Schiavo and Jackson aftermath

  • Just some last thoughts on some of the high pro­file cases that seemed to be about more than just a legal deci­sion:

    Terry Schi­avo
    I think I’m sur­prised that there wasn’t more ring­ing of all the bells in the Main­stream Media about the results of Terry Schiavo’s autopsy, since the news is all good from their point of view:

    The autopsy released Wednes­day on Terri Schi­avo backed her husband’s con­tention that she was in a per­sis­tent veg­e­ta­tive state, find­ing she was severely and irre­versibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evi­dence that she was stran­gled or oth­er­wise abused before she collapsed.

    Because of the politi­ciza­tion of this case, I could’ve wished for dif­fer­ent results, just so that the many, many peo­ple who wanted to fool them­selves about what it meant to starve her to death wouldn’t now have the impres­sion that they were on the side of angels. But I don’t want to be down­cast if it turned out that there was some mercy for this woman, no mat­ter how bad Michael Schiavo’s inten­tions might have been. It’s still a very com­plex case emo­tion­ally, and I won’t pre­tend to think that I’m com­pletely objec­tive about it. I am still very trou­bled by the actions of her hus­band, the courts and some por­tion of the Amer­i­can pub­lic (in that chrono­log­i­cal order). But some­where at the bot­tom of this is one woman who, in my grandmother’s lan­guage, has gone to be with her Maker. God give her rest, and I hope He gives those of us who are still here mercy.

    Michael Jack­son
    I hap­pened to be lis­ten­ing to the radio when the ver­dicts were read in Michael Jackson’s case, and before they had quite fin­ished, the news sta­tion went to record the near-hysteria of the crowd out­side over the not guilty verdicts.

    It would be kind of won­der­ful to believe that the crowd was that euphoric because they had just found out that a hero of theirs was not a child moles­ter, but it didn’t seem to be the point whether he was or not. Or at least it wasn’t the main point, judg­ing from the inter­views with the throng. The main point was that Michael Jack­son was hero, a mar­tyr, a vic­tim, they loved him. They loved him with that fright­en­ing, mono­ma­ni­a­cal idol­iza­tion with which star-struck peo­ple today love those who are famous (or have been famous), and they didn’t want him to be called a child moles­ter and suf­fer the con­se­quences of a child moles­ter — both of which would have con­sti­tuted a gross mis­car­riage of jus­tice and pure, unfil­tered evi­dence of racism, class-envy, Aus­tralian confidence-trickster-moms or some­thing else really awful. (I’m not sure I even under­stand the ques­tion of racism in this case. As one com­men­ta­tor put it, “We didn’t have any prob­lem with Michael Jack­son in this coun­try when he was a tal­ented, rich, black kid. It was when he turned into a creepy, rich, white woman that we got concerned.”)

    I’m just glad to have seen the end of this trial. I’m tired of it being Hal­loween every day on the evening news. Michael Jack­son is a weird dang dude and the peo­ple around him are weird. The way he makes peo­ple act is very, very weird. And maybe they’re part of the rea­son that he keeps being weird, and round and round it goes.

    Actu­ally, I think the ver­dicts were prob­a­bly right, even if they didn’t hap­pen to be accu­rate. The court case seemed flimsy as near as I could make out, and I don’t want peo­ple being con­victed based on weak evi­dence. As I’ve men­tioned, I’m not even sure I believe Jack­son is a child moles­ter in the usual sense of the word. But even just based on the things he has been say­ing for years, I don’t think he should be per­mit­ted to be alone with chil­dren, and I’m sorry that there are par­ents who would sooner sac­ri­fice their child’s moral and men­tal well-being than say no to a strange, rich celebrity with a Peter Pan fixation.


    Related posts:

    1. Quick recap
    2. That con­cludes our trav­el­ogue. Please tip the narrator.

    June 16th, 2005 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Cathy 06.16.2005

    I actu­ally don’t see how the report sup­ports Terri’s “hus­band.” Nobody in the Schi­avo fam­ily said she wasn’t severely brain dam­aged. Also, I don’t think the report actu­ally said she was in a per­sis­tent veg­e­ta­tive state. I believe that the AP reporter of the autopsy story said that her being “severely brain dam­aged” backed that con­tention. I still don’t know how any­one can believe she was in a PVS. The priest who attended her noted how she would fol­low him with her eyes when he would come into the room, close her eyes when he prayed, open them again when he fin­ished pray­ing, and try to com­mu­ni­cate, look­ing right into his eyes. And she clearly wasn’t blind. I won­der if she became blind at the end as a result of star­va­tion and dehy­dra­tion. Also, if the report could claim no evi­dence of phys­i­cal abuse (on the part of Michael), it also claims none for bulimia and heart trouble–making the ini­tial cause of her trauma an all the more trou­bling question.

    I would be curi­ous what the actual report said. (As you can see, I don’t trust the media’s report at all.)

  • Grace

    Maybe I’m not remem­ber­ing the lan­guage that each side was using when the debate was really rag­ing. I thought that those on the pro-life side were say­ing that she might not in fact be in PVS. To hear that her brain weighed half of what it should’ve weighed seemed to say that she was actu­ally much worse (not bet­ter) than we’d all been hearing.

    Not to say that all those impres­sions are right, but that’s the way it sounded. And I like what you’re propos­ing as far as the blind­ness hap­pen­ing at the very end, because it seems strange to me that NO one — her fam­ily, Michael, the doc­tors — knew about that.

    Just to be clear, I don’t feel like all of this vin­di­cates the court’s deci­sion. The ter­ri­ble prece­dent — or per­haps just another in a grow­ing trend — is for courts to empower peo­ple to euth­a­nize oth­ers based on the “qual­ity of life” issue.

  • Dawn

    it’s just a sad com­men­tary on our soci­ety that the “proof” of the autopsy that she was sev­erly brain dam­aged would make it “ok” to starve her to death.

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