New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | March 31, 2006

Ron Bailey exhumes the Terry Schiavo bruhaha on the anniversary of her death.

Comments

Viking (inappropriate) Moose|3.31.06 @ 11:08AM|#

Is it time where we can market the Schiavo Brand Food Processor/Blender?

what a sad story, what a clusterfuck. KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR HEALTH CARE.

and corn syrup for everybody!

|3.31.06 @ 11:48AM|#

1. I thought the Schiavo case was completely inappropriate for Congress and they looked like idiots trying to legilate on it.

2. I think the best way to understand the "save Terri" crowd (other than grandstanding congressmen) is to understand that you do not want somebody acting as your surrogate if they stand to financially benefit from your death. I mean, if you give the financially interested person a proxy (eg, Living Will), then that person should act as proxy. However, if you haven't given a proxy, and the person making the decision about you stands to benefit financially (whether from the decision to terminate or not terminate), well hopefully you can see why that is a disturbing set of facts.

3. So what do I think? I think you give the husband the proxy in the first instance, but give other interested parties a forum for asserting that financial interests are sufficient great such that the proxy should be moved to somebody with less financial interest. However, I also think the standard for changing the proxy should be quite high -- for example, the Schiavo husband probably should have kept his proxy after a hearing. I know there was a lot of litigation on this, but I don't know whether it centered around these financial conflict issues (as it should have) or whether it was more about the metaphysical status of Terri's being (which court's are not real competent to decide either way).

4. Of course, some people seem to fail to recognize or to care about financial conflicts of interest regardless of context. those people will never understand why the "save Terri" crowd was as fired up as it was about the Schiavo case in particular.

Dan T.|3.31.06 @ 11:55AM|#

I'm inclined to say that if you don't trust your spouse to make this decision for you, get a divorce.

|3.31.06 @ 12:38PM|#

I'm inclined to say that if you don't trust your spouse to make this decision for you, get a divorce.

Ultimately, yes. But marriages can take awhile to unravel, and there are reasons to try to stick it out. Sometimes couples can get their relationships on a healthier footing and sometimes they can't. However, if the reaper comes during a period of uncertainty, well let's just say marriage is not a suicide pact.

I don't know much about the Schiavo case and not sure how much was ever made public about the marriage, but there may have been problems before the brain damage episode. This is what the parents should have had a forum for arguing -- that circumstances can make it wrong to give a spouse a proxy by default.

I think most people involved in this kind of stuf are old and not subject to maritil strife, but it seems like a real possibility in Schiavo.

I wouldn't have wanted OJ making proxy decisions for Nicole if she had been injured in the later portion of their marriage.

|3.31.06 @ 12:40PM|#

Thogmartin found that Schiavo's visual cortex was so damaged that she was almost certainly blind, though there was the very remote possibility that she did experience the phenomenon of blindsight.

Just an example of how faith seems to always trump facts: My uber-Catholic/ultra-Conservative/Repbulcian-right-or-wrong father is among those who was still livid about Schiavo's death. Apparently, he heard on that bastion of medical information, The Sean Hannity Show, that people who starve to death go blind. When the above news reached my father, it confirmed to him that Schiavo died horribly and painfully, her eyes withering away in their sockets.

No amount of medical evidence will convince his that Schiavo condition warrented removal of her feeding tube even if Michael Schiavo had the right. He believes the Michael tried to kill her and wanted her dead for the insurance money (despite the fact that it had already been spent on her treatment). He even bought into the bullshit from "Noble Prize winning doctor" William Hammesfahr that Schiavo could be rehabilitated despite the fact that the medical community considers him a quack.

|3.31.06 @ 12:42PM|#

EDIT: My uber-Catholic/ultra-Conservative/Republcian-right-or-wrong father is among those who are still livid about Schiavo's death.

|3.31.06 @ 12:44PM|#

GAH! I'm dyslexic today!

EDIT: ...Republican-right-or-wrong...

|3.31.06 @ 12:53PM|#

He believes the Michael tried to kill her and wanted her dead for the insurance money

Is this why he wanted her dead initially? How does your father know? If you know different, then how do you know different?

|3.31.06 @ 1:21PM|#

Is this why he wanted her dead initially? How does your father know?

