I've been offline and/or traveling for most of the weekend, so I haven't weighed in on the shameless exploitation of the Schaivo case by Congressional Republicans. But to make an obvious point, it is indeed shameless.
Maybe the most ridiculous aspect of the whole charade has been people pretending to diagnose Schiavo from afar. Here's Amy Sullivan laying the beatdown on Bill Frist at WashingtonMonthly.com for abusing his medical authority:
STOP THIS MAN BEFORE HE DIAGNOSES AGAIN....I wasn't going to comment on the Terry Schiavo case, mostly because it seems that any attention just feeds directly into what conservatives are hoping to achieve: a trumped-up culture war. (See Ed Kilgore's comments for my general take on the issue.) But Senator Frist's recent diagnosis--via a home-made video, it's important to note--that Schiavo is not actually in a persistent vegetative state, compels me to write...
[W]hat's really appalling about Frist's latest I'm-not-a-neurologist-but-I-play-one-in-the-Senate routine is that he does this all the time. For at least eight years, Frist has been making medical pronouncements on all manner of medical issues outside his speciality (he's a heart surgeon), and his message is always the same: You can't trust all those other doctors, but you can trust me because I am a doctor.
Last December, when asked by George Stephanopoulos whether HIV could be transmitted through saliva or tears, Frist refused to say that it could not, stalling three times before finally admitting, "It would be very hard." That's putting it mildly. In October 2001, after a letter containing anthrax was sent to Senator Daschle's office, Frist assured his fellow senators that the anthrax wasn't powerful enough to kill anyone, even though several people had already died in Florida and postal workers who handled the letter in D.C. subsequently died. And in 1997, when the Senate was debating the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban," Frist claimed on the Senate floor that D&X, the abortion procedure they sought to ban, was a "rogue procedure" that was not taught in medical schools, a claim that would come as a surprise to many teaching hospitals.
Frist is a doctor, yes. But he is not a neurologist, he is not an infectious disease specialist, he is not a biological agent expert, and he is not an obstetrician. He uses his "Dr." title as a smokescreen to make politically-motivated pronouncements. The only reason he gets away with it is that people are intimidated by his certainty, reminded (because he repeats it all the time) that he is the Senate's only physician.
Except he's not. Now that Tom Coburn is the junior senator from Oklahoma, Frist is merely the Senate's only not insane physician. Who are you or I to question his medical judgment? When it comes to diagnosing neurological function on the basis of watching a home video for an hour, you and I are just about as qualified as Frist.
Update 3/21: Good news! The public isn't buying it at all. See this ABC News poll, which shows overwhelming majorities opposed to Congress getting involved to keep Schiavo alive (via Think Progress and Kevin Drum).
Update 3/21: The national media has noticed that Bush signed a law in Texas that is blatantly inconsistent with his stand on Schiavo. (Bonus highlight if you read the story: Scott McClellan denying this obvious fact.) Also, don't miss Dahlia Lithwick's devastating article about the GOP intervention into the case on Slate.
Update 3/22: The Note claims that the law isn't inconsistent with Bush's stand on Schiavo because it offered increased protection compared with previous law. Well, so what? It still would have allowed Schiavo to be unplugged. I'm unconvinced.
Correction 3/23: The New York Times completely botched the second quote above, which according to a correction published today was (a) incorrectly attributed to Bill Kristol and (b) omitted the part where the speaker, Fred Barnes, attributed his views to a neurologist who spoke wtih Frist. As such, I've deleted the paragraph referring to Kristol and taken him out of the headline. Apologies for the error.
Update 3/23: See also the Washington Post's article on Frist's boundary-crossing.
I'm ashamed to say that I spent very little thought on the Terri Schiavo case when I first heard about it (when her feeding tube was removed in 2000). This time around, I'm trying to pay a little closer attention, both because of its state-vs-federal implications (hard to reconcile the pull-the-tube side with a fervent desire for states' rights) and because a life is at risk, one way or the other. I don't see how it's "shameless" for members of the Republican party who identify themselves as "pro-life" to be "pro-life" in a case in which this woman's parents not only want her to go on living but are begging for the chance to take on all her care. (If they wanted her to go on living but were unwilling to pay for it - that is, if their desire was more to get back at Michael Schiavo than to keep Terri alive - I'd feel differently.)
My perspective: there is question in this case as to whether Terri is in fact in the PVS that Greer has made a finding of fact. Noted neurologists come down on both sides of the issue - at least, I assume there are some on the PVS side; I know there are on the non-PVS side. Why take action to cause her death (note that I avoid saying "kill her" even though that's the effect) before settling the question, rather than passively allowing her to go on living while trying to reach a conclusion that takes into account not only Michael Schiavo's desire to see her dead (can that be argued? It's only his reason that's in question - whether he wants to see her dead out of love and respect for her, or for some other reason), but also medical science that has advanced considerably since the finding-of-fact diagnosis and the desire of her family to see her, and support her in, continuing to live? Should not the position of the medical community be "first, do no harm"? If the docs ascribing to Terri a PVS are wrong, well, there's not much more harm they could do her than removing a feeding tube that may not even be necessary while simultaneously forbidding anyone even to try to feed her. Is the debate sufficiently one-sided that the pro-PVS docs feel no doubt, sense no possibility that they've misdiagnosed? Dr. William Hammesfahr, who has indeed spent multiples more time with Terri than Dr. Cranford has (not hard, considering that Dr. Cranford's diagnosis was based on a 45-minute exam), is a Nobel-nominated neurologist whose field of expertise is in successful medication and treatment of patients who suffered brain damage even years previously; he is on record as stating that not only is Terri patently not in a PVS but that he has treated patients in similar conditions who are speaking. [Note the following about Dr. Cranford: "In cases where other doctors don’t see it, Dr. Cranford seems to have a knack for finding PVS. Cranford also diagnosed Robert Wendland as PVS. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could pick up specifically colored pegs or blocks and hand them to a therapy assistant on request. He did so in spite of the fact that Wendland could operate and maneuver an ordinary wheelchair with his left hand and foot, and an electric wheelchair with a joystick, of the kind that many disabled persons (most famously Dr. Stephen Hawking) use. Dr. Cranford dismissed these abilities as meaningless. Fortunately for Wendland, the California supreme court was not persuaded by Cranford’s assessment." From NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/johansen200503160848.asp]
I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories, but Michael Schiavo's behavior throughout Terri's half-life has not been exemplary; surely there could be some question even in the minds of the most fervent right-to-die-with-dignity advocates as to whether this particular spokesman for this particular woman is acting from wholly pure motives.
I don't know what else to say about this case; if there's a miscarriage going on, I believe it's on the side of immediate death rather than at least delayed death. Aren't the stakes high enough to justify a hearing?
Posted by: Jamie | March 22, 2005 at 08:58 AM