[Mb-civic] Schiavo - Two Republicans and dying decency - FT Andrew Shrimsley

[Alexander Harper]

Two Republicans and dying decency

 

 
 
 
 
 
At the time of writing, Terri Schiavo, the irreparably brain-damaged woman at the centre of an unprecedented American political and legal battle, is still starving to death in a Florida hospital en route to an unsought martyrdom as the new poster girl of the right-to-life brigade. 

But whatever one's moral view; and whatever one thinks of the people at the heart of this sad saga - the parents who battled to keep her alive and the husband determined to let her die - they are indisputably reluctant actors in this drama. 

Not so the other participants; notably the two Republican leaders who hitched their political wagons to her waning star to burnish their right-wing credentials by involving Congress in a private legal affair - a remarkable act of legislative over-reach from the supposed part of small government. 

Men such as Bill Frist, the senate Republican leader who fancies his chances for a run at the presidency. From his comfortable Washington office Mr Frist reviewed video footage of Mrs Schiavo taken four years ago. 

He did not hurry things. He took a full hour of viewing before suggesting the doctors had got it wrong. Mrs Schiavo was not, he concluded, in a "persistently vegetative state" after all. 

Senator Frist was a cardio surgeon before he entered politics. That is a tad different from being a neurosurgeon but perhaps his heart was in the right place. Then again, perhaps his heart was in Iowa or New Hampshire and the first presidential primaries. 

As public sentiment turned against the extraordinary Congressional intervention in a legal and state affair - one poll showed 82 per cent of Americans felt national leaders should stay out of the case and let the courts do their job - Mr Frist suddenly became keen that his remarks not be misinterpreted. His spokesman said suggestions he was making a diagnosis were "absurd". 

In the meantime Americans are doubtless taking advantage of his extraordinary diagnostic skills to send him video footage of their ailments. Has Aunt Betty's sciatica started playing up? Doctors do not know what to do? Contact the senate majority leader on 1-800-Vote-Bill or e-mail him for an online diagnosis. 

Don't fancy Mr Frist? Well, try House majority leader Tom DeLay. He is not a doctor at all; although he did get a degree in biology. Not that his lack of qualifications stopped him from disputing the medical opinions on the case as he mobilised congressmen. 

In fairness, Mr DeLay - who is battling against allegations of political impropriety and illegal fundraising and would like to portray the attacks on him as a campaign to bring down a leading conservative - does have some experience of these matters. Some years back he took part in a decision to switch off his father's life support machine because he knew that Dad would not want to go on that way. Mrs Schiavo, however, was not to be afforded the same consideration. 

Soon Mrs Schiavo will be gone. Messrs Frist and DeLay are already doubtless planning their next campaigns. Perhaps the only cause for hope from this entire wretched business lies in the American public, which showed itself more attached to constitutional principle and the rule of law than the political machinations of the Republican right.


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