Yesterday's post generated lots of comments. Good. It also caused me to think more and read more. One link I found at JustOneMinute was to a LeanLeft post that discussed the Texas "medical futility" laws and their applicability (or not) to the Schiavo case as regards the possibly hypocrisy of the republican pols (this being extra special hypocrisy above and beyond my cynical thought that since they are politicians thay are ipso facto hypocrites).
Ignoring the hypocrisy argument the article discusses the procedure by which a Texan hospital may decide to remove life-support from hopeless cases. Various religious right-wingers (e.g. Hugh Hewitt) seem to think that, to misquote Monty Python, "Every almost-life is sacred". This is stupid and, as the Lean Left article notes, even the National Right to Life group cooperated in drafting the Texas law. In general I do not think the courts should get involved and I certainly think the politicians should not get involved in specific cases, although I do think they should get invlved in setting up the framework for defining when and how treatment should be discontinued.
Indeed it seems to me that a part of the problem here is that the US has a total mess of state provisions with little or no federal standards. What the US Congress should be doing is drafting explicit federal standards for determining when and how treatment should be discontinued. What they actually did was shove the whole mess on to the shoulders of a federal judge, which is about as cowardly as the original remove the tube and let her starve decision was. What they should be doing is defining a series of tests that can be used to determine whether a person is worth keeping alive or not (brain scans, reponses to stimuli, amount of medical intervention required to keep them going etc.) and the number of independant physicians etc. that need to be consulted to determine that said tests have proven negative. Holly Lisle's Sympathy for the Devil has a description of how "excessive heroics" fail to help anyone and just result in throwing good money after bad.It isn't clear to me whether Mrs Schiavo is in the same situation yet but she is clearly close to it and there should be a transparent and consistent set of actions to be followed to determine whether or not she is worth keeping "alive" as well as, IMO, a clear requriement that if she fails to meet that threshold then she should be given a swift and painless death.
However, all this is based on the (obvious?) assumption that no one is willing to stump up the cash to keep medical treatment going. It seems clear to me that if some group or individual is willing to keep on paying then they should be permitted to do so, thus what I also don't understand is why, if Mrs Schiavo's family have offered to pay her medical expenses from this point on as I understand to be the case, they have not been allowed to actually do so. I understand her husband wants some sort of closure, but given that his in-laws want her alive and he wants to move on I don't understand why he should not be permitted to
divorce her
had over guardianship to his in-laws
get on with his new life
His willingness to do this would I think be a good indication of whether or not it is, in fact, about money. And their willingness to accept responsibility and payments would be a good indication of their actual beliefs too. However the Florida judge seems to have ruled that these steps may not occur which, if true, is bizarre.