NEIL BOORTZ has a stunning commentary on Terri Schiavo at townhall.com. I never thought that I could ever agree with someone who loves Rush Limbaugh "for what he’s done for our radio format, what he’s done for America, and what he’s done to the left," but there is a first time for everything. Boortz answers Rush Limbaugh's question -- "Why do you want Terri Schiavo to die?" -- addressed to the people he called "you liberals."

I want Terri Schiavo to die because I believe she’s earned it.

I don’t view death as the end of the journey of a human soul. I view it as a transition. The God I believe in would not waste the total life experiences of a man or woman made in his image on a total and complete death; a dead end, if you will, with nothing to follow. I cannot believe that it is God’s plan that the life experiences of a man; wisdom gained, lessons learned and love experienced, should, upon death, disappear as if they never were. I believe that there’s something to follow the life we know on this earth; and I believe that most of the people fighting to keep the body of Terri Schiavo alive feel the same way.

So if you do feel that same way, Boortz asks the Schindlers and their supporters, why are you behaving as if the death of the human body is the worst thing that could happen? Why are you allowing Terri Schiavo's soul to remain trapped in a body that has existed in a vegetative state for 15 years? Boortz makes head-on contact with the essential point about the inconsistency of religious people acting in the apparent belief that it is more important to preserve a human body which can no longer function in the world; which can no longer build and learn from life experiences; which can no longer experience either the joys or sorrows of life on earth, than it is to allow that body to die, so the soul can be released and go on to wherever the next part of the journey lies.

Do you believe that the human soul can make the transition to everlasting life while the human body that carried that soul through life clings to life on this earth? If you do, then you must surely believe that Terri Schiavo has earned and is already enjoying her reward in heaven. That being the case, why is it so important to you that the now-unneeded body of Terri Schiavo is kept alive?

But perhaps you believe, as I do, that the human soul is so connected to and integrated with its earthly body that any transition will not be made until that body ceases functioning -- until death occurs.. That being the case, why do you so ardently desire that the soul of Terri Schiavo spend five, ten, perhaps 30 years or more trapped in a useless and non-functioning body, unable to move on to whatever reward awaits her? Isn’t 15 years enough?

Where do your concerns truly lie, with the eternal soul of Terri Schiavo, or with her earthly body?

It's a more original, intelligent, and thoughtful question than I would ever have expected from a Rush Limbaugh admirer. Do any of the people who want Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to be re-inserted have an answer?

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FRANCES NEWTON is a 39-year-old black woman in Texas. She used to live in an apartment complex in Houston with her husband, Adrian, and their two young children, Alton and Farah. But since October, 1988, she has been living on Texas's death row, convicted of murdering her family.

In April, 1987, Newton's husband and children were found dead in their apartment. All 3 of them had been shot at close range. The prosecution relied entirely on circumstantial evidence, much of it inconsistent or illogical, to get the guilty verdict against Newton. Newton's lawyer, Ron Mock, has a long record of losing death penalty cases; and in Newton's trial his performance was incompetent. The state's case was based in large part on ballistic evidence gathered by the Houston Police Department's crime lab. In March, 2003, an independent audit of the lab found that its DNA analysis and ballistics testing sections were marked by "serious defects"; in October, 2004, a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge called for a moratorium on all executions in cases where the convictions were based on testing done at the HPD crime lab.

Frances Newton was scheduled to be executed on December 1, 2004. Two hours before the lethal injection was to take place, Gov. Rick Perry granted a 120-day reprieve that had been requested by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Without acknowledging or mentioning the serious problems found at the HPD Crime Lab, Gov. Perry said he was granting the temporary stay of execution only because "new technologies" now existed for conducting ballistic tests. Despite all the other troubling aspects of Newton's original trial, Perry said he "saw no evidence of innocence." But the rarity of the Texas Board's 5-1 vote to recommend this stay of execution is a strong indication of how compromised the evidence was as a result of having come out of the HPD Crime Lab.

