The Religious Right’s last chance to lie about Terri Schiavo

June 18, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

The autopsy results for Terri Schiavo were made public on Wednesday, and the Religious Right doesn’t come out looking good.

Leaders of various Religious Right organizations, primarily Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council, asserted that Schiavo, the Florida woman who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, could have been revived with the proper treatment. They also strongly implied that Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo, tried to murder his wife by strangling her.

The autopsy results leave those claims in shreds. The doctors who performed it found no evidence of foul play and noted that Schiavo’s condition was irreversible.

To hear the Religious Right tell it, all Schiavo needed was a back rub and some vitamins and she would have been doing jumping jacks in her hospital room. In fact, her brain had withered away half of its size. She was also blind. She would never have resumed consciousness. The false hope Religious Right leaders constantly fed her parents is perhaps the cruelest thing they did.

Religious Right and ultra-orthodox Roman Catholic groups, which for months exploited the Schiavo tragedy to advance their own narrow dogma, can respond to this news in one of two ways: They can deny plain science behind the autopsy (I call this the “creation science” approach), which I am sure many of them will do, or they can say it is irrelevant.

One group, the American Life League, is already taking the second course. The group’s press release called the autopsy results “ultimately irrelevant” because, “the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that ‘whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of the handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.'”

Actually, it’s the catechism of the Catholic Church that’s irrelevant. It might be relevant were this Franco’s Spain or medieval France, but the United States is not a theocracy (yet). The Catholic Church is free to hold its beliefs and demand that its members hew to them, but it has no right to impose them on everyone else through the secular law.

The Schiavo case showcased how low the Religious Right can go. It was a textbook example of how fundamentalist religious organizations seek to run our lives from the moment of the conception until our deaths, which they will determine. The Terri Schiavo autopsy should put the matter to rest at last. Had these Religious Right leaders a shred of decency, they would apologize. They don’t so look for this autopsy to become a final opportunity for more Religious Right lies.

Jeb Bush just made matters even worse…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/national/18schiavo.html

“Gov. Jeb Bush asked a state prosecutor on Friday to investigate the circumstances of Terri Schiavo’s collapse, saying a new autopsy report revealed a possible gap between when Ms. Schiavo fell unconscious and when her husband called paramedics.”

[…]

“In a statement on Friday, Ms. Schiavo’s husband, Michael, called Governor Bush’s actions ‘sickening’ and said he had called 911 promptly.”

—

Does Bush honestly believe that an autopsy 10 years later will show with precision when she fell unconscious?

  • We knew these vultures were craven opportunists on top of being batshit crazy; why should we expect them to now respond in a reality-based manner?

    In a take-off on the Three Monkeys Motto that is appropo: “See No Reality, Hear No Reality, Speak No Reality.” Hhmmmmm … seems we could apply this to BushCo, Frist, Dobson, ….. 🙂

  • I’ve always supported Michael Schiavo’s wish to just get the whole thing over with and quietly get on with his life if that’s what he wants. But if they are going to keep coming after him forever, taking the whole looney bunch of them to court for millions in damages for harassment, libel and slander might be the only way to get them off his back once and for all.

    I doubt he would have any lack of public support for the move, and it just might make the frothing dogs finally go away.

  • Personally, I’m waiting for that apology from Frist, DeLay, and the rest of the opportunistic moralists on the right. Or from the thoughtless right-wing commentariat/blogosphere that jumped on the bandwagon? Or how about from The Weekly Standard‘s Fred Barnes, who declared that liberals were “[indifferent]… to the fate of Terri Schiavo,” that “liberalism washed its hands of Schiavo,” that she was merely “[s]ick, needy, and handicapped”?

    Not that we’ll get one. As we’ve learned quite clearly from the Bush Administration itself, the right isn’t about to admit that it’s made any mistakes. They’ll spout nonsense about the so-called “culture of life,” and they’ll turn even the most sensitive issue of human suffering into a tool for partisan warfare, but, in their view, they’re always right. Even when they’re wrong.

    For more on my take(s) on the Schiavo case, see my recent post at The
    Reaction    .

