[Peace-discuss] reply to Carl on Schiavo

[C. G. Estabrook]

Actually, what that "tragedy" was has never quite been made clear -- nor
have matters like the report from Florida's Department of Children and
Families, presented to Judge Greer last month, listing charges of neglect,
abuse, and exploitation of Terri by her husband.

Tom, I know that it's necessary for your argument that you be as sure
about the husband's character as you are about the medical diagnosis --
and there are doubts about both.  If you admit those doubts, you open the
possibility that a non-terminally-ill person was "deliberately and
unlawfully killed in a premeditated manner" by the direction of the court.
I think we should be concerned with stopping the state from killing
people.

As to your "essential point," Judge Greer's initial decision in 2002 was
simply repeated by all the other courts. They found that his procedure was
correct -- they didn't re-investigate his findings. There was no de novo
consideration of the matter, no MRI, no PET scan, and two of the five
neurologists who testified in Greer's initial hearing did not agree with
the diagnosis of PVS.  Greer's order that a woman who was not dying be
made dead is precisely judicial murder.

I'm calling for state intervention in the sense that I'm calling for
preventing a Florida man from ending the life of his disabled wife.  I'm
protesting state intervention in the sense that Judge Greer ordered that
she be prevented from being fed and hydrated.

[re 1:] The Dr. Cranford whom you quote was one of the husband's witnesses
at the trail. (He's since boasted, "I have done this [dehydrated someone
to death] 25 to 50 times"!) Two physicians agreed with him and two did
not. And a radiologist said a brain scan in 2002 showed more normal
appearance than one in 1996 and said there was a "significant probability
that she would improve" with certain treatments.  There's surely a
reasonable doubt about the medical diagnosis; it's not certain as you
(must) contend.

[re 2:] I don't know why you call "ludicrous" Nader's assertion that "The
medical and rehabilitation experts are split on whether Terri is in a
persistent vegetative state or whether Terri can be improved with therapy.
There is only one way to know for sure -- permit the therapy."  That
seemed eminent sense to me.

[re 3:] You miss my point. I meant that there was a person there -- not an
empty husk -- who could be (and was) killed.

[re 4:] Once again, you must insist on the husband's good character, but
it isn't certain.  It is possible, as the disability-rights people
suggested, that the state colluded in the removal of an inconvenient
person.  I don't think states should be allowed to do that.

[re 5:] Speaking up for helpless people who are being killed by the state
-- in Florida or Iraq -- by courts, Congress, or the executive is
certainly a call for the raising of the "'norms' of bourgeois governance"
in the name of rationality.

[re 6:] Finally, of course, I don't disagree agree with you on "Clinton or
the Democratic Party or our declining bourgeois state" (except that I
think it would have been better, had Clinton been removed). Indeed, "They
must be ruthlessly exposed as agents of capitalism and oppression."  And
it is certainly true that both business parties are substantially to the
right of the American people -- that's their job -- and notably on the
need for health care...

Regards, Carl


On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Tom Mackaman wrote:

> The tragedy that befell Terri Schiavo occurred 15 years ago.  Her
> husband is not her killer.
>   Carl, in your attempts to come up with a legal brief for your
> accusation of "murder"--which you apparently cling to-- you fail to
> address the essential point.  In my first note, I wrote, "The courts
> in this case have based their decision on the aforementioned
> scientific analysis and the legal guardianship that her husband
> maintains as next-of-kin.  This is as it should be."
>  By strange inversion, you and the extreme right argue that "the
> state" has "murdered" Schiavo.  Yet quite the opposite has taken
> place.  In fact, the legislative and executive wings of the state
> intervened repeatedly and decisivly to undo the legal guardianship of
> M. Schiavo in order to perpetuate Terri in PVC.  The courts merely
> upheld, with no shortage of rancor, M. Schiavo's status as
> next-of-kin.  It is as plain as day that your argument, Carl, amounts
> to a call FOR state intervention.  You have argued the same in the
> past for abortion.  It is you, not I, who call for "state's rights"
> "anathema to progressives for two centuries".  That seems clear
> enough!
>  Let me turn briefly to some of your other arguments:
>  1.  "You seem very sure of your medical diagnosis, Tom "  You know
> the diagnosis is not mine.  Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist at the
> University of Minnesota Medical School who was called in by the
> Florida courts to examine Terri Schiavo, said: “You’ll not find any
> credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and
> say she’s not vegetative.” He told the New York Times, “Her CAT scan
> shows massive shrinkage of the brain. Her EEG is flat—flat. There’s no
> electrical activity coming from her brain.” Carl, you once again rely
> on the propaganda from the Johnson article that implies Terri was
> simply "disabled."  Medical opinion is divided only to the extent that
> the Schindler family has been able to find a handful of fundamentalist
> doctors to argue against the very clear nature of her condition.  
> Among them is the extreme-right Bill Frist, possibly our next
> president.
>  2.  You instead apparently rely on "Nader and his medical colleague"
> [!] for your information.  This is so ludicrous as to warrant no
> reply.
>  3.  You write, "But you know that if her husband shot her, he would
> be prosecuted -- properly, I'd say."  What is the basis of this
> comparison?:  The notion that Michael Schiavo is his wife's killer,
> propaganda now circulating among the fascistic right.  The absurdity
> of the comparison again warrants no reply.
>  4.  M. Schiavo in fact spent years attempting different forms of
> therapy, including taking Teri to California for experimental therapy.  
> You must be careful in a case like this, Carl, because your temporary
> allies on the extreme right, as you know, are not beyond lying.
>  5.  You misunderstand me when you write, "Your touching faith in the
> science and rationality to be found in the bourgeois state is again
> surprising."  Rereading my posting, I think it very clearly points to
> the dangereous demise of rationality that animates the political
> decisions made in the citadels of state power.  The point was that
> this case marks a radical departure in the "norms" of bourgeois
> governance, carried forward by the extreme right over the prostration
> of the Democratic Party.  The case fits a pattern of right-wing
> provocation that includes the stolen 2000 election and the eight-year
> effort to remove Bill Clinton from office, culminating in the Lewinsky
> affiar.  As history teaches us, periods of bourgeois decay are full of
> both revolutionary possibility and extreme reaction.
>  I make no brief for the policies of Clinton or the Democratic Party
> or our declining bourgeois state.  They must be ruthlessly exposed as
> agents of capitalism and oppression During the Socialist Equality
> Party campaign last November, we warned working people of the deeply
> anti-democratic nature of the Republican Party, and the
> counterproductivity of appealing to the Democratic Party as a means to
> fight for democracy or for peace.  The Schiavo case once again reveals
> this essential fact of political life.
>  As is the case with the war in Iraq, opinion polls show that the
> deeply democratic sentiments of the working masses--in this case, even
> among fundamentalists-- find no political expression in either the
> Democratic or Republican Party.
>  
>  With sincerity,
>  Tom