The fact that Frances Newton was two hours away from death as a result of tainted evidence, and the possibility that she may still be executed if, after the ballistics tests are redone, Gov. Perry does not credit the changed results, gives one pause when reading the comments of Republicans like Pres. Bush in the case of Terri Schiavo. Pres. Bush pushed Congress to pass a law giving the executive and legislative branches of the federal government control over the judicial branch in a U.S. state; his brother, Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush, tried (in vain, but he did try) to get the courts to authorize transferring custody of Terri Schiavo from her husband to the state of Florida; he even tried to kidnap Ms. Schiavo from the hospice she is in, until Judge Greer issued an injunction stopping him from doing so.

The reason, according to a spokesperson for Pres. Bush, for ignoring the sovereignty of states under the federal system and for stepping over the constitutional provision for separation of powers between the 3 branches of government, is that, "When there is a complex case such as this, where serious questions and doubts have been raised, the president believes we ought to err on the side of life."

So if Pres. Bush truly and sincerely believes that, in the presence of "serious questions and doubts," the federal government can overstep any bounds, whether constitutionally prescribed or not, in order to "err on the side of life," then he should certainly establish federal control over Texas if that state does decide to execute Frances Newton. If anyone would agree, it would be Pres. Bush: It would be wrong to execute Newton when so many serious doubts and questions have been raised about the fairness of her trial and the reliability of the evidence against her. It's better to err on the side of life than to murder an innocent woman.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES has updated information on the background of Dr. William P. Cheshire, the neurologist who decided that Terri Schiavo was "minimally conscious," and not in a persistent vegetative state, after visiting her for one hour without doing a physical examination, and watching some video clips provided by Mary and Robert Schindler.

He's a Christian bioethicist. He's either been quoted in or has written for Physician magazine, which is published by James Dobson's Focus on the Family, of gay Sponge Bob fame. He's had articles published in medical journals, but mostly on headache pain. None of his published work deals with persistent vegetative states. He opposes stem-cell research.

According to one of the real doctors quoted in the New York Times article (Dr. Ronald Cranford of the University of Minnesota Medical School), Terri Schiavo's CAT scan showed "massive brain shrinkage" (and you can see this when you look at the scan; there's just blackness where the cerebral cortex should be). The EEG done on Terri Schiavo is absolutely flat: no electrical activity coming from the brain at all.

But here is Dr. Cheshire's finding about Terri Schiavo's condition:

"Although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior," he wrote, "yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."

That sentence should win first prize for the most qualifiers and the least meaning. Terri did not talk, try to talk, act with intent, or show any conscious awareness, but she did appear to be alive. No shit, sherlock. In other words, Terri Schiavo is not in a coma. She's in a persistent vegetative state.

As for Dr. Cheshire's "renown," the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Arthur Caplan, had never heard of him. When told that Dr. Cheshire had stated that his conclusions about Terri Schiavo were based on bedside observation and a review of her medical records, but no physical examination, Caplan said no one had a right to make statements about Terri Schiavo's medical condition or to dispute the existing medical records without doing a full-scale neurological scan.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, the neurologist and medical ethicist mentioned above, said, "I have no idea who this Cheshire is. ... He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say [Terri Schiavo]'s not vegetative."

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VIA EMMA AT THE AMERICAN STREET, I discovered Abstract Appeal, a blog started by Matt Conigliaro, a lawyer specializing in appeals cases in the state of Florida. Matt has devoted a large part of his blog to the case of Terri Schiavo, and most of the important documents relating to the case are linked there.

One of those documents is the report of Dr. Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's guardian ad litem. Emma quotes a section from this report that presents the Schindlers as so determined to keep their daughter alive at all costs that they expressed willingness to amputate limbs or agree to open heart surgery if she developed infections or secondary medical conditions (such as diabetes, gangrene, or heart disease) that threatened her survival. The Schindlers later said that they were misunderstood, but they did not deny having made these statements. Another section of the report describes the Schindlers as not only disputing the diagnosis that their daughter is in a persistent vegetative state, but also apparently saying they don't believe such a condition even exists.

