In Major League Baseball you often see a player or manager get tossed from a game for arguing balls and strikes. It's simply not done, against the rules. The arguments over Terri Schiavo remind me of it. A judge has decided that her husband can speak for her, since she didn't leave written instructions on what to do now that she can't make her wishes known. That decision having been made, no other judge seems to want to question that call. Special legislation moving the case from state to federal court failed. The federal judge refused to question the call.
But that's the call I question. At some point in 1992 or 1993 the husband changed his mind about taking care of Terri and gave up hope she would improve, taking the position instead that it would have been her wish to die. There are a number of reasons that the judge should not let the husband make that decision, but the biggest one is that he is really no longer the husband. He left and started a new family. That in itself presents enough of a conflict of interest on his part that he should not be part of the decision whether Terri lives or dies. He stands to gain when Terri dies.
That's the decision that should have been revisited, but won't be. It's remarkable, the presumption on the part of the Florida courts to now know after 15 years that this is what Terri would have wanted. The judge has decided. You can't argue balls and strikes.
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