Lindsay Beyerstein provides some suggestions about the right liberal narrative for the Terri Schiavo case. Every word is worth reading, but I was particularly taken with the paragraph that perfectly nailed the “If Terri’s parents want to keep her alive, why not give her back to them?” line featured, e.g., in the lead editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Florida isn’t a slave state. It is supremely offensive to suggest that Michael Schiavo should give Terri back to her parents. He’s not Terri’s owner, he’s her husband and her guardian. There is clear and convincing evidence that Terri didn’t want a tube. There is no evidence that she’d want to be intubated, divorced, and shipped home to mommy, daddy and their creepy cabal of quacks and itinerant friars. Notice the subtext: Terri’s desire to control her own body doesn’t matter, nice girls sacrifice their dignity to spare the feelings of others.

That rates, I believe, at least one “ouch,” one “indeed,” and one “heh.”