If Wolfson's report is accurate about the Schindlers' attitudes, it's hard to feel sympathy for them anymore. It goes without saying that no family should have to go through this kind of tragedy; at this point, however, my sympathy is almost entirely for Terri Schiavo. Her best interests are being sacrificed to political opportunism on one side, and family self-indulgence and fanaticism on the other.

Thanks to Chief for tipping me off to Emma's post.

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HOORAY FOR MAHA. She has gone and said what I have been thinking for the past day or so now, but was too chicken to say:

This is going to sound very cold, I realize, but it's the honest truth: I was reading the umpteenth news story quoting poor Mrs. Schindler pleading for somebody to step in and "save" her daughter, and a wave of pure, unadulterated annoyance swept over me. I suspect I am not alone.

The Schindlers have had the Florida governor and legislature at their disposal for the past several years, and now the United States Congress and the President have taken unprecedented steps to intervene in their little family drama. Today the Schindlers are shopping federal courts to find one that will give them what they want. I don't watch much television news, but I bet the Schindlers are on somewhere on cable nearly 24/7.

I don't know what percentage of Americans have watched a hospitalized love one die, or what percentage have dealt with heartbreaking questions about DNR orders, life support, organ transplants, etc. I suspect that a whopping majority of people over the age of 40 have been there and done that. And, nearly always, these decisions are made quietly and privately. It doesn't occur to most people to make a federal case out of their grief.

How many of these Americans are looking at the Schindlers and thinking, who the hell do you think you are? How many are thinking, I loved my baby, my child, my wife, my father just as much, but I could let them go without setting the whole country in an uproar.

I kind of hinted at my feelings when I went on about how I wished Terri Schiavo's parents could let go and see what a travesty this is, but then I backed off. I really do fault the Republican leadership, Tom DeLay and the Bushes more, because they are not emotionally involved; and their actions and behavior in this case have been pure partisan exploitation of a personal tragedy for political purposes. But, that said, I have been having exactly the same thoughts as Maha, in almost the same words. "Do they think they're the only parents in the world who have lost a child?" (or are about to). "Do they think they are more important than other parents who have lost a child?"

I happen to be one of that "whopping majority of people over the age of 40" whom Maha suspects have watched a loved one die. My first child, a girl named Abigail Laura, had Tay-Sachs disease (a rare inherited genetic disorder most common among Jews of Eastern European origin). She was dying from the moment she was conceived, although her dad and I didn't know it until she was almost a year old. From that point until she was 3 years, 9 months old, we knew she was going to die and watched it happen, slowly and painfully.

There was no issue with Abigail of ending life support, because the end was a certainty for her. Tay-Sachs is 100 percent fatal, usually before the age of 5. But she was born as the result of a medical error (my now ex-husband and I were both carriers, but he was tested when I was pregnant and the results came back saying he was not a carrier), and although we did our best to take legal action, we did not involve Congress, the governor, or the President of the United States; and we did not turn our private grief into a federal case (literally).

I really, really do still feel enormous compassion for the Schindlers. I know that this kind of grief can be so overwhelming that it makes you a little crazy. But I still wish, as healthy adults, that they could get a grip and stop being so self-indulgent (at Terri Schiavo's expense, in my view).

