Jonah: The question of whether it can be right to act contrary to compassion, even properly understood, is an interesting one, but I don’t think I’ve engaged it here. I’m making the more limited claims that reason can (and should where it can) guide our compassion, i.e., help us identify what the truly compassionate thing to do is, in some situations; that what is the truly compassionate thing to do is an important subject of dispute between the proponents and opponents of killing Schiavo; and that invoking compassion as our lodestar, and merely asserting that one side of the dispute is acting compassionately, therefore doesn’t get us anywhere in resolving the issue.