[Peace-discuss] Schiavo, democrats and aristocrats

[C. G. Estabrook]

What these polls seem to show, Ricky, is public distaste for involvement
by the president and Congress in what should be a family matter (note the
sympathy for family members on both sides), especially because that
involvement was seen as cynical and done for factional advantage.

Of course by the time the Congress intervened, it was no longer a family
matter, in that it was a court that ordered that a disabled woman who was
not dying be made dead. That's why poll questions about terminal illness,
right to die, and assisted suicide are misleading in the Schiavo case:
none of these was involved.

As disability-rights lawyer Harriet McBryde Johnson wrote before the
court's order was carried out, "This is not a case about a patient's right
to refuse treatment. I don't see eating and drinking as 'treatment,' but
even if they are, everyone agrees that Ms. Schiavo is presently incapable
of articulating a decision to refuse treatment. The question is who should
make the decision for her, and whether that substitute decision-maker
should be authorized to kill her by starvation and dehydration."

At the same time, of course, other polls show Americans overwhelmingly in
favor of government involvement in health care: in fact they think that
the government should provide it (another case where both political
parties are substantially to right of the population). I think that that
should include supporting disabled people, not bringing their lives to an
end. --CGE


On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

> 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.
>