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THE TERRI SCHIAVO CASE is getting sadder by the hour, and more frightening, too, in the total and complete willingness of the Bush administration (both the federal Bush administration and the one in Florida) to trample all over the Constitution. After a federal judge, a 3-judge panel, and a full appeals court all refused to order the re-insertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, Schiavo's parents are now appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is almost certainly going to turn down the case, as it has done in the past. Now Jeb Bush is saying he is going to ask a Florida court to re-insert the feeding tube. Why? Because a neurologist who visited Ms. Schiavo, presumably in the last few days, concluded that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. The neurologist, William Cheshire -- who works at a clinic in Jacksonville -- is, according to Gov. Bush, "renowned" in his field. But this "renowned" medical professional based his opinion that Terri Schiavo is in a "state of minimal consciousness" on watching two videotapes that were made by Ms. Schiavo's parents and other family members, and on a one-hour visit, with no physical examination included.

The moral, ethical, and professional culpability of all the parties involved in this federal review cannot be overstated. Mary and Robert Schindler simply cannot allow themselves to believe their daughter has no thoughts or conscious awareness; they have allowed their desperation and love for their child to convince them that Terri makes eye contact with them, can hear them, and responds, or at least tries to respond. The idea that Terri will never get better, or improve from the condition she is in now, is unthinkable for her parents. The possibility that it might be better for Terri, and ultimately for those who love her, to let go and let her go, is an idea that simply is not possible for her parents to accept.

And although I wish they would see what a travesty this whole situation is, I don't blame them one bit. They are her mother and father; I am not. If I were in that situation, I might be reacting the same way. I hope I wouldn't, but who can know?

The people I do fault are all the people surrounding the Schindlers who should know better but obviously don't. And "fault" is too mild a word when applied to what Jeb Bush, Pres. Bush, Tom DeLay, the entire Republican leadership, and everyone in Congress of whichever party who voted to ignore years of litigation in the Florida courts have done. They have manipulated and exploited the grief and desperation of two parents who cannot bear to lose their daughter, solely for the purpose of scoring points with a Christian conservative base that, as it turns out, is not as solidly supportive as they had counted on. They were and are willing to trash the Constitution, the federalist system, separation of powers, and the independence of state judiciaries so they can look like heroes to people in places like Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas. Their noble words about standing up for life are hollow. Anyone can figure out that when Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, or Tom DeLay, or any other politician of their ilk says, as they all have in more or less the same words, "I believe that in a case such as this, the legislative branch, the executive branch ought to err on the side of life...," you know they have no concern whatsoever for "the side of life" -- much less for the anguish that Mary and Robert Schindler, and Michael Schiavo, are going through. Because if the presence of "any uncertainty" were a reason, for these villains, to "err on the side of life," then they could not permit the death penalty to be carried out for even one more day; and they could not have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq, if they felt that the presence of "any uncertainty" about the human cost of war required them to "err on the side of life."

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KATHA POLLITT is guest-blogging over at Kevin Drum's place today, and for the next little while, and just in time, too. Her topic is Women in Opinion Writing, and even more specifically, political opinion writing. This has been a perennial subject in the blogosphere: Every few months, the cry goes up, "Where are all the women political bloggers?" Kevin asked the question most recently, got more than he bargained for by way of response from the women who are writing political blogs, and decided to put his money where his mouth was (to his great credit). He has been linking to more women-written blogs, has added 19 new blogs written by women to his blogroll, and now has invited the aforementioned Katha Pollitt (among other women) to write guest blogs on his site.

Unfortunately, there are still more male political writers like Andrew Sullivan than like Kevin out there. Sullivan spoke at the conference on blogging held at the Brookings Institution today, and there he opined (as paraphrased by Juan Cole) that "the blogosphere will remain primarily male, because the atmosphere of highly charged argumentation is more appealing to males."

That is absolute nonsense. (Another word comes to mind, but I'll restrain myself.) There are thousands of women who write political blogs, at the very least. Morgaine (who, by the way, is not exactly a timid little girl who shrinks from confrontation) lists and reviews 500 of them on her blog alone.

So, as I said, Katha Pollitt's first guest post at Political Animal is right on time. I hope Andrew Sullivan is paying attention.

