[Peace-discuss] Counterpunch: Nader on Terri Schiavo

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Alex Cockburn comments, "So as the rights and wrongs of the Schiavo case
are concerned, I think Nader has it right." Cockburn writes as follows in
the current print edition of Counterpunch.  --CGE]


We congratulated Ralph Nader for his excellent performances on Crossfire,
where he spiritedly identified himself as being Ralph Nader "from the
*progressive* left," after tying Robert Novak in knots.  Nader was eager
-- who isn't? -- to talk about the Schiavo case.

"When the relevant state law appoints the spouse as guardian *ad litem*
[for the duration] there should be no conflicts of interest involved."  
Of course Michael Schiavo does have such a conflict of interest, in that
he stands to inherit a $350,000 portion of the successful medical
malpractice suits launched in Terri Schiavo's name.

"Her parents want to take care of Terri. There is no state interest in
letting her die. As far as the 'persistent vegetative state' is concerned,
Terri is not on life support, heart pump or ventilator. If her biological
family wants to take care of her, why should Michael Schiavo retain the
power to pull the feeding tube from his spouse?  He's gone through hell
for 15 years, and for the last ten years he has been living with another
woman who has brought him two children. So it seems to me that the equity
of the situation is to have Michael withdraw as guardian and let Terri's
parents be guardians and take care of her. That's the crux.  When a spouse
is in effect married to two women (after five years the second woman is
his common law wife), he should withdraw and let her parents take care of
their child.

"It all comes down to that core point.  As far as I'm concerned, there's
no legitimate state interest.  Why is it assumed that her spouse has the
right to pull the plug?

"Disability rights groups don't want Terri's feeding tube withheld, in
part because there are enough examples of medical science advancing.  in
the 1980s these tube removals were frequently done with children with
Downs syndrome. Where it come to a 'permanent vegetative state,' doctors
can be wrong; they all follow the leader."

Nader faults the Republicans. "They should have pushed for legislation to
allow removal from state to federal courts, as with criminal law *habeas
corpus* suits. Instead they wrote this specific bill and somehow left out
the kind of certainty they wanted. They should have let her parents have
the right to have standing to file in federal court and above all to have
a *de novo* review of the case. By leaving that out they insured what the
federal district court judge did on March 22, which was to decline to hear
the case.

"Here you have Republicans pouring out speeches on the Hill expressing
deep compassion for human life, and yet these same speechmakers are mostly
savage opponents of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Highway Safety Administration, the
Food and Drug Administration, and of regulations designed to reduce the
hundreds of thousands of Americans who are killed, injured or sickened
through medical malpractice, occupational disease and traumas, air
pollution and raw poverty.  I can caustically comment that just perhaps
some of these cold-hearted Reps, having gone through their Terri Schiavo
epiphany, will expand their newly discovered compassion for adult human
life by forcefully expanding the meager enforcement authority and budgets
of these federal life-saving agencies."  CP