The legal battle over Terri Schiavo is fundamentally a family fight: Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael wants to do one thing and her parents, the Schindlers, want to do something else. Both laws and court cases have consistently sided with spouses when it comes to making decisions about medical care. Why should the judgment of spouses be preferred, though?
A group of people can sign a contract for the purpose of setting up a new business, but they don’t thereby become kin or family. Two people can sign a contract assigning one the legal authority to make medical decisions for the other, but they don’t thereby become kin or family. Two people can sign a contract to jointly share property, but they don’t thereby become kin or a family.
When two people marry, however, they do become kin — they are now related to each other. This is makes marriage fairly unique among the kinds of contracts that can exist in society — only adoption is at all similar. In fact, this is the one characteristic of marriage which seems to be common to all forms of marriage in all cultures and societies through time. The only natural kinship ties are biological, and the only obvious biological kinship which exists is that between a mother and her children. All other kinship ties are established through culture — even fatherhood, which is often as much a matter of social convention as it is assumed biological paternity.
Kinship is an important thread in the social fabric. It isn’t an “institution” like marriage because there are generally no specific legal, religious, or social rules regulating it. Kinship is, instead, an amorphous creation of many other institutions which help people structure their relationships with one another. Marriage creates bonds of kinship which are more important than other bonds: they create significant moral, social, and legal obligations both for those who are married and between those who are married and everyone else.
Why is the “next of kin” the spouse? After all, doesn’t a person have a stronger biological relationship with parents or children? Yes, but a stronger biological relationship isn’t the same as a stronger kinship relationship. The relationship with a spouse is typically treated as more important because it is a chosen relationship. You can’t choose your parents or children, but you can choose your spouse — the person you wish to spend your life with, share all levels of intimacy with, and establish a family with.
It is proper that the state give precedence to the judgment of spouses over everyone else, including parents, siblings, and children, because the kinship relationship between spouses is one that they choose to enter and which they can choose dissolve. No such situation readily exist with other relatives. However much you disagree with or are estranged from your parents, they remain your parents. You can’t end that relationship; you can, however, end a marriage if you don’t trust your spouse to act in your best interests.
The Terri Schiavo case has encouraged some to seek to overturn this principle. Terri Schiavo’s parents want to have their wishes and judgment take precedence over Michael Schiavo’s. If this is allowed to happen, it would set a precedent for the same to happen across the board in all situations. No longer would husbands and wives automatically be allowed to make decisions regarding medical issues, much less life-and-death matters.
This would be a tragedy of monumental proportions. What’s especially disturbing about this is the fact that the only ones suggesting it are the so-called “conservatives” who are more often seen posturing in public about how they want to “defend” the sanctity of marriage by preventing gay couples from marrying. It now appears that this “defense” ceases as soon as it prevents them from getting what they want: control. If the state steps in to substitute parental judgments for those of a spouse based solely upon a desire to reach a pre-determined outcome, one of the major foundations of marital relations will be harmed beyond recognition.
