Technology and the Essence of Civilization.

...I urge all those who honor Terri Schaivo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life....
President G. W. Bush, press comments on the death of Terri Schiavo, March 31, 2005

I have held off commenting on the sad case of Terri Schiavo because I really did not have anything to add. I was and still am conflicted; I would like to think that I know what I would do in such a case. I hope that I can communicate to those who need to know my true wishes, so that no bitter family dispute can enter into an already heart-rending decision.

Part of what troubles me is what is termed "life-support" - the phrase conjures up mental images of respirators, heart-lung machines, and another devices. Not a mere feeding tube. The other part of what troubles me is the method of death - by starvation and thirst. Not a way I would choose to go. However, watching two grandparents die in similar fashion (by their choice to no longer eat) influences my thinking on this. I guess it comes down to this - no one really knew what Terri wanted, and there was no way to ask her. And once family politics got into play, there was no good way for this to end. (Note - I am aware her husband says differently, but there is no paper or recording to back him up. And his present girlfriend and children undermines his credibility somewhat, at least in my mind.)

The advancing tide of medical technology is creating situations where people ho could in no way survive a century ago are able to survive for years. Many with physical and mental handicaps can now live long and happy lives where a century ago they would have been trapped in poverty, abuse, and lonliness. Infants who could not survive can grow to happy, healthy and successful adults. And those who suffer from

But the ensuing public fracas has brought to my view a number of doctors and ethicists that are advocates of a frankly disturbing train of thought - euthanize handicapped infants, rather than let them grow to be a burden on society.

"Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Peter Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University, penned this line in his book Practical Ethics, along with this line: "Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time."

There's more on this in Kathryn Lopez's piece in National Review.

Ms. Lopez notes:

Writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, two doctors from the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands confessed that "it is difficult to define" who, among infants, can or should be eliminated. Babies, obviously, can't tell you their pain is unbearable, so it becomes incumbent on "parents and medical experts" to determine what "hopeless" means.

Already being quietly practicised in the Netherlands, there are people - doctors - who advocate its adoption here. Who would have thought that the heirs to Hippocrates - "first do no harm" - would seek the societal sanction of infanticide?

Invention in technolgy leads to innovation in its application, and revolution in society. This revolution shakes society down to its bedrock - but with the current bedrock of the Consitutional principles and traditional Judeo-Christian morals and ethics under steady assault for four decades, how much bedrock is left?

We are heading to a crossroads, and one road leads down a dark path where life, liberty, and the individual are dispensable quanities in the view of the state, easily eliminated should they prove too cumbersome.

The other road leads us to the next crossroads.

Sickblogging, Part 2

Lungs have now formally applied for secession. Nose is running like Niagra. (No, not Viagra. Filthy minds.) Nose running so bad my nostrils are raw (Eiuwww...) Would have stayed home but was needed at work. Brain fried. Thinking, writing, and speaking like William Shatner.

Listening to RadioDerb. And waiting for day to end.

Sickblogging, Part 1

First in a long and whiny series

Posting here will be light for the rest of the week - I have been laid low with a flu/cold/plague that is slowly but steadily consuming me. I expect to either recover, die, or mutate into a giant blob of mucus which will run amok in downtown Salt Lake.

Using Foreign Laws for American Precedents

One thing that has been bugging me lately is the recent practice of American judges to cite foreign laws to support decisions in American court cases. The most recent example of this is in the recent Supreme Court decision banning the use of the death penalty against anyone who commits a capital crime while under the age of 18. The Supreme Court cited references from court cases in Jamaica and Zaire in their reasoning. (I missed the memo when those two countries became bastions of human rights.)

Listen, there's nothing magic about the age 18. I'm only marginally less stupid now than I was then.

Now, today through Senator Corwyn's piece in National Review, I learn the Supreme Court is going to do it again:

"Today the Court considers whether to take yet another step down this path. The case involves the state of Texas, and I have filed an amicus brief asking the Court to respect its own precedents and to defer to the people of Texas in their administration of criminal justice consistent with the Constitution. The other side in the case argues in effect, however, that the International Court of Justice can effectively overrule a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court and of the Texas government. In Breard v. Greene (1998), the Court made clear that criminal defendants, like all parties in litigation, may not sit on their rights and then bring up those rights later as a stalling tactic. That basic principle of our legal system, the Court explained, is not undermined just because the accused happens to be a foreign national covered by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Yet even this basic principle of American law may be reversed, after today's oral argument in Medellin v. Dretke.

"This is — to put it lightly — not how our legal system is supposed to work. To the contrary, our Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War precisely in order to stop foreign governments from telling us what our laws say. The Declaration of Independence specifically complains that the American Revolution was justified because King George "has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws." It was "We the People of the United States" who ordained and established a Constitution of the United States, one that includes a mechanism by which only "We the People of the United States" can change it if necessary. And of course, every federal judge and justice swears an oath to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me...under the Constitution and laws of the United States."

"I fear, however, that today some judges may be departing so far from American law, American principles, and American traditions, that the only way they can justify their rulings from the bench is to cite the law of foreign countries, foreign governments, and foreign cultures — because there is nothing in this country left for them to cite for support. What's more, citing foreign law in order to overrule U.S. policy is especially offensive to our constitutional democracy, because foreign lawmaking is in no way accountable to the American people."


What is it about the phrase "representative government" that the justices don't understand? Listen, if another country has a good approach to a legal issue and we want to copy it, fine. Introduce and pass legislation to that effect. It'll make Congress do something useful instead of designating a day for "National Bowling Ball Day" or some similar twaddle.

But short-circuiting Congress means short-circuiting us. And I have a problem with that.