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VIA A READER, here is a Knight-Ridder article about Dr. Jay Wolfson, the man appointed by the Florida court system to be Terri Schiavo's guardian ad litem. It was his job to try to represent Terri, not as her attorney or her doctor, but as an unbiased third party trying to determine, quite literally, what was going on inside her head.

The article makes clear that Dr. Wolfson is a compassionate, sensitive, and intelligent man who wanted very, very much to conclude that Terri Schiavo was aware; that she had wishes she could communicate if only he could figure out a way to elicit a response from her. But after spending many hours with Ms. Schiavo, he was forced to the opposite conclusion: that she was indeed in a persistent vegetative state, with no awareness, no thoughts, no ability to respond to anything.

At first, walking into Schiavo's room, he was struck by her presence, even though he knew in advance that she drifted between wakefulness and sleep.

"She's a person, like you or I, and the first disconcerting part is that she's awake," said Wolfson.

When awake, Schiavo's eyes rolled about the room. She made random noises that sounded like groaning or the start of a laugh or cry.

But court documents said Schiavo's cerebral cortex, where reason and emotions are housed, had degenerated to fluid. So Wolfson set about trying to determine whether Schiavo's noises and jerks were merely reflexive or if they indicated something more.

He played Elton John CDs for her, and Bach and Mozart and music from the late 1980s, when she was in her 20s, prior to her collapse. He held her hands, squeezing them, and stroked her hair and face.

He put his face close to hers and tried to make eye contact, pleading desperately, trying to will her into giving him any kind of sign.

"I would beg her, `Please, Terri, help me,'" he said. "You want to believe there's some connection. You hope she's going to sit up and bed and say, `Hey, I'm really here, but don't tell anybody.' Or, `I'm really here, tell everybody!'"

But Schiavo never made eye contact. When Wolfson visited her when her parents were there, she never made eye contact with them either, he said. And for all of Wolfson's pleadings and coaxing, he never got what he most wanted: a sign.

Wolfson was asked what he thought of Barbara Weller, an attorney for the Schindlers, saying that Terri tried to talk. (Tom DeLay also made this claim, of course.)

"Terri does not speak," he said. "To claim otherwise reduces her to a fiction."

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MORE OUTSTANDING COMMENTARY on the Terri Schiavo nightmare at Pacific Views and at Big Brass Blog.

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RESPECTFUL OF OTTERS has a post about Terri Schiavo's medical condition by Rivka, a clinical psychologist with additional training in clinical neuropsychology. Her analysis is riveting: She takes apart the information from the video that the Schindlers' 17 medical experts have used to prove that Terri Schiavo responds to external stimuli; and she explains in great detail the realities of Terri Schiavo's condition that make it truly impossible from any rational standpoint to think that Ms. Schiavo could be rehabilitated or recover any awareness.

The first thing you have to know is that the 17 "medical experts" have reached their conclusions about Terri Schiavo's possibilities for improvement almost completely from indirect observation.

None of the 17 affidavits are by providers who examined Schiavo. Only one of the 17 providers claims to have reviewed her medical records. The remaining 16 providers apparently based their statements primarily on six snippets of videotape, totalling 4 minutes and 20 seconds, which have been posted on Schiavo's parents' website and broadcast repeatedly on the news. Several of them explicitly say that they viewed these clips on the net, and the others all refer to the same short samples of behavior (e.g., Schiavo's eyes tracking a balloon). Many of them say they read news stories about Schiavo. One admits to only seeing news stories and photographs. They all reference their experience with "similar patients," but without qualifying what they mean by "similar." For example, one doctor draws comparisons to catatonic patients - but catatonia simply refers to an absence of voluntary motion or interaction, and can be caused by any number of things. Another references stroke patients, and two more talk about patients with Alzheimer's. As Ampersand points out, not one of them mentions the specific degree and type of brain damage that Schiavo has, as documented by her CAT scans. ...

