When Morality and the Law Conflict
Charles Krauthammer has an article on the Terri Schiavo situation up today. Here's a quote:
Charles Krauthammer - March 23rd, 2005 For Congress and the president to then step in and try to override that by shifting the venue to a federal court was a legal travesty, a flagrant violation of federalism and the separation of powers. The federal judge who refused to reverse the Florida court was certainly true to the law. But the law, while scrupulous, has been merciless, and its conclusion very troubling morally. We ended up having to choose between a legal travesty on the one hand and human tragedy on the other.
He's right, but he seems to lean in the direction of pulling the plug, if only because that's the way the law leans right now.
I think this misses the point, though. The effectiveness of laws to inflict order on society depend largely on how seriously we take them. We should not be in the habit of breaking laws, generally speaking, even if we don't think much of them.
But at times like this, and in matters of life and death, we'd do well to remember that laws exist to serve mankind, and not the other way around. The laws are a means to the end of an orderly, moral society. If the laws we have contradict that goal, at some point it becomes justifiable to change them, and violate them if it helps us to do so. But when have we reached that point?
Martin Luther King Jr. said that "An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." It is clear to me that the laws we have on the books now are not sufficient to deal with situations like the one Terri Schiavo is in right now. That's the law. It is flawed, but it is relatively clear, as well.
Proponents of pulling the plug say that Congressional interference sets a dangerous precedent, and they may be right. Then again, it can be said that letting Terri Schiavo starve does the same thing, but with morality rather than the law.
In all honesty, I don't know which is more harmful; the risk of weakening the level of deference to our legal system, or the risk of letting the law override the morality it was created to promote in the first place.
» March 23rd, 2005
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