Kathryn: I agree that it is tiresome to be offered opinions prefaced by:

“I don’t know the details, but…” Unfortunately, some of the key details in this case seem to be unknwon and/or unknowable. What was said in private conversations between Michael Schiavo and his wife? What would she have wished for herself? How much is she experiencing and feeling? What are the prospects for her condition improving? On key issues like this, I have no clue, and neither have you. The Hannity and Combes show had a senior physician on last night arguing that Terri could be rehabilitated. We are promised another senior physician tonight arguing that she can’t. Uh-huh.

The key ethical point is the one raised by Robert George: “What we must avoid, always and everywhere, is yielding to the temptation to regard some human lives, or the lives of human beings in certain conditions, as lebensunwerten Lebens, lives unworthy of life.” It is perfectly OK to be an absolutist on this. That is, in fact, the only position that offers a completely confident and consistent take on the Schiavo case.

Unfortunately — and this is the source of the negative email you have been getting — most people are not absolutists on that. Most medical professionals are not; most husbands, wives, parents, sons, and daughters are not; I am not; and our laws are not.

And for all Prof. George’s insight and expertise, even he blots his copy book on key points.

“What’s really going on here – and I don’t think we can afford to kid ourselves about this – is that Terri’s husband has decided that hers is a life not worth having. In his opinion, her continued existence is nothing but a burden – a burden to herself, to him, to society. He has presumed to decide that his wife is better off dead.”

That is true: but the law, and common opinion, does in fact grant Schiavo that presumption. Should we take steps — legislative, constituional steps

– to remove that presumption from Michael Sciavo, and other spouses, parents, offspring, etc.?

Perhaps we should: but you ought at least acknowledge that there is a slippery slope behind THAT, too, just as much as there is one behind removing the absolutist restriction Prof. George favors, but which the American people at large — conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat, religious and indifferent — plainly do not.