AND MEANWHILE, SHE IS BEING DENIED FOOD AND WATER: Amy Welborn is an excellent source for eloquent statements of the pro-life/Catholic viewpoint on Terri Schiavo; Welborn also covered the Congressional debate.

CodeBlueBlog: Medical blog disputes common interpretation of Schiavo CT scan. Discussed here and here.

The Corner is having a kind of John Derbyshire vs. the world discussion–most of the arguments you’ll hear are being discussed there.

KausFiles.

The editors of National Review.

Noli Irritare Leones: I was struck by the comments on “dignity” and helplessness, and the question of how common these cases really are.

Ron Bailey has an interesting column on brain death here. I really disagree with his presentation of the issue of “what Terri would have wanted”; but the article is very much worth your time nonetheless. I am more with Colby Cosh: “I’m in favour of continuing to feed Terri because the law seems to have used a simple, cold balance-of-probabilities analysis to determine her presumptive wishes. There’s no written living will; the only evidence we have is oral, and it comes from one source. The chance that she would regard her feeding tube as an instrument of rape is being treated with more respect than it deserves, since the decision to withdraw her food and water is irreversible. I think the standard’s got to be much higher than that before you starve somebody to death. And while I’m not qualified to comment on the possibility raised recently that her husband is engaged in destroying evidence of spousal abuse, that’s a possibility in principle with all these cases–which is one good reason death shouldn’t be treated as having claims equal to those of life.”

Unqualified Offerings: I disagree strongly with Jim’s framing of the situation in the first part of this post–and he himself backtracks on it in the update–but thought this bit was a good summary: “My preference is that, absent a clear, written directive from the sufferer, that if someone is willing to speak for her and assume her care, they should be able to assume custody. The alternative, our present system, strikes me as worse.” He adds: “Not speaking to the facts of the Schiavo case specifically, while your spouse is the person most likely to know your wishes, your spouse is also the most likely to profit (in various senses) from your death.” (more)

I don’t, myself, have a lot to say. Will be praying for everyone involved. I have noticed, as I expect you have as well, that as a general rule someone’s beliefs about Terri Schiavo can be predicted if you know his beliefs about the sexual revolution–gay liberation and abortion, mostly. This is obviously a huge generalization, and there are lots of exceptions–Derbyshire on the one hand [ETA: I take it back], and the blogger at the Independent Gay Forum on the other (probably? I don’t actually know what the IGF blogger thinks of abortion, and would be quite pleasantly surprised to learn he’s pro-life), to take just two examples. But nonetheless, as a generalization it holds. For some people I’m sure that’s primarily a result of conflicting answers to the “who do you trust?” question, but for many people I think it also reflects a deeper, more fundamental divergence of beliefs: possibly, the belief that the human body has an intrinsic, given meaning that neither helplessness nor suffering can destroy, vs. the belief that the human body is essentially a useful tool for the purposes set by individuals’ minds.

I also am struck by, but unsure what conclusion (if any) to draw from, the fact that the three prominent “right to die”/end-of-life cases of our time all involve women: Nancy Cruzan, Karen Ann Quinlan, Terri Schiavo.

All right. Now to pray.