Preventing Another Terri Schiavo

I was traveling when Terri Schiavo died, the victim of a bitter injustice. It was a very sad day for her family and a black mark on the history of American jurisprudence.

We can create a lasting legacy for Terri by acting legislatively to provide greater protections for people, who like Terri, are incapacitated and dependent on others for their care. This will require careful deliberation. We don’t want to dismantle a system that permits people to declare ahead of time what medical interventions they might or might not want in the event the become incapacitated. Yet, at the same time, we must not permit casual conversations to be elevated to the level of a deliberate and well thought out written advance directive when removing feeding tubes. Ralph Nader and I have some initial thoughts. I will fill out some of these ideas more fully in next week’s Weekly Standard.