Another crucial point is that the video footage referenced by the 17 affidavits to support their argument that Terri Schiavo was responsive actually were only 4 minutes and 20 seconds out of a videotape that was 4 hours and 30 minutes long. The trial court and appeals court judges who reviewed Ms. Schiavo's case both watched the entire 4 1/2 hour tape, and concluded that Terri Schiavo's apparent responses to stimuli were random and not meaningful.

And then there is the CAT scan. The images of Terri's brain and a healthy brain placed side by side are stunningly clear in what they show: Terri Schiavo's cerebral cortex is not damaged; it's gone. It's not there anymore. Where the cerebral cortex used to be, there is only brain fluid -- the cerebral cortex turned to liquid.

Mary at The Left Coaster, who posted the link to the Respectful of Otters piece, also references Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte, who asks why it always seems to be women -- and young women at that -- who become the focus of highly publicized legal battles when a family decision has to be made about whether to end life support for a loved one who is in a vegetative state. The answer: It might be because society is more comfortable ignoring or overriding a woman's wishes than a man's. It's obviously true that in Terri Schiavo's case, her wishes were not put down in writing; but, still, one has to ask if this were Terence Schiavo instead of Theresa Schiavo, and he had told a family member he did not want to be kept on life support in such a situation, would someone like Tom DeLay be so quick to ignore the preferences of another man?

It's also much easier and more comfortable for society to accept the idea of a woman who is unresponsive, unaware, and in a vegetative state than to accept a man being in such a condition. In some ways, Terri Schiavo, in her not-moving, not-talking, not-walking, totally dependent state is the ideal woman. Amanda quotes a passage from a piece in WorldNetDaily by a Dr. Blumenfeld, who says:

Terri Schiavo is no burden on her husband. She is being cared for by her parents who love her. The word "love" has not been used by the court in this case. As far as the judge is concerned, love is not an issue or even a consideration. Terri's parents accept her disabled state. She smiles at them. She hears them. But she cannot speak to them. And as long as they are able to maintain and support their daughter in her disabled state, why should the court deny them this expression of their love? Is not sacrifice an important manifestation of love?

Apart from what Amanda correctly identifies as a "nauseating" implication that Terri Schiavo is lovable precisely because she is unresponsive, helpless, and "no burden" to her husband (or anyone), I also think the next to last sentence is quite interesting. "And as long as" Terri Schiavo's parents are able (financially, of course) to take care of her, why should we not ignore what she told her husband she would want in precisely this kind of situation? The unmistakable implication is that if Ms. Schiavo's parents were not financially able to "maintain and support their daughter in her disabled state," Congress and the federal government would have no interest or concern in keeping her alive at all.

Which, of course, was exactly the philosophy behind the Texas Futile Care Law that Gov. George W. Bush signed, which authorized hospitals to remove life support from patients with no hope of recovery, if they could not pay for their care -- even if their families wanted them kept alive.

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JEREMY WRIGHT, a Canadian who created and writes Ensight.org, a business and technology blog, was arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border by American immigration officials who did not believe that Wright was coming to the United States to discuss business opportunities related to his blog with a well-known media company. According to BoingBoing, Wright was arrested after he was asked what his profession was, and he said, "Blogger." They detained him, grilled him with questions, and subjected him to a strip search. Then, having finished humiliating him for the crime of making a living from his blog, they sent him back to Canada and banned him from the United States.

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TEN COMMANDMENTS, ANYONE? Tom DeLay is apparently unfamiliar with the one that says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." In other words, don't lie.

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QUESTION: WHY DOES BUSH SUPPORT A "CULTURE OF LIFE"?

Answer: "Because in 18 years, America will need those little rugrats to waste us some A-rabs!"

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THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES has passed the bill ordering a federal judge to review the case of Terri Schiavo. The vote was 253 to 58, with 5 brave Republicans breaking ranks to vote no, and 47 spineless Democrats voting in the affirmative to rip to shreds this country's 230-year-old principle of an independent judiciary and separation of powers.

