Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Executive Action to Save Schiavo

Bill Bennett and Brian Kennedy of ’The Claremont Institute’ argue that Governor Jeb Bush should take action to secure the life of Terri Schiavo in this article.

Bennett and Kennedy argue that Governor Bush ought not defer to the judicial branch on this Constitutional question. The Governor ought to uphold his Constitutional oath as he understands it. As a co-equal branch of government, the Executive should risk impeachment in order to prevent the starvation of Terri Schiavo.

According to this article in today’s, USA Today, Governor Bush is scouring Florida statutes to find a legal way to do just that.

Discussions - 9 Comments

I am horrified by the Bennett/Kennedy article. The thought that the executive branch could ignore the rulings of the judical branch is an anathema to our system of rational government.

We may not like the rulings of the courts, but failing to obey them will lead to anarchy. It is our duty as citizens to obey the law and the ruling of the courts. It is a very dangerous road for the Republican party and the religious right to be on when they start calling for police to enforce their desires rather than the law as passed by the legislature and interpreted by the courts.

Blog posts at NLT about Terri Schiavo - 7

Blog posts at NLT about Sun Hudson - 0

Funny, the only one I see counting by race is Ashland voter.

Huh, I wonder how many stories have been run in the NYT, or CNN, or on NPR? Damn that right wing bias!


Nice that Jeb is "scouring the statutes" now. But why didn’t he do this months ago? Like so many Republican leaders in so many crises, he’s a day late and a dollar short.

My general rule is that I don’t post on something unless I feel one way or the other about it.

But here is a case that is getting too much attention... what I fail to see is any interest in the matter.. If Bush wants to intervene to keep Terri alive then he should foot the bill (not out of a state fund but his own personal pocket). The fact is that life support costs money, and if you don’t see much hope for a revival it is a lost cause. Why attack her husband because he wants to spend his money on those still living and move on?

Even better than blamming Bush, I think Bill Bennett should reach into his pockets pull out a cranberry chip from the Bellagio and use it to buy more food for Terri. (by the way I think he should be allowed to do this, after all if a person is going to pull the plug on another, there shouldn’t be anything stopping a second group from taking an interest in that which is already dead to the first.)

It is interesting to see that some people who are Luddite enough to oppose at least some forms of cloning, wouldn’t consider life support as the artificial prolongation of life that it is. Supposing for a second that Cryrogenic freezing is made to work and even becomes standard at some point in the future, will conservatives then frown upon those who must make the difficult decision of prolonging life even further vs. spending on those still living?

Ohio Voter - Who mentioned race???

Ashland Voter alleged in strings from other posts that conservatives in general (and NLT posters in particular) ignored the Sun Hudson story because he was African-American. He ignored, of course, the much more obvious reasons that (1) very few people had ever heard of Hudson until after he died, while the MSM has focused on Schiavo for months, and (2) their situations are factually very different. That ridiculous premise was the background for his apparent scorekeeping.

And oh yeah, surprise, surprise, it turns out you guys were dead wrong (excuse the pun!) about Terri Schiavo, the potential for her to EVER improve or recover, that she was or could have been responding to stimuli of her own volition, and (for some of you out there) that her husband abused her. Terri’s brain had, quite literally, turned to mush and liquid, and you can’t recover from that. I’m sure you’re still "in mourning" over Terri (yeah, right - political opportunism over vegetative woman didn’t work, you moved on...), but here’s the story you will surely not post or make note of on your site:

https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050615/ap_on_re_us/schiavo_autopsy/nc:716;_ylt=Ah_dYPjfjtdUCfLwpJASv4J34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

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