Re: [Marxism] WHY NADER? by Peter Miguel Camejo

["Lenin's Tomb" <leninstombblog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 29, 2007 5:04 PM, Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nader's opposition to abortion rights for women and his
backing of that loony family of right-to-lifers in Florida,
the relatives of Terri Schiavo, who fought to keep that
comatose woman alive, makes a terribly negative statement
about a possible Nader candidacy.
Louis has answered the point about abortion rights, but I actually think
there's some complexity about the issues in the Schiavo case that means we
can't dismiss any leftist who took the pro-life position on this point.
First of all, pro-life is not a reactionary position in itself.  Forcing
women to have children because of a masculinist 'family values' agenda is
reactionary, but preferring to defend life rather than permit the state or
(worse) a private medical company the right to terminate life under some
potentially nebulous circumstances is not.  I was with those who resisted
the theocratic crusade, mainly because Terri Schiavo was already dead, and
it was evident they were making a totem of her.  The weakest part of the
anti-theocratic argument was that Terri was rather than being properly
deceased in a twilight state of torture, and that it was actually right
to take the husband's word for it that she had wanted to be killed (and that
a person has a 'right' to die which must be protected).  Had Schiavo not
been deceased, then it would surely have been right to err on the side of
attempting recovery: then, in the event of recovery, she herself would have
been responsible for what to do).  There is some evidence of coma victims
recovering even after long spells, after all, and it isn't as if medical
science can't advance.  Further, the 'right to die' argument can easily be
conscripted to capitalist rationality (if they encourage people to sign
waivers before treatment, they may eventually be able to tell a court:
"Patient X cannot communicate, but is likely to be in enormous pain, and is
unrecoverable, and therefore we should really terminate").

While Nader was wrongheaded about the politics of this case, it doesn't seem
to me that his stance was *fundamentally* inconsistent with socialist
principles.
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