[Peace-discuss] Schiavo, democrats and aristocrats

[Ricky Baldwin]

Since the question of polls came up recently on this
list ('if there were a poll'), with regard to the
"right to die"  -- and which side of the issue thinks
more highly of the average Joe and/or Jo's ability to
make rational choices in the matter -- etc., here are
just a couple of excerpts from recent news stories on
such polls.

I'm not arguing that we must agree with majority
opinion, of course, although in this case it seems I
do.

Ricky

(1 of 3) 

[...]

According to an ABC News poll, 70 percent of those who
responded deemed the congressional action
inappropriate, while 67 percent said they believed
lawmakers became involved in the Schiavo case for
political advantage rather than the principles
involved. The telephone poll of 501 adults was taken
Sunday and has a 4.5 percentage point margin of error.


[...]

(2 of 3)

AP, March 24

More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves
as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the
intervention by Congress and President Bush in the
case of the Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at
the center of a national debate.

A CBS News poll found that four of five people polled
opposed federal intervention, with levels of
disapproval among key groups supporting the GOP almost
that high.

Bush's overall approval was at 43 percent, down from
49 percent last month.

Over the weekend, Republicans in Congress pushed
through emergency legislation aimed at prolonging
Schiavo's life by allowing the case to be reviewed by
federal courts. That bill was signed by the president
early Monday.

Most Americans say they feel sympathy for family
members on both sides of the dispute over the
41-year-old Schiavo, according to a CNN-USA
Today-Gallup poll.

More than eight in 10 in that poll said they feel
sympathy for Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of
Schiavo, who want to keep her alive. And seven in 10
said they're sympathetic for Michael Schiavo, the
husband of Schiavo who says she should be allowed to
die.

The CBS News poll of 737 adults was taken Monday and
Tuesday and the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll of 620
adults was taken Tuesday. Both have margins of
sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

(3 of 3)

The San Francisco Chronicle, MARCH 2, 2005

Giving terminally ill the option of assisted suicide
backed in poll
by John M. Hubbell

Seven in 10 Californians support providing the state's
terminally ill with a legal path to end their lives
pre-emptively, with almost as many saying they would
opt to do so themselves should they ever face the
situation, according to a poll released today.

The overwhelming support for state-sanctioned assisted
suicide gauged by a Field Poll of 503 state residents
continues long-standing popularity for the practice in
California. In all seven polls Field has taken on the
issue since 1979, at least 64 percent of those asked
have supported it, with the highest number -- 75
percent -- registering in 1999.

Today's poll finds 70 percent in favor, with 22
percent against and 8 percent undecided. When asked
whether they would want their doctor to assist them in
dying if they were expected to die within six months,
68 percent said yes, 28 percent said no, and 4 percent
were undecided. 

High acceptance of the practice, however, has never
translated into political success in California. After
the issue polled well initially, voters turned away an
assisted-suicide ballot initiative in 1992. A bill
seeking to legalize the practice stalled in the
Legislature in 1999 even amid the favorable public
polling.

Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said that, while
the issue historically enjoys "instinctive support,"
opponents -- who often include key physician groups
and disabled advocates -- can effectively "start to
raise doubts in their own communities, and at the
church level," when a particular measure threatens to
become law.

"That's what affected voters in 1992," he said.

The poll comes as a new push to legalize the practice
is unfolding in the Legislature. A bill by Democratic
Assembly members Patty Berg of Eureka and Lloyd Levine
of Van Nuys would allow some terminally ill patients
to obtain a lethal prescription after a patient-doctor
consultative process that typically takes a minimum of
two weeks.

Meanwhile, U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed last
month to take up a challenge to Oregon's
physician-assisted suicide law by former Attorney
General John Ashcroft, which the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals had turned away last spring. His suit views
physician-assisted suicide as a form of drug abuse and
argues doctors may not legally use medicines to hasten
death, a mechanism at the heart of Oregon's statute.

Berg and Levine have modeled their legislation on the
Oregon law. Like other California politicians who have
previously backed similar measures, both have said the
fate of their bill is likely to be determined by
individual lawmakers' personal conscience on the
issue.

Will Shuck, a spokesman for Berg, said she and Levine
were meeting individually with colleagues to hear
their concerns but could not yet determine how their
bill would fare in its first hearing before the
Assembly Judiciary Committee in early April. Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has also given no indication of
his position.

Shuck said "seven years of proof" that Oregon's law
had worked favorably might aid Berg and Levine,
referring to a recent study by the state.

Tim Rosales, a spokesman for Californians Against
Assisted Suicide, an opponent coalition, said his
group would continue to argue that "this is not the
time to be dealing with this type of legislation,
especially when you have a number of things on the
table in California at a crisis level in our health
care system and in our state budget."

The poll was taken between Feb. 8 and 17 and has an
error margin of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. 




		
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