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A Times EditorialLawmakers trying to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube violate the principles of limited government and Floridians' right to privacy.
This is a defining moment for Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature. They can once again cave in to pressure from a vocal minority obsessed with Terri Schiavo's fate and send government barging in to heart-wrenching decisions about the end of life. Or they can uphold the Florida Constitution, respect the privacy rights of all Floridians and stop trying to impose their religious convictions and personal values on Schiavo and the rest of us.
The governor and state lawmakers apparently learned nothing from their last indefensible intrusion into the Schiavo case. A hastily passed state law applying only to Schiavo forced the reinsertion of her feeding tube six days after it was taken out in 2003. The Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled last year that the law was unconstitutional, and many legislators expressed regret that they interfered. Yet today is deja vu all over again, with lawmakers rushing to trump the courts and vote on legislation aimed at preventing Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed Friday.
This outrageous abuse of power is even more dangerous because it would affect every Floridian, not just Schiavo. The legislation would make it virtually impossible to remove feeding tubes from Schiavo and anyone else who lapses into a persistent vegetative state and has left no specific written instructions. That affects a far smaller group of patients than previous versions of the bills; patients with dementia or stroke victims, for example, are no longer affected.
Yet this is no comfort to Floridians who do not want to be artificially fed if they are stricken like Schiavo, with severe brain damage and no real hope of recovery. The restrictions also would be retroactive, applying to Schiavo and any other living persons regardless of previous court rulings and family decisions. It is unfathomably arrogant for politicians to try to overrule difficult conclusions that were based on individual circumstances and substitute their own uninformed dictates.
The House bill is particularly offensive, because it would allow anyone to seek a court order to require a feeding tube to remain in a person in a persistent vegetative state. The Senate bill is narrower and more closely tracks the Schiavo situation. Only family members who disagreed with removing a feeding tube from a relative who is in a persistent vegetative state and has no written living will or designated health care surrogate could ask a judge to keep the tube connected. But the ultimate result would be just as unacceptable: Previous verbal declarations would no longer be enough to avoid a feeding tube when family members disagreed.
Reasonable people approach end-of-life decisions differently, and we all have our difficult personal experiences with dying loved ones. Too few Floridians have living wills or other specific written instructions, and too many are relying like Schiavo did on verbal declarations. But government ought not interfere with Schiavo, whose intentions and medical condition have been exhaustively examined by the courts and other independent experts. And it ought not violate the privacy rights of the rest of us to determine our own fates.
Senate President Tom Lee and House Speaker Allan Bense pledged to usher in a new era of more thoughtful lawmaking, yet they are prepared to act with the same disregard for the Constitution as their predecessors. They would violate the very principles of limited government and personal responsibility that Republican legislative leaders say they hold so dear. By intruding into Terri Schiavo's hospice room, they would intrude into every Floridian's home.
They should know better.