Liberals Have Created Culture of Death,
But Without Life We Can't Have Liberty

March 18, 2005

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ... All right. Here's where we are. I've got a Washington Post editorial I was to bounce off of today in discussing the Schiavo case. Now, a Florida judge is going to hold a hearing at 12:30 eastern time, about 21 1/2 minutes from now, to make yet another determination of this. A one o'clock deadline today to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo. US Senate Republicans sought to keep Terri Schiavo alive today with an invitation to bring her to Washington. You talk about a nuclear option. Mike Enzi issues a request to make her a witness, along with her husband, which protects her. So we can use this nuclear option out there to (interruption) well, it is. It's sort of a nuclear option here, trying to get around some of the roadblocks that have been placed in front of her parents. I've seen national polls at least flashed on television screens today, and if you're to believe them, the vast majority of the American people believe that a spouse should be the one making the decision here, not the parents, and it's overwhelmingly in support of removing the feeding tube. This, I think, is a result of the decades-long effort we've made to de-legitimize life. We've de-legitimatized life in the womb and we say, "Well, that life is not going to have a good life." So based on our own convenience we have abortion and based at the end of life now, based on our own convenience, "Ah, nobody would want to live this way, we don't want to take care of people this way," so we decide who lives and dies based on our own convenience now. And it's worked in terms of the public opinion.

I'm sure that these people think that the right thing to do is pulling the feeding tube is based on they can be compassionate for Terri Schiavo to do this, because after all, who would want to live in her current state? But, of course, then much greater concerns, long-term ramifications, the desensitization of the sanctity of life. Stuff doesn't happen overnight, and it hasn't happened overnight. It's been going on for years and years and years and years. We're more and more comfortable now with doctors determining who is fit to live and who is not. We all know the circumstances involving abortion, and as these things multiply and continue over a number of years, it gets easier and easier and easier to disregard the sanctity of life and have that sanctity replaced with something that assuages our guilt when we decide that somebody's not fit to live for one reason or another. We say, "Well, it's the best thing." It makes it easier to live with the decisions that we make. You know, it's been a very slowly evolving plan. For the life of me, I don't understand it. I don't understand what the left has to gain with all this, but I don't understand much about what the left does, at any rate. I guess simplest way to explain this here, the House and Senate cannot agree on legislation regarding Terri Schiavo. The Senate passed the Enzi request for her to become a witness. The House used broader language in legislation specific to Terri Schiavo, and they don't want to make this -- the House doesn't want to make this just for a specific single case, thinking that that would set a precedent for other specific case midnight-hour events in Congress. They're going to try to get together next week on this, try to get an injunction, a 10-day injunction on the removal of the feeding tube.

As I said, Senator Mike Enzi has subpoenaed Terri Schiavo to testify before his committee, and that means that she would have legal protections prohibiting the removal of the tube. They've also gone to the US district attorney to ask for a temporary restraining order to stop the removal of the tube, and if a judge grants it, that gives her at least a day, perhaps 10 days and that would give Congress more time to act. The reason the House and Senate were not able to come to agreement on this yesterday is the House recessed for their Easter break after they passed their legislation. The Senate had not yet, so they weren't able to get together and sort of work out a compromise. Now, the Washington Post today I think is a good way to bounce off of this. I want to read portions of their editorial today and respond to it. It's entitled "The Schiavo case." And it starts this way: "Congress does not generally smile these days on the power of the federal courts to review alleged constitutional errors by state courts. In 1996 it imposed significant procedural barriers for inmates who want their claims examined -- even inmates who might face execution and those who might be innocent. The idea was that the national government should defer to state courts and not seek to micromanage their justice systems -- even in matters of life and death." Now, what's the first thing that strikes you as you read this? The US Supreme Court overruling the states twice in the last 18 months. The Texas sodomy law and the juvenile death penalty law. The US Supreme Court said (raspberry) to states' laws and just said, "You're behind the times. You're going to find international sources, both custom, social, and legal, in order to rule the way we want to rule."

Now, here's the Washington Post all upset that this is being done in this case. "Except, apparently, in the case of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state whom the Florida courts, after careful consideration, decided would not want to live under such circumstances. With Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube scheduled to be removed today, Congress sprang into action to pass legislation granting the federal courts the power to review the state court judgments that would let her die. (The Florida legislature is, for the second time, also acting to force her to continue living.)"

