Outside Counsel

I shouldn't read about the Terri Schiavo matter, and I try not to, but it has reached the point where I can't not look. Everyone one on side of the matter keeps shoving our noses in it, and apart from saying that it's a hard case, I've struggled with what I should think about the whole thing.

And then it hit me: the argument that the people who want to keep Ms. Schiavo alive keep coming back to amounts to "Who's to say?" Harriet McBryde Johnson makes this argument in Slate: "The question is who should make the decision for her, and whether that substitute decision-maker should be authorized to kill her by starvation and dehydration." Other commentators have made the sleazier argument that her husband shouldn't be the one to say, because he is struggling to get on with his life. The problem with this argument is that there is a mechanism that exists to make these calls-- and it isn't Ms. Schiavo's husband, the poor bastard. The courts deal with these issues every day, and they are hard cases, and nobody likes dealing with them, but they do get dealt with. In fact, the Florida courts have dealt with this case. The problem is that there are people who are not satisfied with the answer they keep getting, and for whatever reason, keep trying to devise new places to go and ask the question over.

This is destructive , not only for the poor people involved in the process, but for the courts and the idea of the rule of law. The law is not the best system for making moral decisions, but it is an excellent system for making decisions: it is transparent, it is orderly, and it is supposed to be final. The people who are resisting the decisions of the courts that have addressed this situation are damaging something that is valuable and important-- an institution that exists to make the tough calls when nobody else wants to-- or can-- make them. Law breaks down when there is no finality, and breaking down the law seems to be what these people are up to.