Neither the Supreme Court's latest nor Jeb Bush's latest should surprise you. If you start with the same first principles that they both started with then both arguably made correct decisions.
If you actually bothered to type and post a weblog entry decrying today's developments as a circus or something agenda-driven (I think I've seen essentially that same post five different places), shame on you for the waste of time and space.
Everyone on one side of this is proceeding on the assumption that they're literally saving a life. How far you go to save "just" one life is a hard question to answer, but their belief that they are, in fact, literally, concretely, saving a life is not unreasonable (even if you disagree with it).
"Is she in a PVS?" is one of many legitimate factual disputes that, as I already mentioned, I think the Florida state court did a piss-poor job of resolving with anything approaching due diligence. Maybe even with that due diligence one would reach the same conclusions, I don't know.
Posted by Matt Bruce at March 24, 2005 09:41 AMEveryone on one side of this is proceeding on the assumption that they're literally saving a life.
The Schindlers, Randall Terry, the people with glasses of water, sure... but I have no presumption about the interests of Tom Delay, Bill Frist, or Jeb Bush. Frist least of all, because he's already proven he'll defend outrageous or debunked medical claims if it serves a partisan purpose, like claiming HIV can be spread through sweat or tears.
Posted by: M.S. at March 24, 2005 10:06 AMGood point on Frist and Delay but Jeb seems genuine to me, if only because what he proposed seems so politically absurd that I can't imagine someone both doing that for cynical political gain and thinking it'd succeed.
Posted by: me at March 24, 2005 10:43 AMMatt, if you'd taken any health law/medical ethics classes while at BU you'd know that judicial decision-making on matters of science or medicine are always fraught-worthy. George Annas probably had to clear part of his schedule this week just to bang his head against the wall.
Posted by: Mark at March 24, 2005 12:47 PM