Terri Schiavo e federalismo

Relativamente ao caso Terri Schiavo, uma opinião contrária à intervenção do Congresso, baseada naquele que é quanto a mim o único argumento substancial razoável para fundamentar essa oposição: a falta de competência federal para legislar sobre a matéria. Parece-me particularmente pertinente a comparação com o caso do aborto, em que um dos argumentos principais dos conservadores é precisamente que o enquadramento legal dessa matéria deve ser competência estadual e não federal (daí decorrendo, naturalmente, a prioridade de anular a jurisprudência estabelecida no caso Roe vs. Wade).

What Steroids and Schiavo Have in Common, por Ryan Sager:

There, we have the sad case of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a "permanent vegetative state" whose feeding tube had been removed at her husband's urging -- and based on a court's findings regarding her wishes on the matter only to have Congress and President Bush intervene ostensibly on her behalf.

Putting aside the tangled facts of the case for the moment -- which include some bitter family history and selective science on both sides -- the driving question here should be: Does Congress have a role?

And when it comes to a family dispute over a painful medical decision, one which at least 19 judges in six courts have already adjudicated, the answer must be a resounding "no."###

The forums for matters such as the Schiavo case are state courts, upholding state laws. Conservatives, especially religious conservatives -- who want Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue of abortion moved back to state legislatures and courts -- should understand this better than any other group of Americans.

Conservatives, of course, recognize their hypocrisy. And they're offering up weak rationalizations, like this one from The Wall Street Journal in an editorial Monday: "We'd have more sympathy for this argument if the same liberals who are complaining about the possibility of the federal courts reviewing Mrs. Schiavo's case felt as strongly about restraining the federal judiciary when it comes to abortion, homosexuality, and other social issues they don't want to trust to local communities."

In other words: Our opponents are hypocrites, so we can be, too.