I disagree. Judge Greer upheld the Browning decision in this case, of which “what she would have wished” is only one part of a three-pronged test. Have a look; pages 7 through 10 are most informative.

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-00.pdf

Essentially, the judge said that in this case, the Browning decision applied, thereby permitting Mr. Schiavo to make medical decisions in his wife’s stead.

And from the appeal itself, which affirmed the lower court’s decision:

“Since the resolution of the malpractice lawsuit, both Michael and the Schindlers have become suspicious that the other party is assessing Theresa’s wishes based upon their own monetary self-interest. The trial court discounted this concern, and we see no evidence in this record that either Michael or the Schindlers seek monetary gain from their actions. Michael and the Schindlers simply cannot agree on what decision Theresa would make today if she were able to assess her own condition and make her own decision.”

From my reading, the appeal court said ‘Shrug. Husband comes before parents in the Browning standard’ — which is essentially what Judge Greer said. That pretty clearly doesn’t concern itself with what Mrs. Schiavo might have expressed prior to falling ill.

I don’t think fanatics will have any problem tracking people down, and I’m sure they’re not afraid of picketing, outing people, or harrassing people even when they aren’t sure what you were doing. Bombing and shooting are harder to coordinate but if they’ll track down doctors at home, they’ll track down women.

Actually, RA *isn’t* right about why it went to court, or about why it stayed in court so long, which is why I provided the wikipedia link.

How is RA wrong about why it went to court? He says it went to the courts to determine what she would have wished, and I’ve read the court documents and that’s true. Your wikipedia link also says “Given the lack of a living will, a trial was held during the week of January 24, 2000, to determine what Schiavo’s wishes would have been regarding life-prolonging procedures.”

RA is grossly understating the problems with what Congress and Jeb did, but what he’s saying about the courts is factual.

PP and the doctors providing surgical abortions (which will remain necessary even as RU-486 and other medical abortions become more common) are big, easy to find, obvious targets, and I suspect they will continue to bear the brunt of the increasing violence Ms. Robinson predicts.

When and as the fanatics can find individual women who have used medical abortificants, I’m sure they will harrass, threaten, and attempt murder. But I don’t see that becoming their primary activity, not due to any lack of desire to attack individual women on the part of the fanatics, but simply due to the difficulty in identifying individual women.

As I type that, I also suspect we’ll see a genuine witch hunt mentality developing, such that any woman the fanatics take umberage with will be, accurately or no, branded a “baby killer” and lynched on those grounds.

Still, I think the sheer difficulty of finding women using medical abortificants will keep the fanatics *mostly* focused on PP and other surgical abortion clinics.

If the govermental interference that Robinson was complaining about was the brief Congressional action in the last two weeks of the controversy — rather than the five years of intra-family litigation — I don’t still don’t see how it was interference in a “family” or “private” matter. Perhaps it was an improper exercise of legislative power over the judiciary, but that’s an intra-governmental dispute rather than a governmental inference with a “family” or “private” matter.

This is seriously one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. You don’t see how getting Congress to pick sides between two groups of family members is interfering in a family matter?

If that’s not an example of governmental interference with a private matter — one determined after the parents had every opportunity to argue their case before the Florida courts — I don’t know what is. But I suppose you’ll maintain that it wasn’t ever really a private matter because of the courts’ involvement.

When my mother was dying, we didn’t have to go to a court to have life support withdrawn from her. The situation was medically hopeless, and she couldn’t live without a respirator and a heart/lung machine. We made the decision to withdraw support as a family. And that was difficult enough — I can’t imagine not only having to fight it out in court, but then have the state legislature and then Congress swoop in to overturn the result just because the governor and the president wanted to throw a little red meat to the base.

There was a lengthy trial to determine what Terri’s wishes would have been. Because she didn’t make a living will, there was testimony from both the husband’s side and the parents’ regarding whether she would have desired to have her life prolonged. If the court had found that Terri had wished to live, it could have directed feeding to continue regardless of the husband’s guardianship. So if what you meant by “private medical decision” was a decision made by a husband regarding his wife’s life, that wasn’t the issue.

In any event, Robinson didn’t refer to a “private medical decision.” She suggested that “anti-abortionists are out to do to our families what they did to Terry Schiavo’s.” But Terri’s parents were as much a part of Terri’s “family” as was her husband. No matter what the government did (and whether it was acting on a pro-choice or anti-choice agenda) it would have been “doing” something to a family member in any situation where the family members disagreed on what was to be done.

If the govermental interference that Robinson was complaining about was the brief Congressional action in the last two weeks of the controversy — rather than the five years of intra-family litigation — I don’t still don’t see how it was interference in a “family” or “private” matter. Perhaps it was an improper exercise of legislative power over the judiciary, but that’s an intra-governmental dispute rather than a governmental inference with a “family” or “private” matter. But I agree that Congress’ action was hypocritical insofar it it attempted to transfer jurisdiction in a “life” matter to the federal courts, when most pro-lifers (at least recently) argue that it is something that should be left to the states.