Barbara A. Noah (Western New England University School of Law) has posted The Role of Religion in the Schiavo Controversy. The abstract follows.
The brief life of Theresa Marie Schiavo and the dispute over her end-of-life care captured public awareness in a way that few such cases have done. The reasons for the nearly unprecedented public attention to her case are two-fold. The decision by various religious groups and governmental entities to intervene in the dispute surrounding her care in order to promote conservative causes (some of them only tenuously related to her particular medical circumstances) prompted unusually intense media coverage. In addition, the ensuing publicity surrounding Theresa’s tragic condition — an unexpected cardiac arrest left her in a permanent vegetative state at the age of twenty-six — provided a vivid and poignant reminder of the very precarious nature of life. Read more