Many Republicans are incensed that the law was actually on the side of Michael Schiavo and spouses are allowed to make medical decisions for each other, even if the parents disagree. Thus, Charles Krauthammer has proposed "Terri's Law," which would take that right away.

James Wolcott writes:

"There is no good outcome to this case. Except perhaps if Florida and the other states were to amend their laws and resolve conflicts among loved ones differently — by granting authority not necessarily to the spouse but to whatever first-degree relative (even if in the minority) chooses life and is committed to support it. Call it Terri's law. It would help prevent our having to choose in the future between travesty and tragedy."

So if a wife believes her terminally ill husband would prefer to have life support removed, his parents agree, but (say) a sister "chooses life" and fights for custody, the sister's wishes should prevail over the wife's and parents'? There's never going to be an easy way to adjudicate these matters, and it would be characteristic of Republicans to pack something as Lifetime-cable sounding as "Terri's Law" with all sorts of mischief. Particularly since Krauthammer and his allies are rallying around Terri as if she were a large-scale fetus, which explains the use of the code phrase "innocent life" used by Randall Terry and others to describe her.

I agree with Wolcott that such a solution, even if it raised no ethical or political issues, would likely be unmanageable on purely practical terms. What happens when a single close relative refuses to agree to what everyone else wants? Must every close relative be contacted and sign off on a course of treatment before it is pursued?

Krauthammer's suggestion is nonsense — I don't think that it was made seriously and with genuine consideration. Krauthammer offers it in the hopes that people's rights and choices will be narrowed even further by giving veto-rights to the most conservative, extremist member of every family in America.

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