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March 20, 2005

Fucking Hypocracy of the Right-to-Lifers!

And no, I'm not going to apologize for the profanity in the title. I am beyond infuriated at the moment.

I'm sure you've all heard about the fight over Terri Schiavo that's been going on for 15 years. Her husband - who is her legal guardian - petitioned the court several years ago to determine, if they could, whether Terri would want to be kept alive in a persistant vegatative state or not. The court, after hearing witness from both sides, determined that it would be Terri's desire to be allowed to die. Her parents didn't like that decision, so they started fighting to keep her alive, even though significant portions of her upper brain, which controls all of the voluntary functions, has died and atrophied to the point where it has been replaced by cebro-spinal fluid. While her parents maintain that there is hope she might regain functioning, that hope is unfounded since a body cannot regrow brain tissue and she no longer has the physical brain components that would allow her to have any conscious thought or engage in any voluntary actions. During the course of their fight, the initial decision by the court has been reviewed by higher courts and they have upheld the judge's ruling. And for those who believe that part of her husband's motivation is that he'll inherit money from a trust fund created after winning a malpractice suit over her initial treatment, there's virtually nothing left in the trust fund, and currently her care is being paid for by a combination of Medicaid and the hospice where she is being cared for (who are providing her room and board for free, as they will not turn away any patients.)

Right now, Congress is rushing to pass a bill to let Terri's parents take their fight to Federal court, and President Bush has changed his schedule so that he can be back in Washington to sign it if is passes.

Already rebuffed by the highest federal and state courts, DeLay and other Republican members of Congress pushed ahead throughout the day and into the night with their legislative crusade on behalf of the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.

Their objective: pass a bill that would cloak Schiavo - and only Schiavo - in some degree of federal protection and allow her parents to seek federal appeal of their legal setbacks in Florida courts.

DeLay and other Republicans said the bill had considerable Democratic support, largely because it was tailored for Schiavo and would not necessarily set a wider precedent.

The Senate session Saturday evening was convened to formally give necessary permission for the House to meet today, when it otherwise would be in recess under a previous Easter recess resolution.

The plan is for the House to act on the two-page bill today, or just after midnight Monday morning if someone objects to the bill being taken up on an expedited basis today.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said the Senate then would act on the House legislation today, assuming it passes the House as envisioned, and rush the bill to the president for signature into law. Otherwise, he said the Senate will meet again after the House acts early Monday.

The levels of hypocracy surrounding this case are astounding. Much of the furor about the Schiavo case is being made by Republicans, other conservatives, right-to-life groups and religious activists. Many of these same groups also oppose gay marriage on the grounds that it violates the "sanctity of marriage". Part of the sanctity of marriage, though, is that the husband and wife are to care for each other and - when one cannot make a decision for themselves - the other spouse has the right to make decisions on behalf of the incapacitated spouse. Additionally, many of these same groups oppose measures such as government subsidised medical care, even when it means that a patient - who is fully alive and capable of contributing to society - has their life shortened considerably because they cannot afford the treatment or medications necessary to halt or slow the progress of a fatal disease. Yet in the Shiavo case, where Terri has no hope of being a functional individual ever again and where her husband has had the decision made by the court and wishes to enforce what has been legally held to be wife's desire regarding her care, here come the Republicans et. al. trying to strip him of his marital rights and keep her alive, even though its now costing taxpayers and the hospice around $80,000 a year to do so.

But that's not the worst of it. Not even close.

Back in 1996, then-Governor Bush signed into Texas Law a measure that allows hospitals to override a family's wishes when it comes to the care being provided for their loved one. This measure was supported by - among others - the National Right to Life Society (one of the prime supporters of Terri Schiavo's parents fight to keep Terri "alive"), yet it allows hospitals to terminate care for patients over the objections of their families:

if an attending physician disagrees with a surrogate over a life-and-death treatment decision, there must be an ethics committee consultation (with notice to the surrogate and an opportunity to participate). In a futility case such...in which the treatment team is seeking to stop treatment deemed to be nonbeneficial, if the ethics committee agrees with the team, the hospital will be authorized to discontinue the disputed treatment (after a 10-day delay, during which the hospital must help try to find a facility that will accept a transfer of the patient)

In other words, if Terri Schiavo's parents were her legal guardians and if the family lived in Texas, then even though they may want to fight to keep Terri alive, her doctors could meet with an ethics committee, demonstrate that continued care is - in their opinion - futile, and disconnect her life support without regard to her family's wishes.

