Schiavo case didn't bring out best in many people

Jill Porter / KRT Campus

Like many of us, I wept Thursday when Terri Schiavo died. Not only for her. But for the ugly spectacle of human behavior that attended these last weeks of her life. It brought out the worst in us:

In her parents, whose love devolved into a selfish neediness that allowed their daughter's life to be turned into a sideshow.

In politicians, who used her deathbed to grandstand self-righteously to advance their careers.

In militant demonstrators, who looted this intimate tragedy for their own profit.

And in the wrenching schism between religion and secularism, which divides us so dangerously.

My sympathy for Schiavo's parents is tempered by disdain for their willingness to grossly invade their daughter's privacy to keep her "alive."

They may not have believed their daughter preferred death to being in a vegetative state. But did they think she'd prefer to be a pawn in a public showdown, her vacant open-mouthed face a staple on every news show for weeks? Do they think she'd approve of the way they demonized her husband?

The Schindler family milked their crisis in pursuit of public support, claiming their daughter said and did things that were medically impossible, inciting emotions with a videotape that distorted her condition.

The Schindlers embraced right-wing radicals like Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, who indulged in typically inflammatory rhetoric. And they waited too long to discourage the hysterical extremists who demonstrated outside Terri's Florida hospice.

I found it ironic Thursday when Randall Terry appeared on CNN and said the "shakedown" from the case would endure for a long time. He meant to say "fallout." But what he said accurately described what he and other right-wing religious agitators did: They shook down the private drama to advance their agenda.

And then there were the demonstrators for the disabled, some of whom flung themselves from their wheelchairs in protest. Their effort to equate the Terri Schiavo case to committing euthanasia on a handicapped person was outright burlesque.

Most dangerous, of course, was the way President Bush and Congress pandered to the religious right in fashioning a law that was unprecedented and unconstitutional to save Terri Schiavo - unimpeded by the cowards in either party who stayed out of it for fear of inciting a public backlash.

There were, of course, people and institutions who acted responsibly and with dignity.

Foremost was Michael Schiavo, who didn't take the easy road. He didn't capitulate to the Schindlers' wish to keep Terri artificially alive so as to avoid the vicious public enmity they incited, instead persevering in honoring his wife's wishes.

Then there was the judiciary, which did exactly what it was supposed to: checked the power of the other branches of government. The courts' objective decisions enabled the rule of law to prevail and stemmed an attempt to turn this country into a theocracy.

And some good may even come out of Congress' actions. Most of us recognized the danger of the government interfering in such a private matter - which may help swing the pendulum from the far right to a saner middle ground.

But, for the most part, the Terri Schiavo case was a sad example of people behaving badly.

She may finally be at peace.

God help the rest of us.