The emergency session of Congress and late-night signing by the president of “Terri’s Law” are not about the “right to life.” They are an assault on the basic right to decide your own medical and personal affairs in private, without the interference of the state or its agencies.

A string of Republican and Democratic politicians paraded to the podium in Congress and demagogically disputed the medical diagnosis of scores of doctors who have examined Schiavo, who has been in a permanent vegetative state for 15 years with no hope for recovery. Politicians who had practiced medicine before pursuing their careers in Washington claimed that their medical degrees gave them the right to make a diagnosis from hundreds of miles away—without ever having examined the patient!

For seven years Michael Schiavo has battled to implement his wife’s wish to not be kept in a state of virtual brain death. He is backed up by state law and several court rulings in his favor that concurred with the diagnosis of doctors on the scene.

Despite this unambiguous record, both state and federal governments have set a dangerous precedent by intervening in such a private matter and in a dispute within a family already settled in the courts.

While calling for a “culture of life” and crying crocodile tears about the life of Terri Schiavo, these same politicians are driving ahead on efforts to cut access to life-extending Medicare benefits and to slash Social Security pensions for younger generations.

Some claim that at the root of the Schiavo affair is a conflict between young and old. Those of Michael Schiavo’s generation have different “values” from the generation of his wife’s parents, they say. Because many of the right-wing groups involved dress their arguments in religious garb, others say this is a religious affair—claiming Washington is doing the bidding of a “Christian right wing.” None of these arguments hold water.

The right to privacy is fundamentally a class question, a political question. Keeping the government from interfering with personal decisions in the bedroom, at bedside in the hospital, and when a woman decides whether to carry a pregnancy to term or seek an abortion, are not rights handed to us. These rights have been won through struggles that overturned miscegenation and sodomy laws, decriminalized abortion, and established the right of an individual to decide on personal medical matters.

The capitalist ruling class and its Democratic and Republican politicians continue to look for ways to chip away at these rights. Working people and all defenders of democratic rights have a stake in defending the right to privacy and in opposing all attempts by the federal and state governments to overturn court decisions and force the feeding tube back into Terri Schiavo.
 
 
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Schiavo case: Most oppose gov’t intrusion into right to privacy  
 
 
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