GOP in Your Hospice Room

It’s been quite awhile since most people thought of the GOP as a party devoted to staying out of the private lives of its citizens. Or of keeping government out of family life. Or of a party devoted to the principles of federalism.

Well, those days are long gone.

If anyone doubts this, they ought to take a good look at the GOP-controlled legislature in Florida, the current governor of that state, and their allies in the Christian Coalition and the right-to-life movement.

Right now, they’re doing their damnedest to prevent Michael Schiavo, the husband and legal guardian of Terri Schiavo, from disconnecting her life-support tubes. Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990. She is unable to care for herself and is in what the doctors call a vegetative state. Terri Schiavo’s parents, on the other hand, want to continue to keep her alive and have mounted continuous court actionsin the state of Florida,  aimed at stopping Mr Schiavo from carrying out his wife’s often stated wishes and disconnecting her feeding tubes.

Sad as it is, family disputes of this sort do occasionally occur. And usually the family can sort things out on their own. Without  government assistance.

But not apparently in the Schiavo case.

Not, that is, if the Republicans have anything to say about it.  And they’ve been saying and doing a lot lately. Much of it is causing damage not only to the Schiavo family but the principles of law and federalism as  well.

GOP politicians and their allies in the religious right and the right-to-life movement are being brought into action in the Schiavo case.  They have no business being there, but  because the latter groups exercise enormous influence in Florida they think they have a lot to say about it.

Among other things, they are literally demanding that Mr Schiavo, ignore Florida state court rulings and to keep Terri Schiavo connected with feeding tubes, no matter what the Florida courts say and have consistently said for the past 15 years.  Not to mention the intentions of Terri Schiavo as they were made known to her family prior to suffering the injuries that have rendered her now in a vegetative state.

Florida GOP politicians are attempting to get around state court decisions that give Mr Schiavo the right to end his wife’s life by removing her life support mechanisms as well as food and water.

So far they haven't succeeded, at least not in any permanent sense, but where do they get off trying  this  stuff in the first place?

It’s an outrage.

The members of the Florida legislature have no standing with the Schiavo family; they are not related in any way, nor have they been appointed Mrs Schiavo’s guardians. The same goes for the current governor of Florida, as well as various members of the religious right and the various right-to-life groups.  They have no intimate knowledge the Schaivo family yet they arrogate to themselves the right to tell a duly-constituted guardian that he shall not be allowed to end the life of his own brain-dead wife, despite his assertions that that is precisely what his wife would have wanted.

This damnable, officious interference in the private matters of a family and the attempt by the governor and legislature of Florida to sever the guardian relationship without benefit of a court action is unprecedented.

It is shameful and represents nothing more than another example of the alliance that the religious right and right-to-lifers have made with the GOP, for the purpose of interfering as much as possible in the private lives of American families.

It makes a mockery of all the pious declarations they’ve have made over the years about “Family Values.” They are not the party of family values. How can they be?

And as for those who believe in traditional American federalism; there’s more bad news.

The US Congress has gotten into the act.

According to the St. Petersburg Times congressional Republicans are putting forth bills that will effectively delay the removal of Mrs Schiavo’s life support system for months, perhaps for years. Such an attempt by the congress to inject itself in what amounts to a state matter, already decided by state courts, is an egregious interference in the right of state courts to handle guardianship law. It is probably unconstitutional, but its effect will be to cause continued suffering for those members of Mrs Schiavo’s family who feel that Mr Schiavo should be able to carry out what he perceived was his wife’s wishes as he sees fit.

According to Christian Wire Service, Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- Texas), and Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) are coming out with subpoenas which are supposed to require hospice administrators and attending physicians to preserve nutrition and hydration for Terri Schiavo to allow Congress to fully understand the procedures and practices that are currently keeping her alive. The House, they say, has “initiated an inquiry into the long-term care of incapacitated adults, an issue of growing importance to the federal government and federal healthcare policy.”

The House is pushing the subpoena in order to create a situation whereby the guardian and others responsible for Mrs Schiavo’s care will be literally forced to keep her alive, since they are responsible for her showing up at a hearing which is supposed to take place in a few weeks.

Thankfully the local judge has ignored these subpoenas and ordered Mrs Schiavo’s feeding tubes removed.

In any event, it’s nice to know that the GOP has now become the party interested in the state of American healthcare.

I guess that means they’ll soon start considering the plight of millions of Americans who have no access to health insurance.

Not bloody likely.

Individual members of Congress , as regards the Schiavo case, are concerned only with their individual political futures. The Christian Right and the various right-to-life organizations exercise enormous influence on the House GOP and some influence on certain GOP Senators. In a close race, they can make the difference between winning and  not winning.  They obviously arn't concerned with Mrs Schiavo; they are interested in saving their own  political careers. Which they can't very well do unless they kow-tow to the religious right. 

In any event, what the Congress is doing, is cynical travesty of constitutional processes and should be stopped immediately.

Concerned citizens ought to make their views in this matter known to Congress.

Otherwise those of us who will eventually wind up in a hospice, (and many of us probably will) as we’re busy struggling to get free of this mortal coil, we all might find ourselves on the receiving end of some House or Senate staff lawyer handing us a paper demanding that we stay alive for someone’s partisan purpose.

Punditwalla--