Terri Schiavo: What Might the Founders Say?
law tradition that informed American jurisprudence. His immense influence on America's legal and political heritage is undisputed by historians.
Blackstone's accurate description of suicide as one of the "highest crimes" in medieval English law is borne out by early American colonial treatment of those who took their own lives. In many colonies, their property was considered forfeit. In Virginia, those who killed themselves were to be given only an "ignominious" burial. As time went on, the draconian and punitive nature of these laws subsided, but the underlying condemnation of suicide itself remained.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in a 1997 ruling on physician assisted suicide, referred to this very history, when he wrote that "...for over 700 years, the Anglo American common law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide."
Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the best known physicians of the founding era, was a strong opponent of not only suicide, but also the death penalty. He wrote: "Every man possesses an absolute power over his own liberty and property, but not over his own life." Rush went on to add that, since one does not have the right to dispose of his own life, he shouldn't have the freedom to make such a determination for another.
Rush, of course, as a physician was steeped in a medical field that, for centuries, revered the Hippocratic Oath that forbade physician-assisted suicide. His reverence for life was thus quite understandable, particularly when juxtaposed with his strong Christian convictions.
While we can only speculate as to the specific reactions our Founding Fathers might give to Terri Schiavo's present situation, it is fairly clear that the current direction the Schiavo case is taking is incompatible with the fundamental principles embraced by the men who founded our country.
It is easy to dismiss President Bush's oft-repeated phrase "culture of life" as superficial rhetoric, but the fact that we may be tempted to do so points to an even greater problem. The Founding Fathers would be alarmed NOT at a President making an issue of "the culture of life," but rather at the fact that he would feel the need to do so. The case of Terri Schiavo shows that there is indeed cause for great alarm.
The following online resources were consulted for this article:
http://nationalreview.com/comment/bennet...
http://www.euthanasia.com/history.html
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/...
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