Sadly, this isn't just a hypothetical situation. TWICE this month, patients whose families wanted them to be kept alive have, instead, faced having life support withdrawn at the insistance of the doctors. In one case, a six-month old child was removed from life support over his mother's wishes. The child had been born with a severe form of dwarfism that is virtually always fatal shortly after birth, and, in truth, it was probably a kindness that the child was allowed to die. Yet none of those who blather on endlessly about the importance of a "culture of life" stepped up to try and help save this child. It was the first case in the nation where a hospital was allowed to forcibly remove a child from life support over the family's objections.

In the other case, a 68-year-old man is in a vegatative state, and his family, again, wants to keep him alive. Again, it would probably be a kindness to allow the man to die with dignity, but it shouldn't be anyone's decision except the family's. The hospital initially was to pull his breathing and feeding tubes on March 11th, but decided to give the family a bit of extra time to try to find another facility that will accept him as a patient. As of Friday, however, a judge has said that they will have until this coming Wednesday to provide proof that they have found another facility, or his life support will be removed. Once again, there has been no hue-and-cry from the Right-to-Lifers, conservatives, evangelicals or anyone else who seems so determined to see Terri Schiavo stay alive.

The blatant hypocricy of the entire situation is summed up nicely by two statements made earlier by Tom DeLay in regards to the Schiavo case:

A death row inmate has more of a process to go through than Terri Schiavo does

and

We should exhaust every avenue before we take a life of a human being

Well, it perfectly clear that a death row inmate - and even Terri Schiavo - have gone through a much greater process than the infant who died earlier this week or the old man scheduled to die next week, unless his family can find another place to care for him. And they certainly went through more of a process than the thousands of others every year who are taken off of life support at their family's request without any court or governmental intervention. And if we should be exhausting every avenue before we take someone's life, shouldn't those in Texas hospitals who's doctors think there's no hope, but who's families want them kept alive anyway have that same kind of protection? Currently they don't, and no one seems to care. (And it could also be argued that, since in all of these cases the person's life is being "taken" by denying them medical care, then denying someone medical care should be considered "taking" their life - meaning that by refusing to provide coverage for certain treatments or medications, or providing inadequate coverage to ensure a person is allowed to "exhaust every avenue" would - by Mr. DeLay's standard above, be considered wrong. But that's a whole different argument.)

The bottom line here is that there needs to be a single standard for how these cases are handled, and its a very simple standard. The person's legal guardian - their spouse if they're married, their oldest child if they are unmarried and have children, or their parents, if they are unmarried and don't have children - should be the one who makes the call, and everyone else should be expected to respect that decision.

A few years ago, my husband's family had to make a decision about continuing to treat his mother or removing her from life support. The situation was not NEARLY as clear cut as the Schiavo case, or even the two Texas cases, and I admit, I have been troubled by their decision to let her go. The thing is, though, I knew it wasn't my decision to make, and whether I approved of it or not was - as it should be - irrelevent. Sure, I could have tried to talk them into changing their minds, but that should be the extent of any action I - or anyone else - could take because it's THEIR CHOICE. By the same token, I think that many families try to keep people alive longer than they really "should", but again, it's not my call to make, it's theirs!

Deciding when or whether to let a loved one die is a hard enough decision without having to worry that the government and assorted other groups are going to get themselves involved in it. It's made even harder when you have no way of knowing whether the objection would be to trying to keep someone alive or to trying to let someone die.

If the Right-to-Lifers, conservatives, Republicans and their allies want to be taken seriously when it comes to their "culture of life" rallying cry, then they MUST start having some kind of sensible rationale to when it does and doesn't apply. It's well known that they want to put an end to abortions under pretty much any circumstance, yet once a child is born, they don't really care if the child has adequate food, shelter and care. They want - in some cases - for people to be kept alive when there is no hope for them, but in other cases, want life support terminated when the family wants to keep going. They don't object to fertility clinics throwing away unused embryos, but if you want to use those very same embryos to try and find ways to possibly treat illnesses and save lives, its considered an abomination. And they really don't seem to care if people have adequate medical care or not, even if a lack of such care means that an otherwise contributing member of society faces a greatly shortened life. And they generally support the death penalty, even though its been shown with DNA evidence that many death row inmates were not guilty of the crimes they were convicted for and that the system of applying the death penalty is both flawed and biased against the poor and minorities.

Until they make up their minds about what they believe, they should stay out of everyone else's business.

Posted by thorswitch at March 20, 2005 10:20 AM

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