It should never have come to this point.
The fifteen-year struggle of a severely injured woman, her husband and her well-meaning parents have been thrust in the national spotlight as a center of intense media focus and national debate.
It happens all the time in hospital rooms across the country – someone becomes so severely injured that they need to be put on life support, and there comes a time to consider whether it would be humane to continue that treatment.
Ms. Schiavo is past this point. She has been lying in bed since 1990, when a chemical imbalance caused her heart to stop for a few minutes, depriving key parts of her brain with needed oxygen to function.
For the last fifteen years, Terri Schiavo’s shell of a body has been withering away in a hospital bed. Her muscles have completely weakened, and most of her brain is deterioriating from the damage it suffered from the lack of oxygen.
Though Ms. Schiavo is able to breathe on her own, she must rely on a feeding tube to survive. Under Florida law, the decision rests with the husband whether to continue life support.
Despite this, Schiavo’s parents have relentlessly opposed the husband’s decision to end life support, instead waging a seven-year legal battle to keep their daughter “alive.”
There must be great sympathy for the parents; no doubt they want every opportunity to keep their daughter in this world, but they have exhausted every legal means to do so, and the daughter they once knew is no more.
The parents can be excused in their grief for wanting to do everything in their power to extend their daughter’s life. Sometimes laws are indeed unfair, and court decisions help to remedy the situation.
Less understandable, however, is the intervention this week by Congress, which passed a bill with the singular purpose of keeping Schiavo alive.
Both liberals and conservatives are troubled by this unprecedented measure, which raises states’ rights issues and seems to violate the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws meant to influence such specific situations.
Instead of prolonging the Schiavos’ suffering by passing ad hoc laws, we should find it within ourselves to have enough respect to let the situation come to its own logical conclusion silently, and with deep regard for everyone affected by the decision – including the husband.
By making the Schiavo case a partisan issue, Republicans have sought to turn this into a cut-and-dry case, with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tx.) having accused Mr. Schiavo of, among other things, “abuse and neglect.”
Such elevated rhetoric is unnecessary and only heightens ill will where feelings are already strong on both sides.
This is already a painful ordeal for the family members involved. Opportunistic politicians and the media noise machine should stop fanning the flames.
Omar Yacoubi may be reached at yacoubioa@vcu.edu.