Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

I cannot even count the posts that attribute sympathy for TS to right wing political agendas.

Yeah, we gotta stay away from that super-ego (morality) stuff. It's nasty. Better to be a total sociopath who starves someone to death and then says that it's for her own good.

That brings me back to an earlier exchange you had with Lola here. She insisted the Schiavo uproar was all to do with the Christian-conservative right-wing in the Republican party pushing/imposing its agenda; you replied with a reference to Debra Law and others who showcase that this wasn't a conservative/liberal split. I have to say, in review I lean a little more to Lola's POV than I did before. On the one hand, it's absolutely true that popular opinions on the matter do not confirm to the lib/cons divide. This was exactly the point I was making here to Lash before - just look at A2K, with McGentrix, Woiyo and Phoenix on the one hand and Debra and Montana on the other crossing the usual divide. Thats partly because in a case like this, Libertarians and perhaps Constitutionalists too would have to side with Michael's case, but it's also because it's such a personal matter.

But while popular opinion is one thing, a review of the activists who were actually pushing the case is another. Once the public was confronted with this case, its opinion split in undogmatic lines about it, with even conservatives in majority rejecting Congress's involvement. But how did the case become a matter of national opinion in the first place? Because of the push by an influential conglomerate of politicans and activist groups (note: I'm not talking organised conspiracy, just a network of groups that are webbed together in a self-sustaining, self-confirming world where each instinctively refers to one another). And that network is much more clear-cut in ideological orientation.

What brought that point home to me was a simple web search. I mean, with a court order or two or how many more like the ones you and I just quoted, some issues would simply have been done with. One can still easily disagree with the final decision on principle - for example if you strictly oppose anything resembling euthanasia - but individual allegations and assertions, at least, should have been resolved for good. But instead they kept on doing the rounds, unrefuted, confirmed and repeated time and again. The web search I did was on "Carla Sauer Iyers" Schiavo. Of the three nurses who spoke up on the family's behalf, Iyers was clearly the least reliable. And the court was quite unambiguous about that. Yet she was trotted out again and again, over a year later, as an important witness who was ignored, "never heard", on a trillion weblogs but also Fox News, without a single mention of how the court had looked at her affadivit and evaluated it to be wholly incredible. Check that Google link and discover how hard it is to actually find any mention of the court's evaluation of her! Page after page after page of right-wing websites that don't - that in fact deny it ever happened. The only other one mixed in for several pages is MediaMatters, which does quote it, but which I didn't want to rely on because it's a clearly partisan site itself, for the other side. I had to browse through to, I dunno, result #50 or something to find a link to the actual court document, or even as much as any news report from this year quoting from it.

"Malice Aforethought" does not require ill-will toward the victim. It does not require wickedness. It requires 1) an intent to cause the death of the victim; or 2) an intent to cause serious bodily injury.

Accordingly, murder is intentionally or knowingly causing the death of another.

4 entries found for malice.
mal·ice ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mls)
n.
A desire to harm others or to see others suffer; extreme ill will or spite.

Law. The intent, without just cause or reason, to commit a wrongful act that will result in harm to another.


[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin malitia, from malus, bad. See mel-3 in Indo-European Roots.]

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Main Entry: mal·ice
Pronunciation: 'ma-l&s
Function: noun

1 a : the intention or desire to cause harm (as death, bodily injury, or property damage) to another through an unlawful or wrongful act without justification or excuse b : wanton disregard for the rights of others or for the value of human lifeunjustified without justification or excuse; also : malice inferred from subjective awareness of duty or of the likely results of one's act called also legal malice malice in law

malice aforethought
: actual or implied malice existing in or attributed to the intention of one that injures or esp. kills without justification or excuse and usually requiring some degree of deliberation or premeditation or wanton disregard for lifefeelings of ill will, spite, or revenge
NOTE: Such feelings are usually not an important component of malice in legal consideration unless punitive damages or actual malice is an issue.

Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

malice

n 1: feeling a need to see others suffer [syn: maliciousness, spite, spitefulness, venom] 2: the quality of threatening evil [syn: malevolence, malevolency]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

malice

malice: in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary

Source: On-line Medical Dictionary, © 1997-98 Academic Medical Publishing & CancerWEB

Notice below that the "intent to cause death" in the definition of murder is "without justification or excuse." In this case, the death of Michael's brain dead wife was not without justification or excuse, i.e. he had excellent justification. Therefore there is no malice. Therefore no murder. Allowing his wife's body to finally die after her brain had been dead for 15 years is not murder.

geroge you know very well why not, one is an AMA defined acceptable method whereas the others are prohibited by law. not a question of ethics, simply a question of accepted medodology.

... but that's the way it is.

Are you offering that legislatures are more competent?

george, not forcing someone to live is not the same thing as forcing them to die.

I out of hand reject both the conservative republican who values by the bottom line mythology and the democrat who desires that all mankind suffer the unbearable sentence of uniformity to the common good.

Brandon wrote:

No. Please explain, if you dare, which I doubt.

There is no doubting that any explanation will ring hollow in a neocons mind.

"Malice Aforethought" does not require ill-will toward the victim. It does not require wickedness. It requires 1) an intent to cause the death of the victim; or 2) an intent to cause serious bodily injury.

Accordingly, murder is intentionally or knowingly causing the death of another.

Notice below that the "intent to cause death" in the definition of murder is "without justification or excuse." In this case, the death of Michael's brain dead wife was not without justification or excuse, i.e. he had excellent justification. Therefore there is no malice. Therefore no murder. Allowing his wife's body to finally die after her brain had been dead for 15 years is not murder.

I understand, under Florida law, Michael has no criminal liability for causing the death of his wife. It was a state-imposed death under the color of law. The entire nation stood by and watched while a helpless, disabled woman was slowly put to death through starvation and dehydration because her life was viewed as unworthy of protection.

Terri Shiavo's life ended 15 years ago, and the brain scans seem to indicate just as much.

The entire nation stood by and watched reputable doctors and the courts make rational and informed decisions. The rightwing media machine completely disregarded science and lied constantly in order to turn this into a political farce.