Terri Schiavo — wait, don’t flip that page just yet. In the event that you’ve been living under a rock, the case of Florida resident Terri Schiavo involves a legal and emotional battle between Schiavo’s parents and her husband regarding whether to remove Terri from life-support. She has been in vegetative state for the past 15 years, and her husband says she never wanted to live like this, but her parents say she could recover. The case has been subjected to overblown national scrutiny, but the political implications pertain directly to all of us.
Oregon has repeatedly renewed its vow to keep assisted suicide legal here, but in light of the Florida government’s brash decision last year to intervene on behalf of Schiavo’s parents and prevent the removal of her feeding tube, Oregon citizens may have reason to fear. In Florida, the state government sided with Schiavo’s family, but the decision over Terri’s life is legally only her husband’s to make. This fact was ignored. A government overstepping the wishes of a patient’s legal guardian or next of kin, such as a husband or wife, based on emotional or religious appeal sets a scary precedent. This is especially true in the context of a highly contested act such as assisted suicide.
The Republican-dominated Congress severely overstepped their authority in allowing Schiavo’s parents to move their battle out of Florida state courts and into the federal government judicial system. The old Republican creed was to keep government out of personal and state affairs; the new Republican creed appears to be to keep government out of personal or state affairs — unless Conservatives have a vested, usually religious interest in those affairs. Oregonians surely remember Ashcroft’s attentive and generally unwelcome concern over our Death wih Dignity Act.
This issue is weirdly relevant to Schiavo. For 11 days Schiavo’s feeding and water tubes have been disconnected, and while starvation is surely not an easy way to die, most medical experts agree it is unlikely that Schiavo is aware of pain in her present state. Her parents claim that Schiavo is speaking, or asking to remain alive, a claim refuted by her doctors who noted the spastic, unconscious nature of her vocalizations. Still, many who begged for government intervention have lamented Schiavo’s suffering as she dies.
If she is experiencing pain, then perhaps the Schiavo family, and the state of Florida in general should take another look at their own regulations over assisted suicide. In Oregon, Schiavo might have been granted her right to die without lingering on the brink of starvation. In the end the answer is simple. Michael Schiavo has made the legal decision that his wife would not wish to be kept alive, and now that the courts have overruled inappropriate government intervention, a swift death would surely be more dignified for everyone involved.
The choice over life and death is not an easy one to make. The government should sit this one out. As long as the patients and family involved are operating under legal pretenses, the federal government should step aside in most every case involving a choice, a life and dignity.

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