There are a number of points that need to be made about this bill, some of which were not clear to me before just now.

• The Senate and House bills are different. The Senate bill would apply only to Terri Schiavo's case (although how that could stick is unclear). The House bill would allow the federal government to review ALL cases in which state court judges rule to authorize the withholding of food or medical treatment.
• The news accounts I read yesterday said that the Senate vote was unanimous. It was, but there were only a handful of senators present, and the bill was passed by voice vote.
• The House bill was passed by a roll call vote, only because a few Democrats refused to agree to a voice vote. That resulted in the Republicans having to hastily call back Republican representatives who had left for the Easter break. Although this delay did not change the ultimate outcome, at least it demonstrated some backbone on the part of House Democrats.
• The bill that the House passed had been introduced only hours before, had not been scheduled in advance for debate, and was passed after 40 minutes of discussion in an almost empty House chamber. This may seem obvious, but it's important to be fully aware of how profoundly undemocratic and unconstitutional this legislative action was, and is.

I have been trying to find a complete listing of all the House members who voted against H. Res. 182. When I do, I will post their names. If anyone else reading this finds the list, please let me know via a Comment.

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FROM MONDAY'S WASHINGTON POST:

A single senator could have postponed yesterday's action [to give federal courts jurisdiction to review Terri Schiavo's case] but none did so, even though some criticized Congress's actions. "I think it's unwise for Congress to intervene in a very deeply personal matter such as this," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said on CNN's "Late Edition."

So why did you vote to approve yesterday's action, Sen. Levin?

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CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS protesting the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube have focused heavily on the cruelty of allowing her to starve to death. An article in today's New York Times quotes experts in palliative medical care to the effect that when a patient who does not have any conscious awareness, like Terri Schiavo, stops receiving food and water, death is not the agonizingly painful process it would be for normally healthy people who are not terminally ill. In fact, many patients who are terminally ill but still conscious choose to stop eating and drinking as a way of dying that involves relatively little discomfort.

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VIA ATRIOS, several links to articles about Terri Schiavo. First, a post from Hullabaloo about all the ways in which the Bush administration and the Republican leadership does not care about whether the plug is pulled on patients who are on life support. Also, this link to a Los Angeles Times article in which Michael Schiavo, who is a private citizen and has not committed any illegal act, is condemned in truly vicious fashion for being unworthy of respect -- by Tom DeLay, a leading member of Congress who is under investigation for numerous violations of professional ethics and possibly illegal behavior. See the second to last paragraph in the LA Times article for the quote.

And finally, this reference to a CBS News interview with legal expert Andrew Cohen on the ways in which the Bush administration's intervention in Florida's rulings in the Terri Schiavo case are damaging the state judicial system and the principle of judicial independence.

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DAILY KOS REPORTS that the Senate has just passed, unanimously, the bill to have Terri Schiavo's case reviewed by a federal judge. The CNN article on this breaking news was apparently written in such haste that the proofreaders missed a reference to comments on the decision by the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's percents. At any rate, the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents said:

"It is still not done but we really believe that the prayers of the people across America, and the leadership of our Congress and our president, has demonstrated how wonderful it is to be part of the United States." ...

... where the federal government can cancel court decisions by the states in cases revolving around private family conflicts, or in any case it wishes to intervene; where no one can make a personal medical decision for a family member unless the President of the United States and the Congress approve it; and where decisions by the judicial branch of the government are subject to nullification by the legislative and executive branches at the will of the ruling party.

As Catnip writes on Daily Kos:

This is the beginning of the descent into the voiding of state's courts rights and the right of all Americans to make personal medical decisions without being sanctioned by congress.

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THE LATEST ON TERRI SCHIAVO is that Republicans in the House of Representatives are delaying discussion on the "compromise" bill (which would mandate re-insertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube until a federal judge reviews her case) because they know that some Democrats are objecting to this whole circus. The New York Times article says that this delay is "setting the stage for a vote just after midnight," which I don't get: if the Republicans don't want to bring up the bill today because of Democratic opposition, how is a vote after midnight going to succeed?

