We don't know whether Terri Schiavo really opposed having her life artificially extended if she was ever reduced to life in a "permanent vegetative state."

We don't know what motives her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, has for fighting the move to reinsert the feeding tube that has sustained his wife for 15 years. Physicians removed the tube Friday after a Florida court again deemed Schiavo to have no hope of recovery.

We don't know whether Terri Schiavo's open eyes and occasional expressions represent more than the primitive actions of her brain stem.

We don't know whether she feels, thinks or is aware of her own existence. But we have no reason to doubt the medical experts who say she is brain dead or the lower courts that have ruled against her parents' quest to prolong her life.

We do know that Congress and President Bush overstepped their bounds when they enacted a law giving the federal court system the authority to review and reverse, on alleged constitutional grounds, a decision that rightly belongs to state courts.

Members of Congress, contrary to the advice of medical experts involved in the case, say they acted to save Terri Schiavo. (Rep. Charlie Bass voted with the majority; Rep. Jeb Bradley did not vote.) In fact, their action could mean Schiavo will be condemned, against her wishes to years of additional suffering.

What Congress really did was to mock state courts and shamelessly play politics with Schiavo's life and family.

President Bush was awakened to sign the hastily-crafted bill, which he did at 1:11 a.m. yesterday. In doing so, he said he was standing "on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities."

The president chose his words cynically to imply that those on the other side are foes of life who favor euthanasia for the disabled. His statement was mean-spirited, divisive and wrong.

Both sides of this painful debate -one that would not have occurred had Terri Schaivo made her intentions clear in writing - have her best interests at heart.

This latest battle marks the third attempt to allow Schiavo to die. Her feeding tube was reinserted twice before, once upon passage of a law signed by the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and once on a judge's order. The Florida law was deemed unconstitutional.

The latest Schiavo bill was crafted to apply to her case and no other. It includes a warning that the law should not be considered a precedent for any future decision. That tells us that Congress acted to win points with the religious right, not to make public policy.

So does this: On the same day President Bush interrupted his vacation and rushed to Washington to sign the Schiavo bill, a Texas hospital removed the breathing tube keeping 6-month-old Sun Hudson alive. According to The Houston Chronicle,the hospital's action, the first of its kind, was made possible by a 1999 bill signed into law by Bush, then Texas's governor.

That law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care even when doing so runs counter to the wishes of the patient's guardians. Before ending the patient's life under the law Bush signed, however, two conditions must be met. Doctors must deem that there is no chance for recovery and the patient must be unable to pay the hospital bill for continuing care.

It is almost impossible to watch the news and not see Terri Schiavo's face or hear her name. But virtually no one knew of Sun Hudson, who, thanks to another law signed by George Bush, died yesterday. A Texas bioethicist defended the hospital's decision by saying that it was not killing but "stopping pointless treatment."

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