Fight over Schiavo case goes on as states join life and death debate

THE arguments surrounding Terri Schiavo will live on in US state legislatures debate and new laws, if an emerging coalition of disability rights activists and right-to-lifers succeed in turning the national agony over her case into a re-examination of when and how our lives come to an end.

So far, only a few legislators in a handful of states have sought significant changes to their laws, which define the fundamental elements at stake: how a person can set limits on their medical care, who gets to decide what their wishes are, what evidence is needed to prove it.

None have yet become law and the chances for most, if not all, are slim this year, with some legislatures finished and many far along in their work for this session. But both Republicans and Democrats say the arguments aren’t going away.

The debate is an effort to strike a balance between one stance that argues that medical care and morality mean life must be pursued in nearly all cases, and another stance, crafted over decades of changing views about death, that some may choose to end drastically damaged lives that depend on artificial means.

“I really wanted to make sure we gave a default for life and not for death,” said Kansas state representative Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Republican who helped revive a measure that would give courts a greater chance to review decisions to end life-sustaining care, lessening the role of guardians or doctors. “Our most vulnerable citizens are in the most danger of losing their life without any recourse.”

She was joined in her effort by disability activists and Democrats in the State House. The measure stalled in the Kansas Senate, however, as the session ended for the year last Friday.

“We don’t want to get into the politics of the right or the left or whomever,” said Michael Donnelly at the Disability Rights Centre of Kansas. “This isn’t about politics, this is about how we value or don’t value the lives people with disabilities have.”