Terri Schiavo case was the turning point

March 21st, 2008 at 12:07pm Pat Cunningham

 

Three years ago this month, Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old Florida woman, died after lingering in a vegetative state for 15 years following a sudden illness.

Thus ended a bizarre political circus that can be seen in retrospect as a misstep by President Bush and congressional Republicans from which they have yet to recover. GOP fortunes have suffered from numerous other factors since then – the war in Iraq, federal incompetence in dealing with Hurricane Katrina, scandals here, scandals there, scandals everywhere — but the Schiavo case was a major turning point.

During that winter just before Schiavo died, Bush and the Republicans were still basking in the glow of their electoral victories of the previous November. Indeed, the president wondered aloud that winter just how he might spend the political capital he had amassed. He had all kinds of bold plans in mind, including “reform” of Social Security. He was in the catbird seat.

Then came the Schiavo case, which already had involved years of legal wrangling over whether to pull the plug on the poor woman in light of indications that her brain was damaged beyond recovery.

Three years ago yesterday, the Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation transferring jurisdiction in the case to the federal courts, an effort to stall or avert the pulling of the plug on Schiavo, as had been approved by Florida state courts. President Bush even cut short a vacation at his Texas ranch and hurried back to Washington to sign the bill into law.

Bush and the other Republicans apparently were eager to ingratiate themselves with certain elements of the anti-abortion movement, which had latched onto the Schiavo case as a cause celebre. These politicians also seemed to think that their valiant rush to save Schiavo would endear them to the general populace, but that isn’t the way it worked out.

Instead, most Americans were appalled at the government’s meddling in the case, as indicated in this poll conducted at the time. Even most self-proclaimed conservatives and a plurality of evangelicals looked askance at the political posturing.

The Republican gang was dumbstruck at the reaction. They had been arguing that Schiavo was not terminally ill. They had agreed with the crackpot theorists who said Schiavo had frequent moments of lucidity and might someday fully recover. They were sure that conservative America would side with them against the evil forces of the ACLU and the culture of death championed by the political left.

The problem for the GOP pols was that most Americans could readily imagine a case like Schiavo’s occurring in their own families. Most were able to imagine themselves in Schiavo’s situation and having busybody politicians keeping them alive without any practical justification.

After Schiavo died, an autopsy revealed that she had, in fact, been in a vegetative state for many years and that she never would have recovered. It also showed that her brain was barely half the normal size for a woman her age. Thereafter, most of the politicians who had sought to exploit Schiavo’s misfortune for their own gain never again uttered her name in public.

But neither have Bush or the Republicans in Congress regained the political footing they lost when they stuck their noses into what should have been none of their business.

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