Schiavo Columns

Here are a couple of columns about the Terri Schiavo case that are well worth reading:

• Patterico has this column on CaliforniaRepublic.org: Fighting For Her Life - Inflicting 'Capital Punishment' on Terri Schiavo. Patterico points out why it was appropriate for Gov. Bush and the Florida legislature to step in in this case:

  But the situation is quite different for Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband obtained court approval to have her feeding tube removed - and would even have been worse had she been a resident of California. Unlike a convicted murderer, Ms. Schiavo was ordered to die based on the findings of a single judge, applying a standard of proof typically reserved for civil cases involving monetary awards, rather than life-or-death issues. If the political left had its way, Ms. Schiavo's death warrant could not be countermanded by the governor, as could occur in a criminal case. Finally, Ms. Schiavo was ordered to die in a way -- forced starvation and dehydration -- that would never be tolerated as a means of executing a murderer. Worst of all, a patient in Ms. Schiavo's position in California would likely receive even less protection under the law than Ms. Schiavo has received in Florida. [...]

  If issues of similar significance were raised in a capital murder case, calling into question whether courts were correct to order a death sentence, liberals would rush into action to prevent the possibility of an unjust execution. But here, where the person condemned to die was not convicted of murder, the political left seems eager to ignore any suggestion that the courts might be wrong. When Governor Bush acted to save Terri Schiavo's life, howls of outrage from the left were heard from coast to coast.

• Nat Hentoff on the Schiavo case: Lying about Terri Schiavo.
  

  For 13 years, Terri Schiavo has not been able to speak for herself. But she is not brain-dead, not in a comatose state, not terminal, and not connected to a respirator. If the feeding tube is removed, she will starve to death. Whatever she may or may not have said, did she consider food and water "artificial means?"

  The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy—denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit—she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive.

  Terri is responsive, beyond mere reflexes. Having this degree of sentience, if she is starved to death, she will not "die in peace" as The New York Times predicts in an uninformed October 23 editorial supporting the husband. What happens to someone who can feel pain during the process of starvation is ghastly.
  

  
  (Via Open Book.)