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Terri Schiavo: What Might the Founders Say?

© Brian Tubbs

For the last several weeks, the entire nation has been riveted to an incredible and tragic drama that has left few Americans on the fence. It is a drama complete with all the "selling points" of a gripping movie or bestselling novel: a helpless female victim, a husband with questionable motives that include the shadow of "another woman" and a possible financial windfall following his wife's death, desperate parents waging battle on every imaginable front to save their daughter's life, a race against time, and a cause that has drawn the attention of the state's governor, the nation's Congress and President, and the entire nation.

The saga began when Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 from cardiac arrest and suffered brain damage because of a lack of oxygen. Sometime later, her husband, Michael, made the claim that Terri had previously stated she didn't wish to be kept alive by artificial means. Her parents reject that claim, arguing that Michael recalled that alleged "conversation" years AFTER Terri's heart attack and only when he had made the decision to move on with his own life. Terri Shiavo, unable to speak now for herself, has been in the center of a decade-long legal tug-of-war ever since.

A majority of doctors, backed at this point by court rulings, have defined Terri's condition as being a "persistent vegetative state." Her husband, having the power of legal guardian, has thus ordered the removal of her feeding tube -- a decision her parents have desperately, and it would seem vainly, have tried to overturn. Despite her parents winning the support of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a majority of the United States Congress, and the President of the United States, the courts have ruled in Michael's favor. It seems inevitable, at this point, that Terri Schiavo will die of starvation, and will do so, by order of her husband.

What would the Founding Fathers have to say about this tragic situation? Historians could build an argument for both sides.

On the one hand, some historians may point to the Founders' propensity to view husbands as the legal and exclusive representatives of their households, and thus would fully respect the right and judgment of Michael Schiavo to speak for his wife.

In addition, those defending Michael Schiavo might also argue that the Founders would never counsel the federal government's intervention in a case properly under state jurisdiction. A very good case could be made along these lines, since the Founders were quite sensitive to the issues of federalism. It is difficult to imagine the Founders seeing this episode as anything other than a state issue.

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