Note the language here. "That would let her die, would force her to live." That's exactly my point. Let her die, force her to continue living. "On Wednesday night the House of Representatives passed a bill to let 'an incapacitated person' -- or someone who cares about him or her -- go to federal court whenever a state court 'authorizes or directs the withholding or withdrawal of food' and when there is no undisputed living will. The Senate passed a narrower bill yesterday that would deal with Ms. Schiavo's case alone -- allowing her parents, who wish to keep her alive, a shot at the federal courts. Both bills make a mockery of the professed conservative devotion to the sovereignty of states and the integrity of their courts. There is no great constitutional question to litigate here. Nonetheless, the broader House bill would create endless opportunities to involve the federal courts in heart-rending end-of-life struggles within families. And the Senate bill is nothing more than a warrantless intervention by the national legislature in a specific case that -- no matter how much members might dislike the result -- is no business of Congress." Of course, steroid hearings in baseball are. The closing paragraph here in the post editorial. "The message to state courts is that they can do as they will with accused criminals and rely on federal law to shield them from review, but Congress will pull out the stops to overturn rulings -- however local -- that members don't like. That's not how the federal system is supposed to work." Folks, I can't wait to tackle this.

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Once again, the Washington Post editorial on the Terri Schiavo case today focuses on conservatives and conservative hypocrisy here in coming to her defense via the federal system. The Washington Post editorial probably speaks for many on the left. It underscores how liberals cherry-pick morality and distort the views of conservatives in order to advance their own priorities. I mean, when you get right down to it, the left doesn't believe in state authority either. They're totally willing to overturn it whenever it suits their needs. They believe in judicial authority at all levels of government. They believe that judicial authority overrides Congressional authority. They selectively read the constitution, and they ignore the explicit authority of Congress to rein in the judiciary, which Congress has the total constitutional right to do that. They argue for federal supremacy whenever they believe it will buttress their causes. So here we have a case where the federal legislature, the Congress, trying to come to the aid of a state legislature. In other words, the representatives of the people, elected representatives of the people, are struggling to address judicial decisions that will result in the death of this woman.

In fact, not just this woman, but the thousands and thousands of people who are or who will be in a similar state in the future. So one of the Congressional proposals is to empower the federal courts to consider the issue which are subject to the jurisdiction of Congress. Now, that's not to say that the federal courts will rule properly either. Who knows? But this is a legitimate constitutional act of Congress to do this. And it's time that we understand how our government's supposed to work and reject efforts to mischaracterize both what the Constitution says and what we as conservatives interpret the Constitution to say. I mean, the idea that the judiciary has trump power over Congress, that the judiciary has the last word, that's something that's evolved, folks, but it's not constitutional because the judiciary is not elected. The Congress is. They are the elected representatives of us, the people, and they certainly have the power to rein in the judiciary. Now, I don't know who writes these editorials for the Post, but it certainly would help if they were intellectually honest. First off, nobody has said -- certainly not me -- that the federal courts have no role in our system of government. Which is what this editorial implies. Clearly, federal courts do. But here's the difference: That role that federal courts have in our system does not include setting policy for the nation, which is what has unfortunately evolved. In particular, judges are not free to impose their personal policy preferences on the nation. They do it because nobody stops them. But they are not free to do it. Federal judges have a say on what the Constitution means, but they don't have the only say for all purposes. There are other branches of government that have constitutional powers as well.

Now, conservatives also know, because we read the Constitution, our federal elected representatives have the power to establish the lower federal courts to determine the jurisdiction of those courts, and this may come as a shock to somebody, and to decide the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, except for some specific powers granted by the Constitution to the Supreme Court, but they're not relevant to this discussion. So if Congress acts to empower the federal courts to hear this case, Congress is acting within its constitutional authority. And yet here's the Washington Post all raving and panicky, "Oh, no how do you do this, usurping power, this is typical of what conservatives want to do," blah, blah, blah. It's not. This is constitutional. Now, if you want to say that conservatism is typically constitutional, fine. I'll raise my hand and say, "I'm guilty. I am proud to say that constitutionalism equals conservatism." Now, the fact here is that the Florida legislature and the governor have already acted to prevent the feeding tube from being removed from Terri Schiavo, but the state courts ordered it removed anyway. I didn't read any concern by the Washington Post about the proper role of the Florida courts, did you? I only read that according to the editorial, the state courts have the final say.