While Terry was "alive," supports of the Schindlers (Terry's parents) accused Michael Schiavo of wanting his wife to die in order tocover up evidence that her state was due to domestic abuse. The rumors also included accusations that Micahel wanted Terry dead so he could collect on malpractice and insurance money, as so he could "shack up" with the woman he was seeing while Terry was in the hospital.

If I were Michael some heavy duty libel/slander suits would be forthcoming against those who circulated those malicious lies.

If you know different, then how do you know different?

I know differently because I trust the opinions of real doctors and real experts, not grieving parents or Bible-thumping reactionaries with a political ax to grind.

|3.31.06 @ 1:35PM|#

I know differently because I trust the opinions of real doctors and real experts, not grieving parents or Bible-thumping reactionaries with a political ax to grind.

How would the doctors know about domestic abuse? Did the doctors really say she wasn't abused or did they say they didn't know or did they even speak on the issue? Do you have a link to Schiavo doctor talking about the possibility of domestic abuse? How would the doctors know if Schiavo made plans to move in with a girlfriend prior to the episode? How would they know anything about Schiavo's other girlfriend (if any)?

I don't know what happened. However, if there is some evidence that Schiavo planned to move out and in with another woman before the attack, then I think they should revoke his proxy. It is one thing to have a spouse making your medical decisions by default. It is quite another to have a spouse you are basically separated from making these decisions. I don't know which way it was with the Schiavos, but I do know that these kinds of questions: (1) are well outside the competence of medical doctors; and (2) well within the competence of a family court.

Final note: I do understand that Michael Schiavo should have been allowed to move on with his life and get a new girlfriend at some point. I am only saying that this would be disturbing if he were trying to pull this prior to Schiavo's misadventure, or within, say, a couple weeks of it.

VM|3.31.06 @ 1:43PM|#

grind grind grind. thump thump thump. dumb dumb dumb.

ooooh. how sweet. TLB now has a partner.

|3.31.06 @ 3:29PM|#

Strangely enough, this entire Schiavo incident has left me convinced that marriage and marriage-rights belongs to the jurisdiction of the Judicial system, NOT the legislature.
Basically anybody 18 years and up should be able to enter into whatever consensual relationship they want, regardless of gender or quantity of persons. How can one legislate a relationship? The only time the government should be involved is when things awry and isn't the court the only realistic way to deal it then?

|3.31.06 @ 10:13PM|#

Because of the Schiavo incident, I told my wife and my mother my wishes when we were all together.

M. Simon|4.1.06 @ 12:32AM|#

Because of the Schiavo incident I told my wife and children that if you want me dead for my money go ahead.

|4.1.06 @ 6:57AM|#

The brewhaha over the Schiavo case represents the difference between procedural fairness and substantive fairness.

The procedural fairness view is that Terri should be maintained in her persistent veggiestate for as long as *she* would have wanted. The opinions of the doctors about her low level of mental functioning would be relevent only if that is what Terri wanted. What Michael Schiavo wanted would only be relevant to the extent that he wanted what Terri wanted (b4 the misadventure).

The substantive fairness view is that you ditch what Terri wanted and go in there and do what is fairest for everybody. If the doctors say that Terri is functioning at too low a level -- well, that is relevant if you are looking at things this way.

I submit that the procedural fairness way is a more libertarian way to view the Schiavo situation. The substantive fairness way allows the government to remove the patient's wishes from the equation too easily. I would submit that this is a form of Fyodorian "coercion."

Probably the best way to look at what Congress was doing with the Sciavo case is saying to Florida: hey, if you think *you-Florida* are the correct person to be defining Terri Sciavo's humanity, rather than respecting Terri's beliefs about the dignity to be accorded her veggieself, well 2 can play at that game -- we will just settle this democratically -- and you will not like the result at all. Since Terri was a citizen, the sentiment is a correct one on due process grounds.

|4.1.06 @ 1:53PM|#

Because of the Schiavo incident I told my wife and children that if you want me dead for my money go ahead.

LOL!