From Cruzan to Schiavo: How Bioethics Entered the "Culture Wars"

Renee R. Anspach, Sydney A. Halpern

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

2 Scopus citations
Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationBioethical Issues, Sociological Perspectives
EditorsBarbara Katz Rothman, Rebecca Tiger, Elizabeth Mitchell Armstrong
Pages33-63
Number of pages31
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007

Publication series

NameAdvances in Medical Sociology
Volume9
ISSN (Print)1057-6290

Funding

Ironically, the very conservative organizations that repudiated “secular humanism” and other concomitants of modernity proved remarkably adept at turning the tools of modernity to their own ends. Conservative activists who were already skilled at using direct mailing to solicit support for their causes now found that the internet provided a much more potent weapon. Websites could mobilize thousands of Americans with the click of a mouse. The web could be used for lobbying, and Florida legislators’ found their computers jammed by tens of thousands of emails urging them to help keep Terri alive. For example, www.Terrisfight.org reportedly raised 40,000 signatures on a petition to Jeb Bush. Organizations such as Voice for Terri, RightMarch.com , and the Traditional Values Coalition were remarkably effective in using the web for fundraising. Video clips of Terri, scathing indictments of Michael Schiavo, and pleas to “Help Save Terri's life” were used to raise money not only for the campaign to keep Terri alive, but for other conservative causes as well. 14 14 Three years of challenges in the courts, attorney fees, advertising campaigns, hotels, and transportation for organizers required vast expenditures – more than the web campaign could provide. As Jon Eisenberg notes, much of the protracted legal campaign was financed by established organizations such as the anti-abortion Life Legal Defense Foundation, the Family Research Council, or the National Organization on Disability. These groups are, in turn, financed by “a consortium of conservative foundations, with $2 billion in total assets that are funding a legal and public relations war of attrition intended to prolong Terri's life indefinitely in order to further their own faith-based cultural agendas …” ( Eisenberg, 2005 ).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health(social science)
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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