Perhaps nothing in recent history has been litigated and debated as much as the case of Terri Schiavo. Certainly not the attempts to deal with youth or gang issues. Not how to balance civil rights against the need for national security. Not even the death penalty for criminals.

In a White House statement, President Bush said, “In instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.” — Vicki Allen, “Congress to Call Schiavo as Witness” (March 18, 2005) CNN

No, he wasn’t talking about the lives of all the people — not any of the people — that he ordered killed when he was governor of Texas. He was talking about the life of a woman who, if you believe her husband, is being kept alive in a state she’d never allow if she were able to speak for herself.

Lots of people in America — not all of them, to be sure — feel the same way. “I don’t want to be kept alive by artificial means, left to rot in my bed like a partially-refrigerated vegetable.”

Now I don’t know what Terri Schiavo’s wishes were. After all, a part of the dilemma here is that she supposedly expressed her opinions when she was able, but never followed through with writing them out and having them legally documented. (Let that be a lesson to you who don’t want to be kept alive artificially, but have done nothing about that.)

What I do know is that this case has been litigated not once, not twice, but multiple times. There have been several “last ditch” efforts to “save” this woman. Every trick in the book has been tried and now Congress proposes to try another one which, frankly, from all appearances makes a mockery of our democratic system. They’re going to call Ms. Schiavo to testify. Uh…right. And tomorrow, I’m going to prove to everyone that I can fly to the moon and back without the need for expensive space equipment.

If only we could get Congress to pay this kind of attention to serious and complex social issues. What would happen, for example, if the United States Congress decided to seriously look at problems like how to stand up for the Constitution and national security at the same time? What if they decided to seriously debate the issues instead of tricking Americans through fake news, bought journalists, and hundreds of government propaganda videos? What if they did this before agreeing to a corporate take-over of Social Security, the real goal of which is to fatten the pockets of more of the President’s financial management CEO friends, even if it costs Americans their future? Or how about something simple, like explaining to the American public why we can’t afford Social Security, or armor for our soldiers in Iraq, but we can afford to pay salaries of judges, Congress, process servers, attorneys, transporting Ms. Schiavo to Congress to testify and so on to make sure that an issue that has already been litigated up one side and down the other provides a few more photo ops for Republican Senators? We can’t solve funding problems for schools in places like California, but there’s money and time for this?

What better use of our time and resources than to call Terri Schiavo to “testify” before Congress? This way, the Senators can grandstand about how much they value life. And instead of having the witness throw evidence of things that ruin the quality of life back in their faces as proof that they actually don’t value life — at least not the lives of anyone other than themselves — Terri Schiavo will sit silently.

Later, some Republican Senator will declare that he could tell by the way she was drooling that she thinks they’re doing the right thing.