The Schiavo “emergency” in Washington is temporarily over with the passage of a private bill giving Terri Schiavo’s parents a hearing before a federal judge. But if that judge doesn’t do what the Schindlers and their hyper-politicized backers want, then the protests and demands for ever-more-drastic intervention will start right back up again, aimed no doubt at plenary legislation banning any terminations of life support absent explicit instructions from the person in question. And at that point, Congressional Republicans will be hardly be in a position to say no.
And even if Schiavo’s particular case somehow gets out of the news, the precedent has now been set, as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) pointed out today: “Every aggrieved party in any similar litigation now will go to Congress, come to Congress and ask us to make a series of decisions. This is a terribly difficult decision which we are, institutionally, totally incompetent to make.”
One thing is for sure: this case will boost the execution of Living Wills into the stratosphere. After this weekend, each of us must decide if we want to control what happens to us if we wind up like Terri Schiavo. Otherwise, Tom DeLay will decide it for us.