The Terri Schiavo legacy

While many Americans are opposed to government intervention in what they view as private medical decisions dealing with end-of-life issues, the Schiavo case has also raised concerns about the power of guardians and judges to end someone's life even when a patient's wishes remain a matter of dispute among family members.

Florida state law requires that evidence of an individual's desire to cut off hydration and nutrition must be "clear and convincing." But some legal analysts say such a standard alone is not enough to head off concerns about spouses and guardians who may have financial or other personal motives to end nutrition or other life-support. In such cases, these analysts say, judges should be required to make specific findings dealing with each issue, including the credibility of guardians and spouses, future treatment prospects, and whether earlier casual statements by an individual who is now in a persistent vegetative state were well-informed and specific enough to justify a decision years later by a spouse and/or judge to end that person's life.

Ultimately the goal of pro-life activists is to establish as a matter of constitutional law that government has an affirmative obligation to protect life. In contrast, death-with-dignity supporters emphasize the existing and well-established constitutional right to decline unwanted medical treatment and be free from government intrusion into the most private aspects of their lives.

Analysts are divided over whether Congress will continue to take actions that favor the pro-life side in this broad debate. While some political observers have criticized the congressional action in the Schiavo case as being politically motivated, others stress that broad support for the measure among both Republicans and Democrats suggests many politicians were acting out of conscience.

In the long run, any political fallout over Schiavo is hard to predict. But it's possible, say Wittmann and others, that the Schiavo case - specifically, the unusual intervention of Congress in a family matter - could contribute to unease among moderate suburbanites who vote Republican on the economy and national security but are less comfortable with religious conservatives' dominance of the party on social issues. And at a time of narrow Republican control in Washington, every vote matters.

For the Democrats, the Schiavo case also presented no clear partisan advantage. "If you look carefully, you see that everyone is divided by the issue one way or another," says Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. "The very fact that the Democrats in both houses had such a hard time reacting to this - some went along with the Republican bill that passed, some opposed, others refrained from voting - suggests this is not an easy issue to discern exactly where long-term or short-term political advantage lies."

Like the embryonic stem-cell issue - on which some strong abortion foes, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah, favor expanded federal funding for research - positions on end-of-life issues often don't break neatly along the same lines as those on abortion and gay marriage.

"There's a lot of debate on the evangelical side of the religious spectrum on these [end-of-life] issues," says Professor Guth. "I don't think anyone has settled into final positions on these yet. Some leaders on the religious right have, but among their constituency there's a lot more division on this than there is on abortion."

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