For the Relief of the Parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo
FOR THE RELIEF OF THE PARENTS OF THERESA MARIE SCHIAVO -- (House of Representatives - March 20, 2005)
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to know how to approach this case. Should you approach it as a mother or a member of the family on the opposite side, should you approach it as a member of the House of Representatives, should you try to approach it as a lawyer?
One thing is clear: choosing up sides, where you or I stand on our particular values, clearly will not do. That is why matters of this kind involving families have for more than 200 years been committed to State courts, because we are all over the place, State By State, person by person, on this issue. We are hopelessly divided.
Countless Americans have already made decisions like this, over and over again. Countless more have a different view. There are some who, if they had to choose, would side with the husband as the next of kin, because he believes he knows what his wife desired based on what she said to him and believes he would betray her trust if he simply walked away. Who can fail to be sympathetic with him?
Who can fail to be sympathetic with the parents, who almost instinctively have adopted the role of parent? When the mother said today, ``Save my little girl,'' she is not even any more for her a grown woman, the wife of somebody. She is her little girl, and always will be; and I understand that.
There are 50 different States, 51 including the District of Columbia, with wholly different approaches to the same matter. How shall we choose? Which is best in a Federal Republic? To give it to the Congress? To then instruct the Federal courts to violate every rule we have had for 215 years? I hardly think so.
Until today, there was no doubt how finality should be reached in a case like this. My only hope is that somehow this will finally be settled without a three-part constitutional crisis of the kind we are creating here, the crisis at the heart of federalism and the Federal Republic for which we stand, the bedrock of who we are, the State-Federal system, where State issues with State courts are final and our issues are final, except in very narrow circumstances given the limited vision of the Federal Government, of the Founders, or the crisis of separation of powers, which we were barely circuiting here, or the crisis of the constitutional right of privacy. Choose your crisis.
The victims here are real people, however, caught in a dispute of Shakespearean dimensions. The other side thinks that is right, it is life and death. That is what makes it different.
But my friends, never before in countless cases in Federal and State courts in 215 years, life and death has not made a difference in my own lifetime and in the history of my country as I have read it. I wish that the fact that life and death were at issue had meant that we could go into Federal court every time we disagreed.
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