Mr. Speaker, this bill is a dangerously reckless way to deal with one of the most serious issues we will ever confront. There is no way to make these judgments easy, even when the express desires of the patients are clear and unambiguous. Where there is disagreement on the medical facts or on the wishes of the patient, these cases can be heartrending and sometimes bitter, beyond the comprehension of those who have been fortunate not to have to make these decisions.

So what does this bill do? This bill would place a Federal judge in the middle of this case after the State courts have adjudicated it, after doctors and family members and counsel and clergy and the courts in Florida have struggled with it for years. After everything is over, after all the facts have been established to the satisfaction of the courts, all the appeals exhausted, the writ of certiary denied by the Supreme Court of the United States, now we start all over again.

My colleagues wish to put one of those unelected Federal judges they always denounce right in the middle of this and say the trial starts de novo. Ignore everything the Florida courts have done. This expresses contempt for the Florida courts, contempt for the Florida legislature. Nothing is to be considered res judicata. No facts are to be considered established.

This is not establishing a Federal appeal from the Florida courts on the grounds that the Florida courts have violated some constitutional rights we are familiar with; those kinds of procedures. No, this does not do that. This simply says the Florida courts are incompetent. The Florida legislature is incompetent. The Florida people are not to be trusted in electing their judges and their legislators.

Instead, we are going to put this case, and only this case, in the Federal courts from the very beginning and we instruct the Federal courts to ignore the evidence in the Florida courts; to ignore the procedures in the Florida courts; to ignore the testimony in the Florida courts and to start all over, because we have contempt, because we do not like the judgments of the Florida courts.

We have never, ever done such a thing in the history of this country, and we should not start now. The Constitution of the United States says there should be no ex poste facto law because it is fundamentally unfair. This is not ex poste facto, it is not a criminal court, but it is the same kind of legislation. It is a bill of attainder, in effect. There is a reason why the Constitution prohibits bills of attainder and ex post fact laws, and although this is not technically an ex poste facto law or a bill of attainder, it violates all those reasons, and we should respect the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, it is an uncontradicted fact, uncontradicted except for the speculations of some orators in this Chamber, that Terri Schiavo told her husband, told her sister-in-law, told her brother-in-law, told various of her friends when attending funerals of close family members who had been on life support, that she would ``not want to live like that.'' The Florida court found that to be the case, to be the fact. The guardian ad litem appointed by the court, in his report to the court, found that.

This is not the case of a perhaps self-interested, conflict of interested husband testifying to that. It is the case of the husband saying that she told him that, the friends, the brothers-in-law, the sisters-in-law. They all said the same thing. And the court found that, as a matter of fact, that is what Terri Schiavo said that was her wish.

The doctors' testimony. The doctors testified, doctors who examined her, not doctors standing up on the floor here who say, well, from the video tape we can infer. Doctors can be deprived of their license for making diagnoses from afar. But doctors who have actually examined this patient have testified her cerebral cortex is liquefied; that it is destroyed. Without a cerebral cortex there is no sensations, there is no consciousness, there is no feeling, there is no pain, there is no possibility of recovery.

That is what a persistent vegetative state is. There is no possibility of recovery, despite the wishes, despite the fervent hopes, despite the illusions of desperate relatives. We should not feed those illusions.

And what has happened to family values that we talk about here? This bill would invade the sanctity of the family, would invade the decision of the husband. George Will, a noted conservative comentator and philosopher, conservative enough so that he famously helped coach Ronald Reagan for his debates in the Presidential debates in 1980, said on television this morning, and I quote, ``Unless we are prepared to overturn centuries of common law and more than two centuries of constitutional law that says that husband and wife are one, therefore clearly this is a decision to be made by the husband.''

Now, this is not just a decision made by the husband. This is a decision made by Terri Schiavo, according to the testimony of the husband and the brothers-in-law and the sisters-in-law. This is a decision made by the husband and Terri Schiavo, according to all the testimony. So we have no respect for the carefully established procedures our States have set up to wrestle with these difficult cases; no respect for the elected representatives of the Florida State legislature or their judges.

Who are we to say they are wrong? Who are we to say Terri Schiavo and her husband are wrong? Who are we to say that Terri Schiavo's husband is self-interested? And who are we to say this is any different from the thousands of cases of do-not-resuscitate orders that are given effect in our courts and in our hospitals every day, other than the fact that this case has gotten a lot of publicity and a lot of public official intervention? This is hypocrisy at its greatest, and we ought not to pass this bill.