Where are the Feminists When You Need Them?

I don't know if you've been paying attention to the Terri Schiavo case in Florida, but I have. It's a case that has gone on since 1990 and may be drawing to an end this week, if her husband has his way and Terri is slowly starved to death.

It's a complicated case, and I don't pretend to know all of the answers. That doesn't stop most pundits, on either side of the issue, from having and expressing the exact right answer. I am not firmly convinced what the right answer is in this deeply tragic family trauma. I am emphathetic to the personal tragedy of the situation, and am not sure if I would want to stay alive in Terri's condition. And I certainly sympathize with all of the family, her husband included, in trying to make the right decision here. When I'm not convinced of the right answer I try to err on the side of life. As I would in this case, where "life" only means the insertion of a feeding tube and no other heroic measures like respirators. Err on the side of life.

I can draw some observations on the case, however, as it has played out on the national stage. Here's two:

First, I am appalled by the behavior of her husband who is fighting for her "right to die", based on a single statement that she alledgedly said about not wanting to live in that kind of state. A statement he remembered seven years after her injury. Michael Schiavo is a thoroughly compromised claimant in this case and should step aside. Terri's family has fought for her and cared for her through this whole ordeal and is seeking to be granted custody to care for her. Michael has refused and is pushing for her to die. Is he motivated solely by the love for and wishes of his wife? Hardly. He has a motive to have her out of his life, that motive being his life with another woman with which he has fathered two children. And he has a financial motive related to the million or so dollars that they were awarded to care for her - which he has not spent on her care or rehabilitation. Michael Schiavo is thoroughly and completely compromised and should not be allowed to be the sole decision maker in whether or not his "wife" should die.

My second observation is this: I am appalled, but not surprised, that the feminist leaders in this country have either remained silent on this case or have jumped in on the "right to die" side. It's not surprising because feminism is completely sold out to the ethic of "right to die" in the form of abortion. Abortion rights are the sole inviable article of faith in the feminist temple, and anything - anything - that comes close to having any negative implications for abortion rights must be thrown under the bus. It's why the sold out their sexual harrassment principles the minute that their chief abortion rights champion, President Bill Clinton, became a notorious sexual harrasser. The completely sold out their stance and marched out, under orders, to proclaim that having sex with an intern in the office on company time wasn't, in fact, sexual harrassment if you're the President and you're willing to keep abortion legal. Now their selling out Terri Schiavo.

Feminists: let me set up the case for you. It's a softball, really. You could knock it out of the park.

You have a woman. So far, so good. She's incapacitated and needs help. She has a husband. (Feminists can feel free to boo here.) He's a bad guy. He's cheating on Terri, even as she lays in a hospital bed needing his help. He has made a new life with this other woman. He wants Terri out of the way. Plus, he stands to have his hands on a million dollars that he should have spent on her care (more booing please. It's appropriate this time), if only she would have the courtesy to die. She has a family that's willing to care for her, if only the bad husband would step aside. But court after court has ruled that the husband trumps everything. What he says goes. Even if he wants to pull her feeding tube and have her die. He tells her parents to shut up. He tells the courts to shut up. He tells the legislature of Florida to shut up. What he says, goes. And what he says is that Terri should die.

And the feminists will go along with it. Why. Because Michael Schiavo has played their trump card, "the right to die". And feminists, whose core belief and cardinal principal - abortion rights - is all about the "right to die", will throw Terri Schiavo under the bus rather than grant that any right to life exists.

Congress is meeting in a rare weekend joint session today to pass a specific law, affecting Terri Schiavo only, to save her. I don't know if it's appropriate for Congress to jump into this or not. And I blame Michael Schiavo for letting it get this far. I don't know if it's the proper role for Congress or not. But I'm rooting for them.

Because no one has the only and obvious answer. And if we're going to err, let's do so on the side of life.