Interesting article below. The author points out certain problems he sees in both sides of the Schiavo case. On the one hand, those who would continue feeding Schiavo tend not to want to have the government pay for medical care. Those who support pulling the plug are refusing to acknowledge that a triage must occur, that some must die to save scarce financial resources.

Try to overlook the author’s overreaching generalizations, and focus more on the underlying issues he raises.

In my view, we must find a way for the government to fund care for those in Schiavo’s condition, or else develop a reasonable legal method for peaceful and prompt death, rather than slow death by starvation and thirst.

State, 1; Schiavo, 0 by Gary North: “RIGHT TO LIFE = OBLIGATION TO PAY

There are no free lunches. This is the scarce resource issue.

To say that Terri Schiavo has a right to life is to say that someone else has a legal obligation to pay to keep her alive.

The obligation to pay is an inescapable concept. It is never a matter of ‘obligation to pay vs. no obligation to pay.’ It is always a question of ‘who has the obligation to pay and which jurisdiction of civil government has the obligation to say who has the obligation to pay.’

The horror of the Schiavo case is not that the state has pulled out the feeding tubes. The state was paying for those tubes. He who pays the piper calls the tune. To deny this is to adopt tooth-fairy economics and ultimately tyranny. The state must be under law to spend money in predictable ways. If it is not under law, then the politicians will take our money and spend it on anything they choose.

The horror of the Schiavo case is that the state will not allow anyone else to pay in order to stick the feeding tube back in. Police are arresting people who attempt to give her water.

Nobody on either side wants to put the issue in these stark terms. The pro-Schiavo forces want tooth-fairy economics, and the anti-Schiavo forces want to reduce the red ink, which is not good public positioning for advocates of the healer state.

Who pays?”