  • Being Republican means never having to say you’re sorry. For anything. Because, hey, their dear leader never admits to any wrongdoing, so why should they? [snark mode off]

    John at AmericaBlog has a great idea for next week – calling legislators and demanding they apologize for a whole host of things. Check http://www.americablog.org/

  • let me begin this comment by sharing the fact that i claim NO allegiance to any political party or ideology, but i find this entire situation disturbing on many levels. at what point does a parent in this country give up their right to care for their child, no matter their physical or mental condition. terri’s parents said numerous times that they were willing to care for their daughter at no expense to her husband, but he refused to give up custody. if he was so eager to “get this over with,” why not get a divorce and leave the situation behind entirely.
    the other thing that i find severely disturbing is that a court can now decided the fate of those who are not able to defend themselves. this should send a sharp jolt to the spine of all of you who love freedom(if you still have your spines, that is). if this is the style of the “new america” that seems to be so popular today, why not go ahead and euthanize the mentally retarded, the terminally ill, and the criminally insane. i mean, it’s not like it would make us Nazis or anything(that’s sarcasm for the ironically challenged).
    this has nothing to do with religion or politics, and has everything to do with the stripping of our fundamental rights as human beings. take a step back from the partisan bickering to see the bigger picture at work here. this country is becoming a very frightening place to live.

  • thedrizl

    First of all, your snide remark about our spines was unnecessary. Save it.

    Second, the question here is: Did Terri not want to have to live that way indefinitely? That is the fundamental question.

    If she did not, as her husband said, then she should not have to. Of course, if she wanted to be kept alive no matter what, then that should have happened. These are her rights.

    Having said that, you did not know her. I did not know her. Her case had more time devoted to it than I ever imagined would be possible. The religious right needed a distraction, and used this poor woman and her family to do just that – and you all followed along. Perfect.

    How sad; this kind of thing happens quite often here, and now you all finally care – good show. Except it backfired. The religious right overstepped thier bounds on this one, and the only one with the nerve to still champion this is Jeb.

    But he will lose, you see, because he is wrong. You are all wrong. But you will never believe that, no matter how many courts you go through – because it isn’t what you want to hear. Period.

    Mentally retarded people can still enjoy life, know their loved ones are there, and are able to ‘care’ if they are alive.

    Many, many terminally ill patients choose to end their own lives. They have various reasons – and it should be their right. In Oregon it is.

    The criminally insane would be treated better and more successfully if they were dead – sarcasm, in case you don’t recognize it. They are thrown in prison or hell holes rather than getting decent care.

    This has everything to do with religion AND politics. Let the poor woman rest in peace.

  • I got a picture of Bill Frist, I studied it for hours, and let me tell you , if you place a flashlight on it , he seems to respond to visual stimuli, but I have to conclude that the guy is actually brain dead.

  • Let’s not forget that the GOP is rapidly become and in some cases already is, an anti-science party. Look at how they deal with birth contro and evolution argument and homosexuality – just to name their biggest hot-button issues.

    As purely a matter of opinion, I believe that the far right of the GOP – i.e. Christian conservatives – really does not believe in science. They don’t believe in it for the same reason the Catholic Church fought against it – it scares them because it seeks to explain. They don’t want explanations – they just want to be told what to believe. They don’t like science because it serves both the good and the bad witout being either good or bad – it takes no sides and can often be (and is) manipulated. They don’t like science because they feel science is the complete and utter opposite of who they are. All of these things make them hostil to science and all that it stands for and all its conclusions.

  • You are misinterpreting the position of the Catholic Church.

    By catholic ethics, dating back at least 400 years, it is licit to withdraw “extraordinary” measures of sustaining life if there is no hope of recovery. A person in a persistent vegetative state has no hope of recovery. Furthermore, withdrawing food and water under these circumstances qualifies as extraordinary measures. It MOST CERTAINLY is not euthanasia. For more on this, see the work of the Jesuit Father Tom Paris (Salon has an interview with him around the time of the Schiavo circus). As much as they would like people to think so, the right-wing nuts do not have catholic ethics on their side.

    Tony.

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