Terri Schiavo: Out of legislative options?

I'm seeing conflicting information about the status of legislative efforts to prevent the starvation execution of Terri Schiavo, which will begin, by order of Pinellas County, Florida, Judge George Greer, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time today.

The U. S. House passed a bill (HR 1332) on Wednesday that would give a Federal court an opportunity to review the facts of such cases. According to the Tampa Tribune, a unanimous consent request to hear the bill in the Senate failed because of the objection of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a pro-death advocate. The newspaper reported that the Senate succeeded later in passing a private relief bill applying only to Terri, but by then the House had recessed for the month. There's talk of reconvening the House, but many members have already gone back to their districts. Blogs for Terri still seems to hope that this is possible.

Meanwhile the Florida Senate defeated a bill, by a vote of 21-16, which would have set a higher standard for withdrawing food and water from a PVS patient -- there must be either a written advance directive from the patient, or clear and convincing evidence of the patient's wishes. Nine Republicans voted with the Democrats to stop the bill.

As I've said before -- local and state elections matter to the cause of protecting human life. Primary elections matter to the cause of protecting human life. Terri's situation is the result of an elected judge who rejects crucial evidence, the elected sheriff and district attorney of Pinellas County, who refuse to intervene in an apparent case of abuse and neglect, and the Florida legislature, which passed legislation about five years ago categorizing food and water as "life-extending" treatment. Don't assume that if your state legislator is Republican that he's on the right side of this issue.