Make it STOP!

So, Terri Schiavo.

I know, this all happened months ago, but for some reason there are people out there who just don't want to let it end.

Why is it that this one case got so many people in an uproar? Why, even to this day, do we have people invoking her name to rise against (gasp)... Actually, what, exactly, are these people against? Seriously, let's think about this long and hard. What, exactly, went on in the case of Terri Schiavo? This wasn't an abortion (in most states, including Florida, abortion is illegal in the 174th trimester), this wasn't a case of euthanasia. This was merely a case where the doctors, and the next of kin decided that the best course of action was to terminate all life-continuing measures.

Something which has gone interestingly unmentioned in this particular case is that every doctor who attended to Ms. Shiavo agreed that removal of the feeding tube was the best course of action. The doctors, clearly, were willing to end treatment if the patient if the next-of-kin decided to do so (he did not, incidentally, decide to do so until about eight years after she went into a persistent vegitative state); and it's the assessment of every court-appointed physician who saw her that she was in an irrecoverable state. Granted, the Schiavo's parents hired their own physician who announced that with proper therapy, she could recover; a finding which is directly contradicted by the post-mortem; so I frankly question the doctor in question's qualifications.

Moreover, something which was curiously unmentioned either in the media circus which surrounded this unfortunate woman, or in the aftermath, was the fact that every single judge agreed that Michael Shiavo, her husband, had established conclusively that his wife would not wish to be kept alive under these circumstances. Instead, what did they focus on as Mr. Schiavo fought to let his wife die? The fact that he had a new girlfriend (a huge deal was made of the fact that it was out of wedlock) and a couple of kids.

Give the man a fricking break! His wife had been in a coma for fifteen years!

The question nobody seemed to bother asking was why Michael Schiavo didn't just divorce his wife and walk away from the whole situation, in spite of not one, but two multi-million dollar offers to do so. When they found that he couldn't be bought off, they suddenly started playing the PR game; going to enormous lengths to make it seem as if he was a horrible, abusive, borderline murderous human being who would have taken immense pleasure from the idea of torturing his wife to death. And no, I'm not exaggerating in the least.

So why, in spite of offers totaling over eleven million dollars, media pressure, and outright slander from the far-right wing did Mr. Schiavo not just walk away and let it end? Why didn't he just let her family decide what was best for their daughter? Hell, in his position, I gotta admit that's probably what I would have done; and I would have been wrong.

Well, I think we can probably pretty much reject the idea that he's an evil, abusive, murderous human being who wants to torture his wife to death; as the far right wing contends. And, after fifteen years, I don't think anybody would likely hold it against him if he decided to divorce his wife and walk away. So what stopped him? Why did he fight so hard and for so long to let his wife die?

The only answer that makes any sense at all is that he truly felt that he was doing the right thing. In spite of the, shall we say, uncharitable image that was painted of him on the news, he held steadfastly to his belief that he was doing the right thing. It would have been easy for him to respond to slander with slander; to descend to their level; but he didn't. Instead he fought the only way he knew how; he worked his way through the courts. In fact, of all the people involved in this; from the family, to the doctors, to the special interest groups to the president; he's the one person involved who actually acted with any human decency whatsoever. I truly believe that for the level of slander he experienced in the final months of his wife's life, Mr. Schiavo deserves a formal apology. I don't, however, expect that he'll get one. The far (extreme) right is kinda funky that way. They don't like to admit that they're wrong... ever.

The real tragedy of this is that an event which should have been private; the death of a loved one, became so brutally public. One man's reputation was dragged through the mud, congress got involved; for naught, really, since when they decided that federal courts could rule in this one particular case, the federal court promptly decided that they wouldn't. Kudos. And realistically, this was all over a woman whose life was, by any reasonable measure, over. I'm sorry, this is truly a tragedy for her family, but it's true. So while the media announced that congress was "acting to save Terri Shiavo's life" (and as an aside, I ask you: what liberal media?), congress was really acting against what no fewer than three court judges in various courts had decided were Terri Schiavo's wishes.

This has been a tragedy, not only for the Schiavo and her family, but for America as a whole. I wish for both sides of this dispute comfort and peace now that this is all over. As for those now trying to invoke her name to paint a new face on "compassionate conservativism;" well, I'm not sure whether I believe in heaven and hell or not, but if I did, I do believe that this level of false compassion exhibited by the far right in the United States would be enough to determine which direction they're headed.