Nat Hentoff: "Judicial Murder"

Via I. Shawn McElhinney of Rerum Novarum, Nat Hentoff weighs in on the murder of Terri Schiavo, calling it for what it is:

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.

Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case -- Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him -- to have her own lawyer represent her. . . . READ MORE

Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder Village Voice March 29, 2005.

Net Hentoff, who was a friend and biographer of Cardinal John O'Connor, describes himself as a "Jewish, atheist, civil libertarian, left-wing pro-lifer" and is heralded by others as "the last honest liberal". As such, he is something of a curiousity on the usually militantly pro-abortion Village Voice. You can find a collection of his other articles here.

So much for the defense of Terri Schiavo being a sole manifestation of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.