Mansfield Fox

Law student. Yankees fan. Massive fraggle. Just living the American dream.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

All Politics is Personal

I caught some of the press conference of the Congressmen objecting to the passage of the Terri Schiavo bill. I sympathize with their procedural objections - I do wish the Congress had more time to debate the measure - but, given that Terri seems to have taken a turn for the worse, this seems a situation in which necessity ought to take precedence over procedure.

One thing that particularly struck me was the brief statement of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL). She mentioned that her own family had recently made the same "end of life" decision with regard to her husband's aunt, had removed her feeding tube in order to bring about her death. Now, I've no doubt that Representative Wasserman Schulz's procedural, policy and Constitutional objections to the bill are genuine and sincere. But it doubtless adds to the urgency of her position that the arguments for saving Terri's life presume that what Representative Wasserman Schulz did was deeply, seriously wrong. Even in the dirty world of politics, to hear "Your husband murdered his aunt", even if only by implication, must feel like a low blow, to put it mildly.