There are so many aspects of this story that cry out for comment. It's painful to read about Mary Schindler, Terri Schiavo's mother, asking congressional leaders not to use this case for their own personal political purposes -- referring not to the Republicans who want the federal government to intervene on the side of keeping Terri Schiavo alive, but to the relatively few Democrats who want this to remain a private family matter.

"There are some congressmen that are trying to stop this bill," Ms. Schiavo's mother, Mary Schindler, told reporters outside her daughter's hospice. "Please don't use my daughter's suffering for your own personal agenda."

It seems clear to me that it's people like Jeb and Pres. Bush, Mel Martinez, and Tom DeLay, who are using Terri Schiavo's tragedy for their own personal agenda, but of course Mary Schindler doesn't want to lose her daughter, so she doesn't see it that way. It's personally painful to me -- having lost a child myself -- to see Mary Schindler's anguish being exploited and manipulated this way. I certainly can't and could never fault her for grasping at any avenue to avoid having to let go of her daughter or admit to herself that there's no hope for recovery. What parent could do that?

And then there is the issue -- the central issue, in my view -- of the extraordinary political cynicism the Republican leadership is demonstrating. There is nothing more central or fundamental to Republican philosophy than the concept of states' rights. Conservative Republicans are constantly preaching the religion of federalism, the uniquely American system of government in which sovereignty is divided between the central government and the 50 states. The idea behind federalism is that if states retain sovereignty in matters not reserved by the Constitution to the federal government, then it will not be possible for dictatorship to take hold. This is obviously also the philosophical underpinning of the American system of checks and balances between the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.

Yet, when it suits their purposes, conservative Republicans are more than willing to violate the principle of federalism. And nothing could be more antithetical to the principle of federalism, and to separation of powers, than what Republicans in Congress are doing now in the matter of Terri Schiavo. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) put it well when he pointed out that 19 Florida judges had been adjudicating this case for 7 years; and that it is unconscionable for the federal government to step in now, and attempt to use the legislative process to undermine and overrule the authority of the state of Florida and judicial authority in a situation that has nothing to do with any public policy or public safety issue, but is entirely a private family matter.

But, as I said, federalism and states' rights are easily ignored by their most passionate defenders when there is a chance to score big points with the Republican Party's Christian conservative base. Scott McClellan, Pres. Bush's spokesperson, denied that politics was involved, but the Times article noted that Republicans in the Senate had been given "talking points" for discussing this issue with the press; and that "party aides" had declared Terri Schiavo was a " 'great political issue' that resonates with Christian conservatives."

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UPDATE ON TERRI SCHIAVO ... I just looked back at the New York Times article I linked to in my previous post, and I saw a paragraph I missed before. Here it is:

The White House announced late Saturday that President Bush, who was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., would make an unscheduled return on Sunday to Washington, where he would remain until early Monday in anticipation of signing the measure [the so-called "compromise" bill to put Terri Schiavo's case before a federal judge].

I read this, and it felt like a lightning strike through my entire body. So Pres. Bush was willing to cut short a vacation at his precious Crawford, Texas, ranch to sign a bill asking a federal judge to reinsert a feeding tube, over her husband's objections, into a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years; but he was not willing to cut short his vacation and return to the White House after the most deadly natural disaster in at least a century -- a 9.0 earthquake that generated tsunamis that were reported at the time to have killed tens of thousands of people in Southeast Asia. (As of January 28, the reported death toll was 283,000, with actual numbers being almost certainly much higher.)

What more compelling proof could anyone possibly need that George W. Bush cares more about human beings who are (a) in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery or (b) not born yet, than he does about human beings by the tens of thousands who are born, living, conscious, fully aware of their surroundings, and who have met death in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable?

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