You see, the liberals believe in government by judiciary whether we're talking about federal courts or state courts. Not a word about the will of the people or the right of the representative branches to act, judges are king whether they be on the federal or state variety, particularly when they rule as liberals would have them rule. The problem we face in the country here, folks, is that the left and the courts have created a culture of death. From abortion on demand, including partial-birth abortion to embryonic stem cell research, assisted suicide, and our elected representatives at the state and federal level are struggling with ways to deal with this. Because we have all come to accept the fact that when a court says something, that that says it all. And, of course, you know, we do have this culture of death. We are becoming more and more tolerant with killing people at the beginning and end of life. It's going to somewhere descend to the middle of life at some point. And we've all fooled ourselves into believing that we're doing it for them, when it's actually being done for our convenience and our desires in the vast majority of cases. Now, there's a constant effort by liberals to distort the meaning of federalism, too. They argue for states' rights when state courts are issuing orders they like, like when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage. They had no problem with that. Or when the Florida courts ordered the feeding tube removed from Terri Schiavo. They ignore intentionally the fact that the legislatures in these states are facing the same kind of judicial tyranny as we do at the federal level.

In Massachusetts, the Supreme Court ordered the legislature to come up with a law on same-sex marriage. It's the other way around: Legislatures, the elected representatives of the people, pass these laws and then it goes on up to the Supreme Court, unfortunately, to determine whether it's constitutional or not. So these state legislatures face the same kind of tyranny. They're being overruled. In Gore/Bush 2000, the Florida Supreme Court routinely ignored state law on election counting, writing their own rules from the bench as they were hearing these appeals, and the Florida legislature was sitting there twiddling its thumbs saying, "What are we here for?" So let's put it this way: If we adopt the logic of the Washington Post and the left when it comes to cultural issues in particular, the state legislatures are at the mercy of the state and federal courts, which means that we, the people, are at the mercy because these courts impose an agenda on the people that the people of these states do not want. And if Congress -- the other representative legislative body of the people -- tries to intervene and help a state legislature under siege, we are then lectured that this violates federalism, even though Congress has the constitutional power to do this. None of this would even be an issue if education in this country were just adequate. If it were just adequate when it comes to teaching the Constitution. But it's not, and that's one of the problems with the left having control over education.

So in short, the radical cultural agenda imposed on society should be left untouched by any of the elected branches of government. That's what the left believes. And the reason they believe it is because that's the only way they can get their radical leftist agenda woven into the fabric of our society. Precisely because they can't win on these issues at the ballot box or in state legislatures, barring a few exceptions. They have performed an end run and done so utilizing the courts. And, by the way, folks, it's not as if anyone is being forced to take care of Terri Schiavo, either. Her parents want to assume responsibility for her care. I mean, there's a party here that's clearly willing to step in and be inconvenienced, if you will. This is not a small issue. No one is saying that her so-called husband has to continue to care for her or pay her bills. He's fighting for the right to end her life, which the courts have granted, and it's chilling. And I know a lot of you disagree with this. A lot of you think, "Come on, Rush, this is the husband. It's his decision. She wouldn't want to live this way." Well, I don't know that anybody's ever ascertained that as fact. We're just assuming it and projecting our own circumstances as being hers and what would we do. But she never said herself. Now, this reminds me of a case I remember in Oakland, California. I was working in Sacramento back in the '80s and I'll tell you about it when we come back.

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Folks, keep in mind also here, and I think this is a fundamental aspect of this, Terri Schiavo is not on life support systems. She is receiving nutrition through a feeding tube. Now, just look for a second how far we have fallen in just a few decades. Look how this whole question has degenerated from questions of whether extraordinary means of life support for terminally ill patients will be provided, to now whether we will provide basic nutrition to an incapacitated person. I mean, this is a tremendously dramatic change. There has to have been here a serious devaluation of life on the left, backed up by court decisions, that a major portion of the public is concerned about. That's why so much interest in this case, and that's why Congress is getting involved. Abortion in this country is now viewed as a choice between life and a lifestyle.

No longer does the left even bother to argue viability. They support partial-birth abortion. That is, aborting babies that can live can live outside the woman's womb. What about our putative next president here, Queen Hillary? I mean, she claims to be concerned about abortion all of a sudden. She claims to be moving to the center on cultural issues, yet I don't think she said anything about the Terri Schiavo case. She says nothing about partial-birth abortion, and the reason is precisely because she embraces this mentality, but wants you to believe that she doesn't. Now, as far as I'm concerned, there is no more serious issue in this country than how our society views life. You don't have liberty without life, folks. Terri Schiavo did not leave a living will. There's no evidence of any kind that she wanted to die under these circumstances, and what are we talking about here? Do we want the government to allow people to be starved to death? We're not talking here about heroic means of life support. Even if she lacks a higher brain function, she'll certainly suffer if she's starved to death. Two weeks, it takes. Should we stop feeding Alzheimer's patients? They don't know what's going on. They're not aware of anything. They can't feed or think for themselves. Should we just, you know, pull the tube? Not feed them? What about Parkinson's patients? Where does this stuff end?

