In recent years, the government has taken to making itself a part of people's most personal decisions.

It's given views on issues such as abortion and a woman's right to control her body, the country's recognition of gay marriages and the extent of civil liberties and privacy.

On Monday, U.S. legislators decided they wanted a say in whether people can choose to put their family members to death.

During an emergency session, legislation was signed by Congress that passed the power of judgment on the right to live from a state judge in Florida to a federal judge. President Bush flew back to Washington, D.C. from his ranch in Texas just to sign the bill.

Heavy-handed decision making such as this sets a precedent that robs states of their authority and could eventually tarnish the balance that holds the political system together. The decision Congress made was prompted by a debate between Terri Schiavo's parents and her husband, Michael Schiavo. Some legislators are trying to support her parents' wish to deny her husband the decision to remove her feeding tube and end her life. Schiavo - a 41-year-old Florida woman who suffered brain damage in 1990 from a potassium imbalance - has been living in a vegetable state that her husband said she would not wish to remain in.

Just as in the aforementioned social issues, the right-to-die issue has sparked a passionate national debate. In this case, the federal government has pulled the issue out of the local level and given it a blanket answer. Simply put, Congress has told states that, if it doesn't agree with their decisions, it has the right to overturn them.

The legislation was passed by 156 Republicans and 47 Democrats voting yes and 53 Democrats and five Republicans voting no. Immediately following the decision, Democrats used the emergency vote to launch an attack on Republicans for injecting Congress into medical decisions.

Although it makes sense to call an emergency session because Schiavo's life is hanging in the balance, it doesn't make sense to slap this issue into the limited scope as another standard by which to mark one's self as either liberal or conservative. The issue's depth begs that it be examined in a clear and objective manner that doesn't allow political beliefs and misuse of federal power to be the deciding factor.

In Michigan, Mary Martin, a woman from Allegan County who endured a situation similar to Schiavo's, has spoken out to the media about how ugly it is to have this issue trivialized by politics.

Martin, who lives 15 miles south of Grand Rapids, fought against her husband's sister and mother to have his life ended after a car accident left him severely brain damaged and unable to eat on his own. Her husband, Michael, had told family members he would not want to be kept alive if he was in a vegetative state. The accident left him unable to care for himself, but not in vegetative state - he was able to do minor tasks such as laugh and play the card game Uno. The legal battle led to the Michigan Supreme Court reversing a lower court's ruling to end nourishment in 1995. Michael Martin died in 2001 after his feeding tube had to be removed due to infection.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Martin said: "Legislators don't know what they're talking about. They have never walked in Michael Schiavo's shoes, they've never walked in my shoes, and until they do, they have absolutely no business interfering."

There are many sides to the right-to-die issue, and this editorial will not attempt to take any of them. It just seems that, by allowing Congress to step in and counteract the state of Florida's decision, we are allowing this complex issue to set a troubling precedent - one that could lead Congress to force its rulings on cases that might not have as much urgency as the Schiavo case seems to.