diagnosis - - and without ever having examined the patient?
Frist, who has plenty of time to fly around the country and make speeches in preparation for his 2008 presidential campaign, apparently did not have the time to fly to Florida to see Terry Schiavo.
But he really didn't need to. Because his decision had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with politics: the political need to curry favor with Christian conservatives, who want to keep Terri Schiavo on her feeding tube.
Many Democrats, who don't want to get caught on the "wrong" side of a "values" fight, are cowering, keeping silent or supporting the Republicans.
Fear and politics, not sense and compassion, are ruling Congress these days.
What a shock.