Social conservatives see advance of right-to-life effort

WASHINGTON -- Terri Schiavo's story began to seep into the nation's conscience in 2000 when prayer vigils, TV crews, and a priest promising to conduct a healing greeted a judge's decision to allow her husband to remove her feeding tube.

But as a series of legal decisions forestalled the process, the case mushroomed into a Florida political issue as wrenching and divisive as the 1999 Elian Gonzalez case. Now Schiavo's story is forcing national political leaders to weigh in on intimate matters of life and death -- and providing new ammunition for religious conservatives intent on reshaping the nation's judiciary.

Yesterday, hours after Republicans succeeded in getting the case heard in federal court with the mostly quiet acquiesence of Democrats, social conservatives hailed a breakthrough in their efforts to advance ''the culture of life" through Congress and the federal judiciary.

''Social conservatives will make their feelings even more known on the whole issue of judges, especially if a federal judge allows the feeding tube to stay out and she dies," said Keith Appell, a leading conservative strategist. ''It will ratchet up the issue of judicial appointments."

Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, countered that intervention by Congress in the Schiavo case undercuts Republican arguments that activist judges are overstepping their boundaries. ''This is a federal judge instructed by Congress to ignore everything that's gone on in the state," Frank said. ''It's the Republicans who are trying to command judicial activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings.

But the case does not present a clean Republican-Democrat split, and social conservatives yesterday maintained that they have bipartisan support to move forward on legislation that would grant the right of a federal court review to relatives of patients who have been ordered off life support by a state judge.

''What you saw here was an extraordinary simultaneous working of groups together," said Burke J. Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee.

''This is a pretty bipartisan effort," said Lanier Swann, legislative director of the conservative Concerned Women for America.

On Sunday, Senate Democrats could have prevented the chamber from voting on a measure to send the Schiavo case to a federal judge, but didn't. And in the House, 47 Democrats joined 156 Republicans to support the bill.

Frank echoed others on Capitol Hill in noting that some Democrats were fearful of appearing as the villains in an emotional case where parents are ''trying to save their daughter's life." Religious conservatives have cast the issue as a ''fight for Terri," circulating photos and videos of the 41-year-old woman and producing a crush of voter phone calls to Capitol Hill.

Yet some Democrats -- with the backing of disabilities rights groups -- want Congress to weigh in on the broader issue of life-support systems, rather than allowing more individual cases to reach Congress.

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, supported the Schiavo bill and wants his chamber to take up action on legislation that would provide for federal review of cases in which the patient left no living will and a state court has ordered life support be removed.

''A lot of folks are severely disabled or severely incapacitated and aren't able to communicate," said Harkin's communications director, Allison Dobson. ''Senator Harkin believes we need to take every precaution that the true wishes of the person are learned and respected."

Harkin coauthored the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and has remained active on the issue.

While Harkin's view is not the prevailing opinion among Democratic lawmakers -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called the weekend's vote on Schiavo ''an improper use of legislative authority" -- Dobson said ''there is bipartisan support to at least address the issue."

When Congress finally does take up the issue, Swann noted, lawmakers -- including likely 2008 presidential candidates -- will be forced to weigh in on such delicate matters as: ''What is a life-sustaining device? What is the definition of life? Who and what defines your life's worth?"

Those questions usually get played out in the context of judicial nominations. And social conservatives expressed the hope that the Schiavo case will add a human face to their movement -- on another right-to-life issue besides abortion -- as they press for like-minded judges.

Meanwhile, an ABC News poll released yesterday founded that 70 percent of the public considered congressional intervention on the case inappropriate, and 67 percent accused lawmakers of becoming involved in the case for political advantage.

''There are many, many people who have had to make this same decision" to remove life support, Frank said. ''What does this say to them -- that you're bad people?"