The Terri Schiavo debacle brings up not only questions of procedure - which is where so many liberal commenters have had their say - but also very real questions of morality. And these are at least as scary as the procedural implications.
Today's
David Brooks column in the New York Times sums up the view of those who have argued for intervening in the Schiavo case: "The core belief that social conservatives bring to cases like Terri Schiavo's is that the value of each individual life is intrinsic. The value of a life doesn't depend upon what a person can physically do, experience or achieve. The life of a comatose person or a fetus has the same dignity and worth as the life of a fully functioning adult."
There are two deep problems here.
The first is a contradiction inside this form of "conservative" thought. An ideology that genuinely gives equal value toward all, depending not at all on what they "do, experience or achieve," sounds a whole lot more like socialism - even language right out of the Karl Marx playbook - than it does the laissez-faire rugged individualism of the social conservatives. How can this kind of approach possibly square with an ideology seeking to do away with anything resembling a social safety net? It doesn't fit, which suggests that Brooks' interpretation is nowhere near what it makes out to be - a central, core tenet of conservatism. It smacks more of dishonest spin.
There's a second, deeper problem, which lies in the notion of what constitutes worth and dignity. I for one would consider what has happened to Terri Schiavo to be among the most undignified ways imaginable to end a life, and if polling is any indication, most Americans seem to agree.
When is a life worth living? What is the nature of dignity? Most of us probably have always assumed that these are questions each of us must answer individually, and those individual answers will not all be the same. Some of them may happen to match with Brooks' prescription. But many others will not: I for one can easily imagine ways of living which would be far worse that submitting to death, and - again, if the polls are to be believes - most other Americans probably do, too.
The most serious problem with the Brooksian approach is not that it cannot be legitimate for some people but that it posits it as a requirement for all. We all must submit to this theology, because some people - those currently in power - happen to adhere to it.
Where is the morality here? According to Brooks, it can be found in doing away through hardball politics with freedom of conscience and even freedom of religion - for that is what this amounts to. According to most of the rest of us, it is a search for the best answer, with the recognition that absolutes are seldom as useful as they seem.
