More from the “Near-Criminal” Media

A few weeks ago, this column featured an article entitled “Near-Criminal Media” which dealt with the ways in which much of the mainstream media (MSM) has not only relinquished any claim to journalistic objectivity, but in an alarming number of cases has shamelessly promoted their version of “news” that undermines our American culture, our traditional values, and specifically, our current war effort and our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, the MSM has engaged itself politically in the Terri Schiavo case, promoting what they euphemistically call the “right to die,” but which plainly amounts to involuntary euthanasia. The political Left has been attempting, with limited success, to move the practice of euthanasia into the mainstream of American culture. The Schiavo case was a perfect opportunity to advance their cause, and the media were only too happy to seize the opportunity to mold public opinion in this emotional and controversial issue.

Soon after Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed to comply with a court order that virtually mandated her death by starvation, an ABC News poll released what they claimed was evidence of strong public opposition to any congressional intervention in Terri’s case.

Many were skeptical of the “strong support” that ABC was claiming for removing Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube. The first response by this writer was, How were the polling questions worded?

 Following is the main poll question, and a second, follow-up question:

As you may know, a woman in Florida named Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible. Her parents and her husband disagree on whether or not she should be kept on life support. In cases like this who do you think should have final say, (the parents) or (the spouse)?

 If you were in this condition, would you want to be kept alive, or not?

 Facts vs. Misinformation

Those who have followed this case knew, as many who were being polled did not, that Terri Schiavo was not on “artificial life support.” That was a deliberate falsification, designed to elicit the image of a comatose patient being sustained by machines and wires. Terri Schiavo was not being kept alive by machines—she was being fed through a feeding tube and she breathed on her own. Numerous medical caretakers have stated that if given proper rehabilitation, Ms. Schiavo could have learned to chew and swallow on her own. However, Terri Schiavo’s husband denied her that care—and a number of diagnostic tests—that conceivably could have made a difference.

ABC News either did not know the facts about Terri’s condition (an inexcusable lapse for any news organization, let alone an entity as powerful and potentially influential as ABC) or they chose to ignore them. The result, predictably, was polling data that ABC was happy to report indicated “broad public disapproval” of any government intervention to save Terri’s life.

One blogger, outraged by ABC’s transparent political manipulation in an issue involving life or death for a real human being, accused ABC of “push polling for euthanasia.”

The facts are that Terri Schiavo, before her feeding tube was removed by court order, was not “terminally ill.” She was not in excruciating pain. She was capable of saying a few words, which seems to belie the many claims repeated over and over by the media that Ms. Schiavo was “brain dead” or in a “vegetative state.”

It is hard to believe that the poll results would have been the same had ABC News made Ms. Schiavo’s true condition known to those participating in the polls. Further, it is not hard to imagine the effect on poll results if the participants had known about the sworn affidavit from a registered nurse who worked at the convalescent center in Largo, Florida, while Ms. Schiavo was a patient there: The affidavit testified that Michael Schiavo seemed obsessed with Terri’s death and asked questions that indicated he was impatient for her death to occur.

Liberal news organizations have been all too ready to report the opinions of a few medical personnel who maintain that death by starvation is “painless,” “gentle,” and even “euphoric.” The New York Times informed readers in one article that “Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death.” Common sense tells us that if that were the case, starvation would be the most humane and acceptable method for executing criminals on death row in our prisons or for disposing of diseased and “unadoptable” animals in SPCA shelters. Imagine the outcry from the liberals if such a thing were proposed!

Bioethics and the Activists

The red-blue state divisions that became so pronounced in the 2004 election cycle reflect the current state of bioethics. Many of the founders of this comparatively new field were religiously motivated, but the bioethics world has veered sharply to the secular side to align itself ideologically with the current political liberalism of the elitists in America. The traditional emphasis on the sanctity of life is being downplayed, and bioethics has begun to emphasize “quality of life,” which means that many damaged humans beings are being devalued because their lives have lost “quality.” By such reasoning, these “nonpersons” should be killed or at the least, allowed to die. This explains why so few bioethicists have protested the execution of a helpless woman who is in no position to defend herself. It needs to be said again that, although she was severely damaged, Ms. Schiavo was not dying, was not in pain, was not brain dead, and was not on artificial life support.

Under Florida law, where the Schiavo case was adjudicated, the patient’s prior wishes must be demonstrated with “clear and convincing evidence.” In cases where this standard of proof is not met, the court must “err on the side of life,” on the assumption that most people, even the profoundly disabled, would choose life rather than death. In the Schiavo case, the court had a legal obligation to “err on the side of life.” Instead, it chose to allow Michael Schiavo to choose death for Terri.

Fifteen years ago, legally assisted suicide was unthinkable, but under pressure from bioethicists, sanctity of life norms have been collapsing. John Leo quotes the Rev. Richard Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of the nation's best religious journal (First Things): "Thousands of ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable, until it is finally established as the unexceptional." (John Leo, “Red and Blue Bio-ethics,” Mar. 28, 2005)

Did the liberal media play a part in the courts’ decisions in the Schiavo case? It’s hard to say for sure or to what extent. We know that judges, in spite of expectations placed on them to render their decisions according to law and not to ideology, have their own set of biases.

The danger we face is a profit-driven array of media organizations that no longer place value on journalistic fidelity to truth and objectivity but choose instead to use their powerful position in society to mold the “public will” (and that includes the views of the judiciary) in accordance with their left-wing ideology.

Liberal media, by their misleading, even dishonest, coverage of the Terri Schiavo case have attempted to move us one more giant step along the dark pathway to involuntary euthanasia, where doctors or public officials decide ultimately whose life is worth living.

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