Make No Mistake, The Schiavo Case Has Been Thirty Years In the Making

Ever since Roe v. Wade, Congress has punted time and time again on the issue of when life begins -- or to put it in the language the Left loves -- who qualifies as a "person" entitled to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. Of course, the real issue is, WHO GETS TO DEFINE IT. If you have the power to define who a "person" is, then in very real terms -- like in Terri Schiavo's case -- you literally have the power to decide who lives and who dies.

Congress could have passed a statute defining a "person" under the Fourteenth Amendment to mean "a human zygote from the moment of conception." But they didn't. You have to ask, why not?

The answer is, Congress found it politically easier to pass the ball to the courts, where the Supremist Court and lower federal courts ruled time and again to narrow the definition of "personhood" for Fourteenth Amendment purposes until, voila all of a sudden it's permissible to abort a child up until the moment of birth. Now, the death-worshippers will use the Schiavo case to narrow it more, at the other end of life. If Terri Schiavo is not a person, then of course it's legal to kill her.

Every time one of these horrendous court decisions came down, all the Republican politicians did was cluck their tongues and say, "Isn't it awful?" and then stick out their hands for more campaign contributions. Of course, it made a good fundraising line. They could say they needed more money so the next Supreme Court justice wouldn't be a "judicial activist." Then, after all the reporters left, they breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't have to put their name on a roll call vote.

After thirty years of this political football, this game of pass-the-buck, is it any wonder the federal courts refuse to hear the appeals of the Schiavo family? They're no dummies. They've seen this play before -- Congress trying to pass the buck to them, hoping they will take the heat But the judges are too smart to take the heat. They're not going to agree to retry the case de novo, no matter how many statutes Congress passes telling them to do that.

Now, the executive branch has joined the other politicians in Congress, hiding behind the judiciary, hoping no one will notice, letting the unelected judges take the heat. It's all enough to make a person cynical.

Put another way, it's corruption. And it's been going on for thirty years.