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| Life - A Liberal Conundrum |
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By Jamal Okae
Contributing Editor: New Civilisation
jamal.okae@newcivilisation.com
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Earlier this year, the legal dispute in the US over the fate of Terri Schiavo, between her husband and her parents, led to the full-scale mobilisation of the 'right to life' and the 'right to choose' camps. The case was a key stage in the kulturkampf between the conservative and liberal factions, due to its assumed ramifications on other thorny issues, especially abortion. The upcoming battle over Supreme Court nominations promises to split the country once more - and the likely result will be a further step away from liberal values.
On June 15th, the office of Pinellas-Pasco County medical examiners released the results of their autopsy of Terri Schiavo, carried out after her death on March 31st of this year. The American public was transfixed, and equally repelled, by the media circus surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. The dispute between Terri's husband and legal guardian Michael Schiavo, and her parents Robert and Mary Schindler, had been raging for over 10 years. The case had been through different courts, both in Florida and at the federal level. Beyond the facts of the case, the cultural implications hanging on the final verdict spurred on the both the 'right to life' and the 'right to choose' camps, supporting Terri's parents and husband respectively. The case was a vivid reminder of how deep the fissure in American political life is between the conservative and liberal camps.
Confirming the opinion of the majority of the experts consulted by Michael Schiavo, this round of the culture war has been settled in favour of the liberal camp. Jon Throgmartin, the chief medical examiner in charge of the autopsy reported that, "this damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons." The examination also indicated that Terri was blind, belying the video footage released by her family that appeared to show her following the movement of a balloon above her bed.
This leaves politicians such as (Republican) Senate Majority leader Bill Frist with little to say, following the zeal with which they rushed legislation through Congress specifically to 'save Terri'. The results of the autopsy are unlikely to cut much ice with the conservative electorate supporting politicians such as Frist however, since the issue for such people was more about the sanctity of life than the possibility of Terri making some kind of recovery. Such conservatives were generally not moved by arguments about the quality of life that Terri could hope to enjoy, even in the case of someone completely unaware and unable to interact with their surroundings.
While the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo have been at the centre of a dispute that has been adopted by both left and right at both the state and federal levels of the US government, Terri's parents and spouse did, at first, share the same hopes for her eventual recovery. Initially Terri was taken to hospital and remained in a coma for three months after collapsing at her home on February 25th 1990 following what was subsequently concluded to be a cardiac arrest. She suffered severe brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain before the arrival of the emergency services, with irreversible consequences. Abnormally low levels of potassium were believed to have caused Terri's cardiac arrest; the explanation of this, after the fact, is that she was bulimic. However this is one of a number of basic issues of the case, in which judgement was been based only on circumstantial findings, and one that was disputed by the Schindlers' supporters on the right. The autopsy was unable to shed any light on what might have caused Terri's initial collapse, or why the level of potassium in her blood was so low.
After emerging from the coma, according to the doctors who examined her subsequently, Terri was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) which roughly speaking meant she did not manifest any voluntary, cognitive behaviour or interact with her environment. While both Terri's husband and parents were initially committed to bringing about her recovery, they began to dispute in 1993 and have since severed all contact. Since Michael Schiavo was the court-appointed legal guardian (a decision the Schindlers supported back in 1991), the Schindlers could only oppose his decisions regarding Terri's treatment through the courts.
While the Schindlers had had the support of a number of conservative Christian organisations for many years, this spring the right wing machine went into overdrive, with Congress and the President attempting to engineer a reverse of the decisions of the Florida courts' at the federal level. An alliance of conservative foundations funded the Schindlers' legal case and Christian activists maintained a permanent vigil outside the hospice where Terri had resided since 2000. Other conservative organisations called on members to lobby their representatives in the Florida legislature as well as the national level to champion to the cause of Terri's parents. Randall Terry, an evangelic Christian accused of supporting violent attacks on abortion clinics and their personnel, acted as one of the parents' spokesman. In the right-wing media, those who supported Michael Schiavo's stance were vilified as 'murderers' who supported a 'culture of death'.
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