To Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsberg, and Breyer:

Regarding the case of Terri Schiavo: thank you. Thank you for not trying to set a national precedence on how to handle our own deaths. Thank you for not taking an already painful and complicated case and trying to render it within our limited understanding of what death means to others. Thank you for deciding that, in cases like these, you have no voice in whether people live or die. Most of all, thank you for realizing that the priorities of the nation are better assigned to other cases.

I am not trying to say that the Schiavo case is not important, or that those issues don’t touch the inner reaches of what it means to be human in a modern world. It is simply my personal belief that such issues are not the purview of the highest court in the nation. Your recognition of this fact upholds my faith in the national courts.

Thank you for your work.