The Terry Schiavo case is making me crazy. Watch out for codewords like "human rights," which is a kind of direct beam to pro-life constituencies. Watch for breathtakingly false logic, such as this response from the President: "it is wise to always err on the side of life." Actually, no, it's wise to err on the side of the law. A quaint concept, I know, but all the same, it's all we've got to work with. Her situation is sad, pitiful, and I wish it were not so, but it's been 15 years. The feeble hopes of her parents are, of course, understandable; I hope never to be in their position. But life sucks, sometimes; it's often unfair. No magic therapy will bring their daughter back to them.
The most troubling aspect of this fiasco is the stunning actions of a Congress wildly, arrogantly out of control. The claim that this legislative commando-ism does not set precedent is ridiculous. Apparently, Congress knows better than 7 years worth of ajudication by the state of Florida; apparently, the refusal of the Supreme Court to act in this case was poorly thought-out. Apparently, I've a bridge to sell you.
This sort of thing takes place all the time. Where was Congress then? I'm guessing the absence of the camera's guiding light left them lost along the way.
About Me
- Paul
- Paul Guest is the author of four volumes of poetry and a memoir. His debut, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World, was awarded the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. His second collection, Notes for My Body Double, was awarded the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His third collection, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge, was published by Ecco Press/HarperCollins in 2008. His fourth collection, Because Everything Is Terrible, was published by Diode Editions. His poems have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. His memoir, One More Theory About Happiness, was published by Ecco in May 2010 and selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. The recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Whiting Writers' Award, Guest lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
5 comments:
Bush is just trying to appease his Fundamentalist Christian cronies. I am amazed Schaivo's husband hasn't just given up the fight . . . it would be so easy to walk away. Now *that* is true love.
Hmmm... My confusion is this: Is she breathing on her own? I mean, wouldn't the choice obviously be simpler if she weren't? In that case, most people would agree, I think, that such a notion of "pulling the plug" would be just, sensible, since the body would literally not be working on its own. Here, though, the decision seems more complicated. On one hand, you could argue that she can't feed herself, but does that mean she doesn't have a right to be fed? She appears responsive in the videos I've seen, but true, her actions could simply be involuntary spontaneous movement.
I wrote a too-long diatribe and erased it. But it's making me crazy, too. Especially the "emergency legislation in response to media coverage" aspect.
Sometimes, the law is wrong. Dred Scott was the law. Jim Crow was the law. The law doesn't know everything. The law is made by people and should be questioned by people. The Florida courts were representatives of the law, but Bush and the Congress also passed a law. Just as Michael Schiavo can pursue, within the legal system, his desire to enact what he says are his wife's wishes, her parents have the right to pursue, within the legal/legislative system, their rights to oppose what he would like to do.
But her parents don't have the right, at least not with today's legal framework. Michael Schiavo is her legal guardian. Not her parents. The fact that Congress and the Present have arrogantly stuck their noses into what is a private matter is chilling. What next? Where does it end?
Post a Comment