The question that I ponder is "If a person is in a vegestative state, who should bear the burden of keeping the person alive?" That question becomes more complex if there are no formal instructions by that person as to care. Should the family bankrupt themselves to keep the person going? Should the State or Federal Government provide some sort of support, especially if the Government's position is to "error" on the side of life?

Either way, the politicians are adding in their $0.02 just because they're politicians. Here's the articles:

The first is from The Honolulu Advertiser

It's time for Congress and Bush to butt out

By David Shapiro

It's easy to understand the family and ethical anguish on both sides of the Terri Schiavo spectacle in Florida.

But impossible to respect is the political grandstanding that has turned this poor woman into an ideological sideshow while trashing a legal system that has done its job with extraordinary diligence in the case.

Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have waged a seven-year legal battle over discontinuing her life support after 15 years of vegetative living without cognitive brain function.

In the process, a family tragedy that cried for privacy and dignity became a tawdry national melodrama. Terri Schiavo would not have wanted to see unflattering pictures of her broken body broadcast endlessly.

She would not have wanted Congress to threaten to parade her as a political prop before a televised hearing.

She would not have wanted to be treated this way, with her feeding tube forever connected and disconnected as political and religious partisans fight over her fate.

The case has received fair and unusually thorough legal review, considered by nearly two dozen judges of different ideological stripes.

The courts have consistently concluded that Michael Schiavo is Terri's legal guardian and has the right to terminate her medical care in accordance with wishes he says she expressed before a heart malfunction destroyed her brain.

The courts have accepted prevalent medical opinion that Terri's chances of recovery are hopeless, rejecting the parents' unsupported belief that she could improve with treatment.

But the grief-stricken parents refuse to accept the judicial verdict they solicited and have turned the battle political.

They've found eager accomplices among religious activists who advance the dangerous view that our traditional rule of civil law takes a back seat to some higher law of God when things don't go their way.

The problem is, which of the many interpretations of God's law that are practiced in our religiously diverse nation would we apply?

The move by President Bush and Congress to impose their judgment over the Florida courts by mandating a federal judicial review is an unprecedented perversion of power.

Their job is to enact laws to govern all Americans. To enact a law that governs a single family and specifically excludes all other Americans oversteps their authority in frightening ways and breeds contempt for our judiciary.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already refused to hear appeals in the Schiavo case and ruled in other cases that patients with hopeless medical conditions have a constitutional right to discontinue feeding tubes.

House and Senate leaders repeatedly invoked the Almighty to justify their midnight intervention. Their piety would be easier to swallow if there wasn't a memo circulating among GOP lawmakers extolling the political benefits of pandering to religious fundamentalists.

In signing the law, President Bush said "it is wise to always err on the side of life" when there are "serious questions and substantial doubts."

But he didn't err on the side of life as governor of Texas when he fast-tracked a record 152 executions despite serious questions and substantial doubts about how effectively the death penalty reduces crime, the poor mental capacity and legal representation of many defendants, and denial of DNA tests that potentially could have altered verdicts.

This is not to raise extraneous issues, but to point out that the sanctimonious Bush is not above applying situational ethics to advance political goals. It's long past time for politicians to butt out of Terri Schiavo's life, let the courts do their job and enforce rather than undermine the rule of civil law that is the backbone of our free society.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.

And one from IndyStar.com

Dan Carpenter
It's not about Terri

March 23, 2005

According to the best medical opinion and the appropriate courts, Terri Schiavo is existing in a realm that is below human living and beyond hope of it.

But for men who can never score enough points in the glorified wrestling smackdown that is American politics, her tragic case is a live one.

When President Bush proclaimed on Sunday that he and his allies had rushed to Washington from their vacations to "stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities," he knew only his half of America could cheer such an absurdity. Polls give him even less than that; but how did this get to be a popularity contest anyway?

Contest, and crusade. Just as every referee's call against Our Side is an outrage, so could any legal or moral objection to Our Side's groundless exploitation of a high-profile family's misery be dismissed as coldblooded atheistic indifference to life.

"To friends, family and millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend: Do not be afraid," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "Terri Schiavo will not be forsaken."

DeLay, of course, knows a lot about ethics-based fear, having become a regular subject of congressional sanctions for misuse of power. He has more than survived those, and he figures to thrive on this one too as his forces once again shove aside rules and reflection to go for the jugular of the liberals and the gut of the religious right.

Poor Terri Schiavo? Yes, in more than one respect. From Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon, diagnosing her from videotapes, to a colleague warning of her impending "excruciating" death, her newfound friends don't know her and would not have any business in her family's life if they did.

Federal legislation for one person among the thousands who've had feeding tubes or other life support removed? How many other individuals in this nation at this moment are in a bind that may or may not be life-threatening and could use some congressional help? Any congressman or senator surely could find one or a dozen. Why doesn't Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence, who confided he and his peers "are so grateful for the heart of our majority leader," look around his own district?

I'll make it easy. Start in Washington. Follow the trail of Medicaid cuts and war casualties, direct and "collateral."

Powerful governments cause suffering and death every day through exercise of their ordinary powers. The minions leave smiling for their vacations after performance of these duties, and reassure their constituents they prayed for guidance. They can't be expected to know who died or went hungry for the sake of "national security" or "fiscal responsibility." But they won't overlook that one poor soul who's the subject of televised candlelight vigils and talk shows, even if the sad and sober particulars have to be muddied up to serve the convenience of an instant cause.

I don't know Terri Schiavo's case either. I know the system provided for in the Constitution has labored over it exhaustively for me. I am forced to trust the courts and doctors on this, because the alternative is to throw her rights and mine like a championship belt into a ring filled with strutting Know-Nothings. I hope she and her family find peace, and that justice comes to all who have served her, and all who've sought to be served by her.

Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or via e-mail at dan.carpenter@indystar.com .