Katy Lied
By Kathryn Jean Lopez quotes a “smart [sic] e-mailer” who claims:
Derb seems to lean a lot on the idea that the pro-dehydration side had the rule of law behind it. Florida law, passed by the voters’ elected representatives, wasn’t pro-life. That’s true but Derb totally ignores that the Supreme Court ordered all states’ laws to have the pro-euthanasia features he’s talking about.
First of all, you have to like that first argument–for some reason, people who argue against the proposition that Florida courts were acting so lawlessly as to require federal intervention are prone to point out that the courts were, in fact, correctly applying Florida law. Strange! From there, I suppose there’s nowhere to go but rank dishonesty, which leads us to the claim that “the Supreme Court ordered all states’ laws to have…pro-euthanasia features.”
Now I know you’re probably inclined to take the word of a Corner Correspondent, but just for fun why don’t we do what nobody who writes for NRO is willing to: look at the leading Supreme Court case. That would be Cruzan v. Director, MDH, which concerned the constitutionality of a Missouri law that required “clear and convincing evidence” that an incapacitated patient would have wanted to refuse metreatmenttement. Nancy Cruzan was in a PVS. Cruzan had expressed a wish not to be kept alive under such circumstancestances to her housemate, but doctors denied her parents the right to stop her artificial nutrition and hydration. In other words, the very stringent standards of the MO law would have almost certainly required that Schiavo be kept alive. Her parents got a court order, eventually causing a their challenge to the constitutionality of the state law. Sw what happened? The Supreme Court upheld the law: “we conclude,” wrote Rehnquist for the majority, “that a State may apply a clear and convincing evidence standard in proceedings where a guardian seeks to discontinue nutrition and hydration of a person diagnosed to be in a persistent vegetative state.” (And, unusual it is for me to side with Rehnquist over Brennan, I think the court was right; I don’t think states can compel people to accept unwanted medical treatment, I don’t think there’s a constitutional requirement that they adopt any particular standard when determining the wishes of people who cannot speak for themselves. The MO law was, I think, bad public policy, but not unconstitutional.) So, the claim that the more lenient standards of Florida law were forced upon the state by the Supreme Court is completely false.
And, of course, this dishonesty is par for the course for people who smeared the Florida courts and Michael Schiavo. Publius offers a marvelous post rounding up the assertions of K-Lo, Assrocket, Charles Krauthammer, Kaus Hackula, Our Lady of the Dolphins, and various other tribunes of the debased discourse of contemporary Republicans and their fellow travelers. Must reading!
…and W O’ C notes that Randall Terry hasn’t given up:
“To say that she was not interacting is ludicrous,” said Randall Terry, the anti-abortion activist who has served as a family spokesman. “It would mean that every family member and every friend that came out of that room lied to us.”
Why hasn’t he joined the Corner yet?