The way we're going now, these people don't have a chance because all these decisions are being made based on the convenience to the living, disguised as compassion for the soon-to-be killed. Where do we draw the line when it comes to basic care for the infirm and the otherwise helpless? The Washington Post editorial doesn't even bother to weigh in on that nor do very other members of the left. Instead, they play this pseudo-federalism game, which is not only intellectually dishonest, but as I explained earlier, it's tremendously callus. Now, I just want to tell you a story here to illustrate to you this is not a unique case, it's not new. It involves life. Now, this case, the Schiavo case, is not about abortion, but it's all about life here. The case I'm going to tell you about is incredible. It's about abortion. I'm going to take you back, this is 1984, '85. I was working in Sacramento. There were a couple living together, were not married. They were in Oakland, in their 20s or 30s. The woman in the relationship was seven months pregnant when she had a brain aneurysm. They rushed her to the hospital and kept her alive so that the fetus could be brought to term. Whereupon the parents interceded to remove life support systems from this woman, and thereby let her baby die.

Now, the problem here was that there was a father involved. He was not a husband, but he was a father. And he steadfastly said, "I want this baby. It's mine. We made this baby together. This will be a legacy, of sorts. I will care for, my family will care for and raise this child." The feminists got involved in this case out there and it went to court. For the feminists, this was a huge issue. I mean, the last thing the feminists wanted in this case was for the judge to decide in the case of the father because that would destroy the whole concept of a woman's right to choose. Now, the woman in this case was in a coma. She wasn't choosing anything. It was her parents. But the feminists simply could not allow this child to be born, even though it was already seven months along, because that would totally destroy the political aspect of their cause. And this fight raged and raged. I'm sorry, I don't remember what the outcome of this case was. It would be easy enough to look up. But it's not the point. The point is that there was a culture of death then. And in this case, it was amazing. The woman could be kept alive, in a hospital, and the baby could be born, even though she was brain-dead. Father, not the husband, wanted that to be the case but he was fought by the girl's parents, the woman's parents, and feminist lawyers. And it was just stunning.

I thought it was one of the greatest illustrations of the politics behind abortion that I'd ever seen. And it was clear what was at stake for the feminists here. But the point of it all is that this is how this culture of death gets going. And I think the parents said, "Well, we don't want this child. It will be too painful. It will remind us of our daughter." They didn't want it and, of course, they had legal standing as family because they were parents and this guy was not married to the woman. I think the guy lost the case. I'm not actually sure. I don't think the baby was born, now that I think about this. But still, the point is that we have a situation here, should we stop feeding Alzheimer's patients when we can't determine whether they can feed or think for themselves? What about Parkinson's patients? Once we become comfortable with all this, and this has been my concern about all of this from the get-go, aside from one specific case. It's what the result of a specific case and then multiplied by similar case outcomes can cause to happen with the fabric of a society. And if you're like me, I mean, you can't have liberty without life. And if we're going to become cavalier about life, and if we're going to determine on our own selfish terms who lives and who dies, I guarantee you that more people are going to die under the guise of compassion and understanding for them when actually it's not about them at all. We're just telling ourselves that to make ourselves feel better or assuage our guilt.

We are going to be determining who lives and dies based on how much trouble it's going to be to us if somebody lives and dies. But in terms of the trouble aspect here, no life support systems, just a feeding tube. Parents are willing to assume the responsibilities of care and so forth. It's not going to burden the state. It's not going to burden the Hospice. It's not going to burden the hospitals. It's not going to take up a bed that could better be used by some more deserving patient, which is another thing happening in hospitals, thanks to healthcare insurance rates being so high. Need those beds. You need turnover in there. One of the ways you turn over beds is to pull feeding tubes away from patients. Well, I mean, folks, I've seen this. I don't want to get into details, but I've seen it up close. There's no question that the pressure on healthcare systems leads us also to this kind of thinking. But in this case, there is no such pressure because the parents are willing to assume care and we're not talking about expensive life support systems. This is just a feeding tube. So we got a two week death here of starvation. It's called compassion. She wouldn't want to live this way. And, in the meantime, we can't drill up in Alaska because it might upset some caribou, might upset some polar bears or whatever else. We can't dig for oil because it might upset a couple of trees. We certainly can't be inhumane or unkind or even embarrass terrorists, but when it comes to people like Terri Schiavo, they may as well not exist. Just may as well not exist.

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